October 3, 2026

FROM THE ONGOING “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO TUCKER?” CHRONICLES: Tucker Carlson Asks if Fighting the Nazis Was a Good Idea: ‘Why Fight the Second World War in the First Place?’

Tucker Carlson repeatedly questioned a former U.K. member of parliament as to why the country fought the Nazis in World War II.

The former Fox News host interviewed Jacob Rees-Mogg, a member of the Conservative Party who has supported sending aid to Ukraine after Russia invaded in 2022. While it was predictable that Carlson would interrogate Rees-Mogg over his position on that issue – which he did – Carlson also asked whether fighting the Nazis was worth it.

Carlson said he opposes the killing of innocent civilians, which has happened in innumerable wars, including WWII. That prompted this exchange:

REES-MOGG: I think it’s very difficult to have fought the Second World War without innocent people being killed.

CARLSON: No one tried I’ve never understood. Why fight the Second World War in the first place?

“Well,” Rees-Mogg said after a pause. “That’s a very fundamental question.”

Back in 2022, Mark Judge explored the tiny man with the tiny moustache’s views on “the violent Darwinian struggle for survival” and concluded: Adolf Hitler Thought More Like Nancy Pelosi Than Donald Trump.

That’s a rather spicy take, but I think we can safely conclude that based on the damage to the GOP he’s trying to inflict, Tucker is thinking much more like Nancy Pelosi than Trump these days as well.

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

SOMEBODY SHOULD TELL HAKEEM JEFFRIES, AND REUTERS: That the U.S. economy under Trump 47 is anything but in the tank. It’s my latest AND THEN THERE ARE THE FACTS column on Substack.

Posted at 12:51 pm by Mark Tapscott

ROGER SIMON: There’s No Business Like Antisemitism Business.

Reading some online responses after the rescue of the FlyDubai flight from a near-disaster by a courageous Indian pilot and Israeli passengers, it struck me that antisemitism has turned into a kind of business and has been that way for some time.

Bigotry pays—in some cases, big time.

CAM (Combat Antisemitism Movement) immediate report on September 30 illustrates the extent and immediacy of this bigotry business:

FlyDubai flight on Wednesday, antisemitic conspiracy theories were already spreading online claiming the incident was a “false flag” operation orchestrated by Israel.

The first X post making such an assertion was recorded by CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) at 2:28 ET, just 67 minutes after the plane sent its first emergency distress signal.

Within five hours, the ARC documented 1,000 hostile posts, and over the full 12-hour monitoring period a total of 2,963 posts were identified attributing the incident to Israel, the Mossad, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Zionists, or Jews.

The posts generated at least 30,000 likes and three million views. 

The conspiracy theories are so entrenched, even CNN is running with one!

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

TOM CRUISE’S NEW CLIMATE DISASTER MOVIE, DIGGER, IS A DISASTER:

Digger, the new movie from director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and star Tom Cruise, is a spectacular misfire, conceptually bold and occasionally intriguing, but mostly just an exercise in teeth-grinding awfulness.

In fairness, the film actively intends to be terrible. It’s an over-the-top satire of climate villainy, with a prickly oil baron (Cruise) as its central figure and a pompous president (John Goodman) plus his cabinet of advisers in supporting roles. Shortly after the film begins, an oil rig on a glacier explodes, creating a massive iceberg that’s headed straight for Europe, with untold casualties and damage likely. Whatever shall they do? Mostly, it turns out, stand around and exclaim things to each other in intentionally hammy accents. The overacting is excruciating; the satire is brutally on the nose. It’s painful and unpleasant to watch, and, all right, it’s supposed to be. This is not interpretation or speculation.

To explain why requires some spoilers. You’ve been warned.

Exit question: “Has there ever been a good movie about climate change?”

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

WATCHING CAITLIN CLARK GUESTING ON ESPN RIGHT NOW, and she’s super poised, personable, and confident. If this is a tryout for a post-WNBA career, she’s acing it.

Posted at 12:04 pm by Glenn Reynolds

SHE’S THE PERFECT DEMOCRATIC PROSECUTOR:

Posted at 12:02 pm by Glenn Reynolds

SADLY TRUE:

Posted at 11:59 am by Glenn Reynolds

NARNIA AMONG THE DEATHWORKS:

It was Carl Trueman who introduced me to the idea of a deathwork, though the concept is Philip Rieff’s. According to Rieff, a deathwork is an assault on something that is hallowed to an established culture. It isn’t a critique or argument that the culture is untrue, but a means of profaning something that is sacred in order to make it seem ridiculous or repulsive. Trueman summarizes it as “the act of using the sacred symbols of a previous era in order to subvert, and then destroy, their original significance and purpose.”

In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Trueman uses the example of Andres Serrano’s repulsive 1987 photograph Piss Christ, which displayed a crucifix immersed in the artist’s urine. He says, “Serrano is not simply mocking the sacred order in this work of art; he has turned it into something dirty, disgusting, and vile… The sacramental is made into the excremental.” By putting a crucifix in urine, Serrano makes the holy an object of mockery.

* * * * * * * *

And that brings me to the forthcoming film adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:45 am by Ed Driscoll

NOT ANTI-WAR, JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE: Trans rights better in Iran than Britain, say Green activists.

Transgender people have better rights in Iran than Britain, Green Party activists have claimed.

One member of the Greens for Palestine group, a Left-wing faction in the party, argued in a leaked WhatsApp message seen by The Telegraph that transphobia was “far worse” in Britain than in many Islamic countries.

The claim came ahead of the Green Party autumn conference in Brighton which began on Friday.

Animah Kosai, the membership officer of the Global Majority Greens pressure group, wrote: “You’d be quite surprised at how Iran, following Islamic teachings, is far more liberal when it comes to trans identity and abortions, compared to Texas, or, even culturally, the UK.”

The Iranian government recognised transgender individuals who had changed sex in the 1980s but trans people regularly face harassment and are regarded by officials as having a “disorder”.

In Britain, the Equality Act 2010 protects people from being fired from work, turned down for housing or harassed because they are gay, lesbian or transgender. Gender recognition certificates can be obtained by trans people who have changed their biological sex.

Homosexuality is a capital offence in Iran and gay and lesbian Iranians who are not put to death can face penalties including flogging and jail time. Many gay men in Iran have undergone forced sexual reassignment surgery.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have chosen a side in the midterms: ‘From Death to America’ to ‘Vote Democrat:’ Iran’s IRGC Issues Midterms Endorsement. “As George Washington School of Law scholar and Fox News analyst Jonathan Turley noted, ‘It’s not a good sign when the IRGC shifts from ‘Death to America’ to ‘Vote Democratic.’”

To be fair, it’s tough to fault the IRGC for supporting the side that gave them their big break back in the day. Flashback: RIP Jimmy Carter, the American Chamberlain whose naïve foreign policy led Iran to become the world’s biggest sponsor of terror.

Posted at 8:14 am by Ed Driscoll

SPRINGTIME FOR TUCKER:

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll