DOUBLEPLUS GOOD! UPDATE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARIES ACCORDINGLY, COMRADES:
Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
June 12, 2023
Southern Baptists are meeting in New Orleans for their annual convention this week. Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren, author of the bestselling book The Purpose-Driven Life, is waging war with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), hoping to push the denomination to the left on the issue of female pastors.
Warren, now “retired” but still listed as the Founding Pastor on Saddleback Church’s website, is pressuring the SBC to allow female pastors, contrary to clear biblical teaching that pastoral roles are reserved for men.
Warren has been all over Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube this past week, viciously attacking his opponents (while calling for love and reconciliation). He’s become increasingly combative, calling his opponents “angry fundamentalists,” “angry fighters,” and “legalist showmen.” (I’ll leave it up to readers to determine who’s playing the role of “showman” in this debate.)
Warren also issued a veiled threat to leaders who oppose him. During a recent podcast with Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief Russell Moore, he warned, “We [Saddleback churches] don’t need the Southern Baptist Convention. They need the 6,000 purpose-driven churches that are in the Southern Baptist Convention in our fellowship, but we don’t need the Convention. It would be for the benefit of others, not for us.” In other words, if he doesn’t get his way on liberalizing the doctrine of the SBC, he’ll take his churches and go home.
Going woke is simply exchanging one religion for another.
DRUDGE REPORT BIAS MOVED FROM LEAN RIGHT TO CENTER: ALLSIDES ANALYSIS.
A new AllSides media bias analysis of Drudge Report found the news aggregator displayed articles from news sources with an AllSides Media Bias Rating™ on the left more than the center or right. A subsequent Editorial Review of Drudge Report found much sensationalism in the news aggregator’s story choices and word choices, and many story choices appealing to the right.
As a result of these analyses, the AllSides review panel issued an overall AllSides Media Bias Rating™ of Center (+0.93) for Drudge Report.
Flashback: Where’s Matt Drudge? “The Drudge Report reminds me of MTV in the early 2000s, a channel I returned to sheerly out of habit based on its greatness from decades before.”
IS KELLOGGS NEXT? Dylan Mulvaney goes blonde and poses with Tony the Tiger at the Tony Awards.
Kellogg’s mascot “Tony the Tiger” appeared on the red carpet with trans-identifying male activist Dylan Mulvaney at the 76th Tony Awards and social media blew up, with many suggesting the cereal company was the next one to go woke, go broke.
The famed icon of the Frosted Flakes cereal ditched his red bandana for a bow tie on Sunday as he posed for pictures at the New York event with Mulvaney on his arm. Numerous images later surfaced on Twitter with a mix of comments about the cereal brand being the next one to possibly face a boycott. It comes after Mulvaney’s partnership with Bud Light led to the company’s loss in market value of some $27 billion by the end of May.
In accordance with the prophecy: Dylan Mulvaney Now Blackmailing Corporations By Threatening To Endorse Their Products.
WATCH: Kevin McCarthy Absolutely Decimates a CNN Reporter Over the Network’s Hypocrisy. “McCarthy’s point on the matter is simple. If it’s okay for CNN to hire and retain people like [Andrew] McCabe, who provable broke the law and leaked classified information, then why is it out of bounds for him to defend Trump from what is obviously further weaponization of the legal system? This is how you handle the media. You don’t accept their premise, and you don’t allow them to narrow the debate. If CNN wants to talk about this subject, let’s talk about it. As McCarthy showed, it won’t go well for them.”
ROBERT HEINLEIN, CALL YOUR OFFICE! US military offers immigrants fast track to citizenship in effort to boost recruiting.
The United States military recently launched a new program to boost recruiting by offering a fast track to citizenship for legal immigrants who enlist.
The Army, Air Force, and Navy reported that they would likely be unable to meet their yearly recruiting goals. Last year, the Army missed its recruiting goal by 25%.
Additionally, only 20% of U.S. individuals meet the physical, mental, and character requirements to join the military.
Officials report that low unemployment, fewer qualified people, and declining public confidence in the military are to blame for the recent recruiting shortfalls.
In an effort to enlist more service members, the Air Force started a new program this year that offers an accelerated path to citizenship for legal immigrants who join.
The Army relaunched a similar program in October, offering legal immigrants a fast track to naturalization for enlisting.
In accordance with the prophecy:
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Remember the Plymouth Prowler? We Look Back on the Unlikeliest Car of the ’90s.
DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA:
Megan Fox has responded to my concern about her sons being dressed up in girls clothes with an IG post where she seemingly threatens me with witchcraft. Does that seem like a sane response to you? Her post and my response back are below. ⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/6ioRvpYK5i
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) June 11, 2023
MARK FELTON: WWII Veteran ‘Bring Backs’ — How Allied Troops Obtained Axis Trophy Guns (Video).
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Report: Sandbag That Tripped Biden On Stage Also Participated In Jan 6 Capitol Riot.
DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF WEIMAR AMERICA AND THE K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE:
Parents of kids at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, California say this video was played to their kids in math class. The kids clearly didn’t want to watch this pride video so the teacher threatened them with Saturday school to get them to watch it. pic.twitter.com/FUnB9DKYrN
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) June 11, 2023
HE’S NOT WEARING THE RIBBON! BUT YOU HAVE TO WEAR THE RIBBON! Texas Rangers Refuse to Celebrate ‘Pride Month.’ The Texas Rangers is the only Major League Baseball team refusing to give into pressure and publicly schedule a “Pride night.”
ANALYSIS: TRUE. It’s Scary How Badly They Want Trump in Prison.
(Via RCP.)
BIDEN VOTERS POSTING THEIR L’S ONLINE: Ex-Gov. Paterson says it’s a ‘frightening time’ in NYC with migrant crisis, toxic smog, weak real-estate market.
The migrant crisis, weak commercial real-estate market and toxic smog from Canadian wildfires make this “a frightening time” to be in the Big Apple, ex-Gov. David Paterson said Sunday.
The former governor started out his dismal stance by noting how COVID-19 wreaked havoc on US cities — and predicted things will only get worse.
“It is a really difficult time for the cities in this country because those who have a lot of office buildings like New York — and the New York Post wrote about this on Friday — less and less space is being used,” Paterson told John Catsimatidis on the “Cat’s Roundtable” on WABC-770.
“It’s causing the property values to fall. It’s causing more and more people to not come to work at the rate it would’ve been thought once the pandemic ended,” he said.
“It’s going to be a real crisis down the road,” Paterson said.
“Add to that that there are people coming into the city — but it’s the migrant population.
This isn’t who we are. Paterson clearly needs to reread the words on the Statue of Liberty — and Mayor Adams’ promise that New York would be a sanctuary city under his watch.
REPORT: Case Closed: It Was a Lab Leak.
June 11, 2023
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Sad: Invitations To Unabomber’s Funeral Mailed Out, But No One Wants To Open Them.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Film Preservation Groups Silent on French Connection Censorship.
Martin Scorsese is more than just a world-class filmmaker.
The Oscar winner has used his clout to promote films across the culture, understanding how his voice can move the medium forward. He also helped create The Film Foundation in 1990, a group dedicated to “protecting and preserving motion picture history,” according to its mission statement.
It’s one of several groups devoted to that cause, one that secures the legacy of not just specific films but maintains a valuable part of western culture.
Organizations like The Film Foundation would be the most obvious source of outrage for a recent case of film censorship. Multiple versions of 1971’s “The French Connection,” which won the Best Picture Oscar, have trimmed a sequence for airing racially insensitive slurs.
The scene doesn’t celebrate that ignorance. It’s the filmmaker’s way of describing why the film’s anti-hero, Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle, is such a complicated soul.
So far, few people have spoken out against the overt censorship. The mainstream Hollywood press has aggressively ignored the issue. Celebrities, so often vocal on social media, have stood down on the matter.
As John Nolte adds: If They’ll Censor The French Connection, They’ll Censor Anything.
You see, great art—truly great art—forces us to deal with complicated emotions. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s an important point. Great art confronts us with all the complications, contradictions, and gray areas we find in real life. Great art forces us to work through those complications, to ruminate, confront, consider, and face up to them. This is a wonderful exercise for the human spirit because, in the end, we come out a little wiser and with a thicker skin.
And that’s why Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle is one of the movie’s greatest characters. Like so many of us, he’s a walking contradiction—an immoral man doing a righteous, selfless, and brave thing. After being confronted with this, we walk out of the theater carrying this confusion. We ask ourselves why, even with his glaring flaws, we still admire him. Working through that is a healthy exercise. Disney and its fellow Woke Nazis want to stop Americans from conducting that exercise, so they dumbed down The French Connection.
“Ask yourself: What else have they tried to sneak past us…? What other movies and TV shows are being quietly vandalized, censored, and infantilized that we don’t know about?,” Nolte adds. “Buy hard copies. Buy them now. Because that’s the goal, you know… These acts of vandalism have nothing to do with sensitivity. Nope, these acts of vandalism are all about keeping us simple-minded.”
THE TEMPORARY RETURN OF LINDSEY 2.0: Lindsay Graham lets George Stephanopoulos know he will not be silenced.
PJM ALUM ANDREW KLAVAN: Why Modern Movies Suck (Video).
UPDATE: Here’s a link to the full one hour 11 minute video.
TANKER FIRE CAUSES PART OF INTERSTATE 95 IN PHILADELPHIA TO COLLAPSE, CLOSING MAIN EAST COAST ARTERY:
A tanker truck fire shut down I-95 in both directions after an elevated portion of the heavily traveled interstate collapsed in Philadelphia on Sunday morning, state officials said, raising concerns about possible travel headaches throughout the Northeast.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said the fire closed all lanes between Exit 25 and Exit 32, which includes Allegheny Avenue, Castor Avenue, Academy road and Linden Avenue.
Philadelphia Fire Department Captain Derek Bowmer said emergency crews responded shortly before 6:30 a.m. local time after receiving a report of a vehicle being on fire on the interstate. Authorities later identified the vehicle as a gasoline tanker truck.
The fire is under control and city and state officials are “responding to address impacts to residents in the area and travelers affected by the road closure,” the state fire department said in a statement to USA TODAY. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
No need to worry, though:
Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg said he was monitoring the fire and collapse and was in touch with the governor and Federal Highway Administration to offer “help with recovery and reconstruction.” And the National Transportation Safety Board said it was working with the Pennsylvania State Police to conduct a safety investigation.
President Joe Biden was also briefed on the collapse and officials offered assistance to local and state authorities, according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Well, that’s a relief.
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth: Pennsylvania Gov. To Declare Disaster Declaration After I-95 Bridge Collapse, May Take ‘Months’ To Rebuild.
SOMEWHERE, DAN QUAYLE IS LOVING THE CURRENT NEWS CYCLE:
ROGER KIMBALL: Can Trump Clean The Augean Stables on the Potomac?
The indictment against Trump was formally brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. But the Journal is right. Smith is just an errand boy. “Americans will inevitably see this as a Garland-Biden indictment,” they noted, “and they are right to think so.”
Indeed. Elon Musk, no fan of Trump’s, put his finger on an essential element in this saga: “There does seem,” he wrote on June 8, responding to the indictment, “to be far higher interest in pursuing Trump compared to other people in politics.”
How’s that for understatement? Almost as good, I’d say, as his deployment of the future tense in his follow-up sentence: “Very important that the justice system rebut what appears to be differential enforcement or they will lose public trust.”
That ship has sailed, I regret to say. Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is as corrupt as Hunter Biden’s laptop. Few people of either party trust it, nor should they. What we need now is a bold new Hercules who can cleanse the Augean stables on the Potomac. It seems unlikely, I know, and perhaps supremely ironical, but the name of that cleansing hero may just be Donald J. Trump.
Read the whole thing.