August 19, 2026

THAT ISN’T HOW THAT WORKS:

Posted at 12:28 pm by Stephen Green

EDGY COMEDIENNE DROPS F-BOMBS ON LATE NIGHT TV: Rosie O’Donnell Claims Trump Brought Back Fascism.

Rosie O’Donnell kicked off her second night of guest hosting ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday, much like she did on Monday, with Kimmel-esque nicknames for President Trump coupled with accusations of fascism while not appreciating the irony of being able to host a show in such an allegedly fascist environment.

O’Donnell also made sure to follow in Anthony Anderson’s footsteps and mock Trump’s escape from Turkey by shrinking the size of the airport catering truck to a simple cart, “This has been kind of a strange experience for me, because all of a sudden I’m re-famous. I’m back in the spotlight all thanks to President Oompa J. Loompa, who is watching us this evening from inside a catering cart. You know, I couldn’t have done it without you, sweetie. You brought me back, just like you did with fascism and the measles. But enough about him.”

And yet curiously, when Trump was reelected president, she moved from America to Ireland without incident, and could fly back from Ireland to Los Angeles to guest-host for Kimmel, and presumably will soon return there without incident. Worst. Hitler. Ever.

Couldn’t Rosie’s writers come up with material that isn’t 60 years old? As Tom Wolfe wrote in “The Intelligent Co-ed’s Guide to America” about speaking at Princeton in the mid-1960s:

The next thing I knew, the discussion was onto the subject of fascism in America. Everybody was talking about police repression and the anxiety and paranoia as good folks waited for the knock on the door and the descent of the knout on the nape of the neck. I couldn’t make any sense out of it. I had just made a tour of the country to write a series called “The New Life Out There” for New York magazine*. This was the mid-1960’s. The post-World War II boom had by now pumped money into every level of the population on a scale unparalleled in any nation in history. Not only that, the folks were running wilder and freer than any people in history. For that matter, [Paul] Krassner himself, in one of the strokes of exuberance for which he was well known, was soon to publish a slight hoax: an account of how Lyndon Johnson was so overjoyed about becoming President that he had buggered a wound in the neck of John F. Kennedy on Air Force One as Kennedy’s body was being flown back from Dallas. Krassner presented this as a suppressed chapter from William Manchester’s book Death of a President. Johnson, of course, was still President when it came out. Yet the merciless gestapo dragnet missed Krassner, who cleverly hid out onstage at Princeton on Saturday nights. Suddenly I heard myself blurting out over my microphone: “My God, what are you talking about? We’re in the middle of a … Happiness Explosion!”

That merely sounded idiotic. The kid up in the balcony did the crying baby. The kid down below did the raccoon … Krakatoa, East of Java … I disappeared in a tidal wave of rude sounds … Back to the goon squads, search-and-seize and roust-a-daddy …

Support came from a quarter I hadn’t counted on. It was [Gunter] Grass, speaking in English.

“For the past hour I have my eyes fixed on the doors here,” he said. “You talk about fascism and police repression. In Germany when I was a student, they come through those doors long ago. Here they must be very slow.”

Grass was enjoying himself for the first time all evening. He was not simply saying, “You really don’t have so much to worry about.” He was indulging his sense of the absurd. He was saying: “You American intellectuals—you want so desperately to feel besieged and persecuted!”

He sounded like Jean-François Revel, a French socialist writer who talks about one of the great unexplained phenomena of modern astronomy: namely, that the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.

Not very nice, Günter! Not very nice, Jean-François! A bit supercilious, wouldn’t you say!

As for Rosie, six decades later:

* This was the original iteration of New York magazine, and a very different beast from its current form: New York Magazine Turns Its Back on the City’s Jews.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

HEINLEIN UNDERSTOOD THE IMPORTANCE OF SPACE AS A RELEASE VALVE FROM NANNY-STATERS DECADES AGO:

Posted at 11:57 am by Stephen Green

GET OFF MY CAR: When the State Determines What Rubber Meets the Road – Tired in California.

As purely an interested but unaffected and unassociated bystander watching from afar – and, lemme add, a truly horrified one at that – I find myself doubting that there ever will come a time that the majority of the state will willingly throw off the authoritarian bonds that are now constricting the very lifeblood that used to pulse through, arguably, one of the most vibrant, unfettered places to live in the country.

From Sacramento to the various commissions and agencies throughout the state, there are so many levels of unelected and enabled satraps who, at the stroke of a pen, can issue edicts affecting the way tens of millions of citizens live their lives. Citizens who have little recourse, in fact, often have little warning that some bureaucrat is once again fixin’ to rock their world with a regulation concerning something as mundane, but essentially a right-to-choose, as what replacement tire you prefer and can afford when you have a blow-out or the whole set goes old baldy.

And yet, God bless their pointy little bureaucratic, Big Brotherish heads. That’s exactly where we are.

The California Energy Commission has voted to phase out the sale of replacement tires that do not meet its desired energy-efficiency threshold.

Perhaps as much as 70% of tires currently sold.

Posted at 11:42 am by Stephen Green

WELL, WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT…:

Posted at 11:26 am by Stephen Green

ENTITLED, LOW-CHARISMA CARPETBAGGER:

Posted at 10:55 am by Stephen Green

THE DEVIL’S PLEASURE PALACE:

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll

MAYBE NOT QUITE A MOON-SHATTERING KABOOM, BUT STILL IMPRESSIVE:

Posted at 10:24 am by Stephen Green

ABOLISH PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS: Teacher unions dedicate money to political activism, lobbying.

Some teachers raise questions about whether union dues are being used to advance causes the instructors actually support.

Todd Loeffler, a California elementary public school teacher for over 25 years, said the cost of joining the union and some of their political tactics turned him off.

“Knowing that our union dues were primarily going to Democratic candidates, it was very difficult,” he told The Center Square.

Another issue was the cost. He initially declined to join his union when he began teaching because the dues were too expensive.

“When I was just hired as a new teacher, I was asked to join the union along with all the other new teachers,” Loeffler said. “We discussed joining the union, but we agreed it was too expensive, and our salary was very low.”

Well: AFT head Randi Weingarten makes over $560,000 per year, 9 times average teacher salary, records show.

Posted at 9:38 am by Stephen Green

WELL, HE’S RIGHT:

Posted at 9:22 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Axios — Dems Might Be Commies but, Hey, They’re Sexy! “Using a favorite modern liberal buzzword, Axios is trying to normalize the commie element that’s been stirring things up for the Democratic National Committee. If they can focus on the fact that Abdul El-Sayed is wearing t-shirts to show off his biceps, they might be able to distract some voters from the fact that he’s a far-left, terrorist-loving cancer.”

Posted at 9:07 am by Stephen Green