September 21, 2026

FLASHBACK: The Banality of Leninism. “Historians often act like Lenin’s tyranny was a bolt from the blue: Who would have expected a bunch of socialists to be so bloodthirsty? Admirers of Lenin, in contrast, often paint him as a great innovator – at least as a strategist. A dictatorship of the proletariat run by a vanguard party of bourgeois intellectuals? Only Lenin could have conceived it. When you read 19th-century Russian literature, however, “Leninist” memes clearly predate the birth of Lenin. Contrary to many historians, Lenin’s atrocities were foreseeable. And contrary to Lenin’s admirers, his strategy of atrocity was pure cliche.”

This piece is from 2012 but is as timely as ever.

Posted at 1:44 pm by Stephen Green

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Effective Altruism is evil. “These people are impossible to parody. I wish I could convey to you how absurd this is, but any straightforward description of it makes one sound insane.”

Posted at 1:28 pm by Stephen Green

HMM: America Needs a New Urban Vision.

Cities historically grew and prospered because of their location by rivers, ports, or natural resources. They might also have been the capitals of great empires or religious centers, or boasted vital institutions like universities, museums, and industry clusters—legacies of great economic booms.

The age of modern media has seen the emergence of a new key element catalyzing growth in contemporary societies: a compelling urban vision. Urban visions formulate attractive paradigms of what a successful city looks like, focusing on four central ingredients: people, businesses, leaders, and capital.

American cities largely lack such a unifying idea today.

Interesting article, but I remain wary of people who have visions of how other people should live.

Why not try good governance and letting people figure it out for themselves?

Posted at 12:42 pm by Stephen Green

THE NEW SPACE RACE:

More: “Sedaro is a mission simulation software platform designed for National Security that can model satellites, sensors, communications networks, and other military systems together. This will allow the Space Force to digitally rehearse entire missions, simulate hostile attacks, and expose weak points before putting hardware or personnel at risk.”

Posted at 12:26 pm by Stephen Green

IN THE GRAND OLD TRADITION OF STALIN ORDERING TROTSKY MURDERED IN MEXICO: Russia Allegedly Went Shopping for a Hitman in America. The Price Was $40,000. “An indictment unsealed in Manhattan charges five people with working in a network tied to Russian intelligence services. Prosecutors say the network recruited people in America to surveil Russian dissidents and, in at least one case, tried to recruit someone to carry out a killing here. All five defendants remain at large.”

Posted at 12:11 pm by Stephen Green

THIS IS A REAL PROBLEM FOR NOT JUST BRITAIN, BUT PRETTY MUCH ALL OF WESTERN EUROPE:

Posted at 12:06 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THE COLLAPSE OF THE EUROPEAN CENTER CONTINUES APACE: Merz’s CDU suffers total wipeout in state election.

The chancellor’s centre-Right party won 4.9 per cent of the vote in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, final results confirmed on Monday.

The hard-Right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) took 38.2 per cent of the vote, while the hard-Left Die Linke beat the CDU in mayoral elections in Berlin. Mr Merz is scheduled to address the public on Monday afternoon.

The astonishingly poor result meant that, for the first time, the CDU failed to win enough votes to enter a state parliament in Germany.

Under the country’s voting system, parties that fall below the 5 per cent threshold are not assigned any seats in the next parliament.

Such a scenario was virtually unthinkable for the CDU – the German version of the Conservatives and a mainstay of coalition governments for decades – until Sunday night.

Related:

Middle eastern criminal clans have partnered with the socialist parties of Northern Europe to keep the borders open, accelerate citizenships to grow the foreign voter base and take over power.

The socialists agree to give up pork, feminism and LGBTQ and in return get more voters and street muscle. Both sides agree on rapid expatriation and wealth transfer from the natives to the newcomers as well as the elimination of Christian resistance.

The natives are holding still because they are scared to be called racist.

The only problem are the East Germans who for some reason don’t like it and vote AfD.

The new German left is anti-liberal (in the old-school sense) and backed up by “street muscle.”

Pretty sure we’ve seen this movie before.

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green

“WE’LL SEE,” INDEED:

Posted at 11:24 am by Stephen Green

REPORT: Paramount to Settle Lawsuits, Paving Way for Warner Bros. Merger.

● Paramount Skydance Corp. has reached a settlement with California and other states suing to block its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.

● The settlement includes terms such as independent editorial boards for CBS and CNN, and a financial penalty if the company fails to distribute 30 films per year in theaters.

● The agreement would spare Paramount from having to pay late fees to Warner Bros. and paves the way for one of the largest mergers in Hollywood history.

“Independent editorial boards for CBS and CNN?” Jeff Bezos smiles: Bezos told Trump the Washington Post was his worst investment before slashing staff: ‘People there are terrible.’

Posted at 11:14 am by Ed Driscoll

DEM-SOCS SEEM NAT-SOCS EVERYWHERE:

Meanwhile:

Prominent Abdul El-Sayed supporter and former DNC member Liano Sharon, a signatory of the “Michigan Jews for Democracy” letter voicing support for El-Sayed, stated today that Haley Stevens should not face the death penalty because, “I don’t support the death penalty, even for neo-Nazis.”

* * * * * * * *

Sharon did not stop at Haley Stevens; he also implicated Michigan Democrats Elissa Slotkin, Gary Peters, Debbie Stabenow, and Shri Thanedar.

When I asked him if he thought Vice President Kamala Harris was a “neo-Nazi,” he told me, “It is fair to say that her conduct meets the definition of that term.”

Harris is campaigning with Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan next week.

And of course, in 2024, Harris, in the midst of her strength through “Joy” campaign, was quick to assign the mantle of National Socialism to her opponent. In October of 2024,Kamala was comparing Trump to Hitler (while aggressively seeking endorsements from Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, who were Hitler from 2001 to 2008):

Yesterday, V.P. Harris compared President Trump to Hitler,  “Donald Trump is out for unchecked power. He wants a military like Adolf Hitler had, who will be loyal to him, not our Constitution. He is unhinged, unstable, and given a second term, there would be no one to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses.”

The V.P.’s comment comparing Trump to Hitler indicates she doesn’t care about minimizing the horrors of the Holocaust or she is an imbecile incapable of understanding.

Her comments were based on a story in the leftist magazine The Atlantic reporting that Trump’s former chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, called Trump a “fascist” and recalled his admiration for Nazi generals. Kelly also raised concerns about Trump’s recent threats to use the military against “the enemy from within.”

Flashback: Are Democrats Whitewashing Hitler with Lame Attacks on Trump?

In the future, everyone will be National Socialist for 15 minutes – and the future is now.

Posted at 10:51 am by Ed Driscoll

SAME AS IT EVER WAS: Brandon Johnson’s So-Called Progressive Equity Agenda Is a Potemkin Village That’s Hurting the Black Community.

The massive increase in school spending hasn’t translated into improved educational outcomes or choices. Spending over $32,000 per student — a 44 percent increase in per-pupil spending — has improved neither the schools themselves nor school choices for lower-income families, overwhelmingly Black. Johnson’s school board presided over the systematic lowering of academic standards and a return to social promotion, as accountability for poor academic performance was abandoned. The district has even stopped ranking schools by academic performance.

As the quality of schools has degraded, the Johnson-controlled school board has worked to strengthen the teacher union’s monopoly on education — successfully opposing both the extension of the state’s private-school scholarship program for low-income families and the state’s opting into a federal scholarship program. The latter forgoing hundreds of millions of dollars in education support for public- and private-school families alike.

Meanwhile, the teacher’s union has been exerting pressure on the district and state legislature to degrade and ultimately eliminate public school choice.

I’d just add that increases in per-pupil spending are largely illusory. Sure, the districts get more money, but it mostly goes to administration with very little reaching the pupils.

Posted at 10:38 am by Stephen Green

I MEAN, SHE ISN’T WRONG ABOUT THEFT BEING A QUALIFIER FOR BLUE-CITY PUBLIC OFFICE:

Posted at 10:22 am by Stephen Green