Mogg Mogged Tucker (And What the Commentariat Are Still Missing)

 

On October 2^nd, 2026, Tucker Carlson released his hostile interview with former United Kingdom Conservative MP Jacon Rees-Mogg. That was a bad move for the fired Fox News host.

A wide array of opinions has celebrated Mogg for holding his own against the abusive detours, the unwelcome interventions, and unjustified non sequiturs that Tucker Carlson has become famous for throwing out.

Views tired of Tucker’s pro-Islam, anti-Zionist schtick have praised Mogg for keeping his cool and turning the tables on the former MSNBC-CNN host throughout the entire.

The wide bevy of commentators declared that Carlson finally met his match. Most of the public should have expected as much. The posh UK conservative was one of the few who expertly rebuffed Sasha Baron Cohen’s obnoxious alter ego Ali G nearly thirty years ago. He mocked the liberal comedian without batting an eyelash or breaking a sweat. Remarking on the mockery, Mogg undermined Cohen’s subversive credibility by sharing that he enjoyed the interview. Calm, cool, and collected is the approach, and Mogg took the time to develop clarity of speech under duress.

His excellent takedown of a fake news propagandist masquerading as a journalist is not a first, either, but he capitalized on prior wins to deflate the most obnoxious of the bunch.

Canadian psychologist and intellectual Jordan Peterson’s revealed (and reveled in) his own masterclass on dealing with hostile interviews when he took down Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News in 2018. She repeatedly tried to put words in Peterson’s mouth (as Tucker did with Mogg), but he would gently correct her and set the record straight. At one point, he even laughed at her silly questions.

Elon Musk has also shut down arrogant liberals pushing their agenda under the guise of journalism.  At Twitter's San Francisco headquarters on April 11, 2023, Musk slammed a BBC reporter outright for lying about a supposed increase in hate speech or racist commentary on Twitter (now X) shortly after Musk took over. On July 23, 2026, in Musk’s long and contentious interview with the Economist, he rebuked the reporter’s suggestion that people loathe him for taking on more conservative political views. He retorted (correctly) that more people loathe corporate media talking heads like herself for mischaracterizing people and not reporting the truth. He also pushed back on the empty smear that he was supporting “extreme right” or “far right” policies when he provided a solid list of Democratic politicians in America who had supported secure borders, protection of children, and a rejection of amnesty for illegal immigrants.

It’s worth building on Musk and Peterson to appreciate Mogg’s approach to biased interviewers who insist on putting words in their guests’ mouths all while contorting their remarks and undermining their arguments.

These aggressive, liberal interviews want to enrage their guests, cause them to lose their cool, then take advantage of their flustered state as if to say: “See! You’re wrong about your stance! You are getting angry with me because all I’m doing is just asking questions.”

As if!

Like Peterson and Musk, Jacob Rees-Mogg was prepared, and the audience recognizes that he was comfortable with his views and his answers because he had pondered them for a long time. He spoke cogently, responded calmly without sudden alarm, and he had no problem correcting Tucker’s misunderstanding—or disregard—of history.

How have the pundits responded, and what are they missing?

Triggernometry podcaster Konstantin Kisin rebuffed these celebrations, lamenting that Tucker’s take was not particularly dark or disconcerting. He found Tucker to be unintelligent, and the whole discussion disappointing.

I could not disagree more.

Mogg’s masterful class on mogging (urban slang meaning to outshine, outclass, or dominate someone else—most commonly in physical appearance, physique, height, or presence, making them look inferior or smaller by comparison, cf. Merriam-Webster) Tucker and his insufferable post-liberal arrogance are a clinic for dealing with these fake news propagandists masquerading as journalists.

British conservative Peter Hitchens remarked that Tucker shouldn’t be treated seriously. He faulted Tucker’s lack of knowledge of history, his broad folly about Russia’s GDP vs. the UK, but he didn’t go after Trump’s deprecating self-contradictions. More conservatives need to point out this disturbing habit, then rest on that point to dismiss further discussions with him.

Andrew Klavan sounded off on Mogg mogging Tucker, too. He pointed out that war is justified when an aggressive power attacks, murders, and slaughters innocent civilians. He dismissed their influence because they may have many followers and views, but so what?

Klavan focuses on Tucker’s repartee that the UK should not have entered World War II. He slams the litany of falsehoods that flooded out of Tucker’s mouth. He criticizes the notion that WWII caused the decline of the UK. Klavan correctly points out that European allied nations are collapsing because they have lost the will and the interest in keeping their culture alive.

I would go one step further, though, and this analysis is still missing from the Carlson-Mogg reactions. Why has the West stopped fighting for its values? Because Christian faith has fallen into decline as universities have embraced secular leftist and globalist ideas. I also welcomed his attack on the false dichotomy of having to choose between Nazi rule and Islamic rule. He put Nazi and Islam together vs. Western glory based on Judeo-Christian values, Greek reason, and Roman courage.

Klavan also jumped on Tucker’s naïve argument that the UK is arresting more people for speech than Russia. Mogg mocked Tucker’s brazen ignorance (his confident dumbness), reminding Tucker that Putin routinely jails dissidents, or they suddenly find themselves falling from windows or getting poisoned.

I would add that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian citizens have never enjoyed a culture of robust freedom of speech. While that natural right is under attack in the United Kingdom because of a hostile Labour government and local bureaucrats, Russian citizens have learned to keep their mouths shut, knowing all too well the consequences if they speak out and criticize the regime.

Furthermore, Russia does not respect freedom of religion either. The general public is unaware of this, but as far back as 2016, Russia has heavily restricted proselytizing. Individuals cannot share their faith publicly, yet not a whimper from the Pro-Putin crowd. Mogg should have capitalized on that.

Last of all, many of the chatterati have ignored one of the best parts of the Tucker-Mogg moggery, which occurred when Mogg intimated that Tucker was defending Hitler, and the former MP advised his interviewer that he probably didn’t want to give that impression. Most people commenting on the exchange are not giving Rees-Mogg enough credit: he didn’t resort to direct character assassination, but slyly suggested it, just as Tucker makes snide assumptions about his guests under the guise of “just asking questions.”

Trying to defend himself, Tucker said, “OK, I’m a secret Nazi. Actually, I’m not …”

From Mogg’s reflection on his debate/discussion to the latest comments on the exchange, it’s frustrating that no one has seized on this grating, fundamental problem with Tucker, especially in connection with that Nazi-Not a Nazi remark: Tucker says unserious things, then disavows saying them. If he doesn’t take his own words seriously, why should anyone else?

Run and Hide from "Run, Hide, Fight: Infidels" (Tough Love for Conservative Media)

 

I do not have a Daily Wire subscription, so I miss their movie productions. A friend of mine hosted a group viewing of the conservative media company’s latest movie Run, Hide, Fight: Infidels (RHFI), so that I could see what all the fuss was about.

  After watching most of it, I have no intention of subscribing. 

To their credit, conservative companies are yearning to break into the mainstream entertainment marketplace. Rather than complaining, they are pushing back on the left-wing cultural rot defining American media.

Unfortunately, the Daily Wire’s latest feature fails. It’s contrived, empty, glorying in empty right-wing stereotypes about left-wing agitators, activists, and angry protesters without offering meaningful characters or a believable story. In short, it was not entertaining, and I am a conservative who respects The Daily Wire media vision.

Before excoriating RHFI film in detail, allow me to provide a summary of the movie:

The movie starts with American soldiers staking out a terrorist cell in Somalia. One of the soldiers rushes into the terrorist hideout because he sees a child, but he misses the Islamic militant in the background, and the militant murders the soldier.

Fast forward seven years later, and the soldier who survives the combat scene is now a spokesman and author warning the West about Islam, and he speaks at a university in Loudon County as part of his book tour.

In two other plot threads that take place at the same time, a college student falls in love with the girl in one of his college classes. He invites her to a drinking party in his dorm

At the same time as a budding love interest opens up, we witness one Islamic terrorist, presenting himself as a mere refugee looking for a new life in America, infiltrating the same University as a recent hire. This one terrorist has networked with the left-wing activists on campus (although the batty left-wingers don’t know that his final aim is an Islamic caliphate by force).

The young college undergrad chasing the girl was the most interesting part of the movie. That initial story arc presents the audience with real people attempting to form a real relationship. The roommates were funny too, because they engage in real dialogue in a natural situation. 

In contrast, however, the Islamic militants are crass stereotypes, so laughably unbelievable that they insult the audience and diminish the larger message of “Left-wing universities are useful idiots for terrorism, pandering to Islamic and militant left-wing protesters.” When the terrorist attack occurs, the mass slaughters are vivid and disturbing, but the nonchalant manner of some of the surviving characters does not come off as credible. They almost act like they’re playing in a video game instead of fighting to survive in a high-stakes violent scenario.

At the one-hour-and-20-minute mark of the movie (which was as long as I could stand the movie before tuning out), a former combat veteran suffering from PTSD takes a central role. Earlier in the movie, he spouts off bigoted remarks about Arabs and Islam, but suddenly he shakes off his military jitters and preps for war. Huh? Also, for a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, he looks surprisingly—and thus incredibly—young for a college student!

The movie doesn’t even have a focused tone. From the outset to the Islamic terrorists launching their plot—complete with mass shootings—the film takes on a serious and bloody tone. As the movie progresses, there are blatant attempts at humor where the dialogue isn’t funny, and the movie becomes unwatchable.

When writing a movie review, you should watch the whole thing. I decided to take the movie title literally. I ran and hid, and I fought the urge to be polite and watch the whole thing. Siskel and Ebert said it’s OK to walk out before a movie ends as long as you admit it, so there.

RHFI’s set design was good, the premise is worthwhile, and the actors have potential (even though none of them are big names). However, none of it comes together to make it worth watching.

I don’t fault The Daily Wire for trying. Conservatives should produce alternative media, especially for movie theaters and television. You can pursue and promote meaningful themes with a political message, but the work must entertain as well as instruct. If it’s a blatant message of “college administrators bad, Islam bad, college students wake up to bad, fight the bad to do good,” the whole thing comes off as hollow and unengaging.

Conservatives have to focus on larger messages without the politics.

Or should their movies be more overtly conservative? One great underrated conservative movie is An American Carol, released in 2008. Created by David Zucker of Airplane! and Naked Gun fame, the movie is a brilliant pro-American parody of Charles Dickens’ Yuletide tale. The main character, Michael Malone (a lampoon of the insufferable Michael Moore), hates America and the Fourth of July. To break him out of his left-wing moral torpor, three ghosts of American History visit him and teach him to revere Independence Day and respect everything great about America.

Yes, the movie pushed clearly conservative talking points, but the movie wasn’t pretending to be neutral entertainment. In fact, the parody aspect, including a lot of great puns and slapstick, mocks itself in a self-referential fashion, much like the other Zucker comedies. The movie played in mainstream theaters, too … and it bombed, sadly.

Conservatives can’t catch a break!

If conservatives want to impact the culture and push meaningful, life-enhancing content, including entertainment, they need to explicitly avoid being political. They should learn from J.R.R. Tolkien’s incredible series The Lord of the Rings. The epic is saturated with Christian ideology and symbolism, but nothing overt. One of the most rewarding and enriching stories out there, the final movie in the franchise won all the Academy Awards that it was nominated for in 2004. Granted, Frodo and Samwise don’t tell the audience to vote Republican, but the refreshing eternal themes resonated with audiences then and now. These kinds of cultural enhancing experiences may

Politics is downwind from culture, but culture seeking to be political overshadows its cultural impact and undermines the political message. Turning something cultural into something political is just further downwind from politics, and people will be turned off by it. 

Conservatives have done well sharing the ideas through podcasts, radio talk shows, and articles. Fox News is still one of the highest-rated television stations, and they have an inevitably conservative bent because they allow both sides to be heard, and the conservative side reflects truth, reality, and common sense, while the liberal side tells the public how the world should work, and they better agree or else!

For entertainment to endure, it has to touch us in our hearts as well as our minds, and it has to move us with truthful, accurate portrayals of events and characters with a believable story that will engage us. 

Run, Hide, Fight: Infidels does none of those things. If you're going to do conservative entertainment, you need to focus on conserving eternal and transcendent values and themes, rather than pushing right-wing talking points under the guise of telling a story.

ABC 10 Sacramento Sob Story on Fearful Illegals Backfires Big Time

This news article backfired, big time!

   

Check out the long list of comments beneath this post.

This is a report out of Northern California, where one would think lots of liberals would run to the aid of this old illegal.

But all the comments underneath have condemned her and her family for being in the country illegally.

Mainstream corporate media has always gone out of its way to play up the plight of the "poor undocumented immigrants."

Never do they care about the American citizens or the legal residents. They want to celebrate people who came into our country illegally and who despise our laws and reject our culture and sovereignty.

It's nice to see a growing number of people are not putting up with this anymore, and they are no longer buying the sob stories!

What the Latest No Kings No Show Showed Me

 

In Torrance, California, a large and influential suburb of Los Angeles, the No Kings protests have shown up with frequent vengeance.

From June 14, 2025, to the current election season, registered Democrats, wokesters, progressive leftists, democratic socialists, the full-blown socialists, and the racialist ethno-nationalists have shown up in large numbers to tell the world how much they hate Trump.

They love setting up along the main thoroughfare of the city, standing in front of Torrance City Hall, holding up their banners, calling the President all kinds of evil. Speakers from the main liberal, left-wing, progressive, Berniecrat (you get the idea) clubs throughout the South Bay rally in the main plaza outside of City Hall, urging everyone to vote.

Since last year, the Torrance No Kings protests have been a significant hallmark, gauging the growing resolve of this moment. The numbers of angry protests have rivaled the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and the opposition to COVID-19 health mandates from 2020 to 2021.

Most of the conservative political commentary reviewing the No Kings movement has mocked their self-righteous hypocrisy. These protesters call President Trump a king, but they said nothing when Barack Obama bragged about his phone and pen, and that he was not afraid to use them. They lavished slavish praise on Michelle Obama when she dressed to the nines for White House engagements: “Bow down to the Queen!” they laughed. Of course, they had no problem with senile Joe Biden’s health mandates and repeated efforts to use taxpayer dollars to pay off student loan debt, plus his repeated refusal to secure our border from millions of illegal migrants.

Yet they slam Trump as a wily, overbearing monarch. Of course there’s nothing serious about these protests. If the United States labored under the tyranny of an absolute monarch, they wouldn’t be allowed to protest him in the first place!

The last No Kings protest on October 17^th, 2026, in front of Torrance City Hall had all the markings of a big bust. No Kings turned into a No Show. There was even another planned protest in nearby Hermosa Beach, according to some ads, but one of the protesters in Torrance told me she hadn’t heard about it.

Walking up and down Torrance Blvd. on that Saturday morning, instead of the ten thousand progressive militants (mostly old hippies who missed the memo that the country has long moved past the 1960s), I saw a mere scattering of old woke white liberals standing still and sullen.

I remembered last year the organizers blaring chants on their bullhorns up and down Torrance Blvd. Last year, the sidewalks were teeming with angry liberals demanding the impeachment and removal of Trump while calling for mass confiscation of Elon Musk’s wealth and property. Since Musk’s falling out with the President and his departure from the White House following the DOGE reforms, the No Kings crowds don’t complain about him as much. With less than a month until Election Day, “low energy” was the vibe, and it was a weak one, at that.

This time, despite the lower numbers, the lack of wisdom, nuance, or appreciation for complexity was still considerable. Signs and banners were displaying all kinds of profanity and obscenity, just like before, and there were children present!

I had the opportunity to interview some of the No Kings people, and they didn’t disappoint in terms of the level of imbecility. One guy carried a “No More Stupid Wars” sign. When I asked him about Ukraine, he said he supported that. When I asked his thoughts about World War II, he supported that military effort to stop fascism around the world. When it came to Israel and Gaza, he talked about proportionality. What? War is about defeating the enemy so that they don’t attack you anymore. It’s not tit for tat!

Another discussion about the Democratic bench for the 2028 presidential election was really interesting. I had to ask, since Trump is not on the ballot in 2026, and he won’t be on the ballot in 2028 either. They should be thinking about the future! Strangely enough, the first few that I spoke with didn’t have any strong candidates to consider. How can they not be thinking about 2028? If they hate Trump so much, you would think they would have some candidate to idolize as the solution to all the nation’s ills. I brought Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and one lady remarked that he would be a great candidate. When I pointed out that the increasing anti-Semitism among Democratic grassroots could frustrate his campaign, another reluctantly agreed. Democrats are divided going into the next presidential election season, which might have explained why fewer people showed up at this No Kings Rally.

That’s good news for Republicans already, since Shapiro is the Democrats’ best bet for 20218.

I talked with a few other No Kings baby boomers, and they are leaning more towards retiring California Governor Gavin Newsom. This is lunacy on a whole new level. They live in California, too, I presume. I asked them how they feel about the homeless issue or the lack of road repair, or the high taxes and fees. They always turn the subject to something else. They prop up their candidate as a great leader, but when disaster or dysfunction defines their tenure, these progressives seem to think that the ideal candidate has no power or responsibility in the matter! One thing these protesters all agreed on: They don’t want Kamala Harris to run again!

In my last interview at the Torrance No Kings protest, I met an elderly couple demanding another impeachment of Donald Trump. Democrats tried twice to remove the guy, and not only did they fail, but Trump bounced back stronger than ever. The two senior Democrats were convinced that the third time would discourage Trump and he would just resign. “Are you prepared for President Vance?” I asked them. They didn’t want to discuss that. From there, they went on and on about trumped-up (pun intended) corruption charges against the President, while I asked them if they were OK with open borders under Joe Biden. We had a pretty civil conversation until the end, when the older man got in my face and told me he didn’t want to be recorded. His wife had to drag him away so that he didn’t cause more trouble.

Such was my experience at the latest No Kings protest: a lot of angry, old liberals who can’t explain or justify their anger with President Trump, who had no clear plans for the future, and, judging by the limited turnout, don’t have a lot of enthusiasm going into November!

Grenell Harasses Hermosa Beach Resident for Complaining About Campaign Text

(Response to Ambassador deploys FBI to former Hermosa commissioner’s home)

I wish that The Beach Reporter and written about this, so I am sharing what happened. On October 6th, 2026, Kent Allen, a Hermosa Beach resident, received an unexpected visit from the FBI. Ric Grenell , the former Ambassador to Germany under the Trump Administration, claimed that Kent Allen threatened him. What did he say? We don't know, because Grenell doesn't tell us, pretty much proving that Allen did nothing wrong. The fact is that Grenell got upset with a Hermosa Beach resident because he complained about a text message Grenell had sent out during the campaign season. If Grenell can't handle Hermosa Beach residents complaining about his campaign text messages, then he needs to get out of politics entirely. It is unconscionable and unbecoming for a former official to dispatch law enforcement after a private citizen simply for exercising his First Amendment rights. Trump did the right thing by getting rid of Ric Grenell. What an embarrassment he is! Perhaps the FBI should pay Grenell a visit for filing a false report!

Letter to the Editor: More Dirt on Maywood Academy

 

A more accurate logo for
Maywood Academy High School

After I wrote my article, The Maywood Academy High School Melee, Eight Years Later, one of my followers on Instagram wrote me this letter.

I was horrified by what I read.

See for yourself:

I worked at Maywood Academy the year before this incident [in 2018].

While I was there, we had fights every day, open drug sales, and students watching porn on their cell phones during class. I was told that the year before I started working there, there was an attempted rape of a female teacher in the locker room.

She was severely beaten by the aggressors and hospitalized (it never made the news). I was also informed that 80 % of the students had an IEP. It was actually a school for ED (emotionally disturbed) kids, but they also included a "magnet" program as a cover-up.

School police were never enough. We had LAPD at both am nutrition and lunch.

This is the norm in many schools across California.

Can anyone imagine that schools would become so unruly that city police would have to monitor the campus?

Students getting raped happens all too often, but the fact that teachers have been sexually assaulted is just too much.

How do teachers stay quiet in the midst of all this chaos and corruption? Why do so few speak out? Sure, there are teachers who want to keep their jobs, but why tolerate so much abuse for any paycheck?

Maywood Academy was the site for many crimes, both against children and perpetrated by children.

If this is what public education amounts to, then it's time to pull the plug and get your kids out!

Never Say Die to the American Dream (Book Review of Memoir by Ke Huy Quan)

For 80s kids like me, the movies of the era stay with you, even define you. One of the best is The Goonies. No film better encapsulates the courage and camaraderie of a bunch of boys taking on a challenge and winning. One of my favorite characters is Data, played by Chinese-American actor Ke Huy Quan. I enjoyed his quirkiness, resourcefulness, and humor, which captured the character of the movie.

I like Ke Huy Quan the actor, as well. This former child star had disappeared from Hollywood for years. Then in 2023, he made an incredible comeback in the multi-Academy Award-winning movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. He hit it so big that he won multiple awards during the 2023 season. More than a dream come true or a fantasy only in script houses, Quan’s comeback is the perfect Hollywood story.

Sadly, many child actors’ careers die in a graveyard of missed or misspent potential. They struggle in adulthood, having lost their money to unscrupulous guardians, or they suffer abuse in the industry. Many of them never renew their careers because Father Time has chased away their childhood charm. Ke Huy Quan broke away from that sad pattern, bent the rules, resisted the typecasting—and won big time. His unprecedented renaissance should inspire hope in all of us, and we can relive the amazing ups and downs in his memoir Never Say Die. This book is a must-read with a literary character that should remain on readers’ minds and library shelves for years to come.

His book begins with a hazy memory: his family’s flight from Vietnam during an increased crackdown on the Chinese community. This traumatic escape sets up a major theme in his story: that from a young age, he felt like an outsider trying to fit in. When he got into movies, he felt a sense of belonging, and he stood out among his peers and his family.

We learn about the trials he faced sitting in a jail cell when trying to flee Vietnam, and he endured this incarceration as a child! He walks us through the pain, the turmoil, and the confusion he faced entering Hong Kong as a refugee, then arriving in America. We celebrate his happier times as a famous child actor, but we also respect his perseverance when acting roles dried up, and he started working behind the camera to stay in Hollywood.

Quan’s parents feature prominently in the memoir, and deservedly so. He praises their endurance, their work ethic, and their commitment to giving their children the best life possible.

The subtle literary quality of Never Say Die stands out as Ke develops other key themes (no pun intended) throughout the book. In the first part of his memoir, he writes like a child, communicating with us from a childlike point of view. As the story progresses, the author’s style reflects his growth and awareness not just in what he shares, but in how he retells his history to us.

During his first unpleasant stay in a Vietnamese jail, Ke asks his father when they can go home. His father answers, “Soon.” As an actor in the United States getting back into the craft, Ke wonders if he can make it. His faithful, comforting, supportive wife of twenty years (whom Ke praises throughout the book) comforts him: “Soon.” Reading the author’s success building upon success, we connect how all of Quan’s challenges, frustrations, and disappointments have prepared him for the latest incredible, joyful period in his life.

Ke not only reveals his heart, mind, and soul, but he brings us into the emotionally riveting life of someone in relative obscurity suddenly vaulted into fame and fortune. You feel like you’re living this life with him!

Two of his encounters as a child actor stand out.

First, he became friends with world-renowned music superstar Michael Jackson during his unexpected visit to The Goonies film lot. The same world-famous Michael Jackson would call Ke at home and invite him to a private screening of one of Quan’s movies. Ke writes that the invitation didn’t go to his head, revealing his humble spirit even as an up-and-coming child star.

Ke also met Princess Di and Prince Charles during his press tour for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I loved how he described her in the book: “She felt normal. Kind, polite, genuine. I could see why people loved her.”

Those words describe Ke Huy Quan as well.

Those two encounters stand out specifically because they display how fame affects people in drastic ways. Jackson succumbed to physical problems and drug addiction because of constant public pressure. At one point, he lamented: “I am the loneliest person in the world.” Princess Di died from the excess of fame she endured, as she crashed in a Paris tunnel attempting to flee harassing paparazzi. Thankfully, through rise and fall and rising again to fame, Ke Huy Quan didn't suffer such a terrible fate as Di or MJ. That’s good news and a great story in itself. He didn’t suffer like other child actors after losing their stardom. Part of this success was due to his strong, supportive family. In fact, his mother stayed with him (and, incidentally, protected him) during his childhood film career. Too often, child actors lose themselves or even get harmed on film sets. (Watch An Open Secret for more information).

In the second part of his memoir, Ke describes the new life he would build for himself behind the camera, then chases his dream to return to acting. He writes with a warm, budding invitational tone, showing us how all the hard moments in his life fit together, putting him in the right place at the right time—all at once! After a small role in 2021, he auditioned for EEAAO at the producers’ request. Throughout the process, he exhibits a characteristic humility and gratitude, but also a newly found calm acceptance if he doesn’t get the role (which he is convinced is perfect for him, by the way!)

Ke Huy Quan’s humility is the most engaging aspect, a man you want to meet, whose stories you want to hear. He leads us intimately through what it’s like to be famous, to endure a career slump, then to be famous again, and to remember where you’ve come from.

Quan’s memoir ends with him speaking to the UNHRC Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, Switzerland. There, he revisits his experience as a refugee. Quan’s status as a refugee was both a distant memory and a source of shame for him, an identity he had been trying to flee or suppress. At this stage of his life, with a renewed career, all the pieces of his life, every step of the journey, come together, the same way that seemingly disparate elements in a timeless classic coalesce. After the event, he gets to connect with something very personal, so profound that I don’t want to spoil it for you—you need to read the book!

In his memoir Never Say Die, Ke Huy Quan, wunderkind turned wonderful adult, relishes everything, everywhere, all at once, and we enjoy the ride with him!

His big speech at the Academy Awards captures it all perfectly:

“My journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp. And somehow, I ended up here, on Hollywood’s biggest stage. This is the American dream!”

More Maxine Waters Town Halls: Lots of Noise and No Real Answers

 

Congresswoman Maxine Waters is the only Congressional representative in the South Bay section of Los Angeles County currently holding in-person town halls.

Rep. Waters has no reason to hide, and she could ignore the constituents, since she wins by 75% every cycle. Despite the fact that she easily wins, she shows up for her district. This is the key to her lasting power. She brings home the bacon, she makes all the right connections, she stays in the good graces of local leaders, so she just keeps winning.

But are her constituents winning, too?

She’s been in Congress for thirty-five years, and the cities in her district have gotten poorer, dirtier, more expensive, filled with homeless people, and crime-ridden.

But she keeps getting elected, and she keeps holding her town halls, but will anyone hold her accountable?

On October 3^rd and October 10^th, she held four town halls throughout her district.

Three of them took place in local community colleges. One of them was held in a high school. I attended the three at the colleges. Only one-third to half the seats were filled. Where was everybody?

At every event, the President of the college introduced the event with a Land Acknowledgement. If they feel so guilty about “taking” land from the Tongva/Gabrielino tribes that were running around in the region so many centuries ago, then just go back to wherever you think you came from!

And this was only the first folly from the college presidents.

In their curated introduction, they said that Congresswoman Waters represented Lomita as well as Torrance. During the previous decade, her district did include Torrance and Lomita. Not anymore. How could they be so unprepared? Then they said her latest victory was in 2022. Didn’t she win the election in 2024?

When the 88-year-old Congresswoman finally showed up, she rolled out experts to talk about the issues everyone is concerned about:

·         Housing

·         Affordability

·         Healthcare

·         Election Integrity

·         Immigration

·         Iran

The most famous panelist was Dean Logan, the Registrar-Recorder for Los Angeles County, and he spoke at every town hall on election issues as a courtesy to the Congresswoman. She even bragged that she had been harassing him on the phone about protecting the vote and stopping Trump’s so-called voter intimidation tactics. Logan’ office is supposed to be non-partisan, but he was tipping his hand for the Democrats to win big—most likely because if he doesn’t pander to them, they can cut off his money.

All of the voter precautions he discussed hide the darker reality that Democratic politicians want illegals and non-citizens to vote. Corrupt governments depend on fixing the vote or stuffing the ballot box to ensure their hold on power. Registrar Logan.

On housing, we heard empty talking points about building more. Congresswoman Waters championed a bipartisan bill (The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act) that she worked on with Committee chair French Hill to create a database of available public land as well as rolling back regulations on building materials, a $ 200 million annual grant program to local communities that loosen their zoning laws, and provides a cap on the number of homes that large corporations can open. Repealing bad regulations is good, but bribing cities to throw away their zoning laws is bad, and telling private corporations what they can and cannot buy is just communism. Housing prices are still through the roof in Southern California, despite Waters’ touting this legislation as a success.

The talking heads on affordability and healthcare complained about President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. They whined about the work requirements for recipients to stay on Medicare. These bureaucrats and lobbyists considered eighty hours a month too cruel for able-bodied adults to maintain the government subsidy. (They should get off the dole and get back to work!) They complained about the budget cuts; they complained about the reforms; they complained about the mass firings of federal employees.  To sum up, they complained that the government train of easy money is coming to an end.

The immigration “experts” condemned ICE, accused them of murder (not true), and they encouraged the audience to violate federal law by frustrating the Trump administration’s lawful enforcement of federal immigration laws. What is this?

The panel refused to acknowledge that mass immigration (legal or illegal) means higher costs for everything. Because of the immigration crackdowns, housing costs have actually started coming down in major cities, freeing up the housing market. As expected, Congresswoman Waters’ talking heads wouldn’t discuss bad regulation, high crime, or other issues that actually matter.

The more they complained, the happier I became. President Trump is doing his job, and I am glad that he came back stronger since his previous term.

Then came the question-and-answer periods.

This time around, Waters didn’t throw me out. She probably couldn’t remember me from her January 2026 town hall in Gardena.

At El Camino College, one resident started getting rowdy, and he started yelling at the panelists and the Congresswoman. She was not ready for those disruptions. The man kept bellowing about how he was smarter than everyone else on the stage. The president of the university escorted him out, and two law enforcement officers appeared to keep the peace.

I asked her about the Defund the Police movement in Los Angeles County, and whether she thought it was OK for schools and teachers to keep secrets from parents. In an unprecedented move, she openly differed with the Democratic Socialists of America and made it clear that no city’s police departments were getting defunded. Regarding parents' rights, she hid behind: “I just want everyone to be happy, and I support LGBTQ.”

At the Inglewood town hall, a young woman took to the floor and began yelling and screaming at Congresswoman Waters. Three men in the audience crowded around her to stop her shouting, but she kept yelling. My friend Keith Hardine took the video.

At the Compton town hall, I tried to get her take on biological men invading women’s sports, spaces, and prisons. She refused to defend the women, hid behind this weak argument that the government shouldn’t tell people how to live their lives (as if!), and then declared that she supports the LGBTQ.

At the Southwest College town hall, Louise Solomon of Marina Del Rey yelled at the Congresswoman for violating her oath of office. The whole room erupted, and the Congresswoman shut the meeting down early to avoid further tough questions.

Her constituents have celebrated her for years for delivering government funding for food, housing, and healthcare. How much longer will they tolerate the inaction on all these issues as prices rise and quality of life falls in their communities? This was the first time I had ever seen residents yelling at her from the audience as well.

Is the DSA planning on taking her out in the next election? Will she run in 2028, by which time she will be the oldest member of the House of Representatives? Will her constituents have any patience with her lack of accomplishments? The younger, more socialist generations are getting restless for change, and the older black female Baby Boomers who make up her core support are dwindling fast.

The Demonic DSA Possession of The City of Angeles

Last year, I told New Yorkers to vote for Republican Guardian Angel (and perennial candidate) Curt Sliwa, but prepare for the worst.

Democratic Socialist Mamdani was the favorite from May to November 2025, with polling consistently giving him the edge. Former governor Andrew Cuomo, forever corrupt and incompetent and glorying in self-aggrandizement, was the last person who should have been mayor.

Democrats and Republicans who didn’t want a crazy commie taking over their city glided toward Cuomo. Mamdani had the momentum, though; he had the outsider star power (the fact that he never held down a real job made that edge even easier), and he offered a bold set of ideas … at least to anyone ignorant of history, which describes the vast majority of the educated chattering classes in New York City Upper East or Lower West or anywhere else.

The communist won, and New Yorkers are getting what they voted for. They wanted government grocery stores? They will get lines of people waiting for bread, when across the country the bread waits in line for us. They wanted potholes filled? Good luck keeping the police officers on the force, as well. They wanted cheaper housing? They’re getting rent control, less housing, higher prices, and a feeling that they are better than the suburbs.

New York City is on its last legs, and the voters deserve what’s coming.

A silver lining shines out, though. Democrats to the left of Hochul are failing in New York City. How about electing a governor to the right? Blake ______ is gaining on the incumbent governor, and Democratic celebrities are lining up behind a Republican to keep the Empire State from turning into a rump failed state.

What about Los Angeles?

The same dynamic of left-wing getting its wings is flying on the West Coast. Another deep blue city is looking at voting between bad and worse, dumb and dumber, corrupt and more corrupt as their final choices for next mayor of Los Angeles.

During the June primary, LA voters had a chance to elect common sense, results, and accountability: Spencer Pratt. A victim of the Palisades fires, which devoured multiple homes while Mayor Karen Bass was celebrating the inauguration of the next president of Ghana, Pratt demanded a city that would work for everyone. His campaign? Lock up the criminals, clean up the streets, protect the businesses, and allow everyone to enjoy a better quality of life.

Voters also had the choice of repeat failure, politician-for-life incumbent Karen Bass, or Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)-aligned city councilwoman Nithya Raman.

Raman had won her city council re-election outright in 2024, despite residents and business owners complaining about the neglected, dilapidated state of her district, which stretches from Silver Lake to Encino, with Sherman Oaks and Studio City thrown in for good measure. A richer, higher echelon of voters still voted for the least of all candidates. Homelessness has gotten so bad, that residents staged their homeless sit-in protest outside of her home! How do you like it,  Nithya? The stunts, the anger, the despair spilling onto the City of Angeles might not matter if the polling proves accurate, since all of them point to a Raman victory over incumbent Bass come November.

The Democratic Socialists of America will have realized their greatest feat yet: control over the two largest cities in the country. From there, they can build on the big donor base in the two largest cities and run one of their own for President and more US Senate seats.

Raman, an immigrant from India, educated at Harvard and MIT, blessed with all the goodness that is America, has campaigned on grievance and gain at the expense of those who work for their money or own their property. She hates the West, the wise, the good, and the common-sensical. What Democratic Party apparatchiks have promised for decades, she will deliver: voters for non-citizens, single-payer healthcare, abolition of law enforcement, etc.

California Election Law does not permit a write-in at the General election for mayor, so the voters are stuck between a rock and a prison. Indie journalist Daniel Guss urges LA voters to vote for both to spoil the county and tally their outrage and opposition, but one of them will still win.

The winner is looking more and more like Raman.

And the voters of Los Angeles deserve everything that happens to them.

Can’t they get their act together and vote for someone worthwhile? Decent? Not evil?

Los Angeles hasn’t enjoyed a Republican mayor since philanthropist Richard Riordan, who brought class and competence to city government during his tenure. Despite his endorsement of President Bill Clinton in 1996, Riordan did well by the city. Democratic successors demonstrated some competence of their own, as well as controversy. With the rise of the DSA in the last five years, and their en masse takeover of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, Los Angeles County and Los Angeles city have witnessed a sharp veer to the political Left.

Land Acknowledgements, defunding of the police, LGBT celebrations everywhere, ethnic months and non-profit pandering, reparations boards, protests against Israel, and more attacks on churches and Jews communities have erupted across every level of government in the wake of the socialist spread.

And now the mayor’s race will broaden the bad.

Bass is desperate for support, touting endorsements of local leaders in a recent spate of commercials. She expected a walk in the park as the First Female (and First Black Female) mayor in the city’s history. She’s getting walked and will likely get put out to pasture. Identity politics aren’t getting her across the finish line this time. The LA-aera progressive left has gone full commie, and they want their workers’ revolution NOW! They can out-organize the establishment, overcoming the institutional inertia of the labor unions, big business, and the many lobbyists who made Downtown Los Angeles their second home.

Nithya Raman is the face of the rising socialist uprising, and Los Angeles should get ready for the Bolshevik takeover.

The one silver lining in all of this: Karen Bass deserves to go. She’s a political climber from state assembly to assembly speaker to Congress, who had a shot at Joe Biden’s VP slot, and now LA mayor. To see her political career crash and burn will be fun.

The one question that Raman needs to consider: Is she ready for them when they turn on her, just as the DSA Left has taken Mamdani to task for not moving fast enough to enact their demented agenda? Silly DSA politicians, they never learn: the Revolution always eats its own, especially its enthusiastic thought leaders who fail (because they can’t succeed) to live up to and enact their utopian aspirations.

Finally, here’s my question to the Los Angeles electorate: will four years of DSA madness at the helm of your angelic city awaken you from your regressive leftist woke slumbers to vote for common sense? Perhaps you will vote for Spencer Pratt in four years, perhaps even a Republican? Or are you prepared for the fully demonic DSA possession of your city? Are you prepared to pay for the political exorcism once the city breathes its last?

Response to "Art in Democracy is Essential"

 

James Preston Allen writes, “Art in Democracy is essential.”

Yet he complains that the only art or culture that matters is what makes money, as though that should not be the case.

He should remember what the great English poet Alexander Pope (a Catholic who faced persecution in Protestant England, by the way) wrote about the English language’s greatest writer, William Shakespeare:

"Shakespear, (whom you and ev'ry Play-house bill
Style the divine, the matchless, what you will)
For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight,
And grew Immortal in his own despight."

Shakespeare wrote “To be or not to be” for gain, not glory, not goodwill, not to get a better king christened over the British Isles. He may not have changed the politics of his country, but Shakespeare’s work still stuns, moves, inspires, and influences our world.

Art has to sell. What can be more democratic than allowing the people to choose, pay for what they want to see, hear, and ponder? Art doesn’t sell, doesn’t impress, if the artist insists on shoving a message in our face, advocating a position or a policy at the expense of revealing eternal values and verities.

That matters of value, truth, worth: such concepts have little interest for the Left. All they care about is power, and that’s why left-wing activism under the guise of artistic expression fails to impress every time. Making Art political has caused many artists to fail and has ruined the art scene for the last thirty years.