Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

June 28, 2024

GAY TALESE, CALL YOUR OFFICE! Biden Caught a Cold That Made Him 1,000 Years Old.

After about 15 minutes, I’d seen enough. I can’t stand to listen to either of them for more than that, but at least Trump seemed like he still knew where and who he was. He’s old, but he’s not Biden old.

Yet.

Even with the sound off, the optics were horrible: Trump gesticulating and yammering about whatever, and Biden just staring at him like a slack-jawed zombie.

And when Joe had to talk… oh boy…

Look, I never said Trump wasn’t funny.

Online, the journos and other Democrats were hanging in there, trying to make excuses for Biden’s excruciating debate performance. Before it was even over, they started reporting the “breaking news” that oh, by the way, Joe has a cold.

No, he has 81 years behind him. He cannot speak in public anymore unless everything is written down for him, and he can barely even manage that.

It’s Schrodinger’s Cough — a “cold” so bad that it wrecked his debate performance, but not so bad that he couldn’t meet with supporters after the debate last night and campaign the next day: Biden to hold campaign rally in North Carolina hours after faltering debate performance.

(Classical allusion in headline.)

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 28th, 2024

BLAMING THE REFS: Dems Blame CNN Moderators After Biden Debate Disaster: “Unforgivable.”

You can always tell who lost a presidential debate by which party is slamming the moderators afterwards. And in the wake of Joe Biden and Donald Trump‘s first 2024 presidential debate, many progressives are focusing their fire on CNN‘s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, calling out the duo for not fact-checking Trump in real time during the 90-minute face off.

Thursday’s clash featured a performance by President Joe Biden that many are calling disastrous for his reelection chances, with CNN’s own post-debate panelists suggesting the president should consider withdrawing from the race.

As Mark Steyn spotted this morning, Dana certainly tried to steer Biden in the right direction:

The moderators did their best. Here’s Dana Bash signaling to Joe the direction in which to point his head:

Was there anyone else on the stage? Not so’s you’d know from the headlines. Biden lost to himself. And considering that the object was to make the debate all about Trump that’s quite an accomplishment.

So what’s going on? Why did whoever’s running the show allow this to happen?

* * * * * * * *

As my former GB News colleague Neil Oliver observed long ago on The Mark Steyn Show, formulating a useful rule of contemporary politics:

This is happening because they want it to happen.

Why would that be? Well, maybe because they’ve decided it’s time to move on to the next plot twist. Never-Trumper Michael Brendan Dougherty at National Review:

Trump May Have Done Too Much Winning Tonight

Oh, no! They laid the trap and he walked right into it!

Right now, MSNBC and CNN post-debate panels are openly talking about options for pressuring Biden to withdraw, or party officials conspiring to replace him at the convention anyway …and the selection between Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom would allow Democrats to feel like the party of the future again…

At NRO’s Corner, Mark Antonio Wright notes that there’s only man who can remove Brandon from the stage, his boss: Only Barack Obama Could Push Joe Biden Aside.

So if anything is going to happen to turn the great Democratic swap-out parlor game on Earth II into something approaching reality, it will necessitate Barack Obama’s publicly and forcefully calling on Joe Biden, his former veep, to step aside.

Obama is the only Democrat with the stature and the coalition-wide credibility to give cover to all the rest of them. If there is going to be a groundswell of public and private pressure on Biden to withdraw, it’s going to have to start with Obama.

Democrats can dream — but it’s not going to happen. Obama is no more interested than Newsom in rolling the dice on a party civil war that could be blamed on him. And no combination of Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, or Nancy Pelosi has the heft.

If this story making the rounds is true, it could indicate why Barry is hesitant to make the call: Why Michelle Obama hasn’t campaigned for Biden and has been ‘frustrated’ with his family over messy drama that resurfaced during Hunter’s trial.

Michelle Obama has steered clear of campaigning for Joe Biden over her private frustration with how the family treated friend Kathleen Buhle during her messy divorce from Hunter Biden, a new report claims.

The former first lady, one of the most popular figures in the Democratic party, hasn’t posted about the 81-year-old president’s re-election bid.

Buhle and Hunter split in 2017 and details of the divorce resurfaced when she testified at his recent federal gun trial in Delaware.

Axios reported that Michelle told others that her friend had been wronged by the Biden family who have blamed Buhle for some of the lurid details of Hunter’s behavior becoming public.

But hey, this is all academic, right? Joe insists he’ll be at the next debate in September! Biden vows to return for second debate against Trump after disastrous performance.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 28th, 2024

DISPATCHES FROM THE TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE DEBATE: The Trump Campaign Released an Ad After the Debate. It’s ‘Devastating.’

As Bari Weiss writes: They Knew.

The debate was not just a catastrophe for President Biden. And boy—oy—was it ever.

But it was more than that. It was a catastrophe for an entire class of experts, journalists, and pundits, who have, since 2020, insisted that Biden was sharp as a tack, on top of his game, basically doing handstands while peppering his staff with tough questions about care for migrant children and aid to Ukraine.

When you’ve lost Biden’s favorite chat show: Sad Scarborough Suggests: Time For Dems To Tell Biden It’s ‘Over’

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 28th, 2024

SUPREME COURT PARES BACK FEDERAL REGULATORY POWER:

The Supreme Court upended the federal regulatory framework in place for 40 years, expanding the power of federal judges to second-guess agency decisions over environmental, consumer and workplace safety policy, among other areas.

The 6-3 decision, along ideological lines, discards a 1984 precedent directing federal courts to defer to agency legal interpretations when the statutory language passed by Congress is ambiguous. Conservative legal activists, Republican-led states and some business groups have argued in recent years that the 1984 case, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, allows agenda-driven regulators to push the limits of their power.

By abandoning the doctrine called Chevron deference, the justices have given parties unhappy with agency decisions more opportunities to overturn regulations by persuading federal judges that agency officials exceeded their authority.

Even before the decision, the conservative-dominated court had been hammering away at federal regulatory power, in opinions that threw out Biden administration policies ranging from public-health measures to contain Covid-19 to a blanket cancellation of student-loan debt. But while the Supreme Court hasn’t cited Chevron for authority in years, many lower courts said they remained bound by the doctrine as long as it remained on the books.

And: SCOTUS Hands Down Huge Decision Affecting J6 Defendants. “The Supreme Court has taken a judicial katana to a statute that federal prosecutors weaponized to go after those who participated in the January 6 incident. The question before the court was whether the ‘obstruction of an official proceeding’ statute could be used in how the Justice Department weaponized it to go after hundreds of January 6 defendants. As SCOTUS Blog covered in April, the plaintiff, Joseph Fischer, a former police officer, argued that the statute only pertained to evidence tampering in a congressional investigation. During oral arguments, justices weren’t convinced by the government’s interpretation, arguing that it could cast too much of a net.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 28th, 2024

MATTHEW CONTINETTI: For Whom the Split Screen Tolls.

On the left of television screens around the world, Trump looked like he had just stepped off the 2020 campaign trail. On the right, Biden looked like a diminished man who is not up to the job and cannot be expected to complete a second full term as president. Biden’s presence confirmed that Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated the president’s handling of classified documents, was, if anything, pulling punches when he wrote that Biden is “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

The split screen explains why the level of panic among liberal commentators and Democratic strategists on social media was so high during the debate. This wasn’t some “cheapfake” or altered video meme online. This was happening in real time, in a television studio in Atlanta, with only Biden, Trump, Jake Tapper, and Dana Bash in the room. How do you spin what Americans saw Thursday night? You can’t.

Nor were Americans the only ones watching Biden’s performance and assessing Biden’s demeanor. Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, the mullahs, and Kim Jong Un tuned in as well. And the world has become a more dangerous place.

How terrible was Biden’s performance? Given how in the tank CNN is, I’m willing to take Burnett at her word here: “He knows every one of these questions is coming” — and he still couldn’t make it through the debate without looking every one of his 181 81 years.

Posted at 12:37 am by Ed Driscoll on Jun 28th, 2024

June 27, 2024

LET THE SPIN BEGIN:

Didn’t Nixon offer a similar excuse for his appearance during the first debate with JFK?

And when you’re a lefty who’s lost whoever is running the Drudge Report these days:

Posted at 10:26 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 27th, 2024

LET’S GO TO THE TAPE:

Okay, maybe not “super predators,” (that was apparently Hillary) but Biden definitely had an affinity with the p-word:

Posted at 10:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 27th, 2024

MILTON FRIEDMAN ISN’T RUNNING THE SHOW ANYMORE:

Posted at 10:02 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 27th, 2024

NICE TRY, JOE:

UPDATE:

Posted at 9:53 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 27th, 2024

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE!

“It was my understanding that there would be no math:”

Ouch: “Trump’s dismissiveness of Biden’s wandering answer there is the kind of thing you… never really see Biden confronted with in his ‘press conferences.'”

We’ve entered some sort of bizarre hell-world in which Russell Brand is a voice of sanity:

Posted at 9:16 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 27th, 2024

MARK JUDGE: Good News: No One is Talking to Journalists Anymore.

In September of 2018, a friend of mine, a bartender named Rick, came home to a shocking sight. His 85-year-old mother was being interrogated by a reporter from the New York Times. The reporter, Kate Kelly, was interrogating an elderly woman about what parties I went to in the 1980s. Kelly had fast-talked her way into Rick’s house, and Rick’s poor mother had no idea what Kelly was talking about.

    Kate Kelly was trying to find dirt on me. My high school classmate, Brett Kavanaugh, was up for a seat on the Supreme Court. Allegations about sexual misconduct had been launched, the opposition researcher and political left had tried to implicate me with Kavanaugh, and the rabid press corp was completely out of control. Thus, they came for me. When I wouldn’t talk, they came for my friends. When my fiends wouldn’t talk, they came for their elderly mothers.

Kate Kelly is one of the reasons nobody is talking to journalists anymore.

Back in 1992, the late Ginny Carroll, of the then-Washington Post-owned Newsweek, admitted on C-SPAN that at the 1992 Republican Convention, she wore a button that said, “Yeah, I’m in the Media — Screw You.”

Nobody should be surprised that their customers feel the same way, and thanks to the Internet, finally have a way to express that opinion themselves.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 27th, 2024

THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T WORKING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Musk Tapped to Deorbit ISS.

While it seems hard to believe, the International Space Station (ISS) was put into orbit more than 25 years ago…There is no question that something will need to be done with the ISS when its mission is over. Once the fuel for its thrusters runs out, its orbit will slowly begin to decay and at some point, it will reenter the atmosphere and come down. The ISS weighs 462 tons. It is too massive to fully burn up upon reentry, so at least some of it will reach the surface as a massive fireball traveling at supersonic speed. If it were to strike land in a populated area it could be catastrophic.

Under the current plan, that’s where Elon Musk comes in. SpaceX will need to design, construct, and launch a new type of spacecraft that will dock with the ISS and guide it back into the atmosphere in a controlled fashion. Even that approach isn’t entirely without risk, of course. You don’t have to be off by much to wind up with the space station crashing down into a shipping lane. Even if everything goes flawlessly, we’re still going to wind up with yet another massive hunk of junk littering the ocean floor and we’ll pay more than $800 million for the privilege of doing so.

And unlike Skylab’s descent in July of 1979, we probably won’t even get any decent novelty songs out of the crash:

 

 

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 27th, 2024

SEND IN THE CLONES: NBC Brings A.I. Al Michaels to Peacock for Customized Paris Olympics Recaps.

Michaels, as one would expect, approved the use of his voice, which was trained on his years of work for the broadcaster.

“When I was approached about this, I was skeptical but obviously curious,” Michaels said. “Then I saw a demonstration detailing what they had in mind. I said, ‘I’m in.’”

Michaels has worked on NBC’s Olympics coverage since 2010 (back when he was at ABC, he called the legendary “Miracle on Ice” game), and also was the lead play-by-play announcer for NBC Sunday Night Football. Michaels currently works in the booth for Amazon’s Thursday Night Football.

Notably, an NBCU executive says that a team of NBC Sports editors will review all of the content before it is able to be added to the recaps “for quality, validation and accuracy,” including the pronunciation and intonation of certain names or events.

That addresses one of the big concerns around generative AI, namely around accuracy and context. Having humans check the system before generating the recaps adds a layer of protection.

Still, the artificial intelligence Al Michaels is a major move into generative artificial intelligence from a major media company, one that may provide a template for future offerings, where talent is looped in and (presumably) compensated for their work.

In other 21st century headlines: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright Find Love While De-Aged in Robert Zemeckis’ ‘Here’ Trailer.

The Hollywood Reporter reported last year that Hanks and Wright are de-aged in the movie through the generative AI-driven tool called Metaphysic Live. “With Here, the film simply wouldn’t work without our actors seamlessly transforming into younger versions of themselves,” Zemeckis explained at the time.

Here marks a reunion for Zemeckis, Roth, Hanks and Wright, who all previously collaborated on 1994’s Oscar-winning film Forrest Gump, celebrating its 30th anniversary next month. Forrest Gump picked up six Academy Awards, including best picture, in addition to wins for Hanks for best actor, Zemeckis for best director and Roth for best adapted screenplay.

Hopefully the technology has advanced sufficiently since 2019’s The Irishman, Martin Scorsese’s glacially-paced made-for-Netflix gangster film starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci as digitally de-aged waxworks versions of themselves, but the shots featured in Here’s trailer do not look promising:

Posted at 12:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 27th, 2024

NEWS  YOU CAN USE: Elvis Presley’s actual blue suede shoes are up for auction. “Now, fans have the opportunity to step into the King’s very own blue suede shoes as they go up for grabs at British auction house Henry Aldridge and Son – for an estimated £100,000 to £120,000 (around $126,000 to $152,000).”

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll on Jun 27th, 2024

THE STEPHANOPOULOS LECTURES ON PROPER INTERVIEWS AND DEBATES:

Democrats think “democracy” should be the No. 1 issue — as they define it. And in this cycle, they’ve defined it as pressuring Republicans to accept their 2024 defeat. When they say they won’t accept defeat in advance, they get another six pestering questions about how they won’t accept election results … that haven’t happened yet.

You’re allowed to proclaim if Donald Trump wins, democracy has ended. You’re not allowed to say the 2024 election result is open-ended.

Stephanopoulos told Mediaite, “I think it’s journalistic malpractice to do a live interview with President Trump on television.” This aligns with MSNBC partisan Rachel Maddow, who always proclaims that “news” channels can’t run Trump live. That’s why you know they’ll pull out their hair watching a live debate. By that standard, Trump wins by accepting any debate terms that let him speak live.

But four years ago, Stephanopoulos demonstrated what his actual standards are, and they’re partisan. Due to a canceled debate, the candidates submitted to individual town-hall formats. Trump was perpetually interrupted and debated by Savannah Guthrie on NBC. Biden was treated to a gentle chat on ABC with Stephanopoulos, who asked nothing about the New York Post stories on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Most of the audience questions came from the left.

The networks actually delighted in the flagrant bias the next day. Biden-boosting ABC reporter Mary Bruce gushed, “Joe Biden spending much of the night looking ahead, outlining his plans for the future, while the president, often combative, spent much of the night on defense.”

This is why public trust in the establishment media has cratered. Their ideal scenario is the Republicans are grilled, and the Democrats are massaged. A few weeks ago, they touted the ideal scenario of Trump trapped in a courtroom versus Biden out shaking hands with voters on the campaign trail.

I’d add the standard “Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense” reminder, but as once and current Democratic Party operative, Stephanopoulos makes it all too easy.

Evergreen:

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Jun 27th, 2024

EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: “Jamaal Bowman’s loss signals uncertainty of where the first member of ‘the Squad’ to lose went wrong,” according to AP’s first draft headline yesterday:

It’s since been revised to: What Jamaal Bowman’s loss in New York means for the future of ‘the Squad.’

Perhaps a news and opinion organization that isn’t so close to the issue that they had(?) an office in Gaza in the same building as Hamas and Al-Jazeera might be able to figure this one out. Such as Batya Ungar-Sargon at Spiked, who explains: Why Americans are rejecting the Squad’s ‘anti-Zionism.’

The American left’s obsession with Palestine is a marker of its privilege. You need immense economic security to prioritise foreign policy during a cost-of-living crisis, where housing costs have skyrocketed and the price of groceries is up by double digits compared with 2020. Indeed, when Bowman won his seat four years ago, he criticised his then opponent for ‘spending too much time on issues so far from his district’. Oh the irony!

Bowman is the first Squad member to be ousted, but he won’t be the last. At the end of the day, the Squad, like the progressive left more broadly, represents only a small elite. Its views were fomented in the lab of American universities and are totally at odds with both the cultural and economic interests of the working class.

That’s the real story behind Bowman’s stinging defeat.

Much more like this, please. Or as Seth Mandel wrote at Commentary before Bowman’s defeat on Tuesday: Let Them Fear Our Voice.

(Classical reference in headline — to an earlier election year showstopper from AP, back in 2008.)

Posted at 7:22 am by Ed Driscoll on Jun 27th, 2024

June 26, 2024

MARK JUDGE: CNN Tried to Slime Me. They Made Me Sound Awesome.

For the entire summer of 2018 opposition researchers were digging through everything I’ve ever done—and not done—and sending it to the media. This included books I wrote, girls I dated, and videos I’d made. What interested CNN, aside from the bullshit of Blasey Ford and Avenatti, were my movies. They reflected my interest in Hollywood, Catholicism, literature and women. I’d started getting paid for making films when Georgetown University purchased a video I made on the Fourth of July around 2010. Shortly after that I was at the “D.C Pool Party,” which was gathering spot for young people in Washington who went to dance, meet, drink, and have a good time. It was a multicultural rave a mile from Capitol Hill that has nothing to do with lawyers or politics, or the election. It was the kind of thing you’d come across in Brazil.

I was there for about an hour and getting ready to leave when Eric, one of the party organizers saw my camera bag. “Are you a photographer?” he said. I said yes. “Listen, our photographer didn’t make it today,” he said. “Can you take some pictures for the next three hours? You know, people having fun, pretty girls.” He then named a good price. Eric was happy with the result. This led to more shoots, including one of a girl who went on American Idol—and made it into the Top 10. Suddenly I was negotiating licensing fees and signing waivers for my work.

Then the Kavanaugh war erupted. CNN was looking for dirt, and thought they found it with my films.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:44 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 26th, 2024

GREAT MOMENTS IN BANANA REPUBLICS: Bolivian Military Withdraw from Square Outside Presidential Palace After President Slams Coup.

Bolivian armed forces with armored vehicles pulled back from the presidential palace in La Paz on Wednesday evening, after President Luis Arce slammed a “coup” attempt against the government and called for international support.

Earlier in the day, military units led by General Juan Jose Zuniga, recently stripped of his military command, had gathered in the central Plaza Murillo square, home to the presidential palace and Congress. A Reuters witness saw an armored vehicle ram a door of the presidential palace and soldiers rush in.

Bolivian authorities arrested General Juan Jose Zuniga on Wednesday afternoon, a Reuters witness saw, hours after troops stormed into the presidential palace amid a military coup attempt.

Bolivia’s government and international leaders denounced the attempted coup. It is unclear where Zuniga is being taken.

Also unclear:

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 26th, 2024

THERE ARE NO ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES, OR GAIA WORSHIPERS IN AN ELECTION YEAR: You’ll Never Believe Who Biden Is Using Now to Buy Votes in November.

There’s tension inside the Biden Cabal between White House officials who want to soft-pedal oil sanctions on nasty foreign producers like Putinist Russia and Islamist Iran and Treasury Department staffers who have a soul.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Biden “wants to keep gas prices stable ahead of the election by encouraging oil to flow into global markets,” and if that means imposing “softer-than-expected sanctions on major oil producers” like two to nasties mentioned above, then so be it.

Oh, and also Venezuela. What’s the big deal in appeasing a socialist basket case like Nicolás Maduro when you’re already servicing Vladimir Putin and whoever is in charge of Iran since President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash last month.

(Two cheers for gravity!)

An unnamed senior administration official told the WSJ, “The president has wanted to do everything that he could to make sure that American consumers have the lowest price possible at the pump, as it affects families’ daily lives.”

Every dollar of oil revenue that goes into Caracas, Moscow, and Tehran’s coffers is another dollar that can be spent propping up the socialist Maduro regime, prolonging the Russo-Ukraine War, or providing the missiles, guns, and ammo that Hamas uses to murder Jews.

ASIDE: I don’t mind paying a little extra for each gallon when it supports producers in this country, or producers in countries that aren’t endstage socialist hellholes, warmongering neoimperialists, or Islamic terror states. I do mind paying a little extra when it’s American producers getting shut down by overregulation.

I was kidding with the headline — of course, you believe that Biden would suck up to Moscow and Tehran to keep gas prices lower to save his overinflated ego from the historical ignominy of becoming the next Jimmy Carter.

Will any DNC operatives with bylines have the guts to ask Pete Buttigieg what he thinks about the (p)resident’s change of heart? Flashback: Pete Buttigieg blasted for touting ‘benefit’ for electric vehicle owners from ‘pain’ of high gas prices.

 

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Jun 26th, 2024
« Previous Entries
Next Entries »