Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

January 3, 2026

“WE’RE IN JEN RUBIN’S WORLD:”

UPDATE:

 

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 3rd, 2026

TIM GRAHAM: Who Can’t Handle the Truth? Crabby Clooney Rants Bari Weiss Is ‘Dismantling’ the Bias of CBS News.

[George] Clooney has energetically pushed the leftist myth of CBS News standing up against McCarthyism under Edward R. Murrow, and constantly comparing that hackneyed leftist crusade to the present day, and who cares if the Soviet Union actually infiltrated the country with spies after World War II? Who cares about The Truth again? Not Clooney. He’s naturally pissed at Bari Weiss for daring to move CBS one inch toward the center.

“Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak,” Clooney says. “I’m worried about how we inform ourselves and how we’re going to discern reality without a functioning press.”

For her part, Weiss handled Clooney by inviting him in, sending Variety this statement: “Bonjour, Mr. Clooney! Big fan of your work. It sounds like you’d like to learn more about ours. This is an open invitation to visit The CBS Broadcast Center, where I’m spending the holidays working to relaunch the Evening News with my colleagues. Tune in January 5.”

To the Clooneys, a “functioning press” means going Full Jim Acosta all the time. It’s in the pose and in the lunge at The Right-Wing Enemy, not in the facts. Clooney thinks the Glory Days at CBS apparently include Dan Rather’s Fake News about George W. Bush’s National Guard record, not to mention Rather screaming at his father about Iran-Contra. But he let Robert Redford embarrass himself with the Fake News Movie on that front. 

Why does George Clooney have such a virulent case of Bari Derangement Syndrome? As they say in Clooney’s newly adopted nation, perhaps it’s a case of cherchez la femme:

Posted at 8:44 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 3rd, 2026

COMRADE MAMDANI SLAMS TRUMP’S ILLEGAL MADURO ARREST ON BEHALF OF NYC VENEZUELANS. (WHO WANTS TO TELL HIM?)

 

Exit questions about that “briefing:”

Mamdani is governing in the media capital of America, so he will have a very loud microphone; the Democrats will position him as a shadow president based upon how well things go in Fun City under his regime. But as Noah Rothman wrote shortly before Mamdani’s election, the right will be happy to let him broadcast at full blast as well:

If Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor of New York City, Republicans plan to highlight that fact in their midterm campaigns against Democratic lawmakers nationwide.

That entirely unremarkable observation is the subject of an item in Axios in which the GOP is accused of plotting to “weaponize” New York City Democrats’ voting preferences, which, we should observe, consists entirely of noticing them.

For years, says reporter Kate Santaliz in her scandalized dispatch, the GOP has made former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi into a “bogeywoman.” Her capacity to “rile up the base” was unrivaled. But with her diminished role, “GOP strategists are testing new symbols of the party’s left, and hope Mamdani will fill that void.”

Based upon the past couple of days – and much of 2025, that’s looking like a pretty safe bet.

Posted at 5:40 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 3rd, 2026

NEW YORK PARTIED LIKE IT WAS 1975. IN EAST BERLIN:

I guess this is part of that whole “warmth of collectivism” vibe:

Related: Jonah Goldberg: Collectivism, Warmed Over.

When I first heard Mamdani refer to the “warmth of collectivism,” I immediately thought of Anne Applebaum’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag: A History. In one scene, she describes how a slave-laborer fell in the snow from exhaustion. The other slaves—and they were slaves, owned by the state, as Chamberlin would put it—rushed to strip the fallen man’s clothes and belongings. The dying man’s last words were, “It’s so cold.”

Collectivization under Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” led to millions more Chinese famine deaths from 1959 to 1961—from a lowball estimate of 20 million to a high of 45 million.

Now, I don’t for a moment think Mamdani has anything like that in mind. Moreover, even if he did, nothing like that can be orchestrated from New York’s City Hall.

But here is what I do think is interesting and worrisome about his use of the term “collectivism.” I can only think of three possibilities for it: 1) Mamdani is ignorant of the term’s historically grounded connotation, 2) he knows it and doesn’t care, or 3) he knows it and does care.

Under the second and third options, he could be trying to reclaim the positive connotation of collectivism—a connotation it has not had for at least a century. Or he could be trying to troll people—like me—into attacking him and overreacting to a word his fans have no problem with.

I suppose there’s a fourth possibility. He has a bad speechwriter—or is one—and just made a stupid, lazy mistake. After all, he could have used “community,” “communal,” “solidarity,” “cooperation,” “shared sacrifice,” or some such treacle.

But this mistake is essentially no different than ignorance. That it didn’t stand out to him is a form of ignorance. After all, if the draft referred to the warmth of “Stalinism” or “National Socialism,” Mamdani would certainly have said, “Whoa, we can’t say that. Let’s talk about the ‘warmth of community’ instead.”

Mamdani’s fan club were certainly choosing that fourth option yesterday:

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 3rd, 2026

FINALLY: The Nicolas Maduro Memes Are Already Here.

Did you say Cuba?

Speaking of Rubio:

But won’t somebody think of the poor beleaguered drug addicts?

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 3rd, 2026

BEN “LONESOME” RHODES HAS A SAD:

FLASHBACK: Former Obama Official Ben Rhodes Can’t Bring Himself To Give Trump Credit For Israel-Hamas Deal.

During his time at the White House, Rhodes was one of Obama’s closest advisors and masterminded the public relations push behind the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He told The New York Times in 2016 that he “created an echo chamber” of experts who would feed reporters positive analyses of the deal. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say,” Rhodes stated.

Rhodes was a strident critic of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly earning himself the nickname of “Hamas” in the White House. In his 2019 book The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House, Rhodes wrote that Israel was “driven by the settler movement and ultra-Orthodox emigres” and that Netanyahu used “political pressure within the United States to demoralize any meaningful push for peace, just as he used settlements as a means of demoralizing Palestinians.”

As Lee Smith wrote at the beginning of 2020: Obama Passed the Buck. Trump Refused to Play. “The Iran deal was never meant to stop Iran from building a bomb—it was supposed to delay it until disaster happened on someone else’s watch.”

But does the husk of another former Obama operative have any thoughts on this matter (or any thoughts at all)?

UPDATE: Another Obama official has a serious case of amnesia:

Posted at 12:50 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 3rd, 2026

ED MORRISSEY: Trump Captures Maduro, Wife; Both Face Trial in New York.

Nicolas Maduro could have left like Bashar al-Assad. Instead, he chose the Manuel Noriega option – an option he apparently never considered.

Overnight, Donald Trump ordered special forces into Caracas, backed by strikes on Venezuela security assets, and captured Maduro and his wife. Trump announced the capture on Truth Social, along with a presser to be held in a couple of hours:

The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP

The announcement came shortly after John’s overnight post, when news of the attack on Caracas first emerged. At the time, John noted that “no one knows where Maduro is,” which apparently was almost literally true. The Venezeulans at that time had no idea that Maduro and his wife had been captured and removed.

No word yet on when Judge Boasberg will order Maduro’s release. And as Ace writes, “This is a sad day, per Tucker Carlson. Why, the parade of paid Venezuelan spokesmen he ‘interviews’ on his propaganda show say that the narcoterrorist communist dictatorship of Venezuela is secretly very ‘conservative!’”

“And he pushes obvious lies like this because 1, he’s paid to, and 2, he thinks his audience is actually so stupid they are diagnosably learing disabled (yes that was an intentional mispelling) and he has absolutely zero respect for his Pay Pigs who he assumes will believe literally anything as long as it’s wrapped in ‘anti-establishment’ tissue paper.”

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 3rd, 2026

UKRAINE’S REAL SUPERPOWER: LEARNING AND BUILDING FASTER THAN REALITY CHANGES. “Ukraine is not winning the drone race because it found one brilliant design, it is winning because it built a ruthless innovation loop where reality at the front instantly reshapes what gets built next.”

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 3rd, 2026

January 2, 2026

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Babylon Bee Editor Thanks Snopes for Debunking This Believable Story About Tim Walz’s $8 Billion Grant.

Flashback to Trump’s first term, when a “fact checking” Website was obsessed with a — deliberately — satiric one: The Babylon Bee Satirizes the Absurdities of American Politics. Snopes Doesn’t Seem to Get the Joke.

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 2nd, 2026

MOVIE THEATERS – THEY WERE FUN WHILE THEY LASTED: Netflix Reportedly Wants to Keep Movies in Theaters for Just 17 Days After It Buys Warner Bros.

In a report from Deadline on the Stranger Thing Season 5 finale, which made $25 million in theaters after it released at the same time theatrically as it did on Netflix, Hollywood was said to be worried about what the streamer considers to be “industry-standard windows” before movies are made available on its platform.

And then the bombshell:

Sources have told Deadline that Netflix have been proponents of a 17-day window which would steamroll the theatrical business, while circuits such as AMC believe the line needs to be held around 45 days.

It’s worth noting this isn’t confirmation that Netflix will settle on a 17-day window for Warner Bros. movies if and when its deal is approved. The theater companies may end up negotiating a lengthy window, perhaps somewhere between 45 days and the 17 days Netflix reportedly is a fan of. But what’s clear is that there will be a great deal of tension within Hollywood as this is all worked out, with Netflix’s priority — as you’d expect — bolstering streaming.

Earlier: The Year Hollywood Died.

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 2nd, 2026

ZOHRAN MAMDANI CANNOT FAIL, HE CAN ONLY BE FAILED:

Posted at 6:43 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 2nd, 2026

NOW WHO’S BEING NAÏVE, KAY? Zohran Mamdani Can’t Ruin New York City.

In the mid-1990s, New York was well past its industrial and shipping heyday, but the signs were still all around. The city was grittier than it would soon be—we were right on the cusp of the major decline in crime that would sweep through nearly all American cities. It was so gritty, in fact, that my parents forbade me from applying to college in New York. They thought the city was too pricey and dangerous, even though they loved it.

Today, the city is much richer and fussier than it was. Parents are still fretting about its dangers and expense. Mayors come and go—remember when Rudy Giuliani was “America’s mayor”?—and New York remains fundamentally itself.

Zohran Mamdani won the 2025 mayoral election on a platform that included fare-free buses, city-owned grocery stores, and a rent freeze for rent-stabilized units, plus equity-centered education policy and an oddly status-quo policing plan for a one-time defunder/abolitionist. As this issue of Reason unpacks, there are many reasons to fear such policies will be ineffective at best and deeply counterproductive at worst. And as my parents’ diktat shows, when governance and policy get bad enough, that can scare off potential residents and visitors alike.

But a single mayor can’t ruin New York City, because New York City is not reducible to policy choices.

John Lindsay has just entered the conversation: “In the midst of an economic boom, crime exploded. Instead of reforming what had, in fact, been the best big city school system in America, he left it in tatters. He promised to better incorporate African Americans but left the city polarized.”

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 2nd, 2026

MAMDANI: SOUTH AFRICA IS MODEL FOR NEW YORK.

The newly-minted Mayor had the stage, but graciously acknowledged that the real star was socialism. “I was elected as a Democratic Socialist and I will govern as a Democratic Socialist.” He hailed an “era of big government,” vowed to govern “expansively and audaciously” and said he would “set an example for the world.”

The grimace-cum-smile on Chuck Schumer’s face – sitting hostage-like behind the mayor, who he has yet to endorse or even say if he voted for – told its own story about exactly how thrilled the mainstream Democratic party is to go into the midterms later this year, and more importantly the 2028 presidential campaign, with Mayor Mamdani as the party’s principal standard bearer. At some point grinning and bearing it won’t be an option, the radical Mamdani platform will have to be embraced or disavowed. It won’t be pretty.

So what can New Yorkers look forward to under their energetic and muscular new form of socialism? Mayor Mamdani gave them clues, advising them to “look to Madiba and the South African Freedom Charter.” The charter that Madiba – Nelson Mandela – helped forge with the ANC was the blueprint for post-apartheid South Africa. It opens with the words “our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality.” Suggesting that apartheid is alive and well in New York will have brought another big gulp from Schumer and the Democratic establishment. The Democrat Socialists of America have so far failed to persuade the country that apartheid exists in Israel, so it’s ambitious to think they can make the case for its existence in New York. This is testing the very limits of grievance politics. And the current almost failed state that is South Africa, with white farmers fleeing to America as refugees, bodes particularly ill as a template for New York.

As in South Africa, the enemy in Mamdani’s New York is often white people. He has already vowed to target “whiter neighborhoods” for higher taxes. In his inaugural speech he zoned in on another set of unprosecuted criminals: billionaires. They think they “can buy our democracy” and for too long New York has belonged to “the wealthy and well-connected.” Billionaires seemingly the scourge of the city and also neatly the solution to its problems – just increase their taxes.

Are we sure it isn’t San Marcos?

UPDATE:

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 2nd, 2026

THIS WILL END WELL: Zohran Mamdani: I’ll show the world whether the Left can govern.

Zohran Mamdani said he would show whether “the Left can govern” in his inaugural address as New York mayor.

Mr Mamdani declared he was not scared of being seen as “too radical” and vowed to “audaciously” embark on “big government” plans that critics have warned will bankrupt small businesses and endanger the public.

The new mayor, who had been sworn in just hours before at midnight on Thursday, addressed tens of thousands of supporters in Manhattan, accompanied by the US’s most high-profile progressive figures.

“There are many who will be watching. They want to know if the Left can govern,” Mr Mamdani said.

Speaking behind a lectern outside City Hall, where a dais had been erected for the occasion, he continued: “They want to know if the struggles* that afflict them can be solved. They want to know if it is right to hope again… We will set an example for the world.”

True Mamdani-ism has never been tried:

* Mamdani seemed eager yesterday to express his own personal struggle, or “Kampf,” as it is sometimes called. In any case, his inauguration was a definite triumph of his will:

Why, it’s as if:

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 2nd, 2026

ROGER KIMBALL: The Somali fraud scandal is a turning point.

Confronted with the fact that Somalis have systematically pilfered billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in order to enrich themselves, bribe politicians and fund terrorist activities in Somalia, the public are outraged – and rightly. They see now how Democrats coddle illegal immigrants, lavish them with taxpayers’ money and then cultivate them as Democratic voters. And speaking of voters, did you know that Minnesota has same-day voter registration and that one registered voter can “vouch” for 8 others in his precinct who do not have ID?

Musk cut to the chase: “The Democrats are so upset about the situation because they’re losing – you know if we turn off this gigantic money magnet for illegal immigrants, then they will leave and they’ll lose voters.” Bingo. There are some 80,000-100,000 Somalis in Minneapolis alone. How is it that they live so well?

The canny chap who writes under the name Cynical Publius may well be correct that “in large swathes of humanity, there is no actual concept of ‘fraud,’ particularly fraud against the government.” Instead, there is a categorical imperative to get away with whatever you can “to help yourself and your tribe.” The problem is, notes Publius, that “introducing a fraud-based culture based on tribalism into America is like introducing some sort of lethal virus into a population that has no natural immunity. The virus will spread and grow, unchecked, because it is so alien to the host.”

The virus must be neutralized or it will destroy the host. How? Kash Patel tells us that the FBI is on the case. “To date,” he notes, “the FBI dismantled a $250 million fraud scheme that stole federal food aid meant for vulnerable children during Covid.” Donald Trump should stop all federal welfare funds to offending venues while a thorough audit – very thorough and very lengthy – is conducted. And as much of the “Somali community” as possible should be repatriated to where it belongs: Somalia. That is why God made Tom Homan.

In 2026, one way or another, Minnesota’s Somali Pirates will prove how serious the Trump administration is in putting their tough talk into action.

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 2nd, 2026

January 1, 2026

NEW MOLOTOV–RIBBENTROP PACT SIGNED!

Related: Mamdani axes all Adams executive orders in past 15 months, including those defending Jews.

Posted at 9:25 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 1st, 2026

ED MORRISSEY: Bari’s Epic Troll on George Clooney: “Bonjour!”

CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss ribbed newly minted French citizen George Clooney after the star accused her of wrecking the network, inviting him to the newsroom and hinting he might be in need of a journalism refresher.

“Bonjour, Mr. Clooney! Big fan of your work. It sounds like you’d like to learn more about ours,” Weiss said in an email statement that CBS parent company Paramount Skydance shared with The Post on Tuesday.

“This is an open invitation to visit the CBS Broadcast Center, where I’m spending the holidays working to relaunch the Evening News with my colleagues. Tune in January 5.”

I’m a little worried that Bari’s CBS News is trolling all of us right now:

Shot:

Chaser: 2025 was so hot it pushed Earth past critical climate change mark, scientists say.

—CBS News, Tuesday.

To be fair, the Grauniad told me that we moved past the “critical climate change mark” about 13 years ago:

Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama’s first administration, he added.

— President ‘has four years to save Earth,’ the London Guardian, January 17, 2009.

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 1st, 2026
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