Friday, March 15, 2024

A Concrete Sidewalk and the Head of Kaylee Gain: Shades of Zimmerman and Rittenhouse


If the young teenage girl had been armed as Maurnice DeClue slammed her head into the concrete sidewalk with all her might, would she have been justified in firing her weapon into the belly of her tormentor?

I'm asking because her injuries are so awful that after Kaylee Gain was left twitching and convulsing with seizures on the sidewalk, she is still in hospital, risking permanent brain damage and even death. Could shooting "Little Miss Thugette" have prevented a dismal future for Kaylee's entire family?

You know why I am asking, dont'cha? This is exactly what Trayvon Martin was doing to George Zimmerman in February 2012 when the "white Latino" having his head smashed into the concrete pulled out his gun and fired it into the body of his tormentor.

What is it with leftists and/or blacks and/or a combination thereof — you know, the people who always go on and on and on lecturing us about tolerance and debate & discussion contrasted with hate and haters and bigots — that they are so consumed by… hatred for their (alleged) opponents (although in most cases they barely knew them personally, if at all) that the psychopaths go berserk in their willingness to engage in vicious violence that results in great bodily harm or death? 

(Similar question: what is it that our teachers (sic) have been teaching in schools and universities that their pupils and students behave this way?)

While leftists are always blabbering about fighting and defeating hate, nobody is hated as much in America or around the world (with the possible exception of the Israelis and the Jews) as America's Republicans, America's conservatives, and America's whites. 

(One benefit we can thank the left for is how well this makes a case for the Second Amendment…)

Think also of two Wisconsin events of August 2020 and November 2021 (one of them without racial overtones), Kenosha's Kyle Rittenhouse case and Waukesha's Christmas Parade massacre (we know far less about that event — the deadliest of all — because a white person was not the presumably responsible, or the presumably guilty, party and the latter turns out to be a member of a minority and therefore enjoys Hamas status).

Let's hear what Ann Coulter has to say:

there's only one ethnic group that sacralizes its criminals … The main problem facing the black community isn't that a sizable number celebrate its criminals, though that's bad. It's that there's such a sizable number of criminals to celebrate.
Related: • Comparing 3 Deadly Events — In Waukesha, Brooks killed twice as many people as Rittenhouse and the Charlottesville driver did combined
The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell: A world of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables
The Era of the Drama Queens: Every Crisis Is a Triumph

I was watching Dennis Prager's Fireside Chat in December 2021, which was also comparing the two Wisconsin events, and in response to the Left's charge that a 17-year-old should not carry a gun, Dennis made the case that in the United States, 17-year-olds are allowed… to… join the military. Now the army, navy, and air force are a source of stability in the U.S. (although the Left is hard at work trying to change that) so, at this point, it is appropriate to recall the famous quote by G K Chesterton,

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but the because he loves what is behind him.'
In that perspective, it is altogether proper to return to the Badger State and ask the following question:

Did Kyle Rittenhouse go to Kenosha with an AR-15 because he is a white supremacist (or a Christian nationalist) who hates all Wisconsin rioters, and/or all leftists, and/or all blacks? 

Or did Kyle Rittenhouse go to Kenosha to protect the neighbors and the neighborhood where his loved ones (whatever the color of their skin) live (and work)?

The answer, of course, is that initially, Kyle Rittenhouse did not fight, he did not threaten the rioters, he did not flaunt his rifle.

We will expand on this issue, because what one of the prosecutors said in one of his final remarks regarding Rittenhouse, is essential to the case, and comparable to George Zimmerman and to Kaylee Gain

Here are some of the arguments of the Kenosha prosecutors, revisited…

Crossing State Lines

The image suggested is of unsavory far-right types driving hundred, if not thousands of miles — a redneck driving through the forests of Georgia (chewin' and spittin' tabaccah), a militiaman crossing the burning deserts of the West — to go to a place where they knew no one and had no place being.

In fact, the state line was, so I've heard, one mile away or so, while the place he went to was 20 minutes away, and all this in the very same urban area.

Which is far from uncommon.

Back in the 1990s, I met an Indian and his wife at a Paris event.

When he heard that I was planning a road trip from the West Coast East across the Rockies, he asked me to come visit him on his reservation in the state of Washington

When I flew into Seattle, I imagined dancing natives, falling shacks, rusting studebakers, howlin' winds, tumblin' tumbleweeds, perhaps even a wigwam and a drunken native lying in the dust.

In fact, the reservation was inside Seattle or inside a suburb of Seattle. On one side of the street, you were outside the reservation; on the other side, which looked exactly the same, you were inside the reservation.

Beyond that, it is somewhat surreal that those who want the nation's Southern border to be basically open could make such a fuss about state borders.

Portraying Rittenhouse as a Sniper

When a prosecutor displayed the "Automatic Rifle" (sic) -15, he held the weapon up for what seemed minutes pointed at an audience, unarmed and seated in a way that they hardly able to budge — like a sniper on a battlefield, hard to spot and perhaps invisible to his enemies. 

Rightfully or otherwise, a sharpshooter calmly picks people off from a hiding place with no danger to himself — such as DC's Beltway Sniper did in 2002.

Let the rejoinder go to Ann Coulter, who explains that, besides not being on a battlefield,

Rittenhouse was not at a grade school, but in the middle of a riot that did $50 million in damage to the town of Kenosha

 … Name one "active shooter" in history who strolled about with a gun for hours, not shooting anyone -- until he was chased, cornered and assaulted. Rittenhouse had a gun not because he was violent, but because the "protesters" were, as the evidence abundantly demonstrated.

 … The same people who wanted to give Guantanamo war criminals civilian trials think an American who refused to acquiesce in his own murder didn't deserve legal representation.

Kyle Rittenhouse is on trial so that no one will dare stand in the way of the left's shock troops ever again.

And that seems to be sadly (albeit understandably) Kyle's reaction as well, as recorded by Fox News' Sam Dorman and Andrew Murray:

"[With] what I was dragged through and what I had to go through — to facing life in prison — I wouldn't say it was worth it," he said, adding, "hindsight being 20/20."

Rittenhouse has previously said going to Kenosha was "not the best idea."

But he noted, "Of course, defend yourself."

Saying that Rittenhouse should have let himself be pummeled

And so here we come full circle back to the case of Kaylee Gain and to the left's admonishment of George Zimmerman: one of a Thomas Binger aide's final arguments was that Kyle Rittenhouse should not have made such a big deal about it, that he should just have accepted getting into a fistfight and even been willing to let his tormentors beat him up.

This is an insane argument. (Or, to quote our British readers, "not cricket".) Do you know sports? In a boxing match, in an MMA fight — not to mention simply a football match, a badminton match, or, for our British friends, a cricket match — where there is little to no animosity between players, fighters, or teams (there may even be a healthy dose of mutual respect, such as that in MMA fights where the loser, his face often bloodied and his nose sometimes broken, walks up to the winner and shakes his hand or even gives him a bear hug) — there are definite rules known to all (not to mention weight classes [so that a heavyweight doesn't engage with, say, a bantamweight] and [at least until the Woke movement reared its head] discrimination by sex) and, just to be sure, there is a nominally neutral referee present throughout the bout, ready to intervene.

How could Rittenhouse know — indeed, how on Earth could prosecutor Thomas Binger and his assistants know — that if Rittenhouse hadn't taken out his rifle or simply refused to fight back, he would only have received only bruises or scratches? Not a single soul would have slammed his head into the sidewalk or used the skateboard or his own rifle butt to crush his skull?

In this fairy tale, the prosecutors describe the leftist psychopaths exactly as how the right-leaning Rittenhouse did in fact behave.

Look at Maurnice DeClue. Look at Trayvon Martin. This is the type of person — multiplied by 30 or more — that Rittenhouse was faced with.

Only when the arsonists (several of them armed) became menacing, only when a mob started chasing him down, and only when the rioters tried to kill him (with a skateboard, which is perfectly capable of literally bashing a person's brains out, just like a concrete sidewalk is, or with a gun) — in response to his extinguishing the fire in a dumpster they were pushing towards a gas station (more of a hateful act or more of a loving act? I ask you) — did Rittenhouse shoot back. 

But not before trying a peaceful solution, i.e., running away from the confrontation, crying "Friendly" to assure them of his non-violent intentions, and attempting to seek cover from the (present but non-operating) police force.

Speaking of which: In a way, there is a kernel of truth in the charge that Kyle Rittenhouse shouldn't have been there and shouldn't have been carrying a gun? Police officers should have been there! Well, sure, we can all agree on that. All of us. And police officers ought to have been doing their jobs — with their guns. But they were not! (Thanks to Democrat politicians, leftist ideologues, and other Drama Queens.) Which is why civilians, young as well as old, took over their task…

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Following Trump's Super Tuesday's Wins, Republicans in France Are Invited on French TV and Radio

Following Trump's Super Tuesday bonanza, a number of Republicans in France (RIF) members were invited to join French TV and radio stations…

It started on Super Tuesday itself, and while the world waited for the results that evening, Paul Reen faced a handful of leftists on BFMTV as he announced on its talk show that "Joe Biden is senile and weak".

Philippe Karsenty was interviewed the next day by Émilie Tran Nguyen on France Info TV and faced three pro-Democrat leftists, one American and two French. The website's shorter version cut off the final minutes of the talk show segment. Check out the longer version instead — 15:44/16:04-34:34 — to see the whole thing, not least Philippe's final acerbic remark.

Over at Le Figaro TV, Paul Reen, président des «Republicans in France», était l’invité d’Anne-Emmanuelle Isaac dans «Points de Vue». Here he was allowed to speak much more freely, and without interruption, than in usual MSM shows. Long version: 0:00-22:30. 


Meanwhile, Anntoinette Danskin-Lorrain responded to Nelly Daynac at CNews, appearing at the 1:55:10 minute mark of the final (and most important) issue of the day (1:49:45-2:03:15).

The following morning, Philippe Karsenty found a friendlier audience at La Ligne Droite de Radio Courtoisie présentée par Maud Koffler avec Didier Maïsto, journaliste indépendant. Check out nearly 45 minutes of discussion at 1:32:32-2:16:21 (that starts with the Trump campaign's version of "Over There" that I had never heard before).

Avec Philippe Karsenty, analyste des médias, fondateur de l’observatoire Media-Ratings, homme politique, conseiller municipal de Neuilly-sur-Seine 

Monday, March 11, 2024

To Be Or Not to Be in a Patriarchal Kingdom: In Paris Theater, Shakespeare's Hamlet Is a Woman Played by an Actress


Something is rotten in the state of Denmark — especially when the kingdom turns out to be a patriarchy. Well, you knew it, it had to arrive: In France's Théâtre de l'Odéon, we get a feminist director from Brazil, one who has a revolutionary idea: "But of course! Hamlet is a woman!"

And so, Christiane Jatahy calls on Clotilde Hesme to play the prince. Le Figaro's describes the rest of the semi-Freudian play set in modern times.

The prince of Denmark (an androgynous figure in a black jumpsuit) excepted, all the other characters are played by actors and actresses (Loïc Corbery, Isabel Abreu, Servane Ducorps, Matthieu Sampeur, Tonan Quito, David Houri, Tom Adjibi), as written by Will. Their dialogues and are interspersed by songs and music of Prince, Sinéad O’Connor, Nina Simone, Gilbert Bécaud, etc, not to mention Star Wars allusions (I am your father!)…

The characters are seen eating pizza, watching television (the nightly news show reports on Fortinbras, prince of Norway), dancing while beating eggs (Hamlet/omelet), or wailing over fratricide (Claudius) while sitting on… the crapper.

Sans Clotilde Hesme, cet (te) Hamlet retomberait comme un soufflé

All in all, the Figaro's is not impressed by the play, which goes on for too long in too many places, but he does admit that Clotilde Hesme is magistrale, not to mention hypnotic.

Saturday, March 09, 2024

"The Cultural War" by Evelyne Joslain Is One of the Outstanding Books of the 21st Century


It's not every day that you open a French book that shows the conclict between right and left to such an extent and to such a depth that its translation into English is a must. But La Guerre Culturelle (The Cultural War) is "the product of more than twenty-five years of reflection and personal archives collected daily", and we can rest assured that it will remain the masterpiece of Évelyne Joslain's œuvre.

Having written outstanding books for the French public on Donald Trump, Barack Obama, the Tea Party, and America's Think Tanks, Evelyne Joslain proves to be an unbeatable woman on the subject of everything concerning the United States, and, as we are going to see before we've even finished the book's first chapter, on a whole spectrum of subjects, from the ancient Greeks to Belgian serial killers.

One is thunderstruck by the knowledge of a woman who, page after page (if not paragraph after paragraph), seems to produce revelation after revelation, whether explaining the influence of Epicurus on Thomas Jefferson, the historical difference between Whigs and Tories (which even the majority of English-speakers barely know), or the contrast between the humanism at the heart of the Renaissance and current environmentalism.

I remember that Gorbachev, during a speech some forty years ago, decided to praise the revolutions of History; however, the leader of the USSR only mentioned the French and Russian revolutions, but not the American one, which raised an (entirely justified) outcry in the U.S. (even among left-wing newspapers — after all, "Gorby" was their darling, which contributed to the fact that the Russian "supertsar", but not his American partner, Ronald Reagan, was alone in being a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize).

We can count on Évelyne Joslain to get to the heart of the problem and find the explanation:

The French Revolution was bloody and genocidal, and turned its back on the Renaissance, making a clean sweep of the past. It is the example to be avoided and yet the one that has been most imitated while the American Revolution, which has everything to inspire, remains without imitation and becomes the object of neo-Marxist hatred. The former, France's bloodthirsty revolution, is therefore a truly 180º revolution, while the second, the American Revolution, is a 360º revolution, in other words it returns to the traditional English norms resulting from the Magna Carta of 1215. It restores the rights of the English in America, violated by George III.

Following Britain's "politico-religious standoff" (with "brutal savagery") and the Glorious Revolution (also, it turns out, ignored by Gorbachev; in fact, here too we are faced with a "semi-revolution … without a drop of bloodshed") in the half-century between the 1640s and the 1690s, the English monarchy realized that it was prudent to refrain from trampling on the rights of Englishmen. However, George III did not understand that the Bill of Rights of 1689 should also be applied to English subjects in the colonies of America (and elsewhere) and treated his subjects there with the absolutism of his ancestors.

Returning to the motto of the French Republic, however, Évelyne Joslain is concise and blunt:

Liberty and Equality are mutually exclusive [while] Fraternity … cannot be decreed

La Guerre Culturelle attempts to go back to the sources of the cultural left and analyze all its aspects, and there is so much to digest that the present article will only consider the book's first chapter (The Ancient Roots of the Culture War).

Indeed, it turns out that the modern conflict between right and left "has existed since the dawn of time" — "their roots in times immemorial and in ancient myths" — and from the first chapter, we are introduced to the likes of Ovid, Socrates, and Cicero.

Never, perhaps, has it been so well illustrated to what extent the writings of Socrates and Aristotle correctly describe the conflict of our day. Never, perhaps, has it been so well illustrated to what extent Diogenes (plus his "cynicism") and Heraclitus (plus his "Hedonism") of Ephesus are the ancestors of today's leftists.

They touted unhealthy and cynical pleasures of the same type [as today] … the pleasure of soiling the sacred … the pleasure of soiling beauty … and the pleasure of soiling childhood

  … this self-destructive pattern is repeated today from Europe to the Pacific, where the decadent elements which constitute the internal enemy work in concert with the external enemies

The radio host of the Libre journal du Nouveau Monde program on Radio Courtoisie (where — full disclosure — I have been a guest a number of times) for many years, Évelyne Joslain continues with a refusal to participate in the usual praise of figures as disparate as Napoleon and Voltaire, regarding both the "hateful atheism" of the latter along with that of his emulators and that of Karl Marx.

Like Paul Johnson, Évelyne Joslain sees the decline of religion as a disaster:

Christianity remains the religion most frequently mocked, ridiculed, and covered with blasphemy because it reaffirms some disturbing principles such as the free will of each person, responsibility, duties, and because it places man at the center of nature. .

At the same time, Évelyne Joslain manages — even though she was hardly asked to do so — to explain in a single sentence the difference between Western and Eastern Christendom and, by extension, the war in Ukraine:

Western Christianity distinguishes between what is God's, like nature, and what is Caesar's, unlike Eastern Christianity, in which the Orthodox Church does not distinguish the regal from the spiritual.

Now we can better understand the praise for Putin's presidency expressed by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Évelyne Joslain has little more respect and patience for the generic "Philosopher" who is reminiscent of the people described in Paul Johnson's book, Intellectuals (From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky). This generic philosopher, this intellectual, who is “illuminated by contact with Ideas (i.e., with the absolute truth), is therefore ideally suited to impose on the human magma swarming below the rules which ought to govern them.”

Intellectual imposture cannot be right-wing. This has always been the work of the left-leaning mind. In the distant past as today.

A columnist at Les 4 Vérités for a number of years, Évelyne Joslain moves effortlessly from Charlemagne to Descartes via Marc Dutroux, a notorious child murderer (deliberately?) forgotten by everyone these days. (I was surprised to learn, also about thirty years ago, that one of the parents of one of the murdered girls had tried to enter politics, only to have his embryonic career scuttled by the Belgian élites before it even began. Another question mark from my youth to which the remarkable Évelyne Joslain provides the answer)

This first chapter covers 2000 to 3000 years of human history and the author of one of the rare books in French which tells the truth about Barack Obama transports us to the 20th and 21st centuries.

We come to Saul Alinsky and his book, which is the key manual for VIPs such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Rules for Radicals is

[their] bible and Alinsky is [their] mentor; the master of the inversion of everything, values, concepts, vocabulary, excellent at blinding unsuspecting right-wing people.

Again, we can only hope that Americans will hurry to have this work translated...

More details about the book next week…

 

Jixie Juny Meets Conservative Stars at CPAC, Is Only Cat to Attend Trump's Speech Finale

MyPillow's Mike Lindell

As I wrote in my main CPAC post, I got tagged the Catman at @CPAC 2024 and for what I admit is a very good reason: since my 19-year-old cat needs daily medication, the only way that I could provide for Jixie Juny was to bring her over the Atlantic Ocean (the cat handled the 6 to 8 hour flights quite well).

It was funny: for the first three days of #CPAC, security would not let me go by the security line with the cat to attend speeches in the Potomac Ballroom. On the fourth day, when the VIP of all VIPs, Donald Trump, was to hold the finale, the Secret Service did let Jixie Juny through security (although admittedly after 15 minutes of bargaining with one of their number)… 

Incidentally, the 45th president was poised only to speak for thirty minutes, but when he finally arrived, 40 minutes late, he spoke for one and a half hours… (Thanks for the Instalink, fellow cat-lover…)

I have been searching the internet for more photos/videos. If any reader finds any others, I wouldn't mind getting the hyperlinks… 

Related: CPAC — Phoenix Airport Shocker — Vast Number of Illegal Immigrants Being Outfitted for Plane Trip

With a cowboy (Dennis Mayo)



Michael Knowles

Lara Trump

Ben Carson

Mr. Build-the-Wall


Greta Van Susteren

Mark Levin

Megyn Kelly

Head of the UK's Brexit Party

Nigel Farage Shows Off His Union Jack Socks

"Oh, you're the Catman!" Tree of Life 's Amanda Schumacher

Steve Bannon

The President of El Salvador

Nayib Bukele, as he was about to shake my hand

Vivek Ramaswamy before his Ronald Reagan dinner speech

Going to see the finale with Jixie Juny

restless puss

Jix acquires a number of fans

The cat likes to use my hand as a pillow



"What about me, Jixie?!"
The Queen of the King-Size Bed

CPAC: Phoenix Airport Shocker — Vast Number of Illegal Immigrants Being Outfitted for Plane Trip

As she was about to board her plane at Phoenix airport to fly to Washington, D.C. to assist Stave Bannon at CPAC, an Arizona resident saw a line of migrants who were grouped together and were being assisted in their illegal immigration into America. Among other things, they were being issued a document with words in big letters reading, "Help me. I don't speak English." 

After landing in DC, she saw no more evidence of the illegal aliens, who were ushered away in stealth. Apparently, I was told by the top employee at Patriot Pay in the breakfast room of our hotel, a significant number of American citizens were forced to give up their seats to that this considerable number of illegal aliens could get flown to the East Coast. (Update: Thanks for the Instalink, Sarah)

Related: • Jixie and the Catman at CPAC 2024

Jixie Juny Is Only Cat or Household Pet to Attend Trump's Speech Finale


As it happens, Thomas Catenacci reported on Fox News that Money meant to help struggling Americans went to illegal immigrants instead in Dem-led states and cities, meaning that the "Biden admin 'directly subsidized "undocumented" immigration under the guise of COVID-19 pandemic relief'." 

Democrat-run states and cities across the country that have been inundated with illegal immigrants in recent months previously earmarked tens of millions of dollars in COVID-19 financial assistance programs to support "undocumented residents."

According to a Fox News Digital review of state and local programs, Democrat governors and mayors earmarked at least $517 million for the programs, which generally consisted of providing cash payments to individual illegal immigrants. The funding reviewed by Fox News Digital was drawn from the American Rescue Plan (ARP), the $1.9 trillion federal COVID-19 stimulus package President Biden signed into law in March 2021.

"This means the Biden Administration directly subsidized ‘undocumented’ immigration under the guise of COVID-19 pandemic relief," a recent report from the Economic Policy Innovation Center stated, pointing to how federal ARP funds were diverted to illegal immigrants in Washington state. 

 … Economic Policy Innovation Center President and CEO Paul Winfree told Fox News Digital this month that the Biden administration has been "actively encouraging illegal immigration by using COVID money" from the recovery fund.

 … A notice issued as part of the [Illinois] program states that "no questions will be asked in regards to citizenship or immigration status" of applicants.

Meanwhile, both Chicago and Illinois broadly have experienced a massive surge in migrants, straining taxpayer-funded government services designed for citizens.

It is simply incredible the number of Americans willing to go forward with what can only be called a symbol of their deep hatred for their country, America, and for their fellow countrymen.

Friday, March 01, 2024

Blaze Investigator Asked to Self-Surrender to the FBI over his January 6 Reporting


In the wake of his Blaze Media reporting on The Truth About January 6th, such as Proof of Perjury, Steve Baker has now been notified that he is due to be arrested over his January 6 reporting or, to be more specific, that the FBI wants him to self-surrender to the agency in the morning in Dallas. 

Hopefully, friends and allies (VIPs?) will be present to film and record the scenes…

Instapundit's Ed Driscoll has more… (And many thanks to Sarah Hoyt…)

Just for the record, here are three incontrovertible truths about January 6 written over the past three years:

The January 6 Protest Summarized in One Single Sentence

Please stand to attention for a one-single-sentence summary of the January 6 protest, or the January 6 riot, or the January 6 mêlée, or the January 6 controversy, or the January 6 committee — or whatever you choose to call it:

The critical date is not January 6;
the critical date is November 3.
It is not January 6 (2021) — repeated (quite deliberately) ad nauseam by the Democrats and the mainstream media alike (it is no accident that that date is the name of the committee that could just as well have been called, say, the Congress Breach Committee) — that is the significant date; no, the historical date is November 3 (2020).

The Central Absurd Inconsistency of the Ray Epps Conundrum Described in Two Sentences

Well, Leftists, which is it?

EITHER the January 6 protests were so wicked that the fiendish scoundrels who participated — all of them (not least the ringleaders) — should be persecuted to the full extent of the law. 

OR ELSE, insofar as we accept that one of the protesters — and a ringleader, at that — is no more than a "poor schmuck" who should be left alone (as the man most visible in urging the masses to march on the capitol was described by one irate Democrat member of the Jan. 6 Committee), then all (or at least the majority) of the other protesters should be left off the hook, exactly like Ray Epps, no more and no less.

American Thinker: Let's Stop Using the Words "Trump Tried to Overturn the 2020 Election"; It's Unprofessional Journalism 

It is easier for the world to accept
a simple lie than a complex truth

— Alexis de Tocqueville

After almost three years — and as Democrats in Colorado and Maine ban Donald Trump from the Centennial State's ballot — it is beyond time for the media to stop "reporting" that "Trump tried to overturn a presidential election" and to quit referring matter-of-factly: to "the election that Trump lost"; to "Trump's defeat" and his "baseless" "false claims"; and to "Trump is challenging the results" of "Biden's victory (in, say, Georgia)" and to "swing the election in his favor".

 … This is not a neutral, objective, and non-partisan view of of the facts of the 2020 election. Far from it. No. It is the (self-serving) DNC version. It is akin to asking "When did you stop beating your wife?" 

Phrases like “baseless fraud claims”, “sham election investigations”, and “false claims of election fraud” come straight from the Democratic Party. At a minimum, readers and viewers are used to circumspect "allegedlys," to prudent "reportedlys," and to cautious "accused ofs". What happened to them?

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Jixie and the Catman at CPAC 2024


I got tagged the Catman at CPAC 2024 and for what I admit is a very good reason: since my 19-year-old cat needs daily medication, the only way that I could provide for Jixie Juny was to bring her over the Atlantic Ocean (the cat handled the 8 hour 10 minute flight quite well). 

Having her as an "emotional support animal" (or as I have to admit that I cheekily called her — only to designated #CPAC members — an "emotional support pussy") lead to a bevy of photo shoots (Zuma's Dominic Gwinn plus NurPhoto) and interviews at the Gaylord Convention Center, including with Sky News and of the Washington Times

Erik Svane flew nearly 9 hours from Paris with his cat to attend CPAC. Mr. Svane, who is in his mid-50s, has worked on a conservative political blog in France for two decades. He believed that the Supreme Court would intervene on Mr. Trump’s behalf, and not allow “kangaroo courts” to decide who runs for office and who doesn’t. 

“I see that as show trials and can’t believe this is happening in America,” Mr. Svane said. “I’m hoping it’ll wake more people up to what a rotten system we have right now.”

Internationally, a couple ofand Mandel Ngan of La Provence and AFP (reproduced by La Croix, MSN, TV5, and Boursorama, merci à Aléric Flair).

Erik Svane, un Américain qui vit à Paris venu spécialement depuis la capitale pour voir Donald Trump, tranche : "Il faut continuer à aider l’Ukraine mais le problème c’est que Joe Biden et les démocrates n’expliquent jamais rien. Ils disent simplement +il faut envoyer de l’argent+. Alors que si on explique pourquoi, ce serait plus simple."

Sur son épaule trône son chat, baptisé "Jixie Juny", qui fait l’attraction dans les couloirs de la convention. "Un vrai trumpiste", rigole le Parisien d’adoption. "Mais lui, il n’aura pas le droit de voter" le 5 novembre pour élire le prochain président.

Update: I have been searching the internet for more photos/videos. If any reader finds any others, I wouldn't mind getting the hyperlinks… (Thanks for the Instalink, fellow cat-lover…)

Related: • Jixie Juny Is Only Cat or Household Pet to Attend Trump's Speech Finale 

• CPAC: Phoenix Airport Shocker — Vast Number of Illegal Immigrants Being Outfitted for Plane Trip

Monday, February 19, 2024

How Trump's Lawyer Should Have Reacted to Fani Willis's Eruption, "I’m not going to emasculate a black man!"


At one point, right after trying to pull heart strings by stating that Nathan Wade "had a form of cancer" (so "that makes your allegations somewhat ridiculous"), Fani Willis erupted, "I’m not going to emasculate a black man!" 

At another point in the trial, Fani Willis went ballistic again: "These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020!" When Judge Scott McAfee stated that "Your interests are opposed to" those of Trump lawyer Ashleigh Merchant, the Fulton County District Attorney retorted that "Ms. Merchant's interests are contrary to democracy, your Honor, not to mine," Willis responded.

In the second case, one of the Trump lawyers should have interjected, 

"How about Stacy Abrams? Are you going to defend democracy by indicting her for challenging the results of the governor's race?"
More importantly, regarding the first case, the dialogue went as follows:

• Steve Sadow (ironical): "I do appreciate the characterization"
Fani Willis: "I’m not going to emasculate a black man, but I, I'm just telling you that—
• Steve Sadow: "I'm sorry, what?!"
Fani Willis: "I’m not going to emasculate [pause for effect] a black man! Did you understand that?!”

The only thing that Donald Trump's other lawyer should have responded at that point is this: 

"Are we to understand that you are willing (perhaps even eager) to emasculate a white man?" 

Or, rather, a Republican (irrespective of sex and skin color). In fact, it would have been even better had Donald Trump in person been in the Georgia courthouse and interrupted the proceedings with his deadpan sotto voce deliverance, "It's only white men that she likes to emasculate…" 

Oh, if Trump had responded that way, we would have seen the Fulton County District Attorney go totally berserk! (Wouldn't have been worth the rebuke — even an ouster? — that Trump would have gotten for his interruption?)

Thursday, February 08, 2024

The Genocide Charge Against Israel: What Is the Difference Between War and Genocide in the First Place?

In recent decades, as many as three million people perished in a famine in North Korea that was mainly government-induced 

writes in a New York Times column entitled The Genocide Charge Against Israel Is a Moral Obscenity:

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians were gassed, bombed, starved or tortured to death by the Assad regime, and an estimated 14 million were forced to flee their homes. China has put more than a million Uyghurs through gulag-like re-education camps in a thinly veiled attempt to suppress and erase their religious and cultural identity.

But North Korea, Syria and China have never been charged with genocide at the International Court of Justice. Israel has. How curious. And how obscene.

It’s obscene because it politicizes our understanding of genocide, fatally eroding the moral power of the term. The war between Israel and Hamas is terrible — as is every war. But if this is genocide, what word do we have for the killing fields in Cambodia, Stalin’s Holodomor in Ukraine, the Holocaust itself?

Words that come to mean much more than originally intended eventually come to mean almost nothing at all — a victory for future génocidaires who’d like the world to think there’s no moral or legal difference between one kind of killing and another.

It’s obscene because it perverts the definition of genocide, which is precise: “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” 

 … If Israel were trying to commit genocide, it wouldn’t be putting its soldiers at risk or allowing humanitarian relief to arrive from Egypt or withdrawing many of its forces from Gaza. It would simply be killing Palestinians everywhere, in vastly greater numbers, as Germans killed Jews or Hutus killed Tutsis.

It’s obscene because it puts the wrong party in the dock. Hamas is a genocidal organization by conviction and design. Its founding charter calls for Israel to be “obliterated” and for Muslims to kill Jews as they “hide behind stones and trees.” On Oct. 7, Hamas murdered, mutilated, tortured, incinerated, raped or kidnapped everyone it could. Had it not been stopped it would not have stopped. One of its leaders has since vowed to do it “a second, a third, a fourth” time.

It’s Hamas, not Israel, that started the war, keeps it going, and would resume it the moment it has the arsenal and the opportunity.

It’s obscene because it validates Hamas’s illegal and barbaric strategy of hiding between, behind and beneath Palestinian civilians. From the beginning of the war, Hamas has had a double aim: to kill as many Jews as possible, and to incur Palestinian fatalities to gain international sympathy and diplomatic leverage.

 … It’s obscene because it’s historically hypocritical. The United States, Britain and other allied nations killed a staggering number of German and Japanese civilians on the path to defeating the regimes that had started World War II — often known as the Good War. Events such as the bombings of Dresden or Tokyo, to say nothing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were tragic and far more indiscriminate than anything Israel stands accused of doing. But no serious person holds Franklin Roosevelt to be on a moral par with Adolf Hitler. What the Allies did were acts of war in the service of a lasting peace, not genocide in the service of a fanatical aim.

The difference? In war, the killing ends when one side stops fighting. In a genocide, that’s when the killing begins.

Related — To Peacenik Protesters Everywhere (Pro-Palestinian or Other): The People that Hamas Slaughtered Mercilessly at Israel's Rave — They Are YOU! has also penned Abolish the U.N.’s Palestinian Refugee Agency
and, on a more personal note, Why I Can’t Stop Writing About Oct. 7.