Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

January 12, 2026

SAY, I’M BEGINNING TO HAVE MY DOUBTS THAT THIS MAMDANI FELLA’S INTENTIONS ARE HONORABLE: NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani quietly makes it harder for feds to monitor Tren de Aragua gang at Rikers.

Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani has quietly made it harder for federal agents to monitor Tren de Aragua and other brutal gangs in Rikers Island.

Mamdani revoked Executive Order 50 on his first day in office — which gave federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the ability to monitor the brutal Venezuelan gangbangers inside the city jail.

Hizzoner killed the initiative as part of a broad directive that repealed all executive orders issued by his predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams, between Sept. 26 and Dec. 31.

* * * * * * * *

Federal agents are worried because this is the first time the gang’s thugs in the US are just 15 miles apart from their leader, Venezuelan strongman Nicholas Maduro, who’s locked up in a federal jail in Brooklyn.

“Zoran kills exec order No 50 just as we should be more focused on the Venezuelan gang in Rikers — did he know that? Does he think that the gang should have one less pair of eyes,” the source said.

I’d say that’s an exceedingly safe bet, alas:

Why, it’s as if: Mamdani’s appointees are as mad as you’d expect.

UPDATE:

Posted at 2:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 12th, 2026

TANKER SEIZURE UPDATES: More Details Emerge About U.S. Interdiction of Russian-flagged Ship. “As a sidenote, it is worth pointing out that two of these [C-17] aircraft – 23648 and 25359 – were involved in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, immortalized in the film Black Hawk Down. 23648 flew as STAR 41 and was the first unit able to respond to the downing of SUPER 61, landing nearby and recovering the two Delta snipers who had survived the crash. One would later succumb to his injuries.”

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 12th, 2026

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Hollywood Honors Renee Good, Ignores Hundreds Killed in Iran.

The Iranian people could use a hand right about now.

Thousands are protesting their cruel, dictatorial government, a brave stance that has stunned the world.

Well, most of the world.

The tiny sliver of land known as Hollywood couldn’t bother to address the matter at Sunday’s Golden Globes telecast. Some predicted that sorry state of affairs.

Still though, points to Hollywood for their epic bravery at times like this:

Evergreen: “Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion.”

—Harvey Weinstein, 2009.

Speaking of which: Melissa Gilbert Bought ‘Christmas Gifts’ for Husband Timothy Busfield’s Alleged Child Victims, Arrest Warrant States.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 12th, 2026

QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: “What is queer food?”

The question “what is queer food?” is, we’re told by Professor Elias, “a question that’s coming up a lot lately.” If only among academics desperate for an angle, an excuse for claiming a salary and wasting other people’s time. Academics much like Professor Elias.

Elias said she does not have a definition for what “queer food” is, but wants “recognition” it exists.

Welcome to the bleeding edge of human mental activity.

David Thompson’s post is appropriately headlined: Issues Of Earth-Rumbling Import.

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 12th, 2026

January 11, 2026

TRIGGERNOMETRY INTERVIEWS GREG GUTFELD (Video):

Exit quote: “For a long time, we were—using the Dean Wormer analogy from Animal House—we were Dean Wormer, the evil head of the college, and the left was Animal House. I always felt my role was to somehow flip that. And that’s what you’re seeing now: the scolds, the humorless people—the Karens of the world—are on the left. The people on the right are the ones having fun, being a bit reckless here and there, but that’s part of free speech. We’re sharing the risk. We’re not scared anymore. And I think that’s really the answer to your question.”

Posted at 6:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 11th, 2026

DATA REPUBLICAN: Minnesota as a Systems Failure: How NGOs process dissent until reality no longer matters.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 6:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 11th, 2026

THE PROBLEM ISN’T ICE. IT’S ICE WATCH:

Now, consider why  [Renee Nicole Good] was there. As Steven Vago, Chris Nesi and Natalie O’Neill of the New York Post reported, Good “was part of a group of activists who worked to ‘document and resist’ the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota . . . Good became involved in ‘ICE Watch’ — a loose coalition of activists dedicated to disrupting ICE raids in the sanctuary city . . . Coalitions similar to ICE Watch have cropped up all over the country — with activists using phone apps, whistles and car horns to warn neighborhoods when ICE shows up. ICE Watch and adjacent groups can also turn confrontational — with numerous instances of activists ramming agents with their cars in the past.”

As the Post report notes, “ICE agents have faced an unprecedented spike in car attacks, surging by some 3,200 percent over the last year, shocking data released by the Department of Homeland Security revealed to The Post.”

Our own Haley Strack has more in depth-reporting on ICE Watch:

ICE Watch chapters, which have cropped up in communities across the country in recent years, train activists to monitor ICE activity using purpose-built apps and alert allies who have been trained to flood an operation area and interfere with arrests being made. An Instagram account identified as “MN Ice Watch” instructs to report the locations and appearances of ICE agents. The account has posted photos across Minneapolis of law-enforcement agents, vehicle license plate numbers, and ICE officers’ faces; the account generates information via anonymous reports and submissions from local activists.

On a tab titled “Education,” the account promotes information about how to “de-arrest” individuals who have been arrested by law-enforcement by “physically removing an arrestee from a law enforcement officer’s grips, opening the door of a car or pressuring law enforcement officers to release an arrestee.” The “de-arrest primer” goes on to describe the benefits of blocking police vehicles. “If you don’t have a crowd asserting pressure there may be some interference charges that come with blocking a police vehicle that may be more easily handed down for only one or two people blocking a police vehicle, but in many cases these are misdemeanor offenses and catch and release,” the primer notes.

Read the whole thing; this is far beyond simply engaging in protest speech to bring attention to a political controversy or an injustice. It’s a campaign that aims at two ends, neither of which is mutually exclusive: thwarting the enforcement of laws passed by Congress, and/or provoking conflict and confrontation with armed federal agents in the hope of discrediting the enforcement of those laws. And ICE Watch chapters and similar organizations are doing this sort of thing all across the country. Good’s death is the inevitable, and to some extent intended, outcome of this style of direct action, which is designed to create headline-grabbing conflict and drama.

NRO’s Jeffrey Blehar compares “Ice Watch” and their ilk to the libertarian-leaning “sovereign citizen” movement:

Tweet continues:

They remind me of nobody so much as “sovereign citizen” types. (Their arguments are of that caliber.) The problem is there are exponentially more of them.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, the YouTube algorithm offered me up police bodycam videos dealing with traffic stops where the drivers plays the “sovereign citizen” card assembled by Sgt. Christopher Curtis, a Marine and former member of the Las Vegas PD. These are people who believe if they just utter the correct magic phrases, including “I’m not driving, I’m travelling,” and “I am a sovereign citizen,” they can get out of a traffic stop, which they think works much the same way that Obi-Wan Kenobi can magically get past the stormtroopers patrolling Mos Eisley spaceport, by waving his hand while telling them “these are not the droids you’re looking for.”

Unlike Obi-Wan, these efforts inevitably end in disaster:

But while the sovereign citizen crowd think that magic words – and magic thinking — can allow them to avoid a speeding ticket, that’s very, very different from actively interfering with law enforcement:

The left have decided they get to have the heckler’s veto in America, which one way or another can’t end well:

Tweet continues, “where luxury beliefs like theirs are tolerated unlike in actual communist countries.”

Posted at 6:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 11th, 2026

UNEXPECTEDLY: NYT’s Kristof Equates Iconic Tiananmen Tank Man to a Commie Karen in an SUV Trying to Run Over ICE Agents.

UPDATE: That’s what Xi said!

Posted at 2:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 11th, 2026

“TRUSTING KHOMEINI:” 1979 NYT article praising former Supreme Leader surfaces amid Iran protests.

Published days after Khomeini’s return from exile, the article suggested that fears of a theocratic dictatorship were overstated. It argued that Khomeini would act primarily as a moral guide rather than a ruler, that political pluralism would persist, and that his close associates included moderates with records of concern for human rights.

At the time, Iran’s post-revolutionary structure was unsettled. The Shah had fled, institutions were in flux, and many observers believed the broad coalition that overthrew the monarchy would prevent any single faction from monopolising power.

Who wrote it and how did he later reassess it?

The article was written by Richard Falk, then a professor at Princeton University who had met Khomeini shortly before the revolution’s victory. Falk wrote amid widespread Western reassessment of support for the Shah, whose rule was criticised for repression and dependence on US backing.

In later reflections, Falk acknowledged that his optimism did not align with how events unfolded. He has said the New York Times headline was not his choice and that the speed with which clerical authority consolidated power was underestimated. In hindsight, he described Khomeini as a revolutionary figure with a rigid, uncompromising vision rather than a symbolic religious guide, conceding that expectations of pluralism proved misplaced.

Forget “turtles all the way down.” Given their early praise of Hitler, Stalin, Castro, and Khomeini, the Gray Lady is Walter Durantys all the way down.

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 11th, 2026

“CROWD FOR HIRE:” Crowd-for-Hire Boss Says He Wants Nothing to Do With ‘Any Form of Illegal Protest’ in Minneapolis.

It’s been a certainty for quite some time that many of the “protestors” tearing up the streets in Minneapolis and Portland, just to name a couple of (leftist) cities, were being paid to be there. Shadowy figures behind the scenes, who may or may not be named Soros, are funneling cash and strangely professional-looking signs into these riots. Ever notice how fast those strangely specific, professionally printed signs turn up? That can’t be cheap.

There is also a guy who organizes protests-for-hire on the up and up. Every cat its own rat and all that, you know. His name is Adam Swart, and he runs an outfit called Crowds on Demand. The difference between the protestors blocking streets in Minneapolis right now and Mr. Swart’s business is that Mr. Swart has scruples. He wants nothing to do with these Minneapolis debacles.

Adam Swart, chief executive officer of Crowds on Demand, told Fox News Digital his firm “would not touch the Minneapolis protests with a 10-foot pole,” citing blocked roadways, obstruction of federal agents, and threats against authorities following a fatal shooting during an ICE enforcement operation.

“Blocking roadways, obstructing federal agents, and threatening authorities are illegal, and we don’t engage in any form of illegal protest,” Swart said, warning the chaos playing out on city streets will have the opposite effect demonstrators claim to want. “The impact of these protests will actually be to increase ICE operations, not decrease them.”

As the late P.J. O’Rourke wrote in his 1991 magnum opus, Parliament of Whores:

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.

And so do they!

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 11th, 2026

IS THIS WHY THE MEDIA ISN’T COVERING THE IRAN PROTESTS?

Yet, why isn’t this being covered in our media? It’s a significant story, a massive one. I understand that we have mayhem in the streets of our cities, spurred by insane leftists who are enraged that one of their own was shot after she accelerated her vehicle toward a federal agent in Minneapolis. Both can be covered, and this tweet explained why it’s being suffocated. It was posted by the Institute for Justice’s Tahmineh Dehbozorgi. It’s a brutal takedown of the media’s coverage of Islam, their refusal to analyze properly, and how woke paradigms and historical illiteracy have framed everything incorrectly as a result:

As Gil Scott-Heron sang in 1971, the revolution will not be televised – and “unexpectedly,” it won’t gain the support of rock musicians either, as they’re too busy raging for the mullahs:

Related:

UPDATE:

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 11th, 2026

JOHN STOSSEL: Hollywood vs. Individualism.

In my new video, I interview libertarian Timothy Sandefur, author of the new book, “You Don’t Own Me.” He says, “The title comes from the famous song by Leslie Gore, saying, I’m in charge of my own desires, dreams. I’m responsible for my own self.”

“That’s kind of obvious.” I point out.

* * * * * * * * *

The flop “Strange World” is a kid’s movie about a society that relies on a power source called Pando. Leftist scriptwriters, selling climate hysteria, have the hero say: “If we want to survive, Pando has to go.”

The good guys happily destroy their main source of energy.

Sandefur mocks the stupidity, “Living without today’s energy technology doesn’t just mean doing without warm coffee. It means doing without ambulances when you have a heart attack, doing without an airplane to carry people’s organ transplants. Doing without today’s energy technology would be a colossal disaster for the human race. Yet the movie kind of ridicules that concern.”

When woke movies fail, Hollywood often blames the audience.

After remaking “Charlie’s Angels,” director Elizabeth Banks said, if this movie doesn’t make money, it’s because “men don’t go see women do action movies.”

But that’s just dumb.

Didn’t Banks notice that men helped make the original “Charlie’s Angels” TV series a hit? Did she not notice “Kill Bill,” “Aliens,” “Tomb Raider,” “Resident Evil” — lots of successful action movies feature female leads.

“The reality,” says Sandefur, “is that people are not interested in another lame remake that satisfies all the politically correct tests.”

“Films that are individualistic,” he adds, “tend to be very successful.” But “Hollywood wants to propagandize to us about the evils of individualism.”

As “George MF Washington” wrote last month in “Movies as Weapons of Spiritual Warfare:”

Even the great comedies of the 80’s featured men of no special ability courageously laying it all on the line for Civilization against overwhelming odds. At the end of “Ghostbusters” after it becomes clear that the only way to stop Gozer from destroying the world is to sacrifice their own lives, blue collar “scientists” Venkman, Egon, Ray and Winston head out to meet their fate with stoic good humor.

“See you on the other side, Ray…”

“Nice working with you Doctor Venkman…”

“Edelweiss… Edelweiss…”

One of the reasons why American men, from Generation X in particular, keep coming back to movies like “Ghostbusters”, “Master and Commander”, “Gladiator”, “Braveheart” “The Great Escape”, “The Lord of the Rings”, and even “Die Hard” and “Predator”, is precisely because, as Men of the West, we are hard-wired to fantasize about how we will meet our own confrontations with “The Big Evil”, when and if those confrontations come. Modern American culture tends to look down upon this uniquely male instinct with ill-humor, if not outright derision. These kinds of male-coded sentiments are considered old fashioned at best, explicitly toxic at worst. Which is a shame, because the big studio movies we once made to cater to this male instinct for adventure, risk-taking and the instinctual defiance of Evil remain some of the greatest and most compulsively rewatchable films ever made.

Related: Mark Hamill Tried Give Star Wars’ Original Trio A Reunion.

Hamill was also right on a narrative level. As he pointed out, Star Wars is never strictly “Luke’s story” or “Obi-Wan’s story,” but an ensemble myth where veteran characters guide the next generation. Alec Guinness’ Obi-Wan played a pivotal role without overshadowing Luke’s arc. Bringing Star Wars‘ original trio back would have only reinforced the sequel’s trilogy passing of the torch. Instead, brushing Han, Luke, and Leia aside in the name of focus ultimately weakened the sequel trilogy.

When it comes to storytelling, Hollywood has been determined to defy its audience for many years now, so it shouldn’t be surprised when that audience reciprocates. In 2024, James Lileks predicted the future of AI art and video: Art That’s Just for Me.

In the end, we will watch our own movies more than others, and the theatrical experience will have gone from the great shared silver screen in the communal dark, to niche streaming, to watching our own particular curiosities and desires played on our own glowing rectangles. Millions of hours of movies, made for an audience of one.

Which is the logical conclusion of Hollywood making movies for its boardrooms instead of its audiences.

Posted at 12:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 11th, 2026

January 10, 2026

TWENTY MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE?

Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 10th, 2026

MINNEAPOLIS IS NOT EVEN A CLOSE CALL — A Lawsplainer On Officer-Involved Shootings.

Just a fraction of a second later you see the ICE Officer drawing his firearm — her wheels are still straight. That’s the moment he decided to use deadly force — he recognized at that moment the fact that she was about to run him over. He resorted to deadly force in self-defense and defense of others.

That’s it.

As a federal prosecutor, if tasked to evaluate the lawfulness of his decision to use deadly force, I would have cleared him based on these four images and the video source alone. No other video produced so far does anything to call that conclusion into question.

What the driver’s intentions might have been are irrelevant. The one thing she clearly did not intend to do was to comply with the lawful orders she was given. As a result, she opened herself up to the consequences of the reasonable decision by the ICE Officer to eliminate the threat she posed to him as well as others.

Read the whole thing.

Related: John Hinderaker: Ice is Cleaning Up Minnesota.

 

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 10th, 2026

SOUNDS INSURRECTIONY:

Posted at 8:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 10th, 2026

QUESTION ASKED: Is This Time Different in Iran?

Which may not be long, because [Khamenei] faces two threats. The one in front of him is the unpredictable Donald Trump, who has already shed Iranian blood and has promised to “rescue” the Iranian people. The one behind him is the IRGC, which holds all the firepower in Iran and which knows—as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knew—that the mullahs are despised by nearly the entire population. They are unlikely to lay down their guns or give up the 40% of the Iranian economy they control. They are led by Ahmad Vahidi, an internationally sanctioned terrorist.

“Terrorists are assholes” was a wise saying of one of my counterterrorist colleagues at the CIA. She didn’t just mean that terror plots ruined our weekends and sleep schedules. She meant that terrorists are psychopathic, disloyal, and venal creatures who could and did mistreat each other and turn against each other. The top ranks of the IRGC are full of them.

What might lead the IRGC to sideline or overthrow Khamenei and his weak president, Masoud Pezeshkian? Two kinds of strikes: an anti-regime blow from the United States, or the labor variety that would shut down Iran’s energy sector. If both occur, my money is on a coup, and goodbye mullahs.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 6:55 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 10th, 2026

IRAN: Why Images Of Iranian Women Lighting Cigarettes With Khamenei’s Photo Are Going Viral.

A striking new protest trend involving Iranian women is rapidly spreading across the global internet, drawing attention to rising unrest inside Iran. Viral videos show women lighting cigarettes by burning photographs of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an act widely seen as an open challenge to the country’s political and religious authority.

The trend has gained momentum on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Reddit and Telegram, with clips being shared and reposted thousands of times worldwide. Observers say the practice has become a powerful symbol of defiance and is increasingly difficult for authorities to contain, even as Iran tightens controls on dissent.

Burning the image of the Supreme Leader is considered a serious offence under Iranian law. By combining this act with smoking, an activity long restricted or discouraged for women, the protesters appear to be deliberately rejecting both state power and strict social rules, including mandatory hijab enforcement and limitations on women’s personal freedoms.

But will it awaken western feminists?

UPDATE:

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 10th, 2026

IRAN PROTESTS: Trump warns Khamenei that US ‘stands ready to help.’

Hundreds of people are feared to have been killed as the Iranian regime launched a fierce crackdown in response to the biggest wave of protests it has faced in years.

Security forces loyal to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, appear to have used the cover of a country-wide internet and phone blackout, which has been in place since Thursday, to open fire on opponents, leaving medical facilities overwhelmed.

On Saturday evening President Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

In some areas regime forces are said to have entered hospitals to arrest injured protesters and to order medical staff not to treat the wounded. One doctor, who did not want to be identified, said six hospitals in the capital, Tehran, had collectively recorded at least 217 deaths on Thursday night alone. The figure could not be independently verified.

The Washington-based Human Rights Activist News Agency put the protest death toll at 72 on Saturday night. That tally only included victims who had been officially identified.

Related: Ayatollah’s power may collapse in less than a week as Iran’s street protests expand.

Earlier:

Posted at 5:15 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 10th, 2026

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY:

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 10th, 2026

OCEANIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH HAMAS: Zohran Mamdani Calls Hamas A “Terrorist Organisation” Amid New York Protests.

And he was far from alone, as the left suddenly pivots away from open support of Hamas:

Or perhaps the answer is even simpler:

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jan 10th, 2026
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