Archive for 2025

November 17, 2025

SOCIALISM IN A NUTSHELL: Mamdani’s Mental-Health Plan Is a Well-Worn Flop.

Mamdani’s mental-health policy seems to have been inspired by former mayor Bill de Blasio, of whom the mayor-elect is a fan. Under de Blasio, the city burned more than $1 billion on ThriveNYC, a mental-health bureaucracy that offered an array of wellness programs but did little for the seriously mentally ill. While Mayor Eric Adams laudably prioritized untreated serious mental illness during his one term, he did not abandon ThriveNYC programming, which Mamdani is rebranding as part of his “Department of Community Safety.”

The lack of novelty is apparent in Mamdani’s most talked about mental-health proposal: deploying social workers instead of cops in response to emotionally disturbed person calls. New York City has experimented with non-cop and “co-response” teams since 2021, with mixed results.

There’s little new, either, in the rest of Mamdani’s mental-health platform, which offers standard progressive talking points, like expanded voluntary mental health and wellness services. Most New Yorkers agree that the city needs to address untreated serious mental illness. But more of the same won’t help allay these concerns.

But maybe with the “right” people in charge…

Posted at 2:46 pm by Stephen Green on Nov 17th, 2025

CHRISTIAN TOTO: NY Times: Is Hollywood’s Movie Star Era Over? Welcome to the party, pals.

The article’s title pulls no punches: “25 Movies, Many Stars, 0 Hits: Hollywood Falls to New Lows.”

The story itself doesn’t, either.

Theaters in the United States and Canada collected $445 million across all titles in October, the lowest total on record, after adjusting for inflation and excluding 2020, when the pandemic darkened screens.

For context, October ticket sales in 2019 totaled an adjusted $1 billion, according to Comscore.

Why? How much time do you have? It’s easy to point to the obvious causes:

  • The rise of streaming competition
  • The shrinking window for films hitting VOD platforms
  • The rise of consequential video game titles
  • Social media
  • Shrinking attention spans in Gen Z
  • The pandemic fallout

And the ones media outlets won’t go near.

  • Stars made themselves toxic to half the country with their political views
  • Stars are, for the most part, over-exposed
  • The movies just aren’t very good, in toto
  • The Woke Mind Virus still infects the industry
  • Hollywood has lost touch with the common man

The blame game follows the classic improv guidebook: “Yes, and …” No one cause is to blame. Combine them all, and you’ve got a serious problem.

And we haven’t mentioned the letters “A” and “I” yet. Gulp.

The arrival of the holiday season means that a trio of big-budget sequels, the follow-ups to Wicked, Avatar and Zootopia, will help goose Hollywood’s box office somewhat as the year concludes, but even there, as Christian writes, “Those sequels will cushion the blow for a reeling industry. None of the three is driven by star power. That’s no accident.” Hollywood churning through product mostly shot in the last year of the Biden administration, largely bereft of movie stars, has made for a lousy year at the movie theater:

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Nov 17th, 2025

ARDIENTE PERO MAYORMENTE PACÍFICA! AP: Thousands protest crime and corruption in Mexico City as ‘Gen Z’ protests gain momentum.

Several thousand people took to the streets of Mexico City on Saturday to protest crime, corruption and impunity in a demonstration organized by members of Generation Z, but which ended with strong backing from older supporters of opposition parties.

The demonstration was mostly peaceful but ended with some young people clashing with the police. Protesters attacked police with stones, fireworks, sticks and chains, grabbing police shields and other equipment.

Mostly peaceful:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Nov 17th, 2025

OMG: New Heartland Institute/Rasmussen Survey shows huge support among younger voters for Democratic Socialist in the Oval Office in 2028. Does anybody know if Babylon Bee has secretly taken over HI/RS?

Posted at 2:18 pm by Mark Tapscott on Nov 17th, 2025

HISTORY DOESN’T REPEAT, BUT IT OFTEN RHYMES: Oxford Union: Israel greater threat to stability than Iran.

The Oxford Union voted overwhelmingly that “Israel is a greater threat to regional stability than Iran” in a debate on Thursday last week.

A large majority of 265-113 voted yes to the motion, which was debated first by two panels of speakers. For the proposition were Lincoln College’s Alex Webster, Jessica Rowe, former Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, and former Iranian culture minister Ata’ollah Mohajerani.

For the opposition were Hillel Neuer, international human rights lawyer and executive director of the UN Watch; Dominick Chilcott, Middle East specialist and former British ambassador to Turkey and Iran; St. John’s history student Katie Pannick, and St. Hugh’s history Master’s student William Rome.

Webster opened the proposition by saying that Israel was a larger threat to regional stability, as it holds more sway with global powers. “They get all of the guns but none of the consequences,” he added. Pannick responded by saying that Iran is “capable of systemic disruption” and also drew on the danger associated with its nuclear missile program.

This isn’t the first time that Oxford has chosen to root for the bad guys, of course:

On a cold February evening in 1933, the students of the Oxford Union debated and passed the motion “That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.” The debate, which took place a week or so after Hitler was named chancellor of Germany, became an international sensation.

The students’ pacifism and lack of patriotism was viewed as emblematic of the degeneracy of an ungrateful and self-indulgent young intellectual elite. Winston Churchill called the vote “abject, squalid, shameless,” and “nauseating.”

The Oxford Union debate was not simply an academic exercise. At the time, many observers claimed it reinforced the view in Germany that the English were soft.

Alfred Zimmern, professor of international relations at Oxford, wrote to the former Oxford Union president who organized the debate: “I hope you do penance every night and every morning for that ill starred Resolution. … If the Germans have to be knocked out a second time it will be partly your fault.” Churchill would later write that as a result of the “ever shameful” motion, “in Germany, in Russia, in Italy, in Japan, the idea of a decadent, degenerate Britain took deep root and swayed many calculations.”

As Michael Walsh wrote a few years ago:

The Europeans should have learned from their own history, but of course they never do. The Oxford Union’s “King and Country” debate of 1933, a fateful year in European history, turned out to be one of the high points of British pacifism. Having been bled dry by the Somme and other horrific battles in World War I, and also having lost the cream of their manhood in the process, the Union passed the motion that “this House would not in any circumstances fight for King and Country.” Winston Churchill who never saw a war he didn’t want to fight, knew that war with Hitler was unavoidable, and was aghast at the surviving, whinging chaff of England’s crop, the sons of the cowards, conscientious objectors, and those otherwise unfit to serve. Six years later, however, they were doing exactly that.

Plus ça change.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Nov 17th, 2025

DONALD TRUMP FOUND THE WHITE HOUSE A BUILDING OF BRICK, and will leave it a building of marble.

Posted at 1:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Nov 17th, 2025

TREAT MENTAL ISSUES, DON’T INDULGE THEM:

Related (From Ed): Would-be Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks went by ‘they/them’ on DeviantArt, linked account reveals ‘furry’ fetish: report.

Posted at 1:28 pm by Stephen Green on Nov 17th, 2025

MIDDLE EAST: Iran Just Made This Yuge Non-Bombshell Claim. “Now that we’ve covered the newsy stuff and the analytical stuff, let me take just a moment more of your time to share the nightmarish stakes involved.”

Posted at 1:13 pm by Stephen Green on Nov 17th, 2025