Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

June 10, 2025

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE:

Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 10th, 2025

IT’S COME TO THIS: LA Mayor Karen Bass issues World Cup threat in war with Trump over riots:

Mayor Karen Bass sent a message to Donald Trump claiming the response to the immigration protests will hurt the World Cup.

The United States is set to co-host the soccer showstopper along with Canada and Mexico next summer.

Bass, speaking at a press conference, said the city’s economy will ‘collapse’ if Trump deports more illegal migrants, and taunted him: ‘Don’t you want the World Cup to be a success for you?’

While it’s true that ESPN reported in March, “President Trump to lead 2026 World Cup task force,” Bass’s communist roots are really showing, if she thinks the former owner of a USFL team is worried all that much about soccer.

Meanwhile, as Joel Kotkin writes: Los Angeles has fallen. How can riot-rocked LA be trusted to host the Olympics?

But unless vast sums are spent on a Potemkin-like makeover, the world will also witness what many of us residents have long suspected – that the city is slipping into an inexorable decline.

Things were very different in 1932, when LA first hosted the Olympics. With a population of 1.2million – a third of today’s population – LA was still fledgling. But the 1932 games served as a wake-up call to the world that LA was on its way to becoming one of the planet’s great cities.

I covered the run-up to the second LA Olympics, in 1984. It was arguably the most successful games in history, despite Russia’s Cold War-era boycott. This was LA at its peak – with native son Ronald Reagan in the White House, and the defence, aerospace, housing and entertainment sectors all booming. ‘LA’s the place’, as the promoters then put it, and few could deny the truth of it.

Some may hope the new games will rescue the city from its doldrums. But numerous studies show that hosting an Olympics offers, at best, fleeting economic benefits – and often leaves enormous burdens. It can provide an opportunity to make a statement, heralding the rise of cities such as Berlin under the Nazis in 1936 or Beijing under the CCP in 2008. But staging an Olympics in a city plainly in decline seems a fool’s errand.

Detroit’s Mayor Jerome Cavanaugh would concur. This 1965 film, created to sell Detroit as a possible host of the 1968 Olympics, looks like something out of The Last Days of Pompeii when viewed in 2025:

Or perhaps the precursor to Bill Whittle’s new “How L.A. Dies” video:

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 10th, 2025

TERRY MORAN OUT AT ABC NEWS:

Moran dropped the mask, and revealed what everybody at the House of Stephanopoulos thinks about this administration, and with a fair amount of projection, Trump aide Stephen Miller in particular:

UPDATE:

Posted at 8:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 10th, 2025

GRETA’S BLIND EYE TO MURDER:

The Israelis know how to deport people. If this had been Britain, Greta Thunberg would be sitting in an asylum hotel right now, using a taxpayer-funded mobile phone, working as a Deliveroo driver and gearing up for 20 years of legal battles that will line the pockets of human rights lawyers.

Good riddance, I say. My only regret is that Thunberg refused to watch the footage of October 7 at a screening provided by the Israeli authorities before she was sent back where she came from. Such are the reports, anyway. In an episode rich with irony, this was the turkey in the challah sandwich (provided to the activist by Israeli commandos upon arrival).

* * * * * * * *

Let’s stop beating around the selfie yacht. It was never truly about the climate, any more than it was truly about the conflict in the Middle East. Closing her eyes to the October 7 footage crystallised the sustaining principle of Greta Thunberg: she is absorbed in a world of her own. It is a world that began with hating her teachers; went on to hating the establishment; and has ended with hating the Jews and the West, powered by endless selfies.

More here: “What happened next gives the whole game away. Why is Thunberg on her way home, you might ask, instead of valiantly opposing the Israelis? The answer is because she immediately signed a voluntary deportation agreement, leaving the rest of her crew behind in detention to propagate their ‘revolution’… When push came to shove, Thunberg ran away back to Europe instead of standing against what she falsely claims is a ‘genocide.’ She’s not a revolutionary. She’s just an attention-seeking fraud who wants to post selfies and get on television while not paying any cost for her radical activism. We’ve seen that dynamic play out many times, where Thunberg is ‘arrested’ and released within hours. She’s cosplaying.”

UPDATE:

Posted at 8:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 10th, 2025

NEO: What is the left’s goal in staging these LA riots?

So why does the left do this? I think there are many reasons. First of all, their base loves it. Secondly, it sows chaos and might actually impede some of the deportations, which stymies Trump and causes more chaos. But I believe the deeper desire is to provoke a strong reaction from Trump that can then be labeled in all the ways they love to label Trump: he’s a fascist and a power-mad brutal dictator. Today it’s the illegal criminal aliens, tomorrow it will be you!

It’s a classic leftist move. Their playbook – in US history, anyway – is the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. I wrote a piece back in 2006 about this leftist strategy. Most of the remainder of the present post will be quotes from that 2006 article, and I believe the relevance is obvious (the Horowitz link no longer works, however).

Read the whole thing.

Related: ABC News is shocked – shocked! – to discover: There are more US troops in LA than in Iraq, Syria.

There are now more U.S. troops deployed to Los Angeles than in Iraq and Syria.

There are 4,800 activated Guard and Marine personnel in LA, compared to the 2,500 troops in Iraq and 1,500 in Syria.

It’s a good start! Perhaps though, it’s time to really up the stakes in L.A.

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 10th, 2025

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

 

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 10th, 2025

POLLING NUMBERS IN? Newsom, Bass, Suddenly Talking Tough to their Shock Troops:

But they likely won’t:

Flashback to Andy Ngo in 2023: Who funds Antifa protests? We all do.

On March 5, an [National Lawyers Guild] member and staff attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center named Thomas Jurgens was charged with domestic terrorism for his alleged involvement in a violent Antifa attack on police in Atlanta.

When the NLG’s legal observers and their comrades are arrested, they’re immediately provided with pro-bono legal aid and connections for bail money (rioters often write the NLG’s phone number on their body in anticipation of arrests.)

And then the lawsuits come.

Last year, New York City agreed to pay tens of thousands to NLG members arrested in the Bronx in June 2020.

In Detroit, NLG members are suing the city for alleged wrongful conduct stemming from its police response in 2020.

Nearly every American city afflicted by mass protesting and rioting in 2020 ended up settling and paying out millions in taxpayer money to radical protesters who were allegedly subjected to force by law enforcement.

Denver settled to pay $1.6 million to just seven people.

Austin settled to pay $17.3 million.

The cities, led by Democrats, don’t even bother to fight the cases, preferring to write a check.

The settlement cash doesn’t just end up rewarding the protesters, awarded inflated attorney fees are used to reinvest in the legal groups to grow the operation for the next cause. Additionally, law enforcement morale declines as they are punished for doing their jobs.

But lawsuit settlements aren’t the only way that militant protesters and riot suspects get paid. Bail funds have emerged as a lucrative cash source with progressive district attorneys refusing to prosecute most left-wing riot-related cases.

We’ll know if Trump is serious about pushing back against the rioters if they face federal charges and lengthy prison sentences.

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 10th, 2025

YOUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS AT WORK: Oops! Masked ‘Protester’ Reveals Identity to Reporter – DataRepublican Shows NGO is Paying Her to Dissent.

First, the funny part. A pro-illegal alien protester in Asheville, North Carolina, was being interviewed by a local TV news reporter. She said and spelled out her name on air. Then said she was wearing a mask to protect her identity. Yep, they’re not sending their brightest. Then, X sleuth extraordinaire DataRepublican did some quick research. Wham! Bam! Yep, the masked fool is a paid protester.

* * * * * * * *

At the beginning of 1991’s Parliament of Whores, P.J. O’Rourke famously wrote:

Not long after Andy [Ferguson] and I met, we were driving down Pennsylvania Avenue and encountered some or another noisy pinko demonstration. “How come,” I asked Andy, “whenever something upsets the Left, you see immediate marches and parades and rallies with signs already printed and rhyming slogans already composed, whereas whenever something upsets the Right, you see two members of the Young Americans for Freedom waving a six-inch American flag?”

“We have jobs,” said Andy.

But for the protestors on the left, as we’ve learned, this is their job. Nice work if you can get it: Who’s Paying for the Violent L.A. Protests Against ICE? You Are. And It Gets Worse From There.

Oh, and speaking of “signs already printed,” a quick reminder:

And this all-time classic from the late Andrew Breitbart:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 10th, 2025

IT MUST BE THE SUMMER OF LOVE AGAIN, BECAUSE CNN HAS ACCESS TO ALL THE BEST HALLUCINOGENICS:

But is Stelter getting the wrong message, from watching footage that is “hours old?”

To be fair, Stelter isn’t the only Democrat Party operative with a Chyron who is pushing the Summer of Love message this week:

Or that they’re simply fun-filled peaceful “rallies:”

And what’s a rally without plenty of American flags?

Which presumably will quickly be set alight. But when they are, the party will demand that you ignore that it happened:

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 10th, 2025

June 9, 2025

FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL:

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

TYLER O’NEIL: Who Organized the LA Anti-ICE Protests That Escalated Into Riots?

When anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agitators took to the streets in the Los Angeles area over the weekend attacking officers, setting cars on fire, and looting, they drew attention to the left-leaning activist groups that may have helped instigate the riots.

Three major organizations have come under increased scrutiny: the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, Los Angeles; the Party for Socialism and Liberation; and the Service Employees International Union. One of these groups, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, Los Angeles, has received millions in government funding.

We should also ask the mayor of L.A. about her role in mobilizing her party’s shock troops:


Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025

ED MORRISSEY: Newsom Plans to Sue Trump to Remove Nat’l Guard.

Did these ‘protests’ interfere with the ability of ICE to execute their legitimate law-enforcement operations? They did indeed. Did Newsom or Karen Bass take action to restore order and allow those operations to proceed? They most certainly did not. Instead, Bass insisted that the city would not do anything to assist ICE in terms of their operations or protection, and Newsom refused to act. Instead, Newsom and Bass have insisted that ICE stop its legitimate operations in California rather than enforce the law. Their inaction and rhetoric attempted to leverage the violence directed at ICE as a way to prevent the Department of Homeland Security from ‘execut[ing] the law of the United States.’

Reuters spoke with four legal experts who cast doubt on this provision, but it exists clearly and explicitly in statute and in precedent. The rhetoric from Newsom and Bass — including Newsom’s remarks to Tom Homan that the NYT includes as context for this legal effort — makes it clear that Democrat leaders in California intend to prevent the federal government from executing federal laws in their jurisdiction. Newsom has taken the George Wallace/Orval Faubus position in history, and while he might find a federal judge to temporarily agree that Newsom can dictate terms of federal law enforcement in California, that won’t last long. Trump has both the law and precedent on his side here, and he will accelerate this to the Supreme Court before removing a single National Guard troop from LA.

Speaking of states’ rights issues, this ABC News employee is suddenly a big fan: The View’s Whoopi Questions Whether Trump Admin Is Now ‘Pure Fascism’ After Weekend of LA Protests. “What ever happened to states’ rights?” the ABC moderator asks.

Following a weekend of protests over ICE raids in Los Angeles being escalated by the Trump administration sending in the National Guard, “The View” host and moderator Whoopi Goldberg wondered on Monday morning if the country is now experiencing “pure fascism.”

“What ever happened to states’ rights? I thought that was what you do,” she said, kicking off the day’s Hot Topics. “Because you tell the state ‘This is what we’re thinking of doing,’ you know, you don’t just send people in. You don’t just send troops in.”

Each of the hosts agreed, and as the conversation progressed, Whoopi also called out Trump’s reinstated travel ban.

“None of the countries that are on this ‘you can’t come in here’ list seem to have done anything of note to keep them from coming in,” she said. “So, what is it? Are we about state’s rights? Are we about keeping people in or out? Are you out because you got here in a different way, because you fled the nation you live in?”

“So what is it? Is this just pure fascism that’s happening?” she added. “Is this what’s going on?”

Well, it can’t be “pure fascism,” since Whoopi Goldberg and ABC are both still very much on the air to disagree with Trump’s decisions, despite her paranoia at the beginning of 2024 that “That If Elected Again Donald Trump Will ‘Disappear’ Journalists And ‘Gay Folks.’”

As VDH asks today, “Why Is Governor Newsom Going Full Jefferson Davis? What triggered the American Civil War were state officials who refused to honor federal law and instead boasted of their open defiance of Washington.”

Back in May of 2016, he similarly explored: The Nihilism of Sanctuary Cities.

The apparent principle of sanctuary cities is akin to roulette. The odds suggest that most illegal aliens detained by officials are not career felons and thus supposedly need not be turned over to ICE for deportation. On the chance that some of their 10,000 released criminals will go on to commit further crimes in the manner of Juan Lopez-Sanchez, officials then shrug that the public outcry will be episodic and quickly die down, or will at least not pose political problems as great as would come from deporting aliens.

Yet the idea of a sanctuary city is Confederate to the core, reminiscent of antebellum Southern states picking and choosing which federal statutes they would abide by or reject. Even before the Civil War, the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33 pitted South Carolina against a fellow southerner, President Andrew Jackson, as the state declared that federal tariff laws were not applicable within its confines. Jackson understood the threat to the union, and promised to send in federal troops before South Carolina backed down.

The problem with legal nullification is always the enduring principle, never just the immediate landscape, of its implementation.

Sanctuary cities are careful to employ euphemisms rather than explicit references to illegal immigration. But not labeling San Francisco as an “illegal alien sanctuary” or even an “immigration sanctuary” only institutionalizes the idea of any city becoming a “sanctuary” from any federal law it finds convent. If sanctuary cities continue to flaunt federal immigration laws and if the federal government does not cut off federally earmarked funds to such offenders — or if ICE does not, in Jacksonian style, threaten to use force to arrest and deport illegal aliens — then the concept will spread, and spread well beyond matters of immigration law.

Hence the Bad Orange Man, and Karen Bass’s Orwellian doubletalk in response:

She’s never going to change, no matter what the consequences: OMG, Her Face! CNN Confronts Karen Bass with Trump’s Approval Ratings with Deportations and LOL (Watch).

UPDATE:

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025

GREAT MOMENTS IN OBJECTIVITY: ABC News Drops All-Time Insane Description of ‘Mostly Peaceful Protesters’ in Los Angeles.

A local ABC News affiliate in Los Angeles raised eyebrows when one of their anchors described rioters as “just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn.”

It’s the ‘Mostly Peaceful Protester 2.0.’

The ‘Fiery but Mostly Peaceful Protest’ on steroids.

I’m not sure what kind of mental exercises one has to go through to develop the ability to perform verbal gymnastics at this level, but this ABC reporter would surely take gold in the Olympics.

As Redstate’s Nick Arama reported on Sunday, pro-illegal immigrant rioters have been calling in Waymos – self-driving vehicles – just to set them on fire.

The ABC 7 news anchor, while watching these vehicles burn in the background, voiced his concerns about law enforcement stepping in and whether it might escalate the situation. You know, beyond all the criminal activity taking place.

“There’s a large group of people – it could turn very volatile if you move law enforcement in there in the wrong way, and turn what is just a bunch of people having fun watching cars burn into a massive confrontation and altercation between officers,” he said.

At PJM, Matt Margolis writes, “Who is Marc Brown, who made this insane observation?”

He’s not some random reporter; he’s the longtime co-anchor of ABC 7’s Eyewitness News and perhaps one of the most recognizable faces in Los Angeles broadcasting. Over the years, Brown has racked up an impressive collection of honors, including four Emmy Awards, a Golden Mike, and accolades from both the Associated Press and the Radio and Television News Directors Association.

Previously, during a surreal exchange on CNN, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) had to correct anchor Dana Bash after she claimed on air that these weren’t “real riots.” She tried to minimize the violence by comparing it to the 1992 Rodney King riots, as if the chaos in L.A. today somehow doesn’t qualify.

But the gaslighting didn’t stop there. CNN’s Juliette Kayyem dismissed the mayhem as merely “some unrest,” and another CNN reporter outright called the scene “very peaceful,” claiming not to have seen any violence at all.

In contrast though: L.A. Police Chief Admits Officers ‘Overwhelmed’ as Thousands of Rioters Block Freeway, Torch Cars.

UPDATE: Another ABC7 journalist has his “fiery but mostly peaceful” moment, while standing on the set of Full Metal Jacket: 

Posted at 8:15 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025

CNN: MAKE THE GULAGS GREAT AGAIN! CNN Uses Pompous Clooney Play to Say Trump Era WORSE THAN ‘Red Scare.’

Decades later, the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy remains a favorite liberal bogeyman. So who could possibly be worse? Why, Donald Trump, of course!

In a CNN This Morning segment promoting CNN’s broadcast of George Clooney’s Broadway play, Good Night and Good Luck, based on Edward R. Murrow’s media campaign against Sen. Joseph McCarthy, host Audie Cornish played a clip of CNN’s Anderson Cooper asking Clooney whether “it’s worse now than in McCarthy’s time.” Clooney replied: “It’s worse now.” Nobody asked what it was like to live under communism in the 1950s.

Cornish then asked Axios media reporter Sara Fischer for her take on Clooney’s claim that things are worse today, under Trump, than they were during McCarthy’s time (or Eisenhower’s time). Fischer dutifully agreed that things are indeed worse today. Whereas McCarthy was focused exclusively on uncovering Soviet spies, under Trump:

“It’s really focused on going after anyone who pushes back against the government, who questions power.”

As is common amongst liberals, Fischer displayed nostalgia for the good old days, when there were few news outlets, and all of them leaned left. “In the McCarthy era, there was [sic] three broadcast networks, maybe a handful of newspapers, that people listened to and read. In this era, it is so much easier to target journalism because the institution of journalism is disaggregated,”

Translation: the liberal media oligopoly has been weakened, and conservative voices can now compete. Fischer complained “we’re in the digital era now. It’s so much easier to bully and taunt people 24/7*, especially because we do have people in power who are very good at using social media, who might even own their social media networks.”

Related: George Clooney Thinks Trump’s Coming for Him.

George Clooney recently sat down with Anderson Cooper and expressed concern that Donald Trump might personally target him. For what? That time he murdered Batman on screen? Or perhaps for being the kind of guy who still thinks his political commentary matters.

Trump played a businessman on TV as himself. You played a space cowboy in Solaris. Maybe sit this one out.

George Clooney isn’t the target—he’s circling the White House

Clooney acts like Trump’s gonna storm into office and slap a target on his back like he’s public enemy number one. George, calm down—you’re not exactly top of mind outside the Vanity Fair cocktail circuit.

Evergreen:

* “It’s so much easier to bully and taunt people 24/7.” To be fair, that’s something that CNN were experts at during Trump’s first term:

Posted at 6:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025

WELCOME TO PROTEST SEASON, WHERE THE CAUSE CHANGES BUT THE TACTICS STAY THE SAME:

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025

STEVE HAYWARD: The Tanenhaus Variations.

Other prominent nodes of the [William F. Buckley] story get fresh new details, including his time at Yale and as editor of the Yale Daily News (would he get that appointment if he was at Yale today?), and the runup and rollout of his famous first book, God and Man at Yale. (Among other things, we learn that T.S. Eliot didn’t like it.) Buckley’s support for Joseph McCarthy is explicated at length, revealing more about Buckley’s ambivalence toward the man himself rather than his cause. His ambivalent relationship with Nixon is well-covered, while his relationship with Ronald Reagan, the president with whom Buckley was clearly closer both personally and ideologically, receives strangely uneven treatment. For example, there is nothing on Buckley’s split with Reagan over arms control and U.S.-Soviet relations during Reagan’s second term, nor on many other details from Reagan’s presidency about which Buckley commented relentlessly. It is just at the point that the book loses steam completely, making the reader wonder if [Sam] Tanenhaus grew bored with the project or simply wanted to release the book on the 100th anniversary of Buckley’s birth. After 800 pages detailing the Buckley story from 1925 to 1980, the years from 1980 to his passing in 2008 are condensed into just 40 pages. This “definitive” biography is definitively unfinished.

We do receive major discussion of Buckley’s time in the CIA, his dazzling personal and precarious financial life, a roller-coaster that included a near-bankruptcy in the early 1970s (throughout which Buckley never cut back his extensive personal charity, the full scope of which is only hinted at in this book), and his most egregious and consequential mistake, championing the cause of convicted murderer Edgar Smith. Buckley’s public campaign on behalf of Smith resulted in Smith’s conviction being overturned, following which Smith committed another murder with the same MO as his initial crime.

Buckley’s gullibility toward Smith is a portal to one key aspect of Buckley’s character that Tanenhaus brings out well: he was drawn to interesting people, regardless of their ideology. This explains his friendship with numerous liberals like Ken Galbraith, Norman Mailer, and even further left figures like Allard Lowenstein. Tanenhaus thinks this explains why Buckley liked to hire liberal writers, or writers who became liberal in due course, for NR, such as Garry Wills, John Leonard, and Joan Didion. Here, Tanenhaus unwittingly, perhaps, reveals his subconscious disdain for conservatism. He says that Wills, Leonard, and Didion were the best writers NR ever produced. Can he really be so obtuse as to disregard Joseph Sobran, Keith Mano, George Will, Richard Brookhiser, or Charles Kesler (among others)—all NR discoveries? Apparently so, and it is only their ideological content that can explain why Tanenhaus would ignore their talent. Tanenhaus at one point said that Buckley did not always choose his friends and business associates well; might that observation include the choice of Tanenhaus as his biographer?

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025

WAIT UNTL 2025-ERA GAVIN NEWSOM DISCOVERS WHAT GAVIN NEWSOM DID IN 2020!

UPDATE: From April of 2020:

As Jack Dunphy wrote in April of 2020: Crackdowns on Lone Surfers and Paddleboarders Threaten to Erode Respect for Law Enforcement Even Further.

UPDATE: Question asked:

MORE:

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025

RIP: Frederick Forsyth dies aged 86.

“Appalled at what he saw and using his experience during a stint as a Secret Service agent, he wrote his first and perhaps most famous novel,” the agent added.

That novel, The Day of the Jackal, was published in 1972 and propelled Forsyth to the status of a global bestselling author.

It has since been adapted into a film and more recently, a TV series starring Eddie Redmayne.

The popular novel remains the first and most enduring of his 16 thrillers and follows a hired assassin who targets Charles de Gaulle, the French president.

The TV adaptation marked the third to reach the screen, following one fronted by Edward Fox in 1973, and another that Forsyth disowns, with Bruce Willis in 1997.

Mr Lloyd said: “He will be greatly missed by his family, his friends, all of us at Curtis Brown and of course his millions of fans around the world – though his books will of course live on forever.”

* * * * * * * *

Lee Child, a fellow thriller writer, previously described The Day of the Jackal as “the book that broke the mould”.

Mr Forsyth was long known – alongside his books – for his outspokenness on political matters as a Conservative, a supporter of Brexit and a defender of traditional values.

He disliked the “woke” agenda and cancel culture, saying in 2023 that he would be “horrified” if they tried to make the TV adaptation of The Day of the Jackal “woke”.

“Touch wood, no one has yet called me out, saying my books are un-woke,” he told The Telegraph two years ago, adding: “Woke is stupid rather than sinful, but plain stupid.”

He also expressed disdain that JK Rowling was being attacked for her gender-critical views by the three former Harry Potter child stars that she was once close to.

He said he felt “particular anger on her behalf at the three young stars of the Harry Potter films – Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson – for disowning Rowling when she was attacked by trans activists”.

“These idiots were brought from nowhere to star in the films of her work and now they are against her. But without her, they’d be nowhere,” he added.

The original adaptation of The Day of the Jackal, starring Edward Fox, was of course, utterly brilliant filmmaking. As Roger Ebert wrote in 1973, “I wasn’t prepared for how good it really is: it’s not just a suspense classic, but a beautifully executed example of filmmaking. It’s put together like a fine watch. The screenplay meticulously assembles an incredible array of material, and then [Fred] Zinnemann choreographs it so that the story–complicated as it is–unfolds in almost documentary starkness.”

Posted at 4:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025

KURT SCHLICHTER: The LA Chaos Is an Illusion and Trump Will Not Fall for It.

The left has two main options going forward. One is to become even more violent and see if they can provoke an overreaction – remember, they don’t have the combat power to achieve anything by force. Even if they increase their level of violence, this is still an information operation. However, they risk overplaying their hand and justifying a forceful reaction by Trump. If some criminal – a substantial number of the rioters are not political activists but common street thugs – decides to shoot a fed and the feds shoot back, normal people are going to cheer.

The second and more likely course of action is for the word to go out to dial back the disorder. It’s not working. It’s not having the desired effect. It’s also hurting the Democrats, who tacitly support the violence but want to maintain distance from it. It’s their city that’s in chaos, not Trump’s. The Democrats are united in whining about Trump not submitting like cowards to the thugs, but all this is doing is making them look weak. It’s not Trump‘s forces that are getting pushed around by the rioters; it’s the Democrats’ local cops who are. The Democrats have had nothing but problems lately, and the last thing they needed was to have several days of news footage making them look ineffectual while also blowing the Elon vs. Donald cage match off the front pages.

The only real question is whether or not Donald Trump and his team planned this. It’s working to his advantage  – the Big Beautiful Bill debate just stopped being about saving a few pennies and became about saving our country from foreign invaders. You have to wonder whether the Trump 2.0 administration specifically choose a super leftist city to spin up ICE raids knowing that there would be a riotous backlash that they could then co-opt to message strength. Did they make a conscious decision to provide America a clear and unequivocal choice?

All I can say is that I hope so.

Christopher Rufo adds: Trump Should Crush the L.A. Riots—with a Subtle Hand.

In short, the Left is giving President Trump all the visual symbolism he needs to advance his immigration agenda. Most Americans see chaos in the name of a foreign flag and find it repellent. Though Trump’s language about a migrant “invasion” has sometimes been dismissed as hyperbolic, it seems that the Left is intent on turning it into a material reality.

The question: How should the president respond? Many on the right may feel an instinctual reaction to “send in the troops.” While this concern for law and order is natural and merited, it must be pursued in a way that maximizes the chance for success and minimizes the chance for blowback. As the president considers his options, he might keep in mind a number of strategic points that, if implemented, will increase his leverage in the fight for large-scale deportations.

The administration must deny the Left a strong visual counterargument. It’s easy to see how scenes of militarization, abuse of demonstrators, or a violent death could reverse public sympathies and present the administration as abusing its authority. The language of politics is visual—and therefore emotional, which means that a single mistake can reverse the flow of opinion and imperil the president’s immigration agenda. Left-wing tacticians have trained their foot soldiers to bait law enforcement into confrontation and to play victim for the press, to great effect.

To prevent this scenario, Trump has a number of strategic options available to him. First, rather than sending in more troops to stop the fires, the president might be better advised to hold off. Right now, California governor Gavin Newsom has sided with the demonstrators, but if the riots spread further, this stance will cost him in public opinion, and eventually, he will have to assume the mantle of authority. The public will expect Newsom to restore order, and he’ll have to incur the risk of using force.

Second, the president should pressure local leaders to buy in to the task of quelling the riots. He could wait for Governor Newsom to request the National Guard or appear at a press conference with Los Angeles County officials, bringing state Democrats into the risk-reward calculus and creating the option for the president to shift the blame in the future if they fail to respond effectively. California Democrats are anticipating that Trump will assume all the authority and, therefore, relieve them of any responsibility. He should resist the temptation to be the only player on the field with skin in the game.

However this plays out, as America’s Newspaper of Record notes, illegal immigrants are have surprisingly pitched in to help out the GOP’s 2028 messaging campaign:

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025

MARTHA’S VINEYARD HAS NEVER BEEN AT WAR WITH EAST DESANTIS:

Flashback:

The WaPo’s motto is “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Which is why they keep the fires of the memory hole glowing white hot at all times.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025

WAYMO TEMPORARILY SUSPENDS SERVICE IN LOS ANGELES:

As Jim Geraghty writes, in a lengthy Morning Jolt titled, “L.A. Burns, Again,” “Waymo driverless vehicles run on lithium-ion batteries. According to the company, a battery involved in a fire or exposed to high heat levels will release toxic vapors, including sulfuric acid, oxides of carbon, nickel, lithium, copper, and cobalt. Our brave new world of driverless cars now provides malevolent actors with mobile toxic bombs on demand.”

Just a bit of fun though, from the DNC-MSM’s perspective:

Posted at 1:36 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025

ROGER SIMON: Thank God I Left California.

I left California in 2018 after having lived there since 1968. Many were doing the same then.

I have written about this move many times in books, articles, blogs and on this Substack. The subject has started to bore me. I didn’t want to hear about California. I barely commented about the fires that were so mishandled by the state and city’s incompetent leadership.

But with the demonstrations of the last few days, the protestors blocking the 101 as I type, burning cars and pelting police, I cannot hold back.

President Trump has done the right thing calling in the National Guard. Otherwise we could have a situation much like Minneapolis during the George Floyd riots, which was and is a national disgrace with decent men going to jail and that once-great Minnesota city turned into an open air sewer .

In much bigger California the results would likely be worse. The state is on the verge, or over the verge, of being the world’s biggest asylum for the criminally insane and arguably irredeemable.

What else can one say about escalating demonstrations in favor of keeping in our country (and their state) rapists, murderers, human traffickers, sexual predators, pederasts, batterers, violent gang members and drug cartels (to name a few)?

The Democrat Party, by defending these people, is continuing to implode at warp speed. James Carville must be on the edge of heart failure. Bill Maher may have to bite the bullet and switch parties with Karin Jean-Pierre. (He’ll probably just blame Trump to save his audience.)

The leadership of California is a litany of some of the most immoral politicians in the country, every one of them a hypocritical fake: Governor Gavin Newsom, Mayor Karen Bass, Reps. Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters, and former VP Kamala Harris, among a raft of malignant narcissists in a one-party state.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 9th, 2025
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