February 5, 2026

I SHOUTED OUT WHO KILLED THE WAPO, WHEN AFTER ALL IT WAS JEFF AND ME: The Washington Post Disaster is an Indictment of Both Publishers and Society.

The shocking diminishment of The Washington Post, which has just announced it is cutting a third of its staff, is not just another story of a great paper succumbing to algorithms, social media, and the march to idiocracy. In their zeal to be seen as fair and evenhanded, journalists tend to accept the common criticism that they failed to adapt — that, basically, they didn’t produce enough viral TikTok videos.

There’s some truth to that, but the main problem lies elsewhere. This disaster is an indictment of the business side of journalism: its inability to understand what remaining readers value, its mistaking novelty for strategy, its cowardice about insisting the product has economic value, its refusal to collaborate as an industry, and its refusal to get out of the way of the product it exists to serve.

Of course, there is also a failure of society. We faced a test over the past thirty years: Did we educate ourselves to value truth (and civility and justice and progress)? Do we care enough to pay enough to keep the machinery of reliable information going — the way we do for beer and sneakers? And guns in dumb places and guaranteed healthcare in smarter ones? Turns out that we did not.

What is this “machinery of reliable information” you refer to?

More from Nolte here: Washington Post-Mortem: A Suicide in Five Acts.

Well, six actually:

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

ROGER KIMBALL: We are rapidly approaching the denouement of the 2020 election drama.

Commenting on the tsunami of news crashing out from Georgia, the great Cleta Mitchell, who advised President Trump when he contested the Georgia election results,  noted that on the morning of election day,  November  4, 2020, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Trump led by 103K votes with only 94K ballots left. “Four days later,” Mitchell noted:

[T]here were 300K more ballots, including 148K absentee ballots from Fulton County. That’s 25,535 more ballots than voters, more than double Biden’s margin. Over 133K ballot images were deleted. Zero of 148 Fulton County tabulators had the required tapes. Nearly 7K fictitious ballots remain certified, and no one investigated.

Then there is the news about Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. Grand jury testimony that was just unsealed revealed that Kemp told the chief of Georgia Bureau of Investigation not to [investigate] allegations of fraud in the 2020 election, Saying he was a “team player,” the official dropped the case.

The mask is being ripped off as I write. A Gestalt shift in The Narrative is underway. Wikipedia says that Cleta Mitchell “aided Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the election results and pressure election officials to ‘find’ sufficient votes for him to win.” How long will it be before the site is forced to note instead that she aided the president in his efforts to get to the truth in Fulton County?  What happened in Georgia is just one falling domino in the giant reversal that is taking place. A lot of reputedly “impossible” things are in the process of being revealed.

Stay tuned. As Chris Queen wrote last Friday: If Georgia’s 2020 Election Was ‘Fair,’ Fulton County Sure Is Defensive About It.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

IT’S COME TO THIS: Stanford’s Fake Disability Crisis Is America’s Future.

The Stanford Scam: Gaming Disability for Better Dorms

The numbers are damning: 38% of Stanford undergraduates are registered as having a disability. Meanwhile, at community colleges? Three to four percent. The schools that boast the most academically successful students are the ones with the highest “disability” rates—disabilities that you’d think would deter academic success.

The accommodations are generous: single rooms (instead of cramped triples), extra test time (some students get double), excused absences, late assignments, and even exemptions from class participation for “social anxiety.” The process? A 30-minute Zoom call with minimal skepticism. According to one Stanford student who wrote about her experience, she “probably didn’t even need a doctor’s note.”

Even students with legitimate diagnoses feel the rot. One student with ADHD and Asperger’s admitted: “I probably didn’t deserve the accommodations, given the fact I got into Stanford and could compete at a high academic level.”

Fake Jains and Whole Foods: The Meal Plan Hustle

The gaming doesn’t stop at disability. Stanford requires undergrads to purchase an $7,944 annual meal plan—unless they claim a religious dietary restriction the cafeteria can’t accommodate.

* * * * * * * *

So some students claim to be devout members of the Jain faith, which rejects any food that may cause harm to living creatures—including insects and root vegetables. They spend their meal money at Whole Foods instead, enjoying freshly made salads while their honest classmates eat “burgers made partly from mushroom mix.”

Administrators are powerless. How do you challenge a religious dietary claim without risking a discrimination lawsuit? The university created a system with no verification and wonder why it gets gamed.

Much more here: Nearly 40% of Stanford undergraduates claim they’re disabled. I’m one of them. One of the most prestigious universities in the US offers perks to those who say they have ADHD, night terrors, even gluten intolerance. You’d be stupid not to game the system.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

THAT SIMPLE, YES:

Posted at 1:01 pm by Stephen Green

EUROTRASH SAYS WHAT? The Hague Thinks People Have Too Much Stuff.

Which brings me to this interesting item I got in an email today, and that the city of The Hague itself is just so proud of they are fit to bust a button.

To me, as an American, it’s just one more intrusive, creepy example of the European tendency to want to control every facet of the lives of their citizens.

Of course, they all start out as ‘suggestions,’ gentle scoldings about ‘too much of this or that,’ behavior modification nudges, and a snappy techno-term accompanied by agencies set up by the government, local or otherwise, to show the populace how to follow these lifestyle hints properly.

And the next thing you know, you’re counting toilet paper squares and flushes.

Inevitably, that’s how these things go.

This sounds nosy, but harmless, right?

The proper way to treat a nosy busybody is to slam the door in their face. For a first offense, that is.

Posted at 12:45 pm by Stephen Green

BEN COLLINS (THE STIG) TEST DRIVES THE NEW FERRARI TESTAROSSA 849 (Video):

It seems slightly more subdued in looks than the bonkers Miami Vice-era Testarossa. No word yet when the Metro-Dade Organized Crime Bureau will be issuing the new Ferrari to their undercover detectives.

Posted at 12:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

EW: Gavin and Vogue Mag, Sittin’ in a Tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G… “He’s ’embarrassingly handsome.’ He’s ‘lithe, ardent, energetic.’ He is ‘at ease with his own eminence.’ This sounds like the writing of a sixteen-year-old girl in the full-tilt grip of a crush for the ages, you know, the true and eternal love that no one else in the world has ever experienced and that you couldn’t possibly understand, but it’s actually Maya Singer, an apparent adult who is a contributing editor at Vogue magazine.”

Previously:

Perhaps one of the more curious responses to Mussolini was the manner in which so many women reporters were taken in by the swashbuckling glamor of the Italian dictator. It is, at first glance, rather ironical that women would respond to a man who had contempt (albeit political, not physical) for the female sex. As he candidly told Emil Ludwig, women must always be the underlings, lest their trivial hearts of milk unman the will to power and produce a “matriarchy.” Yet the Italian maestro was shrewd enough to wear a different mask when confronting the opposite sex. In 1923, whether by coincidence or design, the International Suffrage Alliance convened in Rome. Mussolini’s hypocritical support for the feminist cause did much to endear the “amazons of the press” to his regime. His appearance at the convention hall was described rapturously (“graceful, extremely quick … great charm and radiance”) by the novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes, who was brought to tears of joy upon his entrance. When he told the convention that he would grant the vote to Italian women (within a short time he was to make Italy’s franchise worthless) the audience was ecstatic. Fascist supporters made much of the rising status of women in Italy, and Italian officials made life easier for women journalists, all of which paid handsome news dividends. Women reporters, generally concentrated on Mussolini’s personality and physical features, and those who met him personally showed a tendency to melt under his charm. “I was entirely disarmed by his personality,” said the wife of one correspondent. “Expecting to meet a cold, dispassionate, overbearing person, I was arrested by a certain wistful quality in his expression—the expression of a man who is very human.” The Byronic magnetism of Mussolini was as irresistible as the pagentry of the marching fascisti. The response of Ida Tarbell, who called Mussolini “a despot with a dimple” and described how he “kissed my hand in the gallant Italian fashion,” was typical of the many female writers who were graced by a personal interview with the Blackshirt Valentino. Perhaps Alice Rohe had the last word when one of his sex scandals made the papers: “Il Duce knows how to get what he wants from women, whether it is a grand passion or a grand propaganda.”

Nothing changes.

Posted at 12:14 pm by Stephen Green

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: ‘There’ll Be Consequences’: Trump WH Warns Defense Contractors.

While the president loves a booming market, Trump has grown frustrated with prime defense contractors – heavy-weight companies with direct Pentagon contracts and Fortune 500 valuations – rewarding shareholders rather than reinvesting profits into their manufacturing capacity even as they fall behind in the delivery of weapons and systems.

“This situation,” Trump wrote in a TruthSocial post, “will no longer be allowed or tolerated!” He then issued an executive order that threatens to limit dividends, stock buybacks, and CEO pay.

One month later, the stock price of all five of the prime defense contractors – Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX – have all rebounded. None, however, have made new commitments on paying dividends, and just one company, Northrop Grumman, manufacturer of the new B-21 Stealth Bomber, has publicly announced that they plan to pause stock buybacks.

But that does not mean Trump isn’t getting his way. The saber-rattling seems to be working. Defense contractors are expected to increase reinvestment, spending capital on their own manufacturing capacity, by more than a third this year.

Nope, still not sick of all the winning.

Posted at 11:43 am by Stephen Green

LAUGHING WOLF ON ARTEMIS II: I’m actually hoping the upcoming mission slips not just to March, but into April.

First, Congress mandated out-of-date tech and other delights to keep certain companies and production lines open (and donations to politicians flowing). Old tech is not necessarily bad: I almost got to co-pilot a Ford Tri-Motor once (lost out to someone with a bit more seniority) and it was a fun and amazing flight. It works, but no one is trying to repurpose the Ford into a hypersonic aircraft, which is not a bad analogy for all the Shuttle-derived tech required by Congress for Artemis.

Second, there have been issues identified — and fixed in record time. Sorry, having worked at NASA as a contractor I’m not fully buying it. If I haven’t already done so, remind me to tell you about how a NASA safety fix that wasn’t tested ended the first tethered satellite system mission pretty much at the start. Short version is that I wouldn’t ride in that capsule. Your mileage may vary.

Third, the tech involved does not do well with cold weather launches. Challenger.

I feel better with Isaacman calling the shots — better, but not great.

Posted at 10:41 am by Stephen Green