March 19, 2026

DOUGLAS MURRAY: The latest Guardian attack on Nigel Farage is desperate stuff.

In general, Nigel Farage seems to me to be a man of pretty sound judgment. But he obviously does not share my intensely suspicious, not to say gloomy, Celtic nature. And so it seems that when he was out of the front line of British politics, Farage did indeed sign up to do personalised videos for Cameo. He appears to have been rather good at it, as I would have expected him to be. And in fact I can imagine a certain type of person who would have been thrilled to get a personalised video of Nigel raising a pint for their friend’s birthday or something.

But now the Guardian newspaper has tried to use this interregnum in Farage’s career to do a number on him of the type I had feared for myself. Some fearless – and presumably bored – Guardian journalists have trawled through a remarkable 4,366 clips that the Reform UK leader has made for Cameo since joining the platform in 2021. The short videos he has sent fans and supporters have included personalised messages wishing people a happy birthday, happy Christmas or even (and I do think this a bit odd) a happy Valentine’s Day.

Of course, the Guardian being the Guardian, they trawled through all of these innocuous greetings in the hope that at least some of them would be videos celebrating Hitler’s birthday, mourning the German defeat at Stalingrad, or sending Valentine’s Day good wishes to David Irving.

* * * * * * * *

Finally, there is also a clip where Farage appears to have become irritated with the technology he is using and swears. Or, as the article puts it, it shows ‘a side to him that contrasts with his amiable public persona’. I am sure that Guardian journalists only ever say sweet things when they have a problem with their iPhone.

And their bakery shops.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

COVERING THE IMPORTANT STORIES. WITH A PILLOW:

Posted at 1:03 pm by Stephen Green

THANKS BUT NO THANKS: China approaches Taiwan with an offer: reunification in exchange for energy independence.

China made an offer to Taiwan Wednesday, to provide the island nation with energy stability in exchange for “reunification,” which has long been the communist regime’s goal, and which Taiwan has always rejected, according to Reuters.

While energy supplies around the world are in a degree of turmoil, with the situation in Iran and through the Strait of Hormuz, since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, China apparently sees this as a good time to approach Taiwan with such a deal.

But Taiwan, which had been receiving ​a third of its LNG from Qatar and gets no energy from China, ​has said it is fine for now, with ⁠the United States as the island’s main international backer.

Become the next Hong Kong for free gas? Really?

Posted at 12:45 pm by Stephen Green

MAYBE THE SYSTEM IS THE FAILURE: The Institute for Family Studies found that nearly half of young men say they feel like a failure:

For the survey, we took a question from the often-used Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, which asks respondents how well the following statement describes them: “All in all, I am inclined to think that I am a failure.” Nearly half (46%) of young men ages 18-23 say this represents their view of themselves at least somewhat well, while 38% of those ages 24-29 say the same. Only 32% of men ages 18-29 reject this characterization. As we will see, these numbers do not mean that young men have lost hope in themselves or their future. But the sense of being a failure is one measure of a more general—and frankly heartbreaking—demoralization.

Many of the young men I spoke with for my book discussed knowing men who felt like failures but they themselves were anything but.

What are readers experiences with young men’s attitudes. Do you know some that feel this way?

Posted at 12:32 pm by Helen Smith

JOHN NOLTE: Why Cesar Chavez Suddenly Became Politically Inconvenient to the Left.

You see, this year is the 99th anniversary of Chavez’s birth (he died in 1993), and celebrations had been planned for this event all over the country. Next year, though… Wow. One-hundred years. That’s the biggie, and you can bet that were it not for New Media, the left planned to feast on that anniversary.

There is just one inconvenient fact about the left’s secular saint…

Cesar Chavez opposed illegal immigration every bit as much as Donald J. Trump. Chávez understood that illegal aliens undermined the wages of legal migrant workers and their union bargaining power.

Cesar Chavez was so opposed to illegal immigration that, just like Minuteman Project of 2004, which was widely smeared in the legacy media as racist, Chavez put together his own militia to stop illegals from crossing the border. There are credible reports that violence was used as an example to others.

To form his United Farmworkers Union (UFW), it was Chavez versus the growers, and for obvious reasons,  the growers loved the open border.

For just as obvious reasons, Chavez did not.

And there you have it.

That’s why it was time to take Chavez down. The left feared, and not unreasonably, that as Chavez once again entered the public consciousness through these milestone birthday celebrations that New Media would co-opt him as a powerful symbol of the truth: that illegal immigration is devastating to the working class and benefits the rich and powerful.

Read the whole thing.

Related: Austin leaders want to rename Cesar Chavez Street in wake of abuse allegations:

The city of Austin is considering renaming Cesar Chavez Street after allegations emerged that the late civil rights leader sexually assaulted women and girls.

Chavez died in 1993. Shortly after his death, Austin renamed First Street — which stretches from MoPac Expressway through downtown to U.S. 183 — in his honor.

Local nonprofit El Concillo Mexican-American Landowners de East Austin led the movement in the early ’90s to name the road after Chavez. The group is now pushing to rename the street again in the wake of the allegations.

“We as El Concillo, who initiated through petition the renaming of the street, for Cesar Chavez, feel compelled that we have to be accountable and be respectful of the women victims who were part of this experience,” said Gavino Fernandez Jr., a spokesperson for the group. “It is not in the best interest of our organization to be affiliated any longer with him.”

Council Member Vanessa Fuentes told KUT News on Wednesday that the city should respond quickly.

Fortunately, Iowahawk and his X followers are on it!

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

GOOD LORD:

Posted at 12:22 pm by Stephen Green

MEGAN FOX: AFROMAN WINS! Let’s All Make Fun of the Government Together! “The defamation trial against Joseph ‘Afroman’ Foreman came into our lives and out of it so fast it almost seems like magic engineered by the ghosts of Thomas Jefferson and Tupac to light up the country for some good old-fashioned American fun. And by old-fashioned American fun, I mean using vicious mockery against government officials. In this case, seven Adams County sheriff’s officers in Ohio who cannot take a joke, but can kick down a door, mishandle cash, eat your lemon poundcake, and cry about being made into a meme.”

From there, things get weird.

Posted at 12:14 pm by Stephen Green

RUY TEIXEIRA: Democrats Don’t Have a Growth Program;  they’re not even interested.

Democrats once understood the importance of economic growth. That’s because growth, particularly productivity growth, is what drives rising living standards over time. Democrats sought to harness the benefits of growth for the working class, not to interfere with the economic engine of progress. They believed in the future and the possibilities for dramatic improvement in human welfare.

Democrats’ 21st century project has, at its core, been dedicated to other goals. They now prize goals like fighting climate change, reducing inequality, pursuing procedural justice, and advocating for immigrants and identity groups above promoting growth. For example, the “Deciding to Win” report analyzed word frequency in Democratic Party platforms since 2012 and found a 32 percent decline in the appearance of the word “growth” compared to a 150 percent increase in the word “climate,” a 1,044 percent increase in “LGBT/LGBTQI+,” a 766 percent increase in “equity,” an 828 percent increase in “white/black/Latino/Latina,” and a 333 percent increase in “environmental justice.”

This is remarkably short-sighted. The key to substantially rising living standards for the working class—once the Democrats’ prized goal—is precisely more economic growth, especially higher productivity growth. You cannot make up for that by redistribution nor by simply spending more money on government programs. A fast-growth economy provides more opportunities for upward mobility, generates better-paying jobs, creates fiscal space for priorities like infrastructure projects, and, as Benjamin Friedman has argued, has positive “moral consequences” by orienting citizens toward generosity, tolerance, and collective advance. Slow growth has the opposite effects.

I’m glad to see that Teixeira has noticed, but this isn’t all that new a development: Welcome Back My Friends, to the Malaise that Never Ends.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT:

Posted at 11:58 am by Stephen Green

ROBERT SPENCER: Joy Reid Doesn’t Much Like the U.S., but She Has IMMENSE Respect for One Far-Off Country. “Why doesn’t failed MSNBC host Joy Reid leave the U.S., as so many haters of President Donald Trump and his America-First policies have vowed to do? On Monday, she expressed her paranoid, fantasy-driven, and hysterical hatred and contempt for the United States during the second Trump administration, and compared the U.S. unfavorably to the Islamic Republic of Iran. So why not move to Tehran, Joy? It’s likely that real estate there is quite inexpensive these days.”

Posted at 11:12 am by Stephen Green

UNEXPECTED ENDORSEMENT:

Posted at 10:56 am by Stephen Green

“NOT JUST A PEOPLE OF DEATH, BUT A CULT OF DEATH:”

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll

YEP:

Posted at 10:25 am by Stephen Green

HOLLYWOOD R.I.P.: A eulogy for the Dream Machine.

Hollywood’s last signs of life came earlier this year, with the masterly first half of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. Not satisfied with its stunning depiction of the rural African American South, the film turned itself into a routine vampire flick, driving a stake through the heart of the ailing movie business. The Wicked franchise’s spell proved unable to revive the patient. One Battle After Another, intended like the recent Killers of the Flower Moon as an auteurist booster shot, showed merely that a once-great director could fashion a bloated, cringeworthy wokeist epic.

When seen through the rearview mirror, there’s something grotesquely ironic—and maybe appropriate—about how Hollywood embraced specifically anti-Jewish politics in this era. In September 2025, a petition circulated by Film Workers for Palestine garnered 5,000 signatures from directors, actors, and studio employees. The petition called for a boycott of Israeli artists and companies, essentially a new blacklist which, like the old one, targeted Jews. The Jews were the citadels of Hollywood’s old priorities; once it couldn’t live up to those anymore, the best way to burn it all down was to betray the very people who built it in the first place.

The seductive power of classic Hollywood can still be experienced, if you can find a theater that shows 35 mm or 70 mm prints. The colors still gleam, the black-and-white shadows still beckon, and the faces of the deities called stars still loom in the darkness. The monumental directors, actors, and filmworkers, nearly all of them now dead, will shine forever. It was the pictures that got small.

We think that just because a creative industry was around for our entire lives, it will be around forever. But Renaissance painting was once a creative industry—it had artists and assistants and patrons and audiences, a whole functioning creative economy. It doesn’t exist anymore. We still have the paintings, just as we’ll still have Citizen Kane and Vertigo and Goodfellas, but the life-world that made them—and that could ever make anything else like them again—is gone.

As someone who truly loves movies, it feels genuinely sad to see an industry DEI such a painful death:

If this isn’t the death knell, it means that a very different industry is emerging: Forget Tilly Norwood … Here Comes A.I. Val Kilmer.

Director Coerte Voorhees, with the approval of several members of Kilmer’s family, will use generative A.I. to insert the star’s likeness and voice. His character, a Native American spiritualist, will be seen at various stages of his life.

That’s no problem for A.I., which can use the endless array of images and video of the star  to capture him at various ages.

This won’t be a glorified cameo, like the late Peter Cushing appearing in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” The role is considered a significant part of the film, a project co-starring Wes Studi, Tom Felton and Abigail Lawrie.

Speculation over this kind of digital stunt casting isn’t new. Modern stars must wonder how their likenesses might be used in projects after their passing.

That reality is here, but will it actually grace theaters? Could an uprising over the digital casting force the film’s creators to reconsider?

Back in the 1980s, Arthur C. Clarke predicted 21st century digital recreations of the stars of Hollywood’s golden age such as Bogie and John Wayne. But how will audiences react to an AI recreation of a man who passed away quite recently?

Posted at 10:22 am by Ed Driscoll

THAT’S BEEN THE HOPE FROM THE BEGINNING…:

“My hope is that the Iranians themselves can take a hand and lessen the trauma.”

…but hope is not a plan.

Posted at 9:54 am by Stephen Green