Latest news with #pro-Republican
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Kneecap row makes our cultural elite look like brazen hypocrites
Poor Kneecap. The pro-Republican Belfast rap trio have had such a rotten week. And all because of two tiny little pieces of concert footage. In one, a member of the group appears to declare: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP!' And in the other, a member of the group appears to shout: 'Up Hamas, up Hezbollah!' Although Kneecap insist that they've 'never' supported those two proscribed terrorist organisations, say they 'reject any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP', and claim that the footage has been 'taken out of all context', it seems not everyone's convinced. They've been dropped from a music festival in Cornwall, and seen several gigs cancelled in Germany. Thankfully for them, however, they've now had some good news. More than 100 of Britain's leading pop stars – including Paul Weller, Brian Eno, Thin Lizzy and Primal Scream – have signed an open letter, stoutly defending Kneecap's 'artistic freedom of expression'. 'This past week has seen a clear, concerted attempt to censor and ultimately deplatform the band Kneecap,' proclaim these brave and principled musicians. 'The question of agreeing with Kneecap's political views is irrelevant: it is in the key interests of every artist that all creative expression be protected in a society that values culture, and that this interference campaign is condemned and ridiculed.' These sentiments are of course wonderfully noble. I wonder, however, if I might ask these courageous artists to consider the following hypothetical scenario. Imagine there were a rap trio that loudly supported causes that were unmistakably Right-wing, rather than Left-wing. And now imagine that, in a piece of concert footage, a member of this trio appeared to declare, 'The only good Leftie is a dead Leftie. Kill your local Labour MP!' And that, in another piece of concert footage, a member appeared to shout, 'Up the KKK!' In response, would these same 100-plus pop stars rush to sign an open letter, stoutly defending the Right-wing trio's 'artistic freedom of expression'? Would they say that 'the question of agreeing with' the Right-wing trio's 'political views' was 'irrelevant'? And would they dismiss criticism of the Right-wing trio as an 'interference campaign' that must be 'condemned and ridiculed'? Indeed, would they do all this even before the Met's counter-terrorism officers had finished investigating the footage? I wonder. But, since we're on the subject, I can't help remembering that, in 2023, the singer Roisin Murphy saw two of her concerts cancelled after she argued that puberty blockers should not be given to children who are confused about their gender identity. I don't seem to recall many open letters from celebrities leaping to her defence. Or many open letters in defence of another singer, Louise Distras, when, that same year, she said that she'd been dropped by her booking agent for refusing to agree that 'trans women are women'. Of course, pop stars are very busy people, so it probably isn't possible for them to sign an open letter every time a fellow artist's free expression is under threat. Thank goodness they've at least managed to find the time on this occasion, when the artist just happens to be anti-Tory, anti-Israel, and Left-wing. For a good two months, Adolescence – the Netflix drama about a boy who stabs a girl to death after watching sexist videos online – appeared to drive our liberal elite absolutely potty. Indeed, their hysteria rose to such a frenzied pitch that, at one point, two scandalised BBC interviewers asked Kemi Badenoch why on earth she hadn't watched it yet. Given that they were referring to a piece of TV fiction, their indignation was extraordinary. I'm fairly sure that, in the 1990s, there were no editions of Newsnight in which Jeremy Paxman barked, 'Secretary of State, I'll ask you once again. Have you, or have you not, watched last night's Brookside yet?' 'Jeremy, I'm afraid I—' 'It's a simple yes or no question.' 'But I just don't see why—' 'Secretary of State, Brookside is regularly watched by as many as seven million British people. Are you really telling us that you're so out of touch, you don't know that Julia (Gladys Ambrose) was pipped at the post for the job in the flower shop, while Peter (Robert Black) had to rescue Anna (Kazia Pelka) from a tricky situation?' Still, it wasn't just BBC types who were obsessed with Adolescence. Sir Keir Starmer was, too. He even said it should be shown in every school. Since the PM is so anxious for pupils to learn about vital issues of national debate, I wonder whether he's seen a new programme aired this week by Channel 4. Groomed is a documentary about the grooming gangs scandal. And unlike Adolescence, which is about fictional events, Groomed is about events that are all too horrifically real. I'll be impressed, therefore, if Sir Keir announces that Groomed is to be shown in every school. I suspect, however, that he won't, bearing in mind his deep reluctance to hold a full national inquiry into its subject matter. Frankly, we're more likely to get a full national inquiry into why Kemi Badenoch hasn't watched Adolescence. 'Way of the World' is a twice-weekly satirical look at the headlines while aiming to mock the absurdities of the modern world. It is published at 6am every Tuesday and Saturday Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Kneecap row makes our cultural elite look like brazen hypocrites
Poor Kneecap. The pro-Republican Belfast rap trio have had such a rotten week. And all because of two tiny little pieces of concert footage. In one, a member of the group appears to declare: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP!' And in the other, a member of the group appears to shout: 'Up Hamas, up Hezbollah!' Although Kneecap insist that they've 'never' supported those two proscribed terrorist organisations, say they 'reject any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP', and claim that the footage has been 'taken out of all context', it seems not everyone's convinced. They've been dropped from a music festival in Cornwall, and seen several gigs cancelled in Germany. Thankfully for them, however, they've now had some good news. More than 100 of Britain's leading pop stars – including Paul Weller, Brian Eno, Thin Lizzy and Primal Scream – have signed an open letter, stoutly defending Kneecap's 'artistic freedom of expression'. 'This past week has seen a clear, concerted attempt to censor and ultimately deplatform the band Kneecap,' proclaim these brave and principled musicians. 'The question of agreeing with Kneecap's political views is irrelevant: it is in the key interests of every artist that all creative expression be protected in a society that values culture, and that this interference campaign is condemned and ridiculed.' These sentiments are of course wonderfully noble. I wonder, however, if I might ask these courageous artists to consider the following hypothetical scenario. Imagine there were a rap trio that loudly supported causes that were unmistakably Right-wing, rather than Left-wing. And now imagine that, in a piece of concert footage, a member of this trio appeared to declare, 'The only good Leftie is a dead Leftie. Kill your local Labour MP!' And that, in another piece of concert footage, a member appeared to shout, 'Up the KKK!' In response, would these same 100-plus pop stars rush to sign an open letter, stoutly defending the Right-wing trio's 'artistic freedom of expression'? Would they say that 'the question of agreeing with' the Right-wing trio's 'political views' was 'irrelevant'? And would they dismiss criticism of the Right-wing trio as an 'interference campaign' that must be 'condemned and ridiculed'? Indeed, would they do all this even before the Met's counter-terrorism officers had finished investigating the footage? I wonder. But, since we're on the subject, I can't help remembering that, in 2023, the singer Roisin Murphy saw two of her concerts cancelled after she argued that puberty blockers should not be given to children who are confused about their gender identity. I don't seem to recall many open letters from celebrities leaping to her defence. Or many open letters in defence of another singer, Louise Distras, when, that same year, she said that she'd been dropped by her booking agent for refusing to agree that 'trans women are women'. Of course, pop stars are very busy people, so it probably isn't possible for them to sign an open letter every time a fellow artist's free expression is under threat. Thank goodness they've at least managed to find the time on this occasion, when the artist just happens to be anti-Tory, anti-Israel, and Left-wing. Will Starmer make every child learn about the grooming gangs? For a good two months, Adolescence – the Netflix drama about a boy who stabs a girl to death after watching sexist videos online – appeared to drive our liberal elite absolutely potty. Indeed, their hysteria rose to such a frenzied pitch that, at one point, two scandalised BBC interviewers asked Kemi Badenoch why on earth she hadn't watched it yet. Given that they were referring to a piece of TV fiction, their indignation was extraordinary. I'm fairly sure that, in the 1990s, there were no editions of Newsnight in which Jeremy Paxman barked, 'Secretary of State, I'll ask you once again. Have you, or have you not, watched last night's Brookside yet?' 'Jeremy, I'm afraid I—' 'It's a simple yes or no question.' 'But I just don't see why—' 'Secretary of State, Brookside is regularly watched by as many as seven million British people. Are you really telling us that you're so out of touch, you don't know that Julia (Gladys Ambrose) was pipped at the post for the job in the flower shop, while Peter (Robert Black) had to rescue Anna (Kazia Pelka) from a tricky situation?' Still, it wasn't just BBC types who were obsessed with Adolescence. Sir Keir Starmer was, too. He even said it should be shown in every school. Since the PM is so anxious for pupils to learn about vital issues of national debate, I wonder whether he's seen a new programme aired this week by Channel 4. Groomed is a documentary about the grooming gangs scandal. And unlike Adolescence, which is about fictional events, Groomed is about events that are all too horrifically real. I'll be impressed, therefore, if Sir Keir announces that Groomed is to be shown in every school. I suspect, however, that he won't, bearing in mind his deep reluctance to hold a full national inquiry into its subject matter. Frankly, we're more likely to get a full national inquiry into why Kemi Badenoch hasn't watched Adolescence.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Jim Cramer Says NVIDIA (NVDA) Being ‘Punished' for Doing Business With ‘Enemy Nation'
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) stands against other top buzzing stocks you should watch today. Jim Cramer in a recent program on CNBC expressed surprise that the Republican administration could be this damaging to shareholders 'These are hideous depressing days for the bulls. I'm not used to seeing a White House that doesn't seem to care that it's causing the decline. It's dazzlingly counterintuitive to see a Republican in particular be so callous toward the shareholder class. After all historically that constituency has been very pro-Republican. It's a total blast zone out there and ground zero is tech.' Cramer said that the tech selloff forced him to revisit his age-old mantra of 'own it, don't trade it' regarding two major technology stocks. READ ALSO: 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In. For this article, we picked 10 stocks Wall Street analysts are paying close attention to. With each company, we have mentioned its latest hedge fund sentiment. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here). Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 193 Jim Cramer in a recent program on CNBC said major companies like NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) are seeing the effects of tariffs amid their huge exposure to China. Cramer believes the company is being 'punished' for doing business with the Asian country, which he believes is hostile to the US: 'I was working on my talk for the CNBC Investing Club last night, and it hit me like a bright bulb snapped on in a dark room. The real reason it is so hard for us to gain all these tariffs is that the company's now being punished. We're doing exactly what companies were supposed to do.' The market will keep punishing Nvidia for not coming up to its gigantic (and sometimes unrealistic) growth expectations. About 50% of the company's revenue comes from large cloud providers, which are rethinking their plans amid the DeepSeek launch and looking for low-cost chips. Nvidia is facing challenges at several levels. Competition is one of them. Major competitors like Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD are vying for TSMC's 3nm capacity, which could limit Nvidia's access to these chips. Why? Because Nvidia also uses TSMC's 3nm process nodes. Nvidia is also facing direct competition from other giants that are deciding to make their own chips. Amazon, with its Trainium2 AI chips, offers alternatives. Trainium2 chips could provide cost savings and superior computational power, which could shift AI workloads away from Nvidia's offerings. Apple is reportedly working with Broadcom to develop an AI server processor. Intel is also trying hard to get back into the game with Jaguar Shores GPU, set to be produced on its 18A or 14A node. Here is how Cramer explained what NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) is going through in the tariff wars: 'No country wants to be left behind by the industrial revolution, particularly one based on AI, right? And no country like China wants to be left behind. For Nvidia, China is the best kind of customer they could possibly have. I'm sure that China would happily buy huge numbers of chips. They'd probably buy all the chips. But what Nvidia didn't know was that it was selling its chips to an enemy nation. I don't blame them for not knowing because nobody knew, at least nobody was operating under the rules of either President Biden or the previous president, President Trump. China was very open for business under those two. Sure, in his first term, President Trump was no friend to the People's Republic of China, but he wasn't a rabid hater either. Then again, China did grow more opposition, although it's not like it was ever a secret that the PRC was an authoritarian dictatorship with global ambitions, sometimes antithetical to that of our own. Both parties now want to contain China.' Alger Spectra Fund stated the following regarding NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) in its Q1 2025 investor letter: 'NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is a leading supplier of graphics processing units (GPUs) for a variety of end markets, such as gaming, PCs, data centers, virtual reality, and high-performance computing. The company is leading in most secular growth categories in computing, and especially artificial intelligence and super-computing parallel processing techniques for solving complex computational problems. In our view, Nvidia's computational power is a critical enabler of AI and therefore essential to AI adoption. During the quarter, shares detracted from performance due to several factors. In January 2025, investor concerns grew regarding the emergence of advanced AI models from China, reportedly developed at lower costs and with reduced computing requirements, raising doubts about Nvidia's market dominance. Additionally, U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement of new tariffs targeting industries increased worries about higher operational costs. Despite these headwinds, Nvidia reported robust fiscal fourth-quarter results, highlighted by significant revenue growth driven by its data center segment. On the earnings call, CEO Jensen Huang emphasized the increasing computational requirements of future AI models, noting, 'The more computation, the more the model thinks, the smarter the answer,' and adding that future reasoning models could demand substantially more compute resources. We believe Nvidia's leadership in scaling AI infrastructure—including advancements in inference and reasoning during inference—continues to drive adoption among enterprises and startups, ensuring sustained demand for its high performance chips and software solutions. As older-generation chips are repurposed and new clusters deployed, we see Nvidia as well-positioned to capitalize on rising computational needs across AI applications.' Overall, NVDA ranks 2nd on our list of top buzzing stocks you should watch today. While we acknowledge the potential of NVDA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NVDA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kneecap's downfall is a warning to pathetic Left-wing provocateurs everywhere
When Kneecap – the fanatically anti-Israel, anti-Tory, pro-Republican rap group from Belfast – were awarded almost £15,000 in state funding, I rolled my eyes. I thought: what a waste of taxpayers' money. Now, however, I've changed my mind. Because watching the abrupt downfall of these smug millennial pseudo-rebels has been worth every penny. In the past week, two fascinating pieces of video footage have emerged, both taken from Kneecap concerts. In one, a member of the group appears to declare: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP!' And in the other, a member of the group appears to shout: 'Up Hamas, up Hezbollah!' Since the footage started circulating, Kneecap have been facing a furious backlash. So on Monday night, in a desperate attempt to limit the damage, the group's members released a statement that is almost hilarious in its self-pity. They claim that the footage has been 'deliberately taken out of all context', and that they are merely the innocent victims of a 'smear campaign'. But hang on, chaps. The question is: did you say the words you're alleged to have said, or not? If you did, this can't be a 'smear'. But if you didn't, why are you now offering your 'heartfelt apologies' to the families of the murdered MPs Jo Cox and Sir David Amess? If you didn't tell your audience to kill MPs, then you've got nothing to apologise for, have you? My favourite part of the statement, however, is the claim that 'Kneecap's message has always been – and remains – one of love, inclusion, and hope'. I see. In which case, gentlemen, why exactly did you choose to name yourselves after an extremely brutal method of paramilitary torture? And, while we're on the subject, why does one of you always insist on wearing a balaclava? Does his mummy make him wear it, in case he catches a chill? At any rate, the statement clearly hasn't saved them. The organisers of a music festival in Cornwall have cancelled Kneecap's slot. The First Minister of Scotland has called on a Scottish music festival to ditch them, too. And a Downing Street spokesman has indicated that they won't be getting any more taxpayers' money. (Kemi Badenoch blocked the funding award for the group during her time as business secretary, only for the money to then be handed over in November last year after Sir Keir Starmer's administration conceded that withholding it had been unlawful.) Perhaps what will alarm Kneecap most of all, however, is the response from their own fans. Because, now that the group's members have insisted that they've 'never supported Hamas or Hezbollah', they're being inundated with indignant messages from Western admirers of these proscribed terrorist organisations, calling Kneecap 'sellouts' and 'cowards'. (Sample tweet: 'Wow. What a disappointment. Long live the resistance and glory to the martyrs.') For the rest of us, though, it's tremendously entertaining to watch them get their comeuppance. Let Kneecap's downfall be a warning to pathetic Left-wing provocateurs everywhere. Anyway, if they're feeling sorry for themselves, here's one small thought to console them: it could be worse. Imagine if there were a Right-wing rap group called, say, Goosestep. And imagine if video footage emerged of Goosestep's members appearing to call for the deaths of Labour MPs, and appearing to voice support for the proscribed far-Right terrorist organisation National Action. Do we think the organisers of Glastonbury would be taking this long to decide whether or not to cancel their slot? Trick question, obviously. Because such a group would never have got booked in the first place. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Kneecap's downfall is a warning to pathetic Left-wing provocateurs everywhere
When Kneecap – the fanatically anti-Israel, anti-Tory, pro-Republican rap group from Belfast – were awarded almost £15,000 in state funding, I rolled my eyes. I thought: what a waste of taxpayers' money. Now, however, I've changed my mind. Because watching the abrupt downfall of these smug millennial pseudo-rebels has been worth every penny. In the past week, two fascinating pieces of video footage have emerged, both taken from Kneecap concerts. In one, a member of the group appears to declare: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP!' And in the other, a member of the group appears to shout: 'Up Hamas, up Hezbollah!' Since the footage started circulating, Kneecap have been facing a furious backlash. So on Monday night, in a desperate attempt to limit the damage, the group's members released a statement that is almost hilarious in its self-pity. They claim that the footage has been 'deliberately taken out of all context', and that they are merely the innocent victims of a 'smear campaign'. But hang on, chaps. The question is: did you say the words you're alleged to have said, or not? If you did, this can't be a 'smear'. But if you didn't, why are you now offering your 'heartfelt apologies' to the families of the murdered MPs Jo Cox and Sir David Amess? If you didn't tell your audience to kill MPs, then you've got nothing to apologise for, have you? My favourite part of the statement, however, is the claim that 'Kneecap's message has always been – and remains – one of love, inclusion, and hope'. I see. In which case, gentlemen, why exactly did you choose to name yourselves after an extremely brutal method of paramilitary torture? And, while we're on the subject, why does one of you always insist on wearing a balaclava? Does his mummy make him wear it, in case he catches a chill? At any rate, the statement clearly hasn't saved them. The organisers of a music festival in Cornwall have cancelled Kneecap's slot. The First Minister of Scotland has called on a Scottish music festival to ditch them, too. And a Downing Street spokesman has indicated that they won't be getting any more taxpayers' money. (Kemi Badenoch blocked the funding award for the group during her time as business secretary, only for the money to then be handed over in November last year after Sir Keir Starmer's administration conceded that withholding it had been unlawful.) Perhaps what will alarm Kneecap most of all, however, is the response from their own fans. Because, now that the group's members have insisted that they've 'never supported Hamas or Hezbollah', they're being inundated with indignant messages from Western admirers of these proscribed terrorist organisations, calling Kneecap 'sellouts' and 'cowards'. (Sample tweet: 'Wow. What a disappointment. Long live the resistance and glory to the martyrs.') For the rest of us, though, it's tremendously entertaining to watch them get their comeuppance. Let Kneecap's downfall be a warning to pathetic Left-wing provocateurs everywhere. Anyway, if they're feeling sorry for themselves, here's one small thought to console them: it could be worse. Imagine if there were a Right-wing rap group called, say, Goosestep. And imagine if video footage emerged of Goosestep's members appearing to call for the deaths of Labour MPs, and appearing to voice support for the proscribed far-Right terrorist organisation National Action. Do we think the organisers of Glastonbury would be taking this long to decide whether or not to cancel their slot? Trick question, obviously. Because such a group would never have got booked in the first place.
