July 12, 2026

TRAPPED IN THE GULAG OF TDS:

Posted at 2:55 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE SECRET POLICEMAN’S BALLS (Or the Lack Thereof):

More in this X thread:

 

The late Steven Den Beste had Amnesty’s number back in 2003:

I use the ACLU’s Skokie decision because Amnesty International now faces exactly the same decision. But Amnesty International is selling out. It’s making the popular decision, not the right one popular with its membership, even though it’s inconsistent and unprincipled. Unlike the ACLU, AI is demonstrating that when the cards are down, its soul is for sale.

In the case of AI, they too are dealing with a subscriber base whose political opinions don’t totally agree with the stated principles of the organization. They tend to be from the hard leftists, the same demographic who have been strongly protesting the war. And in particular, many of them seem to be protesting the war simply because it’s America that’s fighting it; their real principle is anti-Americanism, not pro-peace. (Indeed, it’s not uncommon to hear them say that they’d support a war to remove Saddam from power, as long as it wasn’t America doing it.)

It may well be that AI has, in the past, tried to bring attention to the abuses of the Baathist regime. But all this happened before the political question of an American invasion of Iraq became important.

The principled thing for AI to do now would be to issue an honest report about the situation. It would say that America may have committed a small number of war crimes but was clearly making a very serious attempt to avoid harming civilians or to break the laws of war, while the Iraqi regime was totally ignoring the Geneva Convention and was actively committing immense atrocities. The report would conclude with a blanket condemnation of Saddam and the rest of the Iraqi regime.

And that would alienate a large percentage of AI’s contributing membership, because many members would view this not as AI telling the truth, but as AI siding with America, “the true terrorist nation”, the biggest rogue nation on earth, the rapacious over-consumer of resources, and so on ad nauseam. Not to mention being seen as siding with George Bush, and you can fill in your own list of epithets about him.

It’s not going too far to say that many of Amnesty International’s members have approximately as strongly negative of feelings now about America and George Bush as the ACLU’s members had about the Nazis when the ACLU defended them in Skokie.

* * * * * * * *

It’s because a large percentage of AI’s membership hates America and would cease making contributions if AI actually took a principled stand and told the truth. So Amnesty International, and other groups like it, are facing the same decision that the ACLU did in Skokie. But unlike the ACLU, they’re demonstrating moral cowardice, and letting mercenary issues overrule principle.

Since telling the truth would cost them, they aren’t doing so. Instead, they’re pandering. Since staying true to their stated principles would cost them, they’ve discarded their principles.

The fact that in the past AI has written so often about Iraqi abuses makes their current silence all the more damning.

They’ve come a long way since the days of celebrities toasting “to freedom” — and not in a good way. As Conquest’s second law of politics states, “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”

UPDATE:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH ZOHRAN MAMDANI IS A VOICE OF SANITY:

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

LINDSEY GRAHAM’S FINEST MOMENT:

The sudden passing of Senator Lindsey Graham at the age of 71 on Sunday morning prompted many reflections on his long and immensely influential career in public life.

Among them, Graham’s impassioned support for Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings:

Tweet concludes, “‘To my Republican colleagues, if you vote no, you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.’ Rest in peace.”

As Noah Rothman writes, “Yes, it was a fiery exchange that summoned a lot of theatrics. But Graham channeled a sentiment that both animated and united Republicans at a time when the bitter debates over Donald Trump’s ascension to the top of the GOP’s ranks were still quite raw.”

It’s easy to forget the strength of the cultural currents against which Graham bravely struggled in this clip. Democrats probably hope that you’ve forgotten. The casual bigotry they promulgated, the sordid and baseless allegations they made, not just against Kavanaugh but anyone who shared his accidents of birth, would become features of the ‘woke’ discourse that was soon to consume the country.

At no point, even today, could any of Kavanaugh’s accusers place him in a room with his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, much less establish the claim that he had participated in “gang rape.” Nevertheless, his guilt was assumed. Even Kavanaugh’s efforts to defend himself against what he claimed were false allegations were held up as further evidence of his guilt.

UPDATE:

Posted at 1:55 pm by Ed Driscoll

“FEW THINGS WILL RADICALIZE YOU MORE THAN SEEING WHAT THE WORLD LOOKED LIKE 30 YEARS AGO:”

Tweet concludes, “They instinctively know something’s off, and things aren’t how they’re supposed to be, because there’s so much evidence of us having lived in a completely different society only a moment before them.”

To be fair, the above commercial isn’t “what the world looked like 30 years ago,” it’s a series of tiny vignettes constructed to sell disposable razor blades to men, in much the same way that 1980s American car manufacturers lit and filmed cheaply-made disposable cars to look like they were tearing through nighttime scenes from Miami Vice: 

In July of 2024, James Lileks wrote:

I seem to recall a story about a Pizza Hut that recently redid itself in the old style, and how people loved it. There’s a subreddit devoted to 80s fast food, and the commercials seem as if they’re from a different civilization. We made fun of them at the time — all that ridiculous cheer — and no one really believed that a trip to McDonald’s would be full of such ecstatic gustatory experiences, but now we would like to be there thank you very much and we promise we will be grateful, because we know it all had something, and we miss it. I mean, we’ll survive. But we miss it.

https://youtu.be/M8VquXFcMZw?si=yVR4v8Xx-zuNOT88

Similarly, at least that iteration of Gillette didn’t publicly look down on its customer base with a sneer. Or as Don Surber wrote in October of 2024: Gillette, Bud Light, Kamala: Calling an entire sex toxic is no way to sell blades, beer or candidates.

Posted at 1:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

DEMOCRATS DUMP PLATNER, NOW BEGIN NOMINATION THUNDERDOME:

It’s official – Maine Democrats have officially unloaded Graham Platner.

The so-called blue collar oysterman with the Nazi tattoo and history of rancid comments and abusive treatment of women is no longer on the ballot, after he sent in the paperwork to withdraw. Naturally, he had to be a gigantic dick one last time on his way out.

God willing, this is the last we will hear of this abusive clown show.

However, now Maine Democrats begin the process of having to replace the guy who won over SEVENTY PERCENT in the primary. It wasn’t close, and the next runner-up was Governor Janet Mills, who had suspended her campaign before the primary, and came away with 19 percent. This time around, Mills isn’t even under consideration for the job.

The candidate that seems to be an early favorite for Democrats (before their massive convention in two weeks) is Troy Jackson, a former state senator. But he comes with his own baggage. First, he had a mortgage fraud case similar to Letitia James – claim a house is your primary residence, get a loan, and live somewhere else. Except Jackson decided to sue the former owners, which led The Maine Wire to uncover the mortgage fraud. Nice guy, huh?

Second, he endorsed Graham Platner AND campaigned with him – something which he is trying to forget and stealth delete. But Platner’s stench is going to stick to many a “progressive” leftist for a long time.

With Maine Democrats having scheduled a 601-person convention on July 25th to determine Herr Oystergruppenführer’s successor, America’s Newspaper of Record goes twenty minutes into the future:

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Why Mick Jagger Will Never Go the Full Bruce Springsteen.

The interviewer pressed Jagger on his relationship with his audience. It’s a good, potentially fruitful question, but it was intended to get Jagger’s political views.

Or, hopefully from the interviewer’s perspective, call out that Orange Mad Bad. Except Jagger didn’t take the bait.

The New York Times reporter called what Springsteen has done in recent years “a meaningful back and forth with his audience.”

Wrong.

Springsteen isn’t having a conversation with his audience. He isn’t debating them or answering their questions. It’s a lecture from a multi-millionaire who doesn’t have all the facts at his disposal.

And that’s on him.

Jagger has a different goal when he steps on stage.

“My job in the live music world is [to make sure audiences] have the best time they possibly can for two hours, to forget all their problems and the problems of the world and their mortgages … it’s similar to going to a sports event,” Jagger said.

And, on occasion, “You encourage them to go more nuts.”

What won’t you hear at a Rolling Stones concert? Political talking points.

“You don’t want to lecture them,” he said of his patrons.

Indeed. In the past quarter century, Jagger has occasionally written political lyrics, such as a song titled “Sweet Neocon” in 2oo5 (taken by many to be a swipe at Condi Rice), and on the the new album, there’s a reference to “mad mogul Mr. Musk,” but these songs don’t get much of a concert workout. As he said above, Jagger knows his job is to give audiences “the best time they possibly can for two hours, to forget all their problems and the problems of the world.”

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

COMMUNIST SEEKS TO MEMORY HOLE MOLOTOV–RIBBENTROP PACT:

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

IT CERTAINLY FEELS THAT WAY LATELY:

Posted at 10:13 am by Stephen Green

GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT: A $20M Ridley Scott-Style Epic Just Beat James Gunn’s Superhero Movie at the Box Office. “Telling the story of George Washington as he tests his honor, loyalty and courage by fighting in the French and Indian War long before he became the first President of the United States, Young Washington had a reported budget of just $20 million and is distributed by Angel Studios, which historically debuts films within strategic release windows.”

They also know their audience and do that old-timey Hollywood thing of actually catering to it.

I don’t know what James Gunn’s DC Comics movies are supposed to be, and I’m not sure he does, either.

Posted at 9:40 am by Stephen Green

THAT’S A BAD 24 HOURS:

A friend in the industry can barely mention Sam Altman without adding “snake-oil salesman.”

Posted at 9:09 am by Stephen Green