January 8, 2026

ANALYSIS TRUE:

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

JOHN CLEESE MORPHED INTO THEODORE DALRYMPLE SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: John Cleese tears into BBC over Iran bias row as actor fumes he’s ‘ashamed’ of broadcaster: ‘It doesn’t want to offend Islamists!’

In one of the most high-profile rows, the Israeli embassy publicly slammed the BBC over its reporting on the Iran protests, with embassy spokesman Alex Gandler claiming the broadcaster has maintained “near-total silence” on the demonstrations while devoting excessive attention to Gaza.

Iranian journalist Mani Barsharzad has added to the criticism, telling GB News that many Iranians perceive the BBC as biased in its coverage of the protests.

“There is a bias there because it doesn’t fit the narrative,” she said. “The narrative, which they want to say is ‘it is their own culture’. ‘If the Islamic Republic is oppressive, it’s because the people want that.’ But this is not the reality.”

Now, Mr Cleese has joined the critics. He took to X, where he reposted criticism of the broadcaster from the likes of Sharron Davies and Jake Wallis Simons, among others taking aim at the Beeb over the supposed lack of coverage from Iran.

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But then, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, to coin a phrase:

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Related: Coming Soon: The Iran Civil War of 2026?

(Classical reference in headline.)

UPDATE:

MORE:

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

FRAUD IGNORED: Former Homeland Security investigator reveals how fraud cases weren’t prosecuted.

Christenson told Collin that “around 2015, a case landed on my desk from my supervisor. He advised me that the state was running a fraud case regarding daycare fraud in Minneapolis through Health and Human Services or Department of Human Services.”

“Over the next several weeks and months, I attended … planning meetings with this task force of about 20 personnel of various law enforcement agencies, the Health and Human Services, BCA, St. Paul PD, Minneapolis PD and it was all revolving around fraudulent daycares,” Christenson said.

“They were setting up sham daycares, fake bills, fake students, or just enrolling students that never came,” he added.

Christenson also pointed out a suspicious detail: “Never — not one of the daycares I served warrants on, not one person was ever present.”

As for evidence, he explained how investigators found “empty buildings, stacks of invoices, and student records of people that our surveillance showed never went there.”

But what happened next has bothered Christenson ever since. He said the investigative task force “all of sudden, it just evaporated — just went away into thin air.”

It’s one thing to expose the fake daycare centers, but now investigators need to follow the money.

Posted at 4:53 pm by Stephen Green

LET THE DENATURALIZATIONS AND DEPORTATIONS BEGIN:

Posted at 4:37 pm by Stephen Green

IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Re-Ranking China After ‘Absolute Resolve’ (and Russia, Too). “If global power rankings came out every Monday morning like they do for the NFL, this season’s strongest playoff contender just got knocked down a notch or two after a stunning shutout this weekend to the seasoned vets of Operation Absolute Resolve.”

Posted at 4:22 pm by Stephen Green

INCITEMENT:

Posted at 4:06 pm by Stephen Green

“EXPERT” DOESN’T MEAN WHAT IT ONCE DID:

Related:

If you want to escape, say, $38 trillion in debt, you can either default, inflate, or grow your way out.

Trump has chosen that last option.

Posted at 3:44 pm by Stephen Green

THIS ACCOUNT HAS PROVIDED LOTS OF GREAT VIDEO FROM IRAN, BUT NOW THIS…:

I hate to think Iran shut down comms to commit mass atrocities, but that is what I’m thinking.

UPDATE: “Amid Iran’s internet shutdown, Elon Musk has quietly enabled free Starlink access for protesters, according to people familiar with the matter.”

Posted at 3:29 pm by Stephen Green

INTERESTING:

Posted at 2:49 pm by Stephen Green

HMM:

Stay tuned.

Posted at 2:36 pm by Stephen Green

JAMES PIERESON: Socialism is a hate crime.

It is remarkable that, despite its long record of failure, socialism is now more popular than ever among college students and in progressive precincts of the Democratic Party, at least judging by the cult status of figures such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Now an avowed socialist has been elected mayor of New York, the commercial capital of the United States and home to that great capitalist institution, the stock market. Even more recently, socialists here and around the world have spoken out in unison against the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, the socialist dictator of Venezuela.

It is ironic that these socialists, along with their supporters and fellow travelers, like to censor conservatives for, allegedly, promoting “hate” and “division.” On that basis, they have banned conservative speakers from appearing on college campuses, and just a few years ago urged Twitter and Facebook to close the accounts of conservatives who spoke out against socialism.

This raises the question: given the historical record, why don’t we label socialism as a hate crime?

After all, the evidence for socialism’s malignant effects is obvious to anyone with sufficient curiosity to open a history book. Socialists are responsible for the murder, imprisonment, and torture of many millions and perhaps hundreds of millions of innocent people during the ideology’s heyday in the middle of the twentieth century. That history of murder and tyranny continues on a smaller scale today in the handful of countries living under the misfortune of socialism—Cuba, North Korea, and (most recently) Venezuela.

How do socialists escape the indictment that they are purveyors of tyranny and mass murder? Some of them deny that Stalin, Mao, and others were true socialists or, equally absurdly, assert that true socialism has never really been tried. But socialism has been tried many times in many places and has always failed.

Read the whole thing. As Tom Wolfe wrote in in his 1976 article, “The Intelligent Co-ed’s Guide to America,” Solzhenitsyn “said that not only Stalinism, not only Leninism, not only Communism—but socialism itself led to the concentration camps; and not only socialism, but Marxism; and not only Marxism but any ideology that sought to reorganize morality on an a priori basis. Sadder still, it was impossible to say that Soviet socialism was not ‘real socialism.’ On the contrary—it was socialism done by experts!”

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

THEY WON’T BE SWAYED BY FACTS, REGARDLESS: Don’t Tell Gun-Grabbers That Murder Rates Plummeted While Gun Ownership Has Surged.

The United States added tens of millions of first-time gun owners since 2020. NSSF estimates about 26.2 million Americans bought their first firearm between 2020 through the end of 2024, including an estimated 8.4 million first-time buyers in 2020 alone. NSSF-adjusted verification background checks tied to retail sales suggest Americans purchased roughly 21.1 million firearms in 2020 and about 14.6 million in 2025.

NSSF reports those adjusted checks remained above one million per month for years, totaling roughly 86 million since July 2019. At the same time, the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) operations reporting shows 2020 produced 39,695,315 unadjusted NICS background checks, the highest year in the history of the system.

If “more guns equals more murders” were a dependable rule, this is the period when the trend should be unmistakable and persistent. Except it isn’t.

Only 26.2 million new gun owners? Those are rookie numbers.

Posted at 1:47 pm by Stephen Green

GREAT MOMENTS IN LATE NIGHT ENTERTAINMENT:

That feminist agenda was so forward-looking that a decade ago, the New York Times was assuring its readers that the Soviet Union was basically one giant Playboy Mansion: Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism.

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Posted at 1:34 pm by Ed Driscoll