THE SOMALI WELFARE FRAUD SCANDAL IS EVEN WORSE THAN YOU THINK: “We believe the Somali fraud operation in Minnesota is the single greatest theft of taxpayer dollars, through welfare fraud, in American history.”
Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
December 6, 2025
HUGH HEWITT INTERVIEWS POWER LINE’S SCOTT JOHNSON: The first reporter on the Minnesota fraud scandal on how this iceberg of a story is being revealed.
FINALLY: It’s Official: The Original Theatrical Cut of Star Wars Is Coming Back to Theaters.
A day Star Wars fans never thought would happen is finally happening. Lucasfilm and Disney are rereleasing the original version of Star Wars in theaters for its 50th anniversary. It’ll happen on February 17, 2027, and io9 has confirmed with Lucasfilm that it is, in fact, the original theatrical cut of the movie.
Earlier this year, the studio announced it would be bringing Star Wars, later titled Star Wars: A New Hope, back to theaters to celebrate its massive anniversary, but there was the big question of what version? Would it be the Special Edition that had become the standard over the past 30 years? The version with Greedo shooting first, Jabba the Hutt, and rings around the Death Star?
Now, we know that the answer is “No.” This will be “a newly restored version of the classic Star Wars (1977) theatrical release” that will play in theaters for a limited time. And, according to other reports, it’ll even be released in IMAX, though Lucasfilm has yet to confirm that.
Back in 1997, when George Lucas remastered and tinkered with the original trilogy with the Special Editions, those became the only versions that Lucasfilm would release. That meant in theaters, on streaming, on DVD, all that stuff. As a result, copies of the original film—with Han shooting first, no Jabba, etc.—became rather rare. Last year, though, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy attended a screening of one of those prints, giving the event an official seal of approval. And now we know why.
As John Nolte wrote last year, “Until Star Wars is fun, masculine, cool, and sexy again (instead of prim, proper, woke, and preachy), the phenom is over. And it might be over regardless, because Kathleen Kennedy’s obsession with homosexuality and gender politics has drained the greatest franchise in Hollywood history of all its goodwill.”
Fans of the original Star Wars have been begging Disney to release the film in its original version ever since they acquired LucasFilm in 2012. Having run the franchise deeply into ground, this seems like its last gasp, no matter how much slop is yet to be released under the brand name.
STEVEN PINKER IN THE AIRSTRIP ONE LONDON TIMES: 1984 revisited: George Orwell would be relieved at how we’ve done.
When I first read Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1967 at the age of 13, I was intrigued by its implied prophecy. This futuristic novel specified the year in which it was set in its title, a year I would live to see. What would life be like in 1984? And how would the novel be received once the year had elapsed, set in a future that then would be past?
We are now more than 40 years past the time in which the book was set and almost 80 years after it was written. This raises an irresistible question: how much is the world of 2025 like the world of 1984 as imagined in 1948?
Of course, Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four not as a prophecy but as an extrapolation and a warning. As he explained: “I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive. But I believe, allowing, of course, for the fact that the book is a satire, that something resembling it could arrive.”
Did it arrive? It’s instructive to assess Orwell as a prophet. For one thing, it can be a reminder of the limits of prophecy. Even the predictions of the world’s most accurate forecasters, when tested against prespecified dates and outcomes they can’t weasel out of, fall to chance levels about five years out. It would be unreasonable to expect Orwell to do much better.
Comparing 1948 with 1984 and 2025 is also a way to understand the history we’re living through beyond the short time horizon of journalism. If the news came out once every 50 years instead of every day, it surely wouldn’t cover celebrity gossip and politicians’ gaffes but rather sweeping developments we might be oblivious to as they gradually unfold. Looking back at the future is a way to see our era in historical perspective.
Given that the British police routine arrest people for posing with a shotgun in Florida, writing anti-immigration tweets, confiscating their kid’s iPad, insulting their school board on WhatsApp, or calling someone a “faggot” in a text message, while looking the other way at massive grooming scandals, I think Orwell would have some serious questions about the state of England in 2025. But there’s no doubt that economically, and especially technologically, it’s moved far beyond the immediate postwar scarcity in which Orwell wrote his novel. Which was why, in 2007’s Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg concluded:
The twentieth century gave us two visions of a dystopian future, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984. For many years it was assumed that 1984 was the more prophetic tale. But no more. The totalitarianism of 1984 was a product of the age of Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini, the dictators of a continent with a grand tradition of political and religious absolutism. Brave New World was a dystopia based on an American future, where Henry Ford is remembered as a messiah (it’s set in the year “632 A.F.,” after Ford) and the cult of youth that Huxley so despised defines society. Everything is easy under the World State. Everyone is happy. Indeed, the great dilemma for the reader of Brave New World is to answer the question, what’s wrong with it?
There’s a second important difference between the two dystopias: 1984 is a masculine vision of totalitarianism. Or rather, it is a vision of a masculine totalitarianism. Huxley’s totalitarianism isn’t a “boot stamping on a human face—for ever,” as described in 1984. It’s one of smiling, happy, bioengineered people chewing hormonal gum and blithely doing what they’re told. Democracy is a forgotten fad because things are so much easier when the state makes all your decisions. In short, Huxley’s totalitarianism is essentially feminine. Orwell’s was a daddy-dystopia, where the state is abusive and bullying, maintaining its authority through a permanent climate of war and the manufacture of convenient enemies. Huxley’s is a maternal misery, where man is smothered with care, not cruelty. But for all our talk these days about manliness, individualism, and even the “nanny state,” we still don’t have the vocabulary to fight off nice totalitarianism, liberal fascism.
In 2020, we could have used it.
THE NORTH POLE’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:
Santa Claus Converts To Calvinism, Moves Everybody To Naughty List https://t.co/rflkYKCemC pic.twitter.com/gee0dbiQ3c
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 6, 2025
A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION MASQUERADING AS A POLITICAL PARTY:
One of Obama’s top DEA guys was just caught laundering $12,000,000 for the cartels.
When we said Democrats are working with the cartels to destroy America, we weren’t exaggerating. https://t.co/85yx1J9q5v
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) December 5, 2025
(Classical reference in headline.)
JULIE BURCHILL: Eurovision’s bum-note boycott.
The latest “casualty” of the culture wars — though to call it that is to lend it more dignity than it deserves; perhaps we should describe it as the brain-dead brouhaha of the Trash Telly Top Trumps — is the Eurovision Song Contest, from which a growing number of countries are withdrawing their “artistes”. (Though anyone who witnessed last year’s most vocal opponent of Israel, one “Bambi Thug”, might conclude that using the word “artiste” to describe her is about as accurate as calling the contents of a nappy an “artefact”.) The delegations of the unfriendly nations demanded a secret vote on Israel’s participation — for the inevitable reasons — which has sensibly been rejected, indicating that the Eurovision bigwigs are pleasingly determined to dig their heels in, perhaps in the light of how popular the Israeli entry proved with the public last year; ranked joint 14th by the national juries, but dominating the leaderboard due to the results of the online and phone votes. Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK were among the countries whose viewers awarded Israel the maximum 12 points. Once again, the voice of the people (don’t forget the mocked contest attracts a larger European television audience than anything apart from big sports matches) and the voice of the captured Establishment couldn’t have been more at odds.
Not content with creating the circumstances which led to a young woman, Eden Golan, being booed while singing a song about the Hamas pogrom, many of last year’s persecutors are back for a second go. Yuval Raphael, who will represent Israel next year, was actually a survivor of the 2023 attack, so one can imagine the usual self-righteous sadists having an especially fun time barracking her. So far, Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and the Netherlands have boycotted the contest; only Spain is one of the Eurovision’s Big Five countries along with France, Germany, Italy and the UK, so I can’t imagine the European Broadcasting Union’s (EBU) General Assembly getting their scanties in a bunch quite yet.
In the case of Spain and Ireland, though, it’s tempting to shrug, albeit sorrowfully. What did we expect? Spain, the home of the Inquisition, repeated Jewish expulsion and forced conversion, appears to be reverting to type. The same could be said of Ireland, which has taken to anti-Israel activity with a relish that won’t surprise anyone who remembers that Eamon de Valera’s Eire was “neutral” in the war between the Allies and the Axis.
The Netherlands appear to be reverting to type as well:
The Netherlands pulling out of Eurovision over Israel’s participation reminds me how,
for years, the Dutch have proudly framed Anne Frank's story as one of Dutch people protecting Jews.
But in reality, it is a story of Dutch people who turned them over to the Nazis.
— Oren Barsky 🎗️ (@orenbarsky) December 5, 2025
TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Joe Biden Yells At Clouds, Shouts At LGBT Audience To Fight For Constitution … Or Something.
Former President Joe Biden yelled at the audience during a Friday speech at the International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference, telling attendees to “fight” for the Constitution.
Biden, who was stricken with prostate cancer, was at the conference to receive an award from the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute. The former president recounted during his speech how his father told him as a child to “get up” when people mocked him.
“When I was growing up, whenever something bad happened, I used to be a stutter, and people made a lot of fun of you, and a lot of other things,” Biden said. “My dad would look at me and say, ‘Joey, just get up. Get up, Joey! Get up!’ Well, folks, that’s my message to all of us today. To all who love our country. To all!”
“All of us who are dismayed by the present state of the union. This is no time to give up. It’s time to get up! Get up and fight back! Get up!” he screamed. “Continue to fight! And what’s the fight all about!? … It’s about protecting the Constitution! It’s about protecting the Constitution!”
Of the United States of the Amerigotta!!!!!!
Joe Biden cannot pronounce the "United States of America" pic.twitter.com/mANqVmS3AF
— Ryan Saavedra (@RyanSaavedra) December 5, 2025
HOW IT STARTED: Christopher Nolan Slams His Tenet Studio Warner Bros Over HBO Max Windows Plan.
Christopher Nolan, who was doing consumer press interviews today for the DVD release of Tenet, was asked about that movie’s film studio, Warner Bros., and their recent radical windows plan to drop their entire 2021 slate both in theaters and on their struggling frosh streaming service HBO Max at the same time. It was a move last Thursday that blindsided both film co-financiers and talent, leaving them irate.
“Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service,” said Nolan in a statement, kicking HBO Max in the teeth.
Warners and exhibition rushed to reopen movie theaters during the pandemic for Tenet. Some industry sources believed the move was premature during the pandemic, especially with box office capital New York and LA closed, as well as other markets, with the $200M spy noir thriller seeing lackluster global results of $360M, 32% less than Nolan’s previous WWII feature Dunkirk. The theory has been floated by many distribution heads of late that if we didn’t rush to reopen theaters for Tenet than perhaps this HBO Max deal wouldn’t have been floated.
Nolan said that the Burbank, CA lot was “dismantling” an ideal distribution system between theaters and homes “as we speak. They don’t even understand what they’re losing. Their decision makes no economic sense and even the most casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction.”
—Deadline Hollywood, December 7th, 2020.
How It’s Going: Netflix Says Warner Bros. Movies Will Remain in Theaters but ‘Windows Will Evolve to Be Much More Consumer Friendly.’
Ted Sarandos insisted that Netflix has no “opposition to movies in theaters,” as the streamer said it “expects” to release Warner Bros. films theatrically if it completes its $82.7 billion deal for the studio and HBO Max.
On a conference call with investors and press on Friday, the Netflix co-CEO noted that the company has released 30 films in cinemas in 2025, though most of those films have had a far shorter theatrical run than those from a typical studio.
“It’s not like we have this opposition to movies into theaters,” Sarandos said. “My pushback has been mostly in the fact of the long exclusive windows, which we don’t really think are that consumer friendly, but when we talk about keeping HBO operating, largely as it is, that also includes their output movie deal with Warner Bros., which includes a life cycle that starts in the movie theater, which we’re going to continue to support.”
However, Sarandos suggested that life cycle may soon change, or, in his words, “evolve.”
“I wouldn’t look at this as a change in approach for Netflix movies or for Warner movies,” he said. “I think, over time, the windows will evolve to be much more consumer friendly, to be able to meet the audience where they are quicker…I’d say right now, you should count on everything that is planned on going to the theater through Warner Bros. will continue to go to the theaters through Warner Bros., and Netflix movies will take the same strides they have, which is, some of them do have a short run in the theater beforehand. But our primary goal is to bring first-run movies to our members, because that’s what they’re looking for.”
—Variety, yesterday. In another Variety article from yesterday, theater owners did not sound very sanguine about an ever-tightening window of big screen distribution: Theater Owners Worry Netflix Buying Warner Bros. Will Cripple Their Business: ‘Hopefully the Deal Gets Killed.’
“The most ominous words I read were that the windows will ‘evolve,’” says one A-list director. “I know exactly what it means. Netflix wants to put movies in theaters for one week to two weeks then it’s right to streaming. At that point, why put it out?”
During the pandemic, many studios shortened the amount of time that movies screen exclusively in theaters. Before COVID, most films stayed in theaters for 90 days before debuting on home entertainment. Now, some theatrical releases are available to buy or rent within a few weeks. Exhibition executives fear that if Sarandos further shortens windows, the consequences could be dire.
“It has been widely proven that shorter windows would result in lower revenue generation potential for movies,” says Eduardo Acuna, CEO of Regal Entertainment. “These lower revenues would inevitably result in theater closures, which would limit consumers’ ability to see movies in the format that filmmakers originally intended. Furthermore, it would result in job losses and economic harm to surrounding businesses to those theater closings. Ultimately, consumers would be worse off.”
The New York Post reports that Warner Brothers haven’t heard the last of David Ellison: How Warner Bros. Discovery’s CEO decided to sell to Netflix— and why the media giant’s auction may not be over:
In the end, it came down to 75 cents a share – and that means this ain’t over.
On Thursday morning, Warner Bros Discovery received a $30-a-share, all-cash takeover bid for the media giant from Paramount Skydance, sources told The Post. Meanwhile, Netflix offered to buy WBD’s Warner Bros. studio and HBO Max streaming business in a deal that effectively values the whole company at $30.75.
The race looked like a squeaker, but WBD’s board and its CEO David Zaslav announced less than 24 hours later that they had accepted the bid from Netflix. Suffice it to say, Paramount Skydance’s owners – Hollywood mogul David Ellison and his billionaire father Larry Ellison – aren’t happy.
The Ellisons, in fact, are livid – and they are now angling for a counterattack, I am told. They also believe they can win this battle by taking their case directly to WBD shareholders, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.
“They are really pissed over at Paramount Skydance,” said a media executive with direct knowledge of the matter. “They think this was a rigged deal process because of the friendship between the CEOs and they’re betting the shareholders will be pissed when they find out what went down.”
Those CEOs would be Zaslav and Netflix chief Ted Sarandos. They have a different view of the events that unfolded over the past 48 hours, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
“(Zaslav) gave them six tries and they still couldn’t beat Netflix’s bid,” said a person close to the WBD chief.
Despite all the static, Zaslav, known as Zas in media circles, is said to be open for another counterbid from the Ellisons. Anything is possible before any merger closes – particularly one like this where the competition was some of the fiercest in recent corporate history, according to people close to the WBD chief.
“If the Ellisons come back with something more than $30 a share, possibly around $35 that pays off the Netflix breakup fee they could be the owners,” said a person at WBD. “And it’s very possible they will, and when they do this is not over. We will have to sit down and think about what to do next.”
Stay tuned. Earlier this week, Christian Toto described 2025 as “The Year Late-Night TV Collapsed.” Far worse, seeing a movie on a big screen with an audience may also be in its twilight as well. But this is what happens when an industry decides to commit ritual seppuku.
John Podhoretz begins a lengthy Twitter/X thread thusly:
So the rap on Netflix buying Warners is this could be the end of moviegoing. That's wrong. Moviegoing is already over.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 5, 2025
History will record that COVID killed the movie as we had understood it. The trend line of shrinking audience was already there, but the whole industry was ballasted in the 2010s by the blockbuster success of two kinds of films–animated movies and superhero movies.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 5, 2025
Read the whole thing.
December 5, 2025
IT’S COME TO THIS: Tim Walz Says Trump’s Slur Is Inspiring Others To Scream It Outside His House.
Tim Walz called it a slur that should never be repeated. Now, he hears it all day.
The Minnesota governor, on Thursday, Dec. 4, said people have been driving by his home and screaming the r-slur — a word used to malign those with intellectual disabilities — since President Donald Trump called him that in a social media post last week.
“This creates danger,” the embattled governor said, discussing Republican rhetoric. “… I’ve never seen this before: people driving by my house and using the R-word in front of people. This is shameful, and I have yet to see an elected official — a Republican elected official — say you’re right, that’s shameful.”
Walz said he believes it’s a slippery slope from name-calling to something more serious.
“We know how these things go,” he said. “It starts with taunts; they turn to violence.”
Trump calls Minnesota Governor Tim Walz “retarded” in new Truth Social post. pic.twitter.com/OOUDUuAk1o
— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) November 28, 2025
Are people burning rubber as they speed away after shouting “Retard?” Mrs. Walz at least would enjoy the piquant scent of well-heated Michelins.
UPDATE: Flashback to last fall, when Walz wasn’t afraid to go full retard on himself: ‘I’m a knucklehead:’ Tim Walz says he ‘misspoke’ about Tiananmen Square visit.
MORE:
I’m glad that the world has relaxed and we can go back to using the word ‘retarded’ when someone is being stupid, but we obviously shouldn’t wield the term as an epithet against those who are actually developmentally delayed like @Tim_Walz. 🚌
— Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) December 4, 2025
Heh, indeed. Like most leftists, Walz can dish out all the slurs, but can’t take it when the right pushes back:
Tim Walz…
ICE: Gestapo.
Trump: bastard
Elon Musk: dipshit.
Trump: son of a b1tch.
Trump Supporters: fascists.
EtcWalz wants to play the victim after he called us all kinds of names.
And violence always comes from the Left not the right.
Continue to mock him. He deserves it.
— C3 (@C_3C_3) December 5, 2025
Franklin knows the score:
Based Franklin. https://t.co/nG0t6wFG5K pic.twitter.com/rkTEyv8Byz
— Prison Mitch (@Prisonmitch) December 4, 2025
THE DARK SIDE OF THE NARNIA ISN’T GOING TO LIGHT ANYONE’S FIRE: IMAX CEO: Greta Gerwig’s Narnia Is “Not Your Grandmother’s Narnia,” Will Feature Rock-Inspired Music.
IMAX held its first Investors Day presentation in New York, where CEO Rich Gelfond shared new details about Netflix and Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew, scheduled for release next November. His most revealing comments centred on the film’s musical direction.
According to Gelfond, Gerwig’s Narnia will feature a contemporary, rock-influenced sound, with artists like Pink Floyd and The Doors cited as examples of the tone fans can expect. The film’s score is being composed by music producer Mark Ronson, who recently worked on Barbie. Producer Amy Pascal made a similar remark in 2024, when she infamously described the project as “all about rock and roll.”
This is a real blockbuster movie that’s being made for [IMAX and Netflix] and you know, I guess I do have to talk a little about why I’m so excited about it. This is not your mother’s or your grandmother‘s Narnia. The music in it is unbelievably contemporary music, which IMAX fans like. I’m not gonna say specifically, but things like Pink Floyd and The Doors. You know that kind of music which people go to see in IMAX.”
I get what Gelfond is saying, and as someone who enjoyed the Narnia movies from the early 2000s, I’m dreading what Gerwig is going to do to the franchise. But considering that Jim Morrison died in 1971 and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was released in 1973, for many moviegoers that sounds exactly like their parents or grandparents’ music. And as the leitmotif from another initially beloved franchise goes, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
ADVANTAGE: KRUISER! U.S. May Want to Look Into Getting Rid of Minnesota.
—Stephen Kruiser, PJ Media, April 13th, 2021.
2o MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE:
After a week in DC meeting Trump appointees across every level, not just the Pentagon, I’m stunned by how few truly understand the sheer size and weight of the steamroller that’s coming if we lose the midterms.
Like nothing else matters. Not even shipbuilding.
— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) December 5, 2025
WHY TRUMP’S MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD CRACKDOWN IS LONG OVERDUE:
The Brotherhood’s modus operandi has been understood by intelligence services for years. Trump’s move is less a policy innovation than an admission of reality.
There are several reasons why Trump is acting now. One is legislative: the “Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025” was introduced in Congress in July, championed in the House by Representative Mario Díaz-Balart and in the Senate by Ted Cruz. The Act’s progress created a political incentive for Trump to get ahead of Congress and demonstrate leadership on the issue. The MuslimBrotherhood has piqued Republican anxieties about national security for two years now, ever since Hamas’s attack on Israel unleashed near-constant Islamist-flavored protests on American streets and campuses.
The battle against progressive academia, where such protests have often turned outright anti-Semitic, has become a mainstay of Trump’s political platforms. Pro-Hamas encampments, faculty statements whitewashing Hamas’s atrocities, and the open collaboration between progressive student groups and Islamist-aligned organizations shocked even those who thought they had become accustomed to the intellectual decay of American academia.
For Republicans, the protests confirmed what they have long suspected: that American universities have been significantly penetrated by an unholy alliance of the progressive left and Islamist networks, each using the other’s grievances for its own ends.
Trump really needs to take the battle to the Brotherhood’s final frontier: George Clooney’s Casual Muslim Brotherhood Flex: Bragging About Wife’s Terror Ties on Barrymore’s Couch.
Donald Trump has the chance to do the funniest thing… https://t.co/ITrzwnqmZS
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) December 4, 2025
MAYOR BANE CONTINUES TO RAID ARKHAM ASYLUM: Mamdani Taps Felon Who Served Seven Years for Robbing NYC Taxi Drivers as ‘Criminal Legal System’ Adviser.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani tapped a convicted felon who served seven years for a string of armed robberies targeting New York City taxi drivers to advise him on the “criminal legal system.”
Mysonne Linen, a rapper-turned-social justice activist, will serve on Mamdani’s “criminal legal system committee,” 1 of 17 committees that Mamdani created to help transition into his administration. Mamdani said the appointees “will be tasked with not only making personnel recommendations but policy recommendations.”
Linen served seven years in prison for armed robberies in 1997 and 1998. Linen was part of a group of men who robbed cab driver Joseph Eziri in June 1997, and hit him with a beer bottle, the New York Daily News reported at the time. Prosecutors alleged Linen held up cabbie Francisco Monsanto at gunpoint in a March 1998 robbery, stealing jewelry and cash. Both drivers identified Linen as the stick-up man at Linen’s trial.
Good and hard Fun City, as Mamdani is taking Michael Walsh’s meme of the Democratic Party as a criminal enterprise far too literally.
WHEN THE ROT FIRST SET IN: Remembering Ed Banfield’s The Unheavenly City.
Ed Banfield, the author, is the most important American social scientist. The Unheavenly City (1970) is his most essential work and a remarkable bestseller. Here, we find ourselves in capable hands and can begin to rethink our expectations and attitudes.
At the peak of liberal domination of American life, Banfield’s book noted that liberalism had reached a core contradiction. On the one hand, liberalism was responsible for the engine of economic growth that is the modern city, oriented to commerce and technological development, and therefore requiring a highly educated class managing things. On the other hand, liberals had by the 1960s come to experience city life as an endless series of horrors, of crimes against humanity, not only problems in need of redress, but crises justifying revolution. Expectations of progress embodied in a new generation of urban, collegiate liberals led to a gradual abandonment of the Enlightenment.
Banfield therefore restated boldly the case for economic improvement (Chapter 2, The Logic of Metropolitan Growth), one of the most popular aspects of the Enlightenment, which had achieved its most remarkable success in the 1960s. He also began an analysis of the class problem in America, including what had led elites at that time — the people who most benefited from American peace and prosperity — to turn against America in the name of the poor, racial minorities, etc. (Chapter 3, The Imperatives of Class). The subsequent six chapters then made good on the promise of the introductory chapter to show how misguided elites, in policy as much as in the formation of opinion, had become regarding issues of race, unemployment, poverty, education, crime, and riots.
American politics have in many ways been treading water since the late 1960s. The Hard Hat Riot occurred in New York City in May 1970; at the start of the year, Time magazine declared “The Men and Women of the Year were the Middle Americans,” and condescendingly wrote about its subscribers in what would eventually be known as the “Gorillas in the Mist” style of journalism:
The Supreme Court had forbidden it, but they prayed defiantly in a school on Netcong, N.J., reading the morning invocation from the Congressional Record. In the state legislatures, they introduced more than 100 Draconian bills to put down campus dissent. In West Virginia, they passed a law absolving police in advance of guilt in any riot deaths. In Minneapolis they elected a police detective to be mayor.
Everywhere, they flew the colors of assertive patriots. Their car windows were plastered with American-flag decals, their ideological totems. In the bumper-sticker dialogue of the freeways, they answered Make Love Not War with Honor America or Spiro is My Hero. They sent Richard Nixon to the White House and two teams of astronauts to the moon. They were both exalted and afraid. The mysteries of space were nothing, after all, compared with the menacing confusions of their own society.
The American dream that they were living was no longer the dream as advertised. They feared that they were beginning to lose their grip on the country. Others seemed to be taking over–the liberals, the radicals, the defiant young, a communications industry that they often believed was lying to them. The Saturday Evening Post folded, but the older world of Norman Rockwell icons was long gone anyway. No one celebrated them: intellectuals dismissed their lore as banality. Pornography, dissent and drugs seemed to wash over them in waves, bearing some of their children away.
But in 1969 they began to assert themselves. They were “discovered” first by politicians and the press, and then they started to discover themselves. In the Administration’s voices–especially in the Vice President’s and the Attorney General’s–in the achievements and the character of the astronauts, in a murmurous and pervasive discontent, they sought to reclaim their culture. It was their interpretation of patriotism that brought Richard Nixon the time to pursue a gradual withdrawal from the war. By their silent but newly felt presence, they influenced the mood of government and the course of legislation, and this began to shape the course of the nation and the nation’s course in the world. The Men and Women of the Year were the Middle Americans.
And they’d like to finally break the logjam in their favor, which makes the entrenched Beltway elite feel even more paranoid than usual. As Glenn wrote in 2019, “What’s happening in America is an echo of what’s happening in democracies around the world, and it’s not happening because of Trump. Trump is the symptom of a ruling class that many of the ruled no longer see as serving their interest, and the anti-Trump response is mostly the angry backlash of that class as it sees its position, its perquisites and — perhaps especially — its self-importance threatened.”
THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Production Hell — Cats.
Berry ripped into California Governor and potential 2028 presidential candidate Gavin Newsom for not supporting a Menopause Care Equity Act in California. “With the way he’s overlooked women, half the population, by devaluing us in midlife, he probably should not be the next president,” Berry said. She said that menopause and perimenopause are staggering health problems that affect the entire national economy, causing one of six women to leave the workforce. If men “had a medical condition that disrupted their sleep, brain function and sex life, we’d be calling that a health crisis on par with Covid, and the whole world would shut down.”
“I need every woman in this country to fight with me,” Berry said. “But the truth is, the fight isn’t just for us women. We need men too. We need all of the leaders, every single one of you in this room – this fight needs you.”
Newsom himself appeared at the DealBook summit, but spent his headline-making moment by claiming that if Hakeem Jeffries somehow doesn’t become Speaker of the House just over a year from now, the United States will descend into permanent autocracy – with show elections like the ones in Russia. Newsom urged the people in the crowd, most of whom were Democrats, to wake up from their stupor and elect Democrats, the only way to save America. This seemed like a bit of an exaggeration, a reach, and a fear tactic, Gavin Newsom specialties, given that he has his own authoritarian tendencies.
And some rather unique tendencies when seated: Hot Takes: Internet Has a Ball Mocking Newsom’s Eyebrow-Raising Sitting Pose.
I have never seen a man crush his testicles harder than this dude. pic.twitter.com/rey7LBeSOa
— BORED (@BoredElonMusk) December 4, 2025
I’M SO OLD, I CAN REMEMBER WHEN THE LEFT CLAIMED TO BE PRO-CHOICE:
This is an incredibly dishonest way to describe no longer *mandating* electric vehicles. https://t.co/YdbGu4WEm5
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) December 4, 2025