Can we not agree that the Obama administration has established a culture conducive to the type of stereotypical thinking that could lead to the IRS scandal?

It's disgraceful that government bureaucrats, whether on their own initiative or at the direction of superiors, singled out anyone for special scrutiny, but what their selection criteria were makes it even worse 

writes David Limbaugh.

Reportedly, the IRS field office in charge of evaluating applications for tax-exempt status decided to focus on groups making statements that "criticize how the country is being run" and those that are engaged in educating Americans "on the Constitution and Bill of Rights."

 … If the First Amendment means anything, it is that the full force of the federal government will be used to safeguard, not suppress, the liberties of American citizens to utter political speech, especially speech critical of the government. But instead, this IRS sought for abuse groups that criticized the administration and groups that wanted to teach people that under our Constitution, such government officials have no right to do this type of thing.


But speaking of this effort to pass the buck to "low-level" players: Can we not at least agree that the Obama administration has established a culture conducive to the type of stereotypical thinking that could lead to this? Didn't the Department of Homeland Security under this administration list right-wing groups as extremists and potential terrorists? Hasn't President Obama himself referred to tea partyers as "tea baggers"? Haven't other Democrats deliberately depicted tea party groups as violent extremists who are a hair trigger away from armed revolution?

Liberals have been trying to vilify conservative talk radio for years now, suggesting that its strong political opinions lead to violence. That is preposterous, but if we were to apply the same type of standard to Obama, we could say that he has personally fomented a climate of hate against conservative groups, such that the IRS targeting was completely foreseeable. Surely, it's fair to hold the president to his own standard.

Consider: Obama's "bitter clingers" remark, his statement that conservatives who want a "small America" are dragging America into "a race to the bottom where we try to offer the cheapest labor and the worst pollution standards," his calling Republican congressmen "hostage takers" for opposing his tax policies (does that ring a bell, i.e., those who criticize the government?), his despicable statement that Republican leaders are "willing to compromise (their) kids' safety so some corporate jet owner can get a tax break," Vice President Joe Biden's saying Republicans "have acted like terrorists" and are using threats of shutting the government down as a "weapon of mass destruction," Obama's looking on with approval as Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa said of the tea party, "Let's take these sons of b----es out," and his spiritual adviser the Rev. Jim Wallis' saying, "And to be blunt, there wouldn't be a tea party if there wasn't a black man in the White House."
 
In my book "The Great Destroyer," which was published in 2012 … I reported that some were alleging that "the Obama IRS (was) 'using the routine process of seeking and granting tax exemptions to undertake a sweeping, top-down review of the internal workings of the tea party movement in the United States.'" I added, "Recall that Obama's own campaign organization, Organizing for America, once labeled tea party opponents of Obamacare 'right-wing domestic terrorists.' ... If Team Obama views tea partyers as a dangerous threat, would it really be surprising to learn that it treats them as such?"

Treading

The Very Reason

Regarding the IRs's targeting of the Tea Parties and of group wanting to teach the constitution…

…needless to say, this along with the attendant big government (and big spending) ramifications, is precisely — not paradoxically — what gave birth to the Tea Parties in the first place…

Hot Trailer From Depardieu Film on a DSK-Type: Du sexe, du sexe, et encore du sexe

Gérard Depardieu won't be a earning a single dollar for playing a Dominique Strauss-Kahn type in the movie Welcome to New York (the movie's trailer), which is based on the DSK scandal in the the Big Apple's Sofitel. He's doing it for the pleasure of working with Abel Ferrara.

Photos from the New York set appeared in The Daily Mail (merci à Duncan) recently, as the French movie star as the Russian movie star and the rest of the crew reenact the media storm surrounding the sexual assault trial in the company of Jacqueline Bisset co-starring as his then-wife, the French TV reporter Anne Sinclair.

In an interview with Swiss Television RTS last year, Depardieu revealed he agreed to play the part because he found his fellow countryman 'arrogant and smug', adding: 'He is very French. I will do it, because I don't like him.'

Defenders of Benghazi Are All-Knowing, and Have the Military, and Every Little Detail, Figured Out

In response to Meghashyam Mali's Hill article on the Robert Gates defense of Obama's Benghazi response, claiming critics have a “cartoonish” view of U.S. military capabilities, leftists keep making a variant of this argument:

Nobody from the other bases could have gotten there in time to do anything.

Each attack was only about 20 minutes. And they were 7+ hours apart. Nobody from the other bases could have gotten there in time to do anything.

How do you — how does anybody (!) — know that?!?!

This is hindsight, pure'n'simple (and hardly accurate hindsight at that).

How about a building on fire? Do firefighters conduct an in-depth study before they send their men in?! Do they know precisely how long the fire will last or how long they have to save people inside?


SPECIFICALLY:

you receive a call from Benghazi, what, 5 (10?) minutes after the attack has begun — How do you know, how does Obama know, how does Hillary know, how would Bush know, how would Cheney know, how does the special forces commander know, how do the Pentagon generals know, how does anybody know… how long the attack will last, and/or how long those poor souls in Libya will hold out?

Is it 20 minutes? Is it 7 hours? Is it 2 days? Is it a week? Is it ten days (the Alamo)? Is it 20 seconds?

The purpose of military, especially the special forces — any of their members would tell you (as well as Robert Gates) this — is to put themselves in harm's way when the call comes, and hit fast'n'hard — that's what they signed up for and that's what they train for.

Then we are told as follows:

And if we sent few more people and if we lost more lives due to that … if we sent another dozen or two people there against thousands, could we avoid the incident or we would have lost few more brave soldiers?

And it is conservatives who allegedly have a cartoonish view of the military?!

Yes, in typical Hollywood fashion, the bad guys, just because they are so bright and because they snarl so much, and because those evil genius' evil minds have everything so well planned out, they succeed in almost effortlessly wiping out an entire platoon, an entire company, of baby-faced teen-agers in uniform, as if the American soldiers were nigh-defenseless children…

When the call comes, 5 minutes after the attack — the military will tell you (as well as Monsieur Gates, or BHO, or either Clinton) — that is the exact moment that you start reacting! You send the choppers into the air, you send the planes towards the target (with — naturally — all options open, including the one to call the raid off as they approach the city when the Marines or what have you are — what? — within say 15 miles of their target).

Sorry, but the option to stay put, hundreds of miles from Benghazi, is indefensible.

Update: Reader Radegunda points out that two of the reasons given by the Obama defenders cancel each other out:

Here are two excuses that were given:

1. We couldn't go into an uncertain situation.
2. We would have gotten there too late to make a difference.
Those two lines are mutually exclusive.
And neither is plausible on its own.

Mike Dd adds:

Hmmmm

Then why did over 700 retired Special Oprations servicemen send a letter to the congress requesting an investigation? These people are told a lot of things 'off the record' by their buddies still in the thick of it, they know what is going on....and they do not have a cartoonish few of the military.

Gates said: “To send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, I think, would have been very dangerous,”

There was a drone flying overhead for most of the attack...and when you don't know what is going on...you either send in a small recon force of a probing force. The assertion that they did not know what was going on during an ATTACK means that you do SOMETHING to find out what is going on, not sit and wait to see what is going to happen next. The sum of the difficulties with this incident is that there seems to have been a failure to take any action followed by the whole storyline about some utube video that has proven false.

Obama Administration Hired al-Qaida-Linked Group to Defend Benghazi Mission

The Libyan militia group that the State Department hired to defend its embattled diplomatic mission in Benghazi had clear al-Qaida sympathies,

writes John Rosenthal in a Newsmax exclusive,

and had prominently displayed the al-Qaida flag on a Facebook page some months before the deadly attack. 

That organization, the February 17th Martyrs Brigade, was paid by the U.S. government to provide security at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. But there is no indication the Martyrs Brigade fulfilled its commitment to defend the mission on Sept. 11, when it came under attack.

  … Several entries on the militia’s Facebook page openly profess sympathy for Ansar al-Sharia, the hardline Islamist extremist group widely blamed  for the deadly attack on the mission. The State Department did not respond to a Newsmax request for an explanation as to why the February 17th Martyrs Brigade was hired to protect the mission.

 … Perhaps the biggest question is why the State Department would hire a group that openly displayed its admiration for al-Qaida, and ask it to participate in the defense of its diplomatic mission.

The banner, or “cover photo” of one of the group’s Facebook pages, shows an Islamic fighter, or mujahid, with a portable rocket launcher resting on his shoulder.

The distinctive black flag of al-Qaida can be seen fluttering to the man’s right, attached to the vehicle in which he is riding. The mujahid wears a headband based on the design of the al-Qaida flag. The flag in question features the shahada, or Islamic declaration of faith, and a white circle that is sometimes described as the “seal of Mohammed.”

 … Throughout the summer leading up to the attack, embassy officials repeatedly asked the State Department for additional security. But the State Department actually reduced security, pulling out a military detachment responsible for defending diplomats in Libya.

One reason the requests for additional security may have been denied: They did not fit into the administration narrative that al-Qaida elements no longer posed a threat to U.S. interests.

One diplomatic cable to the mission indicated that the U.S.-based deputy assistant secretary for diplomatic security was “reluctant to ask for [additional security] apparently out of concern that it would be embarrassing to the [State Department] to continue to have to rely on [Defense Department] assets to protect our mission.”

When the mission’s regional safety officer expressed an interest in July 2012 asking State Department official to permit the military security team to continue to protect the mission, Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary in charge of diplomatic security, sent an e-mail that responded: “NO, I do not [I repeat] not want them to ask for the [military security] team to stay!”

Republicans have complained in recent weeks that the Obama administration has been stonewalling their investigation.

"We are trying to change the mentality in France" says entrepreneur who rails bluntly against the country’s established classes

Xavier Niel is not what you would expect in a billionaire

writes Kevin J O'Brien in the New York Times.

Mr. Niel, the French Internet entrepreneur, is a slightly disheveled 45-year-old fond of jeans and open-collared shirts. He is a high school graduate from a working-class Paris suburb who rails bluntly against the country’s established classes and a business elite culled from a handful of grande écoles — elite educational institutions. 

But over the past two decades, Mr. Niel has amassed a net worth estimated by Forbes in March at $6.6 billion, emerging as France’s most influential technology entrepreneur, an opportunistic, controversial visionary whose low-cost Internet service provider and mobile network have made the Internet affordable for millions of French consumers. 

To many struggling in France’s stagnant economy, Mr. Niel is a hero. But to a French business establishment grappling with the competitive disruptions of the Internet — not to mention the same stagnant economy — he is an unwelcome threat, a destroyer of profit margins. 

“He represents the Internet world and the Internet economy, something that is not really appreciated in France,” said Cedric Manara, a law professor at Edhec, a business school in Paris. “He is not one of them. He represents what scares them — the big battlefield between the old and new economy.”

Mr. Niel says his goal is no less than to instill a Web-based entrepreneurial culture in France. 

“If people like us don’t start to change things in France, nothing is ever going to change,” Mr. Niel said. “Today France is the fifth-largest economy in the world. But if we don’t change things, we will be the 25th biggest in just 10 years.”

 … In 1993, when he was 25, Mr. Niel created France’s first Internet service provider, WorldNet, which he sold seven years later, just before the dotcom bubble burst, for more than $50 million. In 2002, his second Internet service business, Free, sold the world’s first triple-play package of phone, television and Internet. The Freebox service cost just €29.99 a month, or about $40 at current exchange rates, about a third less than the going rate. The triple-play would not arrive in the United States until three years later. 

Free has since added a Blu-ray disc player, a digital recorder and unlimited domestic mobile calls to the Freebox package, but it still has not raised the basic price. The company is France’s second largest Internet service provider, behind Orange, owned by the former telephone monopoly, France Télécom.

But the ISP business was only a warm-up. In January 2012, he created Free Mobile, which became France’s fourth cellphone network operator. In another break with convention, Free sold a no-strings-attached SIM card service with unlimited calls, text and Internet for €19.99 a month, less than half what the other three — Orange, SFR and Bouyges Télécom — had been charging. 

This came after the three bigger operators had tried unsuccessfully to persuade the European Commission to block Free’s mobile license. Since its inception, Free Mobile is estimated to have cost the top three operators millions in profit, as all created new, lower-cost plans to compete. 

That does not bother Mr. Niel too much. In December, the French competition regulator, Autorité de la concurrence, fined Orange and SFR, which together have about three-quarters of France’s mobile users, €183 million for abusing their size by offering free on-network calls to their own customers since 2005. 

The operators are appealing the ruling. But for Mr. Niel, who spoke during a wide-ranging interview on the top floor of his headquarters in central Paris, the case was another example of the cartel-like relationship among industry leaders that pervades the French economy and in which profit trumps the needs of consumers. 

Free Mobile signed up 5.2 million customers during its first year of business, grabbing almost 8 percent of the French mobile market. Sales reached €844 million but the business generated a €46.1 million loss in 2012 before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The new enterprise increased annual revenue at Mr. Niel’s holding company, Iliad, by 49 percent to €3.2 billion last year. Iliad had a market capitalization Friday of €10 billion. 

“Our goal is to bring Internet to everyone in France,” he said, speaking in a heavily accented English. 

But in parts of France, Mr. Niel remains controversial.

 … For 10 years, Mr. Niel has been investing tens of millions of euros in technology startups. Each week, his venture capital company, Kima Ventures, invests in two more. Some of the money goes to French companies like Deezer, the streaming music service, but much has also gone to U.S. start-ups, like Square, a maker of free credit card readers for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices that is based in San Francisco. 

Last month, Mr. Niel announced plans to open a tuition-free Web developer academy for 1,000 students. He has received 10,000 applications from students, each of whom spent four hours filling out a test of computer logic posted on the Web. 

Tellingly, the test did not ask applicants for their academic credentials. Mr. Niel said he was looking for people like himself — qualified, but unprivileged and lacking the right connections — to give them a leg up. 

“We are not just trying to change business,” he said. “We are trying to change the mentality in France.” 

 … As Mr. Niel’s influence and public stature grows, some are worried he may become a part of what he hates — the establishment. They point to the fact that in 2010, Mr. Niel was one of three investors who bought a controlling interest in Le Monde, the country’s flagship daily newspaper. 

“I think secretly he wants to become part of the establishment,” said Mr. Godard, the Enders analyst.

Mr. Manara, the Edhec professor, said he was not so sure. 

“In France, we like to burn our idols,” Mr. Manara said. 

Mr. Niel said he had no desire to join the establishment. He ruled out pursing a political career.

“I like being an outsider,” he said. “It is better in France on the outside.”

69 Years After Loss in a Normandy Garden, Another Set of World War II Dog Tag Reunited with The Veteran It Belonged To

An American World War ll veteran who lost his military dog tag in France nearly 70 years ago has finally been reunited with it

the BBC's Laura Westbrook reports in a story reminiscent of the discovery of James Kelson's dog tags on a Normandy beach.

The tag was found by a woman tending her garden in France 12 years ago.

Willie Wilkins, 90, was the guest of honour at a ceremony in Newark, New Jersey, to celebrate the 68th anniversary of VE Day, and was presented with his dog tag.

Who Gets Blasted During a Bush Administration Scandal? Republicans (Appropriately Enough); Who Gets Blasted During an Obama Administration Scandal? ALSO Republicans!

No matter how much you get used to the mainstream media's double standards, you always end up getting surprised. Thus, I was pretty much struck speechless when I opened Friday's International Herald Tribune to the Op-Ed page and came upon this Tom Toles cartoon. with a Casablanca theme. Is there nothing The One can do wrong? Is there no instance where liberals cannot let the story turn to their (smug) contempt for Republicans and/or conservatives?

"I may have seen some of the stupidest Negroes I've ever seen! A bunch of stupid, mindless Negroes!"

I may have seen some of the stupidest Negroes I've ever seen … the prestigious African-Americans — even though they've never been to Africa … Blacks! You're not African-American, you're black! Stop it! "I agree with [Barack Obama]!  … He's right about everything! … I agree with the president!" … Negroes would follow Barack Obama to Hell if he went there! … A bunch of stupid, mindless Negroes, if I've ever seen stupid and mindless Negroes! … What about hitting yourself in the head with a hammer?! … "Is the president for it?! Okay, I'm for it!" … God, you people! … Wake up, mindless zombies!

Think I'm quoting some terrible Ku Klux Klan member, or some other racist, and therefore I can only be a racist myself? Problem is, of course, that I am quoting The Angry Black Man aka the doctor of common sense (fist bump to Valerie).

Good Grief: How to Figure Out Who Is Racist

Click to enlarge (Thanks to Greg in PA, via Duncan Hill)

Plus Ça Change: Christians Accused of Being Hateful by… Nero (!) …Two Thousand Years Ago (!)

In the year 44 King Herod Agrippa I imprisoned and beheaded James the Greater, the first of the Apostles to die 

writes Andrew Todhunter in the March 2012 issue of the National Geographic. The least one can say is that The Journey of the Apostles (with photos by Lynn Johnson) is extremely revealing. Plus ça change, they say, and it turns out that the period of time in that phrase goes back not only over a period of a generation or two (as perhaps commonly thought), or perhaps over a century or two, but over a period of not one but two millennia!

How many times have you heard that Republicans are horrid, that conservatives are racist, that the West is intolerant, that Christians are hateful?

Well, it turns out that the reason that the early Christians were persecuted, it was because they were… — scratch that! In fact, you see, the early Christians were not persecuted per se, it turns out, they were in fact getting their just desserts for being — yes, wait for it — hateful!

The chickens coming home to roost, to use a phrase used by self-serving leftists the world over. Karma! "Haven't the Christians (early or otherwise) asked themselves why they are despised so much? Haven't they asked themselves why their adversaries (the Romans, in this case) treat them the way they do? Haven't they looked into their (dark) souls?" (Ever notice how the — alleged — hatred in the souls of people in the West is always highly reproachable, while that of everybody else always seems to be understandable and natural and somehow a good thing?)

To quote Tacitus, the early Christians were convicted of — get this — "hatred against mankind".

Indeed, hatred is so much of a no-no, hatred is so politically incorrect (already 2,000 years ago), that when Nero accuses the Christians of being behind the great fire in Rome, with all the death and destruction that this entails, even this "crime of firing the city" is not so much the primary reason given for the Christians' conviction, the Roman historian tells us, as is the (obviously indisputable) fact of the presence in their souls "of hatred against mankind."

Let us let Andrew Todhunter (re)tell the story:

In 64, when a great fire in Rome destroyed 10 of the city's 14 quarters, Emperor Nero, accused by detractors of setting the fire himself, pinned the catastrophe on the growing Christian movement and committed scores of believers to death in his private arena. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote: "An immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind … Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired." In the year 110 Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, was arrested by the Romans under Trajan, shipped to Rome, and condemned to death ad bestias—by beasts—at the public games. Bloody episodes like this would recur sporadically for the next two centuries.

Tradition holds that 11 of the Twelve Apostles were martyred. Peter, Andrew, and Philip were crucified; James the Greater and Thaddaeus fell to the sword; James the Lesser was beaten to death while praying for his attackers; Bartholomew was flayed alive and then crucified; Thomas and Matthew were speared; Matthias was stoned to death; and Simon was either crucified or sawed in half. John—the last survivor of the Twelve—likely died peaceably, possibly in Ephesus, around the year 100.

How 'bout that?! Now, in true leftist fashion, we understand the real reason why the Christians were persecuted — or, rather, why they were "persecuted", in quotation marks, since, in some obscure karmic manner, those hateful beings obviously deserved their fate. As French intellectuals said about Americans after the 9-11 tragedy, ils l'ont bien mérité… They had it comin' to 'em…

Goodbye, Friend: RIP Ray Harryhausen

Visual effects master Ray Harryhausen, whose stop-motion wizardrystop-motion wizardry graced such films as Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans, has died aged 92.

Olavo de Carvalho on socialism: A thousand combat fronts which do not advance the socialist cause ostensibly, but erode the moral and cultural values of capitalist society

Olavo de Carvalho, President of The Inter-American Institute, is interviewed by the Patrick Henry College's Intelligencer Journal on the subjects of Latin America and Socialism (obrigado para Swimming Against the Red Tide, whose post by Luís Afonso Assumpção contains different excerpts of de Carvalho's thoughts, focusing on the role of the late Hugo Chávez, as a… decoy!).

I. The Causes of Socialism

The Intelligencer: What do you believe are the underlying causes for Latin America’s shift toward socialism/communism after the region had implemented at least forms of capitalism?

Olavo: The history of Latin America in the last half century can be divided into three stages. The first, that of military dictatorships and defeat of the armed left. The second, the return of democracy and a phase of fleeting and skin-deep enthusiasm for free-market capitalism, coinciding with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Finally, the general rise of the left.

Clearly, the third stage was prepared during the second, when the public opinion thought that communism was dead and buried forever, when in fact it was only playing dead to catch its enemies by surprise. What happened was that, at the time, the right did not understand at all the process of internal transformation of the communist movement. First, the military had focused on combating the armed left without doing virtually anything against communism at the ideological and cultural levels, which, precisely at the time of the greatest repression, were quietly taken over by leftists. In almost all Latin American countries, leftists dominated the cultural and journalistic apparatus precisely at the moment when the fall of the USSR created among them a state of ideological confusion which is very conducive to a thorough strategic review, which occurred with remarkable speed, without the right—so drunk it was with triumphalistic delusion—even noticing it.

This review consisted of the following items: (1) an organizational reform of the communist parties, which abandoned the old vertical chain of command and adopted a more flexible form of organization based on network structures in order to provide a strategic coordination among all factions of the left, bypassing old ideological divisions, (2) a radical shift in the left’s ideological discourse, which, instead of focusing on a structural transformation of the economy, began to emphasize all sorts of group interests that were antagonistic to the system—against which the left no longer waged open war, but rather launched attacks from a thousand quarters, creating a total confusion in society.

These changes reflect what Augusto del Noce called, somewhat ironically, “the suicide of the Revolution:” once any clear vision of a socialist future was dissolved, the revolutionary struggle crumbled into a seemingly unconnected thousand combat fronts which, according to the same del Noce, did not advance the socialist cause ostensibly, but eroded moral and cultural values of capitalist society, which thus assumed increasingly malignant and odious features. The new generations of supporters of capitalism, already educated without the moral and cultural values that held up the regime, contributed to this process, surrendering themselves to an amoral pragmatism that made capitalism precisely the monster that leftists would wish it to be.

Meanwhile, leftists took advantage of this in order to promote and denounce corruption at the same time, laying all the blame on capitalism. The situation as a whole became so confusing that no one on the right understood what was going on. Stunned and paralyzed, conservatives and free-market liberals gradually yielded to an ideological advance whose communist profile they completely failed to notice. That is how a faction that seemed almost extinct in the early 1990’s became the almost absolute dominating political force on the continent.

The Intelligencer: What about the role of outside allies such as Russia, Iran, or China?

Olavo: The entire strategy of the São Paulo Forum clearly fits into the plans of Russia and China to create a “Brand New New World Order” to be built upon the devaluation of the dollar and the collapse of the American economy. … Note that, at the very moment that the United States are under threat of war, the Obama administration is all about weakening the American military and strengthening domestic law enforcement agencies (arming them even with military-style equipment) at the same time it promotes the destruction of the American economy through pharaonic borrowing and spending. To me it seems that the BRICS’ “Brand New New World Order” is already in power in Washington and sees as inevitable—if not desirable—the social crisis that will allow it to severely limit democratic freedoms.

The Intelligencer: Do you believe that the majority of citizens in socialized Latin American nations really believe in socialist policies, or are demagoguery and/or corruption driving the movement?

Olavo: You have no idea of the state of mental confusion and disconnection from reality in which public opinion finds itself in Latin America, especially in Brazil. None of the problems I have mentioned here is ever discussed in the mainstream media or in the Parliament. Most people believe they still live in a capitalist democracy and do not see the slightest danger of a communist dictatorship. It is as though the last newspaper that came into their hands were from about August 1990. Public debates do not reflect absolutely anything that is really going on. Moreover, it is necessary to understand that many of the profound changes that have been introduced into the social, economic, cultural, and educational life in Latin America have been established through administrative decrees, ministerial directives, and judicial rulings—that is, they have never gone through legislative debate, and they have rarely received any media coverage. Everywhere people understand democracy only as an electoral process, failing to notice that without access to essential information, this process is only a façade, with no reality inside. The state of political ignorance in which the population live today in Latin America, and especially in Brazil, shows that the difference between democracy and dictatorship has become relevant. In the United States, things have not yet reached that point, but they are very quickly approaching it.
  
II. The Future of Socialism

The Intelligencer: What political ideologies do you believe will dominate Latin America in the future?

Olavo: Everywhere on the continent, the political “right” is disjointed and disoriented. In Brazil, the only thing that exists under the name of  “right” is the most moderate wing of the left. In the coming decades, it is possible that some right resurfaces, not so much inspired by the traditional conservative discourse as by moral and religious grounds, since the the dominant left’s insistence on quickly modifying the country’s framework of moral values comes into direct conflict with the religious beliefs of the majority of the population. What seems that is going to happen is not a struggle between socialism and capitalism, but rather between the revolutionary spirit and Christianity.

The DailyMotion Illustration of How Government Intervention Undermines the Free Market

Orange-France Télécom has renounced in its plans to sell Dailymotion to Yahoo! in a Le Monde article that illustrates perfectly how government intervention undermines the free market.

As Cécile Ducourtieux et Alain Beuve-Méry report it, once the French government learned of the proposed sale, it intervened to put a stop to it: "Dailymotion is one of the few content companies these past years which France has succeeded in getting a place on the web," said one internet provider as he summed up the government's thoughts. "It is a real pearl, and which moreover is not losing any money. It would be a real shame to let it go." Later in the article, we learn that with 7.5 million euros in 2009, it is not the first time that the government intervenes in Daily Motion's finances.

(In a similar vein, Gwénaël Pépin informs us that a French government minister has intervened against a "brutal" decision by Apple to ban a French app named AppGratis from its AppStore…)

Selon des sources convergentes, Orange-France Télécom a renoncé à céder l'intégralité de Dailymotion au géant américain Yahoo!

L'opérateur de télécommunications, qui possède 100 % du capital de la plate-forme de vidéo française, cherchait depuis des mois un partenaire américain pour la développer. Mais, il y a trois ou quatre semaines, alertés par des fuites dans le Wall Street Journal, Pierre Moscovici, le ministre de l'économie et des finances, et Arnaud Montebourg, le ministre du redressement productif, ont émis de forts doutes sur l'opportunité d'une telle opération.

"Dailymotion est une des rares sociétés de contenus que la France ait réussi à faire émerger sur le Web ces dernières années, c'est une vraie perle, et qui en plus ne perd pas d'argent. Ce serait quand même dommage de la laisser filer", assure au Monde une figure de l'Internet français.

Pour Stéphane Richard, le PDG d'Orange qui brigue un second mandat à la tête de l'opérateur (l'actuel court jusqu'à mi-2014), il n'était pas question de se brouiller avec l'Etat, qui reste à plus de 27 % son actionnaire. L'ancien directeur de cabinet de Christine Lagarde à Bercy a donc décidé de ne pas poursuivre les discussions sur une base visant à céder une trop grande part du capital de la PME.

L'ÉTAT A DÉJÀ MIS DE L'ARGENT POUR SAUVER LA START-UP

Au gouvernement, on a d'autant plus "tiqué" que l'Etat était venu une première fois au secours de Dailymotion pour aider la start-up à se développer et la mettre à l'abri de l'appétit d'éventuels acquéreurs étrangers. C'était en octobre 2009, le Fonds stratégique d'investissement (FSI) y avait injecté 7,5 millions d'euros. Avant qu'Orange ne prenne le relais : en janvier 2011, le groupe avait annoncé un accord prévoyant sa montée au capital de la société à hauteur de 49 %. Cet accord prévoyait qu'il finisse par en contrôler 100 % en janvier 2013.

"Yahoo! demandait plus de la majorité du capital de Dailymotion, au moins les trois quarts, voire l'ensemble. Le portail américain veut pouvoir intégrer la plate-forme à son offre de contenu", croit savoir une source interne chez Orange.

 … Orange est en effet convaincu que la plate-forme française a besoin d'un partenaire américain. Dailymotion, fondée en mars 2005 par Benjamin Bejbaum et Olivier Poitrey, a certes réussi la performance de devenir un concurrent crédible de YouTube, géant mondial de la vidéo sur le Web et filiale de Google.

C'est une des pépites de l'Internet français, comme OVH, une société nordiste qui propose des services d'hébergement informatique, ou la plate-forme d'écoute de musique Deezer (dans laquelle Orange a également pris une participation, en 2010).

"Dailymotion dispose d'une superbe plate-forme technologique, elle est désormais parvenue à l'équilibre", précise un proche du dossier. Comme YouTube, la société a fondé son modèle économique sur la génération de revenus publicitaires. Elle travaille activement à attirer des contenus de qualité sur ses sites Web, afin de faire venir aussi les annonceurs. Elle parie aussi un peu sur la vidéo à la demande, et a commencé son internationalisation (le site est disponible en 16 langues).
 
BESOIN D'UN PARTENAIRE

Mais la différence d'audience et de moyens avec YouTube reste abyssale. Dailymotion comptabilisait 112 millions de visiteurs uniques par mois en janvier 2013, selon l'institut ComScore, alors que la filiale de Google a passé la barre du milliard de visiteurs uniques par mois début 2013.

 … Aujourd'hui, pour que le dossier Dailymotion avance, la question est de savoir si Marissa Mayer, la charismatique patronne de Yahoo !, arrivée l'été dernier à la tête du portail américain pour tenter de le redresser (il est en perte de vitesse par rapport à Google ou Amazon), va accepter que les Français lui dictent leurs conditions...

Cardinal Questions for the Believers

… semblant entériner un combat perdu, [le cardinal André Vingt-Trois] reconnaît : "Nous ne devons plus attendre des lois civiles qu'elles défendent notre vision de l'homme."

Ainsi écrit Stéphanie Le Bars dans Le Monde sur le sujet du mariage gay (gay marriage) qu'il remet dans un contexte plus large.

Aux croyants, il précise que "la pointe du combat n'est pas une lutte idéologique ou politique" et les met en garde contre "les protections trompeuses d'une organisation en ghetto ou en contre-culture". Il les appelle à vivre en conformité avec leurs paroles. "A quoi bon combattre pour la sauvegarde du mariage hétérosexuel stable si nos propres pratiques rendent peu crédible la viabilité de ce modèle ? A quoi bon nous battre pour défendre la dignité des embryons, si les chrétiens tolèrent l'avortement dans leur propre vie ? A quoi bon nous battre contre l'euthanasie si nous n'accompagnons pas nos frères en fin de vie ?"

Hollande's First Year in Power

After 12 months in the Élysée palace, François Hollande can only be said to have had a disastrous first year — as depicted as a typical Frenchman on the cover of Courrier International (obrigado para Underscore), albeit with hardly a seductive facial expression, a presentable loaf of baguette, and a ridable (tricolored) bicycle.
One year in, writes Anne-Elisabeth Moutet in the Daily Telegraph (merci à Evelyne), François Hollande has "alienated most voters, antagonised Angela Merkel, driven droves of French into exile and presided over a worsening economy": "Mr Normal has become the Pitiful President"

With hindsight, it seems as if François Hollande’s troubles started the day he was inaugurated, on May 15 2012. First he was drenched by a surprise storm as his open Citroën drove up the Champs-Elysées. Then, the very same day, his Falcon plane was hit by lightning on the way to Berlin, where he was scheduled to meet Angela Merkel – making it possibly the first and last time the German Chancellor has felt unreserved sympathy for him.

The new president had to turn back before travelling to Berlin in another aircraft. When he got there – in more pouring rain – he missed a turn on the airfield red carpet while reviewing German troops, and had to be steered back in the right direction by Mrs Merkel’s firm grip on his elbow, a moment that presciently symbolised their future relationship.

And everything went downhill from there.

One year later, the man who had billed himself as the “normal president” during his victorious campaign against Nicolas Sarkozy is breaking records for unpopularity. With 75 per cent against him, Hollande is scoring the lowest approval ratings of any president of the Fifth Republic since the country started conducting polls. Unemployment has risen by 11.5 per cent since his election, reaching an all-time high of 3.2 million. An estimated 150,000 young people have left the country in search of better prospects abroad: the only jobs created in France have been in the public sector, usually in fields such as teaching that are solidly controlled by Socialist voters.

Despite a widely touted “austerity” drive, public spending stands at 57 per cent of GDP – the figure in Britain is 45 per cent – and the country’s public debt is about to reach 94 per cent of GDP. The largest street demonstrations since 1984 – when the country also had a Socialist president, François Mitterrand – have brought more than a million people on to the streets of Paris on two occasions (and more are planned), to protest against justice minister Christiane Taubira’s new law on gay marriage and adoption: given that France is a fairly tolerant society, these were effectively a street referendum against Hollande.

 … Despite a widely touted “austerity” drive, public spending stands at 57 per cent of GDP – the figure in Britain is 45 per cent – and the country’s public debt is about to reach 94 per cent of GDP. The largest street demonstrations since 1984 – when the country also had a Socialist president, François Mitterrand – have brought more than a million people on to the streets of Paris on two occasions (and more are planned), to protest against justice minister Christiane Taubira’s new law on gay marriage and adoption: given that France is a fairly tolerant society, these were effectively a street referendum against Hollande.

 … “The country is drowning in an ocean of discouragement,” said Christophe Barbier, the influential editor of L’Express. “It’s not just the tax-avoiding rich, artists like Gérard Depardieu, businessmen – everyone is now tempted to leave for a better life elsewhere. Young people feel they will never get a break, a job, a sign of trust. Entrepreneurs have to fend off red tape, rising costs and levies.”

In April, to add to this toxic climate, came the Cahuzac scandal: France’s budget minister, the man in charge of fighting tax fraud, was revealed to have a secret bank account in Switzerland – and in all likelihood another in Singapore – and to have lied to the president and parliament about it.

In the past week, polls have given Marine Le Pen, the far-Right National Front leader, record numbers in a hypothetical presidential election – 23 per cent, well above Hollande at 19 per cent, while Sarkozy scored 34 per cent. Were Sarkozy to stand, he would beat Le Pen easily in the second round but the talk in France has been of the dangers of Fascism, beginning with the very real distrust of all politicians and of the ruling class.