Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

May 4, 2026

UNDER A BLOOD RED STATE SKY:

Related:

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 4th, 2026

DID MR. KISS KISS FANG FANG EXPOSE HIS WANG WANG? Eric Swalwell Sent Women ‘Videos of Him Masturbating’ and Other Perverted Messages After Joining Snapchat to Restore ‘Faith’ in ‘Democracy’: Report.

One young woman claimed Swalwell would send her Snapchat messages about her future, before asking inappropriate questions such as, “What are you wearing?”

Two other women told CNN that Swalwell sent them “sexually explicit messages and unsolicited nude photos and videos of himself” in 2021, while a third woman also claimed to have received “sexually tinged messages and videos.”

One former congressional staffer allegedly developed a consensual sexual relationship with Swalwell after he began flirting with her on Snapchat in 2021.

During the relationship, Swalwell reportedly sent “nude photos of himself and videos of him masturbating,” which showed the congressman’s “face and naked body.”

The videos, which were saved by the woman, were shown to CNN.

“His stories would be his, like, congressional content, but then he would be sending me dick pics,” she alleged, adding that Swalwell sent her another “explicit video” late last year, just weeks before he announced his 2026 California gubernatorial campaign.

No wonder Swalwell was taken out so quickly last month by his own party.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 4th, 2026

HOW IT STARTED: What’s really behind Trump’s clash with the Pope?

Donald Trump’s latest clash with the Catholic Church stunned even the most hardened veterans of culture-war X. According to the President of the United States, the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV, the conspicuously holy spiritual leader of 1.3 billion people, is “WEAK on crime and terrible on foreign policy.” He also claimed that, “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”

For commentators accustomed to the fog of modern diplomatic platitudes, such trash talk was the equivalent of a Holy Roman Emperor hurling insults at a medieval pontiff. In the year 963, for example, the Emperor Otto I accused Pope John XII of fornicating with his own niece, “making the sacred palace a whorehouse” while he drunkenly murdered his enemies and consecrated a ten-year-old bishop.

Trump’s rhetoric may have been mild in comparison, but the fact remains that not once in the 250-year history of the United States has a Commander-in-Chief launched a personal attack on the Supreme Pontiff.

—The Spectator, April 27th.

How it’s going:

 

Deace’s tweet concludes, “Barely 2% of West Virginia is Hispanic. Barely 1% of the state speaks Spanish. This is a purely political appointment by a woke pope trying to shoehorn his open borders agenda into a state Trump has won by 40 points three times. There’s nothing prophetic here, but it’s all shamefully political. An open borders agenda the pope himself isn’t forced to abide by, because Vatican City has strict enforcement policies and walls. This is like if MSNBC picked offices in the church, all the while never allowing the illegals in Martha’s Vineyard where their primetime hosts spend their summers.”

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 4th, 2026

HMMM:

Related:

Posted at 8:35 am by Ed Driscoll on May 4th, 2026

HOW’S THAT WELCOME WAGON PROGRAM COMING ALONG?

Posted at 8:22 am by Ed Driscoll on May 4th, 2026

SCHRODINGER’S TOTENKOPF:

Related:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll on May 4th, 2026

May 3, 2026

GOODER AND HARDER, LA: Who Is Nithya Raman, Dubbed The ‘Next Mamdani,’ Gaining Ground In LA Mayor Race?

Why Is She Being Called The ‘Next Mamdani?’

Her rise has also drawn comparisons to progressive figures in American politics, particularly New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Like Mamdani, Raman is associated with the Democratic Socialists of America and has built her political base through grassroots organising rather than traditional party networks. Both leaders have emerged through volunteer-driven campaigns centred on housing, inequality and urban governance.

If this quote is true (and if it isn’t, it will be damning for Pratt’s campaign), perhaps this has something to do with the comparison as well:

Posted at 7:03 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 3rd, 2026

DISPATCHES FROM THE MEMORY HOLE:

In 2014 Mark Steyn wrote:

ISIS are fast-track Nazis. No messing about with a few property restrictions and intermarriage laws as a little light warm-up: They’re only in the business of “final solutions”, and they start on Day One and don’t quit until the last Christian and Yazidi is dead or fled. As I’ve often remarked about today’s exhaustively cleansed Maghreb, Levant and Araby, Islam is king on a field of corpses. But pikers like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Baathists, the House of Saud take their time. ISIS are shooting for the Guinness Book of Records.

However, unlike the original Nazis, who sought to keep their atrocities as hidden as possible, ISIS loved social media. A 2023 post by consulting firm Booz Allen noted that “It’s no secret that the Islamic State’s skillful use of social media has played a central role in its rise and continuing success:” 

The terrorist group can reportedly generate as many as 200,000 tweets and disseminate an average of 38 unique propaganda events each day.

Still, it’s not the volume of ISIS messages but their rapid spread and powerful impact that makes ISIS such a dangerous force. In the hands of ISIS propagandists, social media has dramatically increased the group’s reach and influence.

Gruesome videos of ISIS atrocities spread fear and intimidate its enemies into submission, while news and events are quickly promulgated with ISIS’s own interpretation and message. Through its adept use of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and other social media, ISIS not only draws a continuous stream of new recruits to its regional strongholds, but it now inspires followers to commit terrorist acts in the Western nations where they live.

Clearly, social media is pushing the boundaries of information operations and the concept of the traditional battlespace. While ISIS and other U.S. adversaries are exploiting social media as a reliable force multiplier, the United States and its allies are actively exploring new and innovative ways to use new media as an effective tool of influence.

In contrast though, as John Cleese responded to Hamk’s tweet, “There is a tendency for some media to describe reports of divisive behaviour as themselves divisive No. They are pointing out divisiveness that ALREADY exists The original divisiveness can only be addressed when it is acknowledged NOT by hushing it up.”

Posted at 6:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 3rd, 2026

WELL, SURE. BUT DOESN’T EVERYONE EVALUATE ELECTRIC GUITAR PLAYERS BASED ON THEIR COVID STANCES IN 2020?

Ironically, Clapton has swung far to the left in recent years in his newfound post-October 7th loathing of Israel. But that’s not enough to salvage his reputation at Rolling Stone. 

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 3rd, 2026

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH BARNEY FRANK IS (ALMOST) A VOICE OF SANITY: Dying ex-Rep. Barney Frank delivers stark warning from hospice about Dems swinging too far left.

Frank is set to release a scathing book rebuking the left flank of the Democratic Party later this year. His main message to lefties is to be more strategic about how far to push on social issues.

“We didn’t get to marriage until after these other things had been resolved,” Frank argued.

“And that’s what I’m suggesting that we do today. The analogy is males and female transsexuals playing sports that are for women.”

“I understand there’s a lot of anger about that,” he continued. “And I think, in the interest of the transgender community, as well as others, it would be better to go at that in a more granular way, and not simply announce that, if you don’t support it, you’re a homophobe.”

During a recent interview with Politico, the architect of the Dodd-Frank banking regulations also cited the defund the police and open borders push as examples of lefties going too far.

“It’s one thing to advocate something knowing that you’re going beyond the current viewpoints, and another to make it a litmus test,” Frank told Politico.

He used Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner as an example of Dems moving too far too the left — after he became the presumptive nominee when Gov. Janet Mills dropped out. 

“I think Platner actually shares with Trump this capacity toward making the most out of the anger that people feel,” the former congressman reflected.

“What I’m afraid of is that he won’t be able to translate that into enough votes.”

Does that mean that Frank would be okay with the man with the totenkopf tattoo if he does win in November? Communists were famously called “liberals in a hurry.” It sounds like Frank wants all or most of 2020-style wokeness to happen, just not at the pedal-to-the-floor speed that America’s leftists are pushing those ideas.

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 3rd, 2026

NO, THEY’RE BEING ASSESSED EXCLUSIVELY ON THEIR ABILITIES:

 

Trump and Hegseth seeking a non-DEI military is fascism; to FDR in 1944, the laissez faire economy of Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s was fascism.; last year Sydney Sweeney’s bazoombas were fascism. As George Orwell famously wrote, the F-word now has “no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’”

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 3rd, 2026

ROGER KIMBALL: The Last Days of the Iranian Regime.

That’s one part of the story. The other part involves ordinary citizens smashing into regime sympathizers with their cars, killing them, or members of the Iranian diaspora happily reporting on an explosion that eliminated 14 IRGC leaders. Biggest understatement of the moment: the Iranian regime is collapsing before our eyes. President Trump gave an update a few days ago:

We don’t even know who the hell we’re talking to. We call, and Mohammed picks up, the cousin of the brother-in-law of the barber . . . and I tell them: Are you the leader? We’re looking for a REAL LEADER, not a scared duck! . . .

Whoever grabs the job lasts less time than a kebab in my hand. They’re like a headless duck team: they quack, they flap . . . and in the end, one always ends up fried.

Tehran’s current line is that they will stop their attacks in the Strait of Hormuz—piddly little expostulations that they are—if the US ends the war, lifts the blockade, and postpones talk about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Trump’s answer? Forget it. And by the way, he noted, he doesn’t want Iran to abandon its nuclear program for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. Iran may never acquire nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, as the clock ticks and Iran’s economy slips into drain-swirling oblivion, CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper has just briefed President Trump on “final blow” strike options, including “Iran’s remaining military equipment and installations, regime/IRGC leadership, and other infrastructure.”

President Trump may very well choose to redeploy the kinetic option. We’ll see. Either way, the regime is finished.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 3rd, 2026

OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Islamism, not the cost-of-living, is the root of this anti-Semitic violence.

On Thursday night, the day after the stabbing of two Jewish men in north London, Green Party deputy leader Rachel Millward was asked a simple question on the BBC’s Question Time. ‘You’ve stated you’ve seen racial hatred in this country’, said a member of the audience. ‘Could you please specify where that hatred is coming from?’

* * * * * * * * *

Basically, Millward’s response can be summarised as: supermarket prices and Nigel Farage are the reasons why Jews are being stabbed in London.

It isn’t hard to understand why Millward gave such a tortured and dishonest answer. Just hours before Question Time went to air, two Green Party candidates standing in next week’s council elections were arrested by Metropolitan Police officers on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred. It probably goes without saying that Saiqa Ali (a Muslim woman) and Sabine Mairey were not charged under Section 19 of the Public Order Act because they had posted inflammatory pictures of their latest receipt from Sainsbury’s. They were arrested for allegedly sharing anti-Semitic content.

Of course, Millward would have been in a bind even without these untimely arrests. Since the Green Party’s Islamo-leftist turn, there was never any chance that someone from the leadership would say anything critical of Islam, or even Islamic extremism.

Everyone with a pulse knows where the ‘racial hatred’ against Jews is coming from. A party awash with Islamist-inspired Jew hatred is never going to acknowledge this.

Meanwhile, back in the States, “You may recall the ‘Why Do They Hate Us’ campaign the left fired up immediately after the attacks to put blame on the US for the murder of 2,977 people on 9/11. That narrative was active by 9/12. And that was when the American left began its weird romance with Islam. Feminists seeing hijab and niqab, the suppression of women, as legitimate expressions of multiculturalism.”

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 3rd, 2026

NAME THAT PARTY: US Senate Candidate From PA Threatens To Kill Trump, Congressman’s Daughter: Affidavit.

A Pennsylvania man who recently launched a campaign for U.S. Senate is accused of leaving a series of violent voicemails threatening President Donald Trump and a member of Congress’s family, according to unsealed federal court documents on Friday, May 1.

Raymond Eugene Chandler III, of Wilkinsburg, was arrested and charged after a federal investigation into repeated threats made over voicemail, authorities said.

Chandler is charged with influencing, impeding, or retaliating against a federal official by threatening a family member and by threat, according to the affidavit.

The criminal complaint, unsealed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, alleges Chandler left multiple messages targeting an unnamed member of Congress and President Trump between April 2025 and April 2026.

In one voicemail on April 18, 2026, Chandler allegedly described a graphic scenario in which the congressman and his daughter would be attacked, saying they would be “pull[ed]… out of your house” and have their “throat… slit,” according to the affidavit.

Days later, on April 29, 2026, Chandler allegedly left another message urging the lawmaker to assassinate President Trump, telling them to “walk into the Oval Office with a gun in your hand… put it to the President’s head… and… pull the trigger,” the affidavit states.

“Better than Fetterman:”

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll on May 3rd, 2026

May 2, 2026

“THESE GUYS LEFT NAZI GERMANY, AND MUSSOLINI’S ITALY, TO COME TO CALIFORNIA IN THE 1940s, AND THEY LIVED BY THE BEACH, AND THEY WERE DEPRESSED BY THE RELENTLESS CHEERINESS, the productivity, and the capitalism that they witnessed around them:”

Posted at 9:17 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 2nd, 2026

IT’S GOOD TO BE IN THE NOMENKLATURA:

Related:

Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 2nd, 2026

MINNESOTA: A CAUTIONARY TALE.

Don’t be Minnesota.

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune,

Don’t Minnesota my state: Land of 10,000 Lakes becomes a political punching bag.

The Star Tribune is completely baffled by this development, which they view as wholly undeserved. The Star Tribune blames “conservative candidates” and Trump for the phenomenon.

The Star Tribune tracks down a political science professor who attributes the state’s unwanted status entirely to a Trump “grudge.”

No, I think there’s more to Minnesota’s recent PR decline than that:

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 2nd, 2026

UNEXPECTEDLY: Jon Stewart Hearts Nazi-Tatted Pol Graham Platner.

Newsbusters reports that Stewart gave Platner a chummy interview earlier this week on his “Weekly Show” podcast. First, Stewart compared him to a classic movie underdog.

…here’s, kind of, always the fable of a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a kind of, you know, an honest man who has real ideals facing off against a corrupt system that is fueled by money and toxicity and all these—so there is an archetype for this.

Later, Stewart brought up the tattoo issue without mentioning its Nazi roots. He did so while thoroughly explaining away the matter, sweeping it under the electoral rug so listeners could see Platner as a changed man.

Platner’s PR team couldn’t have scripted the exchange any better.

Old and busted: “Punch a Nazi.”

The new hotness?

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 2nd, 2026

HOW IT STARTED: GameStop rally is warning that market bubbles have gone mad.

—The New York Post, January 27th, 2021.

How It’s Going: GameStop wants to buy eBay in an aggressive pivot to e-commerce. “The size mismatch is hard to overlook. GameStop carries a market value of around $12 billion; eBay sits closer to $46 billion. Despite that gap, GameStop has already been quietly building a stake in eBay ahead of a potential bid – a signal that [GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen] is willing to swing big rather than chip away at e-commerce incrementally. Markets moved fast after the news broke. eBay shares jumped more than 10% in after-hours trading, and GameStop climbed around 5%, as investors registered a mix of optimism and curiosity about what this combination could actually look like.”

Posted at 2:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 2nd, 2026

SEATTLE’S SOCIALIST MAYOR HAS ONE WORD FOR HIGH-EARNERS FLEEING THE CITY:

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, a total socialist, earned ridicule after brushing off concerns about high-earners fleeing the city due to her tax policies.

During an event at Seattle University, she said, “the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are like super overblown.” For the millionaires who are leaving, she had one word: “Bye.”

She made the comments while defending her ridiculous “millionaire tax” and promising to come up with “progressive” ways to steal more money from the wealthy at the city level.

Wilson portrayed herself as a proponent for “progressive taxation” who isn’t interested in catering to the wealthy or business owners concerned about higher tax burdens. She argued, “overall, we still have a deeply regressive tax system, and my office is actively exploring our options regarding progressive taxation.” She noted that Seattle has “greater flexibility” than the county when it comes to swiping cash from people’s pockets. The mayor further insisted that it is “detrimental for Seattle’s business climate when the costs of operating in downtown Seattle are significantly misaligned with those in neighboring Bellevue.”

Good and hard, Jet City:

To be fair though, articulate responses to the issues of the day do not seem to be Wilson’s strong suit:

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 2nd, 2026

RECORD STORE DAY 2026’S TOP SELLERS: Taylor Swift, Pink Floyd, Bruno Mars and More.

Vinyl releases from the likes of Taylor Swift, Pink Floyd and Bruno Mars were among the top-sellers from Record Store Day (RSD) 2026 in the United States, according to Luminate.

The yearly independent record store day celebration was held on April 18 and boasted a bevy of albums and singles (mostly vinyl titles) issued for RSD, and exclusively sold through indie record stores.

More than 350 album and single products were issued for RSD 2026, and the top-selling album was the four-LP clear vinyl release of Pink Floyd’s Live From the Los Angeles Sports Arena, April 26th, 1975. The project was also issued as a 2-CD set, and the CD edition was the No. 24 best-selling RSD 2026 album title.

Another two-fer on the list is the soundtrack to KPop Demon Hunters, which ranks at both Nos. 2 and 6, with two different iterations of the album on vinyl: a HUNTR/X edition and a Saja Boys edition, respectively.

Record Store Day 2026 Ambassador Bruno Mars had the No. 2-selling RSD 2026 album with Collaborations. The 11-track double vinyl compilation includes such teamings as the No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits “Nothin’ On You” (B.o.B featuring Mars) “Uptown Funk” (Mark Ronson featuring Mars) and “Die With a Smile” (Lady Gaga and Mars).

I suppose vinyl is okay for poseurs, but real audiophiles know that this is the vintage format of choice for getting the most out of music listening: 8-Tracks Are Back? They Are In My House.

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 2nd, 2026

MARRIAGE AND ITS DISCONTENTS:

America’s rapidly changing demographics on the marriage question do not, however, tell the whole story. More ominously, American society today is now divided between the enlightened few and the unenlightened many. On one side stands reason, morality, freedom, equality, progress, compassion, decency, and love, and on the other side stands nothing but the forces of superstitious irrationalism, reactionary stupidity, Troglodytish bigotry, and segregationist oppression. To support the institution of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is now seen by many as illiberal, which means bad. It is the Forces of Light set against the Forces of Darkness. This Manichean world is now divided into binary categories of Us and Them, Friends and Enemies, Saints and Sinners, Believers and Infidels, all of which can be reduced to “The Good” and “The Evil.” The unwashed masses that stand for traditional marriage are said to suffer from a new kind of mental illness: homophobia.

Not surprisingly, many conservatives and libertarians have either waved the white flag of surrender, or they have begun calling for a brokered truce on the marriage issue before any real intellectual engagement has taken place. But a truce was never an option for the proponents of same-sex marriage. Nary a shot was fired in the cultural battle over same-sex marriage before the Nervous Nellies of the Right vacated the intellectual battlefield and began their fast retreat. This would suggest that they quickly realized they had been wrong on the marriage issue, that they are intellectual cowards, or compromising pragmatists.

Thus, it was only a matter of time before Ross Douthat, the lone “conservative” columnist at The New York Times and a supporter of traditional marriage, waved the white flag asking in a whimpering op-ed for “The Terms of Our Surrender.” Douthat conceded unconditional defeat on the marriage issue and expressed his hope that the conquering forces would treat him and his friends humanely.

Make no mistake about it: this is a cultural revolution the likes of which has never been seen before.

Still, for the tens of millions of unenlightened Americans stuck in the here-and-now, the question of marriage is a living and not a settled issue. It is not going away anytime soon. In fact, we may very well be witnessing the beginning and not the end of the marriage debate. Thoughtful Americans on both sides of the issue are right to wonder about the true meaning and long-term consequences of redefining marriage politically. The form in which this conversation takes place will be a test of who we are as a nation.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 2nd, 2026
« Previous Entries
Next Entries »