September 28, 2026

BRITAIN IS A DISGRACE.

https://x.com/xnoesbueno/status/2104192397559345173

Posted at 7:09 am by Glenn Reynolds

ROBERT SPENCER: The Latest Attempt to Impeach Trump Criminalizes Not Being a Leftist. “Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), an otherwise completely obscure far-left backbencher, has just made a bid not to slide into total oblivion once he finally skulks out of the Capitol for the last time. He has filed articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, and while many other quixotic leftists have done that, Cohen has distinguished himself in filing no less than 26 articles of impeachment against Trump, which has got to be a record.”

Posted at 7:01 am by Stephen Green

September 27, 2026

KEEPING UP WITH THE 21ST CENTURY:

Posted at 10:40 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

CHANGE:

Posted at 7:40 pm by Glenn Reynolds

CHANGE:

Posted at 7:38 pm by Glenn Reynolds

SEPTEMBER 26, 1960: THE NIXON-KENNEDY DEBATE:

September 26, 1960, is an interesting date in American history. Sixty-six years ago, as of the date I write this, was the first televised presidential debate in the United States, wherein the Republican candidate, Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon, squared off against the Democrat, an upstart Senator from Massachusetts named John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Opinions about the debate, then and now, are varied, as are opinions about every presidential debate before and since, but since this was the first one where the candidates appeared on screen in American homes, things were a little different. Two years ago, the Conversation’s W. Joseph Campbell examined this debate and compared it to the 2024 Trump/Biden debate, and their report is still worth reading.

The run-up to the Joe Biden-Donald Trump debate at the end of June 2024 has brought reminders about the first-ever televised presidential debate – and how Vice President Richard Nixon’s sweaty, haggard appearance that autumn night in 1960 opened a pathway to the White House for the tanned and telegenic Sen. John F. Kennedy.

That, at least, is conventional wisdom about the Kennedy-Nixon debate of Sept. 26, 1960: Image prevailed, rewarding Kennedy and punishing Nixon.

“Kennedy went on to narrowly win the election that most say he never would have had a shot at without that first debate,” Time magazine declared in 2016, in recounting the greatest missteps in political debates. “It seems Nixon’s fatal flub was in failing to recognize the power of the visual image.”

Or as Max Frankel, then the executive editor of The New York Times, wrote sardonically several months after Nixon’s death in 1994, “Nixon lost a TV debate, and the Presidency, to John F. Kennedy in 1960 because of a sweaty upper lip.”

Or to put it another way, Kennedy won thanks to a lot of help from Don Hewitt of CBS News, who was supported him: “Hewitt convinced JFK to wear pancake make-up to soften the harsh glare of the studio klieg lights. During the broadcast, Hewitt instructed the camera operators to frame Kennedy in profile with a wide angle. For Nixon, Hewitt ordered straight-on extreme close-ups — the equivalent of a mug shot. Don Hewitt, by the way, perfected his craft as founder and producer of CBS’ 60 Minutes. The ‘villain’ of each 60 Minutes segment has always gotten the Nixonian treatment. (Welcome to the world of objective television journalism.)”

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Has Nikole Hannah-Jones just written a new version of The Jungle?

[C]ongratulations, Nikole Hannah-Jones.

You’re a regular Nick Shirley, exposing the outrageous fraud of public school education in New York City, even as you think you are promoting DEI or rage over racism or something.

Or more specifically, you are becoming the new Upton Sinclair.

Sinclair, recall, was a progressive-era muckraker who wrote ‘The Jungle’ in 1906, with the express aim of converting America to socialism.

His book described the filthy meat-packing plants of Chicago and the terrible labor conditions experienced by America’s Lithuanian and other immigrant workers in a wrenching, emotionally engaging book that became a massive bestseller.

But much to his surprise, he didn’t convert anyone to socialism.

People read about those filthy meat-packing plants where chemicals and spoilage were present, and absolutely shuddered at the thought that they were eating from them.

That prompted major legislation to reform food sanitation practices, including the Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drug Act by Congress.

Sinclair never quite knew what hit him, famously saying:

I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.

That’s what Hannah-Jones just did: she shined a spotlight on the rotten meat of New York City’s educational ‘product,’ and like Sinclair, drew huge attention.

Exit quote: “How ironic that it comes from her when all she wanted to do was preach DEI.”

Posted at 1:43 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE KINDER AND GENTLER WORLD BEFORE EUROPEAN COLONIALISM: 700-year-old skull in China is first evidence of punitive nose amputation. “Researchers say a roughly 700-year-old skull from China could mark the first archaeological case anywhere of nose amputation used as punishment, and signs on the bones suggest the woman lived through it. If that interpretation is correct, the find would offer physical confirmation of a harsh penalty long described in ancient Chinese writings but not previously identified in human remains.”

Posted at 1:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

ROGER KIMBALL: Varieties of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

There are two things to register about TDS. The first is how virulent it is. The second is how it tends to worsen, not attenuate, with the passage of time. Farr’s Law does not seem to be operative in the career of this virus. During Trump’s first term, we saw things we had never seen in this country before. The parade of women in pink “pussy hats” was just a local variation on the sort of thing that might have plagued George W. Bush. But as Trump’s first term unfolded, the insanity increased. There was the whole “Russia Collusion Hoax,” for example, a caper hatched in the White House in the final days of Barack Obama’s second term. It was meant to delegitimize and ultimately end the Trump administration, and it very nearly did.

Then there came the systematic censorship and deplatforming of the president of the United States. He was booted off various social media platforms—what were then Twitter, Facebook, etc.—and essentially denied an effective means of communicating with his supporters. Pause for a moment to consider how bizarre it was that the president of the United States was censored and denied a place in the national conversation.

It gets worse. “Grok: Is it true that Trump was debanked?” “Yes—in 2021, after January 6, several large banks closed accounts tied to Donald Trump and Trump businesses.”

Beginning in 2028, the rehabilitation of Trump’s reputation will begin in the legacy media, softening him as a wise elder statesman, when a new Hitler emerges — a man far worse than the current Hitler — and campaigns to succeed him.

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll