May 3, 2026

I GUESS NOT:

Posted at 10:52 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

DEMENTIA STARTS EARLY? The Roots of Dementia Trace Back All The Way to Childhood, Experts Reveal.

“In long-term studies where people have had their cognitive ability tracked across their whole lives, one of the most important factors explaining someone’s cognitive ability at age 70 is their cognitive ability when they were 11,” the study authors explained.

“That is, older adults with poorer cognitive skills have often had these lower skills since childhood, rather than the differences being solely due to a faster decline in older age.”

They used to call it “second childhood” for a reason. Honestly, though, I don’t think the findings in the story are as strong as the headline.

Posted at 8:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH:

Posted at 7:45 pm by Glenn Reynolds

GOODER AND HARDER, LA: Who Is Nithya Raman, Dubbed The ‘Next Mamdani,’ Gaining Ground In LA Mayor Race?

Why Is She Being Called The ‘Next Mamdani?’

Her rise has also drawn comparisons to progressive figures in American politics, particularly New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Like Mamdani, Raman is associated with the Democratic Socialists of America and has built her political base through grassroots organising rather than traditional party networks. Both leaders have emerged through volunteer-driven campaigns centred on housing, inequality and urban governance.

If this quote is true (and if it isn’t, it will be damning for Pratt’s campaign), perhaps this has something to do with the comparison as well:

Posted at 7:03 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE MEMORY HOLE:

In 2014 Mark Steyn wrote:

ISIS are fast-track Nazis. No messing about with a few property restrictions and intermarriage laws as a little light warm-up: They’re only in the business of “final solutions”, and they start on Day One and don’t quit until the last Christian and Yazidi is dead or fled. As I’ve often remarked about today’s exhaustively cleansed Maghreb, Levant and Araby, Islam is king on a field of corpses. But pikers like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Baathists, the House of Saud take their time. ISIS are shooting for the Guinness Book of Records.

However, unlike the original Nazis, who sought to keep their atrocities as hidden as possible, ISIS loved social media. A 2023 post by consulting firm Booz Allen noted that “It’s no secret that the Islamic State’s skillful use of social media has played a central role in its rise and continuing success:” 

The terrorist group can reportedly generate as many as 200,000 tweets and disseminate an average of 38 unique propaganda events each day.

Still, it’s not the volume of ISIS messages but their rapid spread and powerful impact that makes ISIS such a dangerous force. In the hands of ISIS propagandists, social media has dramatically increased the group’s reach and influence.

Gruesome videos of ISIS atrocities spread fear and intimidate its enemies into submission, while news and events are quickly promulgated with ISIS’s own interpretation and message. Through its adept use of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and other social media, ISIS not only draws a continuous stream of new recruits to its regional strongholds, but it now inspires followers to commit terrorist acts in the Western nations where they live.

Clearly, social media is pushing the boundaries of information operations and the concept of the traditional battlespace. While ISIS and other U.S. adversaries are exploiting social media as a reliable force multiplier, the United States and its allies are actively exploring new and innovative ways to use new media as an effective tool of influence.

In contrast though, as John Cleese responded to Hamk’s tweet, “There is a tendency for some media to describe reports of divisive behaviour as themselves divisive No. They are pointing out divisiveness that ALREADY exists The original divisiveness can only be addressed when it is acknowledged NOT by hushing it up.”

Posted at 6:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

REMINDER:

Posted at 6:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

BAFFLING TUCKER: The New York Times has a lengthy interview with Tucker Carlson that Richard Pollock dissects in his latest Substack piece as “disturbingly revealing.” The two-hour discussion that is the interview of Carlson by the Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro is extremely complicated in part because Carlson can be difficult to follow.

Here’s Pollock’s core takeaway:

“Put together, it is a searing indictment of a man who presumably is super-intelligent and who has gone down the rabbit hole of delusion and hate. And I take it personally, as he claims the land of Israel, the land of my ancestors, doesn’t have a right to exist.

“But there’s more. He now seems to be tilting toward a progressive critique of our economy, even praising Occupy Wall Street. He says that violent revolution could be just around the corner and he has many Leftwing friends who could lead it. He further calls for a new political party and says he would heartedly support it.

“Astonishingly, he also takes the side of the Iranian Mullahs. Not once does he acknowledge that the Mullahs murdered 45,000 men, women and children earlier this year as widespread civic demonstrations erupted. He further claims Iran isn’t a military power. Tell that to the Gulf States.”

Pollock, like so many on the Right, formerly thought he knew Carlson, observing that “As my readers know, I once was a die-hard Leftist, then turned to a life-long career in journalism, including as the Washington producer for ABC’s ‘Good Morning America.’

“Decades later I landed as the senior investigative reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation [DCNF]. The foundation was established and led by none other than Tucker Carlson. I spent a good deal of time with Tucker. So…I thought I knew him.

“But not now.”

Pollock came to the DCNF as a member of an investigative reporting team I had launched and managed at the Washington Examiner (WEX). He was unjustly let go by the WEX powers-that-be over my impassioned protests, which was a key reason for the subsequent move to DCNF.

I made sure he was able to join the rest of us at DCNF because I knew Pollock was (and is today) one of the finest investigative journalists in Right media. His assessment of Carlson is a hard but necessary read.

Posted at 5:53 pm by Mark Tapscott

WELL, SURE. BUT DOESN’T EVERYONE EVALUATE ELECTRIC GUITAR PLAYERS BASED ON THEIR COVID STANCES IN 2020?

Ironically, Clapton has swung far to the left in recent years in his newfound post-October 7th loathing of Israel. But that’s not enough to salvage his reputation at Rolling Stone. 

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH BARNEY FRANK IS (ALMOST) A VOICE OF SANITY: Dying ex-Rep. Barney Frank delivers stark warning from hospice about Dems swinging too far left.

Frank is set to release a scathing book rebuking the left flank of the Democratic Party later this year. His main message to lefties is to be more strategic about how far to push on social issues.

“We didn’t get to marriage until after these other things had been resolved,” Frank argued.

“And that’s what I’m suggesting that we do today. The analogy is males and female transsexuals playing sports that are for women.”

“I understand there’s a lot of anger about that,” he continued. “And I think, in the interest of the transgender community, as well as others, it would be better to go at that in a more granular way, and not simply announce that, if you don’t support it, you’re a homophobe.”

During a recent interview with Politico, the architect of the Dodd-Frank banking regulations also cited the defund the police and open borders push as examples of lefties going too far.

“It’s one thing to advocate something knowing that you’re going beyond the current viewpoints, and another to make it a litmus test,” Frank told Politico.

He used Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner as an example of Dems moving too far too the left — after he became the presumptive nominee when Gov. Janet Mills dropped out. 

“I think Platner actually shares with Trump this capacity toward making the most out of the anger that people feel,” the former congressman reflected.

“What I’m afraid of is that he won’t be able to translate that into enough votes.”

Does that mean that Frank would be okay with the man with the totenkopf tattoo if he does win in November? Communists were famously called “liberals in a hurry.” It sounds like Frank wants all or most of 2020-style wokeness to happen, just not at the pedal-to-the-floor speed that America’s leftists are pushing those ideas.

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

NO, THEY’RE BEING ASSESSED EXCLUSIVELY ON THEIR ABILITIES:

 

Trump and Hegseth seeking a non-DEI military is fascism; to FDR in 1944, the laissez faire economy of Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s was fascism.; last year Sydney Sweeney’s bazoombas were fascism. As George Orwell famously wrote, the F-word now has “no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’”

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll