Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

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RADICAL CHIC, THE BOY BAND ERA: Why the internet celebrated a killer. New video from Reason TV:

ONE FOR THE ROAD:

 

DEUTSCHLAND IST GEFICKT: “Center Right” Party in Germany Wins Elections, Vows to Not Close the Borders.

The fake “center right” party won the election. They made noises about cracking down on illegal immigration, but, as you can see in the video below the fold, their leader and the next German PM vows that “no one is talking about closing the borders.”

The “far right” party, AfD or Alternative for Germany, came in a strong second at 20%, receiving its highest vote share ever, will have… zero participation in the new government.

That’s because the CDU vowed to not form a government with the “far right” (they’re far right because they oppose unlimited eternal mass migration from the third world) AfD.

The “Center right” party, the Christian Democrat Union or CDU, is the party of Andrea Merkel, whose “Wilkomen” policy of allowing mass migration without even the most basic vetting has plunged Germany into crisis.

Note that they do not have a majority of the seats in Parliament, or the Bund I guess the huns call it, so that means they will have to form an alliance with another party to secure a majority and form a government.

Because the CDU abides by the “cordon sanitaire” or “firewall” policy that all the Euro Regime countries do, refusing to form governments with any party that’s “far right” (again, meaning “against unlimited mass migration from Islamic countries”), that means that this “center right” party will form a coalition government with… either the German Socialist Party and/or the German Green Party, who are themselves big champions of unlimited third-world mass migration.

You might wonder: Why not just start a new party that isn’t “far right” but still opposes open borders?

Well, silly, because any party that opposes open borders is “far right” and subject to the “firewall” policy of excluding closed-border parties.

So the “center right” party will be pursuing a socialist, mass-migration open borders agenda.

But they’ve kept those dirty “far right” voters out of power.

Related: Like Trump, the AfD is really doing all the Nazi stuff quite badly: Why do so many gay men support the AfD? “‘There are many neighbourhoods we can no longer go to because we are in danger of being injured, attacked or murdered,’ Ali Utlu tells me. As a gay German man of Turkish extraction and an ex-Muslim, he’ll be voting for the hard-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party in the German elections later this month. And he’s not alone…The AfD is led by Alice Weidel, an open lesbian whose partner is of Sri Lankan origin. If she was the head of any other German political party, the media would be holding her up as a progressive trailblazer.”

HELL TOUPEE: Police uncover 19 cocaine capsules under man’s toupee.

A Colombian man has been arrested after trying to smuggle 200 grams of cocaine under a toupee on a flight from Cartagena to Amsterdam.

The 40-year-old suspect’s wig contained 19 cocaine capsules valued at more than €10,000 (£8,290), according to local authorities.

The suspect was arrested at Rafael Nunez International Airport on suspicion of trafficking, manufacturing and carrying narcotic substances. He was taken into custody in Cartagena.

Footage released by local police showed an officer wearing hospital gloves cutting through the toupee with scissors, which covered the suspect’s shaved head.

More than a dozen packets of cocaine were strapped to the toupee, protected by a plastic coat.

Could that be what’s under the hood of the legendary Shatner Turbo 2000?

GREAT MOMENTS IN PERFORMATIVE KABUKI: Chutzpah: Rachel Maddow Nukes MSNBC Over Recent Firings, Claims Racial Animus.

On-air reactions to recent programming changes continue to reveal the ongoing institutional rot at MSNBC. As part of a network-wide prime time meltdown, star anchor Rachel Maddow openly blasted the programming changes that led to the cancellation of multiple programs in addition to Joy Reid’s.

Here is Rachel Maddow’s rant in its entirety (click “expand” to view transcript):

* * * * * * * * *

Maddow then proceeded to impute racial animus to the cancellations of Reid and Wagner’s shows:

MADDOW: I will tell you, it is also unnerving to see that on a network where we’ve got two, count ‘em, two nonwhite hosts in primetime, both of our nonwhite hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend. And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible. And I do not defend it.

Never mind that Reid’s show is rumored to be replaced by a weeknight version of The Weekend, featuring Michael Steele, Symone Sanders-Townsend and Alicia Menéndez. Reid might be gone, but her toxic brand of racial arson remains alive and well at MSNBC.

After interceding for production staff, Maddow proceeds to end her diatribe by chiding the network to “do a lot better”. It is here that we stop and consider the madness of allowing the inmates to continue to run the asylum. Allowing talent to spike the ball after the ouster of McDaniel effectively created the permission structure for them to think themselves entitled to openly weigh in on personnel decisions.

I assume this rant by Maddow was first run by Standards & Practices, and/or MSNBC’s management who signed off on it before it aired, as a little red tufo to throw to the network’s viewer. Because while Maddow is ranting and raving on Reid’s behalf, notice that she’s not resigning herself. And as Larry O’Connor speculates, based on Maddow’s reaction when she dropped in on Reid’s last show, “You can’t convince me Maddow didn’t get a heads-up or even gave approval for Joy’s pink slip.

OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE MAY SOON BE OVER: Kathleen Kennedy Reportedly Leaving Lucasfilm After Disastrous 13-Year Run.

Lucasfilm may see the end of one of the worst leaders it’s ever had as it’s been announced that “the force is female” Kathleen Kennedy is leaving Lucasfilm after she brought absolute destruction to every brand under that umbrella.

According to Puck, Kathleen reportedly turned in her resignation notice, ending her 13-year run as head of Lucasfilm at the end of the year:

After years of speculation, and polite urging from observers like me, Kathleen Kennedy has informed Disney, as well as friends and associates, that she will exit as Lucasfilm president by the end of the year, per three sources. Disney and Kennedy’s personal publicist declined to comment.

[…]

Kennedy has been telegraphing her exit lately, selling her and husband Frank Marshall’s Malibu house, offloading art, and talking to friends about working with Frank more. She’s also been collecting career honors from everyone from the Austin Film Festival to the American Society of Cinematographers to this week’s Oscar Wilde Awards in L.A. Departing this year will allow a successor to handle the 2026 release of The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first Star Wars movie since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker. This year she’s got only the second season of Andor, which will likely be an Emmy contender (the trailer looks good), and some kids’ stuff on Disney+.

These rumors have been circulating for some time, and while it’s still not wholly confirmed, as Puck notes, the reports are likely true.

Hopefully South Park will take a well-deserved victory lap if Kennedy does actually leave: Disney Executives Reportedly “Butthurt” Over South Park: Joining The Panderverse Special.

HEH, INDEED: Joy Reid, a Rare Voice of Moderation on MSNBC, Gets the Axe.

During the 2022 election, for example, Reid was one of the first media personalities to acknowledge that the word “inflation” was “not part of the normal lexicon” for most Americans until nefarious Republicans “taught people the word” in order to attack Joe Biden. Following Trump’s victory in 2024, Reid channeled the anxieties of working Americans who couldn’t believe that Harris had lost despite waging a “flawlessly run” campaign and being endorsed by Queen Latifah, who “never endorses anyone.” Reid expressed shock in 2020 when a Latino congressman suggested “Latinx” was not “the preferred term” among actual Latinos.

These insightful remarks persuaded MSNBC to give Reid an annual salary believed to be in the range of $3 million. Network executives clearly valued her cerebral reporting and “in-depth interviews with politicians and other newsmakers,” according to the New York Times. In November, for instance, Reid interviewed a Yale psychologist who argued Democrats were “entitled” to shun their Trump-supporting family members because it “may be essential for your mental health.” For reasons that defy explanation, Reid was one of the lowest-rated hosts on MSNBC. Last Thursday’s episode of The ReidOut drew just 59,000 viewers in the coveted 25-54 age demographic. For the sake of comparison, Laura Ingraham’s competing 7 p.m. program on Fox News drew 389,000 viewers in the demographic. The vast majority of MSNBC viewers are memory care patients whose home health aides forgot to turn off the television, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.

Reid’s sway at MSNBC was such that the network didn’t even bother to figure out what really happened to Reid’s old blog after internet sleuths uncovered a series of bigoted posts in 2017. Reid accused “hackers” of having “accessed and manipulated” her blog to post hateful content—targeting gays, Jews, and Muslims—that was “fabricated.” She urged the FBI to investigate. The results of the alleged investigation were never released, but Reid was promoted to a full-time host in 2020. Some might view the cancellation of Reid’s show as a blessing in disguise because it will allow the tenacious journalist to spend more time hunting down the real hackers and bringing them to justice.

Alas, there is likely a more sinister explanation for Reid’s departure from the MSNBC airwaves. She is a proud and outspoken black woman. Many have already suggested white supremacy is to blame, especially since the news comes several weeks after another proud black woman—former MSNBC president Rashida Jones—allegedly resigned from the network. Another woman of color, Alex Wagner, was expected to return to MSNBC in April to resume hosting the 9 p.m. hour, but that plan has been scrapped. Jen Psaki, a white woman who served as Biden’s press secretary, is now widely expected to take over that time slot for at least one night per week. It remains to be seen what MSNBC’s alleged anti-blackness means for the future of Al Sharpton, the notorious anti-Semite who still hasn’t been fired after his nonprofit group received $500,000 from the Harris campaign before Sharpton interviewed the candidate in October 2024.

Yes, truly racism is to blame in this case: Racism, Not Ratings? Progressives Rally to Joy Reid’s Defense after MSNBC Firing.

Reid’s ouster was orchestrated by MSNBC’s new president, Rebecca Kutler, according to the New York Times. Taking The ReidOut’s place will be panel show featuring commentary from Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez, who are the current co-hosts of MSNBC’s weekend morning show, The Weekend.

But despite Reid’s falling ratings and her show’s penchant for peddling falsehoods and inflammatory rhetoric, liberals were devastated to see the show go – with many insisting that her exit was merely a product of her race.

“She’s a blunt Black woman, so of course her show is canceled. Not lost on any of us,” Wajahat Ali said on Bluesky.

“Everytime MSNBC has a ‘shakeup’ the black woman solo led show is ALWAYS the first to go,” the Daily Beast’s Danielle Moodie said.

The Nation’s Elie Mystal said that we have Reid to thank for his television career, “as do so many other Black voices y’all never would have heard of if not for her.”

“And *that’s* why she’s gone. They can treat black folks as interchangeable, but everybody Black knows that Joy was indispensable,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann pointed his ire at MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, claiming that the network had a “Joe Scarborough problem,”rather than a “Joy Reid problem.”  “Until he is fired, MSNBC will not recover. Shuffling tepid shows in and out does nothing,” he said. Many liberals were upset that Scarborough and his co-host Mika Brzezinski sat down with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November after his big electoral win.

Not surprisingly, Olbermann went full Howard Beale over Reid’s firing:

One-time MSNBC primetime host Keith Olbermann said that his former network’s reported firing of Joy Reid and cancelation of Alex Wagner’s nightly show was “racist,” noting that only four women of color have solo-hosted programs for the liberal cable news network — and all of them have been kicked to the curb….

In addition to the network dropping Reid, new MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler is also expected to remove Wagner from the primetime lineup. Wagner was pulled from her Tuesday-Friday 9 p.m. slot after the inauguration when MSNBC convinced its top star Rachel Maddow to host five nights a week during President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, a move which has helped the channel reverse its post-election ratings slump….

Olbermann, once MSNBC’s biggest star before his acrimonious departure in 2011, laid into his former employers for booting Reid and Wagner during an early Monday morning podcast, claiming the left-leaning channel was sidelining women of color for “salespeople” who will do as they’re told.

“MSNBC fired Joy Reid, and yes it is racist and maybe worse. Yes, it is designed to keep out people who might think differently,” Olbermann declared. “And it is designed to reward professional political salespeople like ex-party chairmen and former press secretaries who will do what they are told by their bosses.”

He added: “But most of all, since they also fired Alex Wagner as they fired Joy Reid, at least The New York Times says this, it means that four women of color have solo hosted prominent shows on MSNBC, and all four of them have now been fired.”

Besides Wagner and Reid, who coincidentally also had weekday programs canceled by the network in 2015, MSNBC has also axed weekend programs hosted by progressive Black female hosts Melissa Harris-Perry and Tiffany Cross. According to Olbermann, this is no coincidence.

I’d say that I agree fully with Olbermann and demand that everyone boycott the obviously raaaaaacist channel, but that’s something I got a head start on at least twenty years ago.

Incidentally, Al Sharpton remains “unexpectedly” quiet over Reid’s firing. But then, that’s how he earns his pay from NBC and Comcast.

SKYNET SMILES:

Say what you will about Hal, Colossus, and Skynet’s Terminator robots, they at least all had the decency to speak in conversational English while they were plotting to eliminate their human overlords.

“HACKERS:” Hackers play AI video of Trump kissing Elon Musk’s feet on cafeteria screens at HUD headquarters: ‘LONG LIVE THE REAL KING.’

Cyberpunks breached a television at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on Monday morning, broadcasting a stomach-turning AI video of President Trump caressing and kissing the feet of billionaire Elon Musk.

The sickening sight, which was first reported by Vox journalist Rachel Cohen, was played on a TV in a cafeteria at the agency’s headquarters while blaring the message: “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING.”

Congressional Democrats, lefty pundits and other critics have taken to calling the tech mogul “President Musk,” in a seeming effort to irk Trump and highlight the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s level of influence in administrative decision-making.

“Not all heroes wear capes,” Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee cheered on X in response to the video.

I’m sure a lot of HUD employees will soon be transitioning to Jen Psaki’s vaunted “green jobs.”

‘IT MELTED DOWN:’ Top Biden Advisor Says Democrat Party ‘Lost Its Mind’ After Disastrous Debate.

During a recent discussion at Harvard University, former Biden senior advisor Mike Donilon delusionally said (emphasis, mine):

Now, lots of people have terrible debates. Lots of people have terrible debates. Usually, the party doesn’t lose its mind, but that’s what happened here. It melted down.

With due respect, Mr. Donilon, Biden — with a vacant “where the hell am I?” look on his face — was at times visibly confused, and other times, totally unintelligible. In my book — and the books of tens of millions of Americans, including untold numbers of Democrat voters — the former president’s disastrous performance was well beyond a “terrible debate.”

Not to further nitpick, but even left-“leaning” CNN and the BBC ran headlines calling the performance “disastrous” and “incoherent.”

CNN senior reporter Stephen Collinson wrote in an article:

If Joe Biden loses November’s election, history will record that it took just 10 minutes to destroy a presidency. It was clear a political disaster was about to unfold as soon as the 81-year-old commander in chief stiffly shuffled on stage in Atlanta.

Exactly. Democrats who continue to fail to see that reality, much less admit it, are lying to themselves. For the sake of their party, they rode their all-but-dead horse far too long.

I’m not sure if it was for “the sake of their party” so much as wanting to maintain an awesome amount of personal power and DNC-MSM cachet for as long as possible, by doing everything in their power to hide John Gill’s ever-increasing infirmities.

CHRISTOPHER RUFO, HANNAH GROSSMAN: The NSA’s Secret Sex Chats.

The “intelligence community” is one of the most powerful parts of the American national security apparatus. In theory, it works tirelessly to keep the nation safe. But according to internal documents that we obtained, some intelligence agency employees have another on-the-job priority: sex chats.

We have cultivated sources within the National Security Agency—one current employee and one former employee—who have provided chat logs from the NSA’s Intelink messaging program. According to an NSA press official, “All NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non-mission related material on Intelink is a usage violation and will result in disciplinary action.” Nonetheless, these logs, dating back two years, are lurid, featuring wide-ranging discussions of sex, kink, polyamory, and castration.

One popular chat topic was male-to-female transgender surgery, which involves surgically removing the penis and turning it into an artificial vagina. “[M]ine is everything,” said one male who claimed to have had gender reconstruction surgery. “[I]’ve found that i like being penetrated (never liked it before GRS), but all the rest is just as important as well.” Another intelligence official boasted that genital surgery allowed him “to wear leggings or bikinis without having to wear a gaff under it.”

These employees discussed hair removal, estrogen injections, and the experience of sexual pleasure post-castration. “[G]etting my butthole zapped by a laser was . . . shocking,” said one transgender-identifying intel employee who spent thousands on hair removal. “Look, I just enjoy helping other people experience boobs,” said another about estrogen treatments. “[O]ne of the weirdest things that gives me euphoria is when i pee, i don’t have to push anything down to make sure it aims right,” a Defense Intelligence Agency employee added.

Put on your Patrick Bateman-style plastic raincoat or hazmat suit and read the whole thing.

 

 

LEGACY MEDIA REARRANGES DECK CHAIRS: Lester Holt is stepping down as anchor of ‘NBC Nightly News’ after a decade.

Lester Holt, the anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News” for a decade, announced Monday that he is stepping down from the long-running broadcast at the beginning of the summer.

Holt will continue to be a fixture at the network with a full-time role at “Dateline,” where he has been the principal anchor for almost 15 years, according to a memo shared with network staff Monday.

NBC News did not immediately name Holt’s successor.

Holt was named anchor of “Nightly News” in June 2015 after steering weekend editions of the news broadcast for eight years and co-anchoring “Weekend TODAY” for 12 years. He has served as principal anchor of “Dateline” since September 2011.

In 2016, the Democratic Party operative with a Chyron was asked: ‘Was Lester Holt auditioning for Hillary’s press secretary?’ NBC moderator is criticized for Clinton bias by failing to ask about her emails or Benghazi.

Earlier in 2016:

“I want to ask you about a moment at the town hall the other day. A young man, a Bernie Sanders supporter, stood up and said young people don’t trust you….And when he said that, I winced. And I was wondering, you’ve obviously been in tough battles, political battles, but do you get your feelings hurt sometimes?”

— Anchor Lester Holt to Hillary Clinton on NBC Nightly News, January 29.

STONEWALL, UK’S LARGEST TRANS RIGHTS ORGANIZATION, TURNED OUT TO BE A USAID FRONT:

Why, you may ask, is the United States government the biggest provider of funding to Stonewall, and organization that has been vilifying women and lesbians in particular for a decade?

Stonewall UK began as a gay rights organization and reached its primary goal of normalizing gays and gay marriage in 2014. Since then it has focused on transgenderism, eliminating same-sex space, putting men into women’s space, criticizing lesbian rights, transing the kids (although not as much as Mermaids) and promoting the idea that lesbians are bigots for not dating transgender “women.” It is funded primarily by the UK and US governments, and in the process, fundamentally changed British culture and law.

Funding from the US came to Stonewall through the Global Equality Fund (GEF), administered by the US state department, which has given the charity more than half a million pounds in the past three years. The GEF focuses on “advancing LGBTI rights around the world” and is a pooled fund with contributions from numerous countries and private businesses, but it has not published accounts since 2015.

In recent years the GEF has been Stonewall’s largest funder. Charity accounts show the GEF increased its funding for Stonewall year on year, handing over £137,254 in 2021-22, rising to £204,442 in 2022-23 and reaching £233,583 in the most recent set of accounts.

The shift to trans rights seems to have drawn in the US funding, aligning nicely with the Biden administration’s priorities. Transing the gay away has been a foundational goal of the modern LGBTQIA+/- movement, and it likely wouldn’t have been so successful without USAID funding.

As a legendary community organizer once said, elections have consequences:

GREAT MOMENTS IN OVERREGULATION:

JUST A BUCK, TRY YOUR LUCK:

Newsweek has gotten itself into Paul Krugman’s “The miracle of the 1940s” territory here. (i.e., WWII, in which over 50 million people died), or the Grauniad’s classic headline, “Why Genghis Khan was good for the planet:”

Genghis Khan, in fact, may have been not just the greatest warrior but the greatest eco-warrior of all time, according to a study by the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Energy. It has concluded that the 13th-century Mongol leader’s bloody advance, laying waste to vast swaths of territory and wiping out entire civilisations en route, may have scrubbed 700m tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere – roughly the quantity of carbon dioxide generated in a year through global petrol consumption – by allowing previously populated and cultivated land to return to carbon-absorbing forest.

Do Newsweek’s writers carry their iPads and laptops in briefcases that resemble Sonny Bono’s in Airplane 2?

MSNBC’S JOHN BRENNAN: ‘Absurd’ To Say Fired Joint Chiefs Head Had Woke Agenda.

On Saturday’s edition of MSNBC’s The Weekend, former CIA Director and current MSNBC analyst John Brennan claimed it was “absurd” to suggest that President Trump fired C.Q. Brown, who Biden had appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because he had a woke agenda.

Absurd? Really? After the death of George Floyd in 2020, Brown put out a video in which he focused on his own trials and tribulations as an African-American, and concluded by saying that he wanted “to lead and listen to necessary conversations on racism, diversity, and inclusion.”

In 2022, Brown co-signed a Memorandum that began by stating that “diversity and inclusion are an essential part of our society and key to the success of any organization. As such, it is imperative that the composition of our Military Services better reflect our Nation’s highly talented, diverse, and eligible population.”

The Memorandum laid out quotas explicitly reducing the percentage of whites in the Air Force, and ordering the Memorandum’s recipients to “develop a diversity and inclusion plan aimed at achieving these goals no later than 30 September 2022.”

As Obi-Wan would say regarding Brennan’s dissembling, “What I told you was true, from a certain point of view:” John Brennan and the Aging Radicals: “Brennan is the classic illiberal liberal, an aging radical who openly favors in America the repressiveness he once excused in the Soviet Union. Recall that at the height of the Cold War he was rooting for the Reds. He has admitted that in 1976 he voted for Gus Hall, the American Communist Party’s presidential candidate. That radicalism never left Brennan’s system.”

Related: He’s Sweatin’: John Brennan Whines About Being on Kash Patel’s ‘Enemies List’ and It’s Glorious (Watch).

THIS WILL END WELL: Britain’s fire service is too male and too white, a report has claimed.

The report, which was commissioned by the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC), found that the fire service was “institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic”.

It said firemen in Britain were not “diverse” enough because the service’s proportion of women and ethnic minorities is less than in wider society.

Having been produced by an advisory group focused on improving diversity, equality and inclusion in the fire service, the report found that 9.3 per cent of firemen were women and 5.4 per cent belonged to ethnic minorities as of March 2024.

By contrast, 51 per cent of the total population in England and Wales is female and 18.3 per cent are from ethnic minorities, according to the 2021 census.

The review said: “The common ‘image’ of a firefighter is, for the most part, of a white heterosexual male turning out in a fire engine to fight fires… The diversity of the service needs to be much more reflective of the communities it serves and the wide range of services it delivers.

As Blazing Cat Fur notes, “That worked out great in LA!”