Archive for 2025

September 10, 2025

WE’RE AWARE: ‘We Want To Keep The Power’: Older Congressional Dems Really Don’t Want To Retire.

Some older congressional Democrats are adamant that they do not want to seek retirement as the 2026 midterms loom, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Wednesday.

Despite some activists pressuring older House Democrats to make way for a new generation of party leaders, many elected officials do not want to retire, according to the WSJ. The report comes as some Democrats have been calling for party members to support younger candidates in the upcoming midterm elections.

“I think every Democrat over 70 should make this their last term,” Amanda Litman, the president of Run for Something, a political organization that recruits and supports younger left-wing candidates, told the WSJ.

Democratic New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, 71, told the WSJ that longtime congressional Democrats “want to keep the power” they presently have. The New York Democrat is set to seek a 14th term in the 2026 midterms, the WSJ reported.

“I don’t think there’s any reason to say that everybody in the delegation should be leaving, especially if you want to have power,” Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the outlet. “We want to keep the power that we have.”

Party of youth!

Posted at 2:48 pm by Stephen Green on Sep 10th, 2025

CHARLIE KIRK REPORTEDLY SHOT IN NECK AT UTAH VALLEY U.

Actual video with the gunshot here; it’s from far away but as you see him get hit, so I am not going to embed.

From Fox News, he’s hospitalized.

UPDATE: Ok, this is extremely graphic, and I think we need to be cautious that someone did not do some quick AI editing, but if authentic, this looks extremely serious.

Posted at 2:44 pm by Robert Shibley on Sep 10th, 2025

DISPATCHES FROM THE PARENTHESES STATES: Watching The End Game Of New York’s Climate Madness Begin To Play Out.

As I have written many times, with New York’s fantasy “net zero” energy plans, it is not a question of whether they will fail, but only when and how. The Democrats, who dominate state politics, and their environmentalist allies, are firmly committed to the impossible. Thus, they are caught in a trap of their own making, and from which there is no good escape. The fact that they are caught in this trap is obvious to anyone with basic arithmetic skills, but almost all of our politicians and environmentalists lack those. However, a small handful of them are starting to sense the impending crash. This makes for amusing interplay.

The state’s Climate Act of 2019 directs hostility to fossil fuels on all fronts. In the realm of electricity, the Act mandates 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030, and 100% from “zero emissions” sources by 2040. The official plan for achieving those mandates basically boils down to building lots of wind turbines and solar panels, and then lots more of same — principally off-shore wind turbines — until a flood of infinitely “free” wind and sun washes over us and brings us to energy nirvana. Meanwhile, also on the path to “net zero,” development of natural gas infrastructure is to be halted and reversed. More than half way to the 2030 deadline, the progress toward the 70% renewable electricity goal has actually been negative (due to the premature closure of two large nuclear power plants). On the natural gas front, two big pipeline projects have been blocked by the state environmental regulator (DEC) on phony grounds of “water quality.” And meanwhile there are plans for big new electricity consumers (chip plants and data centers) in the upstate area.

Time to crank up the wind turbines! And then President Trump swept back into office, and as one of his first acts pulled the plug on the off-shore wind projects.

So as of this past Spring, here’s where we were: lots of new electricity demand coming along, all new natural gas infrastructure (including two big new pipelines) blocked, and the planned future of wind turbines (which wouldn’t work in any event) also blocked. Does anyone see a potential problem here?

Meanwhile, in the formerly Golden State: California Lawmakers Squeezed Refineries Out, Now Scramble To Pay One Well-Known Company To Keep Theirs Running.

After years of enforcing stringent regulations that helped force major refineries to close, California Democrats are now reportedly considering paying Valero millions to keep a San Francisco-area fuel plant afloat.

With two major refineries already scheduled to shut down and strict regulations in place, concerns about California’s already high gas prices have become a top issue for lawmakers. According to a Bloomberg report Tuesday, sources familiar with the private deliberations said lawmakers have discussed whether to pay Valero between $80 million and $200 million in state funds to keep its Benicia refinery operating.

The Benicia plant is slated to close by April 2026. The proposed payment would be earmarked for routine maintenance, one of the largest costs for refineries, Bloomberg reported.

When asked about the report and how the state has handled the refinery closures, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office told the Daily Caller News Foundation it had no information to share.

Concerns over higher gas prices have mounted due to the scheduled refinery closures, with Republican State Sen. Tony Strickland telling the DCNF that the potential $8-plus per gallon is the “direct result” of Newsom’s agenda.

Isn’t that what Democrats want? Of course: Steven Chu, Obama’s incoming energy secretary, told the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” A few months earlier, the L.A. Times published a column extolling “The joy of $8 gas,” which of course would lead to what the paper would describe the following year as “funemployment.”

But for Gavin Newsom, a 2028 presidential bid is far more important than saving Gaia. (I’ll believe global cooling/warming/climate change/climate chaos is a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis start to act that way themselves, to coin a Insta-phrase.)

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 10th, 2025

CHANGE: iPhone 17 Air is real—here’s what’s new in Apple’s extra-thin handset: It’s not revolutionary, but it’s hypertargeted at one type of customer. ” The 6.5-inch iPhone 17 Air combines the CPU and GPU of an iPhone Pro with the camera system of a regular iPhone, all in an extra-thin design (5.6 mm), with a treated titanium frame that is likely to appeal to style-conscious users and some business consumers.” I want a better camera, not a worse camera.

Posted at 2:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Sep 10th, 2025

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH PIERS MORGAN IS A VOICE OF SANITY: Megyn Kelly and Andrew Klavan Watch Piers Morgan “Trans” Guest Melt Down When He Asks What “Non-Binary” Means:

On Substack, Stephen Knight sets the scene: Laurie Penny’s car crash appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored reveals a lot about nonsensical new identities.

Laurie Penny is a British author and feminist. And she has always been insufferable. Penny exemplifies that deeply obnoxious combination of privilege, faux-radicalism and a cluelessness that forces satirists to up their game. In fact, if Laurie Penny didn’t exist, it’d be necessary for Andrew Doyle to invent her.

I did naively assume she may dial down the trendy, cringe inducing student activism given she is quickly approaching her 40’s. But there are no signs of that happening if her recent appearance on ‘Piers Morgan Uncensored’ is anything to go by.

Penny was 1 of 5 panellists on Morgan’s show to discuss the recent arrest of comedy writer Graham Linehan for social media posts. Penny of course had absolutely nothing of value to say about that, doing her very best to justify Linehan’s arrest.

But it’s what she said (or rather couldn’t manage to) a little later that was the most illuminating part of the discussion.

This transcript of what happens when Morgan asks Penny to define “non-binary” is such a nonsensical word salad that it would astonish even Kamala Harris:

Transcript continues:

MORGAN:  Which trans are you, if you don’t mind me asking?

PENNY:  I’m non-binary.

MORGAN:  What does that mean?

PENNY:  I’m a non-binary person. I use they, them pronouns. Sorry, are we going to spend… Do we really want to spend the rest of this discussing my personal gender identity?

MORGAN:  You’re the one who mentioned it. I didn’t even know.

BLAIRE WHITE:  This is a nightmare.

MORGAN:  Okay, so now I know. I’m just asking you what that means.

PENNY:  Like, do you really want to discuss this?

MORGAN:  You raised the subject of yourself being trans. I’m simply asking…

WHITE:  Can I finish my point? It’s always a non-binary person speaking over a transsexual.

MORGAN:  It’s really interesting to me. You raised it, not me. I didn’t even know. So now you’ve raised it. What does that actually mean? What do you mean, you’re non-binary?

PENNY:  Are you really, really just gonna…

MORGAN:  Can you explain it?

PENNY:  Are you gonna cut Blaire off now?

MORGAN:  I’m just asking you to explain. I’ll come back to Blaire in a moment.

WHITE:  Well, you were the one that cut me off, Sis, but I will say…

MORGAN:  Sorry, Blaire, wait one second. I just want to ask, what do you mean by non-binary?

PENNY:  When I say I’m non-binary, I’m expressing my identity in a way that I have a right to do. What does that mean?

MORGAN:  I’m sorry?

MORGAN:  What’s your sexuality?

PENNY:  My sexuality? It doesn’t have anything to do with my sexuality.

MORGAN:  Actually, the UK government now says that people are male or female. The British Prime Minister says people are male or female.

PENNY:  I don’t think the UK government should have the final say on how I express myself and how I’m treated. Well, they determine the laws of the country. I’m just curious what you mean by non-binary. MORGAN:  What does that mean? PENNY:  I go by they/them pronouns.

MORGAN:  What does that mean? This is only one of you. What does they, them…

PENNY:  Actually, they, them has been… The collective they has been used to refer to individual people for centuries and still is. So, if you don’t understand basic grammar, that’s on you.

MORGAN:  I don’t understand. I’ve got to be honest with you. I don’t understand the concept of what non-binary means or why you would use a plural pronoun to describe a singular person. To me, this is the problem with the whole woke thing. It’s inexplicable. Nobody really knows what it means. I don’t know what you mean by non-binary, they, them. There’s one of you sitting here, and you look to me, female. You’re a female. Are you a female?

PENNY:  If you don’t understand what non-binary means…

MORGAN:  Are you a female?

PENNY:  If you don’t understand what non-binary means, then I’m not sure you’re in a position to lead a debate.

MORGAN:  So just tell me. But if you can’t explain it in simple language, then what’s the point?

WHITE:  Explain what non-binary is. I can tell you exactly what being a transsexual is.

PENNY:  It means that my gender identity is something other than man or woman. I’m a non-binary individual.

MORGAN:  But you accept you’re a female?

PENNY:  I don’t think that I’m here to discuss the contents of my underpants.

MORGAN:  You raised this whole thing. I didn’t mention anything about what you were. You did. You said, I’m trans.

PENNY:  This has really become uncomfortably personal. Has it?

MORGAN:  You said it, not me.

In response, JK Rowling adds, “I hereby publicly announce that I am non-trinary:”

In the clip at the top of this post, Klavan tells Kelly, “I’m not surprised that this person identifies as something they can’t even define. And the kind of self-righteous attitude they took like ‘how dare you ask me what I mean when I say something, sir.’ You know, ‘how dare you’ is comical, but it’s only comical in the in the context of this greater tragedy of people talking confused young people into madness.”

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 10th, 2025

NEPAL: A Cyberpunk Revolution. “Back in the heyday of Cyberpunk and the beginning of the Internet Revolution, there was a saying bandied about by Bruce Sterling and others: information wants to be free. That tendency for information to escape the bounds placed by repressive governments helped pull down the Berlin Wall and end the Soviet Union.”

Posted at 1:46 pm by Stephen Green on Sep 10th, 2025

FORMER ESPN HOST SAMANTHA STEELE PONDER:

John Podhoretz adds, “this is the experience of EVERYONE in New York. Everyone. And anyone who says different is lying.”

JD Vance notes:

It doesn’t have to be this way, but it’s only going to get worse under Mayor Mamdani.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 10th, 2025

ED MORRISSEY: Boom: Biden ‘Reckless’ to Run Again, Says … Kamala Harris.

And the incoherence only gets worse. Harris refers to “months of growing panic” about Biden’s cognitive “health,” which is a longer timeline than the three weeks between the debate and Biden’s withdrawal. Harris claims she didn’t speak up out of “loyalty,” but Harris wasn’t supposed to be loyal to Biden. She swore fealty to the Constitution, and if Harris had “months of growing panic” about Biden’s unfitness for the job, the Constitution provides the mechanism to deal with it. Harris could have convened Biden’s Cabinet and then gone to Congress with those concerns, and had him removed from office over incapacitation.

However, Harris then argues that there was no reason for “months of growing panic” in the first place:

“Many people want to spin up a narrative of some big conspiracy at the White House to hide Joe Biden’s infirmity. Here is the truth as I lived it. Joe Biden was a smart guy with long experience and deep conviction, able to discharge the duties of president. On his worst day, he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump on his best,” the excerpt says.

“But at 81, Joe got tired. That’s when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles. I don’t think it’s any surprise that the debate debacle happened right after two back-to-back trips to Europe and a flight to the West Coast for a Hollywood fundraiser.”

“I don’t believe it was incapacity. If I believed that, I would have said so. As loyal as I am to President Biden, I am more loyal to my country,” she writes.

So … what was the “months of growing panic” about, then? Why gripe now about having to remain silent out of loyalty? Harris wants to eat her cake and have it at the same time with this argument. It seems likely now that some in the White House will admit to Biden’s incapacity while in office and implicate Harris as being aware of it. In her book, Harris appears to be providing cover stories to cover all bases, even when those stories contradict each other.

Pro tip:

Posted at 1:23 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 10th, 2025

TRUE. WE NEED A FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS LAW PROTECTING PEOPLE WHO DEFEND THEMSELVES AND OTHERS FROM MALICIOUS PROSECUTION.

Posted at 1:05 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Sep 10th, 2025

“BECAUSE THEY HAVE AN AGENDA” SEEMS LIKE AN OBVIOUS ANSWER: Why is JP Morgan Slow-Walking Trump’s Banking Non-Discrimination Reforms? “J.P. Morgan Wealth Management recently denied essential banking services to Brandon Maddox, Founder and CEO of Silencer Central, a firearm suppressor company, according to an email exchange provided to NSSF. A senior associate and wealth planning specialist with J.P. Morgan Wealth Management denied services when Maddox inquired if the banking giant works with companies in the firearm industry.”

Posted at 12:44 pm by Stephen Green on Sep 10th, 2025

NOT ANTI-WAR, JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE: Pro-Palestine protesters confront Trump during night out at Washington DC restaurant.

Donald Trump was shouted at by pro-Palestine protesters who accused him of being “the Hitler of our time” as he went out for dinner in Washington DC.

The president took a rare evening off to sit down for a meal with members of his cabinet as he attempted to demonstrate that his crime crackdown in the US capital was working.

Mr Trump has claimed the capital’s nightlife is booming as a result of decreased crime levels after he took over the city’s police force and deployed the national guard.

Trumpeting the success of his policy, Mr Trump treated members of the administration to a meal at Joe’s Seafood, located just a stone’s throw from the White House.

Ahead of the president’s arrival, the restaurant was screened off by secret service agents, who performed security checks and turned away diners hoping to grab a walk-in table, according to the Washingtonian’s food editor.

But as the president sat down at his table, several women began to loudly protest, a clip shared by a CNN reporter on social media shows.

The women stood in the restaurant screaming: “Free DC! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!” and were led across the street by law enforcement.

Well they’re right, inasmuch as every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge has been accused at one time or another, or being Hitler. But since the protestors are all alive today, they’re all very much wrong. (And why would pro-Palestinians be using Hitler as an epithet? The Grand Mufti could not be reached for comment.)

UPDATE: Activist Loons at Restaurant Inadvertently Prove Trump’s the Worst Authoritarian Dictator EVER. “My irony meter exploded into tiny pieces when the people who side with the terrorists who would like to eliminate Jews equated Trump to Hitler. The projection is off the charts.”

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 10th, 2025

YES:

Although the “professional black people” on CNN, etc. are, frankly, execrable on this stuff, they’re just modern day minstrels playing up to a woke white audience. Their views don’t reflect those of actual black communities, who all evidence suggests support Trump’s effort to increase policing. And they should, since they will be the chief beneficiaries. Everyone, black, white, or whatever, deserves public spaces that are clean and safe, and the vast majority want those. The loser journalist/pundit class (but I repeat myself) has distorted discussion on this issue for pretty much my whole lifetime and needs to sit down and shut up.

Democrats would like nothing better than to turn this into a broad-brush black vs. white issue, but it’s really an issue on which the multiracial working-class coalition that is now the GOP has every reason to stand united against the predators and grifters on the left.

Posted at 12:06 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Sep 10th, 2025

WHOA: Kamala Harris Unburdens Herself of Joe Biden, Rips Him, Jill, and His Team in New Book.

The problem with Harris wasn’t a lack of two-minute introductions at events, or that the comms team didn’t spend most of its time singing her praises. The problem was Harris. She had always been an unlikable, inauthentic politician who only got to where she is through a series of questionable connections, corrupt dealings, and the fact that California is a deep blue state.

Harris’ accusations don’t just stop at a perceived lack of proactiveness in defending her, though. She goes on to claim Biden and his team were actively trying to harm her.

Worse, I often learned that the president’s staff was adding fuel to negative narratives that sprang up around me.

The plain fact is many people who come to work with a new administration in the White House haven’t done it before. It’s a job unlike any other, and not every person, no matter how talented in their former position, can step up into such a high-stress, round-the-clock role. Others find they just don’t want a job that doesn’t pay particularly well, takes a massive toll on family, and rules out anything resembling a normal life. I’m not going to keep people on who can’t thrive in their jobs—it’s not fair to them and it’s not good for the country.

So the first year in any White House sees staff churn. Working for the first woman vice president, my staff had the additional challenge of confronting gendered stereotypes, a constant battle that could prove exhausting.

Gendered stereotypes? The only reason Harris got the position was because she was a black woman, a fact that no one really denies at this point. She also enjoyed lavish praise, far more than any past vice president, from the mainstream press throughout her tenure. Yet, she’s painting herself as a victim. It’s astonishing.

I was the first vice president to have a dedicated press pool tracking my every public move. Before me, vice presidents had what’s called a “supplemental pool,” as the first lady does, covering important events. Because of this constant attention, things that had never been especially newsworthy about the vice president were suddenly reported and scrutinized.

And when the stories were unfair or inaccurate, the president’s inner circle seemed fine with it. Indeed, it seemed as if they decided I should be knocked down a little bit more.

There’s nothing ambiguous about that. Harris point-blank accuses the White House of trying to sabotage her, and perhaps she’s right on some level. There’s no doubt that animosity existed between Harris and Biden and that it extended to their teams. There’s also no doubt that many in the White House, including Jill Biden, held a large grudge after the former vice president accused Joe Biden, her then-primary opponent, of racism.

Flashback to June of 2021: Is Biden and President Klain Setting Kamala Up for Failure? The Abuse of Kamala Harris.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 10th, 2025

GIVE THE VOTE TO DOGS WHO THINK THEY’RE PEOPLE:

Posted at 11:50 am by Stephen Green on Sep 10th, 2025
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