April 10, 2025

JUST LIKE THE SOVIETS HELPED FUND THE PEACE MOVEMENT, BUT MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE:

Posted at 2:36 pm by Stephen Green

OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: The Unbounded Anti-Semitism of the BBC.

Anyone who has seen the BBC’s coverage of Gaza and Israel since October 7—among them the 1.1 billion people who look at the BBC’s news site every month, making it the most widely read on the planet—will have seen how slanted its reporting is. But the problem began decades before October 7, and it is now difficult—impossible, really—to argue the case I tried to make on that panel. The evidence suggests that the problem with the BBC’s coverage of Israel is far broader and stems from its attitude to Jews themselves. Even Danny Cohen, former controller of BBC One, the corporation’s main broadcast channel, now says the organization is guilty of “systemic problems of antisemitism and bias.”

Whatever the history, it has come to a head in a documentary broadcast by the BBC in February called Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone. Though it was ostensibly a piece of independent journalism showing the impact of the Gaza war on its 13-year-old narrator, within hours of its transmission, it emerged that the boy was in fact the son of a minister in Gaza’s Hamas government. Equally egregious examples of the distortions in the program were uncovered subsequently.

The discovery that Abdullah al-Yazouri, the 13-year-old, was the son of Hamas official Ayman al-Yazouri was the work of David Collier, a retired businessman who has turned his attention in recent years to online research. He says it took him less than three hours to find out the boy’s background. The BBC now says it asked the film’s producers, Hoyo Films, whether there were anything of concern about the boy and was told there was nothing. It does not seem to have occurred to anyone at the world’s (self-proclaimed) leading news organization that it should and could check for itself. Not a single one of its 5,500 journalists was asked by managers or editors to take a look at the film to check its bona fides.

That seems unlikely to have been a mere oversight. Rather, it is a byproduct of the mindset that dominates the BBC’s thinking. If your worldview is that Israel is by definition evil and Gazans virtuous, you will always be ready to accept anything that seems to buttress such a view.

Related: ‘Reverts?’ The BBC is spouting Islamist talking points.

We have become accustomed to the BBC adopting the language of trans activists. ‘Gender care’ is how the UK’s supposedly impartial state broadcaster refers to the scandalous process of sterilising children who are confused about their sex. ‘Preferred pronouns’ are rigorously observed for men who claim to be women. Could we now be seeing something similar at the BBC where Islamic fundamentalists are concerned?

Whether wittingly or not, an article published on the BBC News website on Friday essentially declared Islam to be humanity’s one true faith. It was a fairly anodyne, magazine-style piece about how people who convert to Islam can sometimes feel lonely during Eid, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. Yet in the headline, and peppered throughout the piece, it referred to these converts as ‘reverts’ – a term loaded with Islamist ideology.

“Gender care?” “Preferred pronouns?” Islamic “reverts?” If, as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function,” the Beep is functioning surprisingly well. But as Fraser Myers of Spiked wrote, “There’s been no Islamist takeover of the Beeb, of course. The problem is that in the BBC’s PC worldview, Muslims are seen as a perpetually oppressed group. The BBC then seeks to rectify this alleged oppression through ‘positive representation’ in its content, and by letting self-appointed activists have editorial influence. ”

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

CHRISTOPHER RUFO AND DAVID REABOI: How “Tesla Takedown” Activists Fool the Public. The campaign against Elon Musk’s company is hardly a grassroots movement.

The Tesla Takedown isn’t merely a protest; it is an exercise in pressure politics. Tesla was the pressure point, and Elon Musk was the proxy for the forces of capitalism, fascism, and oppression. The campaign reflects a calculated application of the diversity of tactics approach, blending nonviolent protests with strategic acts of property damage intended to generate fear and economic pain.

The campaign’s architects knew that neither protests nor arson alone could delegitimize Tesla. But together—through contrast, escalation, and repetition—they could push public opinion, dampen consumer enthusiasm, and threaten capital flow.

Ultimately, the anti-Tesla campaign reveals the strategic logic driving modern protest movements. The Left relies on weaponized ambiguity, using its professional flank to draw headlines and its militant wing to impose costs and thereby achieve political objectives.

Because of the campaign’s massive scope, as well as First Amendment constraints, law enforcement and policymakers have been slow to recognize the far-left’s activist ecosystem. Those responsible for our security need to understand how violent and nonviolent agitators work together to advance their revolutionary goals.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll 11

AS IT WAS SO SHALL IT BE: Modern Democrats reveal their true intentions align with those of the Confederacy.

“So, I had to go around the country and educate people about what immigrants do for this country, or the fact we are a country of immigrants. The fact is ain’t none of y’all trying to go and farm right now,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said at a speech commemorating Grace Baptist Church’s 125th anniversary in Waterbury, Conn.

“You’re not, you’re not. We done picking cotton. We are. You can’t pay us enough to find a plantation.”

A cheap, illegal workforce is necessary, the Democrats argue, and the peoples of Mexico, Honduras, Haiti and other nations should be forced to fill it.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) agrees, stating in a hearing last year, “Forget the fact that our vegetables would rot in the ground if it weren’t being picked by many immigrants, many illegal immigrants.”

In January 2025, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) pressed the then-agriculture secretary nominee, Brooke Rollins, during her nomination hearing about the impact of losing illegal labor.

“It’s estimated that half of California’s farmer workforce is undocumented. How are farmers in California supposed to survive if there are truly mass deportations in which half of the workforce is sent out of the country?”

“Americans don’t want to do that work. It’s frankly too backbreaking. So, who’s going to work the farms?”

Do Democrats — the party of woke and cancel culture — realize how racist they’re being?

Would they care if they did?

Anyway, do read the whole thing.

Posted at 1:47 pm by Stephen Green 86

FOX BUTTERFIELD, CALL YOUR OFFICE!

In December of 2009, SF Weekly had this classic Fox Butterfield-esque line: “Despite its spending more money per capita on homelessness than any comparable city, [San Francisco’s] homeless problem is worse than any comparable city’s.”

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll 74

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Anderson Cooper gets brutal woke fact check live on-air while introducing civil rights attorney.

Anderson Cooper suffered an embarrassing moment as he hosted a town hall event for Bernie Sanders where he misgendered a civil rights attorney.

It came as the CNN host readied activist Grace Thomas to ask the Vermont Senator a question, saying in his introduction: ‘She’s a local civil rights attorney, she’s a democrat, Grace?’

‘It’s they/ them pronouns, actually,’ Thomas responded.

Anderson quickly responded ‘oh’, before Thomas got on with their question about why young men of varying demographics are fleeing the Democratic Party.

After a clip of the misgendering faux pas went viral, some viewers felt that Thomas’ question answers itself.

‘Who’s going to tell her?’ one X user said.

‘It is exactly because of people like her and their behavior that people are turned off and turned away from the Democratic Party.’

Another observer disagreed, saying: ‘Ironically this highlights exactly how easy this should be. Lol see how he didn’t melt into 1000 pieces.’

Earlier: White House Uses Reporters’ Pronouns, Just Not the Way They Intended. “When confronted about this practice, [White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt] delivered a devastating response: ‘Any reporter who chooses to put their preferred pronouns in their bio clearly does not care about biological reality or truth and therefore cannot be trusted to write an honest story.’ Fact check: True.”

UPDATE:

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll 47

THE MOST CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY:

Then again, since Biden’s administration was more or less a continuation of Obama’s, the corruption comes as no surprise. I suppose having a figurehead allowed it to truly fester, though.

Posted at 12:45 pm by Stephen Green 103

RUE BRITANNIA:

Posted at 12:42 pm by Glenn Reynolds 53

WHEN YOU REALIZE THAT ENVIRONMENTALISTS BASICALLY WANT TO MAKE LIFE WORSE FOR NORMAL PEOPLE, EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE.

Posted at 12:38 pm by Glenn Reynolds 118

OK, WHO’S BRINGING THE POPCORN? Reuters is reporting that Sarah Palin and the New York Times are headed back to a courtroom where the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate will try convincing a second jury the newspaper defamed her in an editorial about gun control.

My sentiments here.

 

Posted at 12:29 pm by Charles Glasser 19

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT, MUCH VENTING OF SPLEEN: Chuck Todd Finally Confesses but There’s a Catch. “Dinosaur legacy media has-been Chuck Todd finally admitted that he helped hide Joe Biden’s decline because he didn’t want to help Donald Trump. But there’s one little problem with Todd’s confession: He doesn’t understand that he’s guilty of anything.”

Posted at 12:14 pm by Stephen Green 34

COLONIALISM, STRAIGHT UP:

Posted at 11:58 am by Stephen Green 117

NIFTY: New Design Means SpaceX Can Launch More Starlink Satellites at a Time.

In 2024, SpaceX typically launched 20 to 23 Starlink satellites per launch. But last month, it increased the number to 27 and 28 per flight while using the same Falcon 9 vehicles. This comes after it made a design change to the V2 Mini Starlink satellite, which can deliver 96Gbps of network bandwidth each.

The V2 Mini satellites debuted in early 2023, with the goal of delivering even higher quality broadband on the older V1.5 satellites. Since then, SpaceX has improved the design, resulting in the “V2 Mini Optimized.”

I’m excited to see what the bigger and faster V3 brings once Starship comes into service.

Posted at 11:43 am by Stephen Green 33

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Does Social Security have a dead beneficiary problem after all?

Millions of invalid numbers don’t exist for no reason:

Previously: Democrats are absolutely terrified of Elon looking into Social Security.

Posted at 10:55 am by Stephen Green 194