DON SURBER: It is the painting they protest, not the oil.

We call this the cancel culture without realizing the accuracy of the phrase. The communists or whatever you wish to call the elitists and their brain-washed masses are turning the founding fathers of our constitutional republic into villains because that makes it easier to replace the God-given rights enumerated and protected by the Constitution with nonsense about the right to abortion and transgendering.

Perhaps there is a blowback.

The Daily Caller reported, “A leaked scene from the new film Tár went viral on social media on Thursday, largely as a result of the inherently anti-woke scripting from Todd Field.

“The scene shows leading lady Cate Blanchett’s character sitting at a piano with a young musician, seemingly in front of a class of students, as he completely misses whatever point she is trying to make about the power of music (or so one can assume without the full context of the storyline).

“‘Nowadays, white, male, cis composers, just not my thing,’ the young student says to her of Bach, one of the greatest and most famed composers of all time.

“‘Don’t be so eager to be offended,’ Blanchett’s character says back — not in a cruel or aggressive way, but seemingly as a way of pushing the young student to expand his mindset to accommodate Bach. ‘The narcissism of small differences leads to the most boring conformity.’

“As the scene goes on, the script calls out the hypocrisy and history of music as it relates to the modern woke cultural movement. ‘If Bach’s talent can be reduced to his gender, birth country, religion, sexuality and so on, then so can yours,’ Blanchett continues.”

***

The problem with her “so can yours” argument is that they are untalented. All they have is their gender, birth country, religion, sexuality and so on.

They seek entitlement because they have no merit. They can only destroy — with cans of soup.

Speaking of the “Starting from Zero” mentality that Surber refers to in his post: Founder of Climate Group Vandalizing Famous Paintings Said Holocaust was ‘Normal Event.’

IRANIAN PROTESTERS SET FIRE TO AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI’S HOUSE. “Protesters in Iran have set fire to the ancestral home of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Images posted on social media show part of the structure in the city of Khomein being set ablaze. News agencies have verified the videos’ location, but regional authorities denied there had been an arson attack.
Ayatollah Khomeini is said to have been born in the house, which is now a museum that commemorates his life.”

SBF MARK 1: Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes gets more than 11 years in prison for defrauding investors.

CHANGE: Elon Just Unbanned the Babylon Bee.

GOODER AND HARDER, LA: Hmmm: Suspect in vehicular assault on law-enforcement recruits released 24 hours later. “If the evidence is there, and the LASO has probable cause to charge him, why is [Nicholas Joseph] Gutierrez walking free? None of the media outlets covering this mention [George] Gascón by name, but this leaves the impression that the LASO — and likely other LA-area law enforcement agencies — have little trust in Gascón and the DA’s office these days. They seem to want a case so solid that Gascón cannot possibly deal it down without taking enormous political risks.”

W. JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Some midterm polls were on-target — but finding which pollsters and poll aggregators to believe can be challenging.

Forecasts posted at Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com diverged from outcomes somewhat less markedly than those of RealClearPolitics — but still anticipated closer Senate races than what transpired in Colorado, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

Expectations that Republicans would score sweeping victories no doubt were buoyed by the predictions of RealClearPolitics. It projected that the GOP stood to gain three Senate seats and control the upper house by 53 seats to 47 — an outcome that proved illusory.

While hedged, the final, so-called “Deluxe” forecast posted at Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com and updated on Election Day did little to dampen expectations of a GOP wave. The forecast said Republicans had a 59% chance of winning control of the Senate.

“To be blunt,” Silver wrote, “59 percent is enough of an edge that if you offered to let me bet on Republicans at even money, I’d take it.”

In other words: Don’t Expect Pollsters to Break Their Losing Streak.

DRIVER ARRESTED IN CRASH INTO LA COUNTY SHERIFF’S RECRUITS: “Authorities have arrested a 22-year-old driver on suspicion of attempted murder after he veered into the wrong lane and struck dozens of Los Angeles County sheriff’s academy recruits running in formation. Nicholas Joseph Gutierrez was arrested Wednesday for investigation of attempted murder on a peace officer, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement Thursday. Investigators did not elaborate on why they were pursing the attempted murder charge, or say whether they have evidence leading them to believe he did this intentionally.”

THEY WERE NEVER THE SAME AFTER PETER GABRIEL LEFT: Crypto lender Genesis had sought emergency loan of $1 billion. “‘Genesis had been exploring all possible options amidst the liquidity crunch resulting from the FTX news,’ the company said in an emailed statement to Reuters, adding that it took the decision to suspend redemptions after reviewing a number of options. The implosion of FTX has rippled across the industry, hobbling liquidity at firms with exposure to what was once one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges, and prompting investigations by regulators in several countries.”

THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I HAD EXPECTED: Justin Bieber bought a Bored Ape NFT in January for $1.3 million that’s likely worth about $70,000 in the wake of the FTX collapse.

At least he can be comforted by the beautiful aesthetics of the underlying illustration:

FTX: Bombshell court filing suggests Sam Bankman-Fried ‘transferred digital assets to Bahamas government.’

The collapsed cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX claims former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried ‘hacked’ its systems after filing for bankruptcy to transfer ‘digital assets’ to Bahamian regulators.

FTX lodged the motion in the US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on Thursday saying it had evidence to suggest the Bahamas government ordered Bankman-Fried, 30, to gain ‘unauthorized access’ while in custody.

‘In connection with investigating a hack on Sunday, November 13, Mr. Bankman-Fried and [FTX co-founder Gary] Wang, stated in recorded and verified texts that ‘Bahamas regulators’ instructed that certain post-petition transfers of Debtor assets be made by Mr. Wang and Mr. Bankman-Fried (who the Debtors understand were both effectively in the custody of Bahamas authorities) and that such assets were ‘custodied on FireBlocks under control of Bahamian gov’t,’ the filing states.

‘The Debtors thus have credible evidence that the Bahamian government is responsible for directing unauthorized access to the Debtors’ systems for the purpose of obtaining digital assets of the Debtors—that took place after the commencement of these cases.’

FTX, which is based in the Bahamas due to its relaxed tax laws, collapsed on November 11 in a scandal that has cost its investors more than $11billion.

Shady accounting practices at FTX? I just can’t see it myself:

Meanwhile, in the “it’s not a cult” category: Sam Bankman-Fried ex Caroline Ellison made ‘foray’ into ‘Chinese harem’ polyamory.

Disgraced Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison penned graphic blog posts about polyamory and masochism before the implosion of her FTX-linked cryptocurrency hedge fund.

Ellison — who dated FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried — wrote candidly about her “‘foray into poly” on her now-deleted Tumblr account back in February 2020, according to the Daily Mail.

The post — along with a series of other sexualized entries — was unearthed by the tabloid just days after CoinDesk claimed Ellison, 28, and Bankman-Fried, 30, were part of a 10-person “cabal of roommates” that managed operations for FTX and Alameda from a luxury penthouse in the Bahamas. CoinDesk claimed the group “are, or used to be, in romantic relationships with each other.”

“When I first started my foray into poly, I thought of it as a radical break from my trad past,” Ellison allegedly wrote in the Tumblr entry. “But tbh I’ve come to decide the only acceptable style of poly is best characterized as something like ‘imperial Chinese harem.’ “

The Stanford grad continued, “None of this non-hierarchical bulls–t; everyone should have a ranking of their partners, people should know where they fall on the ranking, and there should be vicious power struggles for the higher ranks.”

Finally (for now): Sam Bankman-Fried’s media outlets must come clean.

[S]ince the scandal broke, Bankman-Fried has been treated to two relative puff pieces on his philanthropic efforts in the Washington Post and the New York Times. Both drew severe backlash on social media for seeming to handle him with kid gloves.

The coverage of Bankman-Fried and the FTX collapse, which has resulted in the disappearance of millions of dollars invested into FTX and crypto currencies, must be called into question, given his connections and donations to corporate media outlets. A media storyline is forming that while Bankman-Fried did lose billions almost overnight of FTX user and investment money, his heart is still in the right place when it comes to fighting for the same global causes that liberal editorial boards agree with.

Putting it bluntly — every media organization that accepted funding from Bankman-Fried should come clean and offer full transparency as to the nature of their agreement with him and their financial arrangements. As Semafor’s Max Tani reported, these grants and their funding mechanisms have been put on hold. ProPublica announced that they had received “the first tranche of the $5 million grant in February of 2022. The remaining two-thirds of the grant are due, respectively by April 1, 2023 and by April 1, 2024.” Happy April Fools’ Day indeed.

This WaPo headline on FTX — written after its collapse — is  an absolute classic:

ANDREW FERGUSON: Good Riddance, Madame Speaker.

When rubbed the wrong way, she can summon her own kind of clarity. My favorite instance, and our third and final token, was related in a recent biography by Molly Ball. In August 2014, during yet another crisis on the southern border, a Republican congressman named Tom Marino took the House floor to chide Pelosi, then the minority leader, for ignoring it—a sign of her weakness, he said.

“I did research on it,” Marino said. “You might want to try it, Madame Leader. … That’s one thing you don’t do.”

Outraged, Pelosi flew across the floor toward Marino, arms raised.

Now, we all have our readymade insults for people we find contemptible—from chucklehead to asshole and beyond. We tend to describe the opposite of what we see ourselves to be.

Pelosi uncorked her own favorite.

“You,” she shouted at Marino, “are an insignificant person! You are an insignificant person!” Her colleagues, according to Ball, had to pull her away.

What a picture it makes! It is how I prefer to remember her, the first woman elected speaker of the House, a colossus in the politics of this century—ferocious in her pant suit, the back vents of the jacket flapping, the padded shoulders heaving, the tiny fists balled in anger and hoisted skyward. The image defines her long struggle against the great enemy insignificance, and more important, against all the little people who are themselves insignificant, and whose ranks—unhappily but finally—she now joins.

Beyond that, you have to read the article to find out what’s in it.

FORMER SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” STILL TRYING TO GENERATE PR: AOC launches (rather dumb) attack on Ticketmaster after Taylor Swift crash.

It’s not every day that a pop star’s fans are so rabid they break the internet. But that’s sort of what happened this week when the ticket sales website Ticketmaster crashed because so many Taylor Swift fans tried to buy tickets for her upcoming tour at once.

This has proven chaotic for many distressed fans. But it’s also got some progressive lawmakers up in arms, attacking the company and even calling for it to be broken up. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example, responded to the crash by tweeting: “Daily reminder that Ticketmaster is a monopoly, it’s merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they need to be reigned in. Break them up.”

The congresswoman is referencing a merger Ticketmaster conducted in 2010 with LiveNation, at the time its chief competitor and calling for it to be “broken up” through federal government intervention known as “antitrust.”

Ticketmaster may or may not be a monopoly. It now reportedly has up to 80% market share according to some sources, although its executives have claimed they only have about 30%. (To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a business having a near monopoly so long as it emerges naturally without special government favors or subsidies, like it appears to have in this case. Some industries can even be structured in a way where a monopoly is the most efficient way to supply the good.)

Regardless, for Ocasio-Cortez and others to blame the Taylor Swift crash on Ticketmaster’s possible monopoly is actually rather dumb. The number of vendors wasn’t the problem—it was the insane surge in customer demand that probably would’ve crashed any website or multiple websites.

This also may explain why Taylor Swift is trying not to be seen:

UPDATE: Ticketmaster cancels its public sale of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour tickets.

More: Amy Klobuchar: Taylor Swift ticket sales snafus more important than FTX fraud.

Unexpectedly!

(Updated and bumped.)

THE FTX COLLAPSE SUMMED UP IN 99 SECONDS:

I could talk about the FTX collapse for hours on end. But there's no time! Here's the whole awful glorious mess crammed into 99 seconds. #FTX #FTXCRASH #MelonHead pic.twitter.com/2lqq4rASu1

— Nobody Special (@JG_Nuke) November 11, 2022

PARTY OF YOUTH UPDATE: Come celebrate her best GIFs as Nancy Pelosi steps down as House Democrat leader after 20 very long years.

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: Could Sam Bankman-Fried go to prison for the FTX disaster?

Even if the facts seem may seem damning on the surface, lawyers contacted by Fortune cited two potential obstacles to any criminal conviction—though ones prosecutors could likely overcome.

The first is jurisdiction. Since FTX is an offshore business with headquarters in the Bahamas, and did not cater to Americans, defense lawyers could argue the actions of its executives are beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement.

The Justice Department, however, is good at finding a “nexus” linking overseas defendants to American shores, according to Randall Eliason, a former prosecutor who now teaches law at George Washington University. Two other lawyers who spoke to Fortune echoed this view, saying it would likely be easy for prosecutors to find a nexus in the FTX case—in the form of a tie between FTX and U.S. banks, emails, stateside meetings, or other interactions.

The second potential obstacle to a criminal prosecution comes in the form of intent. Specifically, Eliason says that any conviction will turn on whether SBF was not simply incompetent but whether he deliberately deceived investors.

“Mismanaging your company and losing a bunch of other people’s money is not criminal. It happens all the time. For a criminal case, there has to be deception,” he said.

Eliason added that he was not familiar with the details of the FTX debacle, but that prosecutors can show deception by means of something like a smoking gun communication, or by showing a pattern of behavior that points to fraudulent intent.

A longtime crypto lawyer, however, told Fortune he has no doubt that SBF’s behavior and FTX’s business practices clearly demonstrated fraud. The lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, pointed to evidence like FTX’s terms of service as well as the company’s investor presentations and public statements by SBF.

Well, this might be a possible answer:

In the meantime though, will SBF show up for this discussion, which was announced by the New York Times in October? Yellen, Zelensky and Zuckerberg Will Speak at DealBook Summit. The conference, scheduled for Nov. 30, will bring together the biggest newsmakers in business, politics and culture.

We are pleased to announce our lineup for the DealBook Summit, to be held at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on Nov. 30. Andrew will host a series of conversations with the biggest newsmakers in the world of business, politics and culture.

Among the speakers: President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine; Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen; Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s co-founder, chairman and C.E.O.; Shou Chew, TikTok’s C.E.O.; Mike Pence, former vice president of the United States; Andy Jassy, Amazon’s C.E.O.; Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-founder and co-C.E.O.; Mayor Eric Adams of New York; Larry Fink, BlackRock’s chairman and C.E.O.; Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s C.E.O.; and Priscilla Sims Brown, Amalgamated Bank’s C.E.O.

It’s the people who brought you 2022 — C’mon Gray Lady, make this panel happen!

RIP: Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson dies at 58. “Gerson, a former speechwriter for former President George W. Bush and a Washington Post columnist who commented on conservative politics and faith at the paper for more than two decades, died on Thursday at a hospital in Washington, according to an obituary in the Post. Gerson was 58, and the cause of death was related to complications with cancer.”

GREAT MOMENTS IN PARENTING:

Shot: “Nine years ago, when crypto-fraudster [Sam Bankman-Fried] was 19, his mother, a Stanford professor, wrote a very long article making the case that free will is a myth and that we should not blame people for committing crimes.”

— Michael Shellenberger, yesterday.

Chaser: Sam Bankman-Fried’s father drafted tax legislation for Elizabeth Warren, donated thousands to Dems.

—Fox News, yesterday.

UPDATE: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s family boasts deep ties to Democrat power players.

FTX HAD ‘COMPLETE FAILURE OF CORPORATE CONTROLS,’ NEW CEO SAYS.

Related: Singapore writes down $275 million in FTX, calls belief in Sam Bankman-Fried ‘misplaced.’ “In a statement on Thursday, state-owned investment company Temasek said it had decided to write down the value of its full investment in the exchange to zero, ‘irrespective of the outcome of FTX’s bankruptcy protection filing.’”

GREAT MOMENTS IN DIVERSITY:

Shot: Here’s a List of 58 Gender Options for Facebook Users.

—ABC News, February 13^th, 2014.

Chaser: San Francisco Transgender Income Program Includes 97 Gender Options, 19 Sexual Orientations.

—Joel Pollak, Breitbart.com, today.

Flashback: Microsoft just dropped the latest Pride flag design, and yes, IT’S REAL.

“As always, we’re going to remind you that Jordan Peterson called this over 5 years ago. Here’s a lecture where he said that the endgame of woke tribalism is the fracturing of things like the Pride flag into millions of ‘oppression groups’ until we get down to the rights of the individual:”

DARRELL BROOKS JR., WISCONSIN CHRISTMAS PARADE KILLER, SENTENCED TO SIX CONSECUTIVE LIFE SENTENCES.

HMMM…: David Brock Leaves Media Matters for Undisclosed Reasons.

HOLLYWOOD FTX FRENZY AS MICHAEL LEWIS REVEALS HE SPENT SIX MONTHS WITH FOUNDER:

We now know at least one part of how this plays out. The town was abuzz Saturday after an email spread that revealed that Michael Lewis — the most talented and successful non-fiction writer working today — had embedded with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried for the past six months and was making the collapsing cryptocurrency exchange the centerpiece of his next book. The Ankler obtained the email from CAA agent Matthew Snyder, originally sent to potential buyers on Friday (CAA did not immediately return a request for comment). The email reveals that not a word of the book has been written yet but, well, things just can’t wait:

The email from Snyder:

After Liar’s Poker, and his upcoming FTX book, the forecast here is simple: if you’re running a financial firm engaged in potential shady maneuvers, you know your business is absolutely doomed if Michael Lewis has embedded within it!

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: De Niro, Spike Lee, Josh Alexander, AP, Rehabilitate Crown Heights Pogrom’s Leader.

It appears no one today recalls [Al] Sharpton’s role in the attack on Crown Height’s Jews and the killing of Yankel Rosenbaum. According to the sworn testimony of then-Crown Heights resident Efraim Lipkind, Sharpton showed up before the riots. “Then we had a famous man, Al Sharpton, who came down, and he said Tuesday night, kill the Jews, two times. I heard him, and he started to lead a charge across the street to Utica,” Lipkind testified

(How Al Sharpton Inflamed The Crown Heights Riot and How The Media Lied).

For three days, local African and Caribbean Americans who were joined by others from outside the neighborhood rioted in Crown Heights, and the Jews hid indoors lest they meet the same fate as Rosenbaum. On the third day of the pogrom, Al Sharpton led a march chanting, “No Justice, No Peace!”, “Death to the Jews!”, and “Whose streets? Our streets!” The mob burned an Israeli flag.

“Loudmouth” executive producer John Legend told the audience about Sharpton’s attempt to smear NY City detectives: “It just makes you realize that anybody who’s making noise for justice, especially for an oppressed minority, is always going to be treated as persona non grata in society. They’re always going to be unpopular to an extent because they’re fighting to disturb a status quo that protects a lot of people.”

That’s how Sharpton was cleared of his shameful attempt to subvert justice in the Tawana Brawley case. Sharpton’s former aide, Perry McKinnon, said that Sharpton and attorneys Alton Maddox and Vernon Mason didn’t care about Brawley and were using the case to, as he had heard Sharpton say, make them “the biggest n***ers in New York.”

Spike Lee said “Loudmouth” should be shown in schools. “You have to show that racism doesn’t really have a particular Zip code,” he said.
Speaking of Zip codes, I searched the AP story for any mention of the Crown Heights pogroms, preparing myself for the sage way the Jewish filmmaker from California absolved this renowned Jew-hater of responsibility. I didn’t have to concern myself: there’s nothing in the AP report about those three days of infamy.

Related: MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough* promotes forthcoming flattering doc about antisemitic race hustler Al Sharpton.

Flashback: Al Sharpton: Power Dem.

* Past performance is no guarantee of future results: Watch: In 2000, Congressman Joe Scarborough Thought Rev. Al Sharpton Was a Racist and Bigot.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Ex-host Tiffany Cross wanted to ‘take down’ MSNBC before exit: source.

AIR FORCE, FBI RAID HOMES IN PROBE OF AREA 51 WEBSITE:

Agents from the U.S. Air Force and FBI recently raided homes in Clark and Lincoln counties in an investigation of a man who operates a website about the top-secret military base known as Area 51, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations and FBI entered homes owned by Joerg Arnu in Las Vegas and the tiny town of Rachel on Nov. 3 and seized potential evidence for an undisclosed joint agency probe, according to Lt. Col. Bryon McGarry, spokesman for Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas.

“This is an open and ongoing law enforcement investigation between the Las Vegas FBI and Air Force OSI,” McGarry said in a statement.

He declined to elaborate on the basis for the investigation, but Arnu, of Las Vegas, is the webmaster of a site titled Dreamland Resort, focusing on Area 51, an Air Force base in Lincoln County about 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas where testing is conducted on new and classified U.S. military aircraft.

Dreamland Resort, at dreamlandresort.com, started by Arnu in 1999, features YouTube videos taken from drones flown over places around Area 51, satellite images of the base, a discussion forum with posts on the topic, articles on test flights, “black projects” and UFOs, and what it says are photos of new vehicles such as the so-called “super secret” Northrop Grumman RQ-180 unmanned stealth aircraft shown flying in 2021.

Arnu, reached by email Wednesday, declined comment until he can speak to his attorney. But he forwarded a news release posted on his web page last week telling his side of the story.

“I believe the search, executed with completely unnecessary force by overzealous government agents was meant as a message to silence the Area 51 research community,” he said.

Arnu said both his homes were raided “without warning” on Nov. 3 “by 15-20 agents in full riot gear.” The agents broke open the doors while Arnu was in the Rachel home and his girlfriend at the Las Vegas one, and then they “were detained and treated in the most disrespectful way.”

Related:

● ‘Politicized bureaucracy’ has FBI ‘rotted at its core,’ GOP charges in shocking report.

● Majority see FBI as Biden’s ‘personal Gestapo’ after Trump raid.

● Can the FBI Be Saved from Itself—And Can We Be Saved from the FBI?