December 8, 2025

T. BECKET ADAMS: Have media forgotten what it means to be ‘sympathetic?’

The New York Times recently published what is clearly meant to be a tear-jerker, highlighting the supposed human cost of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. Except that the paper of record tried to portray as a sympathetic character an illegal immigrant who killed a man. Amazingly, it doesn’t end there. Romeo Perez-Bravo has additional victims, including those who’ve suffered the consequences of his theft, drunk driving, and repeated illegal border crossings.

One such victim is American-born Dan Kluver, whose identity Perez-Bravo stole around 2009. Since then, the real Kluver has had to pay thousands of dollars in mistakenly assigned IRS fees. His wages have been garnished. Kluver has spent hundreds of hours trying to convince the IRS that the man they really want is the illegal immigrant who stole his identity. It gets worse. False charges of tax evasion are just the beginning.

The real Dan Kluver has also been sued in a wrongful-death lawsuit after Perez-Bravo struck and killed a 68-year-old American-born man in a vehicle accident. Perez-Bravo was “cleared of any wrongdoing” in the man’s death, according to the New York Times, but that’s no comfort for Kluver, whose name and identity are now forever linked to an accidental death in which he had no part.

If you need more proof that Perez-Bravo is a bad person, beyond the episode in which he refused to give up his stolen identity even after he killed a man, it’s worth noting that since first crossing illegally into the United States as a teenager, he has accumulated a “string of DUI convictions.” He was also deported in 2005, 2008, and 2009. Each time, he illegally crossed back into the U.S. and stole a different citizen’s identity. Perez-Bravo has since been arrested and charged with aggravated identity theft and false representation of a Social Security number. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison to be followed by deportation (again) to Guatemala.

Perez-Bravo is not a good person. He’s the antonym of “sympathetic.”

Yet, in its coverage of Kluver and the man who has made his life a living hell, this is what the Times chose as its headline: “Two Men. One Identity. They Both Paid the Price.”

The subhead is even worse: “Thousands of undocumented workers rely on fraudulent Social Security numbers. One of them belonged to Dan Kluver.” The story itself refers to identity theft as “a survival tactic used to pass background checks and get jobs.”

Surely, the New York Times is aware that identity theft isn’t like cancer or a wildfire caused by lightning, or some other random event. It involves agency, free will, and premeditated criminal intent. Yet its writers and editors seem to think you can slip on a banana peel and, by pure chance, end up using someone else’s Social Security number. Even more ridiculous is that Times staffers evidently believe that identity theft is a victimless crime, just a little bit of harmless truth-bending. Tell that to Kluver.

As the classic Babylon Bee headline from 2019 noted:

I assume this sort of moral equivalence is designed to keep the Grady Lady’s subscriber base happy (and thus not reaching for their pitchforks), which speaks volumes about the left’s collective mindset in 2025.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

QUESTION ASKED: Why in the World Is Bari Hiring This Guy?

CBS News remained in the headlines last week vis-à-vis comings and goings as editor-in-chief Bari Weiss further having a look under the proverbial hood. This time, we saw a date for the expected departure of CBS Evening News co-anchor Maurice DuBois and a reported desire to sign CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil to the PM chair, but most notable was a questionable decision to bring over longtime ABC correspondent Matt Gutman.

Yes, the same Gutman who said the texts between the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination and his transgender lover were “heartbreaking,” “intimate” and “touching” (which he was forced to offer a mea culpa one day later):

Earlier this year, he whined about the actions of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) in California, defended Los Angeles rioters, and carried water for Harvard in its fight against the Trump administration.

Exit question: “Thus, it has to be asked: What in the world is Bari thinking?”

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

ED MORRISSEY: Hold the Phones and Pass the Popcorn: Ellison Launches Hostile Bid for Warner, CNN.

This morning, Ellison’s Paramount launched a hostile takeover offer for Warner Discovery, going directly to the shareholders with a better share price bid. Ellison also wants all of Warner Discovery:

Paramount, run by David Ellison, is arguing that its all-cash $30 a share offer for all of Warner, owner of networks such as CNN, TBS and HGTV as well as the HBO Max streaming service, is a better deal for shareholders and more likely to pass regulatory muster. Paramount said its offer “provides shareholders $18 billion more in cash than the Netflix consideration.”

The offer, “provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion,” Ellison said in a statement.

Netflix agreed to pay $72 billion, or $27.75 a share, for Warner’s studio and HBO Max streaming business after the entertainment company splits itself in two, in a cash-and-stock deal the companies announced Friday.

That’s not the only consideration that WBD shareholders will have to consider. Any acquisition of WBD will raise regulatory concerns and will have to pass muster with the FTC. Donald Trump warned last night that he planned to take a role in the approval process, although he praised Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos as well:

Axios notes that “Affinity Partners, the private equity firm led by Jared Kushner, is part of Paramount’s hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery, according to a regulatory filing…Paramount is telling WBD shareholders that it has a smoother path to regulatory approval than does Netflix, and Kushner’s involvement only strengthens that case.”

Stay tuned.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

THAT’S DIFFERENT, BECAUSE SHUT UP:

Posted at 1:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OUT TOMORROW: Kurt Schlichter’s latest Kelly Turnbull novel, Panama Red.

Posted at 12:49 pm by Glenn Reynolds

SCREEN TIME: Bad for the brain: Kids are learning less in high-tech schools. “He agrees with those who argue that children’s mental health has been harmed by smartphones, social media and overprotective parenting. But that doesn’t explain the ‘cognitive collapse,’ Horvath writes. ‘Why are so many kids learning less?'”

Posted at 12:42 pm by Stephen Green

GREAT MOMENTS IN AI HALLUCINATIONS: UK police used fake evidence to justify ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, chief admits.

The UK’s West Midlands Police used fictitious evidence to justify its advice to ban Israeli fans of the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team from attending a match in Birmingham last month, the force’s chief admitted to a parliamentary committee Monday, as MPs grilled police brass on the basis of their controversial decision.

The Aston Villa soccer club announced in October that no Maccabi fans would be allowed at a November match following a police assessment that classified the event as “high risk” and suggested banning Israeli fans from the stadium.

In the report presented to the club that suggested banning Israeli fans, police presented information about a 2023 match between Maccabi and West Ham, which the report said was the Israeli club’s “last appearance on UK soil to date.”

“The most recent match Maccabi played in the UK was against West Ham in the Europa Conference League on Nov 9, 2023,” the report read.

However, no such match was played, and Maccabi has never faced off against the East London club.

Well, it did in the Central Scrutinizer’s digital mind:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE:

Posted at 12:15 pm by Glenn Reynolds

DEATH RATTLE: California’s Last Stand. “Gov. Gavin Newsom and his leftist legislative supermajority and their union buddies have finally run out of other people’s money. The left’s fix for this is to chase away all the rest of the billionaires who still call California home by pushing a ballot initiative demanding a 5% retroactive wealth tax on the net worth of billionaires.”

Posted at 12:11 pm by Stephen Green

WELL SAID:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

MARK STEYN: Minneapolis, Twinned with Rotherham.

For the last thirteen months, the United States has demonstrated the central aspect of the thesis of America Alone – that in critical aspects it remains different from the more obviously suicidal parts of the west. The real question is whether it is sufficiently different to affect the ultimate outcome. As I have said, absent severe course-correction, we are in the last fifteen years of anything remotely recognisable as the western world. No country other than Somalia – or the breakaway Somaliland – needs a single Somali other than Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

And yet there is the Hennepin County Attorney loosing them on Minneapolis in order that its maidenhood should grow accustomed to the progressivism of gang-rape.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: Trump admin views Netflix and Warner Bros. deal with ‘heavy skepticism’: Senior official.

The Trump administration views the proposed $72 billion deal for Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s film and streaming assets with “heavy skepticism,” a senior administration official told CNBC’s Eamon Javers on Friday morning.

Netflix said Friday that it would acquire Warner Bros.′ film studio and streaming service, HBO Max. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said, “This deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare.”

“A Netflix-Warner Bros. would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market — threatening to force Americans into higher subscription prices and fewer choices over what and how they watch, while putting American workers at risk,” Warren said in a statement.

Making a streaming giant even bigger doesn’t bother me nearly as much as Netflix owning the Warner Bros. library going back nearly a century — and likely killing off unaltered physical media you can actually own.

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Can CNN Survive The Netflix Earthquake?

It isn’t often you see Trump maybe taking the same side as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-The Rez.) on any issue, but on Friday, Fauxcahontas called the proposed buyout “an anti-monopoly nightmare” that “would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market — threatening to force Americans into higher subscription prices and fewer choices.”

But what about that barely known, little-watched property named Cable News Network?

Full details at the link.

Posted at 11:09 am by Stephen Green

COLONIZATION, STRAIGHT UP:

Maybe sometime soon I’ll piss off all the right people with a Thursday Essay detailing how much better the world was run when Europeans were the colonizers.

Posted at 10:53 am by Stephen Green

YOU CAN HAVE ANY KIND OF COOKTOP YOU LIKE, SO LONG AS IT’S ELECTRIC: Colorado PUC targets natural gas in forced march to electrification.

So much of the state’s climate policy over the years has been obscured by regulatory jargon and euphemisms— “Clean Energy Plans,” “Clean Heat Plans,” “Beneficial Electrification,” etc. —so allow me to speak frankly about what the PUC just codified and what it means for ratepayers.

A 41 percent reduction in GHG emissions, let alone 100 percent, from the gas distribution network will necessarily require removing customers from the system. There’s simply no other way around it. Utilities like Xcel, Black Hills, and Atmos may be able to nibble around the edges of the target by relying on recovered methane, improved pipeline leak detection and repair, and other non-demand-destroying strategies, but such approaches will not be enough to comply with state law.

This all but guarantees that gas customers around the state will soon face higher utility bills to subsidize households into switching from gas to electric heating and appliances, particularly if the first tranche of Clean Heat Plan proceedings is any guide.

For instance, Black Hills Energy’s “Target Achievement” portfolio, submitted to the PUC to meet the initial 22 percent GHG reduction by 2030 target, was estimated to cost approximately $397 million per year, costs that would inevitably be recouped from captive ratepayers. Similarly, Xcel Energy reported that its modeling found that meeting its 2030 target would cost over $1 billion over five years, a total that well exceeded the 2.5 percent annual cost cap included in the initial clean heat plan statute.

Furthermore, aside from paying more on monthly bills to finance the utility incentive programs designed to encourage electrification, the new 2035 target will inevitably result in significant personal costs for homeowners who agree to make the switch.

I hope to be long gone from Colorado before the worst of the Democrats’ hare-brained schemes kick in. I suspect I wont be alone.

Posted at 10:38 am by Stephen Green