Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

GODFATHER GLOP: CNN’s Tapper Analogizes Trump To Movie Mob Boss.

Can you imagine Jake Tapper, or any leading light of the liberal media, analogizing, say, Barack Obama to a murderous mob boss?* Rhetorical question. But on CNN’s State of the Union, Tapper did just that regarding President Trump.

Discussing the impending meeting between Trump and Chuck Schumer to discuss the looming government shutdown, Tapper, making a Godfather II analogy, asked Speaker Mike Johnson:

“So at this meeting tomorrow, is President Trump looking to make a deal, or is it going to be like when Michael Corleone met Senator Geary: ‘My offer is this— nothing?” 

Johnson, a very cool customer, didn’t rise to Tapper’s nasty bait. Instead, Johnson responded: “We’ll have to see.”

Of course, if Trump is Corleone, that makes Schumer the utterly corrupt Senator Geary, who was later found in bed with a dead prostitute.

* Actually, I can do just that: CNN Clown to Obama: ‘Go Gangsta Against Your Foes.’

JammieWearingFool, February 11th, 2010.

The following year, actor Don Cheadle told an interviewer regarding then-President Obama, “I think he inherited an impossible situation. I wish he had not been so much of a consensus-seeker. I just wanted to see a more ‘gangsta’ president.”

In 2014, the Financial Times suggested: Obama needs a gangsta to lay down the law.

And while not specifically gangster and/or gangsta related, this metaphor from CBS Face the Nation host John Dickerson sounds pretty violent as well: “Go for the Throat! Why if he wants to transform American politics, Obama must declare war on the Republican Party.”

—Dickerson at Slate, one of the remaining media redoubts of the Graham family, the former owners of the WaPo, January 18th, 2013.

WHO? Bad Bunny’s ICE comments resurface as NFL fans debate selection of Super Bowl LX halftime show performer.

Bad Bunny was selected to perform the Super Bowl LX halftime show on Sunday, and the choice didn’t exactly sit well with NFL fans during the night.

The three-time Grammy Award winner has emerged as one of the most popular recording artists since he debuted in the mainstream in 2016. But as the Puerto Rican’s popularity has grown, so has his platform. Recently, he used it to express fears about U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Bad Bunny said earlier this month he didn’t book any U.S. dates on his tour over fears that his fans would be detained by ICE agents.

“But there was the issue of — like, f—ing ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about,” he told i-D.

In June, he recorded and posted video of what he described as local ICE raids to social media in Puerto Rico.

“Look, those motherf——s are in these cars, RAV-4s. They’re here in Pontezuela,” he said in Spanish, mentioning ICE working on the Avenida Pontezuela in Carolina, a city east of Puerto Rico’s capital, San Juan.

“Sons of b——, instead of leaving the people alone and working there,” he added.

NFL fans didn’t appear to be eager about seeing Bad Bunny at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

Related question asked and answered: Why is an anti-American crossdresser being chosen to headline the most American event ever?

That’s why:

Still though, bonus points for being a snappy dresser with a de rigeour septum piercing:

Exit quote:

But how does it feel to be one of the biggest recording artists on the planet and reap massive success in a nation that owns and continuously overlooks the island he calls home? “At the end of the day, my success in the United States I owe to the hardworking Latinos who have helped make the country what it is today,” Bad Bunny says. “I highly doubt the type of gringos I don’t fuck with listen to me. Those were all the people at the Super Bowl who were pissed off about how Latino the halftime show was.”

We’ve come a long way since the earliest Super Bowls; Super Bowl IV’s performers included these little-known heavily pierced and politicized radicals:

Evergreen:

THE WORD ‘FASCISM’ HAS NOW NO MEANING EXCEPT IN SO FAR AS IT SIGNIFIES ‘SOMETHING NOT DESIRABLE:’

(Classical reference in headline.)

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: ‘Hollywood is desperate to hire my AI actress.’

If her supporters are to be believed, actress Tilly Norwood is on the verge of Hollywood superstardom. The London-based girl-next-door starlet, they say, is preparing to sign with a major talent agency.

But Tilly is not a success story from the UK theatre schools or a feel-good tale of a working-class actor with a latent skill for acting, like Owen Cooper, 15, who starred in hit Netflix drama Adolescence and became the youngest male actor to win an Emmy.

Instead, she is manufactured by artificial intelligence, and so is completely fake. She, or it, is poised to be the first AI actress to be signed by a real-life talent agency that normally works with humans, according to Tilly’s creator.

Whether that ambition comes true or not, Tilly’s creation is a sign of the challenge for the film industry as it grapples with whether AI talent can replace much more expensive real-life stars.

To paraphrase Mia Farrow in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, she’s not real, but you can’t have everything.

In any case, digital thespians have come a long way since 2015’s Star Wars: Rogue One.

CLUELESS COCONUT: Kamala Harris Has No Idea Why She Lost.

In Harris’s view, these extraordinary circumstances—voters prioritizing the economy—were uniquely unfair to her. “Part of the challenge with this very short campaign was that we had to focus on needs that felt more immediate, like how to deal with the grocery bill or the cost of childcare,” Harris explains with baffling earnestness, as if revealing the secrets of the universe to a room full of child actors.

The failed candidate is most relatable when blaming Joe Biden and the “recklessness” of his decision to run for reelection. Harris is not entirely wrong that Biden, who made her his running mate in 2020 because he was pressured into picking a black woman, set her up to fail. It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for Harris when she recalls her maddening interactions with Joe, Dr. Jill, and their cabal of sycophants. For example, she describes her exasperated reaction when, moments after Biden had finished humiliating himself at the CNN debate, she was handed a sheet of talking points instructing her to declare victory and proclaim that Biden had “fought through his cold as he is fighting for the American people.” Girl, we feel you.

On the other hand, Harris was an awful candidate with horrible instincts and a unique capacity for incoherence. She thought picking Pete Buttigieg, a boring gay man, as a running mate was too risky, but not as risky as disavowing her infamous endorsement of taxpayer-funded sex changes for illegal immigrants. That was a noble display of “character” that “voters respect.” She thinks Biden could only have picked her as vice president because she was the “most qualified and ready,” then admits she chose Tim Walz because of his loyalty and lack of ambition. If she’s still the most qualified, and the stakes for the country are so high, how will she explain her inevitable decision to leave politics for some comfy corporate board gig?

That sort of thing already happened in November, after Kamala spent the fall vacillating between calling Trump Hitler, seeking the endorsements of several earlier Hitlers, and then conceded to the current Hitler as if her earlier superheated language suddenly didn’t matter anymore:

“SCREW YOUR FREEDOM,” SLIGHT RETURN? Only One Man Can Save California.

There is always the essential man — the great man of history who heeds the call and knows his moment — whether that man be George Washington at our nation’s founding or Donald Trump at our nation’s rescue. Only one man can save the Golden State, only one man has the strength to bring down the tyranny of the California Democrat Party.

That man is Arnold Schwarzenegger. The task of cleaning out the state’s Augean Stables will require a Hercules — a part Schwarzenegger has played before, both on-screen and in Sacramento as a two-term governor of California, elected during a previous state crisis.

There is, however, a problem with this obvious solution. In 1990, the people of California passed Proposition 140, which prohibits candidates from serving more than two terms as governor. So, just as it was a gubernatorial recall election in 2003 that propelled Schwarzenegger into office, it seems that it would require another proposition undoing the failed reform of term limits to return him to the governorship.

Or would it?

What if Schwarzenegger ran for lieutenant governor and acted as the éminence grise of a Bianco or Hilton administration, campaigning on the slogan, “If you want me, vote for him!” Perhaps the brave Bianco or the clever Hilton could suggest this winning idea. No Republican has served as California’s governor since Schwarzenegger’s departure. But perhaps Schwarzenegger himself could change that.

If Californians are fortunate — if America is fortunate — Schwarzenegger will return to Sacramento, ably advising a conservative ally; and all who wish the Golden State well will rejoice to see him crush his Democrat enemies, drive them before him, and hear the lamentations of the Democrat women and their girly men. For the sake of all that is good, let it be so.

No thanks. I loved Arnold’s charismatic screen persona during his action movie heyday in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but he was the quintessential RINO during his time in office…

…And arguably worse after he left: Schwarzenegger to anti-maskers: ‘Screw your freedom.’

Something he was already tacitly saying two years earlier:

Or as Jim Treacher wrote in a now-paywalled Substack in 2021, “An Austrian loudmouth who scoffs at freedom and demands compliance with the government’s dictates… Why do I feel like I’ve heard this story before?”

ERIC ADAMS DROPS OUT OF NYC MAYORAL RACE AMID INCREASING PRESSURE: ‘I know I cannot continue my campaign.’

Mayor Eric Adams is dropping out of New York City’s mayoral race amid escalating pressure to clear the crowded field in a last-ditch attempt to stop socialist Zohran Mamdani’s election to City Hall.

The bombshell move comes after weeks of back-and-forth over whether Adams would bow out of the race, in which he is polling fourth, far behind frontrunner Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and also, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

“It’s been an honor to be your mayor,” Adams said in a video announcement, according to a transcript obtained by The Post, touting his victories over his first term.

“Although our successes… I know I cannot continue my campaign,” he said.

“I strongly encourage who ever takes over City Hall to continue what we’ve done.”

Adams did not endorse any of the other candidates, and even took subtle swipes at Mamdani and Cuomo — issuing a warning about local government being used to launder radical ideals and urging voters not to elect a mayor who’s flip-flopped on the issues.

So what’s next for Fun City should Mamdani win in November? “They’re Going To Florida” — How Mamdani Will Change NYC.

RADICAL CHIC, THE GERITOL YEARS: Chicago Teachers Union Praises Fugitive Cop Killer Assata Shakur After She Passes Away.

They do, and they want to pass that hatred on to your kids.

DEVELOPING: Multiple people shot at Mormon church in Michigan and shooter is down, police say.

UPDATE: Mass Shooting, Fire at Church in Grand Blanc, MI, Shooter Down.

“This is the Genesee County Sheriff at the scene, updating a little while ago:”

NEW CIVILITY WATCH:

This comes after Newsom’s comms shop called Miller a fascist previously last Monday: Gavin Newsom Goes Too Far, Compares Stephen Miller to an SS Agent—Hitler’s Notorious ‘Schutzstaffel.’

As Bob Hoge of Red State wrote last week, “Referring to a Jew as a Nazi is widely considered a form of Holocaust denial, as well as antisemitic, because it can — as in this instance — indicate an intent to invert the identities of the perpetrators and the victims of the Nazis’ crimes against humanity.”

POINT: Newsom 2028!

Counterpoint: “In California, only 28% of Black fourth graders read at or above basic level, for instance, compared to 52% in Mississippi.”

In my home state of California, for instance, only 30% of public school fourth graders can read proficiently. Fully 41% cannot even read at a basic level — which is to say, they cannot really understand and interpret written text at all. Eighth graders, as you might expect, look almost as bad.

These numbers have been tumbling downhill in California and more widely across the U.S. for years now, and not just because of school closures during the pandemic. Nationwide, reading scores for fourth graders peaked back in 2015, and while the especially ugly 2022 outcomes were dismissed at first as COVID-19 outliers, scores have fallen further since. The decline is the worst for the kids who were already struggling; the test scores of the bottom 10% of students have dropped catastrophically.

But scores are not slipping everywhere. In Mississippi, they have been rising year over year. The state recovered from a brief decline during COVIDand has now surpassed its pre-COVID highs. Its fourth grade students outperform California’s on average, even though our state is richer, more educated, and spends about 50% more per pupil.

The difference is most pronounced if you look at the most disadvantaged students. In California, only 28% of Black fourth graders read at or above basic level, for instance, compared to 52% in Mississippi. But it’s not just that Mississippi has raised the floor. It has also raised the ceiling: The state is also one of the nation’s best performers when you look at students who are not “economically disadvantaged.”

Consider this the latest chapter of the “Mississippi Miracle,” which has seen the state climb from 49th in the country on fourth grade reading to ninth nationally. This rise has received a great deal of coverage in publications ranging from The New York Times to The New York Post. And yet, it still feels as if what’s taking place in the Deep South still has been grossly undersold.

As Iowahawk notes:

UPDATE: Dispatches from the War on Phonics:

MORE:

 

STACY MCCAIN: How to Become a Good Communist.

Given the extraordinary craziness of our own era, with political violence rampant and apparently increasing, many people have forgotten how crazy things were in the 1970s. Back when I was in middle school and high school, you had all kinds of wacky radicals running around. The nation had gone through a series of crises — the drama of the Civil Rights Era, the assassination of JFK, the Vietnam War, etc. — and a lot of people couldn’t handle the stress and just lost their minds.

You had the Manson Gang murders in 1969, then the Weather Undeground bombers, the Patty Hearst kidnapping and the Symbionese Liberation Army, and let’s not forget the Peoples Temple and Jonestown. It was during that decade-long national nervous breakdown that JoAnn Chesimard assumed the moniker “Assata Shakur” and decided that the Black Panthers weren’t radical enough for her tastes.

The Black Liberation Army (BLA) emerged as an ultra-violent splinter of the Panthers, in association with other black radicals, spewing Marxist-Leninist jargon as a pretext for killing cops and committing robberies. “According to a Justice Department report on BLA activity, the Black Liberation Army was suspected of involvement in over 70 incidents of violence between 1970 and 1976. The Fraternal Order of Police blamed the BLA for the murders of 13 police officers.” Arguably the most infamous of their crimes was the 1981 Brinks robbery in Nyack, New York, where BLA members joined forces with Weather Underground radicals calling themselves the May 19th Communist Organization. In the Nyack robbery, this radical gang killed Brinks guard Peter Paige and police officers Edward O’Grady and Waverly Brown.

Read the whole thing.

SOROS COORDINATE! SOROS COORDINATE! Philly’s Lefty DA Larry Krasner Gets Asked to Explain How Trump Is a Fascist (Guess What Happened Next).

They’re not used to being asked that question by the corporate media, who mostly just nod their heads in agreement when a Democrat calls Trump a fascist.

Calling his would-be interviewer “un-American” is a nice, McCarthy-esque touch, though implying that because he’s 22, he’s too young to debate Krasner is a tacit admission that the 26th Amendment should be repealed. Not something I was expecting, but I’ll take the bipartisan support where I can!

In any case, as Tom Cotton wrote at the end of 2021: Recall, Remove and Replace Every Last Soros Prosecutor.

DAVID THOMPSON: If You Notice Our Dishonesty, We Will Punish You.

I paraphrase, of course. Though not, I think, wildly:

A man in Switzerland is facing 10 days in prison after refusing to pay a fine for an “offensive” social media post. Emanuel Brünisholz, a wind instrument repairman from Burgdorf, was convicted under anti-discrimination laws for making a statement emphasising skeletal evidence of binary sex.

Sorry, still pondering the Swissness of wind instrument repairman.

Brünisholz’s ordeal began in December of 2022 when he responded to a Facebook post by Swiss National Council member Andreas Glarner. In his comment, Brünisholz wrote: “If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll only find men and women based on their skeletons. Everything else is a mental illness promoted through the curriculum.”

Well, he’s not wrong. We could, I suppose, list things like pelvis shape, skull shape, bone density, Q-angles and whatnot, and we could mention the very high accuracy of sex determination via forensic examinations based on such variables, but it all seems rather obvious. Almost too silly.

Meanwhile, BBC newsreader Fiona Bruce is terrified of a potential trip to Room 101:

As Wikipedia notes:

The head of BBC history, Robert Seatter, has said George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), “reputedly based his notorious Room 101 from the novel “on a room he had worked in whilst at the BBC.”[52]

On 7 November 2017, a statue of Orwell, sculpted by the British sculptor Martin Jennings, was unveiled, outside Broadcasting House. The wall behind the statue is inscribed with the following phrase: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”. These are words from his proposed preface to Animal Farm and a rallying cry for the idea of free speech in an open society.

Some exceptions apply at the BBC of course, rendering Orwell’s phrase appropriately Orwellian in 21st century Airstrip One. No word yet how they’re preparing in Room 102 for Bruce’s potential arrival:

OPEN SOURCE CODES OF CONDUCT:

NAILED IT! The FBI DID Send Hundreds of Undercover Assets Into the J6 Protest!

Yet another victory for the tinfoil hat, “conspiracy theory” crew: the FBI sent 274 “plainclothes” agents into the crowd of people protesting in and near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to Just the News.

And many of those agents are not happy about how it all went down, not to mention the bureau’s liberal bias.

If true, the collective omertà of the FBI agents is astonishing:

America’s Newspaper of Record takes this development to its logical conclusion: