June 22, 2026

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Never Mind Buc-ee’s, If This Message Spreads, the Entire World Cup Thing Will Have Been Worthwhile. “One of the things that’s become extremely apparent to me after spending a few days here with a group of Americans and other nationalities is how much of a fucking pussy English people are in general when it comes to arms, guns, and basically protecting their nation. We’ve been totally pacified in the UK and through removal of our arms, our right to bear arms, it’s caused a big problem for us.”

Posted at 2:46 pm by Stephen Green

RIP: Clive Davis dies at 94: Music executive titan responsible for careers of Whitney Houston and Bruce Springsteen passes away.

Clive Davis — who was responsible for the careers of many legendary musical acts including Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen, and Carlos Santana – has died at 94.

The longtime music executive and founder of Arista Records and J Records passed away at his home in New York City on Monday.

Just last month, he was hospitalized in his home state for a upper respiratory infection and was discharged days later.

Davis was a titan of the music industry as he also helped shape the careers of Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Alicia Keys, Carrie Underwood, among many others.

Davis was president of CBS Records from 1967 to 1973, an era when the record label ran its infamous “But the Man Can’t Bust Our Music” ad in 1968:

The text read:

The Establishment’s against adventure. And the arousing experience that comes with listening to today’s music.

So what?

Let them slam doors. And keep it out of the concert halls. Nothing can stop great sound makers like Ives, Riley, Stockhausen, Varese or the Moog Synthesizer.

They’re ear stretching. And sometimes transfixing. And The Man can’t stop you from listening. Especially if you’re armed with these.

On Columbia and CBS Records

Considering how those at CBS News today have to pretend they’re still a bulwark against the establishment as they fight Bari Weiss’s efforts to produce content that’s remotely objective, surprisingly little has changed there in 60 years.

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

MOSCOW’S AIR DEFENSES AREN’T WHAT THEY ONCE WERE:

Posted at 2:29 pm by Stephen Green

UPDATE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARIES ACCORDINGLY: Chicago Mayor Declares Citywide “Transfemicide State of Emergency:”

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

SAY ANYTHING:

“The View” is actually part of ABC’s news division, if you wanted to know about their standards and practices.

Posted at 1:59 pm by Stephen Green

RADICAL CHIC AND MAU-MAUING THE FLAK TOWER:

UPDATE: Bill Maher shuts down Rep. Ro Khanna as he fawns over Mamdani: ‘He pals around with terrorists!’

Alas, he’s not the first Democrat to do so.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: OK fine… Let’s Argue About The Odyssey.

Perhaps you’ve heard that director Christopher Nolan has a new movie coming out in July based on Homer’s manly epic “The Odyssey.” Until a few months ago there was nearly universal excitement over this prospect. The anticipation was riding so high that when advance tickets went on sale, a furious arbitrage market sprang up, one in which lucky ticket holders were selling the best seats on the best days for many multiples of face value.

But all that changed almost overnight after anonymous trolls looking to farm social media engagement scanned the cast list on IMDB and found Lupita Nyong’o and Elliot Page’s names listed there without any indication of which characters they were playing. These same trolls then decided (without evidence, as the liberal media might say) that Page and Nyong’o must be playing Achilles and Helen of Troy, for no other reason than those were among the only high-profile Homeric characters not spoken for on the cast list.

And so, just as Helen of Troy’s face once launched a thousand ships, this unsubstantiated casting rumor launched a million online hot takes, most beginning with a word which, here in the social media era, has come to symbolize pure unadulterated bullshit…

“BREAKING”

In the waves of outrage that followed, hardly anyone stopped to wonder if A) the rumors were true or B) whether or not it matters who might be cast in two minor roles which have almost no part to play in the story.

Within hours of the first “BREAKING” post, Nolan’s new movie found itself labeled “woke” by much of the online right and a long list of additional outrages, most of them every bit as unsubstantiated as those first rumors about Page and Nyong’o sprang up like weeds in an unsupervised lawn. Online critics even seized on one line from a 2025 interview Nolan gave in which he spoke positively about a controversial feminist translation of Homer’s epic, and decided this must mean Nolan based his entire film on that translation. Once again, as with the casting rumors, this conclusion was reached without any real supporting evidence.

I’m tentatively waiting for the reviews to roll in before deciding to go see the film; in the meantime, read the whole thing.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

SAYONARA CALIFORNIA: Go East, Young SpaceX Millionaire! “Aside from fueling Elon Musk’s orbital data center ambitions, the recent SpaceX initial public offering minted thousands of new millionaires — and where they put their money will have ripple effects lasting a generation. Can you guess where that money won’t go?”

Posted at 1:13 pm by Stephen Green

BEEGE: And We Won’t Have Keir Starmer to Kick Around Much Longer – Prime Minister Quits.

There are so many ‘don’t let the door hit you’ takes, I’ll only be able to share a few of the pithier ones.

He reopened closed investigations because he hated the British military, hounding some individual troops to the brink of repeated suicide attempts.

The little girls slaughtered at Southport, the Chagos (still hanging in the balance only because of US interference) and Gibraltar betrayals, the authoritarian loss of free speech and expression, crushing the rights of native British in favour of an illegal migrant flood of Third World cultures, Starmer’s personal culpability in the Rape Gang horror…

…and too much more to list, every one of them, Two Tier Keir’s rightful, truly ghastly legacy.

Much — much — more at the link.

Related:

Posted at 12:42 pm by Stephen Green

NEW AIR FORCE ONE UNVEILED: U.S. Air Force Officially Unveils VC-25B Bridge Aircraft.

While the U.S. Air Force has said the VC-25A type will remain in service for the foreseeable future to support Presidential Airlift Group and other VIP operations, these tributes likely indicate that the primary VC-25A will soon be 82-8000 – returning to service shortly after an overhaul and upgrade period – with 92-9000 moved to a backup role.

As we have known for some time, the aircraft wears a controversial new paint scheme. It is a modified version of the one chosen by President Trump for the VC-25B in his first term. This decision was reversed by the Biden administration in favor of an updated variant of the iconic light blue and white livery worn by the current VC-25As, then reversed again by the current Trump administration.

I like the red, white, and blue paint scheme, but I assume the first president with a (D) after his or her name will have it repainted in Raymond Loewy’s early ’60s paint scheme, which worked fine when Air Force One was a 707, but was stretched to silly proportions on a 747:

UPDATE:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

IOWAHAWK ISN’T WRONG:

Posted at 12:27 pm by Stephen Green

WE NEED MORE WOMEN COAL MINERS, PLUMBERS, AND SEWER WORKERS, TOO:

Posted at 12:09 pm by Glenn Reynolds

BRENDAN O’NEILL: Good riddance to Keir Starmer’s tyranny of greyness.

Everything Starmer did was about ‘lowering the temperature’ of the public. His rule laid bare the calculated authoritarianism of a ruling class that considers management of the masses to be the highest goal of public life. From his attack on trial by jury to his mad insistence on bringing in a new definition of ‘Islamophobia’ to his allergic reaction to the public fury over Henry Nowak, he was always driven by a patrician impulse to subdue the popular will. To neutralise political contestation itself in order that the mythical competence of his kind might enjoy free rein. All the civil unrest we’ve seen these past two years – some of it democratic, some of it violent and ugly – is best understood as a fuming reaction against the rule of the boring and its black dream of public disenfranchisement.

And now we have the prospect of prime minister Andy Burnham, the man who edged Starmer out of Downing St with his victory in the Makerfield by-election last week. The elites want Burnham to do what Starmer failed to: quell the ‘mayhem’ of Britain’s resurgent democratic spirit. Only where they thought Starmer’s dearth of charisma might achieve that, now they hope Burnham’s much-hyped charisma will. They’ve tried boring us into submission, now they’ll try Burnhaming us into submission. They’ve learned nothing. Ten years since Brexit and we’re still lumbered with an expert class that is breathtakingly dumb.

And dangerously malevolent:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll