In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Bishop Conley on just war doctrine: "One could make [a] consequentialist, utilitarian argument... But Catholics cannot accept such arguments. There are certain standards for which we stand, regardless of consequences. Period." https://t.co/rAxvCp4uwE — Edward Feser (@FeserEdward) May 11, 2026 Edward Feser recommends an essay at the National Catholic Register by Bishop of Lincoln, NE James Conley, Just War 101: Catholic Teaching for a Dangerous Moment . It claims to be a review of Catholic "Just War doctrine", but its statement of this doctrine, even as it cites the Catechism, is seriously incomplete, and I think it also has several problems of both focus and logic. Let's take the biggest problem of logic first. He cites the case of Father George Zabelka, "a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force [who] served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." In August of 1945, he was called upon to ...

🚨 JUST IN: LA mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt announces Los Angeles criminals and homeless degenerates will have 2-3 WEEKS after he gets into office before MASS ARRESTS ensue "First 3 weeks: signups, no nakedness, no drug use, no robbing, no dog abuse." Love this guy MORE AND… pic.twitter.com/exoqW3j28e — Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 10, 2026 I'm seeing a lot of wild predictions about Spencer Pratt's electoral chances with very little backup -- most of it is just an adrenaline rush following laast week's ads, the most visible of which didn't come from his campaign. Here's Tyler Durden yesterday : Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, best known for his role on MTV’s The Hills, is gaining traction on online prediction markets, including Polymarket and Kalshi, as well as local polling, after a series of viral campaign videos and last week’s mayoral debate. Pratt’s campaign has released hard-hitting viral ads that have spread across ...

I ran into a YouTube commentary by an Australian lady more or less at random, but in the middle, she made a point I hadn't seen before: Tucker Carlson's wonderful new Muslim audience is courtesy of state media in certain Islamic countries. I was puzzled at this, because the Arab states are positioned against Iran, which Carlson supports. Poking around farther, I got this response from Chrome AI mode: Tucker Carlson's content is being broadcast by state media in certain Islamic countries, most notably Iran. Current reporting and social media evidence from early 2026 indicate that the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the country’s state-controlled media, has been airing his interviews dubbed into Persian on its 24-hour news channels. State TV has utilized Carlson's segments to support its own narrative, specifically amplifying his criticisms of Western foreign policy and Israel. Observers note that his commentary often aligns "point for poin...

The video embedded above is YouTuber Brandon Tatum's astonished reaction to Tucker Carlson's disastrous interview witn Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the New York Times, which is entertaining enough, but he also interposes Megyn Kelly's commentary, "Tucker sat down with Lulu, and Tucker handled himself, of course, very, very well. . . . Any sort of would-be trap she was laying, he saw from a mile away." It's as if she saw an entirely different interview from the one everyone else watched. But that took me back to her "hostage video" that I discussed Thursday , where she explains to captive Mark Halperin about the wonderful new audience of young Muslims that she and Tucker are reaching. Her typical wardrobe, though, isn't exactly Muslim-friendly, so it's hard to imagine what kind of Muslims are tuning in to watch her. In other words, I'm not sure if she understands much about Islam -- certainly if she wanted to appeal to Muslim sensibi...

Spencer Pratt’s LA mayor ads are incredible. pic.twitter.com/uEge9Q9yyH — Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) May 5, 2026 On Monday , I poated about Spencer Pratt's campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, focusing on an ad -- at the time, it wasn't clear that his campaign had in fact not commissioned it, but this is the case. But within days, two more independent, "fan produced" ads have come out : one, embedded above, is based on The Dark Knight Rises ; the other, embedded below as part of a Mark Halperin 2WAY segment, is based on the Hitler-in-the-bunker scenes in Downfall . But then there was an enmtirely separate development: at a Wenesday night debate, Pratt wiped the floor with his two opponents, incumbent Karen Bass and Democratic Socialist Mamdani clone Nithya Raman. (Some commentators get several things wrong about the candidates -- first, Los Angeles City elections are "non-partisan", and candidates don't idenmtify by party, and second, Pratt, although ...

Megyn Kelly is excited about her and Tucker’s new Muslim audience- “he’s defending Islam!” 🥴 pic.twitter.com/cQM0ZLDCba — Ally (@AllyJKiss) May 6, 2026 The remarkable thing about the video embedded above is that Megyn Kelly has Mark Halperin on for over a minute, but all he's there for is to interject "Yup" and "Right" a few times into what she's saying -- which is basically that she and Tucker are reaching a wonderful new audience of young Muslims. In other words, this is a hostage video, and when the camera shows his face, he doesn't seem happy at all. This piece on Twitchy notes that she's done a 180 in the course of four months and speculates she must have bills to pay. But why is she bringing Mark Halperin along with her? Halperin has had some major career struggles. His Wikipedia entry suggests he'd been vulnerable since the Dubya years for leaning a little too Republican, but once Obama was president, he really began to get into hot ...

Salem Media owns a number of nominally conservative and "Christian" radio stations, as well as "conservative" web sites like Instapundit, PJ Media, Red State, Hot Air, Twitchy and Townhall, but it isn't doing well with them : According to its annual report for the year ended Dec. 31, 2025, Salem posted total net revenue of $212.7 million, down from $237.6 million in 2024, a decline of about 10% year over year. The company reported a net loss of $34.6 million, reversing net income of $16.2 million in 2024. On a per-share basis, Salem posted a loss of $1.11 compared with earnings of $0.59 per share the prior year. Yesterday I looked at Glenn Reynolds (the eponymous Instapundit) and his ideas about AI, but I also found a post on the Instapundit site pointing (incestuously, as so many posts there do) to a piece on another Salem Media site, PJ Media, Famed Atheist Richard Dawkins — Author of ‘The God Delusion’ — Believes AI Is Conscious : Dawkin...