2025: A RADICAL CHIC ODYSSEY. Political violence and the boredom of barbarism.

“Mangione’s fanbase seem to be mostly young women from well-off backgrounds, and while his looks play in part, there is notably a late tsarist tendency among younger American leftists to revel in political violence. Perhaps they genuinely believe they’re fighting ‘fascism’, or… pic.twitter.com/S490xFjPBq

— Zarathustra (@zarathustra5150) September 24, 2025

STRIKE A POSE, THERE’S NOTHING TO IT: Hollywood Discovers the Virtue of Free Speech.

Consider a letter sent on Tuesday—also the day of Kimmel’s return—by lawyers for Alphabet (formerly Google) to Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

It says, “Senior Biden administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the company regarding certain user-generated content related to the Covid-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies. While the company continued to develop and enforce its policies independently, Biden administration officials continued to press the company to remove non-violative user-generated content.”

Translation: The Biden White House pressured Alphabet, just as the Trump administration jawboned ABC and Disney.

According to Alphabet’s lawyers, the Biden administration coerced YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet, to ban users for so-called medical misinformation during the pandemic. Even Florida governor Ron DeSantis, one of the most prominent politicians in the country, was censored by YouTube for having the temerity to host a conversation with medical experts who said forcing children to wear masks was a bad idea.

Unlike the brief confrontation over Kimmel, the victims of this campaign were mostly not high-profile celebrities, but normal people, including scientists, without deep pockets and big platforms.

Another difference is that Hollywood liberals were largely cheering this state-led campaign against misinformation. While the big platforms were banning users who questioned whether the Covid vaccines really stopped transmission of the virus, or experts like Jay Bhattacharya who questioned the efficacy of widespread lockdowns, late-night hosts like Stephen Colbert were running cringe-inducing skits urging viewers to take the shot.

Alphabet was not the only company pressured by the Biden administration. Twitter was also targeted. So was Facebook, as its CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged in 2024 in testimony before Congress. Some of this was out in the open. Biden himself said on July 16, 2021, that social media companies that allowed medical misinformation on their platforms were “killing people.” Kate Bedingfield, who was the communications director for the Biden White House, said that social media companies should be “held accountable.”

In private, the White House went so far as to recommend individual accounts of users who should be deplatformed or whose reach should be limited. These included the current director of the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya, who was blacklisted by Twitter after correctly pointing out that Covid-19 was more lethal for older people.

Still though, won’t someone consider the talk show host briefly given a timeout by ABC? Kimmel: ‘Hard To Tell The Difference’ Between Gulags and America.

That’s when [Ethan] Hawke made his analogy, “Well, I’m glad to have you back in the United States of America… I was told you were sent to a Russian gulag, but luckily, you’re back.”

An appreciative Kimmel concurred, “Thank you. I appreciate that. It’s hard to tell the difference now between the gulags and the United States.”

Hawke then had some final bits of praise, “But last night was amazing. And we’re all really proud of you.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn could not be reached for comment.

Related:

I note that almost every conservative news or commentary site that matters is now online and/or behind a subscription wall. It occurs to me that this now represents a dangerous single point of failure.

— George MF Washington (@GMFWashington) September 25, 2025

DISPATCHES FROM THE TERF WARS:

In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These…

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 3, 2025

Exit quote: “All I know for sure is that it’s a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They’re not repeating it because it’s true — they know full well it’s not true — but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you’re one of the Godly, and an exorcist’s weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.”

Or to put it another way, “Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. ‘If I wished,’ O’Brien had said, ‘I could float off this floor like a soap bubble.’ Winston worked it out. ‘If he thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens.’ Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: ‘It doesn’t really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.’ He pushed the thought under instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or other, outside oneself, there was a ‘real’ world where ‘real’ things happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.”

TRUMP IS RIGHT TO TAKE ON THE SMITHSONIAN:

Bursting such bubbles has become a favorite hobby of Republicans in recent years. In May 2023, for example, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill allowing parents in Florida to challenge the accessibility of books in school libraries on the grounds of sexual content. Critics cried fascism, but the move had a payoff. Highly sympathetic scenes emerged of parents being thrown out of school-board meetings for reading aloud obscenities from books available to their young children.

And who can forget the 2023 scenes of Ivy League presidents called before the House refusing to condemn anti-Semitism? Their use of academic creole alienated viewers and forced the resignation of multiple university presidents.

Trump’s feud with the Smithsonian is not impulsive. It is a well-planned offensive, designed to undermine an institution that he sees as disloyal to America – or to the administration – and beholden to the political and academic left. Democrats make a mistake by focusing on the rhetoric of the attack instead of addressing the real question: who curates the curators?

And:

The last time Republicans were this mad at the Smithsonian Institution was in 1991. Then as now, America’s national museum system was gearing up to celebrate a major date: in that case, the quincentenary of the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus. Senators threatened spending cuts, accusing Smithsonian officials of having a “political agenda” with their representations of race and immigration in exhibitions. Thirty-four years later, on the eve of the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence, Republicans are saying the same things.

I’m not sure if 1991 was “the last time Republicans were this mad at the Smithsonian.” Ever since the debacle of their uber-PC Enola Gay exhibition in 1994, their airbrushing of Clarence Thomas out of black history in 2016, and their 2020 chart on “Aspects & Assumptions of Whiteness & White Culture in the United States,” it’s been clear that somebody needs to save the Smithsonian from their worst impulses.

GREAT MOMENTS IN INTERSECTIONALITY: Greta’s flotilla has exposed the suicidal stupidity of Islamo-leftism.

[I]f I was Israel, I’d relax. You don’t need to ‘defeat’ this flotilla – they’ll defeat themselves with the hilarious contradictions of their Islamo-leftism. This week it was reported that the flotilla has ‘descended into chaos’, following the outbreak of a ‘woke on woke’ civil war. A Tunisian coordinator of the flotilla has reportedly resigned after discovering that the boats are carrying – brace yourselves – LGBT people. Sinful homosexuals? That just won’t do. It’s not Israel that’s being humiliated on the high seas. It’s Queers for Palestine. It’s Gays for Gaza. It’s the whole fragile and lethal alliance between blue-haired Westerners and red-faced Islamic hotheads who might agree that Israel is a demonic entity but who disagree on just about everything else. They said they’d ‘smash’ Israel’s blockade but the only blow they’ve landed so far is an entirely self-inflicted one, exposing to the world the suicidal idiocy of genderfluid Westerners cosying up with Allah-fearing Koran-bashers in an orgy of hatred for the Jewish nation.

That’s the funny thing: when the IDF takes this Dad’s Army of wokeness into custody and then flies them home again, it will be doing them a massive, progressive favour. It will be saving them from the racists, misogynists and homophobes of Hamas and its mad allies. And will Greta and friends say thanks? Will they hell. ‘War criminals!’, they’ll wail as Israel delivers them from the hell of medieval Islamism. I can’t wait.

To be fair, this time, they may have a case for calling Israel war criminals: Greta Thunberg’s freedom flotilla tortured by endless noise as hijacked radios blast Abba on repeat.

ED MORRISSEY: White House: Nice Swamp Ya Got There, Chuck. Shame If Something Happened to It.

Of course, even with the spin, that still leaves Trump in charge of any shutdown. As I explained on Tuesday, that would give any aspiring swamp-draining president plenty of opportunity to hammer Democrats’ constituencies, but even I may have underestimated Trump’s ambition. The Wall Street Journal reports today that they will use any shutdown as an opportunity for permanent mass firings, not just furloughs:

The White House’s budget office directed federal agencies to draw up plans to permanently reduce their workforces if there is a government shutdown next week, raising the specter of mass firings on top of the customary furloughs during a lapse in funding.

The new memo sent by Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought sharply raises the stakes for funding talks and increases the pressure on Senate Democrats, who are demanding that Republicans restore hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare spending as a condition of their support for keeping the government funded.

“Sharply raises the stakes”? You better believe it, Chuck. Vought makes clear, too, that the cuts will get targeted in accordance with Trump’s priorities:

The OMB memo instructs agencies to design reduction-in-force plans for employees who work for programs that have no current funding and have no outside funding source, and that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.” This would be in addition to any temporary furloughs that happen during a government shutdown.

The memo from Vought says that any cuts made after the funding deadline would be permanent.

John Nolte adds, “Trump can’t lose here. Democrats will be blamed for the shutdown. Bureaucrats will be fired (tee hee). On the other hand, if Democrats cave and vote for the continuing resolution, their base will be furious. Additionally, these insane demands from Democrats have already been made public, which will haunt them going into the midterms.”

Or as Ed Morrissey writes, “Nice box canyon ahead of you, Chuck.”

Jim Geraghty concurs: Democrats Prepare to March into a Box Canyon by Shutting Down the Government. “Do you envision Trump making significant concessions to ease the pain and suffering of federal government workers? No, I don’t, either. Schumer and the Democrats will have gotten themselves into a high-stakes fight with Trump where one of the party’s key constituencies — government workers — feel the most pain, and it gets worse the longer it drags on.”

CHRISTOPHER RUFO: Radical Normie Terrorism.

In the 1960s and 1970s, America witnessed a wave of political terrorism. Left-wing radicals hijacked airplanes, set bombs in government buildings, and assassinated police officers in service of political goals. The perpetrators were almost always organized, belonging to groups like the Weathermen or the Black Liberation Army. These groups demanded the release of prisoners, denounced capitalism, or called for violent revolution against the United States. Their members were radical but largely lucid, justifying their actions with appeals to a higher cause.

In recent years, a new form of terror has emerged: decentralized, digitally driven violence organized not around coherent ideologies but around memes, fantasies, and nihilistic impulses. The perpetrators of this low-grade terror campaign do not belong to hierarchical organizations or pursue concrete political aims. More often, they come from ordinary families and lash out in acts of violence without discernible purpose.

At the close of this summer, two such incidents underscored the trend: the attack on schoolchildren at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah. Though the first resembled the school-shooter archetype and the second evoked a JFK-style political assassination, both share psychological and sociological roots that make them more alike than they initially appear.

The new terror campaign is defined by a particular kind of psychopathology. It is perhaps tautological that anyone willing to kill innocent schoolchildren as they are praying or to assassinate a popular podcast host in broad daylight is pathological. But in these cases, both alleged killers—Robin Westman (formerly Robert Westman), and Tyler Robinson—left behind several warning signs that were psychological in nature.

And if not actually Democrat Party approved, there’s certainly a lot of winking and nodding when terroristic events occur:

Watch this video. It’s from a few months ago (hat tip to @nataliegwinters).

Yes, she says “strike ready”. But really pay attention when she starts talking about “risk tolerance.”

Democrats give indirect orders to street communists. pic.twitter.com/Ftow3Klq6q

— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) September 24, 2025

BARIBUCKS:

Paramount Skydance C.E.O. David Ellison’s courtship of Bari is now coming to its conclusion. According to sources familiar, the deal is expected to close in about two weeks. The final number is around $150 million, a mix of cash and stock.

Bari, who will also be installed into an editorial leadership role at CBS News, has been portrayed as both a bogeyman for American journalism and a bellwether for a broader rightward shift in the news industry. Ellison’s pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery, which could extend her jurisdiction to CNN, has only amplified the anxiety. Indeed, her impending deal is often framed as yet another data point in the accelerating erosion of the fourth estate—you know, alongside, say, Jeff Bezos’s overhaul of Washington Post Opinions, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, or Trump’s myriad media lawsuits.

The sturm und drang surrounding Bari’s encroachment on these storied, if sorely diminished, journalistic institutions often coalesces around two issues: first, that she is reliably pro-Israel, and second, that she is a prominent critic of identity politics and woke orthodoxy. These views put her at odds with newsroom institutionalists who reject the notion of editors taking sides in any conflict*, and especially with the Slack-griping proletariat who might embrace diametrically opposite positions. Meanwhile, her popularity with libertarian members of the Sun Valley mogul set—some of whom are among her investors—only seems to reiterate the divide. Her politics, and that of The Free Press, are thus often cast as “center-right,” or “conservative”—reductive categorizations that fail to reckon with the available body of work.

*Tony Dokoupil chuckles.

QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: Barack Obama at the O2 review — If he doesn’t have the answers, who does?

The rock star president came out on the O2 stage to a rock star welcome. There was a standing ovation, a 14,000-strong wall of smartphones and, eventually, a “Hello London”, which London truly loved.

Once upon a time, Obama’s fans lined up in their hundreds of thousands, in Grant Park, Chicago, or all the way down the Tiergarten in Berlin, for a sprinkling of the most glittering political stardust around.

Is it possible that one of the world’s many problems is that these days it costs you anywhere from £86 all the way up to £1,799 for the privilege of being near him? That very highest price, by the way, gets you a signed photo with the 44th president of the United States, plus an unlimited drinks package.

No one looked quite as pleased to be near him as his host for the evening, David Olusoga, but who can blame him? He was so thrilled that for extremely long periods of time he appeared to forget he was meant to say anything at all.

Dare one say that, over more than an hour’s genteel conversation, Obama’s analysis of a world he didn’t change as much as we all thought he might was rather simplistic?

Yes, one may most assuredly dare say that, old chap!

Before Obama’s presideny. The following didnt exist.

There was no ISIS.

There was no caliphate.

There was no Black Lives Matter.

There was no Antifa.

There was no war on police.

All of that chaos started under his watch. He didn’t stop it, he started it. Obama is the real… pic.twitter.com/ay28VbElMV

— Terrence K. Williams (@w_terrence) September 25, 2025

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

ANALYSIS: TRUE. When You Meet Liberals, They Casually Assume You Share Their Opinions No Matter How Extreme.

In April of last year I was in the Austin area to watch the solar eclipse, relaxing in the shady back yard of the house we had rented for the occasion. We were hosting some local boomer relatives of one of the attendees to our eclipse party, and I was shooting the shit with an older gentleman, beers in hand, discussing how quickly one’s retinas might be damaged by foolishly looking at the sun unshielded. Surely it was fine to just take a peek real quick-like, I joked. His manner abruptly shifted. “You’d burn your eyes out like Great Leader did,” he snarled. It took me a moment to realize that he wasn’t talking about Kim Jung Un, but rather Trump, who had been photographed squinting up at an eclipse without eye protection during his first term in 2017.

This was an obscure non-story from seven years earlier, one of a countless sequence of similar “Experts Agree Orange Man Bad, Wrong” stories published during Trump’s first term. I only knew about it from “dudes rock” memes posted by right-wing jokers on Twitter. He must have been reminded about it by his own media bubble.

“You know, I really wish somebody would just blow his head off already,” he continued, not missing a beat. I made a non-committal noise in response, took a slug off my longneck, and changed the subject back to the eclipse.

This incident was weird, but not for the surface reason. The weird thing wasn’t this retiree I had met ten minutes earlier casually wishing death on a political figure supported by roughly half the country. No, the truly bizarre thing was how pedestrian this kind of occurrence had become in my own life, how inured to it I had become. It should be unusual for someone to make inflammatory political remarks to a fellow countryman after having known him only ten minutes. But it’s not. It happens thousands of times every day in professional middle-class circles like the ones I travel in.

This tendency to assume that everyone around you shares your far left ideology may work fine in day to day conversations in deeply blue urban areas. But this month, numerous lefties found out what happened they blasted their ravings about Charlie Kirk’s shocking assassination into the wide, wide world of social media: ‘Consequence Culture’ Comes for the Angry Left.

BRIAN CATES: The Thrill Is Gone.

“I’m so awesome I’m singlehandedly holding back the wave of long-anticipated-but-never-seeming-to-arrive-tidal-wave-of-white-male-right-wing-domestic-terrorism! I’m so noble, no one will ever know it was ME holding them back, getting them caught, defusing their bombs…because I’m so awesome!” – The Savant

This TV show needs to be preserved and kept in the Smithsonian as a benchmark of our strange times, in which ONE PARTICULAR NATIONAL POLITICAL PARTY was making EXTENSIVE USE of highly organized, violent, very dangerous and blatantly anti-American radical revolutionary groups loosely referred to as ANTIFA in order to try to DICTATE SOCIAL POLICY via threat against the public order and safety.

* * * * * * * *

You do have to maintain SOME semblance of popular support for your 1984 Party’s social policy agenda, especially the LGBTQ+ stuff, and so it’s not only Fake Rigged Elections and Fake Polls from Fake News that’s used to maintain the illusion; the ratings of certain TV shows and films are also used as cultural benchmarks to ‘prove’ the public ‘supports’ what the 1984 Cult Party is currently doing.

That brings me to ‘The Savant’ again, that now-indefinitely-shelved, not-inexpensive new television show created for the Apple+ Network. This show was green lit and produced over the last 5 years when the “Trump insurrection’ narrative on J6 was in full bloom.

Lead actress Jessica Chastain admits this in the post she made today expressing her keen disappointment at the series being indefinitely shelved by Apple+. The series was produced for an America that was SUPPOSED to have been convinced over the past 5 years what a huge and significant threat MAGA and Trump are to ‘democracy’.

Read the whole thing. As John Nolte adds: Apple’s Postponed Savant Is Another Dog Whistle to Justify Killing MAGA.  “Remember this: The corporate media, Democrats, and Hollywood don’t call us Nazis because we’re Nazis. They call us Nazis to justify their ongoing murder campaign against us.”

KAMALA COCKS UP COMEBACK: Kamala Harris Book Promotion Is New Cause Of Democrat Angst.

Democratic presidential candidates who lose don’t die, they just fade away until it’s time for a book tour. Kamala Harris is back on the media circuit, and Democrats are wishing she wasn’t.

As more details come forward from her newly released book, Kamala Harris is busy pushing her version of events, and creating some heartburn for the Democrats that they really would rather not deal with right now. Many of the details we learned about from other books, but Kamala is giving them new life in hers. Having them rehashed at the same time that the House Oversight Committee is digging through the Biden White House autopen and “Politburo” scandal, is reinforcing the idea to the American public that, no matter people’s issues or complaints about Donald Trump, the Biden White House was a insane asylum of incompetent tool bags.

So far, Kamala Harris has revealed that she thought the American people were too bigoted to accept Pete Buttigieg as a vice presidential candidate, that she knew she couldn’t deal with Josh Shapiro because he was “too ambitious,” so she “settled” on Tim Walz – whom she initially claimed was her “gut decision” – as vice president. She also has inadvertently revealed that she can’t think on her feet (a simple question about her getting enough sleep merited attention in the book because she wasn’t prepared for it), and existed in a perpetual state of frustrated “loyalty” to Joe Biden that resulted in her not trying to talk him out of running.

More thoughts from Megan Kelly and Mark Halperin: Kamala Harris is Back Rambling About Joy and Getting Slammed by Democrats. “She’s still got it – no one is better at the world salad!”

UPDATE:

Yeah, this is why she lost.

Frankly,it was the best, most human thing he did the whole campaign. https://t.co/n6Nb9TwBUJ

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) September 25, 2025

ROGER KIMBALL: Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk have exposed the media’s depravity.

The accepted media narrative was that Charlie Kirk was a “far-right” fringe figure.  But his murder allowed millions of people to realize that Kirk’s ideas were also their ideas. They were mainstream ideas. Not only were those millions outraged by Kirk’s assassination, they were also free to celebrate his teaching. At the same time, many on the left greeted the murder of Kirk with a snarling ecstasy of hatred. They were glad Kirk was murdered. Some hoped his wife and children would be, too. Others provided lists of people who should share his fate. As Reynolds observed, “These aren’t just a few wackos. These are large numbers of people in professional and managerial jobs… who genuinely believe that holding ideas they don’t like should carry the death penalty.”

Which brings me to Plato. In Book II of The Republic, Socrates says that one thing no one can abide is “deception in the soul about realities.” Ordinary lies are one thing.  People tell them all the time. But “everyone fears” the “true lie” that would disconnect one from the way things really are.

The commentator Scott Adams makes a related point when he talks about the people who are being fired or ostracized for saying hateful things about Kirk. The noteworthy thing, Adams says, is that they are surprised at the critical reaction to their vituperation against Kirk. They thought that the world at large would agree with them that Kirk, Donald Trump and their kith were fascists, Nazis, etc. They are shocked that this is not the case. They have been living in a media-nourished bubble in which Trump is the reincarnation of Hitler. They are, says Adams, “hypnotized Hitlerians.” They believe – because they have been assiduously instructed to believe – that America has been taken over by a Hitler-like figure. So in one sense, Adams notes, they are victims. Who wouldn’t want to get rid of Hitler? But the Hitlerians have been deceived in their souls about the truth. This does not mean they are not responsible for fomenting hate, only that their behavior can be explained.

More here: Scott Adams: Why Did People Think They Could Cheer Charlie Kirk’s Murder Without Consequences?

ADAMS: There are numerous stories of teachers and people associated with schools who are getting canceled—meaning fired—for saying horrible things: essentially being happy, or saying it was justified, that Charlie Kirk was assassinated. What do you think about that? People are losing their jobs all over the place.

Well, let me tell you the thing that is most shocking about that. The most shocking thing is that the people who spoke out that way believed they wouldn’t get fired. I think they were all surprised, which means they’ve been living entirely within a bubble in which they thought other people would agree with that. Are you kidding me?

They thought they were in the bubble of reality where—let’s say that Hitler was an American and he died—would you feel bad about saying, “Thank God Hitler died”? No, you wouldn’t, because you would assume that almost every single person would agree with you. So it would be easy to say that.

These people are saying it in public for the world to see, as if that’s what a normal person would think. How hypnotized would you have to be?

So, in my mind anyway—and I think I’ve said it online at least once—I think of these people as the “hypnotized Hitlerians.” You can drop the “hypnotized” if you need to. But the Hitlerians are people who live in this little world where they think Hitler actually came to power in the United States because so many bad people on the left have been saying that. People should know better.

But the DNC-MSM aren’t going to stop doing the “hypnotizing” anytime soon:

SUPERCUT: MSNBC has an addiction to calling ICE “gestapo.” pic.twitter.com/NjsYstcCbn

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 24, 2025

TROLL LEVEL: POTUS DJT.

The White House has placed a photo of an auto-pen signature instead of a portrait of former President Biden on the “Presidential Walk of Fame” pic.twitter.com/4HRU7g8Vr8

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) September 24, 2025

20 MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE:

🚨 JUST IN: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says if Zohran Mamdani carries out his socialist plans as mayor, NYC will be BEGGING for a federal bailout – and that he WON'T give it to them.

"I guarantee you, and there are not lot of things in life that are sure, that New York… pic.twitter.com/4K93ATNlpU

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 24, 2025

Tweet continues:

“I guarantee you, and there are not lot of things in life that are sure, that New York City will be coming to the federal government for a bailout if the Mamdani plans are implemented.”

HOST: Will you give it to them?

“Drop dead. Drop dead.”

I’m absolutely certain that the New York Daily News has a “TRUMP TO CITY: DROP DEAD” cover page already laid out as an Adobe InDesign file and ready to go for when Mamdani takes office and demands a bailout.

$2.2 BILLION SOLAR PLANT IN CALIFORNIA TURNED OFF AFTER YEARS OF WASTED MONEY: ‘Never lived up to its promises.’

Seen from the sky, the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert resembles a futuristic dream.

Viewed from the bottom line, however, Ivanpah is anything but.

The solar power plant, which features three 459-foot towers and thousands of computer-controlled mirrors known as heliostats, cost some $2.2 billion to build.

Construction began in 2010 and was completed in 2014. Now it’s set to close in 2026 after failing to efficiently generate solar energy.

In 2011, the US Department of Energy under President Barack Obama issued $1.6 billion in three federal loan guarantees for the project and the secretary of energy, Ernest Moniz, hailed it as “an example of how America is becoming a world leader in solar energy.”

But ultimately, it’s been more emblematic of profligate government spending and unwise bets on poorly conceived, quickly outdated technologies.

“Ivanpah stands as a testament to the waste and inefficiency of government subsidized energy schemes,”Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, an American energy advocacy group, told Fox News via statement this past February. It “never lived up to its promises, producing less electricity than expected, while relying on natural gas to stay operational.”

To revise and extend the remarks by the late P.J. O’Rourke, you can’t get good Chinese takeout in China, Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba, and the TV and you can’t get solar power in the California desert. That’s all you need to know about communism.

TOO GOOD TO CHECK: What Abba can teach Greta Thunberg.

When Greta Thunberg set sail with a 51-vessel flotilla from Barcelona last month, she no doubt knew that her attempts to “break the illegal siege of Gaza” would face pushback. But she might not have expected to be serenaded with Abba songs on the high seas.

Greta and her activists claim that Israeli drones hacked their radios just off the coast of Crete, blasting the Swedish band’s 1980 hit Lay All Your Love On Me through the speakers.

Putting aside how much of this is true or not, and whether a flotilla of activists is the answer to the Israel-Gaza war, I, for one, am very glad that Greta got the chance to listen to some Abba. They may have some good advice for her current predicament.

* * * * * * * * *

The first time you heard Dancing Queen maybe you were at a wedding, a school disco or a basement karaoke parlour after one too many drinks. You probably threw your hands in the air, you were “having the time of your life”.

But at some point, in all our lives, we start to see the sadness of the song. Because Dancing Queen isn’t about the youthful dancer having a great time of it. It’s about the singer, watching from afar.

The singer sees everyone “digging the dancing queen”. But it’s not her. Maybe it was once, but now she’s been replaced by a younger, more exciting up and comer. It’s an elegiac paean to life’s tragedies, culminating in an uplifting acceptance that yes, maybe you can’t always be the dancing queen, but you can still enjoy the disco.

I get the impression that Greta hasn’t quite swallowed this pill yet. Hauled out of obscurity and into fame when she was still a child, she can’t quite let go. Maybe this is why she’s pivoted causes: moving on from wind turbines and donning herself in a Keffiyeh as the spotlight shifted.

Why it’s as if, “The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself” or something.

UPDATE: Great moments in tolerance for diversity: “Greta Thunberg’s flotilla bound for Gaza has descended into chaos after pro-Palestine activists quit the convoy when they learnt LGBTQ+ campaigners were on board, it has been claimed…Between the defections, the meltdowns, and now Israel’s disco-level trolling, Greta’s Gaza cruise is looking less like a ‘humanitarian mission’ and more like a floating farce.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE PARENTHESES STATES: Mobile Billboard Trolls Kathy Hochul In NYC As She Faces Criticism From Climate Activists.

As climate alarmists gather in New York City for “Climate Week,” a new mobile billboard has popped up that chips away at the alliance between Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul and radical environmental groups.

The mobile billboard features images of Hochul wearing a MAGA-style hat saying “Make Nuclear Great Again,” photos of the vehicle obtained by The Daily Wire show. The mobile billboard highlights Hochul’s recent promise to bring a new nuclear power plant to New York.

The billboard features a quote from Hochul describing plans for the new plant as “a model of 21st century nuclear design.” The mobile first started driving around New York City on Monday and will continue until Wednesday.

While Hochul comes to grips with nuclear power, Gavin Newsom is struggling with an even older energy source – oil and gas: California trying to keep oil and gas firms from leaving the state.

Following 25 years of what oil and gas executives categorize as hostility to the industry, the state is now making a play to keep those companies from leaving.

Concerned with the exodus of oil and gas companies, refinery closures and the expensive price of gasoline in the state, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation last week that fast tracks the approval of 2,000 new wells per year over the next 10 years in Kern County, a significant oil-producing region.

For a guy who told Jimmy Kimmel last night that “I fear that we will not have an election in 2028. I really mean that,” Newsom is certainly doing everything he can to gear up for a run for the presidency in 2028.

That’s why he’s staffing up with Clinton and Harris aids who have little experience in Sacramento and doing speaking tours in South Carolina, which has almost no competitive races in 2026. Because he’s sure there won’t be an election. Maybe it’s insurance. Just in case. https://t.co/XMC2HY7wFW

— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) September 24, 2025

AT LEAST THREE SHOT IN ATTACK ON DALLAS ICE FACILITY:

At least three ICE detainees were shot at an Immigration and U.S. Customs Enforcement office in Dallas on Wednesday morning, according to ICE authorities.

The suspected shooter, who ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons described as “a possible sniper,” is dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said on X.

“Details are still emerging but we can confirm there were multiple injuries and fatalities,” Noem said. “The shooter is deceased by a self-inflicted gun shot wound. While we don’t know motive yet, we know that our ICE law enforcement is facing unprecedented violence against them. It must stop. Please pray for the victims and their families.”

Related: Trump “sent the military to American cities and to police American citizens, and the ICE issue is alarming beyond words,” Gavin Newsom ranted to Jimmy Kimmel last night:

“It is the largest private domestic army of its type [or] police force anywhere in the world. He’ll have 30,000 people that increasingly appear to be swearing an oath of office to him, not the Constitution of the United States. Again, wake up to what’s going on in this country.”

The consequences of those actions could be severe, the former San Francisco mayor warned: “We’re losing confidence and trust in law enforcement. It’s having a chilling impact across the spectrum for other local law enforcement agencies.

“Look, we had a 15-year-old disabled kid in Los Angeles who was waiting for his sister to come out of high school, and they pulled out guns on this kid. They pulled out guns and handcuffed this young child. That’s happening in the United States of America. Masked men jumping out of unmarked cars. People disappearing. No due process. No oversight. Zero accountability. Happening in the United States of America today.”

He continued: “People ask, ‘Well, is authoritarianism you being hyperbolic?’ Bulls*** we’re being hyperbolic. If you’re a Black or brown community, it’s here in this country… These are not just authoritarian tendencies; these are authoritarian actions by an authoritarian government.”

And the French Laundry’s favorite son certainly knows a thing or two about authoritarianism, based on his actions in 2020: California Gov. Gavin Newsom Tries Desperately to Ditch Covid Record.

“California was among the first states to issue statewide stay-at-home orders and one of the last to lift them, keeping businesses, churches, and schools closed for extended periods.”

UPDATE: Rounds Found Near Dallas Shooter Carried ‘Anti-ICE’ Messages.

“FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION:” An Oral History of Apollo 13.

In April 1970, the crew of the Apollo 13 became the most talked-about people on Earth after a malfunction en route to the moon left three astronauts stranded 200,000 miles from home. It was one of the biggest media stories of the decade, with audiences around the world glued to their TV sets and radios.

One of the few people who missed the saga that captivated the world? Ron Howard.

Then a 16-year-old actor best known for The Andy Griffith Show, Howard spent most of the crisis at Vasquez Rocks, 45 mile north Los Angeles, filming a guest spot on the TV Western Gunsmoke. There was no TV reception, and it was hard to get the radio. By the time he emerged back to civilization, astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise had returned to Earth safely.

Twenty-five years later, Howard would more than make up for not following the saga when he directed Apollo 13, a film that tested the limits of filmmaking with its innovative solution for weightlessness (just do it for real!) and put the words, “Houston, we have a problem,” into the cultural lexicon (even if that’s not exactly what Lovell said in real life).

Released in June 1995, the film earned $223.8 million globally and received nine Oscar nominations, winning two.
The film is back in the zeitgeist, celebrating its 30^th anniversary with an Imax theatrical run from Sept. 19-25. It comes just weeks after the real-life Lovell died on Aug. 7 at age 97.

I saw Apollo 13 yesterday in that format, and it looks (and, during the Saturn V launch, sounds) spectacular, even with digital effects that were made in the early days of CGI and are only slightly showing their age when blown up on the massive Imax screen.

It’s far less of a knock-your-socks-off experience, but still well worth a look, is the 2019 documentary about Lovell’s previous Apollo mission, which is still on Amazon Prime Video: First to the Moon: Documentary Commemorates Apollo 8, First Flight to Leave Earth Orbit.

REMEMBER PETER STRZOK, THE SMIRKING ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT? He Just Lost His First Amendment Case Against the DOJ.

TRUMP GUNMAN STABS HIMSELF IN COURT:

A man convicted of trying to assassinate Donald Trump tried to stab himself in the neck in court as he was found guilty of the crime.

On Tuesday, a jury found that Ryan Routh intended to kill Mr Trump when he pointed a rifle through a fence at the US president’s Florida golf course.

After the guilty verdict was read out, Routh took a pen and stabbed himself in the neck. He was not hurt, according to Sky News.

Or to put it another way:

He failed at that too. https://t.co/ZjXHPv4JVx

— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) September 23, 2025

OUT OF THE BATHTUB, AND INTO THE FRYING PAN: Olbermann Folds Like a Cheap Suit Following Threat Dust-Up, Scott Jennings Has Perfect Response.

* * * * * * * *

This is not the first time Olbermann has seemingly openly fantasized about a GOP public figure dying or getting killed. For instance, four months before the first assassination attempt on then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, Olbermann appeared to express “hope” that Trump would get treated worse than President Abraham Lincoln, who was… assassinated.

We’ve written a lot here about people whom conservatives believe should delete their accounts, and Olbermann, perhaps more than just about any of the unhinged leftists still left on X, should consider doing just that, and follow it with some soul-searching, because stuff like this is not normal and should never be normalized, no matter how much many among the Very Online Left want it to be.

In fact, Olbermann once declared in late 2023 that he was once and for all leaving what was then known as Twitter, only to return and once again claim, in a post to Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), that he had been misinterpreted.

Flashback to the middle of 2008, when Olbermann was busy looking for “Somebody who can take [Hillary] into a room and only he comes out,” and the fall of that year, when he was worried that Sarah Palin “might stick around to be the slowest-moving target imaginable for comedians and commentators. It would be like shooting moose from a chopper.”

(Classical reference in headline.)

TWO KAMALAS IN ONE!

Shot: Harris on Trump: ‘We’re dealing with a communist dictator.’

—The Hill, yesterday.

Chaser: Mamdani Lands Endorsement From Kamala Harris, His Biggest Yet.

—The New York Times, Monday.

Trump can’t be a communist or a dictator; CNN would be falling head over heals for him if he was either one.

Incidentally, I’m so old, I can remember as far back as October, when Kamala was still smearing Trump as a national socialist, rather than an international socialist, and to May of this year, when she was calling him an American isolationist from the 1930s. Peter Lemon Moodring could not be reached for comment: