Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
November 8, 2023
MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT: San Francisco’s Post-Apocalyptic Hellscape Is on Full Display in This Viral TikTok Video. “Police lights flashing, litter in the streets, and homeless encampments in doorways with sketchy individuals loitering everywhere are on full display in the video. The scene is something one would expect to see in a warzone like Gaza, not in a bastion of liberal America in the heart of one of the wealthiest regions of California.”
THE GEORGE SOROS PARTNER WHO DISRUPTED RIGHT-WING PUBLISHING: All Seasons Press, founded by billionaire investor Scott Bessent, has a funny habit of signing big-name MAGA authors to book contracts, then suing them.
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: The South Park Rules: How to do Taboo Comedy Without Getting Cancelled.
South Park offers a giant, yet rather inscrutable, example of how to succeed with dangerous comedy.
I’m mostly groping in the dark too, but gather round, you ambitious youngsters. As far as I can tell, here are South Park’s rules for cancel culture immunity:
- Be really funny
- Make fun of everything
- Make industry gatekeepers wealthy
- Get famous before 2013
Sorry up-and-comers, #4 is going to be tough for you to achieve. And what’s so special about 2013 you ask?
That’s about the time The Maddening began.
Teen anxiety and depression shot up. Race relations, which had been chugging along quite well for years, suddenly got much worse. Innovations like “liking” and “retweeting” turned social from a mostly harmless novelty into a tool that allowed online mobs to burn witches and torch dissenters.
More on The Maddening here, and its dramatic impact on young people: How smartphones are dooming a generation.
[Jonathan Haidt] argues that the tools of social media are just too sharp for young minds. On digital platforms teens parade themselves, often to an audience of strangers, and this is leading to addiction, paranoia and despair. For girls, the effect is especially acute. “What we’re seeing is a very sharp, sudden change in girls’ mental health all around the Anglosphere and the Nordic countries,” he says. A big change was evident from 2013, when physical friendship groups started to be supplanted by smartphones and online chat. “But you cannot grow up in networks. You have to grow up in communities.”
It is striking that boys who have religion in their lives seem to be less susceptible. “If you’re a kid who’s a religious conservative, on average, your mental health is not really much worse than it was ten years ago. But if you’re a secular liberal girl, you’re probably more than twice as likely to have a mental health problem.” He cites a University of Michigan survey into “self-derogation” — i.e., how likely teenagers are to say they are “no good” or “can’t do anything right.” Figures had been stable for years but started rising sharply ten years ago — except for among boys who identified as conservative and said that religion was important to them.
Faith, it seems, does not help girls as much. Why not? One theory is that girls simply use social media more. But Professor Haidt also thinks they are more likely to buy into what he calls the “three great untruths” of social media. The first is that they are fragile and can be harmed by speech and words. Next, that their emotions, and especially their anxieties, are reliable guides to reality. And finally, that society is one big battle between victims and oppressors. All this, he says, is the subtext to social media discourse.
Exit quote: “It’s what I’ve been calling the phone-based child,’ he says. ‘For all human history, millions of years, all mammals play. Anyone who has had a puppy knows it’s all about play. So we had play dates in childhood, up until around 2010.’”
HOW IT STARTED: “‘Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy, completely annihilate it,’ Biden said.”
—Biden makes the case for wartime aid to Israel and Ukraine in primetime address, CNN, October 19th.
How it’s going: Ukraine war: Zelenskyy rules out wartime elections:
“Now is not the time for elections,” Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday, trying to put to rest a growing debate amid Russia’s grinding invasion.
“Now is the time for defence, for battle, on which the fate of the state and people depends, and not for farce, which only Russia expects from Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a speech. “I think this is not the time for elections.
“We must come together, not divide ourselves, not disperse ourselves in quarrels or other priorities,” he added.
—Euronews, yesterday.
As America’s Newspaper of Record puts it: Zelensky Cancels Elections To Focus On Fighting For Democracy.
(Via Ace of Spades.)
WHY YOUR TIKTOK FEED IS FULL OF ANTI-ISRAEL VIDEOS:
Now, the company insists that it’s not algorithmically advantaging one side over the other. And, unfortunately, we have no way of knowing whether they’re telling the truth or not. It’s possible that the pro-Palestine skew of TikTok’s content is simply a natural result of its user and creator base, which is dominated by younger and more liberal people, who lean toward the Palestinian side to begin with. It’s also possible that TikTok, whose parent company ultimately answers to the Chinese Communist Party, is putting its thumb on the scale to show viewers more of the side that China aligns itself with and against the side of Israel, a key U.S. ally.
Flashback: TikTok May Be A Chinese Superweapon.
I JUST WANT TO TELL YOU GOOD LUCK; WE’RE ALL COUNTING ON YOU: EV Makers Turn to Discounts to Combat Waning Demand.
LOL! Guess Who Jamaal Bowman Blames for the Failure of Bidenomics.
During a recent appearance on MSNBC, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), a member of the so-called “Squad,” conceded that Americans are hurting in this economy but insisted it’s the Republicans’ fault.
“To your point of economy, that’s a big point because no matter how much we’re seeing the job growth and all of that, people are still struggling with affordability and that’s an issue we need to hold the Republican Party accountable for.”
Perhaps it’s not too surprising that the same man who claims to not know what a fire alarm looks like would claim that Republicans bear responsibility for higher prices caused by inflation. This strategy won’t work. Not only do voters typically blame the president and the president’s party for the state of the economy, but Biden has also been taking credit for it for too long and claiming his policies are working. So efforts to make this a Republican problem fall horribly flat.
Especially when Biden himself seemed to predict his failure even while he was running in 2020: Milton Friedman Isn’t Running the Show Anymore.
RAVING AND DROOLING: Roger Waters appears to deny Oct. 7 massacres, says they’re ‘blown out of proportion.’
Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters has refused to condemn Hamas’s massacre of many hundreds of civilians in Israel on October 7 in a new interview, or even to acknowledge it happened, saying he is still a bit down a “rabbit hole” of conspiracy theories about how Israel failed to prevent the unprecedented onslaught.
“Didn’t the Israeli army… hear the bangs when they blew up whatever they had to blow up to get across the border? There’s something very fishy about that,” he tells a podcast.
When asked if the attack was justified, Waters falsely says “we don’t know what they did do,” and adds: “Was it justified for them to resist the occupation? Yeah. They’re absolutely legally and morally bound to resist the occupation since 1967.”
Such an odd stance by the allegedly anti-war rock star, considering that: More Jews were killed on October 7th than on any day since the Holocaust.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Top 50 Disasters Gov. Gavin Newsom Has Ushered into California.
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: What’s Going On With Snow White? The Critical Drinker Interviews Ben Shapiro (Video).
ACE OF SPADES: Out: “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests.” In: “Passionate Protests.”
An ABC “News’s” chief White House hack offers her unbiased on the pro-terrorism/pro-Jew-slaughter mayhem that invaded DC this weekend:
Exit question: “You know who else’s supporters were passionate, right?”
LIBS OF TIKTOK’S CHAYA RAICHIK DISMANTLES USA TODAY OVER ‘INSANE’ HIT PIECE:
It all started with USA Today “journalist” Will Carless and his article trying to tie Raichik and her tweets to threats supposedly made to people and organizations whose derangement Libs of TikTok has highlighted on social media. Carless asserts his publication “confirmed dozens of bomb threats, death threats and other harassment” that can be traced directly to Libs of TikTok posts starting in February of 2022.
And where did Carless go to get such confirmations? Media Matters of America, of course. That bastion of truthfulness. Media Matters exists as a welfare scheme for liberal writers who failed to succeed in any other profession. Hillary Clinton co-founded MMA, so that’s all you really need to know.
Back to Chaya and the hit piece. She actually agreed to be interviewed by Carless for his piece, and, smart girl that she is, recorded their call in order to have the “receipts” when he and USA Today inevitably tried to skew her words and use them against her. The hit piece hit the internet last week and in print form on Monday.
* * * * * * * *
This isn’t Raichik’s first rodeo, and she went in prepared. She knew that Carless had already drawn a conclusion and found her guilty, but she spoke to him anyway. In doing so, she gave a masterclass on how conservatives should handle the mainstream media. They can’t be trusted to be honest brokers, so you have to assume their ill intent and make your own recordings any time you interact with “journalists.”
And that’s exactly what she did. Here are her receipts:
It’s important to remember that the hit pieces are already written before the media activists even reach out to you for comment. Nothing you say will change the article.
Here’s proof of @USATODAY leaving out very important context in their hit piece on me! Watch till end! pic.twitter.com/KFYGF4WMzS
— Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) November 6, 2023
As Glenn wrote in the New York Post in September 2008, after Charlie Gibson’s interview with Sarah Palin was edited like a ransom note, always make your own recordings of the interviews.
JUST NBC THE GASLIGHTING! NBC News apparently wants as few readers as possible on this article, because they chose the dullest headline possible, and then ignored the actual details of what happened: Man dies after hitting head during Israel and Palestinian rallies in California, officials say.
Authorities in Ventura County, California, are investigating the death of a Jewish man who was injured during a confrontation at dueling rallies over Israel and Gaza died Monday, the sheriff’s department said.
Witnesses said Paul Kessler, 69, “was in a physical altercation with counter-protestor(s),” the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.
“During the altercation, Kessler fell backwards and struck his head on the ground,” it said.
Screenshot if NBC decides to change the headline:
Even the L.A. Times did a better job of reporting the actual details: Man dies after being hit in the head at Israel-Hamas war protest in Westlake Village.
A 69-year-old man died Monday after suffering a head injury at a Westlake Village protest centered on the Israel-Hamas war, according to law enforcement.
The Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office said an autopsy determined Paul Kessler died as a result of a blunt force head injury.
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said the incident was reported just after 3:20 p.m. Sunday at the intersection of Westlake Boulevard and Thousand Oaks Boulevard, near the L.A. County border. Opposing protesters — pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian — had taken a stand on either side of the intersection when an altercation occurred, authorities said.
Kessler, of Thousand Oaks, was struck in the head, knocked backward and hit his head on the ground, deputies said.
Evergreen:
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Shocked by the Jew-Hate on College Campuses? I Wasn’t.
What was taking place at Harvard was not unique, but a story that was unfolding on campuses across the nation. At Columbia, at Georgetown, and at other campuses across the country, Gulf countries had given millions of dollars to create academic centers, integrate faculty and visiting scholars into the university ecosystem, and to create “outreach initiatives” to spread their worldview.
For decades, this money has been swirling around the Ivy League and other elite schools. While the funding in and of itself did not originate antisemitism on campus, these countries rightly understood that the campuses were a powerful vessel through which to launch into the mainstream an anti-Western worldview that was once confined to the fringe.
This worldview is anchored by a toxic stew of postcolonialism, postnationalism, and postmodernism. These intellectual frameworks were first articulated in the humanities in the late 1960s and found fertile ground in area studies programs like Middle Eastern studies, gender studies, and ultimately disciplines like history and literature.
In the classroom, the language of “power” and “privilege” began to permeate formal instruction, and the organizational agenda of student groups and administrative policy. Transposed onto the paradigm of power was the idea of race. This crude ideology suggested those who are deemed to be “white” are “oppressors” while those with darker skin are “oppressed” and lack agency.
Jews and Israelis—never mind that the majority of Israelis are from North Africa and the Middle East—were whitewashed, perceived as beneficiaries of “white supremacy.” On campus, Jews were falsely labeled as being part of the white majority, which helps explain why they are left out of the vast DEI bureaucracies that now dominate campus life.
Over time, large swaths of academia began to adopt this “heroes and villains” worldview, which stipulates that Israelis are villainous colonizers and Palestinians are innocent victims. As unimaginable as it is for anyone with a conscience to imagine tearing down posters of children kidnapped by Hamas, if you have been steeped in a worldview that says that these children are part of racist state that does not have a right to exist, you can begin to understand how college-educated Americans are doing just that.
If you have heard “Israel is a colonial-settler state” (no, Israel is the indigenous homeland of the Jewish people dating back 3,000 years); or “Israelis are really Khazars, not Jews” (no, Jews are a Semitic people); or “Zionism is racism” (no, Zionism is the basic belief in the right of the Jewish people to self-determination); or “Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing” (no, 20 percent of Israel’s population is Arab and the population of Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank has continued to increase); or “Jews are part of a powerful, white majority” (no, they are a tiny minority that constitutes 0.2 percent of the world’s population), you have encountered this worldview.
As Jonah Goldberg noted a couple of weeks ago, “There are more Arabs living in Israel today than there were Arabs living in all of so-called Palestine in 1948. In other words, if Zionism is the explicit practice of genocide against Palestinians, the supposedly uber-competent Israeli war machine is really, really, bad at genociding. They’re so bad at it that reasonable observers—in short supply these days—might conclude that they’re not actually interested in genocide.”
November 6, 2023
UNEXPECTEDLY: WeWork, once valued at $47 billion, files for bankruptcy.
Office-sharing company WeWork filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New Jersey federal court Monday, saying that it had entered into agreements with the vast majority of its secured note holders and that it intended to trim “non-operational” leases.
The bankruptcy filing is limited to WeWork’s locations in the U.S. and Canada, the company said in a press release. The company reported liabilities ranging from $10 billion to $50 billion, according to a bankruptcy filing.
“I am deeply grateful for the support of our financial stakeholders as we work together to strengthen our capital structure and expedite this process through the Restructuring Support Agreement,” WeWork CEO David Tolley said in a press release. “We remain committed to investing in our products, services, and world-class team of employees to support our community.
WeWork has suffered one of the most spectacular corporate collapses in recent U.S. history over the past few years. Valued in 2019 at $47 billion in a round led by Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank, the company tried and failed to go public five years ago.
The pandemic caused further pain as many companies abruptly ended their leases, and the economic slump that followed led even more clients to close their doors.
It’s quite a contrast to WeWork’s absolutely bonkers early days: ‘This Is Not the Way Everybody Behaves.’ How Adam Neumann’s Over-the-Top Style Built WeWork.
For Mr. Neumann and the investors, the premise has always been that the market would look at We as more than real estate. The high valuation—twice that of United Airlines Holdings Inc. —has enabled the company to continue to raise money to fund new desks and offices and keep growing, even as losses persisted.
He has created a distinct culture in his mold. T-shirts and signs sport slogans such as “hustle harder” and “Thank God it’s Monday.” Employees are often big company boosters, creating a work-hard, play-hard office, with a millennial hipster vibe.
Alcohol has been a big part of the culture, particularly in We’s first half-decade. Mr. Neumann has told people he likes how it brings people together, and tequila, his favorite, flows freely. Executive retreats sport numerous cases of Don Julio 1942, with a retail price of more than $110 a bottle, and pours sometimes start in the morning.
A few weeks after Mr. Neumann fired 7% of the staff in 2016, he somberly addressed the issue at an evening all-hands meeting at headquarters, telling attendees the move was tough but necessary to cut costs, and the company would be better because of it.
Then employees carrying trays of plastic shot glasses filled with tequila came into the room, followed by toasts and drinks.
Soon after, Darryl McDaniels of hip-hop group Run-DMC entered the room, embraced Mr. Neumann and played a set for the staff. Workers danced to the 1980s hit “It’s Tricky” as the tequila trays made more rounds; some others, still focused on the firings, say they were stunned and confused.
In 2019, Neumann reportedly received $1.7 billion to leave WeWork.
QUESTION ASKED: Why Are Holocaust Museums Cowering in Silence?
On Oct. 7, Hamas executed a well-planned attack explicitly seeking to annihilate the Jewish nation. Since then, the group has explained that it will continue to do so until the Jews have been wiped out. The tactics were so monstrous they immediately called to mind the worst atrocities that have been visited on the Jewish people, including the Holocaust. Oct. 7 was the deadliest day for Jews since—yes—the Holocaust. Massive, organized gatherings to support Hamas’s final solution have featured Nazi signage and openly genocidal chants, echoed by a member of Congress. Jewish students chased in a university were told they could hide in the attic. Speaking of which, this week a German day care center named after Anne Frank decided to change its name at the behest of “migrant” families, who claimed to struggle in explaining who Anne Frank was to their children.
If that’s not the Bat Signal for an entire vocation built around One Big Thing, I don’t know what is.
Yet as Daniel Greenfield notes in a column at World Israel News, our caped crusaders are stepping a bit lightly: “Most Holocaust museums surveyed did issue some sort of statement about the attacks, even if it was only to retweet a message from the local Jewish federation, and sometimes only on social media, where they are less widely visible. Some issued stronger press statements on their own sites but virtually none then followed up with further updates beyond one press release… Holocaust museums have generally continued with their pre-existing programs.”
Holocaust museums are not shy, and they are not unconcerned with the news.
“The Museum continues to have grave concern about the global refugee crisis and our response to it,” declared the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the highest profile of all institutions, in February 2017 after the Trump administration’s announcement of a refugee pause. “During the 1930s and 1940s, the United States, along with the rest of the world, generally refused to admit Jewish refugees from Nazism due to antisemitic and xenophobic attitudes, harsh economic conditions, and national security fears.”
Exit questions: “Do the people running them actually care about the moment, or are they fearful their ‘outreach’ to everyone else will be compromised? Or…do some of them have some philosophical uneasiness about siding with Israel at this moment?”
Very likely yes in many cases, sad to say, regarding the second question.
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Planned Parenthood Says Proper Term For Unborn Baby Is Now ‘Womb Colonizer.’
REPORT: Manifesto of Nashville trans shooter released by Steven Crowder.
“Kill those kids!!!” Hale allegedly wrote in a page dated in February. “Those crackers going to private fancy schools with those fancy khakis & sports backpacks [with] their daddies mustangs & convertibles.”
“F*ck you little shits,” the alleged terrorist continued. “I wish to shoot you weak*ss d*cks with your mop yellow hair. Wanna kill all you little crackers!!!”
“Bunch of little faggots [with] your white privlages [sic] fuck you f***ots.”
On the day of the shooting, dated March 27, 2023, the alleged shooter exclaimed in a page titled “DEATH DAY” that she was “a little nervous, but excited too. Been excited for the past 2 weeks.”
“Can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m ready… I hope my victims aren’t,” Hale allegedly wrote. “My only fear is if anything goes wrong, I’ll do my best to prevent any of the sort (God let my wrath take over my anxiety) It might be 10 munutes tops. It might be 3-7. It’s gonna go quick. I hope I have a high death count. Ready to die haha”
Hale signed off with the name “Aiden,” a name she went by.
As Ed Morrissey adds, “We should know soon enough whether Steven’s source got this right. If so, then this would be a very good time for law enforcement at the state and federal levels to release the full diary and stop playing around for the benefit of a dead mass murderer.”
MORE: Nashville Mayor Furious Over Leak of Transgender Shooter’s Manifesto, Demands Investigation. “If there was any question about whether the photos released by Crowder were real, this answers them. You don’t start an investigation into the leak of something that doesn’t exist.”
(Updated and bumped.)
PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTOR SUSPECTED OF KILLING JEWISH MAN IN L.A.:
According to witnesses at the scene, a verbal altercation broke out between an older Jewish man and a young pro-Palestinian protester. Suddenly, the protester struck the older man in the head with a megaphone he was holding.
The injured man fell to the ground bleeding and was rushed to the hospital. His death was confirmed to have been caused due to a brain hemorrhage. Israelis who were present at the scene described it as “a terrifying sight” and expressed shock that such an incident took place in their neighborhood.
The incident was filmed on the attacker’s mobile device and has been seized by local police as evidence in their investigation into the incident. While the police have confirmed the case was being looked into, they haven’t provided further details at this time, including whether the suspect has been arrested.
I’m sure the Biden administration will get right on this one. Or not: The White House is working on a strategy to combat Islamophobia. Many Muslim Americans are skeptical.
November 5, 2023
OUT ON A LIMB: For God’s Sake, End Daylight Saving Time Before We All Die.
MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH: Indy police arrest ‘terrorist’ for purposely driving her car into home used by hate group.
Ruba Almaghtheh, 34, was arrested on a preliminary charge of intimidation which is a level 5 felony if the threat is to commit terrorism.
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Almaghtheh told officers she was watching news coverage of the Israel-Hamas war on television and decided to plan an attack on the building because she was offended by the “Hebrew Israelite” symbol on the front of the building.
The Anti-Defamation League defines the Israelite School of Universal and Practical Knowledge as an “extreme and antisemitic” sect of the Black Hebrew Israelites. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the Black Hebrew Israelites as a hate group.
Related: Black Hebrew Israelites Fight Pro-Palestinian Protestors in Chicago Streets.