May 12, 2025

MODIFIED LIMITED HANGOUT CONTINUES: Chuck Todd Claims Reporters Blindly Believed Sources About Biden’s Mental Frailty.

Chuck Todd basically admitting that reporters blindly believed their sources regarding Joe Biden’s obvious mental frailty is fantastic for three reasons.

First, Todd contradicts what he said ten days ago when he insisted (without evidence) that the regime media did report on Biden’s diminished capacity. Why, just last month he was furious about the suggestion that the media didn’t report on this.

The media “didn’t miss this story,” said an indignant Todd. “David Ignatius wrote a very high-profile column in October of ’23, saying, ‘Is he really running again? This doesn’t seem like a good idea.’ People like me were promoting Dean Phillips’s campaign because [Biden] was running.”

Boy, things sure have changed since Todd spewed that anti-science nonsense. Listen to him today…

“The real culprits are the people who are supposed to be our sources on all these things,” Todd admitted, adding, “who were constantly reassuring us behind the scenes, ‘No, no, no, no, it’s better than you think.’”

But-but-but — I thought the media “didn’t miss this story”?

Chuck Todd worked for the same network that ran this story on June 19th of last year: The deceptive Biden G7 video was quickly debunked, but it kept going viral anyway.

Misleading videos and false claims that President Joe Biden wandered off aimlessly from the G7 conference last week continued to go viral despite debunkings and fact-checks that tried to correct the record.

Google recommended false versions of the story as “top stories.” Deceptive video clips continued to accumulate millions of views on X. Copies of the videos were replayed on TikTok and YouTube with little context. Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, applied fact-checking labels to some posts but not to all.

The persistent nature of the misleading videos illustrates how major tech platforms and partisan media are playing off each other in the 2024 election cycle, keeping viral stories in people’s feeds after they’ve been proven to be misleading or even false.

And whose cable host said in March of last year:

“I’ve said it for years now: he’s cogent,” said [Joe] Scarborough on Wednesday. “But I undersold him when I said he was cogent. He’s far beyond cogent. In fact, I think he’s better than he’s ever been, intellectually, analytically, because he’s been around for 50 years. And, you know — I don’t know if people know this or not — Biden used to be a hothead. Sometimes that Irishman would getting in front of the reasoning. Sometimes he would say things he didn’t want to say.”

“Start your tape right now,” he continued, “because I’m about to tell you the truth. And eff you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second, and I’ve known him for years. The Brzezinskis have known him for 50 years. If it weren’t the truth, I wouldn’t say it.”

Todd had it slightly closer to the truth when his story in April was: Chuck Todd Says Legacy Media Downplayed Biden’s Issues Due To ‘Fear’ Of Perception Of ‘Helping Trump.’

Posted at 8:00 pm by Ed Driscoll 91

DON’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE A REFUGEE:

Posted at 6:18 pm by Stephen Green 120

UKRAINE HAS A WAR OF NATIONAL SURVIVAL TO FIGHT; WE HAVE LOBBYIST-CONTRACTORS — THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE:

Posted at 5:52 pm by Stephen Green 47

MISTER WE COULD USE A MAN LIKE SNAKE PLISSKEN AGAIN: Chaos at Newark Airport: Everything You Need to Know.

By May 7, the Federal Aviation Administration pledged to add staff and upgrade equipment. Planned improvements include new high-bandwidth data lines, fiber optic telecom replacements and a temporary backup system for Philadelphia’s TRACON.

The following day, the White House introduced a nationwide overhaul plan. It proposes rebuilding 15 control towers and TRACON centers, constructing six new coordination hubs, and replacing thousands of legacy systems. The initiative, supported by industry stakeholders, awaits congressional approval and has no set cost.

Despite reassurances from federal officials and airline executives, another outage occurred May 9, again knocking out radar visibility for 90 seconds. A third incident followed on May 11, prompting a 45-minute ground stop at EWR.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby defended the safety of flying, citing pilot training and system redundancies. Both acknowledged the urgency of infrastructure reform.

Duffy said the system is operating on outdated technology. He indicated that the challenges facing EWR could soon become relevant at other airports nationwide.

Related: How archaic tech, staff shortages and construction made a meltdown at Newark Airport.

Posted at 5:00 pm by Ed Driscoll 87

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: This Exotic Italian Sports Car Pairs a Free-Breathing V-8 with a Manual.

Between Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Pagani, and countless others, Italy has a rich history of producing jaw-dropping sports cars. Now there’s another name to add to the list: Automobili Mignatta, a new startup that is based out of Valfenera d’Asti in Piedmont, around 25 miles outside of Turin. The company’s first car, the Rina, was revealed this week and pairs classically beautiful bodywork with the equally classic combination of a naturally aspirated V-8 engine and a manual transmission.

The Rina’s monocoque is made from carbon fiber, as is the handcrafted barchetta-style body, which draws inspiration from Italian sports cars of the 1960s. The curvature of the fenders, oval-shaped headlights, and lack of a windshield call to mind classics like the Shelby Cobra or Maserati 450S. The Rina has an athletic stance and perfect proportions, and small visors sprout up in front of each occupant to divert the air flowing over the long hood.

Beneath the bodywork lies a 5.0-liter V-8 that remains free from both turbochargers and superchargers. The naturally aspirated unit is hooked up to a six-speed manual transmission that delivers power to the rear wheels only.

If an Italian startup can stick a naturally aspirated V-8 and a manual transmission into an exotic sports car, surely Ford or GM could do the same for a no-frills pickup…

…if Washington would just get out of the way.

Posted at 4:50 pm by Stephen Green 93

I KEEP SAYING THAT DEMOCRATS CAN’T STAY THIS STUPID FOREVER, BUT THEY SURE SEEM DETERMINED TO PROVE ME WRONG:

Some of the replies are priceless.

Posted at 4:35 pm by Stephen Green 112

CDR SALAMANDER: The US Navy is Sleepwalking into Defeat.

We must put to the side the system of incentives and disincentives we use to promote our most senior leaders. This last quarter century’s process has a record of consistently producing sub-optimal performance. This isn’t just my opinion. Look at everything from how we manage our people using a Cold War framework, to program management that cannot design a laudable warship or a fit-for-purpose airwing, to the shambolic results of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and the Horn of Africa.

The results speak for themselves.

No, even if we ignore that dysfunction, we have to look at the potential conflict that presents the greatest danger to our nation’s power, economy, and that of our allies—the threat that would, if it has its way, change the international order in ways that will reverse centuries of progress.

That challenge is in the Pacific.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 3:48 pm by Stephen Green 71

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Child Sex Trafficking Ring Busted. “It may be a false impression, but it sure seems like the Trump47 Administration has been a whole lot more aggressive pursuing child sex trafficking crimes than the Biden Administration was, maybe because some of their precious illegal aliens were involved in it.”

Posted at 2:46 pm by Stephen Green 83

IT’S COME TO THIS: David Hogg’s Critique of Democrats: Men Want to Get Laid.

The newsy, clippable bit of Hogg’s interview/discussion with Maher was his diagnosis for why men are fleeing the party, and in particular for why younger men have been leaving in droves after having hewed the line within the party for years: young men want to get laid and have fun, and the Democratic Party has been the party of killjoys.

In acknowledging this, he’s not entirely wrong, but neither is he entirely right. The Democrat Party is entirely fine with young men having fun and even getting laid–the party is absolutely obsessed with sex, and only likes freedom in any form if it includes consensual sex between queers or in front of a computer screen.

Heterosexual sex between women and men, while not strictly forbidden, requires intense negotiations and multiple dangers for men when Democrats get their way.

But Hogg doesn’t seem to get that the problem goes much deeper than Democrats’ focus on promoting a pleasure-based lifestyle for everybody but heterosexual men. It’s that the Democrats hate masculinity per se, and are deeply hostile to the aspirations of men that go far beyond mere sexual pleasure (which men indeed do seek out and love).

If you’re feeling an enormous sense of whiplash at this point, you’re not alone. Prior to Covid and riots, much of Trump’s first term was taken up with headlines and articles and think pieces about what was then called “#MeToo.” Back in October of 2018, I wrote a post that began by quoting a piece by Christopher R. Taylor titled “The New Prudes,” which began:

The people who told us “love the one you’re with” and “if her daddy’s rich take her out for a meal, if her daddy’s poor, just do what you feel” are now telling us that you have to get signed proof for every stage of sexual contact and even if you do, if she regrets it later, it was rape.  The people who created Animal House are now wondering if its even okay to laugh at it.  People routinely say “that could never get made today” about films like Blazing Saddles, but could you even make Pretty in Pink?  Not according to its star Molly Ringwald.

Russ Douthat recently wrote about this odd shift in of all places the New York Times:

The world of Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford’s youth, the world that’s given us this fall’s nightmarish escalation of the culture war, was not a traditionalist world as yet unreformed by an enlightened liberalism. It also wasn’t a post-revolutionary world ruled by social liberalism as we know it today. Rather it was a world where a social revolution had ripped through American culture and radically de-moralized society, tearing down the old structures of suburban bourgeois Christian morality, replacing them with libertinism. With “if it feels good, do it” and the Playboy philosophy.

After spending 50 years tearing down everything everyone held dear, mocking morality, breaking apart a system of ethics and behavior, cynically undermining all sense of public etiquette and cultural norms… now we’re being told everything they said to do is all wrong.

Suddenly what pretty much everyone has done in the past is grounds for dismissal and attack.  Went to parties and got drunk?  Now you’re a sinister potential rapist.  Got a diary accounting for where you went and what you did?  Got witnesses?  You might need them now; all it takes is a woman to suddenly remember something she says you did, and a political benefit and you’re doomed.

It’s worth rereading the whole post in light of Hogg’s sudden revelation that his party have become a group of killjoys, including the conservation between John Podhoretz who believed the left’s #Metoo and anti-Kavanaugh tactics were “all situational,” and Jonah Goldberg reminding him that “once you use the neutron bomb, the radiation has an effect long after you use it.” Young Mr. Hogg is apparently only just now discovering how long the fallout lasts from one of his party’s biggest moral panics.

And that he’s not immune from its effects, either:

 

Related: The Costs and Consequences of Sexual Liberation. Review: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century by Louise Perry.

Posted at 2:00 pm by Ed Driscoll 330

BUY, SELL IS BETTER THAT WAR, WAR:

Meanwhile: India-Pakistan ceasefire: Life returning to normal in border districts of Punjab.

Posted at 1:44 pm by Stephen Green 139

MICHAEL WALSH: American Caesar.

Best of all, the current resurgence of religiosity among young men means the Pope can both catch the wave and steer it. The entirely predictable collapse of “fourth wave” feminism from licentious hedonism to vengeful litigiousness has led to widespread unhappiness among Western women as they finally realize they cannot have it all, that traditional sex (not “gender”) roles are traditional for a very good reason. This will inevitably lead them to follow their men back into something larger and more fulfilling than the empty promises of a cubicle, meaningless sex, zero domestic skills, and the possession of multiple cats which have been on offer since the 1970s.

For all its faults (and I take a deep dive into them in Rage), the Church has survived from its own fraught early history including the break from Judaism and the wrangling over doctrine, to its adoption by empire, to its preservation of Greco-Roman civilization throughout the so-called Dark Ages as modern Europe was forming, to the glories of 18th- and 19th-century European high culture, and hopefully through its post-World War II nadir to emerge more Catholic, and catholic, than ever.

May Robert Francis Prevost, the Chicago-born Cubs fan, polyglot missionary, dual American-Peruvian citizen, and now Leo LIV, pontifex maximus — “bridge builder” — seize the moment. It does us well to remember that that was Julius Caesar’s title as well.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Will Tax Complexity Force Pope Leo To Renounce His U.S. Citizenship?

Posted at 1:00 pm by Ed Driscoll 196

IT’S COMPLICATED: Russia’s Plans Are Bigger Than Conflict With the West or Camaraderie With China. “When it comes to Russia’s relationship with China, economic and strategic cooperation has visibly intensified but falls short of a ‘partnership’ or ‘overreliance,’ despite frequent claims in Western media. Indeed, there is an asymmetry in the economic relationships that is forecast to increase. In 2023, China-Russia trade jumped to $250 billion, compared to a meager $147 billion in 2021. But there is a lot of noise coming in the other direction too, which signals Putin’s long term game plan to derisk from China. Russian businesses have been quick to voice their concerns over Moscow’s increasing economic ties with China, and remain distrustful of China’s intentions.”

Posted at 12:42 pm by Stephen Green 78