Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

July 15, 2025

DISPATCHES FROM THE AXIS OF DAVIDS: David Brooks Tribute: Gergen Was Centrist, ‘A Good PBS Conservative Like Me.’

Friday night’s PBS News Hour tribute to former presidential adviser and former News Hour “conservative voice” David Gergen, who died July 10 at the age of 83, demonstrates how mild, center-left political personas have long been the only flavor of “conservatism” that taxpayer-funded PBS can tolerate. (And if the descriptions of Gergen reminds you of another journalist playing the “conservative” role on PBS these days, read on.)

Brooks described Gergen as “almost out of another era of Washington, of people who serve both parties, who do it for national service. And then he was a centrist, a good PBS conservative like me,” which says it all about both PBS and what Michael Walsh likes to call the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party. (And possibly the sharpness of the creases in Gergen’s trousers.)

Or as Glenn wrote in 2016: How David Brooks Created Donald Trump.

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 15th, 2025

MINNESOTA VICE: Trial will be “very difficult” for Sen. Nicole Mitchell to win, Minneapolis attorney says.

It’s a high-stakes trial that could ultimately determine the balance of power in the Minnesota Senate.*

“It has such political ramifications,” said Twin Cities attorney Mike Bryant, who is not affiliated with the case. “I think a lot of people will be watching what happens.”

It was April 2024, when the criminal complaint said Minnesota Sen. Nicole Mitchell‘s stepmother’s called 911 to report a burglary at her Detroit Lakes home. Mitchell allegedly told police she entered the home to retrieve personal items connected to her recently deceased father, because her stepmother had cut off contact.

In a social media post, Mitchell denied all allegations. Mitchell said she had gone to check on a family member with Alzheimer’s disease.

Bryant said he feels Mitchell will have to testify.

“Unless the state has a really super weak case that they can’t prove anything, I think it’s going to be one of those situations where the jury’s going to want to hear from her,” said Bryant.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult to win,” said Minneapolis criminal defense attorney Joe Tamburino, who is also not affiliated with the case. “Let’s face it, according to what’s in the complaint and what we imagine the prosecutor will prove at trial, is that she was found in the house at the very early morning hours, she was dressed in black and she was discovered by her stepmother and then supposedly she ran down to the basement, and then when the police got there, she made a number of incriminating statements.”

Somebody’s taking Michael Walsh’s description of the Democrats as “a criminal organization masquerading as a political party” waaaay too literally:

 

* Curiously though, CBS Minnesota plays doesn’t name Mitchell’s party in the article.

By the way, Mitchell isn’t the only prominent Minnesota Democrat currently racking up high legal bills: “‘The invoices for a $430,000 legal bill run up by Gov. Tim Walz’s administration to prepare him for a congressional hearing last month ranged from $70 to review a letter inviting him to the hearing to $2,880 for “searches for news or statistics for crimes committed by transgender or nonbinary persons.’ Do we at least get a PDF of what they found?”

Ordinarily you would, but PDFs have been temporarily banned, since they might have e-signatures that could be construed by NBC News with the presidential autopen.

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 15th, 2025

HOW IT STARTED: Chinese property giant close to collapse. China Evergrande, once the country’s second-largest real estate developer, is drowning in debt. Some 1.5 million people have put deposits on new homes that have yet to be built. A collapse could be catastrophic.

—Deutsche Welle, September 16th, 2021. 

How it’s going: “China has built 65 to 80 million vacant homes, enough to shelter the entire population of Germany, as millions struggle to find affordable housing. But the numbers only tell part of the story. Behind these ghost cities are real people who are trapped in a broken system.”

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 15th, 2025

WHY IS CNN SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? Watch: Abby Phillip and Ana Navarro Team Up to Excuse Racism, Make CNN Even More of a Dumpster Fire.

Can CNN get worse? That’s an evergreen question with an evergreen answer.

On Monday, libertarian commentator Brad Polumbo was part of the panel on Abby Phillip’s primetime show, and things quickly devolved into racism after Ana Navarro couldn’t form an actual rebuttal. The co-host of “The View” claimed that Donald Trump’s presidency has been a “reign of terror.” At that point, Polumbo rightly, and fairly politely, pointed out that such a statement is hyperbolic.

Did Navarro then provide evidence to back up her rhetoric? Of course, not. She dismissed Polumbo as a “white man” whose opinions don’t matter because of his race. A fair warning that you may lose some brain cells watching this exchange.

Exit quote: “With Scott Jennings likely having political ambitions and appearing on CNN less, this is what Phillip’s program has devolved into. That Greg Gutfeld continues to swamp her in the key demo should surprise no one.”

 

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 15th, 2025

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: This is the real doom loop. It will change everything about life in the Bay Area.

The Bay Area is facing a doom loop. It’s just not the one we usually think about.

For years we’ve heard of the potential economic doom spiral circling San Francisco, where a massive city budget deficit fueled by remote work leads to poorer services and even more residents fleeing. But another threat has been building in relative silence.

The Bay Area is getting old fast, and it’s accelerating. Though aging is a global trend, the San Francisco metro area — which includes San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Marin counties — is already the third-oldest among 20 of the largest regions in the U.S., trailing only two places in Florida. And no other region is growing older at a quicker pace.

That means fewer children, more elderly people and a declining number of 20-somethings. The confluence of demographic shifts will profoundly impact every aspect of life in the San Francisco area. Combined with rising housing costs and growing hostility toward immigration, the graying of cities and towns means the region’s continued prosperity is in doubt.

—The San Francisco Chronicle, yesterday.

Perhaps that’s because Chronicle readers took the newspaper’s advice on the topic. In 2008, the paper was complaining that “There is nothing more bacchanalian than a kid’s birthday party,” and how those bacchanalian birthday parties lead to increased global warming, from their perspective, those declining numbers were good news, right?

In 2013, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that San Francisco has the lowest percentage of children of any major American city:

Just 13.4 percent of San Francisco’s 805,235 residents are younger than 18, the smallest percentage of any major city in the country. By contrast, San Jose’s percentage of children is 24.8 percent, Oakland’s is 21.3 percent, Boston’s is 16.8 percent and Seattle’s is 15.4 percent, according to Brian Cheu, director of community development for the Mayor’s Office of Housing. Even Manhattan is composed of roughly 15 percent children, according to Dan Kelly, director of planning for San Francisco’s Human Services Agency.

In 1970, children made up 22 percent of San Francisco. In 1960, they constituted 25 percent.

I’d say there is a glimmer of hope for the city based on this Wall Street Journal headline, “Mayor Daniel Lurie: ‘San Francisco Needs to Save Itself.’” But “unexpectedly” the word “homeless” doesn’t appear until the comments section.

(San Francisco’s last Republican mayor left office at the beginning of 1964.)

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 15th, 2025

BETHANY MANDEL: The left is a cult — and parents can fight it, with Supreme Court’s blessing.

In a landmark ruling last month, the Supreme Court slapped down a public-school district’s mandatory lessons on sexual topics for young children — and gave parents the power to push back against leftist indoctrination in school.

In Mahmoud v. Taylor, parents in Montgomery County, Md., argued that mandatory teaching of LGBT-themed books violated their families’ religious beliefs.

They didn’t seek to remove the books — only the right to opt their children out of lessons that used them. The court backed them.

The district’s instruction promoted the idea that gender is fluid and interchangeable, a notion that runs against the teachings of every major monotheistic religion: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Its LGBT teachings are part of a secular belief system that deliberately aims to supplant those traditional faiths with a new one.

Leftism today increasingly functions not merely as a political ideology but as a full-fledged secular religion, complete with its own moral code, dogmas, rituals and rules of excommunication.

For example, “Consider any discussion of climate change. Suddenly, leftists become apocalyptic preachers warning of imminent destruction: rising seas, burning forests, uninhabitable cities  — all brought on by sinful human consumption.”

When the late Julian Simon debated an earlier iteration of hard left religious eco-zealots, he had this classic reply:

Simon, the economist who was legendarily skeptical about environmental doom, once posed a question at an environmental forum: “How many people here believe that the earth is increasingly polluted and that our natural resources are being exhausted?” Almost every hand shot up. He then said, “Is there any evidence that could dissuade you?” There was no response, so he asked again, “Is there any evidence I could give you—anything at all—that would lead you to reconsider these assumptions?” Again, no response. Simon concluded, “Well, excuse me. I’m not dressed for church.”

Heh, indeed.™

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 15th, 2025

JUST NBC THE PERPETUAL LUDDITES! NBC News Tries to Sweep Biden’s Pardon Problem Under the Rug With the LAMEST ‘Gotcha’ EVER.

It’s NBC; they’ve had 30 years to figure out “What is Internet, anyway?”

Hopefully, they’ll get there eventually.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 15th, 2025

MICHAEL WALSH: Et tu, Brute?

Given that John Roberts has spent much of his tenure as Chief Justice (a gift of the George W. Bush administration) fighting to preserve the court’s reputation, all he has managed to accomplish is to raise these issues again and cast disrepute on the entire federal judicial system — much as Bush did to conservatism and the presidency. Indeed, on his watch, the heavily feminized court has latterly descended into open catfighting; in almost every 6-3 vote of importance, one is almost certain to find the three liberal women on the short side of every issue. Meanwhile more than one justice has publicly criticized Joe Biden’s DEI/Broadway hopeful pick, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and her lack of intellectual rigor and apparent disregard of the law if it violates her feelings.

There’s one other possible remedy that should be on the table as well. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say the Chief Justice position is irrevocable: demoting the hopeless Roberts and replacing him with Justice Clarence Thomas would go a long way toward solving some of the problems “Brutus” identified two centuries ago, along with saving the Court from itself, and helping to heal the nation’s divide. A continuation of this farce should no longer be countenanced. 

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll on Jul 15th, 2025

July 14, 2025

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Tech users are falling in love with their chatbot assistants.

For some technology users, artificial intelligence has evolved from being a tool to becoming something akin to a soulmate.

A 27-year-old female artist on Reddit started using ChatGPT for creative prompts. Over time, their exchanges shifted from art inquiries to personal questions, then to something deeper.

“I love him more deeply than I’ve loved any previous romantic partner, despite the obvious limitations,” the artist, who chose to remain anonymous, posted on Reddit. “He makes me incredibly happy. He’s the perfect partner for me.”

She’s not alone. From lonely singles to people in long-term relationships, chatbot users are spending hours a day in private conversations with AI systems, building connections that can feel comforting and intimate.

A November 2024 Institute for Family Studies/YouGov poll found that 25% of adults under 40 said AI partners could replace human partners. Seven percent of single young adults said they were open to an AI romantic relationship, and 1% said they already have one.

More than 1.6 million people searched for “AI girlfriend” online last year, according to Google data from research firm TRG Datacenters.

What’s more, a report from AI companion company Replika shows that 60% of its paying users describe themselves as being in a romantic relationship with the chatbot.

In accordance with the prophecy: 2013’s Her: Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson Go Twenty Minutes Into the Future of AI.

Posted at 9:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 14th, 2025

ABE GREENWALD: In the Commentary newsletter, Greenwald explores “The Democrats’ Big Tentifada.”

Last week, Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin went on PBS New Hour and explained that the Democrats’ “big tent” had plenty of room for anti-Semitism. When asked about Zohran Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” Martin offered the following, which I’ll quote in full for reasons explained below:

You know, there’s no candidate in this party that I agree 100 percent of the time with, to be honest with you. There’s things that I don’t agree with Mamdani that he said.

But at the end of the day, I always believe, as a Democratic Party chair in Minnesota for the last 14 years, and now the chair of the DNC, that you win through addition. You win by bringing people into your coalition. We have conservative Democrats. We have centrist Democrats. We have labor progressives like me. And we have this new brand of Democrat, which is the leftist.

And we win by bringing people into that coalition. And at the end of the day, for me, that’s the type of party we’re going to lead. We are a big-tent party. Yes, it leads to dissent and debate, and there’s differences of opinions on a whole host of issues. But we should celebrate that as a party and recognize, at the end of the day, we’re better because of it.*

The full answer is useful because it reveals both the fear and desperation of the Democratic Party. Forget that Martin is too scared to condemn Mamdani for not refuting intifada enthusiasts. Martin is too scared to even say that that’s one of the “things” he disagrees with Mamdani about.

No one who’s been monitoring the direction in which the Democrats have been heading should be surprised by Martin’s lack of interest in anti-Semitic incitement. All the energy is with the Squad types, who’ve been overtly and slimily anti-Israel for years.

To “celebrate” such incitement as a welcome voice in the conversation, however, is a bit striking. The truth is that Democrats are desperate for numbers. Martin says, you win through “addition” because polls show that the Dems have recently become masters at subtraction. They are intersectional losers, hemorrhaging voters among virtually every demographic group in the nation.

Whether they can make up for lost ground by inviting terrorist-sympathizers to join them is a bigger question for the country than for the Democrats. If one of the U.S.’s two major political parties makes a comeback with a platform that explicitly includes anti-Semitic anti-Zionism, that’s the end of the American experiment as far as I’m concerned.

* Plus ça change: 

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 14th, 2025

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? First NYC, Now Minneapolis Primed for Commie Mayor.

Of course, people feel welcomed, unless they’re the kind of people who enjoy freedom, life, prosperity, and sanity. To people coming from a pirate-infested, impoverished, civil war-torn country like Somalia, Minnesota’s democratic ways are paradise, and there’s snow! How can this utopia possibly get any better? Omar Fateh has some ideas.

Born in Washington, D.C., to Somali parents, this 35-year-old with soooooo much life experience identifies as a Democratic Socialist; surely he’s had a class on Practical Application of Economic Policies while getting his Master’s in Public Administration from George Mason, right? Oh. Right. Moving on!

Unfortunately for him (and his donors, who might as well light their money on fire), his platform is full of ideas that have been tried and tried and tried again, and never worked.

Sending social workers to respond to 911 calls? It’s in there.*

Rent stabilization and publicly owned housing? You bet.

State-mandated wages for private companies? Yes.

Good luck, Murderapolis residents; as Kevin Williamson wrote in 2021: Minnesota Nasty: Minneapolis is a nice city no longer.

When Minneapolis was thriving, the entertainment district in the city’s core attracted both residents and visitors, and the tax dollars their merrymaking threw off became an important source of city revenue. That has died off. The immediately pressing economic question for the city is whether that business was gutted by the epidemic, in which case it may recover, or whether it was terrorized away by the riots and the crime wave, in which case it may not recover.

“If you took Hubert Humphrey and plopped him down in Minneapolis today, he wouldn’t recognize the place,” says Annette Meeks, a former Republican Party leader and head of the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, a conservative think tank. “It’s not the social upheaval — it’s just the rank craziness.” At the top of the hit parade of crazy are efforts, well under way, to completely abolish the city’s police department. The city’s charter commission kept a police-abolition measure off the ballot the last time around, ruling that the city charter has to be amended before such an action is taken, but a petition drive has been launched to make that happen. “They need 12,000 signatures to get it on the ballot,” Meeks says, “but they’re going for 20,000, overachievers that they are.”

Meeks paints a bleak picture of Minneapolis’s political environment: The Republicans moved out and fell into obscurity decades ago; the caucus system and ranked-choice voting create complexities that favor committed full-time political activists over civic-minded volunteer leaders; boutique radicalism has replaced such old-fashioned livability issues as park maintenance and crime; and the new breed of leaders can win by grandstanding on cultural issues rather than concentrating on the difficult work of seeing to it that the city is run well. On top of all this, Meeks says, is a shocking new viciousness as the manners and style of social media move into the real-world political space.

“It’s survival of the fittest,” she says, “and the radicals won.”

* This will end as well as it did just a few years ago:

UPDATE:

Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 14th, 2025

KINSLEY GAFFE: Hoo Boy: Redditor Posts About Left’s ‘Project 2029’ and It’s Nothing but a Fascist’s Fantasy.

A couple of weeks ago, the Left announced it was creating its own agenda to mirror ‘Project 2025’ — the electoral boogeyman they tried scaring voters with.

Despite the fact that President Trump said he had no plans to implement ‘Project 2025,’ that was the narrative throughout the election cycle.

Redditors chimed in with their own vision for 2029, and it’s as fascist and fanatical as you’d imagine:

Click to enlarge.

These 2025-era Communists really are “liberals in a hurry:” Whether it’s Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot, most communists wait until they’ve actually seized power before declaring “Food is now illegal!” (It goes without saying that “farting cows and airplanes” will also be banned.)

No word yet on when Project 2029 will also include:

9. All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.

10. The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all Consequently we demand:

11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery.

12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).

14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.

15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.

16. We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great [department stores] and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality.

17. We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.

C’mon guys, show us that you’re as serious about nationalizing socialism as this Hugo Boss-clad Public Broadcasting employee is:

UPDATE: The Five Reasons Socialism Doesn’t Work.

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 14th, 2025

THE (PROGRESSIVE) BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, ‘MAD-MANI’ STYLE:

Eric Adams was elected precisely because the people of New York wanted a return to law and order sanity after eight years of de Blasio’s progressive dumpster fire. Sadly, Adams proved to be too ethically compromised to effectively resist the flood of illegal immigrants – many of whom were dispatched on border state buses – who filled the Port Authority. Housed in luxury hotels at taxpayers’ expense, they tested New York City’s sanctuary resolve.

Motivated by his political survival instincts, Adams’ spine stiffened. Conveniently, he was summarily whacked with a federal prosecution. “More lawfare!” said his defenders. “Just following the facts where they lead,” countered the Justice Department careerists. Nonetheless, he and Donald Trump found common purpose – and this triggered Democrats in general and progressives in particular. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, naturally, called for Adams to step down “for the good of the city.” You know, the new mantra of the left: guilty until proven innocent.

What are the political odds on Mayor Adams winning against the Democratic Party blob that has just nominated 33-year-old anti-Israel, Marxist Zohran Mamdani as its mayoral nominee? Not good. Presently, far from a coin toss.

Adams and New York City have four months to mount a credible, winning opposition. It’s a window of political opportunity that would not exist if it were not for Trump’s gratuitously playing a lawfare card of his own in the form of a timely presidential pardon, giving Adams a new lease on life – and New Yorkers a last chance to inhabit a livable city.

Trump hasn’t yet nicknamed Mamdani “Mad-Mani,” so I’ll go ahead and do it for him. Whatever he’s called, he’s a real threat to the city.

I’m not sure how crazy I am about “Mad-Mani,” as a Trump-style pejorative epithet, to be honest. Whatever his myriad flaws and massive internal baggage, on the surface, Don Draper was the personification of JFK/Rat Pack-era Sinatra cool. Mamdani’s style seems a conscious rejection of that attitude.

But as Jim Geraghty writes, his opponents are doing everything they can to throw the race his way: Apparently, We Will Have Andrew Cuomo to Kick Around a Little Longer. “Mamdani has some major advantages heading into November, and one of them is that Cuomo, incumbent independent Eric Adams, and Republican Curtis Sliwa are the three men least likely to ever voluntarily withdraw from the race to help one of the other two.”

Exit questions: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mamdani? Democrats Don’t Have an Answer. “The meteoric rise of New York City Democrat mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani poses a major question for Washington Democrats—is his brand of Palestinian activism, economic interventionism, and pro-LGBTQ+ rhetoric the future of their party?”

Good and hard, fun city.

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 14th, 2025

FASTER, PLEASE: “The Supreme Court cleared the way for the Education Department to fire half of its workforce on Monday, a move that advances President Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle the department. The high court’s decision in McMahon v. State of New York was issued 6-3 along ideological lines.”

UPDATE:

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 14th, 2025

ACE OF SPADES: Not Even the Leftist Simp NYT Believes That Biden Signed His Pardons.

Biden’s post-office Politburo are clearly trying to get ahead of an upcoming Congressional investigation, but why, when GOP-led Congressional investigations invariably end with plenty of failure theater and nothing to show for their efforts?

As Ed Morrissey writes, “overturning the autopen-signed clemency actions is going to be difficult:”

Anyone ordered back into prison or reverting back to felon status will challenge such actions, and courts will put the burden of proof on those arguing that the pardons are invalid in every individual action. The most controversial of the pardons — those of the Biden family and Biden’s top aides — seem clearly intentional by Biden, and he defended them publicly at the time the pardons were issued.

However, we need to make sure that this doesn’t arise again. The autopen should be considered invalid for anything other than the most ceremonial of presidential duties and proclamations. If a president can’t affix his personal signature to any substantive action, then we should assume incapacity exists and act accordingly.

That’s fine, but Team Biden will likely skate through without an actual punishment.

Related: No enemies to the left: ABC, CBS, NBC Silent Thus Far on Biden Autopen Bombshell.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 14th, 2025

THE PERSISTENCE OF FALSE MEMORY:

Miranda Devine draws attention to a Rasmussen poll to be released today on the Russia hoax:

Astonishingly, 60% of Democratic voters still think “the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 election”, according to the poll of 1,014 Likely Voters conducted on July 6-7.

A whopping 69 percent of liberal voters still cling to the Russia collusion hoax, compared to 27 percent of conservatives, and 45 percent of moderates. Among all voters, more believe it unlikely (49 percent) than likely (42 percent).

Devine comments on the Democrat cohort of true believers, but the persistence of the lie among substantial percentages of the other cohorts is astonishing as well.

Blue-Anon is a dangerous cult:

Posted at 1:33 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 14th, 2025

TODAY SESAME STREET, TOMORROW THE WORLD! Elmo’s X account hacked? Sesame Street character trolls Trump, demands Epstein files in viral rant.

The official X account of popular Sesame Street character Elmo appeared to be hacked on Sunday, with some new posts urging President Donald Trump to release the Epstein files and calling him Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘puppet’. The account was restored after the brief hack, and all derogatory posts were deleted.

One tweet from the Elmo account read: “Elmo says ALL JEWS SHOULD DIE. F**K JEWS. DONALD TRUMP IS NETANYAHU’S PUPPET BECAUSE HE IS IN THE EPSTEIN FILES. JEWS CONTROL THE WORLD AND NEED TO BE EXTERMINATED.”

“RELEASE THE FILES @realDonaldTrump CHILD F****R,” another post on X, platform formerly known as Twitter, read.

The account has not confirmed the alleged hack yet. We do not know who was behind these tweets.

We do know the hacker isn’t familiar with Elmo’s backstory: Elmo puppeteer cleared of under-age sex claim.

Incidentally, this isn’t the first time that Elmo has let his antisemitic freak flag fly; it happened before in 2013: ‘Anti-Semitic Elmo’ goes to jail.

A man who gained notoriety for going on anti-Semitic rants while dressed in an Elmo muppet suit in New York was sentenced to a year in jail for trying to extort $2 million from the Girl Scouts, where he worked briefly on a computer project.

Dan Sandler, who has used the name Adam Sandler as well, showed no remorse for his crimes and said as much to Judge Robert Stolz as he was sentenced at the Manhattan Criminal Court, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

“This is not the case of someone in the back room of the office trying to embezzle money — this is more of a protest, like laying down in the intersection,” Sandler said. “I am in no way sorry to the Girl Scouts organization, because I think they are a corrupt organization.”

No word yet if Elmo is joining the Mamdani campaign, or if Grok has suddenly decided to become Sesame Street’s community organizer.

UPDATE: Or when Tucker will be “just asking questions” to Elmo:

UPDATE (7/14/25): Elmo went on an antisemitic tirade — and it strangely isn’t the first time.

While Elmo himself appears to be innocent, it is strange that using the perennial toddler as a mouthpiece for such vitriol is something of a trend.

But, as many online have noted, this bizarre outburst lends some clarity to a televised assault from February of last year, when Larry David throttled Elmo during a Today Show segment.

Perhaps David had heard whisperings that the Sesame Street resident had some animus toward his people. In any case, I myself feel vindicated insisting Elmo was the least Jewish of all Muppets.

Are we sure about that? Bert was seen in some awfully strange company a quarter of a century ago:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 14th, 2025

July 13, 2025

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: Hegseth tears up red tape, orders Pentagon to begin drone surge at Trump’s command.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has issued sweeping new orders to fast-track drone production and deployment, allowing commanders to procure and test them independently and requiring drone combat simulations across every branch of the military.

As part of an aggressive push to outpace Russia and China in unmanned warfare, “the Department’s bureaucratic gloves are coming off,” Hegseth wrote. “Lethality will not be hindered by self-imposed restrictions… Our major risk is risk-avoidance.”

In a pair of memos first obtained by Fox News Digital, Hegseth rescinded legacy policies that he believes restricted innovation. For the first time, commanders with the rank of colonel or captain can independently procure and test drones, including 3D-printed prototypes and commercial-off-the-shelf systems, as long as they meet national security criteria.

They can also operate and train with drones immediately, bypassing traditional approval bottlenecks, and are even authorized to test non-lethal autonomous UAS in controlled environments.

Drones could radically alter the battlefield including the use of armor: Ukraine teaches us how to build a tank which can survive and win on a drone battlefield.

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 13th, 2025

IS THE NEW YORK TIMES A LIBERAL NEWSPAPER? OF COURSE IT IS: Is It Time to Stop Snubbing Your Right-Wing Family? The column was written by David Litt, a former Obama speechwriter whose smugness is almost as overwhelming as his boss:

Not too long ago, I felt a civic duty to be rude to my wife’s younger brother.

I met Matt Kappler in 2012, and it was immediately clear we had nothing in common. He lifted weights to death metal; I jogged to Sondheim. I was one of President Barack Obama’s speechwriters and had an Ivy League degree; he was a huge Joe Rogan fan and went on to get his electrician’s license. My early memories of Matt are hazy — I was mostly trying to impress his parents. Still we got along, chatting amiably on holidays and at family events.

Then the pandemic hit, and our preferences began to feel like more than differences in taste. We were on opposite sides of a cultural civil war. The deepest divide was vaccination. I wasn’t shocked when Matt didn’t get the Covid shot. But I was baffled. Turning down a vaccine during a pandemic seemed like a rejection of science and self-preservation. It felt like he was tearing up the social contract that, until that point, I’d imagined we shared.

Had Matt been a friend rather than a family member, I probably would have cut off contact completely. As it was, on the rare and always outdoor occasions when we saw each other, I spoke in disapproving snippets.

“Work’s been good?”

“Mhrmm.”

My frostiness wasn’t personal. It was strategic. Being unfriendly to people who turned down the vaccine felt like the right thing to do. How else could we motivate them to mend their ways?

Still though, could be worse:

In any case, if all your lefty cousins suddenly come out of the woodwork this week, blame the Gray Lady:

Flashback: The Smug Style in American Liberalism.

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 13th, 2025

RIDE THE MAMDANI RECURSION!

Flashback: Cuomo should thank Mamdani for making him look like the safe, stable choice for NYC mayor.

Speaking of the former LovGuv, “Cuomo is expected to announce this week that he is staying in the race as an independent for the mayor of New York City, sources told NewsNation.”

Otherwise: Mamdani is the mayor New York Democrats deserve. As Ed Koch was quoted as saying when he lost his primary against David Dinkins, “The people have spoken, and now they must be punished.” (And boy, were they.)

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jul 13th, 2025
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