Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

March 2, 2025

IT CHRONICLES WHAT HAPPENED IN 1972 — But September 5 Is About Our Social Media Present.

When the full extent of the resources needed to shoot that 160-page script became clear, Fehlbaum, Binder and the producers slipped into a funk. Who would give them the money for a project that big? And there was no plausible way to make it smaller. It all seemed like the end, games over, medal unclaimed.

But they hadn’t counted on the man known as Mase.

Geoffrey Mason, as he is more formally known, was not the kind of person who was going to make Swiss auteur dreams come true. Heck, he wasn’t even the kind of person who knew any Swiss auteurs. Mason, now 83, spends his days working as a sports producer from his home in Naples, Florida. He had been a young television producer that 1972 day, just past his 30th birthday, manning the ABC Sports control room for what was supposed to be a competition-lite 24 hours. He liked yachting and finding the right angle for diving competitions. Global terrorism? That was less his world.

Then the attack happened. Mason found himself thrust to the center of the news stage; the world was literally watching every choice he made. In 22 hours, he and his ABC Sports boss Roone Arledge changed the way Americans thought about sports coverage, terrorism and a half-dozen other realms. “I didn’t know anything about Hollywood when Tim and Philipp called a few years ago,” Mason says. “But they seemed like smart guys, so I told them what happened.”

As he talked about the on-the-spot improvisations and charged decisions — this essentially was livestreaming long before cable news and YouTube — the filmmakers realized they had their golden ticket. “It was such a rush,” says Binder. “They were inventing this as they went along, with all this adrenaline, and we all felt the same listening to Geoff.”

Adds Fehlbaum: “There was something very compelling about a decision made on the spot about what they would show.” A new, reined-in approach seemed apt.

Read the whole thing; the film is a must-see, and is currently streaming for free for those who subscribe to Paramount+.

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Mar 2nd, 2025

LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT’S THE GELL-MANN AMNESIA EFFECT!

 

As the late Michael Crichton wrote:

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”

Regarding Nixon himself, whom SNL spent the entire second half of the 1970s absolutely savaging, as the late Zhou Enlai never said, the outcome of the French Revolution? Too early to say.

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll on Mar 2nd, 2025

March 1, 2025

DAVID SACKS: Why Zelensky Cannot Make Peace.

While England’s Kier Starmer is still helping advance the gravy train for Zelensky, even he’s saying: Go back and patch things up with Trump.

Posted at 6:18 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

ROGER KIMBALL: Zelensky goes to town.

Trump, noting Zelensky’s expressions of “hatred” for Putin, explained that he was in no position to dictate terms. “You don’t have any cards” in this game, Trump pointed out. We want to end the killing. That cannot be done by abusing the other party in the conflict. You cannot successfully negotiate that way. “You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, ‘Hi, Vladimir. How are we doing on the deal?’ It doesn’t work that way. I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America, and for the good of the world.”

All this is true. But for some, the pleasure of abusing Vladimir Putin is great enough to risk World War Three. The commentariat was shocked by the spectacle, as was the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, who could see that Zelensky was making a dog’s breakfast of the press conference. “I have never seen anything like it before,” was a common refrain. Zelensky was used to being a moral hero to his interlocutors. But here was a US president who was interested in peace, not preening. J.D.Vance not only pointed out that Zelensky had not only come to Pennsylvania to campaign for Kamala Harris in October, but also cut to the chase with a pointed question: “Do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?”

Yikes.

The social-media post Trump issued after the episode was tart and to-the-point. “We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today,” Trump wrote:

Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure. It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.

Zelensky even lost Lindsey Graham, possibly the most pro-Ukraine senator of either party, with his exhibitionist bit of grandstanding. “Americans witnessing what they saw today would not want Zelensky to be their business partner, including me,” Graham said. “I’ve never been more proud of Trump for showing the American people and the world, you don’t trifle that this man.”

Related: The Approach Trump Had in the Zelensky Meeting Is One Democrats Can’t Wrap Their Head Around.

Trump’s negotiation strategy vastly differs from many other American leaders, especially those on the Democrat side of the aisle. Despite Trump’s reputation as a rough-around-the-edges man whose political charm is far divorced from what people expect after watching The West Wing too much, he is a master negotiator.

Even when it comes to our enemies, Trump is not going to negotiate from a position of bad faith. He sees everything as a businessman would. There are no friends or foes while at the table, just good deals and bad deals.

I thought The Federalist CEO Sean Davis put this very well in a post he made on X:

Trump doesn’t bad mouth anyone who comes to the negotiating table in good faith. Ever. It’s a near-cardinal rule of negotiations for him, and a major reason he’s been such a successful dealmaker.

If you refuse to negotiate, he will trash you. If you lie or negotiate in bad faith, he will trash you. He has zero interest in allowing empty moralizing to get in the way of a deal that he wants.

He has done this his entire career, in business and in politics, and it’s fascinating to me how many people who think of themselves as smart and savvy are incapable of seeing or understanding this dynamic.

The key here isn’t just that Trump is holding the cards and that Zelensky needs him — not the other way around — it’s that Trump is negotiating from a fortified position of “America first.” Everything at the table is subject to that one point, and if anything drifts away from that, then Trump pushes back and pushes back until he’s all the way gone from the table.

Zelensky acted like a petulant child who showed no respect to the country that had given him the money for his war while trying to secure more, and Trump saw no value, not in the war, and not in Zelensky’s disrespect.

The Greta Thunberg-esque “how dare you!!!” shtick just doesn’t play with Trump as it does with worshipful leftists:

 

Earlier: Our collection of tweets from throughout the day yesterday on Zelensky’s meeting with Trump and Vance, and the Twitter-sphere’s reaction.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I think Zelensky knew exactly what he was doing, and picked this fight on purpose. Partly because it strengthens his political position at home, and partly because it strengthens his position with the EU. I suspect, however, that he will find the EU’s support less . . . substantive than he hopes.

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

MATT MARGOLIS: Stephen Miller Reveals What Triggered the Oval Office Showdown with Zelenskyy.

Miller explained that the confrontation stemmed from Zelenskyy’s failure to show proper appreciation for America’s substantial support of Ukraine. “The only reason that Zelenskyy has a country, that Zelenskyy is in power, is because of the United States,” Miller asserted.

During the Oval Office meeting, tension erupted when Zelenskyy suggested that America would “feel it in the future” if support for Ukraine waned, prompting Trump to erupt: “You don’t know that. You don’t know that. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.”

Miller highlighted Americans’ economic sacrifices in the Ukraine conflict: “Americans have suffered economically funding this war now for years, American security has been degraded, our stockpiles depleted, our ability to project power in other regions of the world negatively affected to protect and defend Ukraine.”

The confrontation reached a boiling point when Trump accused Zelenskyy of “gambling with World War III” and Vance repeatedly demanded that the Ukrainian leader express gratitude.

“He couldn’t even say thank you. Just couldn’t say thank you. Thank you, America,” Miller said.

One of the most contentious moments came when Zelenskyy appeared to resist Trump’s calls for an immediate ceasefire. “He repeatedly rejected President Trump’s statement that we should pursue a ceasefire,” Miller noted. “How could you reject a ceasefire?”

“And, you know, he kept saying, Europe’s doing so much more than us,” Miller added. “Well, then what do you need us for?”

Precisely. Zelensky will meeting with King Charles on Sunday; perhaps that meeting will go a bit more smoothly.

Related: From the home office in Kyiv, VDH proffers the Top Ten “bad takeaways from the Zelenskyy blow-up:”

UPDATE: Time to write some cheques, Old Blighty:

UPDATE (4:14 EST):

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

REMIXING THE BEATLES: “AI is not creating John’s voice. John’s voice existed on that cassette and we made the song around him”: Giles Martin explains why you’d be wrong to think ‘AI’ created Lennon’s parts for The Beatles’ ‘Now and Then.’

Billed as the final single from The Beatles, Now and Then was always going to be a big deal. The track, which is nominated for Song of the Year at this weekend’s Brit Awards, has its roots in a 1977 demo recorded by John Lennon.

Its mix features all four original members – Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with the late Lennon and George Harrison – and comes with a long history that includes an aborted mid-’90s attempt at a finished release.

There’s another headline-grabbing element to the eventual release of Now and Then though. As has been widely, and on occasion a little misleadingly reported, the track’s creation has been made possible thanks to the use of neural network technology. Or, as how some have more flatly termed it – AI.

This latter fact seems to have led to misconceptions among some fans, as the track’s co-producer Giles Martin (son of late Beatles producer George Martin) demonstrates in an exclusive video for MusicRadar.

“I think there is this supposition that we used AI to recreate something, or to perhaps enhance John Lennon’s voice,” Martin tells us. “This simply wasn’t the case. All we did was clean a cassette recording he had made all those years ago.”

It’s true that some of the public reaction to Now and Then, particularly in the wake of its recent Grammy win for Best Rock Performance, has led some to raise a suspicious eyebrow. But this perception stems from the entirely false notion that the track has harnessed some form of generative AI. Which it very much hasn’t.

The demixing technology that Peter Jackson has developed seems like Clarke’s Third Law sort of stuff: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Every commercially-available demix software that I’ve either used or demoed, generates serious artifacts when separating parts, creating digital chirps and a sort of watery filtered sound that’s particularly noticeable when a track is soloed. But listening to Giles Martin playing the soloed tracks of Beatles songs in the video below, and little or no audible artifacts can be heard:

Remixing Beatles songs and digitally cleaning vocal tracks seems like pretty benign stuff. Still though, no one should forget that AI and machine learning technology can also be used to far more terrifying ends:

 

Posted at 2:44 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

HMMM:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

JONATHAN TURLEY: Democrats go full McCarthy with attacks on Musk’s nationality, loyalties.

Throughout the 2024 campaign, the Democrats, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, painted Republicans as either aspiring or actual fascists. That continued recently with Minnesota Gov. and former Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz (D), who referred to Republicans as “fascists and Nazis.”

Even journalists and civil libertarians have been reviled using the same terms. After a hearing on censorship two years ago, MSNBC contributor and former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) attacked journalists and members who had spoken in favor of free speech. She denounced the member witnesses (Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Ron Johnson and former Rep. Gabbard) as “Putin apologists” and Putin-lovers.

Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic delegate representing the Virgin Islands in the U.S. House, even suggested arresting respected journalist Matt Taibbi, who, along with Michael Shellenberger, testified on their investigation into a massive censorship system developed under the Biden administration.

The attack on Musk is particularly disgraceful, given his contributions to his adopted country. Ironically, filmmaker Michael Moore denounced the deportations of criminal illegal immigrants last week by noting that Trump was deporting someone who might cure cancer or be the next Steve Jobs. Well, this is a naturalized citizen who not only could be the next Elon Musk. He is Elon Musk.

Not surprisingly, I’m not sure if Moore thought his argument through to its conclusion:

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

BIG APPLE CUOMOSEXUALS, THIS IS YOUR TIME! Cuomo jumps into New York mayor’s race, attempting political comeback.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Saturday afternoon that he’s entering New York City’s mayoral race, adding a big name to the already busy Democratic primary challenging Mayor Eric Adams (D).

“Our city is in crisis. That’s why I am running to be Mayor of New York City,” he wrote on social platform X, along with a video. “We need government to work. We need effective leadership.”

He also included a link to his campaign website.

Cuomo’s entrance comes as little surprise after months of speculation that he would attempt a political comeback years after resigning as governor amid multiple controversies that eventually engulfed his administration.

Cuomo appears likely to be the immediate frontrunner in the race based on recent polling conducted that includes him, Adams and the half-dozen other candidates already running for the nomination.

That’s understandable, based on his brilliant track record as New York’s governor in 2020: Andrew Cuomo’s Macabre Pandemic Nostalgia.

What but personal gratification explains Cuomo’s otherwise inexplicable dredging up of his disastrous final year in office over the other nine? After all, his conduct during the pandemic remains a drag on his political prospects.

As recently as last week, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an internal audit that confirmed the Cuomo administration had undercounted Covid deaths in nursing homes by more than 4,000. “The audit details how health officials undercounted deaths in nursing homes by more than 50% at certain points during the height of the crisis,” the New York Daily News reported. The findings underscore the conclusions New York Attorney General Letitia James revealed in a January 2021 report alleging that the Cuomo administration covered up the true death toll and its contributions to the body count. Albany’s “guidance requiring the admission of COVID-19 patients into nursing homes” put long-term care facility residents “at increased risk of harm,” that report revealed. All this only corroborates the many independent journalistic probes into how the governor’s administration contributed to the pandemic’s death toll and subsequently covered it up.

“In politics, like in life, you stand on your record,” Cuomo brazenly insists at the close of his comeback pitch. But Cuomo had more than a record. He had a cult of personality around him, and he loved every minute of it. What he wants isn’t just his name cleared and his career back. He wants the “Cuomosexuals” to fall back in love with the erstwhile object of their affections. Toward that end, Andrew Cuomo is dwelling on what for him must have been one of the best times of his life. That it was also the very worst of times for the rest of us seems to have escaped him.

New Yorkers can finally relive the magical thinking once again.

UPDATE:

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

YES, THEY’VE ENTERED THE “FO” PHASE OF FAFO:

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Cleaner — The Worst Die Hard Clone Ever (Video). “Ultimately, Cleaner is a perfect example of Die Hard if it was made by Hollywood today. It’s slow, boring, derivative, preachy, pandering, morally confused, striving to grapple with big issues that are far beyond its intellectual capacity. Bristling with tedious intersectional feminism, and boring unlikable girl bosses that went out of fashion years ago and an embarrassing failure that serves to remind us yet again how good we once had it.”

Posted at 10:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

JOHN PODHORETZ: Review: The Brutalist. Very brilliant. Very important. Very bad.

The most impressive film of 2024, up for 10 Oscars this weekend, is The Brutalist. It is an extraordinary achievement—nearly three-and-a-half hours and never less than gripping, beautifully rendered dialogue, stunning cinematography and music, all in support of a re-creation of post-World War II America, striking in its specificity and level of detail. It is an epic vision of America on a genuinely grand scale.

The problem is that it gets everything wrong and is, therefore, in the end, bad. The Brutalist is a failure, even an offensive one, but it’s also kind of magnificent as it goes along. I’ve rarely had a more ambiguous or complex reaction to a work of cinema, and I hope I can get The Brutalist right as I talk about it so that I don’t follow director and cowriter Brady Corbet down the path of misrepresenting my subject.

Corbet is unapologetically aiming for greatness with his gorgeously rendered portrait of a Holocaust survivor and his journey through a mid-century America that is simultaneously welcoming of his talents and viciously destructive to his soul. There are two ways to look at the story of Laszlo Toth (Adrien Brody). One is that Corbet is telling a singular tale about a singular fictional Jew who undergoes a singular set of experiences as he comes into contact with a difficult, complex, highly intelligent, and very rich American Gentile with the very suggestive name of Harrison Lee Van Buren (that’s the key general of the Confederacy and three presidents combined in just one moniker).

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

THREE OF OBAMA’S BIGGEST FANS WONDER WHY IT ALL WENT SO WRONG DURING HIS THIRD TERM:

Posted at 8:14 am by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Are you Ramadan-ready?

Are you Ramadan-ready?’ That was the poster in Sainsbury’s advertising its delicious range of fast-breaking foods (rice was one). And the striking thing about it was… the ‘you’. That ‘you’ means the normal customer, the default Sainsbury’s shopper.

Same with the email I got from the swanky Belgravia hair salon I used to visit:

Here, we understand that Ramadan is a time of reflection, renewal and spiritual focus – and we also know how important it is to take a moment for yourself amid the busy days of fasting and prayer. That’s why we are delighted to announce that our salon will be open late during Ramadan, offering evening appointments so you can indulge in a little luxurious self-care after Iftar [the fast-breaking meal after sundown].

Belgravia is next to Knightsbridge where wealthy Arabs are the norm, so the email wasn’t surprising – but again, the odd thing was that ‘you’: the assumption that the recipient is more likely than not to be Muslim. Naturally, if I’d got an email in April saying ‘Are you Easter-ready?’ I would have regarded it as par for the course – though, come to think of it, I’d probably have been a little surprised. Harrods is offering Iftar dining on its website: ‘Tuck into an Iftar feast, starting with Medjool dates accompanied by a refreshing hibiscus cooler.’

But then Ramadan, which starts this week, is now very much part of the calendar, much more than, say, Diwali. For the third year there will be a switch-on of the Ramadan Lights in London – previously on Oxford Street, this year in Coventry Street, where the message will be ‘Happy Ramadan’ until it changes to ‘Happy Eid’. (Have you noticed the asinine default greeting is Happy Everything, from Halloween to Fridays?)

Once again, it’s the assumption that we’re all up for it that’s a little curious.

America’s Newspaper of Record is just doing straight-up reportage at this point:

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Mar 1st, 2025

February 28, 2025

FINALLY:

Also, Trump comments on Zelensky’s fashion sense: What a Big Boy! Look Who’s All Dressed Up Today! Trump Greets Zelenskyy As Only He Can and LOL (Watch).

The media will of course turn the amps up to 11 over this confrontation, despite Trump’s predecessor also being unnerved by Zelensky’s theatrics:

UPDATE:

Why didn’t Zelensky think there was at least a 50-50 chance that this moment could come back to haunt him?

Related:

UPDATE (1:30 PM EST):

UPDATE (1:40 PM): Trump And Vance Clash With Zelensky In Fiery White House Meeting. ‘You’re gambling with World War III, and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country,’ Trump said.

UPDATE (4:40 PM):

UPDATE (8:46 PM):

Posted at 8:48 pm by Ed Driscoll on Feb 28th, 2025

TATER TAUNTED: Brian Stelter Breaks Twitter/X in Massive Self-Awareness Fail After DOJ Epstein Files Announcement.

On Thursday, the first phase of the DOJ’s Epstein files release took place, with heavily redacted documents first being given in binders to a select group of conservative influencers at the White House before being posted online several hours later.

As we reported, a press release from the DOJ that also came later in the day acknowledged that much of the information they released was “previously leaked but never released in a formal capacity by the U.S. Government.”

They also alleged there was some pre-Kash Patel FBI interference ahead of Phase One, with Attorney General Pam Bondi learning of “thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein that were not previously disclosed” and ordering the FBI to have them to her by 8 a.m. Eastern Time Friday.

While the release was, to put it mildly, underwhelming, watching the mainstream media outlets who either looked the other way for years or felt snubbed by the Trump White House try to dunk on the Trump administration and conservative influencers in the aftermath gave the words “self-awareness fail” a whole new meaning.

At the top of the bunch was CNN media hall monitor Brian Stelter, who proclaimed on the Twitter/X machine that years of “conspiracy theories” pushed by “irresponsible” conservatives about an alleged government cover-up related to the Epstein files had begun to “unravel” after what happened Thursday:

Including:

Overall, I would describe the reaction that Stelter received on Twitter was “fiery, but mostly peaceful,” to coin a phrase.

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Feb 28th, 2025

BYRON YORK: IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn leaked Trump’s tax returns, but we’re now learning how much damage he really did.

For much of President Donald Trump‘s first term in office, the coalition of Democrats, activists, and media figures known collectively as the Resistance believed that obtaining Trump’s tax returns would be the key to bringing down the president. Finally, on Sept. 27, 2020, at the height of Trump’s reelection campaign, the New York Times reported that it had “obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office.” The paper published several long articles based on the information.

Voila! The Holy Grail of the Resistance! The problem was the stories came and went and did not become the huge, earthshaking scandal the anti-Trumpers had hoped. The long-awaited bombshells weren’t really bombshells, and the political world moved on.

The New York Times did not reveal, of course, how it had obtained the information. That did not happen until Sept. 29, 2023, when the Justice Department charged a man named Charles Edward Littlejohn with unauthorized disclosure of tax returns. Littlejohn was not an employee of the IRS. He worked for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which worked under contract for the IRS.

* * * * * * * *

Like so many Resistance talking heads in Washington and elsewhere, Littlejohn believed that Trump posed a danger to democracy, and that meeting that danger justified breaking the law. And now, with Trump again in the White House, the question is, is there another Charles Littlejohn out there somewhere in the deep recesses of the federal bureaucracy?

Only one?

 

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Feb 28th, 2025

NATURE IS HEALING, GERMANY IS REVERTING TO FORM: Elections Over, German Government Launches National Snitch Line.

Excuse me – I should change that in the interest of being precise. Thanks to my naturally cynical nature regarding authoritarian European governments marching towards outright fascism, I only interpret it to be a ‘snitch’ line.

The Stas…there I go again. Dammit – it’s early.

The democratically elected German government is, in fact, launching a two-pronged effort – either online or by phone – to afford their citizens avenues for ‘advice’ on how to deal with conspiracy freaks. Those in their personal lives or even ones of accidental acquaintance who speak such strange and terrifying sentiments not approved by polite society that a good German might be…alarmed by the utterances. Or upsetting emails.

And not know where to turn for advice on how to respond, if they even should.

Don’t worry, I’m sure this will end better than the first two times it was tried – and unlike in 1933 and 1950, I’m sure the greatcoats will only be available in pleather.

Related: Meanwhile, over in Airstrip One: British PM Is Wrong, There Is No Free Speech In The UK.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Feb 28th, 2025

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA ACCEPTS RAZZIES FOR MEGALOPOLIS:

The vast majority of celebrities and filmmakers ignore the Razzies, while few interviewers have the nerve – and understandably so – to ask celebrities about their “wins.”

However, Francis Ford Coppola, who earned “Worst Director” for his critically panned Megalopolis, issued a scathing retort on social media today.

“I am thrilled to accept the Razzie award in so many important categories for Megalopolis, and for the distinctive honor of being nominated as the worst director, worst screenplay, and worst picture,” he wrote in part, “at a time when so few have the courage to go against the prevailing trends of contemporary moviemaking!”

“In this wreck of a world today, where ART is given scores as if it were professional wrestling, I chose to NOT follow the gutless rules laid down by an industry so terrified of risk that despite the enormous pool of young talent at its disposal, may not create pictures that will be relevant and alive 50 years from now,” Coppola concluded.

Flashback to October: Megalopolis: Making Sense of Francis Ford Coppola’s Fever Dreams.

As I wrote at the time, after taking one for the team, and seeing Coppola’s new movie in an otherwise empty theater, shorter version: I can’t say it’s a good film, but I’m glad the Maestro, now 85, is still making movies, and movies that are about ideas, rather than sequels, spaceships and superheroes.

But unlike films that bombed or were torched by critics during their initial debut such as Citizen Kane, It’s a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner, I don’t think there’s going to be a critical re-assessment from critics that there’s a masterpiece hidden inside what sadly could be Coppola’s last movie.

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Feb 28th, 2025

NEWSPAPER THAT SOUGHT TO RECAST AMERICA’S FOUNDING FROM 1776 To 1619 SUDDENLY WORRIED ABOUT “LANGUAGE POLICE:”

The tweet goes to a story headlined: The MAGA War on Speech.

In 1791, the nation’s founders ratified the First Amendment to the Constitution. It would come to offer protections in the new nation essentially never seen before: the right to ask things of and to criticize the government; to express opinions, popular or not; to assemble peacefully; to practice diverse religious beliefs; and to have a free press that publishes information without fear of censorship or retribution.

“New nation?” The New York Times assured me in 2020 that it was actually founded in 1619, so it would have been almost 175 years old by 1791.

This constitutional provision reflects the framers’ intent to establish a society where individuals have the ability to voice their views and participate actively in shaping the nation’s governance while holding their leaders accountable. Together, these five guaranteed liberties continue today to make the people of the United States the freest in the world.

Sounds good! So why the Times’ deep love of the Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century? Any plans to return Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer?

President Trump and many of his supporters — from tech leaders like Elon Musk to populist politicians like Vice President JD Vance — have spent the past several years portraying themselves as free-speech crusaders. Capitalizing on the censorial strains of the left, they regularly lecture about the necessity of letting people say whatever they want, even if it’s hateful, asinine or corrosive.

Tell me more about “the censorial strains of the left,” including the Times’ role in 2020, please.

Over the past month Mr. Trump and his allies have embarked on an expansive crackdown on free expression and disfavored speakers that should be decried not just as hypocritical but also as un-American and unconstitutional.

In the distorted view of the Trump administration, protecting free speech requires controlling free speech — banning words, phrases and ideas that challenge or complicate a government-favored speech. Officials in Washington have spent the past month stripping federal websites of any hint of undesirable words and thoughts, disciplining news organizations that refuse to parrot the president’s language, and threatening to punish those who have voiced criticism of investigations and prosecutions.

Banning words, phrases, and ideas, that sounds bad. Good thing the left would never do such a thing!

● NYT columnist Farhad Manjoo calls for the abolition of gendered language.

● Professor of ‘art crime’ instructs protesters on better way to topple statues that offend them.

● NYT’s Nikole Hannah-Jones Endorses Riots And Toppling Statues As A Product Of The 1619 Project.

The reckoning for the Jacobin left’s attempt at making 2020 Year Zero was long overdue, and their freakout will be fascinating to watch. This headline will also drive them absolutely bonkers: Trump To Make English The Nation’s Official Language.

UPDATE: VDH asks: Who caused the counter-revolution?

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Feb 28th, 2025
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