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Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

June 27, 2023

NBC: ‘We’re Coming For Your Children’ chant at NYC Drag March elicits outrage, but activists say it’s taken out of context.

In the 21-second clip, circulated by a right-wing web streamer channel, dozens of people march in the streets and are clearly heard chanting, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re not going shopping.” But one voice that is louder than the crowd — it’s not clear whose, or whether the speaker was a member of the LGBTQ community — is heard saying at least twice, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children.”

To conservative pundits, activists and lawmakers, the video confirmed the allegations they’ve levied in recent years that the LGBTQ community is “grooming” children.

But to Brian Griffin, the original organizer of the NYC Drag March, if that’s the worst they heard, it’s only because he wasn’t there this year.

Griffin said he chanted obscene things in the past, like “Kill, kill, kill, we’re coming to kill the mayor,” and joked about pubic hair and sex toys during marches. People at the Drag March regularly sing “God is a lesbian.”

“It’s all just words,” Griffin said. “It’s all presented to fulfill their worst stereotypes of us.”

The “coming for your children” chant has been used for years at Pride events, according to longtime march attendees and gay rights activists, who said it’s one of many provocative expressions used to regain control of slurs against LGBTQ people. And in this case, they said, right-wing activists are jumping on a single video to weaponize an out-of-context remark to further stigmatize the queer community.

Conservative politicians and pundits have increasingly referred to advocates for LGBTQ rights as “groomers,” associating people who oppose laws that restrict drag performances or classroom discussions of gender identity with pedophiles. The charge is an echo of a decades-old trope anti-gay activists have used to paint the community as a threat to the country’s youths, an allegation that some advocates say endangers LGBTQ people. And the intense reaction to the video has scared some attendees, who insist the quip has been taken out of context.

Sideshow Bob could not be reached for comment:

Evergreen:

UPDATE: Rod Dreher “Law of Merited Impossibility” states: “It will never happen, and when it does, you bigots will deserve it.”

GRAY LADY DIVES FOR FAINTING COUCH: New York Times Attacks Gutfeld For Promoting ‘Nihilism,’ Fox For Threaning Democracy.

MICHAEL WALSH: Tent, Meet Camel.

But the walls have fallen, the dams have burst, and there is no end in sight. In accordance with the late Robert Conquest’s Third Law of Politics, we are now ruled by a cabal of our enemies. As they were in National Socialist Germany, the universities have become hotbeds of intolerant socialist orthodoxy. Thought-crime laws are being bruited world wide; the concept of “protected classes” makes a mockery of equality before the law. George Floyd, a obese, violent drug addict who died in police custody after the commission of a crime, has become a secular saint, the apotheosis of “blackness” to a generation that has no memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., much less the Harlem Renaissance. Whole cities have been sacrificed on his altar.

Hunter Biden, the louche crackhead sex-pest issue of the President’s loins, skates on serious income-tax and firearm charges even as he and the demented paterfamilias of this crime family are being publicly accused, in Congress, of being the principals of multi-million-dollar international bribery racket, thanks to Joe’s employment of the FBI as his personal police force and his corruption of the Justice Department. Merrick Garland, who ideally would be cast as Beria in a road-show production of Stalin’s Henchmen of 1953 is the attorney general of the United States, perhaps soon to be facing impeachment. As the late Bob Dole wondered during his quixotic campaign against Bill Clinton in 1996: “Where’s the outrage?”

Long gone, along with Americans’ former personal independence and self-reliance. It’s still hard to believe that the country of Paul Revere and John Dillinger went so sheepishly into the fascist pens of the Covid Hoax lockdowns, surrendering their First Amendment freedoms without a fight while the useless judicial branch under the effete John Roberts sat by and didn’t even squeak. The Roberts Court — thanks, George W. Bush! — appears to believe it sits on Mars, far away from the hugger-mugger mess of representative democracy, with no patriotic duty to use at least its moral authority on the issues of the day before they wend their way through the crapulous intestines of the “justice system.”

Read the whole thing.

FINALLY: Report: Top Anheuser-Busch Marketing Executives Behind Boycott Are No Longer Employed.

The two top Anheuser-Busch marketing executives who were placed on leave amid the company shakeup no longer work for the brand, a source inside Anheuser-Busch confirmed in texts obtained by the Daily Caller on Tuesday.

Group Vice President for Marketing Daniel Blake and Bud Light Marketing Vice President Alissa Heinerscheid are “gone gone,” according to obtained text messages with a current regional head of marketing. The Caller is granting anonymity to the source to discuss legally fraught internal company policy.

“To my understanding if we publicly announced the word ‘fire’ it opens up the potential for them to sue us. Thats why we said leave of absence,” the source said in a text message obtained by the Caller.

“The wholesalers would have had an absolute HAY DAY with leadership if they didn’t remove her,” the source inside the company also said.

“To be fair- Daniel Blake was actually awesome. I think he was just caught in cross fire. But also he did hire her… so that’s a fault,” the source continued.

“Wholesalers were told they are both gone for good by leadership during in person conversations. They already shifted all their direct reports to new people and the head of marketing,” the source added in another text message obtained by the Caller.

If Anheuser-Busch’s CEO issued an actual apology for the Dylan Mulveney debacle, and for Heinerscheid insulting Bud Lite’s (former) customers, he might see begin to see sales turn around.

In the meantime: Get Ready for More ‘Bud Lighting.’

EPSTEIN DIDN’T KILL HIMSELF: Jeffrey Epstein’s unsupervised, unfilmed death while in federal custody was totally a suicide, feds declare.

WELL, THAT’S A TAKE: Harrison Ford Is 80. He’s Proof: Silver-Haired Stars Are the New Box-Office Gold.

It could have been a pickup line at a gym, but instead it was a question at the Cannes Film Festival. A woman wanted to know how Harrison Ford, 80, prepared to go shirtless in the new Indiana Jones movie. “I think you’re still very hot,” she said. “How do you keep fit?”

“I’ve been blessed with this body,” he told her. “Thanks for noticing.”

This summer belongs unapologetically to old men.

Ford hoists his famed franchise on his shoulders for the fifth time this month with “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” In July, Tom Cruise, 60, old enough for a senior discount at many movie theaters, sprints into “Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One.” On streaming, Arnold Schwarzenegger, 75, saves the world in “FUBAR.” By Labor Day, Denzel Washington, 68, will be delivering vigilante justice in “The Equalizer 3.”

“These movie stars literally invented blockbusters in the ’80s,” says Richard Gelfond, chief executive of IMAX, the entertainment technology company. “There is a reason these old men are still around.”

Celebrities from the ’80s have a link to most every generation alive right now. Studio executives call them holdouts from a time when scarcity ruled and streaming was naught. Big stars released a movie a year, an original story with their name above the title on the marquee. Then they disappeared so everyone could miss them before they came back and did the whole thing all over again.

As John Nolte noted last month: Hollywood Forced to Admit the Movie Star Is Dead.

“The hottest package at this year’s Cannes Film Festival stars a 76-year old action star and is a reboot of a movie that first dazzled moviegoers in 1993.” Variety is talking about Sylvester Stallone and his hit movie Cliffhanger. Yep, Cliffhanger 2 is the biggest deal at a prestigious worldwide film festival: a sequel to a 30-year-old movie starring a guy old enough to be a great-grandfather.

I love Stallone. I hope he lives forever, but imagine the year is 1974, and the hottest property at Cannes is Notorious 2, starring a 76-year-old Cary Grant*. What would the state of the industry have looked like then?

But in 1974, America was buried in young superstars: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Michael Caine, Clint Eastwood, Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Sidney Poitier, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Pam Grier, Gene Wilder, Gene Hackman, Richard Pryor, Gena Rowlands, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Roundtree, Ellen Burnstyn, Jane Fonda, James Caan, Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Jill Clayburgh, Steve McQueen, Burt Reynolds, Sean Connery, Peter Fonda…

Wrap your mind around this: In 1974, Charles Bronson, Paul Newman, Jack Lemmon, and Walter Matthau were still younger than Matthew McConaughey (53) is today.

Other hot items at Cannes include 75-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Breakout, 59-year-old Nicolas Cage’s Lord of War sequel, and a movie starring 69-year-old John Travolta.

In her 2013 book, Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business, veteran Hollywood producer Lynda Obst wrote that Hollywood didn’t need movie stars — they had franchises to mine:

Obst explains the formula for ‘The New Abnormal” thusly:

1. You must have heard of the Title before; it must have preawareness.

2. It must sell overseas.

3. It should generate a Franchise and/ or Sequel (also a factor of 1 and 2).

As Nolte concludes:

Here is what happened: the studios believed they could sell movies based on brands and high concepts forever, but now they are all out of brands and high concepts, and there is nothing left to put butts in seats.

What is more, actors believed they could continue to be cruel, bigoted, humorless, self-righteous scolds, and the world would always fall at their feet.

Well, haha.

Fortunately, there’s fresh talent to take all of the aging stars’ places: Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Oh wait, what am I saying?! Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a franchise murderer — and Indiana Jones is her next victim.

The Critical Drinker agrees:

UNEXPECTEDLY! The media isn’t checking Hunter Biden’s white privilege.

The attorney for hip hop artist Kodak Black has spoken out on behalf of his client, who was given a three-year prison sentence for similar offenses in 2019 relating to lying on a federal background check. Black falsified information on federal paperwork to purchase at least four guns.

Attorney General Merrick Garland took to the podium last week to defend the deal made between Hunter Biden and his Department of Justice. “Some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department by claiming that we do not treat cases alike. This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy… Nothing could be further from the truth.” Garland is not only arguing that a statistical fact is somehow an Attack on American Democracy, but that the “racial disparities” in the American justice system, that the Biden administration have been pushing for years, with the media echoing, do not exist. If all cases are treated equally under the law, then poor Americans of color would have received the same plea deal as the rich white son of the sitting president. Would anyone in the media like to investigate whether that’s the case? I’ll wait…

Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and their silence makes perfect sense.

Evergreen:

TARGET ON THEIR BACKS: Moms for Liberty Invests in Extra Security Ahead of Summit After Receiving Threats After SPLC Attack.

GUITAR PLAYER’S JAS OBRECHT: Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House:” The Story of a Song.

DISPATCHES FROM THE DOOM LOOP: Is reporting on San Francisco unfair or just accurate?

The story ends with a long list of articles from major media outlets about San Francisco’s problems. The list includes one story from FAIR titled “The Character Assassination of San Francisco” which seems like it might have been the jumping off point for this story. FAIR concludes, “This is media outrage focused not at systemic injustice, but based in disgust at the victims of injustice.”

That really does sum up what all of this is about. For the most part, the Chronicle isn’t complaining that the stories by CNN, Good Morning America, the Financial Times, etc. are untrue. The facts are what they are. San Francisco does have a downtown with more empty commercial space than most cities. It does have a string of closing retailers who have cited crime and street conditions as part of the problem. It does have a failing public transportation system that can’t survive apart from handouts from the state. And it does have a serious problems with homelessness, open-air drug dealing, retail theft and car break ins, all of which are worse than in many other cities.

Rather they are arguing that the coverage is wrong, the articles are arguing it’s wrong-think. These things shouldn’t be mentioned so often not because they are false but because they are true and embarrassing to those who would prefer to view the city as a progressive wonderland where everything is gong swell.

Related flashback: Detroit’s comeback is a myth.

GET WOKE, GO…: The Flash Suffers Largest Second-Weekend Box Office Drop In DC Films History.

MICHAEL WALSH: Tent, Meet Camel.

“WHAT’S A UYGHUR?” GOP Presidential Candidate Francis Suarez Makes Embarrassing Flub During Interview With Hugh Hewitt.

June 26, 2023

ROGER KIMBALL: The Art of the Deal, Russian Style.

I suspect that the columnist Peter Hitchens, who was in Moscow in 1991 during another failed coup, was right about two things.

First, brutal though Putin may be, he is, in comparison to people like Prigozhin, “a cautious, milksop moderate.”

Second, Hitchens is right that “militant Russian nationalism is a powerful political force that Putin struggles to keep on his side at the best of times.”

These aren’t the best of times, and Prigozhin’s excellent coup adventure, not to mention Putin’s rocky adventure in Ukraine, can’t have endeared Putin to such chthonic forces.

The appearance of weakness is unacceptable.

It’s also unforgivable.

Which means that, political calculus being what it is, Putin, no matter what deal was struck, “surely cannot now leave Prigozhin unpunished.”

Exit quote: “I’m grateful, in any case, that I’m not in charge of writing life insurance policies for him or for the rebellious mercenaries under his command.”

BURIED LEDE: BIDEN FINALLY TELLS THE TRUTH. Joe Biden Proclaims That He ‘Sold a Lot of State Secrets’ During White House Meeting.

MARK JUDGE: Please Don’t Banish Jesus from Alcoholics Anonymous.

It has taken me a while to admit this, mostly because I am so reluctant to criticize a fellowship that saved my life when I stopped drinking over three decades ago. But the elimination of the “Our Father” does in fact bother me. Not only because I believe Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, but because Christianity played a crucial role in the formation of AA. Had Judaism or Islam played such a foundational role in the Twelve Steps I would also want that tradition honored. The truth is, however, that Alcoholics Anonymous was founded, and was effective, because of Christians.

AA has its origins in the evangelical Christian Oxford Group. In fact, AA co-founder Bill Wilson credits the Oxford Group for the methodology of AA: “their large emphasis upon the principles of self-survey, confession, restitution, and the giving of oneself in service to others.” Even before the Oxford Group was the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. Wilson wrote to Jung in 1961 to express his “great appreciation” for his efforts. “A certain conversation you once had with one of your patients, a Mr. Rowland H. back in the early 1930’s,” Wilson wrote, “did play a critical role in the founding of our Fellowship.”

Read the whole thing.

THIS IRS EMAIL CORROBORATES WHISTLEBLOWER’S CLAIMS ABOUT BIDEN DOJ INTERFERENCE IN HUNTER PROBE.

OUT ON A LIMB: Don’t Turn the Titanic Submersible Tragedy Into Fodder for Class Warfare.

The world waited with bated breath to learn the fate of the five people trapped in a submersive called the Titan near the wreckage of the Titanic after news broke that contact with their vessel had been lost. After several days where we held out hope they could be rescued, we finally learned that the Titan had imploded, and tragically, all five had died. The unique, strange, and, frankly, terrifying circumstances of these individuals’ death led to outsized media and public attention on the tragedy—so activists, inevitably, have since dragged it into our political fights and ideological warfare.

Some fringe voices on the online Left actually celebrated the demise of the submersible passengers simply because they were wealthy. (Tickets to ride in the tourist vehicle cost $250,000 per passenger). Ill-wishers riddled with class envy have reviled one passenger especially, British billionaire Hamish Harding.

“A sub went missing full of people who paid 160k-200k to take a tour of the titanic wreckage,” one writer tweeted, receiving millions of views. “The ocean is just eating the rich for us these days.”

As Glenn wrote last week in his Substack column, “Most cutting edge technology starts out as a rich man’s toy. Automobiles, passenger airplanes, VCRs, etc. all started out that way. Letting rich people buy the tech drives the technology and pushes prices down over time so that ordinary people can afford it. I don’t think ordinary people will ever be interested in doing miles-deep dives, but improved subsea technology is a very big deal. We often hear about how unexplored the deep ocean depths are, and there’s a reason for that – we aren’t very good at it yet. We get better at it by doing it. We can do it more if people are willing and able to pay for it.”

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR (NORTH) AMERICA: “Bud Light is serving as an official sponsor of the Toronto Pride parade, where video footage shows naked men standing around and riding bicycles in clear view of children attending the event.”

Meanwhile, in New York:

Leftist Radicals: “Stop calling us groomers & pedos – we are not coming for your children”

Also Leftist Radicals: “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children” pic.twitter.com/c1pbTw0A5Q

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) June 26, 2023

Or as America’s Newspaper of Record notes: Pedophile Jailed For Flashing Kids At Playground Kicking Himself For Not Doing It At Pride Parade Instead.

June 25, 2023

THIS WILL END WELL: Fairfax County, Virginia takes shotguns away from police, replaces them with beanbags, and you can almost feel crime going down!

Exit quote: “I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire six beanbags or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself.”

GREAT MOMENTS IN INTERSECTIONALITY: The Left Can Have Islam or LGBTQA+. Not Both. The Democrat coalition is falling apart.

Hamtramck legalized animal sacrifice in homes, and made Eid a paid holiday, as did Dearborn. Despite their protestations, Muslim elected officials in cities on track to have an Islamic majority are representing their community and not anyone else’s. They are the most obvious example that the notion of multicultural “communities” that transcend identities through collective solidarity is a myth. And so is the entire majority of minorities coalition that claims “brown people” or the “oppressed” have anything in common beyond a hostility toward white people.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan lashed out at Hamtramck by declaring, “The City of Detroit proudly raises our Pride Flag at the start of every Pride Month.” And it will until it has a Muslim majority.

Democrats have dismantled tolerance and opened the door to a gold rush by members of its coalition to impose their most extreme agendas on the public with no regard to everyone else.

A leftist majority will force pride flags and LGBT pornography in schools on everyone. A Muslim majority will force sharia on everyone. That is what happens in a country that has abandoned both its traditional consensus on values and its respect for individual beliefs leaving regions with a choice between female genital mutilation and transgender masectomies, between marrying 7-year-old girls and grooming first graders.

America has three choices, either imposing sharia or sexual identity politics, or returning to what we were before we had to choose which group of extremists to allow to abuse our children.

If FDR could assemble a coalition of “Progressive” northerners and stone-cold racist southern New Dealers, it could be quite some time before its seemingly incompatible modern equivalent disintegrates.

MUSICIANS BOYCOTT VENUES THAT USE FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY ON AUDIENCE:

In a show of solidarity against the proliferation of facial recognition technology at concert venues, an ensemble of over 100 musicians and bands, including Rage Against the Machine’s co-founders Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha, have united to boycott venues employing the contentious technology. Boots Riley, Speedy Ortiz, Anti-Flag, Wheatus, Downtown Boys, and a chorus of over 80 additional artists are joining this resolute harmony, Rolling Stone reported.

Spearheaded by the watchdog collective Fight for the Future, this boycott is an outcry for a total ban on face-scanning tech during live performances. Its call hasn’t gone unnoticed; a melodic trio of independent venues, House of Yes in Brooklyn, Lyric Hyperion in Los Angeles, and Black Cat in D.C., have struck a chord by promising not to utilize this technology at their gigs.

Leila Nashashibi, a valiant campaigner at Fight for the Future, conveyed the dissonance. “Surveillance tech companies are pitching biometric data tools as ‘innovative’ and helpful for increasing efficiency and security. Not only is this false, it’s morally corrupt,” she stated. She warned against the inaccuracy of the technology and the horrifying prospect of a world under flawless facial surveillance.