IS PARIS BURNING?

CONAN, WHAT IS BEST IN LIFE?

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.

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.

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!

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?”

UPDATE: Once again, Hollywood ruins a classic when it updates it for the proverbial “modern audiences:”

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.

SHE’S THE PERFECT DEMOCRATIC PROSECUTOR: