Open thread 5/7/2026
Ami Kozak is a genius. But to realize that, it helps to have seen the original interview:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Ami Kozak is a genius. But to realize that, it helps to have seen the original interview:
Mark Hamill is facing major backlash after sharing a post on Bluesky depicting President Trump dead in a grave alongside the caption “If Only.”
The image, which was posted directly to Hamill’s verified Bluesky account, shows a seemingly lifeless President Trump lying in dirt beneath a gravestone reading “DONALD J. TRUMP 1946–2024.” Across the bottom of the image are the words “If Only.”
–“Mark Hamill Shares Photo Depicting President Trump Dead, Captioned “If Only”
https://thatparkplace.com/mark-hamill-shares-photo-depicting-president-trump-dead-captioned-if-only
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I’m betting Hamill has brought on himself some serious trouble. After three Trump assassination attempts, at least half the country is fed up and angry. We see how the left is stirring the hate pot for more nuts to come out of the woodwork to take a shot at Trump.
I doubt anything legal will come of it, though the Secret Service may have a few words with Mr. Hamill and I hope they do.
But Hamill has disgraced himself as the heroic, good Luke Skywalker and is likely now too radioactive to represent Star Wars and even Hollywood will know it.
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I saw the image and text posted by Mark Hamill, it represents Trump as having died in 2024, and the text expresses a wish that Trump live long enough to suffer the consequences of his actions, with the implication that Trump will one day rue that he hadn’t died in 2024. There’s really no way to get a death threat out of it or a wish for Trump’s death, unless one posits a time machine. I’m sure it was carefully constructed.
Which makes it worse, in my opinion, being so passive-aggressive and constructed to be deniable. Would be more honest, and braver, to just say you wanted him dead and take the consequences–which in all honesty won’t be all that negative as half the country will applaud–instead of being such a weasel about it.
Luke Skywanker never recovered after the drinking scene before Mary Sue came to his island exile.
Just another actor, Mr. Hamill has proven to be.
https://instapundit.com/795193/#disqus_thread
Huxley:
I wouldn’t be so quick to suggest that Hamill has gone too far for his Hollywood pals to support. The reason he continues to dig his particular rabbit hole deeper is because he has paid no price for it. Nor will he, unless he comes right out and threatens to personally act out his political fantasies on President Trump. Disney, which owns everything Star Wars now after having bought it from Lucas is a hotbed of anti-Trump, anti-American, pro-lgbtqia/dei/feminist zealots and would, I am quite sure put Hamill back in a Star Wars vehicle but for the fact that the “old” Star Wars has been abandoned in favor of the rebooted version in which grrlbosses are the main protgonists, not old fashioned male action hero types.
TabletMag, Peter Theroux, “Princelings of Persia [Barack Obama brought the children and cronies of Iran’s ruling elite into the United States. Now they’re being sent back.]”:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/iran-regime-cronies-deported
Brilliant. He portrays the self-promoting jester as he really is.
A mediocre actor who won life’s lottery with a right place, right time jackpot. Too bad he hasn’t the wisdom to get that.
NC, don’t be naive.
@sdferr:“princeling decadence,” the effrontery of the Islamic Republic’s elite Gen Zers living it up overseas while Iranians go hungry and get shot dead by the thousand at home.
This is why I’m skeptical about the “fanatic clerics trying to bring about the apocalypse” narrative. They don’t act like it. We’ve all heard about “honor killings”. None of these “fanatics” are honor killing their princeling children no matter how trashy their women dress or how much they flaunt it on Instagram. None of the princeling children seem to be seeking martyrdom, even when they’re being deported and would seem to have nothing to lose. They don’t act like they’re going to be beheaded for their depravity by their fathers once they get back to Iran, since they were going back and forth as they pleased, and if any have been beheaded recently I haven’t heard of it.
The martyrdom and apocalypse talk are for the little people, just like the classless society and dictatorship of the proletariat talk were for the little people under Communism. The Iranian elite seem to find the pleasures of this world sweet indeed, judging by their actions.
Something they have in common with the multi-millionaire Obamas and their ilk, I observe. Abstruse Islamic theological blathering, on the other hand, isn’t of much interest to me I happily confess.
To those confused by the last couple of days “reporting” on the Iran war (i.e., the bullshittery aimed at confusing you) and seeking some rebalancing: this cat, Elie Prieprz, gets it. Check him out.
IDSF (26:39):
https://youtu.be/QaD6Gd-inm0
@Steve: I wouldn’t be so quick to suggest that Hamill has gone too far for his Hollywood pals to support.
As I read the tea leaves, woke has gone broke in Hollywood, and they are slowly turning that big ship around, for the money if nothing else.
Disney stock price is barely half its peak in 2022. Disney and the companies it owns, such as LucasFilms and Pixar, have backed numerous mega-expensive flops.
The woke executives have been regularly receiving their comeuppance. Kathleen Kennedy is gone. Bob Iger is on his way out. Showrunners and directors like Leslye Headland and Rian Johnson have peaked and lost power.
Outspoken woke actors Rachel Zegler, Amandla Stemberg and Robert De Niro, are having trouble finding big budget work.
So, Mark Hamill may have his Hollywood loser buddies backing him, but IMO post-Woke Hollywood won’t.
Did the Demon give Tucker a Satanic Transmitted Disease (STD)? Manifesting like late stage syphilis? Seems so.
I’ve read that the push toward electric cars has sputtered, but I see more and more in my my affluent Democrat environs, including many Teslas. I’ve seen only one of those with the bumper magnet “We bought it before we knew how awful he is.”
hamill has gone full sith, one recalls the princes who were adjacent to the hijackers who gerald posner noted, some were relatives of the current crown prince, who perished under unusual circumstances, the sonny corleones of the world,
yes Kathleen Kennedy, like Alfred Molina in the opening in Raiders is gone, but she has wrought great damage to the franchise, like Victoria Alonso at Marvel they were junior executives, at the beginningthey still want to bring back the Acolyte, a greater torture cannot be imagined,
Rian Johnson did seem genuinely clever with looper, and some of the knives off material, but he clearly didn’t know what he was doing, with the Last Jedi,
it was a simple space opera, with a great deal of expanision in the extended universe, that they cannibalized to give us this slop
AI Scott Adams is unusually good today https://x.com/AIScottAdams/status/2052406301829812435
A recent post by Taibbi on Racket News highlighted a NYT article about getting rid of all us geezers (they did not include dumping the dozen or so Democrat octogenarians in Congress*).
Ties in nicely with Art Deco’s link to Instapundit’s story of the raid on a massive Washington State public employee pension plan.
https://www.racket.news/p/new-york-times-old-people-suck-and
“New York Times: Old People Suck and We Should Take Their Stuff —
It’s time to do away with these societal “grifters” and “stowaways,” says an eminent Yale professor”
RTWT
A selection of comments:
JAE Apr 21:
“If they can make you believe absurdities, they can make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire
Eileen Thornton Renda Apr 21:
May the Professor’s own Aging accelerate at warp speed and may he be surrounded by those of a certain age who have read his comments and have taken them personally and with condemnation!
sam Apr 21:
Maybe some have noticed that the Atlantic recently ran a variation on this theme entitled “An Oligarchy of Old People”. The NYT and the Atlantic are the leading establishment media outlets so when they both push the same story simultaneously everyone should pay attention. Maybe the ultimate target of the “wealth tax” is not the billionaires but the boomers and their potential heirs.
[AF: a pretty good guess, considering some of the things Matt wrote in his post]
Shelli Apr 21:
So this type of ageism has been here for a while, but no one has been soulless enough to advocate for it publicly. In 2003 there was a heatwave in France and most Parisians were away in other parts of France on holiday, but the elderly were still ensconced in their apartments – where they started dropping like flies. The younger set seemed to not worry about it, they didn’t care to interrupt their vacations to return to the city to check on grandma.
And, of course, we saw geronticide recently in the States when Cuomo put COVID positive patients into nursing homes.
Ian Stock Apr 22: (referencing the Times link)
114, and I don’t feel a day over 73! Oh, that’s right, I am 73! Yale knows best.
SnowInTheWind Apr 22:
May your next 41 years be the best years of your life!
*See Jeff Childers today on the Democrat party’s polycrisis; it’s a great analysis, and I hope not too optimistic.
However, if the Dems do disappear as a single political party, I have no idea what the follow-up will be. The Whigs gave way to the Republicans, but the only party in line behind the Dems is the Socialists.
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/big-fat-polycrisis-thursday-may-7
@AesopFan:Maybe the ultimate target of the “wealth tax” is not the billionaires but the boomers and their potential heirs.
They have the bulk of the undefended assets, so yes.
But money and property is a sideshow, in a way. Old people can’t eat houses or IRAs, and their houses and IRAs will not care for them when they are too sick to care for themselves. The economy is consumption and production, not money, and as the population ages the relative increase of unproductive consumers is going to force tough choices. It’s not a question of money, but of goods and services. Right now 3-4 working people produce to support one retiree’s consumption. Later it will be 2-3 and then 1-2.
Imagine, when we were young, every single married couple had an invisible old person assigned to them and had to take care of all that old person’s needs. That is effectively the future we are headed for. Unless per person productivity of goods and services can stay ahead of it, which I think is a big if, especially on services.
Bill preventing illegal immigrants from driving also impacts state voter ID laws:
https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_136462f7-4340-44c1-88ab-f12a32aa23bf.html
sure does not look like the Tucker Carlson I have seen. Titling someone as “Carlson” does not make him Carlson.
CICERO:
This is a satire.
Also, did you watch the Times interview? Some excerpts:
It’s shocking to see Carlson, in his own disingenuous way, call President Trump the Anti-Christ. Not an anti-Christ, which there have/will be many, but THE Anti-Christ.
As I said previously, I heard a podcaster on a Christian radio station, make the same claim. It’s appears to be rather pervasive in the Rumble world of podcasters
To get there, your hatred of Israel has to form your theology (replacement) to an extent you belief he is working on Satan’s behalf, will rise up and oppose God during the tribulation. Which throws everything about biblical prophecy on it’s head as these people are calling Trump the Anti-Christ because he is a staunch supporter of Israel.
I suppose, given Carlson’s biblical illiteracy, he doesn’t know what role the Anti-Christ will fulfill in the end times.
Neo: Thank you for posting those clips from the interview.
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@AesopFan:Maybe the ultimate target of the “wealth tax” is not the billionaires but the boomers and their potential heirs.
Willie Sutton, a bank robber, was asked why he robbed banks. He answered, or is reputed to:
Because that’s where the money is.
Whether he said it or not, it has spawned Sutton’s Law:
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Sutton’s law states that when diagnosing, one should first consider the obvious. It suggests that one should first conduct those tests which could confirm (or rule out) the most likely diagnosis. It is taught in medical schools to suggest to medical students that they might best order tests in that sequence which is most likely to result in a quick diagnosis, hence treatment, while minimizing unnecessary costs. It is also applied in pharmacology, when choosing a drug to treat a specific disease you want the drug to reach the disease. It is applicable to any process of diagnosis, e.g., debugging computer programs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton%27s_law
Short version:
Giggly cum sourpuss pundit, who sold his soul to Lucifer, hysterically decries DJT for being the anti-Christ…(!?)
Hmm, as long as we’re at it…
Constantly lying Media bitterly accuses DJT of being less than forthcoming…(?)
BOOM – MORE WINNING!! 115K new jobs added in April, March numbers revised UP!!!
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2026/05/boom-more-winning-115k-new-jobs-added.html
@ Niketas > “Imagine, when we were young, every single married couple had an invisible old person assigned to them and had to take care of all that old person’s needs.”
When I was young, that was called “families taking care of their parents and other elderly relatives.”
They were not invisible.
It’s also embedded in “Thou shalt honor thy mother and thy father.”
We (meaning the country under FDR and going forward) have “off shored” that responsibility to the government.
True, some elderly people do not have young family members, or the ones they have shirk their duties, or are not able to fulfill them. I know plenty of people whose churches and friends help out even in addition to family and government aid, but it’s haphazard and I don’t say we should go back to that era completely
However, the unspoken problem is that people are not getting married and having children in enough quantity to go back to having 3-4 people supporting one “invisible” oldster, even if we wanted to.
Personally, it seems to me that the Yale professor is advocating taking MY money (that I hope to use so that MY children don’t HAVE to take care of ME, and hopefully passing some along so that THEY can take care of themselves and THEIR children) and giving it to a lot people who CHOSE not to marry and procreate (or worse, aborted their potential descendants) — so, count me unconvinced.