The Arday Affair

Matt Walsh’s new episode is less a recap of the Jason Arday scandal than a look at what the scandal produced. After the Cambridge professor’s death, a crowd gathered in Trafalgar Square to treat a man whose record was already collapsing under plagiarism claims and an implausible life story as a hunted racial martyr. Walsh plays the footage, the speeches, and the demands for media control. The point is not simply that Arday’s career does not survive scrutiny. It is that a certain politics would rather canonize the wreckage than admit the hiring, the standards, and the story were the problem.

You can watch Walsh's podcast here: [VIDEO]

The Politics of Gaslighting

Konstantin Kisin, the Russian-born comedian, Triggernometry co-host, and author of An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West, sat down with John Anderson and said something most British politicians still won’t: the country is poorer than its people think, and the people in charge keep telling them otherwise.

Watch the conversation: [VIDEO]

The interview is called “The Politics Of Gaslighting.” Kisin walks through the numbers without the usual hedging. Most Britons, according to polling he cites, still believe their country is in the same wealth league as Switzerland, Singapore or Australia. On a per-capita basis it isn’t. Britain sits much further down the table and is close to being overtaken by Poland. The pie is shrinking. The argument is over who gets the next slice.

That’s the part that travels. GDP can be juiced by importing more people. Per-person living standards are a different story. Kisin’s point is that the political class has every incentive to keep measuring the first number and ignore the second. Anderson, who has seen the same productivity stall in Australia, keeps asking the obvious follow-up: how do you tell people the truth when they have been trained to treat it as an attack?

Fractured Media, Firm Principles

 In this clip from his recent appearance on the PBD Podcast, Ben Shapiro addresses the broad drop in views and engagement across much of conservative media since the intense political year of 2024. He breaks down the different audiences that various right-leaning personalities actually reach and draws a clear line: he would rather have lower ratings than abandon his principles. Shapiro says he prefers Democrats not running the country over chasing clicks that depend on perpetual conflict, and he notes that he has held positions (on 2020, January 6, and other issues) that cost him audience rather than reverse course for numbers.

Watch the short clip: [VIDEO]

The Default We’re Forgetting

 Jeremy Boreing’s latest monologue, Hasan Piker and Candace Owens Are Selling You Third-World Thinking, is one of the clearest things he’s done. He starts with two trials running at the same time in America and uses the distance between them to measure how far we’ve drifted from what made the West different in the first place.

One trial is in a courtroom in Provo, Utah. Prosecutors spent months building a case the hard way: eyewitnesses, security footage, forensics, DNA, handwriting, the actual rifle. Rules bind everyone. The accused is presumed innocent. Evidence has to survive cross-examination. It is slow, adversarial, and impersonal. That process is not natural. It is the product of centuries of deliberate cultural work.

The other “trial” happens behind a podcast mic. There is no judge, no burden of proof, no fixed standard of evidence. Verdicts arrive by likes and shares. Narratives shift week to week. Gossip and social proof do the work that evidence used to do. Boreing points at Candace Owens’ treatment of the Charlie Kirk case as the clearest current example on the right, and at Hasan Piker’s cheerful defense of theft as “collection on a debt” as the left’s version. Different aesthetics. Same underlying operating system.

You can watch Boreing's monologue here: [VIDEO]

WNBA Avoids Defining “Woman”

Credit: ESPN

A WNBA task force of team presidents and general managers met Wednesday and discussed transgender athlete participation. They produced no new eligibility policy.

The league’s statement afterward was careful and limited:

Today’s meeting covered a wide range of topics, including ongoing discussions on transgender athletes and the continued hate and vitriol directed at players online. We will continue to engage all league stakeholders in the coming weeks and months. We will approach these important conversations thoughtfully and in alignment with the values of our league. There are no immediate eligibility matters affecting the WNBA, and we strongly denounce the bad-faith efforts to use these topics to demean or marginalize others.

That is the full public position for now.

The current collective bargaining agreement says only that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.” It supplies no further definition of “woman,” no reference to sex assigned at birth, no hormone thresholds, and no transition requirements. The league has never had a publicly detailed policy on transgender or intersex athletes. No transgender woman (someone male at birth who identifies as female) has ever played in the WNBA. Two nonbinary players who were female at birth have.

The immediate pressure came from two directions. Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham said in a July ESPN profile that she wants to “protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” She later called the position “common sense.” Those comments produced small rallies and counter-rallies at Fever games.

Then two former NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, announced they identify as women and intend to declare for the 2027 WNBA draft. Their moves were widely understood as an attempt to force the league to clarify the vague language in its rules. The league’s statement appears to treat those declarations as the “bad-faith efforts” it denounces.

Commissioner Cathy Engelbert had already told teams the issue would be discussed and that eligibility rules are collectively bargained. Any real change would require negotiation with the players’ association. The task force is expected to keep talking with stakeholders in the coming weeks and months.

The practical situation remains what it was: the category “women” is left undefined in the governing document of a league built around sex-segregated competition. That gap is what the current controversy keeps exposing. Institutions that rely on sex-based categories while declining to define the category invite exactly this kind of pressure—political, legal, and rhetorical. Whether the WNBA eventually draws a clearer line, and what that line looks like, is still unresolved.

Relevant links

• WNBA task force stops short of new transgender athlete eligibility policy (Fox San Antonio / National News Desk)
• WNBA task force discusses transgender athletes amid furor (ESPN)
• WNBA denounces 'bad-faith' transgender debate and says league has no eligibility issues (Washington Post)
• WNBA’s Inclusion Policy Is Too Vague Amid Trans Athlete Debate (Bloomberg Opinion)
• Sophie Cunningham’s comments on transgender athletes (Sporting News)
• Enes Kanter Freedom formally declares for 2027 WNBA Draft (OutKick / Fox News)
• Royce White declares for 2027 WNBA Draft (OutKick / Fox News)

The Repairman Calls Out Tucker Carlson

The laptop story keeps expanding.

First came Tucker Carlson’s long interview with Hunter Biden, in which Hunter said he has no recollection of dropping a laptop off at a Delaware repair shop. Then came Ben Shapiro’s sharp reaction, mocking the two men as “silver spoon rich kids” complaining about elites while floating contested claims about the laptop’s origins.

Now the man at the center of the original repair-shop story has answered.

On Thursday morning, John Paul Mac Isaac appeared on the PBD Podcast.

Watch here: [VIDEO]

Mac Isaac is the owner of the Wilmington shop where the water-damaged laptop was left in 2019.

What Happened in Wisconsin?

 Bill O’Reilly breaks down the Wisconsin Democratic primary for governor.

Watch it here: [VIDEO]

Shapiro Tears Into the Tucker–Hunter Biden Interview

 Ben Shapiro has now weighed in on Tucker Carlson’s long interview with Hunter Biden.

You can watch Shapiro’s segment here: [VIDEO]

The title of the clip is straightforward: “Tucker and Hunter Biden: Same World, Same Agenda.”

Hunter Biden Sits Down With Tucker Carlson

On Monday, Tucker Carlson posted a more than two-hour interview with Hunter Biden. Hunter is the son of the 46th P.O.T.U.S., Joe Biden, and for years he has been known mainly as the addict son who somehow left a laptop in a computer repair shop.

A few years ago this would have raised my eyebrows. Tucker was clearly on a different side then. The idea of him sitting down for a long, largely civil conversation with Hunter Biden would have surprised me. Now it doesn’t. The interview still got my attention, but for different reasons.

To be honest, I never thought much about the laptop story beyond what it seemed to show about control—or the lack of it—around President Biden. I’m not interested in piling on the former president. He is very ill; reports say his cancer has spread to his bones. That said, I do believe his one term was rough on the country, and we are still dealing with the consequences. Even so, I have never fully understood the lasting significance people attach to Hunter’s laptop.

There are two sides to every story. That is why I am sharing the interview. Below is the video, followed by a short synopsis of the points that stood out.

Watch the interview here: [VIDEO]

Confessions of a DSA Defector

Former Democratic Socialists of America organizer Jake Altman sat down with The Free Press for a clear-eyed look at how the group changed.

Watch the interview: [VIDEO]

Ben Shapiro: Wokeness Evolved Into Something Worse

 Ben Shapiro’s latest segment cuts through the recent attempt to memory-hole the last decade. The title says it plainly: Wokeness Didn’t Die. It Evolved Into Something Worse.

The trigger is a clip of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on ABC’s This Week. Asked about a fellow DSA-aligned candidate’s old radical posts (defund/abolish the police, cancel Thanksgiving, etc.), AOC smiled and reached for a line floating around progressive circles: “Woke 1 was crazy.” She framed the excesses of 2020 as a COVID-era fever dream, insisted people have moved on, and suggested we should judge candidates by what they say now.

Shapiro is not buying the soft landing. He treats the remark as confirmation that the same ideological core is still operating—only the packaging has been upgraded.

A Close Call Over Washington, and the Shadow of Last Year’s Disaster

 

[VIDEO] This report from Washington, D.C. was posted to the ABC 7 Chicago YouTube channel.

The Left’s Incomplete Night

This Politico piece captured the night while the Michigan U.S. Senate race was still too close to call and progressives were realizing they hadn’t delivered the blowout many expected.

Yesterday’s Michigan primaries

Progressive Abdul El-Sayed narrowly beat moderate Rep. Haley Stevens in the Democratic Senate primary. The race was far closer than late polls predicted.

In Michigan’s 7th District, Sunrise Movement co-founder William Lawrence won the Democratic House primary after two moderates split the vote.

In the 13th District, democratic socialist Donavan McKinney narrowly unseated incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar.

Cori Bush’s comeback bid

Former “Squad” member and democratic socialist Cori Bush tried to reclaim the St. Louis-area House seat she lost in 2024. She faced the same opponent who beat her then, incumbent Rep. Wesley Bell.

Bush ran again as a sharp critic of U.S. support for Israel and as a progressive standard-bearer. The race drew heavy outside spending, much of it from pro-Israel groups backing Bell. She lost decisively, roughly 59% to 37%.

It was one of the clearer setbacks for the progressive left on a night that otherwise produced mixed results for that faction.

h/t Newsalert

The Side of the Story They Buried — Tou Thao, Minneapolis Police Officer

 Former Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao gave a long-form interview on the Yada Yada Gold podcast and spoke with unusual directness about four things that still get little sustained attention: the plea deal he rejected, what he was doing and thinking on May 25, 2020, the reality of federal prison, and the incentives that reward those who adopt the preferred narrative.

Minneapolis Police Officer Tou Thao in 2020 via ABCNews