Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

September 14, 2025

GREAT MOMENTS IN COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: Roger Kimball: Why the Left Wants the Right to ‘Lower the Temperature.’

In the aftermath of the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk last week, does the Right need to “lower the temperature” of its rhetoric? That’s what the usual suspects on the Left are saying.

As it happens, “lowering the temperature” while simultaneously raising the intelligence of discussion was one of Charlie Kirk’s specialties. A theme of his campus “American Comeback” tour (which his widow Erika plans to continue) was dignified debate. “Prove Me Wrong” was Charlie’s mantra. He eagerly engaged with college students who disagreed—or, sometimes, merely thought they disagreed—with him about a wide range of political, social, moral, and religious issues.

If you have never seen him debate, I recommend you consult Mr. Google or one of his professional counterparts and watch Charlie in action. He was robust but also unfailingly kind, patient, and attentive to his interlocutors. The reason? He wished to persuade his audience about the rightness of his point of view, about the virtues of America, the wisdom of Christianity, and the leadership of Donald Trump. Charlie was fundamentally a teacher.

How about his opponents? The internet is full of revelatory compilations of left-wingers denouncing their opponents as “fascists,” “Nazis,” and so on.

One series (and here is another) includes CNN’s Anderson Cooper asking Kamala Harris whether she thinks Donald Trump is “a fascist.” “Yes, I do” was her answer.

If we as a nation need to “lower the temperature,” then the left should be thrilled that conservatives are pointing out those went on a virtual wilding spree immediately after Kirk was murdered, but curiously, they’re having the exact opposite response:

Related: A leftist angered to the point of vandalism over the text on a sign.

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

NICK FREITAS: My Response To The Left (Video).

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

September 13, 2025

ROBERT STERLING: “My liberal friends are completely oblivious about how radicalizing the last week has been for tens of millions of normal Americans. Zero clue.”

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 9:24 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 13th, 2025

JONATHAN CAPEHART ON PBS: “I Am Very Concerned” About What The Reaction To Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Will Be.

PBS Newshour: New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MSNBC join Amna Nawaz to discuss the week in politics, including the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk and the tough questions it raises about the political environment in the country.

* * * * * * * * *

[Capehart:] But because of who the victim was, just in terms of our politics, but also who he was in terms of the president and this administration, this is one thing that I have to factor in to my thinking about all this when I look at the reaction from the president and his administration, that this just this wasn’t just the murder of someone who was a like-minded person.

This was family to them. And I try to keep that in mind as I watch the reaction. But I have to tell you, I am very concerned about what that reaction is going to be in the days and weeks and months ahead.

Norm Macdonald, call your office:

Posted at 4:46 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 13th, 2025

REPORT: Tyler Robinson’s roommate who tipped off FBI is identified as family refuse to deny transgender motive for Charlie Kirk assassination.

A 22-year-old wannabe professional gamer who lived with Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin gave cops incriminating text messages leading to his arrest.

Lance Twiggs turned over Tyler Robinson, who lived with him in a three-bedroom apartment in Saint George, Utah, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Twiggs showed police texts from Robinson about stashing a gun linked to Wednesday’s shooting of the prominent conservative activist at Utah Valley University (UVU), a law enforcement affidavit said.

His identity was revealed as separate reports emerged from Fox and the New York Post which stated that Robinson was living with a ‘transgender partner’ who is co-operating with the investigation.

If true, that could explain at least one of the carvings on the alleged assassin’s bullets:

Posted at 2:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 13th, 2025

JIM TREACHER:

Pete works for a newspaper that published officer Darren Wilson’s address during the peak of the left’s Ferguson riots a decade ago.

A few years later, on the Fourth of July of 2017, CNN threatened to dox a guy for creating an animated gif of Trump in the wrestling arena smashing a chair onto a CNN logo.

Posted at 2:25 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 13th, 2025

PEGGY NOONAN: Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Feels Like a Hinge Point.

During recent national traumas we’ve heard the side argument over “thoughts and prayers.” Something terrible happens, someone sends thoughts and prayers, someone else snaps, “We don’t need your prayers, we need action.” They denounce the phrase only because they don’t understand it, and give unwitting offense. (I always hope it is unwitting.)

Prayer is action. It’s effort. It takes time. Christians believe God is an actual participant in history. He’s here, every day, in the trenches. He didn’t create the universe and disappear into the mists; his creation is an ongoing event, he is here in the world with you. When something terrible happens and you talk to him—that’s what prayer is, talking to him, communicating with concentration—you are actively asking for help, for intercession. “Please help her suffering, help their children, they are so alone.” “Help me be brave through this.”

It’s active, not passive. Catholics, when they’d pray over and over or with friends, used to call it storming heaven. It isn’t a way of dodging responsibility, it is (if you are really doing it and not just publicly posing) a way of taking it.

So pray now for America. We are in big trouble.

We all know this. We don’t even know what to do with what we know. But the assassination of Charlie Kirk feels different as an event, like a hinge point, like something that is going to reverberate in new dark ways. It isn’t just another dreadful thing. It carries the ominous sense that we’re at the beginning of something bad. Michael Smerconish said on CNN Thursday afternoon that normally after such an event the temperature goes down a little, but not in this case, and he’s right. There are the heartbroken and the indifferent and they are irreconcilable. X, formerly Twitter, was from the moment of the shooting overrun with anguish and rage: It’s on now. Bluesky, where supposedly gentler folk fled Elon Musk, was gleefully violent: Too bad, live by the gun, die by the gun.

 Related: “This is a message to the center-Left. I’m assuming it still exists. Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, you guys may be the only faction in American politics who can move to prevent a hot civil war from happening.”

 

Posted at 12:44 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 13th, 2025

BEASTMODE: Tom Cotton Eviscerates Al Jazeera Reporter Roaming Senate Halls: ‘What Do You Say About Working for a Terrorist Sympathizing Network?’

After the Al Jazeera reporter said he’d been filming in Gaza, Cotton asked how he had access to the territory.

“Who’s letting you go in to film in Gaza? That would be Hamas,” the Arkansas Republican said.

When the reporter revealed that he worked for Al Jazeera, Cotton laughed.

“That’s what I thought. Beautiful,” Cotton said. “What do you say about working for a terrorist sympathizing network?”

Al Jazeera journalists have repeatedly been tied to Hamas, with one holding Israeli hostages after Oct. 7. Another, Anas Al-Sharif, was a leader in the terror group—until he was killed by a targeted Israeli strike.

“You’re an embarrassment,” Cotton said. “You got anything more? I’m happy to keep going.”

Might as well go global; the man already owns the New York Times.

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 13th, 2025

BOMB CANADA, THE CASE FOR WAR: Scarborough teacher accused of showing Charlie Kirk murder video to kids.

The Toronto District School Board is investigating an allegation of this happening at a Scarborough elementary school.

First, a University of Toronto professor was sent home for an X post that appeared after the shooting suggesting shooting is “too good” for fascists, and now the TDSB has done the same with a teacher who allegedly showed a Grade 5 and 6 class Kirk’s assassination in Utah.

The Corvette Junior Public School teacher was not in class Friday while the TDSB investigates the complaint from parents that a class of 10 and 11 year olds was shown a graphic video of the slaying.

“Several students from his class went home and complained to their parents, traumatized at witnessing the on-camera death, which they were forced to witness numerous times over,” a source close to the situation alleged. “Parents subsequently reached out to school administrators, who will be putting him on leave at the start of the school day September 12th 2025.”

“While playing this video repeatedly, he gave a speech to his students regarding anti-fascism, anti-trans, and how Charlie Kirk deserved for this to occur,” the source claimed.

Exit question: “Can anybody imagine a teacher showing students as young as 10 the video of Charlie Kirk being murdered by a gunshot to the neck?” Sadly, after seeing the reaction by many on the left on Wednesday, we absolutely can.

Meanwhile, back in the States: NBC News Reports Teachers Are Being Fired Just for ‘Sharing Opinions’ About Killing of Charlie Kirk.

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 13th, 2025

September 12, 2025

LARRY CORREIA: “Not metaphorically. They want you to die. Some of us have known this for a long time because we pissed off the left somehow previously, but for the regular folks coming to that understanding is a life changing moment:”

Related: “Literally millions of peaceful, law-abiding conservatives who just want to be left alone have been woken up and suddenly realize that most Democrats would gladly see them dead:”

“And they’re getting bolder:”

It’s rather difficult to engage in “open dialog” with people want to see you dead:

UPDATE: Ace of Spades responds to Greenwald and writes:

No, Glenn, it’s not the same. We are not attacking the left for having differences of political opinion. We are not attacking them for having weird beliefs.

We are attacking them for celebrating assassination and murder. We are attacking them for calling for the next “pew pew” against the President Donald Trump.

If Trump goes down — we are at war.

You are right that most words are not violence. But some words are: Specifically those calling for someone to be killed, or praising an assassin for killing someone, with hopes that additional assassins will emerge.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 12th, 2025

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: The New Left-Wing Narrative: Tyler Robinson Was a White Supremacist Republican Trump Supporter.

Tyler Robinson was a normal kid from a good family who went off to college and got radicalized. It’s a pretty common story, and reminds us that colleges and universities are in desperate need of reform. Look at all the teachers and academics openly celebrating Kirk’s death.

People who go down this deep into a rabbit hole are being driven there by the gaslighting–and the gaslighters know exactly what they are doing.

In his Commentary newsletter, Abe Greenwald writes: How to Break a Generation. “To make a terrorist, you must first break the person. And that’s what we’ve done to so many in Gen Z:”

[T]heir personal discomfort was considered an intolerable condition. Every challenge was a threat. Even speech could harm them. They were ushered into therapy, diagnosed, and medicated. Some, it turned out, were discovered to have been born in the wrong bodies. This designation was to be celebrated while it turned their lives into a sci-fi nightmare.
But there were other competing nightmares to deal with. Climate change was forever on the verge of making the planet uninhabitable. Democracy was dying, while fascism waited in the wings.

Then came Covid, disruption of what normalcy they knew, complete social isolation, and years lived entirely online.

By the time Gen Z were delivered into the hands of the revolutionary professoriate, they had been sufficiently broken down and were ready to be remade. AI could cover their day-to-day responsibilities while they devoted themselves to the propaganda on their screens and in their classrooms. All that was left was for them to go out into the world and finally be something.

The writings left by some Gen Z killers read less like manifestos than dystopian personal diaries. And that’s probably what they should be understood as, reflections on the devastated life that made them who they are.

Meanwhile today, within the leftist enclaves of social media:

UPDATE: The Banality of Banality: “Robinson appears to be exactly the sort of product that the education establishment and the progressive left hope to produce by age 22. Call him the New Soviet Man for the 21st century. It is fortunate that they captured him alive as a specimen that can be studied in isolation.”

MORE:

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 12th, 2025

HOW IT STARTED: In his 1980 non-fiction anthology In Our Time, Tom Wolfe wrote, “In the fifties there was the martini. In the sixties there was vodka on ice. In the early seventies there was the glass of white wine. In the late seventies there was the bottle of Perrier, a French soda water. The fashionable American expense-account lunch drink became lighter and lighter, but not cheaper and cheaper. The soda water sold for $2.50 a glass in Manhattan restaurants.”

How it’s going:

Earlier, from Roger Simon: Living Forever: Putin, Xi and Djokovic.

Posted at 4:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 12th, 2025

WHAT KILLED CHARLIE KIRK: And, more importantly, can we stop it?

The list of iniquities, sadly, goes on and on. In the name of “criminal justice reform,” for example, hordes of violent criminals were let loose, backed up by progressive attorneys general and activist judges and local legislators who robbed law enforcement officials of any means of meting out justice. Bail, we were told, was modern day Jim Crow. Prison was slavery in other forms. Policing was racist. And when savages like Decarlos Brown Jr., with 14 prior violent convictions to his record, were set loose, it was only a matter of time before they produced a knife and slaughtered Iryna Zarutska, a young Ukrainian refugee, on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina. When brave men like Daniel Penny, who successfully neutralized a deranged violent criminal threatening to harm fellow commuters on the New York subway, intervened, they were dragged through the coals in court and on TV. When a police officer detained a repeated violent felon high on fentanyl and methamphetamines, leading to his death, American cities burned for days, with Democrat politicians taking a knee and corporations paying vast fortunes to a group, Black Lives Matter, that vowed to dismantle the nuclear family and failed to report what it was doing with its vast funds. Put bluntly, then, we have angry, violent, and hopeless people because many of our societal institutions worked assiduously to produce them since at least 2008.

All of this should be entirely coherent to any serious student of politics. What we have here is a group of people assembling an entirely coherent construction for the purpose of holding and maintaining power. And to keep this charade going even when it got patently ridiculous—arguing, say, that there were 57 genders, or that houses of worship had to be closed during COVID but liquor store and nail salons were welcome to do business as usual, or that the race riot that torched up your town was a mostly peaceful protest—the left applied its most trusted weapon, that of the permission structure. When every academic and every late night talk show host and every newspaper editorial told you that Trump was Hitler, good luck wearing your MAGA hat to the neighborhood picnic and not facing severe consequences.

At the NRO Corner, Jeffrey Blehar has a breezy look at Kamala’s campaign memoir, 107 Days, headlined, “America’s Most Famous Female Fredo Speaks,” in which he concludes:

And in the end, I am overwhelmed with the pathetic meaninglessness of it all. Reading the excerpt from 107 Days is like listening to the complaints of America’s most famous female Fredo: a washed-up loser complaining that she failed because she was given only low-stakes assignments and a lack of support from the Biden “family.” With every word, I hear her voice whining that she’s smart — not stupid, not like everyone says. (See what I mean when I say we may be in the presence of a genius ghostwriter?)

She has failed to convince anyone. In fact, she would be wise to observe the opposite of her own sage advice from above: Kamala Harris was given much; she should feel free to give us all a little bit less from now on.

But it’s worth noting that, likely with terrible internal polling data coming in, by the end of her campaign, she too willingly went along with being part of the aforementioned “permission structure” that led to Kirk’s assassination:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 12th, 2025

JOHN PODHORETZ: Here’s the danger of social media.

It allows people to publish their internal monologues. Our internal monologues and fantasies are often incredibly ugly. People go to therapists because they feel so guilty about them, and one of the tasks of a therapist is to explain that thoughts are not actions.

Read the whole thing.

Podhoretz ends with a Seinfeld reference, but we’re also deep into the “Monsters from the Id” territory of Forbidden Planet: 

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 12th, 2025

“WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE IF IT’S TRUE?” The Oral History of Wag the Dog. After I linked to clips from Wag the Dog last night in response to the news of Albania’s AI-powered “minister for public procurement,” I googled around to see if I could find a “making of” article. This 2022 Vanity Fair article is a lot of fun, until of course, the last few paragraphs when the Bad Orange Man inevitably begins to be referenced:

[William H.] Macy: Dave somehow sees into the future. I think the danger—and I think Wag the Dog gets this—is not that we will be manipulated, because ever since Homo sapiens first organized themselves, there’s been manipulation of the events and the message, and there always will be. I think the big danger is if we lose faith in any information, that all the news is fake. That’s a horseshit proposition.

[Dustin] Hoffman: It’s one of those movies that, whether I’m in it or not, I like it more each time I see it. I’ve often said that if a movie makes you cry, it usually makes you cry every time you see it, and if it makes you laugh, it makes you laugh every time you see it. This made me laugh as if it was the first time. Barry called it a satire, and it certainly is. But I also think it’s a farce, which I guess means you go as far as you can and get away with it.

[Co-Producer Jane] Rosenthal: Certainly, talking about it in 2022—we had the same kind of skepticism then, but just so much has come true that it’s not to even be believed. You just sort of wonder sometimes, Is satire dead? Would you ever be able to do a political satire again?

As the title card at the beginning of the movie asks, “Why does the dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog.” There’s a tremendous Death of Stalin-level satire that would print money just dying to be made, but there’s no way that anyone in Hollywood would admit their complicity in propping up the self-described Politburo who spent every day in power wagging the dog while occasionally sending out the desiccated husk of Joe Biden to read off the teleprompters. And everyone quoted in the above article knew it at the time of being interviewed.

Exit quote: “Through his attorney, David Mamet declined an interview for this story.”

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

REPORT: Tyler Robinson ‘full of hate’ before Charlie Kirk shooting, says family friends — while ‘Hey fascist! Catch!’ found written on bullets.

Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin Tyler Robinson was “full of hate” in the days before the shooting, according to a family friend, as authorities revealed the 22-year-old had confessed to the assassination and had been turned in by a relative.

Bullets found in the chamber of the rifle reportedly used by Robinson included apparent left-wing slogans such as “Hey fascist! Catch!” and another referencing “Oh, Bella Ciao!” a popular Italian anti-fascist song.

Andy Ngo adds: Charlie Kirk Assassin Suspect Appears to Have Killed for Antifa, Confirmed Rifle Cartridge Messages Show.

According to [Utah Gov. Spencer Cox], one cartridge was inscribed with: “Hey fascist! Catch!” Another read: “Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao.”

The latter is are lyrics from the World War II-era Italian resistance song that has been adopted by Antifa as an unofficial anthem. It is frequently sung at their rallies and the song’s titled featured on their signs and slogans. In 2019, Washington state Antifa gunman Willem van Spronsen closed his manifesto with “Bella ciao” before attacking an ICE facility in Tacoma with a rifle and incendiary devices. He was shot dead while trying to ignite a propane tank close to the building and has since been glorified by Antifa as a hero and martyr.

Gov. Cox also verbally described (and did not show) arrow inscriptions: up arrow, right arrow, and three down arrow symbols. The three down arrows may be the Antifa “Iron Front” symbol, though this cannot be confirmed until images are released.

Lastly, the governor noted that one casing read: “If you read this you are gay lmao.”

Cox’s clarification narrows the speculation: the casings bear clear Antifa references but, at this stage, do not appear to contain any direct mention of trans ideology.

Stephen Miller tweets that “ANTIFA has enjoyed the luxurious protection of one political party in this country, and has been defended by the mainstream of media, and I suspect those days are coming to an end. Forcefully.”

But alas, don’t expect much introspection from the DNC-MSM for creating the atmosphere that radicalized the alleged suspect:

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

September 11, 2025

JIM TREACHER: Murder Is Wrong, Even If You’re Angry About Losing a Debate.

Charlie Kirk was murdered during a debate.

Here were his last words:

Questioner: Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?
Charlie Kirk: Too many.
Questioner: Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?
Charlie Kirk: Counting or not counting gang violence?

Then he was shot and killed. And the feds say the ammo the shooter left behind was engraved with “transgender ideology.” Quite a coincidence, huh?

As of this writing, we don’t know who did it or exactly why. But a lot of Kirk’s self-styled enemies sure are happy about it.

And zombie Wired magazine is quite cross that the right are calling out the people who went on a virtual wilding spree yesterday on social media:

The creator of Wired magazine, before he cashed in his chips and sold the magazine to the establishment left Conde Nast in 1998, was libertarian-leaning Louis Rossetto. As the late P.J. O’Rourke, an even more famous libertarian, said in a speech to the Cato Institute in 1993, “There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”

Did the people who went on a social media wilding spree last night not expect any consequences for their hateful rhetoric? Or as Varad Mehta tweeted today:

Earlier: “They wouldn’t be rushing to film themselves saying this if they didn’t believe there was a wide audience applauding them and cultural cachet to be had. That is the culture Democrats have fostered. Now they have to take responsibility and un-foster it. Not both sides. Them.”

Or as Mark Hemingway writes: The Left Has Never Been Held Accountable For Political Violence — And That Must Change.

UPDATE: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery:

Posted at 9:44 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 11th, 2025

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Albania appoints world’s first AI-made minister.

Albania has become the first country in the world to have an AI minister — not a minister for AI, but a virtual minister made of pixels and code and powered by artificial intelligence.

Her name is Diella, meaning sunshine in Albanian, and she will be responsible for all public procurement, Prime Minister Edi Rama said Thursday.

How many Mercs will “she” procure?

Still though, if things go really pear-shaped, we can always deploy the B-3 bombers:

Posted at 9:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 11th, 2025
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