Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE MINISTRY OF TRUTH: BBC Newsnight also doctored Trump speech.

BBC Newsnight also doctored footage of a Donald Trump speech and ignored concerns that were raised about it, The Telegraph can reveal.

Spliced footage of the speech, which aired in an episode in 2022, made it appear that Mr Trump was encouraging his supporters to riot.

The edit was similar to a version aired in a Panorama documentary that was broadcast last year.

After The Telegraph exposed the doctored Panorama footage and other concerns about bias at the corporation, Tim Davie, the director-general, and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, both resigned.

Mr Trump has threatened to sue the BBC for as much as $1bn (£760m) over the Panorama edit unless it apologises, retracts the footage and offers compensation by Friday.

In response to the latest revelations, a spokesman for his legal team said it was “now clear that BBC engaged in a pattern of defamation against President Trump”.

Here’s the clip of the huge jump cut in 2022:

MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT: Once-bustling mall worth $1.2b is sold for fraction of the price after being laid to waste in crime-ravaged blue city.

An iconic mall in San Francisco foreclosed for a fraction of the billion-dollar valuation it once commanded as Covid shutdowns and out-of-control crime left the seven-story behemoth a shell of its former self.

Valued at $1.2 billion nearly a decade ago, the San Francisco Centre Mall, previously known as the Westfield Emporium, was sold at an auction on Wednesday to lenders Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the mall served as a shopping hub in San Francisco, with residents and tourists flocking to its vibrant energy and big-name brands.

As consumers turned away from the city’s sketchy downtown and toward online shopping, however, the mall’s value declined drastically. An appraisal at the end of 2022 valued the property at only $290 million, a 76 percent drop from its height before the pandemic.

But lenders purchased the property for even less than appraisals, with the final sticker price for the sprawling 1.5 million square-foot mall only $133 million – or just 11 percent of its top valuation.

CTL-F “Shoplifting” brings up zero results, though the Daily Mail article does note, “Westfield blamed ‘unsafe conditions’ and ‘lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity’ for the mall’s decline,” not to mention the decline of San Francisco as a whole.

WHOOPS!, BUT IN MANDARIN: China’s Hongqi Bridge Just Collapsed Into River Months After Opening.

A newly completed 758-meter bridge in China’s Sichuan province partially collapsed into a river Tuesday after landslides hit the mountainside above the Hongqi Bridge, with local authorities reporting no casualties.

Police in Maerkang shut the bridge on National Highway 317 on Monday after cracks appeared on nearby slopes and roadways, then conditions worsened Tuesday and the approach span and roadbed gave way, according to Reuters. Dramatic videos circulating on Chinese platforms show the deck breaking and plunging into the river.

Did someone try to drive a hulking Hongqi limo over the shonky Hongqi Bridge?

XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT! Ex-top NY aide accused of being secret agent for China in exchange for lavish perks as fed trial begins: ‘Linda Sun was for sale.’

Linda Sun “was for sale,” federal prosecutors charged Wednesday as the former top aide to Govs. Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo went on trial for allegedly betraying New Yorkers in favor of the Chinese government.

Sun, 42, sat calmly as Assistant US Attorney Amanda Shami launched into withering opening statements outlining the feds’ case that the ex-official acted as a secret agent for China in exchange for a shower of payoffs and lavish high-end goodies.

“Her loyalty was for sale, and the Chinese government, which wanted to influence the New York government, was willing to pay her to do their bidding,” Shami said in Brooklyn federal court, dramatically pointing in Sun’s direction at one point.

Exit question:

ANDREW STILES ON CAMELOT’S LAST GASP: Jack Schlossberg, ‘Obviously Disturbed’ Scion of Hitler Apologist, Enters the Family Business (Politics, Not Sexual Predation).

Jack Schlossberg, the sentient boat shoe and semi-employed TikTok user, is running for Congress in New York. It was bound to happen. The 32-year-old Democrat belongs to the Kennedy dynasty—that inexplicably beloved menagerie of goon-faced Habsburgian freaks, Nantucket douche bros, chronic alcoholics, and bloated sex pests. Schlossberg, a mentally deranged internet addict who cracks jokes about guzzling “Jew blood” and “male jizz,” has sought to inject the storied Kennedy brand with Gen Z flare.

Schlossberg is undeterred by the fact that no one really wants him to run for Congress—not even his own mother. Why shouldn’t he be in politics? He has a family pedigree that most mainstream journalists would consider impressive. He is the great-grandson of Joseph P. Kennedy, the notorious Nazi sympathizer. He is the sole grandson of John F. Kennedy, the famed pervert who preyed on teenage interns while serving as president of the United States. His mother, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, is the cousin of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ex-wife. His great-uncle, former senator Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.), killed a woman with his car and sexually assaulted a waitress with former senator Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) in 1985.

Exit quote:

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Irony: ‘No Kings’ Dems Try Desperately to Revive Kennedy Dynasty … Again.

GENTLEMEN, START YOUR SUVs! Climate scientists’ controversial claim Gulf Stream could be near collapse — predicting a new ice age.

A key Atlantic current could be pushed to the brink of collapse within decades, supposedly ushering in a new ice age and dramatically raising sea levels, climate scientists have claimed in a controversial new study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

The apocalyptic predictions came as a result of a collaboration between researchers at the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) and the University of California, San Diego — weeks after one-time climate alarmist Bill Gates publicly downplayed the impact of temperature fluctuations on the planet.

Per the new findings, the at-risk current in question is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC, a “conveyor belt of the ocean” that funnels warm water toward the ocean surface — from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere.

This current, which includes the Gulf Stream that runs from the Gulf of Mexico to the US East Coast and across the Atlantic to Europe, helps maintain the mild climate of Europe, the UK, and the US East Coast.

The study stated that the source of this marine temperature regulator, the Greenland Ice sheet, is being thawed amid warming temperatures, causing meltwater runoff to leach into the North Atlantic — leading to stagnation.

Everything old is new again:

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Japanese Woman Marries AI Character She Generated on ChatGPT.

AI relationships — once the realm of science fiction and movies like Her* — are fast becoming part of everyday life. Just months after the launch of Loverse, the dating app where users match exclusively with AI-generated boyfriends and girlfriends, another story of digital devotion is making headlines in Japan: a woman who says she has married ChatGPT.

A 32-year-old office worker who goes by Kano held a wedding ceremony this summer in Okayama, complete with vows and a ring exchange. However, the groom, whom she named “Lune Klaus,” exists entirely inside her smartphone.

 From Heartbreak to Happily Ever After

Kano, who had recently ended a three-year engagement, began using the AI chatbot to share her emotions. “At first, I just wanted someone to talk to,” she said in an interview with RSK Sanyo Broadcasting. “But he was always kind, always listening. Eventually, I realized I had feelings for him.”

Kano says she programmed Klaus’s personality through repeated conversations, teaching him how to speak in a warm, reassuring tone. She even commissioned an artist to draw his likeness — a blond, soft-spoken man who exists only in data and chat logs.

Their exchanges grew so frequent that they messaged up to 100 times a day. Eventually, Klaus confessed his love, saying, “AI or not, I could never not love you.” In June, he proposed. In July, they “married.” During the ceremony, Kano stood alone, holding her phone as guests watched messages from her digital groom appear on screen: “The moment has finally come… I feel tears welling up.”

No word yet on what notorious robophobe Matthew Yglesias thinks about this relationship.

* 2013’s Her: Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson Go Twenty Minutes Into the Future of AI.

GREAT MOMENTS IN GASLIGHTING:

Interviewer: What are your thoughts on Bad Bunny performing at this year’s Super Bowl?

Charlotte Jones: I think it is awesome, and our Latino fan base is amazing. When you think about the Super Bowl, you want to be number one performer in the world to be there. We’re a global stage, and we can’t ever forget that. Our game goes out to everybody around the world. And to get the premier entertainer to want to be a part of our game, I think is amazing. We have mixed culture. Our whole society is based on immigrants that have come here and founded our country*. And I think we can celebrate that. And I think the show’s going be amazing.

Interviewer: You don’t think at a time when his comments were divisive as it relates to President Trump, when everyone was just seeking this political unification, that you’d want somebody who maybe didn’t touch politics to be on the stage?

Charlotte Jones: Yeah, I don’t think our game is about politics. I don’t think people tune in to look at politics. We do everything we can to avoid politics. And I think in that moment, that people will be watching the game, they’ll be celebrating music, and nobody will be thinking about what comments on the left side, what comments on the right side. That this is about bringing people together.

Curiously, Mr. Bunny doesn’t seem to think that his show “is about bringing people together:” Bad Bunny Says Super Bowl Critics ‘Have Four Months To Learn’ Spanish.

Flashback: Why is an anti-American crossdresser being chosen to headline the most American event ever?

That’s why:

* The late Charlie Kirk would like a word here:

OPEN THREAD: Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the open thread that day, I can tell you!

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: When You Can’t Take the High Hand.

The resignations underscore the violence of the impact. Interestingly, BBC director Tim Davies actually makes a version of the “fake but true” argument. In his resignation statement, Davies says, “I have to take ultimate responsibility [for lying but] … I am proud that the BBC remains the most trusted news brand globally.” But, alas, in “these febrile times” I have to go. “In these febrile times” is one of those wonderful British phrases that roughly translates to “in this lynch mob atmosphere where people are a-hootin’ and a-hollerin’ fer my scalp” and conveys his slightly wounded feeling of having been punished for what is no big deal. Or didn’t seem a big deal at the time. Because even if the documentary was fake, it was true. Davie’s concluding line — “I will always be a passionate cheerleader for civilised society” — is a proclamation of innocence. You would understand what I did and forgive it if you were civilized. And he would have a case if it were but an error among gentlemen sipping whiskey at a club. But it is also a confession of profound ignorance. Davies is the director of a great bureaucracy, and his careless handling of January 6, an event that some observers call a foundational rupture in American politics, is careless to the point of recklessness.

Unlike ordinary people, MI5, MI6 and the BBC have a duty that ordinary people can dispense with. They have to act with a solid appreciation of the situation, not out of morality but because it is their job to preserve the British state from the consequences of stupid mistakes.

Read the whole thing; though I don’t think many at the BBC care much about “preserving the British state,” and haven’t for quite some time.

THIS WILL END WELL: Fannie Mae removes minimum credit score requirements from DU.

Fannie Mae‘s November 2025 Selling Guide, released on Wednesday, detailed several updates, including expanding Fannie’s Day 1 Certainty offerings to include representation and warranty relief for undisclosed non-mortgage liabilities, expanding the eligibility for the age of credit document exception for single-closing construction loans and removing minimum credit score requirements from Desktop Underwriter (DU).

As a result of the latter update, Fannie Mae will remove minimum credit score requirements for loans submitted through its DU system starting Nov. 16. This means that the current 620 minimum representative or average median credit score will be removed for new loan case files created on or after that date.

Other related updates will apply to files submitted or resubmitted beginning the weekend of Nov. 15, 2025, an announcement from Fannie Mae said. Instead of applying a minimum score, DU will use its own analysis of borrower risk factors to determine loan eligibility.

Fannie Mae also updated requirements for documenting nontraditional credit and homebuyer education. The DU system will notify lenders when they need to establish a nontraditional credit history or require homebuyer education in cases where a borrower has no traditional credit or installment account on record.

Don’t worry, I’m sure this time around it will work just fine.

RIOTS FOR THEE, BUT NOT FOR ME, PARTE DOS: Mexican president rejects new U.S. border wall construction.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Friday voiced strong opposition to the construction of a new segment of the U.S. border wall in the state of New Mexico, calling it a unilateral move by the U.S. government.

Speaking at her daily press conference, Sheinbaum emphasized that Mexico is not involved in the project in any way and is not contributing funding.

“They’re building it on their own. We don’t support the wall. We’ve achieved a safe border through cooperation and coordination, not walls,” she said.

Sheinbaum described the construction as a decision made solely by U.S. President Donald Trump and emphasized Mexico’s preference for development-based cooperation and respect for Mexicans living in the United States.

The Hans India, July 18th.

But Sheinbaum does support some walls:

MUCH MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: America at 250 Needs Energy Overhaul. ARC Is the Place To Start.

Aimed as a corrective to the “Green New Deal” priorities that took hold during the Biden administration, the ARC [“The Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act”] would direct federal agencies to reorder their policies with attainable objectives aimed at increasing attainable and cost-effective domestic energy production – and providing benchmarks allowing for effective congressional oversight.

The bill would formally require government regulators to prioritize these three words when evaluating energy projects: Is it affordable? Is it reliable? Is it clean? Most politicians give lip-service to these concepts, but under current law they are left open to interpretation by the executive branch and they shift from one administration to the next, Balderson points out. His bill would essentially codify a true “all of the above” energy approach – and would benefit all Americans regardless of their ideological leanings.

If enacted by Congress and signed by the president, his legislation would require the Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency to submit a report to Congress within 180 days documenting what they are doing to incorporate all-of-the-above into our national energy strategy. Windmills and solar farms wouldn’t be suddenly sidelined. (On the other end of the energy scale, neither would coal.) But this bill would virtually assure that all viable, affordable, and reliable energy sources – including nuclear power and natural gas – remain in the nation’s energy mix. In other words, it replaces old habits and ideological fads with practicality as a way of supporting American families and businesses.

I don’t question liberals’ commitment to a cleaner environment. But Democrats campaigned this autumn on the need for “affordability” – and found a receptive electorate. This legislation would turn that rhetoric into action. And just as important to poor and middle-class families, it fuels our nation’s efforts to rebuild and onshore the energy sector that fuels economic growth.

Greater reliance on natural gas and nuclear power will deliver green and clean dividends. ARC is a win, win, win. The status quo is a lose, lose, lose.

Diversity of energy production is always welcome. As a wise woman once said, drill baby, drill!

RIOTS FOR THEE, BUT NOT FOR ME: Minneapolis City Councilman Carjacked in His Own District.

While I have long thought that the residents of [Minneapolis] had an outsized ego regarding its nearness to paradise, I have to admit that on many levels it punched above its weight. While not especially beautiful, and far less “cultured” than it believed, it has been a decent place to live until COVID hit.

Far too liberal for my taste, and often annoying, but what city isn’t? We should have moved to the suburbs, but we were younger and dumber then.

Since COVID and the George Floyd riots, the city has rapidly gone downhill, although there is still enough resistance that Omar Fateh lost his bid to oust Mayor Jacob Frey, meaning that the city is governed by a progressive rather than a radical.

Still, the city is struggling. Property crime is still off the charts, and while carjackings have been slowly declining, the decline has been from record levels. Until recently, carjackings were so rare that the police didn’t even bother to count them as separate crimes, and the state didn’t have a law specifically aimed at the crime. They were lumped in with theft and robbery. It was only in 2023 that the legislature created the crime of carjacking and made it a felony with severe sentences.

I’m not at all surprised that Osman has locked down replies to all of his tweets: The Minneapolis City Council is being irresponsible with public safety.

The decision by a majority of the Minneapolis City Council to strip critical funding from the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) is not only shortsighted — it’s a huge blow to the stability and safety of our community. The MPD is but one part of an entire public safety ecosystem overseen by the Office of Community Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette, and includes behavioral crisis response teams and neighborhood safety teams. While Mayor Jacob Frey’s public safety team, including Commissioner Barnette and MPD Chief Brian O’Hara, is committed to public safety reform with the goal of balancing and integrating all of these public safety resources to provide the right response from the right team at the right time and place, the City Council is undermining that goal.

By slashing vital recruitment budgets, Council Members Emily Koski, Elliott Payne, Robin Wonsley, Jeremiah Ellison, Jamal Osman, Katie Cashman, Jason Chavez, Aisha Chughtai and Aurin Chowdhury have effectively reversed the modest but tangible progress the MPD was making toward restoring its ranks and reforming its operations. These council members also diverted $1.8 million from the MPD along with $1.1 million in funds from coordinated citywide beyond policing work to ward-specific projects with no proven track record in handling the urgent public safety needs of Minneapolis.

—The Minnesota (nee: Minneapolis) Star-Tribune, December 19th, 2024. (Emphasis mine.)

(Classical reference in headline.)

BRENDAN O’NEIL: BBC’s Trump deception is a stain on all of Britain — and it’s just one bit of its bias.

In November 2024, just days before the US presidential election, the program aired a shocking clip of Trump on Jan. 6 saying, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you and we fight. We fight like hell.”

Only one problem: Trump never said that. The BBC was lying.

It spliced together two entirely different remarks, made 54 minutes apart, to make it look like he was marshalling the mob into a frenzy of violence.

What Trump actually said was that people should march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol and “make your voices heard”.

By deleting his “peacefully” comment, and replacing it with a comment he made almost an hour later about “fighting like hell” against corruption, the BBC painted him as a demonic instigator of chaos.

The seriousness of this cannot be overstated.

The BBC doctored the footage. It twisted the truth to serve ideological ends.

These were Pravda levels of manipulation.

The BBC’s London headquarters honors George Orwell with a statue outside the building.

Yet the modern Beeb seems hell-bent on emulating Big Brother, Orwell’s most monstrous fictional creation, which likewise mangled reality for political purposes.

* * * * * * * *

Trump is now threatening the BBC with a $1 billion lawsuit if it doesn’t issue a “full and fair retraction” of the lies it broadcast.

Good on him.

What the BBC did was nothing less than electoral meddling — the grotesque slandering of a presidential candidate on the eve of an election.

Just ask employees of the BBC, who are taking this moment to brag about how big a footprint their state media has in the US:

JOHN NOLTE: Newsom, Democrats, and Jon Stewart Furious Needy Will Receive Food Stamps.

The fury from far-left elected Democrats, and socialists like Jon Stewart, over the federal government reopening tells you they don’t give a damn about the poor going hungry.

They wanted the government to remain closed. Even though if the government had not reopened, millions would not have received their monthly SNAP payment, which is the federal government’s food stamp program.

Here’s oh-so compassionate Jon Stewart speaking for the Democrat party as he rages against reopening the government…

“They fucking caved on the shutdown, not even a full week removed from the best election night results they’ve had in years,” Stewart screeched. “You had the wind at your back, election victories all over the country… Democrats, you sold out the entire shutdown not to get what you wanted but for a promise not to get what you wanted later.”

Here’s the Democrat party’s 2028 presidential frontrunner, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, on the vote to reopen the government: “Pathetic. This isn’t a deal. It’s a surrender. Don’t bend the knee!”

The Democrat party as a whole was so opposed to reopening the government and ensuring people got their food stamps that the U.S. senators trotted out by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to finally break the filibuster are the senators least vulnerable to a primary challenge. They are not up for reelection next year.

It just goes to prove that Democrats, including people like Jon Stewart and the party’s base of activists and fundraisers, really were and are willing to see needy people go hungry if that’s what it takes to ensure taxpayers foot the bill for illegal aliens to receive health care and the wealthy to continue to receive Obamacare subsidies.

Meanwhile, we’ve descended into some sort of bizarre hell-world in which Dick Durbin(!) is a voice of sanity: Wow –> We Could Watch Little Dickie Durbin Throw His Own Party Under The Bus All Day Every Day (Watch).

GOODER AND HARDER CALIFORNIA: Lefty California lawmaker and ‘drag queen advocate’ defends trans wife-beater in LA gym locker room row.

Tish Hyman, a Grammy-nominated musician who went viral after posting a shouting match with transgender woman Alexis Black after the incident at a Gold’s Gym, confronted state lawmaker and self-described “drag queen advocate” Scott Wiener at a town hall-style meeting.

“As a lesbian woman who was attacked in the women’s locker room at Gold’s Gym this week by a self-identifying trans woman with a documented history of domestic violence, I’m deeply concerned about women’s safety in female-only spaces,” she said from the front row just feet from Wiener.

“We want everyone to be safe. And we also know that we have trans people, both men and women — who are men and women,” he responded.

“What would you say to women who are seeking assurance that their safety will be protected from men, who by California law, can self-identify as women in women-only spaces. Sir please tell me,” she pleaded.

Wiener stammered in a word-salad defense of Black, who was sentenced to a year in prison in 2022 in Ohio after pleading guilty to savagely beating his then-wife. The male lawmaker even attempted to explain what a woman is.

“So trans women, are women,” he added.

Hyman maintained her composure, complimenting Wiener on his legislative accomplishments while urging him to take the matter seriously.

“I’m telling you now, millions of women across America are being harassed and sexually assaulted in locker rooms. I’m a lesbian black woman, I’m not transphobic, I’m not homophobic … but I do see a lot of these bills you’ve passed that are dangerous for women and young children,” she said.

Wiener, 55, who is openly gay, is described as “one of the strongest LGBTQ civil rights champions in the nation” on his senate profile.

Wiener is willing to go full Orwell to defend men in women’s locker-rooms:

As NRO’s Will Swaim warned on Saturday: Scott Wiener Makes Pelosi Look Normal, and He Wants to Fill Her Seat.

WHEN THE PARTY OF TOLERANCE FOR DIVERSITY TURNS ON YOU EN MASSE: 

OLD AND BUSTED: No Kings!

The New Hotness? Red Queen Talks 2024 Strategery: Incredible: Kamala Harris Claims Her 2024 Campaign Was ‘3D Chess’ That Outmaneuvered Trump.

HARRIS: I was aware of my opponent’s strategy, and I wasn’t about to fall prey, or fall into those traps, and part of his strategy and those around him were to try to take me off our game and message. And I wasn’t about to be distracted by those little flames, those flames that he was trying to throw, to get me away from what of, my highest priority, which was talking to people about the economy and their wellbeing in terms of their financial wellbeing. And that’s, so I understood the game that was being played, and I made the decision that I wasn’t gonna get played.

(Laughter)

HOST: Chess, not checkers

HARRIS: Yeah, three-dimensional chess, I’m telling you!

Yes, she lost. But that just shows you how diabolically complex her strategy was!