Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

March 30, 2026

GOD AND MAN AT THE PENTAGON:

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

KINSLEY GAFFE:

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

ED MORRISSEY: WaPo: On Second Thought, Our Reporter in Iran Is a Regime Hack.

CNN: We never learned our lesson from the Eason Jordan era.

Washington Post: Hold our beer.

Alternate headline: American Public Finds New Reasons to Hate the Media.

On Friday, the Washington Post accused the US military of a potential war crime. Its reporters in Iran took photos of what were purported to be anti-tank land mines supposedly tossed into residential areas, including in Shiraz, supposedly to deter the movement of mobile missile launchers (via Twitchy):

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

THE MINIMUM WAGE IS ALWAYS ZERO. How it started: Dodger Stadium workers ratify new labor contract. 

“This is a historic day for Dodger Stadium workers,” said Susan Minato, co-president of United Here Local 11. “As the team goes on to play for the top prize in baseball, the workers who serve the food and pour the drinks have also won.”

Wages for all workers will increase by at least $10 an hour, the union said, but a wide swath of employees — including stand workers, dishwashers and cooks — will see their hourly pay rise by $13.

A minimum guaranteed hourly tip of $8 will help boost employee wages, union members said. As an example, a concession worker who was was earning $18.14 an hour under the 2020 labor contract will now make $30.94 an hour.

—The L.A. Daily News, October 13th, 2022.

How it’s going:

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll on Mar 30th, 2026

March 29, 2026

STAR TREK AS A DRAMA? It’s an idea so crazy, it just might work — as it did during the original series’ brilliant first season:

Posted at 5:46 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

BATYA UNGAR-SARGON: Love Story: The Death of the Kennedy Myth and the End of the Political Nepo Baby.

The show is about John and Carolyn, but it’s also very much about what it meant to be a Kennedy back in the day. And one of Love Story’s strengths is the way in which it constantly seems to be putting before the viewer the question of whether these people, these Kennedys, were deserving of all the attention they got. And it certainly leaves open the possibility that the answer to that question is no.

Like most of the TV that’s made these days, it was a visual smorgasbord of the conspicuous consumption of the rich and famous—ostentatiously set breakfast tables, gorgeous beach homes, endlessly expanding loft apartments, beautifully appointed rooms and stunningly tailored clothing. But the beautiful interior shots are contrasted with the absence of an inner life when it comes to the main characters, who appear to spend no time at all dwelling on ideas about the world or anything that extends beyond their own personal crosses.

What were JFK Jr.’s politics, beyond “generic Democrat”? What did he think about the world around him? The character portrayed in Love Story is motivated only by careerism. He fails the bar. He doesn’t like being a lawyer. Will his magazine, which only exists because he can trade on the family name, succeed? He has no thoughts beyond making sure his image lives up to the expectations of the family name.

A more pretentious show might have given us evidence that there was more to John than his need to be a Kennedy. But this show allows the viewer to contemplate the very real possibility that there just . . . wasn’t. The point wasn’t to make the world a better place; it was to be seen doing so.

Exit quote: “The replacement of public service with careerism is one of the defining problems in our elites today. It’s not that older political celebrities weren’t personally ambitious, of course. But there was a worldview there, a theory of the case about why you wanted to be the one to assume power, what you would do if you were given the chance.”

Some notable exceptions apply, however: “The Question:” Ted Kennedy and the Pitfalls of Running for President. “One of the most obvious questions a candidate may be asked is why do you want to be president? Why you? Why now? This isn’t the 19th century, after all, when presidents had to be dragged to the White House under the guise of modesty. Why do you want to be president is a simple question with a complex answer–and candidates should be prepared to offer one. Failing to do so could be fatal to any campaign. Just ask Ted Kennedy.”

Related: Paramount made bank on a film titled Love Story in late 1970 and much of 1971. It seems odd to see its title recycled by another production, though apparently one as equally trite:

Posted at 4:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

HE’S NOT WRONG:

Even the History Channel concurs:

 

Posted at 4:24 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

ANALYSIS: Absolutely True.

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

DISPATCHES FROM THE LEARING CENTER:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Tony Blair says the Left has to end its ‘unholy alliance’ with Islamists to stamp out anti-Semitism.

‘Progressive’ politicians are failing to tackle leftwing anti-Semitism because they won’t tackle the ‘unholy alliance’ between parts of their movement and hardline Islamists, Tony Blair has warned.

The former prime minister said that figures on the left are failing to confront extremists who see all Jews as supporters of Israel and the Netanyahu regime and therefore ‘fair game’ for violence and intimidation in the wake of the Israeli war in Gaza.

His intervention comes after an arson attack that destroyed four Jewish community ambulances in Golders Green, north London, last week.

Sir Tony, who is now involved with Donald Trump‘s Board of Peace initiative, said that while people were free to criticise Israel for its actions in killing thousands, they were failing criticise the Hamas terror attack which triggered the war, and the groups actions during the fighting.

Writing for CBS chief executive Bari Weiss’s The Free Press blog, he said: ‘The problem is that, under pressure from party activists and parts of the Muslim community, many progressive politicians who do sincerely reject anti-Semitism are not making these arguments, and failing to take head-on this literally ”unholy alliance” between parts of the Left and Islamists in our own societies whose ideology leads inexorably to anti-Semitism.

‘Because failure to do so creates the climate in which, even if anti-Semitism is not explicitly condoned, it flourishes.’

He also warned that ‘without a challenge to the ideology that encourages anti-Semitism, while clothing it in indignation at the human cost of war, incidents like the one with the ambulances will continue to the shame of our society.’

That’s nice. But it was Tony Blair’s Labour Party that created the conditions in which antisemitism flourishes in 21st century England: Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser.

The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

He said Labour’s relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to “open up the UK to mass migration” but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its “core working class vote”.

As a result, the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic benefits and need for more migrants.

Critics said the revelations showed a “conspiracy” within Government to impose mass immigration for “cynical” political reasons.

Mr Neather was a speech writer who worked in Downing Street for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett, in the early 2000s.

—The London Telegraph, October 23rd, 2009.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

OR BEING HANGED BY AN IRANIAN CONSTRUCTION CRANE:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll on Mar 29th, 2026

March 28, 2026

OLD AND BUSTED: John Kerry’s infamous 2004 “global test” presidential debate rhetoric.

The New Hotness? Europe flunks Trump’s test:

Tweet continues, Trump “was testing whether European countries that the U.S. has protected for over 80 years would do the bare minimum to help secure global sea lanes, which American taxpayers have also been underwriting for decades at no cost to them. In this case, those sea lanes benefit Europe far more than the U.S. and Europe failed the test.”

Exit question: The Hormuz Hypothesis – What If the U.S. Navy Isn’t in a Hurry to Reopen the Strait?

Posted at 5:17 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 28th, 2026

CANDY CRUSH! Thieves make off with 12 tons of KitKat chocolate bars.

Twelve tons of KitKat chocolate bars went missing in ​Europe last week after thieves ‌made off with the truck transporting them, Swiss food giant Nestle  said on ​Saturday.

KitKat, which is made by ​Nestle, said the truck carrying 413,793 ⁠bars of its new range ​set off from central Italy to ​distribute the chocolate throughout Europe, but never reached its scheduled final destination in Poland.

The ​vehicle and the merchandise remain ​unaccounted for.

Though the suspects should be pretty easy to spot:

Another movie version proposed here:

Posted at 4:55 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 28th, 2026

HOW IT’S DONE:

To be fair, there are far too many people in L.A. who view Bass paling with Fidel in the Venceremos Brigade as a feature, not a bug.

Posted at 2:44 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 28th, 2026

THE RADICALIZATION OF CALLA WALSH:

In the weeks since the U.S. and Israel launched their joint assault on Iran, perhaps no American has more aggressively and publicly rallied behind the Islamic Republic than Calla Walsh. From her new base in Lebanon, the 21-year-old Cambridge-raised activist has taken to social media and left-wing podcasts to incite her fellow countrymen and women to sabotage U.S. and Israeli defense contractors wherever they can find them. On March 3, she mocked four American soldiers killed in an Iranian drone strike, posting: “They all died fighting for fascism, genocide, pedophilia, and cannibalism.” She attached pictures of the dead Americans. In recent days she reposted a list of missile-production sites inside the U.S.

“We have a duty to escalate,” Walsh told her host on the Psychic Militancy podcast last Saturday from Beirut, noting that “lockdowns” of weapons factories and vandalism alone are “not sufficient at this point.”

She added: “And as the genocide and these wars of aggression continue to escalate, much more is demanded of people in the West.”

Walsh looks every part the art-school hipster, with her thick-rimmed glasses and a mop of curly hair. But she’s a chameleon of terror. Five years earlier, as a 16-year-old, Walsh was fawned over by The New York Times for being a young, social media-savvy activist who was helping to shake up the Democratic Party in Massachusetts. But as a monthslong investigation by The Free Press shows, she’s thrown her allegiance squarely behind the Islamic Republic of Iran and its Axis of Resistance, which includes the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The U.S. government has placed her on a suspicious persons watch list for her expansive dealings with the governments of Cuba and Iran, U.S. officials told me, as well as a spiderweb of U.S.-designated terrorist groups.

* * * * * * * * *

It was Senator Ed Markey’s 2020 reelection bid that elevated Walsh’s profile nationally. Polls showed the septuagenarian trailing the 39-year-old Joe Kennedy III by as many as 16 points. The age gap and the Kennedy mystique appeared to many pollsters as too much for Markey to overcome.

Walsh and a network of hundreds of young, progressive online activists, who became known as the Markeyverse, changed the course of the race. They used social media to mobilize young voters, casting Markey as the leading Democrat fighting climate change and corporate corruption. Kennedy, in contrast, was portrayed as the scion of an entrenched political dynasty who was beholden to business interests and the Washington establishment.

A platinum blonde Walsh canvassed Boston neighborhoods in a Green New Deal T-shirt and face mask. Markey won the 2020 Democratic primary by 11 points and praised Walsh and her allies. Glowing profiles appeared in The New York Times and Boston magazine. “It’s a movement fueled by young people who are not afraid to raise their voices or make enemies,” Markey said after the vote. “This is a tribute to those young people and to their vision. They will save us if we trust them.”

Not since Al Gore declared “Mission Accomplished” to his brand of radical environmentalism by selling out to the petrostate of Qatar in 2013 has an environmentalist pivoted on a dime to defend an oppressive oil-driven Middle Eastern regime. I’m sorry that Walsh’s “Green New Deal” t-shirt is cut-off in the left photo of the before and after juxtaposition below:

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 28th, 2026

DEEP SCHIFF:

Last year, PJM’s Matt Margolis wrote: Exposed: How Hillary Planned to Reward Schiff for Undermining Trump.

Investigative reporter Catherine Herridge has not only released FBI reports that reveal that Rep. Eric Swalwell, another Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, was also a habitual leaker of classified information, even receiving warnings from the FBI to be more cautious. The reports also indicate that had Clinton won the 2016 election, she would likely have rewarded Schiff for his efforts by appointing him CIA director, a testament to their deep ties and shared political objectives.

As Mark Steyn wrote in 2005 upon the announcement that FBI man Mark Felt was Woodward and Bernstein’s “Deep Throat,” memorably played by Hal Holbrook in 1976’s All the President’s Men: 

Now we learn that Deep Throat was not, in fact, Alexander Haig, David Gergen, Pat Buchanan or Len Garment, but a disaffected sidekick of J Edgar Hoover, an old-school G-man embittered at being passed over for the Director’s job when the big guy keeled over after half-a-century in harness. And, whatever Mark Felt’s motives, it wasn’t because of a distaste over illegal break-ins: at the FBI, he himself had authorized illegal burglaries at the homes of friends and family of various leftists.

Oh, dear. Like the Star Wars wrap-up, “How Mark Felt Became Deep Throat” feels small and mean after three decades of the awesome dramatic burden placed upon it. The nobility of the Watergate myth – in which media boomers and generations of journalism-school ethics bores have invested so much – seems cheapened and tarnished by this last plot twist.

And if the above is true as well, it explains so many of Schiff’s antics over the past decade.

Posted at 1:44 pm by Ed Driscoll on Mar 28th, 2026
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