WHY NOT BOTH? Seriously Unconstitutional or Trolling?
Archive for 2025
September 7, 2025
ROGER KIMBALL: The Issue Is Never the Issue: Senate Hearing Turns Into Proxy War.
But in an important sense, the criticism of Kennedy for his views on COVID, vaccines, and the staff at the CDC was merely a pretext. The issue is never the issue. Yes, Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has received $1,224,145 from Big Pharma, did her psychotic squaw routine against Kennedy. Bernie Sanders ($1,953,613) and Ron Wyden ($1,207,873) joined in the war dance, as did many others.
But the thing to appreciate about the melodrama is that it had very little to do with COVID or the CDC or even U.S. health policy writ large. The real protagonist was someone who wasn’t even present, viz. Donald Trump. The fire was directed at Kennedy, but the ultimate target was Trump. The strategy is to discredit and then destroy Kennedy, a potent outgrowth of the Trump administration. If the Dems can destroy Kennedy, he would represent the outer skin of the onion. They would then proceed against other Trump lieutenants.
Robert Kennedy wants to find out why Americans are fatter, sicker, and more plagued by chronic disease now than ever before. He wants to know why cases of autism have skyrocketed and why 8 out of 10 young adults are not fit enough to join the military. Is it because of what they eat, the medicines they are forced to take, or something else? The Democrats want to play what Bill Clinton (and later Hillary) called “the politics of personal destruction.”
The issue is never the issue, but determined truth-tellers like Robert Kennedy and his boss in the White House are a demonstration that “the issue” can be made to succumb to the awful clarity of common sense, bolstered by that other real issue, the executive power of the presidency.
I’m not a huge fan of RFK Jr., but to understand how he got to the CDC, it’s useful to look back at who was working there during the previous administration:
#JOURNALISM:
If you search MSNBC, CNN, NY Times or Washington Post, you won't find any mention of this news story about Iryna Zarutska.
The Democrats on the Charlotte city council tried to block the release of the video footage.
Why are they avoiding the story of a Ukrainian white girl… pic.twitter.com/Az7EkucmfU
— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) September 6, 2025
UPDATE:
This media blackout on the Charlotte killing is insane.
It's not that they're just giving it minor coverage…
Google her name on Google News. No mainstream coverage at all. Just the Hindustan Times.
— Mark Mitchell, Rasmussen Reports (@honestpollster) September 7, 2025
What Reddit has to say about the Charlotte, NC stabbing:
– Men are bad
– There's a mental health crisis
– We need universal healthcare
– Yeah violence just happens 🤷♀️It's fascinating pic.twitter.com/Bra0vWleJB
— Lauren Chen (@TheLaurenChen) September 7, 2025
If a martyrdom isn’t synthesized by the left, they will do their best to squash it.
REALLY A WORTHWHILE CAUSE: The Charity Anthology for Lori Janeski is LIVE! Support one of Upstream’s favorite writers in her recovery!
TREAT THE PAIN: Perfect Remedy 2-Pack Gel Ice Packs for Injuries Reusable. #CommissionEarned I got one of these yesterday and have used it twice. It is much colder and works faster than a pack I got from Walgreens. My only issue is I wish it had something to keep it in place if you get up. But otherwise, highly recommend.
FIND YOUR PHONE: Apple AirTag 4 Pack. #CommissionEarned
IT’S A WHITE SUPREMACIST MARCH!
The only black people there are cops https://t.co/MsRa6hcOgh
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) September 7, 2025
#JOURNALISTS KNOW WHAT THEY WANT YOU ANGRY ABOUT AND WHAT THEY DON’T:
Yet, we had a national conversation over a high school student smiling at a Native American who was accosting him. https://t.co/VbTL1KosYr
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) September 7, 2025
FUNNY HOW THAT WORKS:
RE: Concealed Carry
Funny thing about the United States of America.
In the regions where it is legal to carry concealed, you generally feel safe and really don't need it.
But in the areas where you feel totally unsafe, concealed carry is illegal.
Funny that.
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) September 7, 2025
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Orson Welles Meets AI in a Restoration of The Magnificent Ambersons — and Its Lost Ending.
The lost 43 minutes of Orson Welles‘ “The Magnificent Ambersons” is the holy grail of cinema. The legend goes that after a bad test screening, RKO tacked on a happy ending and chopped the film from 131 minutes to 88. The missing minutes were melted for their silver nitrate, but cinephiles have spent years seeking a print that retained the the footage; TCM even sponsored a trip to Brazil in pursuit of a complete print.
Like other efforts, Brazil didn’t pan out. Welles believed that the studio butchered a movie that would be seen as greater than his debut, “Citizen Kane,” but would he have used generative AI if it offered the possibility of recreating what he lost?
Showrunner, which bills itself as the “Netflix of AI,” is either betting Welles would (or, has the hubris not to bother with the question). It is using “The Magnificent Ambersons” to develop its latest model, FILM-1, which Showrunner hopes will let people generate lifelike short films.
Working with Brian Rose, who spent the last five years trying to recreate the film with charcoal drawings, physical models of the sets, and researching storyboards and screenplay drafts, Showrunner will spend next two years to get as close as possible to Welles’ vision.
“Perhaps in its reconstructed form, we will all say, in the words of an audience card at the disastrous preview in Pomona that ended the film’s chances: ‘I think that this is the best picture that I have ever seen,’” Showrunner CEO Edward Saatchi said in a statement to IndieWire.
Or perhaps not. But it was inevitable that sooner or later, someone would use AI in an attempt to restore Welles’ original ending to Ambersons. I’m extremely apprehensive about how this will turn out, but I can’t wait to see the results.
For a look at how to do it right — check out Walter Murch’s re-editing of Welles’ 1957 classic b-movie, Touch of Evil, using a 58-page memo Welles wrote after another film was yanked away from him by meddling studio executives, a topic I explored at length in my recent review of Murch’s new book, Suddenly Something Clicked.
MUST BE A YALE MAN, POOR DEVIL: Obama Lawyer to Trump: Leave The Cartels Alone!
GREAT MOMENTS IN INTERSECTIONALITY:
BREAKING: A crowd of Hamas supporters slammed a pint of ice cream on @BillboardChris.
Police watched and did nothing.
The UK is a country occupied by Islamists. pic.twitter.com/NUDSHup6w0
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) September 6, 2025
Like “Queers for Palestine,” why are those tossing food (or worse) on a man whose views on gender ideology are a lot less severe than those of the rulers of Gaza?
LIMITED TIME DEAL: 4,500 Sq.Ft Most Efficient Energy Star 2024 Dehumidifier. #CommissionEarned
THEY PRAISED IKE FOR SENDING IN THE NATIONAL GUARD: Liberals profusely praised President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 when he federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, to escort nine students to ensure the safe enrollment and begin the process of desegregation of that state’s public school system.
Rod Martin wonders why is it the Left goes apocalyptic in angry protests against President Donald Trump for sending in the troops to help local law enforcement protect Chicago’s 2.7 million inhabitants against the murderers, rapists, car-jackers, gangs and drug dealers who will ultimately destroy the Windy City if they aren’t stopped now?
A deranged career criminal murders innocent woman for no reason. What does the Mayor (Vi Lyles) think? From her post on Twitter (X),
The video of the heartbreaking attack that took Iryna Zarutska’s life is now public. I want to thank our media partners and community members who have chosen not to repost or share the footage out of respect for Iryna’s family.
The murder isn’t the real crime. The real crime is noticing the murder.
* * * * * * * *
“We will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health,” Lyles said. “Mental health disease is just that — a disease like any other that needs to be treated with the same compassion, diligence and commitment as cancer or heart disease.”
Do not visit Charlotte. Do not invest money in Charlotte.
But you can arrest your way out of homelessness and mental health:
That’s a lie of course. You totally can arrest your way out if you don’t turn around and let them go right away. https://t.co/eRrnvrAR7Z
— @instapundit (@instapundit) September 6, 2025
LEE SMITH: The Choice: Trump or Obama.
Bannon is zeroing in on the strategic aspect of the U.S.-Israel relationship by claiming that Netanyahu is corrupt and Israel is weak and worthless as an ally. Israel is a protectorate, says Bannon. The Jews needed Trump to finish the job in Iran, and now they’re trying to drag America into a regime-change war. To help sell his case, Bannon draws on Obama partners such as Iran lobbyist Trita Parsi, a chief spokesman for the Iran nuclear deal.
Carlson, on the other hand, is focused on the American majority. Obama went after the Jews, but for Carlson, it’s Christians, in particular evangelicals, the bedrock of pro-Israel America. It seems that his slate of shows on religious or spiritual topics is purposed to build an evangelical audience—a potentially self-defeating endeavor, since selling despair, sowing confusion, and peddling lies about the Jews while comforting their hunters may give evidence to believers that a man who claims to have been attacked by demons lost that skirmish.
The more practical problem is that evangelicals understand not only scripture but also American history better than Carlson and his guests do. Americans’ love of Israel didn’t start at the dawn of the 20th century, thanks to a best-selling Bible commentary; rather, it’s contemporaneous with our founding. That is, the small upstate New York town founded in 1714, for instance, was named Goshen not because of the 1902 Scofield Bible, but because our forefathers believed that the American project is rooted in the history, faith, and trials of the Jews.
Replacing Israel and the Jews with the negation of Israel and the Jews means not only undermining our historical and cultural foundations but also exposing our constitutional republic to extinction-level danger. A Palestinian Youth Movement conference last week in Dearborn, Michigan, gave evidence of what happens when the enemies of the Jews are raised to pride of place: threats of assassinating pro-Israel officials and disrupting American supply lines and commerce, all in the name of anti-Zionist resistance.
Even before Biden collapsed our borders, we lost thousands of miles from our eastern-most frontier, Europe; the continent is on the verge of collapse under the weight of foreign populations whose values and ideas are incommensurate with the civilization the West built on the foundations laid long ago in Jerusalem. Our flank is increasingly exposed because we have no other ally who can or wants to fight to preserve our past and ensure our future. It’s the United States and Israel alone. Thus, the choice for us is stark: America or the hellfire, Trump or Obama.
Read the whole thing.
WELL, YES:
— dented_halo 🇺🇸 (@Desert_Dawn04) September 6, 2025
FLASHBACK: Keir Starmer and the Preference Cascade.
I WAS BETA READER ON THIS ONE. IT KEPT ME UP ALL NIGHT. IN THE BEST WAY:
Jack Darien scorns his parents’ path. After the disaster at his father’s Mars settlement, the high school senior scraps both his lifelong interest in space exploration and his college plans. Even his rescue of a college student from assault doesn’t make him see his own future any differently.
Jack becomes obsessed, however, when one strange comment from the attacker draws him to unravel secrets at the former Superfund site that is now Webb University, the school where his returning father teaches and eco-restoration reigns. What starts for Jack as a distraction from thinking of his future turns into a dangerous journey that puts him, his mother, and sister at risk. As for his father, Jack decided long ago the man was on his own.
Jack’s determination to chart his future clear of his father’s failures hits a snag when he learns the school’s hidden mystery. Unfortunately, those determined to bring Webb down learn it, too, and ratchet up their own efforts toward Webb’s destruction.
Planting Life is an immersive young-adult science fiction adventure. If you like unearthing secrets, a dogged hero, and reckless courage under threat, you’ll love Laura Montgomery’s near future coming-of-age saga.
If you’ve been looking for hard science fiction with real characters and a gripping plot, this is it.
HARD-BOUND, PAPER-BOUND, ELECTRONIC OR AUDIO, HOWEVER YOU CONSUME THEM BOOKS ARE GOOD: Never underestimate the importance of books.
THIS IS WHAT COMES WITH UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE – A VIEW FROM INSIDE BRITAIN’S NATIONAL HEALTH DISSERVICE: The concept of ‘care’ was missing completely in my hospital hell.