June 7, 2025

THIS IS CNN:

Based on his take on Luigi Mangione, I assume this is Donie’s response to the L.A. riots and last weekend’s antisemitic Molotov Cocktail enthusiast:

 

Posted at 8:55 pm by Ed Driscoll 8

TELEVISION SETS: Kyle Smith on George Clooney’s adaptation of Good Night and Good Luck for Broadway. As Smith notes, “luxuriate in your fears for $300 a seat, which is the average price for tickets to George Clooney’s stage version of his 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck (at the Winter Garden Theatre through June 8). Clooney, who seldom fails to remind interviewers that he is the son of a journalist, cowrote both the movie and the play with Grant Heslov, originally conceiving this hagiography of CBS News’s mid-century television drama queen Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn in the movie and now by Clooney himself on Broadway) as a response to the George W. Bush* administration’s decision to make war in Iraq. Now, of course, the Red Scare Scare is pointing to Donald Trump:”

But his own script shows that Murrow was a preening, showboating editorialist. Positioning himself as merely an objective reporter, he strayed further and further into self-righteous, openly partisan grandstanding. Abandoning his bona fides as a war reporter, he became an on-air columnist on the program See It Now, deploying euphemism, half-truths, deliberate obfuscation, and other rhetorical maneuvers to engage in a public debate with McCarthy over his anti-Communist hearings. Far from being the opposite of today’s cable-news attention-seekers, he was essentially Rachel Maddow with a cigarette. (In an amusing montage of silly moments in television news played on a screen, the all-hysterics Maddow network gets dinged for pushing the Trump–Russia hoax, as do commentators who insisted President Biden was sharp as a tack before Clooney himself helped usher him into retirement via an open plea to step aside in The New York Times.)

Clooney simply can’t see how badly he undermines his own case here. After Murrow denounces McCarthy, CBS grants the senator equal time to respond, and McCarthy unloads on the newsman, noting that he led a Soviet “educational” front group and hence took paychecks from Moscow in 1934 while being a member of the Communism-lite group International Workers of the World. Rebutting the rebuttal on air, Murrow says nothing about serving as a Stalinist stooge in the educational group (because it was true) but issues a clipped denial of IWW membership. Oh? Wherever, then, could McCarthy have gotten the notion? Wrote Murrow’s biographer, A. M. Sperber,

To Ed Murrow, the IWW would always have the aura of the great lost cause, a soft-focus memory of stalwart men and great songs and failed native radicalism. . . . . [W]hile he alternately claimed or denied membership in later years—his lifelong favorite song would be “Joe Hill”—no one could ever prove he had or hadn’t carried the red card.

Er, if Murrow himself ever claimed membership in the IWW, McCarthy would appear to have had a decent reason to mention it, and the matter was certainly relevant to viewers who might have wondered whether Murrow’s thundering denunciations of the senator were based in ideological differences rather than objective reporting.

As is usually the case with those promoting the Red Scare Scare, the crux of the dispute is mere semantics; support for the immense evil that was Communism was to be waved away unless the ideologue in question went so far as to formally register as a member of the Party (a similarly fine distinction is at the heart of the movie Oppenheimer). The intellectual vapidity of this game is evident.

So Murrow was at least Communist-curious, and Carl Bernstein’s parents “were secret members of the Communist Party USA:”

“A case can be made that [Bernstein] should have disclosed the conflict of interest he brought to his Watergate exposes,” wrote New York media consultant Sidney Goldberg in 2003. “After all, he was brought up as a Nixon hater and readers might have been told that his family regarded Nixon as vile, as an enemy.”

As Zhou Enlai never said, “The French Revolution? Too early to say.”

* Speaking of which, wait, that George W. Bush? Oceania Has Never Been at War with East Dubya: Liz Cheney Pleads With George W. Bush to Take the Uniparty Plunge and Endorse Kamala.

Posted at 8:44 pm by Ed Driscoll 16

OCEANIA HAS NEVER BEEN AT WAR WITH EAST TESLA: Now the Dems Want the Guy They Called a Nazi for Six Months to Come Back to Their Side.

Khanna’s case was primarily based on the idea that having Musk on their side would benefit the Democrats. He stated: “Having Elon speak out against the irrational tariff policy, against the deficit exploding Trump bill, and the anti-science and anti-immigrant agenda can help check Trump’s unconstitutional administration. I look forward to Elon turning his fire against MAGA Republicans instead of Democrats in 2026.”

Khanna also said of Musk: “We should ultimately be trying to convince him that the Democratic Party has more of the values that he agrees with. A commitment to science funding, a commitment to clean technology, a commitment to seeing international students like him.”

Wait a minute. The Democrats have more of the values with which Musk agrees? Really? Does that mean that the Democrats are a National Socialist party? Of course they aren’t. They’re an international socialist party, and it’s grimly ironic that they’re now hoping to win the allegiance of a guy they’ve been smearing as a National Socialist for the last six months.

Is Ro Khanna unaware of the words of his California colleague, Rep. Robert Garcia, who back in Jan. 2025 denounced Musk for making what he claimed was a “Nazi salute,” and adding: “He didn’t just do it one time—he did it twice for emphasis. If you talk to anyone like historians, folks actually study the Nazis and study this actual kind of disgusting display, they’ve been very clear about what that was. He should not just apologize. He should be condemned for those kinds of actions. So gross.”

Then there was America’s sweetheart, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-You Wanna Open a Tab?) declared: “In this country, we fight Nazis. We don’t celebrate them.This is the United States of America. And I don’t care what Elon Musk is doing behind a presidential seal. In this country, we hate Nazis. Kind of like a foundational, defining thing. Two of probably the most foundational, defining things about American history is that we beat the Confederates and we beat the Nazis. And I don’t know what side people may be on today, but I still am not rocking with anyone sympathetic to Nazis.”

Wow, wait until 2025 AOC discovers what she and her Green Nude Eel architect were saying and doing in 2019!

And as I wrote yesterday, it took Dick Cheney and George W. Bush almost 20 years to lose their Nazi-branding among the left. It only took took Elon 24 hours.

Flashback: “The greatest cultural victory of the Left has been to disregard the Nazi-Soviet Pact” and toss it down the Memory Hole.

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll 29

THE ISSUE IS NEVER THE ISSUE. THE ISSUE IS ALWAYS THE REVOLUTION: New: Violent Rioters in Paramount, CA Create Havoc, Pelt Fed. Law Enforcement Vehicles With Rocks.

Looks like the chaos is continuing in Los Angeles.

Protesters tried to block ICE vans on Friday with one person finding out it wasn’t a good idea, when he appeared to fall in front of a van. Then the protesters went to the federal detention facility, got violent, and caused chaos there as they damaged property and threw things at law enforcement officials. The California SEIU President David Huerta was among the people detained, and the U.S. Attorney later said he was arrested for allegedly interfering with officers.

Homeland Security said that they were surrounded by 1,000 people, and it took over two hours for the LAPD to arrive despite being called “multiple times.”

The rioters also defaced the building with graffiti, including anarchist symbols, “Kill ICE,” “Dead cops,” and anti-Elon Musk statements.

And displayed plenty of Mexican and at least one Palestinian flag:

 

Flashback: Welcome to protest season, where the cause changes but the tactics stay the same.

QED:

UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

RICO prosecutions, asset seizures, give them the full J6 treatment and more.

But wait, there’s more:

And once Trump activates the Insurrection Act, he can recognize a new California Legislature, which can then vote to split the state into 5 red states and one blue state. A majority of Congress can approve it and it’s done. Okay, probably not going to happen, but this is the can of worms the left risks opening.

It’s been done before.

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 139

YES, DO THIS.

Posted at 7:37 pm by Glenn Reynolds 70

NEWSOM 2028 CAMPAIGN KICKING OFF NICELY:

 

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 313

CAN’T STOP THE SIGNAL: The Signal is Working: America’s 3D Printed Gun Culture Spreads to a Small Island in the Baltic Sea. “Mr. Andersson’s decision to design the Printax grew out of the long hours he spent during the Covid pandemic watching American gun-related YouTube videos, which promoted a far more aggressive brand of firearms ownership than he had experienced on the Aland Islands. And when Russia invaded Ukraine, he found a new purpose for the Printax’s earliest iterations: Urged by a friend, Mr. Andersson discussed with contacts in Ukraine providing the Printax to the country’s military.”

Posted at 5:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds 32

WAIT, I THOUGHT THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE WAS JUST PARANOID FICTION:

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: To be fair, the destruction of L.A. is very a group project: Attempted Obstruction of L.A. ICE Raid by SEIU President Makes Him New Poster Child for ‘Resist Trump.’

And:

MORE:

Posted at 2:51 pm by Ed Driscoll 299

KURT SCHLICHTER: Patriots Are the Losers in the Trump v. Musk Feud.

My parents were Scottish and German, so they didn’t actually yell at each other. I can only imagine that this is how little kids with Latin parents feel like when Mami and Papi are fighting. People fight and then they make up. Now, some people are speculating that this is a giant put-on designed to blow people’s minds, and if I hadn’t been alive for the last decade of insanity, I would write that off completely. It’s possible this is some sort of 4D chess match between grandmasters that is beyond my capacity to comprehend. More likely, Elon is just really, really angry. And  when somebody swings at Trump, he swings back

But it’s time to stop swinging. We need both of these guys on our team. We need Donald Trump on his A game, and we need Elon doing what Elon does. Elon’s at terrific personal risk here if this relationship goes completely off the rails. He’s got zero friends on the left. They are out for his blood. They will literally take everything he owns and throw him in jail – if not try to murder him – should the Republicans lose power. How do I know? Because we saw what they did to Donald Trump when he was on a temporary power hiatus.

But Republicans still love Elon Musk, and the Republican Party needs guys like Elon Musk, not just for his money but for his brains. There’s no going to the left for him. There’s no sitting out politics. He got in the game and now there’s no escape. Elon Musk needs the Republican Party because the Democrat Party wants him in a cell or a hole. The Republican Party needs Elon Musk because he’s Elon Musk.

Additional thoughts from Joel Kotkin: Musk’s outbursts reveal a deeper rift in MAGA: Trump is squandering the chance to build a coherent populist programme.

Posted at 2:45 pm by Ed Driscoll 328

SIMON BILES AND RILEY GAINES DUKE IT OUT OVER TRANS ATHLETES:

Okay, buckle up folks, because something truly bizarre happened this week that you probably didn’t see coming. We’re talking about Olympic golden girl Simone Biles suddenly deciding to take a bizarre, unprovoked swipe at none other than Riley Gaines, the fearless advocate for saving women’s sports. I mean, seriously? Simone Biles attacks Riley Gaines? Didn’t have that on my bingo card.

Most of you know Riley Gaines. She’s the former NCAA swimmer who experienced the absurdity of competing against a biological male, Will “Lia” Thomas, firsthand. Since then, she’s become a national voice, tirelessly fighting to protect female athletes and the integrity of women’s sports. She’s been instrumental in getting legislation passed, and even President Trump signed an Executive Order on this issue back in February.

The whole dust-up started on X after Gaines reacted to a tweet from the Minnesota State High School League congratulating the Champlin Park Rebels for winning the state championships. Comments were disabled on the post because this is the team that cheated its way to victory by having a male pitcher.

Read the whole thing to see Biles sadly towing the establishment left’s party line:

Posted at 2:16 pm by Ed Driscoll 138

STOP BRO-FEUDING, TELL US HOW BAD SOCIAL SECURITY REALLY IS: Remember all those headlines earlier this year about millions of Social Security recipients on the rolls despite being 120, 130, even 150 years old? President Donald Trump and former DOGE driver Elon Musk appeared to be pushing differing data.

But a new analysis by OpenTheBooks points to an obvious reconciliation — of the conflicting data, not the conflicting super egos. Even so, as I explain in my latest PJMedia column, the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) laughable response to OpenTheBooks’ FOIA request suggests things are far more seriously wrong in America’s oldest entitlement benefits program than even the most extreme DOGE deductions.

Posted at 2:04 pm by Mark Tapscott 32