Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT: Once-thriving shopping mall in ailing Democrat-run* city is eerily empty on last Sunday before Christmas.

The [San Francisco Centre, formerly known as the Westfield Mall], which was valued at $1.2 billion about a decade ago, was foreclosed on in November.

It was sold to lenders, including JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, for $133 million.

The banks have hired real estate brokerage CBRE to find a new buyer for the mall – and the firm’s executive vice president, Kyle Kovac, told CBS News that the sale signals a new era for the property.

He told the outlet: ‘Amid renewed civic leadership, three consecutive years of positive population growth and surging demand from artificial intelligence and technology firms, San Francisco Centre & Emporium is uniquely positioned to anchor the next chapter in downtown San Francisco’s recovery.’

But others are less convinced that the mall’s much-needed comeback is tangible.

Local Neil Wotherspoon, who told CBS in November that he visits the mall about once a week to order from the Panda Express in its basement – one of the only businesses still open – said he does not think the establishment’s future is bright.

‘I think these will be the last people to put the lights out,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll end up with the only people who will come here will be like me to enjoy the food. Just for the Panda, that’s right.’

Others noted how unsettling shopping in the massive mall has become since it transformed into a ghost town.

* You spelled “Democrat monopoly city” wrong; San Francisco’s last Republican mayor left office at the beginning of 1964.

Related:

And considering that Schwarzenegger was the very definition of a RINO, which party has controlled Sacramento for decades?

 

SEE BS: 60 Minutes Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, Who Cried Foul Over Delayed Immigration Piece, Was Behind ‘Intentionally False’ Hit Piece on Ron DeSantis That Even Democrats Said Was Wrong.

In her leaked email to her colleagues, Alfonsi accused CBS News and Weiss of engaging in “corporate censorship” and of “betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism.” Reporters at CBS News are threatening to quit over the Weiss decision, CNN’s Brian Stelter reported (it’s unlikely that anyone will actually quit due to the fast-shrinking job market for television reporters).

Weiss, who was appointed CBS News editor in chief in October, said in a statement Monday that the story “did not advance the ball” on what has already been reported about CECOT. “We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera,” she said.

There’s precedent warranting additional legwork on Alfonsi’s segments. Alfonsi was the lead correspondent on a debunked story in 2021 that DeSantis gave preferential treatment to the supermarket chain Publix to distribute coronavirus vaccines because the company donated $100,000 to DeSantis’s campaign.

“How is that not pay-to-play?” Alfonsi asked DeSantis when she confronted him after one of the governor’s press conferences.

Alfonsi’s producer for that story, Oriana Zill de Granados, also produced the “Inside CECOT” report.

Several Florida officials, including Democrats, blasted the 60 Minutes report, saying that DeSantis’s office was not involved in awarding contracts to Publix.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D., Fla.), who oversaw Florida’s emergency management division in 2021 and is known for tangling with the GOP, said that the division recommended Publix for the contract because other pharmacies were not equipped to distribute vaccines.

“No one from the Governor’s office suggested Publix. It’s just absolute malarkey,” he said.

But think of the long tradition of excellence at CBS News!

 

NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN: ‘Kill Switch?’ Bari Bombshell Explodes on 60 Minutes:

Did Bari Weiss give the White House a “kill switch” on honest reports from CBS News? Or did she yank the chain back on one of its most biased platforms to remind everyone that times have changed?

One can imagine which narrative the Protection Racket Media will flog.

Weiss issued a last-minute order to yank a 60 Minutes exposé on Donald Trump’s decision to partner with El Salvador on deporting criminal illegals, citing the need for more reporting and better balance. All of the usual suspects have been losing their minds ever since:

CBS News pulled a segment on Trump administration deportations of Venezuelan immigrants to an El Salvador prison from “60 Minutes,” causing staffers and media onlookers to question whether the decision was politically motivated. …

Driving the news: “60 Minutes” announced on social media around 4:30pm ET Sunday that it was dropping the segment, called “Inside CECOT,” from that evening’s broadcast lineup, but said that it would air at a later date.

  • Sharyn Alfonsi, the segment’s correspondent, alleged in an email to colleagues that she learned Saturday that new CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss had “spiked our story” after Trump officials refused to be interviewed, per multiple reports.
  • “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Alfonsi wrote, per a copy of the email that journalist Liam Scott shared on X.

I’ve watched 60 Minutes and CBS News’ practical application of “standards and practices” for decades. This is not the flex that Alfonsi thinks it is. Twenty-one years ago, CBS News and 60 Minutes II ran a prime-time hit piece on George W. Bush based on fabricated documents in an attempt to influence a presidential election. “Rathergate” only cost CBS some embarrassment and retractions, and perhaps a momentary blip in sponsor support. Almost exactly twenty years later, they botched a re-edit of their softball interview with Kamala Harris so badly that the manipulation was once again easily exposed by critics and commentators. That escapade cost Paramount $16 million to settle in a lawsuit Trump filed, who most definitely preferred direct action more than Bush did at the time.

Alfonsi’s past performance is helping her case, either:

Brian Stelter has thoughts:

I can remember when 60 Minutes suffered the ultimate blow to its credibility, a moment that has never once bothered Stelter:

UPDATE:

GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: Making Movies in a Low Trust Environment. “Washington” compares and contrasts 1993’s top movies with today’s choices being proffered by DEI-infected Hollywood and compares the results to a once dominant sports team now constantly having losing seasons. “Don’t we become hyper-critical of even the smallest mistakes, mistakes of the kind we might forgive a competent team that is otherwise playing well? Worse, don’t we sometimes start to expect that our team will lose even before a single minute of game time has been played?”

And that is exactly what has happened to Hollywood over the last 20 years. The studios have performed the task of entertaining us so poorly, so regularly, that audiences feel burned. They no longer trust that the movies they pay to see will be any good, and they have begun to give up… even in the case of big blockbuster titles based on popular franchises, characters or IP of the kind audiences would have flocked to see in the 80’s and 90’s when Hollywood was releasing movies in a high trust environment.

We can debate what has changed. Some think it’s the high cost of movie tickets and popcorn combined with the inconvenience of theater-going when compared to streaming from the couch. And I know many in my right-leaning audience will blame Progressive politics, the powerful urge of Hollywood stars and directors to lecture us as if we are bad people to be taught a lesson rather than friends who deserve to be entertained… what the Critical Drinker calls “The Message.” And while that has clearly been a part of the problem, Hollywood’s woes are about much more than just politics.

The problem is that Hollywood has forgotten what movies are supposed to be about. The industry which once released “Mrs. Doubtfire”, “Schindler’s List” and “The Pelican Brief” in the same month has forgotten that movies must first entertain. They have forgotten that audiences want to see all kinds of movies, not just movies about Superheroes. They have forgotten that movies shouldn’t look like a corporate product created in a lab for the sole purpose of raising the stock price of the studio’s corporate parent. And perhaps most importantly, they have forgotten that movies need not focus obsessively on the goal of bending the arc of history towards justice… and certainly not at the expense of telling a great story.

The Critical Drinker and his cadre recently looked back on the tenth anniversary of The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars movie made under the Disney brand name. In his blockbuster “Lost Generation” article, Jacob Savage wrote, “In retrospect, 2014 was the hinge, the year DEI became institutionalized across American life.” Not coincidentally, The Force Awakens was released the following year.

In contrast to George Lucas’ constant writing and rewriting of his Star Wars concepts in the mid-1970s, as the Drinker et al note, the lack of worldbuilding by Disney as they were setting up shop on a new run of Star Wars movies was shocking. Apparently Kathleen Kennedy believed that printing up loads of “The Force is Female” t-shirts would suffice instead.

To borrow from what I wrote last week, Hollywood’s decline, a decade of DEI-driven slop coupled with the shocking murder of Rob Reiner, is a textbook example of Hemingway’s description for how one goes bankrupt: Gradually, then suddenly.

Speaking of which, one way or another, Warner Brothers being on the chopping block could likely accelerate the end of the moviegoing experience as well: Larry Ellison guarantees $40.4 billion in Paramount’s hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.

OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Jimmy Kimmel to say ‘fascism has had a great year’ in Channel 4 Christmas message.

US chat show host Jimmy Kimmel will say 2025 has been “a really great year for fascism”, when he delivers this year’s Alternative Christmas Message on Channel 4.

The presenter’s ABC talk show was briefly taken off air in September after comments he made about the shooting of Charlie Kirk.

The host’s suspension led to a debate in the US about freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Kimmel was reinstated a week after his removal.

The full quote from his address will say: “From a fascism perspective, this has been a really great year.”

The Daily Mail is of course suitably outraged: Jimmy Kimmel’s Christmas message to British public sparks outrage: ‘He should’ve stayed fired.’

Viewers in Britain and America alike hit out at the comedian for his anticipated anti-Trump rant and expected omission of censorship issues plaguing Sir Keir Starmer‘s government.

‘He’s going to whine about free speech and fascism,’ said GB News presenter Alex Armstrong on X.

‘He won’t be referring to our govt, will he? It’ll all be Trump. [Channel Four] deeply out of touch as usual.’

Commentator Paul Thacker also pointed to the recent arrest of comedian Graham Linehan for making anti-trans jokes as evidence of the ‘double standard’ in choosing Kimmel for the alternative message.

‘The British establishment chose Jimmy Kimmel to speak out against fascism and in favor of free speech. This is the same government that only recently arrested comedian Graham Linehan,’ Thacker wrote.

Worst. Hitler. Ever: Kimmel will be broadcasting in England, of all places, railing against fascism, with absolutely no repercussions from the Trump administration afterwards. And apparently, with no clue whatsoever about England arresting people for their tweets and Whatsapp posts.

WE NEED A TOTAL AND COMPLETE SHUTDOWN OF AUSTRALIA UNTIL WE CAN FIGURE WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON THERE:

 

JOHN NOLTE: RINO Romney Calls for Tax Hikes, Raising Retirement Age.

Here are his suggestions for outright tax increases…

“I long opposed increasing the income level on which FICA employment taxes are applied (this year, the cap is $176,100). No longer[.]”

Currently, once your income reaches that $176,100, the government stops taking taxes for Medicare and Social Security. It sounds like Romney wants to tax people no matter how much they make.

He also argues for closing loopholes, increasing the estate tax, and similar measures.

This has always been Romney’s problem.

Actually, two of Romney’s problems.

The first is that you can always count on him to eventually cave to Democrats. There’s death, taxes, and Romney caving to Democrats.

Second is his dazzling lack of imagination.

How do we fix entitlements, Mitt?

Uh, raise the retirement age and tax increases.

Way to think out of the box, Mitt.

America cannot tax its way to either prosperity or fiscal solvency. Tax increases always-always-always slow economic growth, which — and this is key — decreases tax revenues. Romney acknowledges this and then, without evidence, wrist flicks it: “Yes, taxes can slow growth. But most of the measures I propose would have a relatively small impact on economic growth.”

In other words, I’ve acknowledged it, so I don’t have to really address it, you know, because I acknowledged it.

As the late Robert Novak famously said, “God put the Republican Party on earth to cut taxes. If they don’t do that, they have no useful function.” But Romney himself can pay more in taxes anytime he’d like:

Bush 41 is, however, an object lesson in how Republican presidents are treated by Democrats should they accede to their wishes, and increase the taxes that Americans are paying: Clinton attacked Bush from the right for raising taxes.

DANIEL GREENFIELD: Tucker Carlson: “Attacking Millions of Americans Because They’re Muslims, It’s Disgusting.”

Building up to a furious pitch, Tucker ranted against what he called “attacking millions of Americans because they’re Muslims, it’s disgusting. And I’m a Christian. I know there’s effort to claim I’m a secret Jihadi. I’m not. You should not attack on those grounds. And you’re seeing that from Republicans. What the hell are you doing?”

What the hell are they doing? They’re doing what Charlie Kirk was doing? Speaking the truth and standing up for America, Christianity and the West.

America’s Newspaper of Record believes that Tucker may be overselling, just slightly, his newfound change of heart on the Religion of Peace™:

OLD AND BUSTED: Statue Toppling Endorsed by College Professors and Once Respectable Publications.

The New Hotness? JFK’s Niece Kerry Kennedy Vows to Remove Trump’s Name from the Kennedy Center with a ‘Pickax.’

More members of the Kennedy family are speaking out after President Donald Trump added his name to the Kennedy Center this week.

Following a controversial vote by a MAGA-friendly board, workers officially added Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center’s exterior on Friday, Dec. 19. They tacked on “The Donald Trump and” above the previously-existing lettering, which reads, “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and JFK’s niece, took to X after photos of the new addition went public.

“Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickax and pull those letters off that building, but I’m going to need help holding the ladder,” she wrote. “Are you in? Applying for my carpenter’s card today, so it’ll be a union job!!!”

Sounds awfully violent and destructive, but that’s par for the course for her family’s lineage. As RFK said in March of 1968, “If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all their youthful vision and vigor then there is something wrong with our colleges. The more riots that come on college campuses, the better the world for tomorrow.”

I like Ike; let’s rename it after him. But assuming we don’t have a President Vance or Rubio in office four years from now, Democrats will be working harder than Winston Smith in the Ministry of Truth to airbrush President Trump two terms of office out of existence.

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: First wheelchair user goes into space. “A German engineer has become the first wheelchair user to go into space.Michaela Benthaus, an aerospace and mechatronics engineer at the European Space Agency, crossed the Karman line, the internationally recognised boundary of space, during the 10-minute Blue Origin flight. Ms Benthaus, 33, from Kiel in Schleswig-Holstein, suffered a spinal cord injury in a mountain biking accident seven years ago.”

ROGER SIMON: J. D. Vance Has a Tucker Carlson Problem.

Is Tucker’s cognitive disorder Qatar’s doing? Maybe partly, but it is J. D. Vance’s problem. Currently, he and others are unable to shake themselves free of Carlson’s celebrity and the attendant charisma that remains.

If they don’t, it could sink the Republican ship. I’m not just talking about the Jews, many of whom were in the process of shifting to the GOP or already had, only to be repelled by Tucker’s antisemitic ravings, but also about the evangelicals who constitute a much larger backbone of the Republican Party. Without them, they are lost.

As many have noted, demography is destiny. Among Jews, the more orthodox are the fastest-growing segment, obeying the biblical admonition to be fruitful and multiply. The others, like most secular people, are having fewer children. The orthodox have long been the most conservative and by far the most likely to vote Republican—until the advent of Tucker’s screeds.

Exit quote: “This places J. D. Vance in a box. He must separate from Tucker and his followers, but he must do so subtly to avoid escalating the already percolating civil war. I sympathize with his dilemma.”

Read the whole thing.

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Return of the King Edition.

Okay, John Hinderaker went and did it last week! He has abused his stewardship of TWiP and went full Die Hard Christmas Movie Denialist!  As the Dude says in The Big Lebowski, this aggression will not stand, man! To restore proper balance in the universe, I [Steve Hayward] am staging a coup d’tat, and am taking over this week’s TWiP. To mix movie references further, John has done a Denethor-level job as Steward of TWiP; time for the Return of the (TWiP) King! Actually, like the Gaza and (prospective) Ukraine ceasefires, we’re going to share power, and alternate TWiP each week. And so as the great John McClain would say on basic cable Christmas season reruns, “Yippie-ki-yay, melon-farmer!”

‘Tis the season:

DISPATCHES FROM THE EPSTEIN FILES: Nearly naked Bill Clinton pictured soaking in hot tub with unidentified woman in Epstein files: ‘His reckoning.’

Former President Bill Clinton is photographed reclining nearly naked in a hot tub with an unidentified woman at his waist in files kept by late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — drawing strong reactions, including an ex-aide’s pronouncement that “this is his reckoning.”

Clinton, 79, is shown in many other images in the sprawling cache of Epstein files released Friday by the Justice Department — including with his arm wrapped around a young lady on a plane.

The ex-president is seen vacationing with the now-notorious predator in the UK, traveling with him to Brunei and Thailand and attending the 2002 wedding of Moroccan King Mohammed VI.

The extent of the Democrat’s appearance in the files drew shock shortly after the DOJ’s heavily redacted dump of thousands of records in compliance with a congressionally mandated deadline.

In one image, Clinton is shown frolicking in a swimming pool with Epstein’s girlfriend-turned-madam Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking crimes.

“This is his reckoning. I mean, if you turn on CNN, that’s what they are talking about. I’ve gotten a million texts about it,” said one former Clinton aide.

Related: Epstein Files Have Been Released, And Democrats Won’t Like These Photos.

Curiously, distaff Democratic Party operatives with bylines are shocked not by their man being in the Epstein files, but by his images actually being released:

Evergreen:

IT’S COME TO THIS: “Patriots should not fight for the British state,” says a columnist…in the London Telegraph?!

Talk of war is everywhere. Last week Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary general, warned that the West must be prepared “for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured” and that Nato is “Russia’s next target”. Then Sir Richard Knighton, the chief of the defence staff, said that the global situation is the most “dangerous I have known”, before describing a “new era for defence” which “doesn’t just mean our military and government stepping up… it means our whole nation stepping up”.

But is this realistic? Will the Britons of 2025 rise to the call as we did in 1914 or 1939? Polling suggests not. According to an Ipsos poll in June, almost half of us “say there are no circumstances” in which we “would be willing to take up arms for Britain”, with 39 per cent of men saying they would never fight for this country, and only 42 per cent of 18-34 year olds saying there are circumstances in which they would fight.

Some of those refusing are Leftists, but an increasing number of those on the Right, especially the young, believe that to obey the British state is to act against the interests of the British people.

If only there was a military role that many young conservative British men would flock to serve:

 

THE DEARTH OF STALIN: Rich Lowry: Bernie Sanders’ poisonously stupid anti-AI crusade would doom America’s future.

Most people welcome economic growth, but Bernie Sanders hates it.

As they say, there’s no accounting for taste.

The Vermont socialist has come out against data centers, the mass computing facilities essential to the development of artificial intelligence.

There are all sorts of NIMBY-type reasons for local residents to oppose data centers near them — they use a lot of energy and water, they’re noisy and unsightly — but Sanders is against them on principle.

If he can stop the creation of new data centers, he can squeeze AI research to a standstill and supposedly save American jobs while giving Congress more time to regulate the new industry.

Perhaps Bernie will be fighting Big Golf as well:

OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: We need more people ready to fight, military chief says.

The UK needs “more people being ready to fight for their country” as the nation seeks to deter a potential confrontation with Russia, the head of the military has said.

Chief of the Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton said “a whole-of-society response” was needed, including an increase in regular forces, cadets and reserves.

He also called for more school leavers and graduates to join the defence industry.

While the chief of the defence staff suggested there was only a remote chance of a direct Russian attack on the UK, he told an event at the Royal United Services Institute that so-called hybrid attacks showed the threat was worsening.

Sir Richard said: “Sons and daughters. Colleagues. Veterans will all have a role to play. To build. To serve. And if necessary, to fight.

“And more families will know what sacrifice for our nation means.”

To be fair, they’re busy sacrificing for the nation by being locked up for writing spicy tweets: Police make 30 arrests a day for offensive online messages.

The police are making more than 30 arrests a day over offensive posts on social media and other platforms.

Thousands of people are being detained and questioned for sending messages that cause “annoyance”, “inconvenience” or “anxiety” to others via the internet, telephone or mail.

Custody data obtained by The [London] Times shows that officers are making about 12,000 arrests a year under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988.

As Kurt Schlichter tweets:

This notion that young British men — specifically the working class ones — are going to sign up to go fight Russia for Ukraine is hilarious. This applies to other countries too, but let’s focus on the Brits. It’s a lesson in how the left skin-suits an institution, demands respect, and finds that it receives none.

These are the same young men who have been told they, their country, and their culture are garbage for the last 20 years. Racist, sexist, transphobic — you know the score. When they dare complain about their communities being changed without their consent, they get slandered. When foreign invaders rape their sisters and wives, the ruling class covers it up. If they take action, or even speak about it, they will be jailed. Yeah, I bet they’re just chomping at the bit to go get killed at the behest of their tormentors.

Of course, Old Blighty’s newfound saber rattling could simply be Labour’s version of Obama’s “stray voltage” mechanism to ride out a particularly bad news cycle:

UPDATE: Oceania has never been at war with Oceania:

Airstrip One has certainly done an exceptional job in recent years preparing its young men to fight for their nation:

THOSE ARE ROOKIE NUMBERS; YOU’VE GOT TO REALLY PUMP THOSE NUMBERS DOWN:

OSWALD SPENGLER, CALL YOUR OFFICE:

Related:

ATLAS MUGGED:

How It Started: Minneapolis City Council members intend to defund and dismantle the city’s police department.

—CNN, June 8th, 2020.

And: Farhad Manjoo writes a story about the Kia Boys without mentioning the Kia Boys.

As Manjoo sees it, the thefts and related problems (car crashes, armed robbery sprees, etc.) are entirely the fault of the manufacturers for making these cars so easy to steal. But he notes, ruefully, that another culprit is getting some of the blame. If you’re guessing he’s talking about the thieves, you guessed wrong. . . .

Not mentioned at all in these paragraphs or anywhere else in his column are the car thieves. All of the fault is placed on inanimate objects, i.e. the “theft-prone cars.” No responsibility is placed on the people driving this trend. This strikes me as pretty perfect encapsulation of everything that is wrong with progressive thinking on crime.

I think there’s a pretty clear reason why he’s leaving out the people responsible. Because the “Kia Boys,” as they’ve been described, are young teens, often black, who are stealing cars for fun and for social media cred. Contrary to what Manjoo claims, TikTok isn’t just providing dry information on how to steal the cars, it’s the platform where the “Kia Challenge” went viral. It’s where thieves post highlights of their joyrides in stolen cars to impress other kids. . . . In this clip, they admit they started stealing the cars because it was trending on TikTok. Watch and then tell me the responsibility should primarily fall on the car manufacturers. What about the kids doing this? What about their parents who seem to be completely absent? What about TikTok for making this into a social media game and a competition? Even the older men in the neighborhood point out that there is no accountability for these kids even when they are caught. So what about the courts and judges who give them a pass? If the car companies deserve blame that should come after a long line of other people involved.

—John Sexton, Hot Air, September 1st, 2023.

How It’s Going: