Saturday, February 22, 2025

First Elon Musk, Now Steve Bannon: "All I Was Doing Was Wave to the Audience"


The latest example of Drama Queenery comes from France via CPAC, where Jordan Bardella pulled out of a scheduled speech because a speaker there, Steve Bannon, allegedly made a "gesture referring to Nazi ideology". 

The BBC's Brandon Drenon:

"If he cancelled [the speech] over what the mainstream media said about the speech, he didn't listen to the speech. If that's true, he's unworthy to lead France. He's a boy, not a man," Bannon told the French news magazine Le Point. 

At the Reagan Dinner Friday night, the head of the War Room again said: "All I did was wave to the audience."

As I have said in the past,  

few fascists ever, few Nazis ever gave the fascist/Nazi salute from the heart, as Elon Musk did. Whether in Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, or in Germany, the arm went straight up from the side as the individual is standing still. Aye, there is the rub: the salute is traditionally formal, given as a soldier standing still by an "inferior" to a "superior" at the outset of an event or only when asked (when commanded) to do so. Thus we see lines of Nazis, in uniform or civilian attire, all doing the Führergruß together, mechanically, at exactly the same time
Back in Paris, as a guest on Sud Radio, ROF's Vanessa Biard-Schaeffer gave her take on the allegations…


\Avec Vanessa Biard-Schaeffer, Vice-président des Republicans Overseas

Thursday, February 20, 2025

CPAC Opens As the Trump Bulldozer Does What All Conservatives Have Been Begging For for the Past Half-Century

With Stacy McCain at the Belvedere

On the day before CPAC's opening day, who did I run into at the lobby bar, aka The Belvedere, but ol' pal and fellow blogger Stacy McCain? Thanks to his blog, The Other McCain (a reference to John McCain — no relation of his, I am told — back in the days when the Arizona senator was seeking the presidency during the first decade of the 21st century), he has an excellent description of the day at the Gaylord Hotel in National Harbor (check out paragraph two, between the hotel photo and the Donut Operator photo). As Stacy wrote, we spent our cocktail hour discussing the early days of blogging — remember Blogger Row?! — and trying to figure out what had happened to all our soulmates in the past two decades.

We first met at CPAC in either 2006 or 2007, during the G.W. Bush presidency, when the Global War on Terror was still the big thing for conservatives, and doesn’t that seem like a million years ago? 

[Erik Svane] and I talked about the old times, when “blogging” was still the New Thing, before social media, TikTok, YouTube and other such developments had revolutionized the information landscape. It was at CPAC 2007 (then held at the Omni Shoreham hotel in D.C.) that I first met Andrew Breitbart, and it’s stunning to think that it’s been nearly 13 years since Andrew died suddenly of a heart attack.

Back in the day, Stacy was clean-shaven; don't tell him this, but now, behind his back, I call him General Robert E Lee…
Mike Lindell, author of "From Crack Addict to CEO"

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Soviet Document Calling Oppenheimer a Member of the CP was sent to Stalin's NKVD Capo, Beria


As a group of historians and a top biographer square off, proponents of a middle path see a tangled life in which the superstar of science was, and was not, a true Communist at the same time.

Revisiting Oppenheimer's Communist Ties: A year after Nolan's movie on Oppenheimer, revisits An Old Clash [Which] Heats Up Over Oppenheimer’s Red Ties in the New York Times.

J. Robert Oppenheimer teemed with contradictions. …

 … In a universe of contradictions, the physicist himself grew famous as an American hero and infamous as a red sympathizer. The question of his true loyalties rang alarms 80 years ago as the Federal Bureau of Investigation probed Oppenheimer’s Communist past — and is now — surprisingly — gaining new attention.

This fall, months after Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” won seven Oscars, the Journal of Cold War Studies, a quarterly publication of Harvard University, is revisiting the Oppenheimer case.

Four historians argue that the physicist was not just a Communist ally but a full-blown member of a secret Berkeley unit who ultimately perjured himself in a federal hearing that had dug into his past. As evidence, they cite a substantial body of letters, memoirs and espionage files, some postdating the movie’s source material.

“Historians have to go where the evidence takes them,” said Gregg Herken, who leads the reassessment and is emeritus professor of history at the University of California.

In sharp disagreement is Kai Bird, co-author of “American Prometheus,” the 2005 biography of Oppenheimer on which Mr. Nolan based his film. The biographer denied that, in the 18 years since his book’s publication, any evidence has come to light confirming that the superstar of American science was in fact a true Communist.

“The only reason these folks are revisiting this issue is because of the Nolan film,” Mr. Bird said. “They’re pushing their own little crusade.”

The trouble with Kai Bird, of course, is that he and Martin J. Sherwin, i.e., The Authors of the Book Behind Nolan's "Oppenheimer" Were Both Editors and Writers at "The Nation" (something the mainstream media members, even in this article, have gone out of their way to downplay).

A middle path also exists. Some scholars, not unlike the quantum physicists, see both claims about Oppenheimer as possibly true — that he was and wasn’t a dedicated Communist. Potential clues, they say, can be found in his tangled life.

“He may have wavered,” said Thomas L. Sakmyster, an expert on underground Communist units. He said that flexible rules let members see their red ties as blurry.

Oppenheimer and others, Dr. Sakmyster said, “may have thought of themselves as fellow travelers” — that is, sympathetic to Communism but not formal party members. “Probably quite a few vacillated in this in-between state.” In the idiom of the day, they were pink individuals in red groups. …/…

 … Amid the social upheavals of the Great Depression, [Julius Robert Oppenheimer], like many 1930s liberals, belonged to leftist groups that denounced fascism abroad and sought economic justice at home. Even so, the elite physicist had little in common with the “card carrying, dues paying” Communists of his day. The workers joined picket lines, went to rallies and sold newspapers that reliably echoed Moscow’s line.

The ranks of the party soon expanded, however. In the 1930s, it began to court doctors, lawyers, professors, filmmakers and other members of the middle and upper classes. Many were leery of party affiliation. In response, the American party encouraged them to join underground units where members could study Marx, adopt pseudonyms and work in secret to aid the party. They carried no cards, unlike their worker comrades.

“It was risky and thrilling,” said Dr. Sakmyster, a emeritus professor of history at the University of Cincinnati. The secret members, he added, tended to be “very idealistic, very romantic.”

This was the moment in which Oppenheimer embraced Communism. His wife, his former fiancée, his brother, his sister-in-law and some of his best friends were party members. He called himself “a fellow traveler.” He subscribed to People’s World, a Communist newspaper, and each year gave the party up to roughly $1,000 — today the equivalent of more than $20,000.

That might have raised eyebrows in some circles, but it was not illegal. And Moscow would soon be Washington’s ally in World War II. After the war, however, Moscow got the bomb and quickly built a threatening arsenal. In 1954, at the height of the McCarthy era’s anti-Communism, Oppenheimer faced a secret hearing to determine if he were a security risk.

Under oath, repeatedly, the scientific head of Los Alamos denied ever belonging to a secret Communist unit or having any kind of formal Communist affiliation.

Dr. Herken, who wrote a 2002 book on Oppenheimer, said the trail of contrary evidence starts with two unpublished memoirs.

The first, by Haakon Chevalier, the physicist’s best friend at Berkeley, told of the two men joining the secret unit. The other, by Gordon Griffiths, a graduate student who became a University of Washington historian, said that he had been the Communist liaison to the group and that Oppenheimer was a member.

“American Prometheus,” which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, dismissed such evidence as insubstantial. “Quite bluntly,” Mr. Bird and his co-author Martin J. Sherwin declared, “any attempt to label Robert Oppenheimer a Party member is a futile exercise.”

New clues, however, kept coming to light. In 2009, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, historians of American Communism and Soviet espionage, cited old Soviet intelligence reports they saw as clearly indicating that “Oppenheimer had lied” to American officials about his party affiliation.

Barton J. Bernstein, an emeritus professor of history at Stanford University who has studied the Oppenheimer case for decades, said he was skeptical at first of the physicist’s formal Communist ties but now sees the evidence as “overwhelming.”

Think about it: isn't it somewhat disconcerting — to say the least — that in the 2020s, a major motion picture, one that is highly praised and that has won the highest awards, has as its central tenet a tendency to downplay the malignancy of Stalin while accentuating the (alleged) guilt of America and the free world?

A discussion was arranged in the Fall of 2024, featuring Dr. Herken, Dr. Bernstein, Dr. Haynes and Dr. Klehr. 

Dr. Kramer said that Mr. Bird, the biographer, had declined an invitation to address their comments and that Mr. Nolan did not respond.

Monday, February 17, 2025

French TV Worries Whether America Is Becoming Europe's Adversary


After JD Vance's speech in Munich, Europeans are starting to worry whether the United States is becoming the EU's adversary. BFMTV invited Philippe Karsenty of the Comité Trump France to join the debate under NewsBox's François Gapihan (video at the BFMTV link, between 1:16:11 and 1:30:48).

Emission du samedi 15 février

Votre rendez-vous 100% direct, décryptage, débats. Pour tout savoir mais aussi tout comprendre de l’actualité. Aux côtés de François Gapihan : les meilleurs experts et tous les acteurs qui font l’info
1h38min|2025|Diffusée le 15 février 2025 à 18h00 sur BFM TV
Encore disponible 26 jours

Sunday, February 16, 2025

How strange it is to try to fight anti-Semitism in France's temple of Woke propaganda — the Maison de la Radio — which spreads hatred of Israel on its airwaves from dawn to dusk


Following a major government meeting in Paris's Maison de la Radio on the subject of fighting anti-semitism in French schools, Philippe Karsenty penned a scathing critique on Causeur.

Fighting anti-Semitism through education is a good thing, needless to say, but isn’t there an essential element missing in this combat?

Is it the shortcomings of France's education system that are fueling anti-Semitism in 2025 or is it the lies spread by a number of media outlets against Israel that are making anti-Semitism reach the high heavens?

How strange it is to try to fight anti-Semitism in the temple of Woke propaganda — la Maison de la Radio — which spreads hatred of Israel on its airwaves from morning to night. Just like AFP and France 5, France Inter and France Info falsify information about the Middle East on a daily basis to demonize Israel, and consequently endanger the Jews of France who are linked to the country.

… How about, in order to fight against anti-Semitism, the government started by cleaning up the media space, domestic outlets as well as foreign ones, accessible on French territory?

… During these meetings, one topic was never addressed or even mentioned in passing: Islam, Islamism, jihadism. Yet it was on everyone’s minds.

Lutter contre l’antisémitisme par l’éducation, c’est bien mais ne manque-t-il pas un élément essentiel dans ce combat ?

Sont-ce les lacunes de l’Education nationale qui nourrissent l’antisémitisme en 2025 ou sont-ce les mensonges déversés par certains médias contre Israël qui le font exploser ?

Comme c’est étrange de chercher à lutter contre l’antisémitisme dans le temple de la propagande wokiste – la Maison de la Radio – qui propage la haine d’Israël sur ses ondes du matin au soir. Tout comme l’AFP et France 5, France Inter et France Info falsifient quotidiennement l’information concernant le Proche-Orient pour accabler Israël, et par voie de conséquence mettre en danger les juifs de France qui y sont assimilés.

 … Et si pour lutter contre l’antisémitisme, le gouvernement commençait par assainir l’espace médiatique, étatique mais aussi étranger accessible sur le territoire français ?

 … Lors de ces assises, un thème n’a jamais été abordé ni même prononcé : l’islam, l’islamisme, le djihadisme. Il était pourtant dans toutes les têtes.

Update: On Friday evening, after Causeur published Philippe Karsenty's article, a member of the cabinet called the author to inform him that they had understood his message and that their advertising campaign had been cancelled.

"The United States Does Not Want to Be the Butt of the Globalist Joke Anymore"


In an interview with the weekly Valeurs Actuelles, Sébastien Laye defends Donald Trump's tariffs, saying to Éric Revel that under the new president, "The United States no longer wants to be the Butt of the Globalist Joke."

Saturday, February 15, 2025

The resistance to DOGE, aka the sheer entertainment of clownworld's clueless clowns' beclownments

Q: What is best in life? 
A: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you,
and to hear the lamentations of their women.

It turns out that our ol' friend, Damian Bennett, has a few choice comments about the reaction, and about the resistance, to the DOGE bulldozer, to the DOGE onslaught, and to the DOGE blitzkrieg:

Let's start here:

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer: “[Defendants Trump, POTUS, and Bessent, Treasury Secretary] are restrained from granting access to any Treasury Department record, payment systems, or any other data systems maintained by the Treasury Department containing personally identifiable information and/or confidential financial information of payees, other than to civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties within the Bureau of Fiscal Services.”

I'm no lawyer, but it seems obvious that the first-order 'civil servants' with a need to know would be POTUS and the Treasury Secretary, who are charged with both oversight and management of said department. Next order would be any 'civil servant' they duly designate. Regarding Trump’s Chess Game Is Improving, here is the original complete Tom Renz TRO analysis (somewhat fractured because original is an X thread):


The analysis details there's so much wrong here. The judge will certainly be subject to a mandamus writ OR...


...and the TRO will certainly be dissolved or thrown out. But this will be the left's template for the next four years: kitchen sink litigation, shop a judge, lose on merits or law, appeal, appeal, appeal, till SCOTUS spanks them, litigate something else, repeat. Of course this is a retooling of Biden lawfare -- but without the luxury of the immense resources of the DOJ at its disposal. The dispirited left is having a big sad... 

Mental health experts are seeing an increase in patients, largely Democrats, citing burnout and despair [due] in part to the energy required to keep up with Trump's rapid-fire policies.

...and has neither the money nor personnel -- nor time before mid-terms -- to endlessly litigate a Trump administration that is impressively capable and prepared to take on all comers. THE LEFT ALSO DOESN'T HAVE THE SMARTS. Chuck 'Grillmaster' Schumer, Nancy 'Amateur Theologian' Pelosi, Jamie 'Pardon Me' Raskin, Maxine 'Let Me In' Waters, Adam 'Pardon Me' Schiff, Ilhan 'Brother Love' Omar, the whole of the DNC, the whole of the Soros universe, are simply overmatched by the one Pam Bondi. 

Further the left is playing defense. It is behind the news, not in front. The cats -- stampeding -- are out of the bag. DNC media in order to explain all the Democrat agita has been compelled to report the specifics of the DOGE findings. OH NOOoooes! The public has been informed! Senator John Kennedy (LA-R) has suggested a read out of each USAID grant on the Senate floor followed by the opportunity for anyone to stand and support it.  

The left no longer has the force of argument. So like all good Nazis do, they have donned their rumpled wash-n-wear brown shirts, black ties, and Mützen and are openly calling for violence. The only thing holding them back is that the left are inherently cowards. Don't expect Antifa to man the barricades and risk being J6'd by the Trump DOJ. They are psychopathic brown shirts kitted out in ninja black tact, which is to say, cosplay thugs, which is to say, bullies, which is to say, cowards.

I am enjoying all this immensely. [Louder.] EEE-MENCE-LEEEEEE. Alas, it has me back chasing headlines -- not as previously for daily fear of new Constitutional abuses and threats, but for the sheer entertainment of clownworld's clueless clowns' beclownments.

Clowny #1
Glaude: “[W]hat’s interesting about the current moment, we have a second gilded age. We have a reassertion of U.S. imperial power, and we have the latest articulation of white supremacy at the same time.

Oh, Eddie, PAH-PUH-leeeze. They don't make lachrymatories big enough for your ocean of tears.

Clowny #2
Nutmeg Murphy: “Listen, I mean, this isn’t hyperbole to say that we are staring the death of democracy in the eyes, right now. The centerpiece of our democracy is that we observe court rulings. Criminal court rulings, civil court rulings and constitutional court rulings. No one is above the law. ... This is a really dire moment. And no, so far, they’ve been talking tough, but I think largely have complied with these court orders.”
CNN: “But you’re saying we’re not there yet, basically?
Nutmeg Murphy: “Well, listen, on this specific question of whether or not [Trump administration] are prepared to openly violate a court order? We are not there.

Not there yet, ah, just dire-moment-death-of-democracy staring for now. Ever vigilant because the courts are sacrosanct, because 'no one is above the law'. [Needle scratch.] Wait.
Biden repeated his vow not to pardon his son...[and] also said he was satisfied his son got a fair trial and reiterated his support for him.]
The Democrats have not an inkling of self-awareness how their end-of-times woke democracy spew doesn't play in Trump's best-of-times democracy. The DNC and the left instead blaze a path forward to oblivion with ankle biting'big mad' threats, fantasy revolution, 'big sad' therapy, bench lawfare, and losing forever and ever till kingdom come.

Clowny #3
Franny: “I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.
[Ahem. 'Illegal status' is prima facie 'criminality'. Oh. Ahem again.]
    • Vatican Promises Stiff Penalties For Illegal Aliens Crossing Its Border January 16, 2025
      [Oh. Ahem. Hat trick.]
    • Jesse Kelly On X February 10, 2025: I just visited the Vatican for the first time last month. It was freezing. While in line outside, there was a homeless man with no shoes or socks on begging right outside the Vatican gates.
      Then I walked through Vatican security.
      No more homeless people to be seen.


Of course, chasing headlines also provides the daily entertainments of winning.
And that, dear reader, that is only February. February so far.

Thursday, February 13, 2025

What Should the Reaction Be to Leftists Calling for "Street Fights" with "Actual Weapons"? How About… Gratitude?!


During a Baltimore rally on Monday, Maryland Democratic Rep. Kweisi Mfume pushed the idea of a "street fight" against DOGE.

"This will be a congressional fight, a constitutional fight, a legal fight, and on days like this a street fight, yes we will stand," Mfume said.

In January, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., also called for Democrats to fight Trump’s agenda "in the streets."

And in the latest development in increasingly violent rhetoric, as reported by Lindsay Kornick of Fox News

California Rep. Robert Garcia said the Democratic Party now needs to "bring actual weapons" in the "fight for democracy."

So here is the million-dollar question: What should the reaction of conservatives (and, indeed, of all Americans) be when Democrats increase their violent rhetoric; or, for that matter, when luminaries such as Jane Fonda calls for "murder" on The View or Bruce Springsteens' guitarist demands that Republican "cockroaches" be "exterminate[d]"?

Do not be outraged.

Do not get offended.

Do not demand apologies.

Thank them.

Sincerely.

And… thank them profusely.

Indeed, they are giving you the best ammunition possible (so to speak) for the Second Amendment and for retaining gun rights.


After one of the E Street Band's musicians tweeted “Exterminate the [Republican] cockroaches”, Robert Spencer wrote: Steven Van Zandt Is Bruce Springsteen’s Guitarist. He Hates You. He Wants You Dead. Part of the reason for the musician's rant is that among all the alleged sins — duly listed — of the "MAGOTT cockroaches", the latter are intent on heading out of their homes for the sole purpose to go "shoot some kids." 

But Hakeem Jeffries, Kweisi Mfume, Robert Garcia, Steven Van Zandt, and Jane Fonda ought to be thanked. Because they have, consciously or otherwise, given the best reason possible for Americans (not to mention other nationalities) to keep their guns in addition to retaining their Second Amendment rights. 

This is how you might respond:

I am touched by your words, Mr Congressman/Ms Fonda/Mr Van Zandt/whomever, and I wish to thank you very much for calling me a MAGGAT or a cockroach who needs to be exterminated in addition to shouting for me to be murdered (if not gagged for my opinions or imprisoned for dubious reasons), since it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, Ma'am/Sir, that generally, my positions (not yours) are correct, and certainly the argument in which I say that the Second Amendment is necessary for the protection of myself, my family, and my neighbors.

Related: Do You Know What Abraham Lincoln Called the Democrats, President Trump? The Locofocos. Oh. And also the fire-eaters.

Guess what! When people rail against “Republican White Supremicist scumbag cowards and pussies that need guns to feel like real men” and when they call you "Foxsucking scumbag Russian bots and MAGOTT cockroaches", guess what: when and if people of a like mind gets into a high political office, the Hollywood actors and the rock'n'roll musicians and other, more common people of their ilk are hardly likely to come to your defense — in any shape or form.

They may not be actively participating in hunting you down, but they will not go out of their way either to help you or to offer you any form of protection.

Don't count on it, when they take "Springsteen’s fanatical and unreflective Leftism and mob thuggishness deeply to heart" and when their voices are "full to a sickening degree of angry, expletive-filled invective against patriots."

No point in looking anywhere — anywhere — for Voltaire's "I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight (to the death) for your right to say it."

In fact, continues Robert Spencer, Van Zandt’s hair-raising tweets, "his double standard and [his] eye-popping hate"

are an intriguing glimpse into the mind of an unthinking Leftist who is utterly lacking in any ability to evaluate his own words and deeds with any degree of honesty, and who is quick to accuse others of what he himself is guilty of doing.
In any case, the message is clear. You are on your own.

Which, indeed, come to think of it, is… the entire message of the gun rights crowd. Isn't it?

At Powerline, John Hinderaker adds that

liberals’ tolerance of this kind of talk has had real consequences. Most notable, of course, is James Hodgkinson’s devastating attack on the Republican Congressional baseball team. And when Nicholas Roske set out to murder Justice Brett Kavanaugh, it is likely that he had extremist pro-abortion rhetoric in mind.

Back to Robert Spencer:

Steven Van Zandt, who is secure in the conviction that he is on the other side of the National Socialists (although he is wrong about that), would be horrified and no doubt driven to new heights of rage and invective to see himself compared to Heinrich Himmler. But it’s not an idle comparison. Himmler’s reduction of those he hated to the status of vermin — or “cockroaches,” as Van Zandt put it — was the indispensable prerequisite for his genocide. Steven Van Zandt, without realizing it, is helping pave the way for Leftists who are more ruthless and consistent than he is, but who share his core assumptions about the world.

As for James Carville, back in 2010, he referred to Republicans as "reptiles". And that is nothing new. Far from it. Back in the 1850s and 1860s, when an Illinois Republican felt the necessity to address himself to Southerners and Democrats (during his Cooper Union speech in 1860), guess which term Abe Lincoln reached for:

…when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles [!], or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to [Republicans]. In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of [Republicanism] as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — license, so to speak — among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify.
"Reptiles, outlaws, pirates, murderers, cockroaches, MAGATS"… How often have Republicans been called terrorists in the past decade?  (And in the years, in the decades, before that?)

As for Honest Abe himself, this member of the GOP (which the Republican Party of course wasn't called back then) was so hated by locofoco members of the Democrat party that when this "barbarian" won the 1860 election, they would rather tear the nation apart over the next four years than accept him in the Oval Office. See: What Caused Secession and Ergo the Civil War? Was It Slavery and/or States' Rights? Or Wasn't It Rather Something Else — the Election of a Ghastly Republican to the White House?

Take a moment. Take a moment and think of the Democrats' revulsion over, as well as the mainstream media's depiction of, such leaders as Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, George W Bush, Ronald Reagan, etc, etc, etc…

Think about how every four years — and every month in-between, really — all Republicans (Republican voters, Republican "haters", Republican candidates — successful or otherwise — etc) are depicted as Hitler (in other words, as someone akin to Lucifer), fascists, Nazis, monstrous, racist (or, more generally, satanic), reptiles, [cockroaches, MAGAts,] engaging in hate speech, etc, etc, etc…

(Is it any wonder that I conclude that we are living in the era of the drama queens? But the era of the drama queens seems in fact to be the norm in the history of humanity…)  


Related: How to Respond If Someone Calls You a Racist or Says "You Are Full of Shit"

How do you respond to someone who tells you "You are full of s--t" or to someone who calls you a racist, a sexist, a bigot, a hater, a fascist, a Nazi, a troll, a reactionary, a crank, or a clown?

Simple.

You thank them.

Profusely.

Very profusely.

Tell them:

I am touched by your words and I wish to thank you very much for calling me a racist/a hater/a sexist (and/or for saying that I am full of shit), in view of the fact that that shows that you have run out of arguments and that you now have no choice but to resort to ad hominems and insults.
If you wish to elaborate:
Of course, being liberals, people like you have no rational arguments to begin with, that is, none beyond your self-serving (and never-ceasing) statements of self-praise, such as that you are the most intelligent people that ever lived, that you are the most compassionate people who ever lived, that you are the most loving people who ever lived, that you are the most generous, most humanitarian, most peaceful, most tolerant people who ever lived, and that nobody before you has been as open as you are to debate and to discussion.
More related: Americans Anonymous

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

"If your policies are adopted, people will die" is worse than hyperbole; it is a kind of intellectual blackmail — anyone who resorts to such language isn't trying to engage in debate; they are trying to shut off debate


In his Arguable column, Jeff Jacoby takes on The intellectual blackmail of 'people will die':

PAUL KRUGMAN … recently commented on President Trump's hostility toward the so-called "deep state" and the new administration's restrictions on federal employees. "Donald Trump Wants You to Die," his Jan. 24 essay was headlined. He predicted that under Trump, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies will be "emasculated and politicized" and "banned from making policy recommendations that are inconvenient for Trump. ... And many Americans will die as a result."

Around the same time as Krugman's piece was published on Substack, an article in The Appeal, a left-of-center news site that covers the criminal justice system, appeared under an equally dire headline: "'People Will Die' from Trump's Trans Prisoner Crackdown, Experts Warn." Over at Indivisible, another progressive website, Trump's short-lived order to freeze spending on federal loans and grants was described not only as a "dictatorial power grab" but as "chaos that will kill" and "a death sentence for millions of Americans."

I have long been struck by the popularity of such arguments on the left.

 … Once I started looking, I kept spotting examples of liberals playing the death card. There was the prominent Massachusetts welfare lobbyist, for example, who warned that if a 4 percent trim in the state budget were approved, "people will be dying in hidden corners all over the state. ... They may die slowly, but they will die."

 … At times it seemed as if liberals thought pretty much everything proposed by Trump or Republicans would leave the streets strewn with corpses.

Tax relief, for instance.

 … To be fair, conservatives have been known to do the same thing.

I have always been an admirer of Jeff Jacoby; but regularly, the Boston Globe columnist attempts to lump left and right together under his benevolent stare rising above all of them. "Well, the GOP is just, or almost just, as bad…" Or: a curse on both their houses. Thus, when Jeff Jacoby claims that "The spreading willingness on the right to engage in over-the-top 'people will die' talk is one of the most disheartening ways in which the MAGA movement has perverted conservative discourse ", he ignores the fact that there is reason and there are facts behind, say, Trump's election contention that Joe Biden's "White House had admitted more than 13,000 convicted murderers, who were roaming the country." Or behind Sarah Palin's claim that "Democrats were pushing legislation under which the sick and the elderly would have to stand before a government 'death panel' and have bureaucrats decide if they live or die." Jeff Jacoby does go on to admit that the Left — being Drama Queens, after all — is the worse perpetrator.

 … Much more often than not, however, it is pundits and politicos on the left who are quickest to play the death card. That reflects the attitude, long prevalent among progressives, that anyone who disagrees with their prescriptions is not just wrong but evil — someone to recoil from, not to reason with; not to debate but to damn.

"If your policies are adopted, people will die" is worse than hyperbole. It is a kind of intellectual blackmail. If you abolish rent control, people will die. If you cut taxes, people will die. If you confirm a conservative justice, people will die. If you modify Obamacare, people will die. If you don't seal the border, people will die. With rare exceptions, anyone who resorts to such language isn't trying to engage in debate; they are trying to shut off debate by invoking the ultimate moral trump card.

In a democracy, persuasion ought to matter more than panic. When politicians — or Nobel laureates, for that matter — think the way to win a policy debate is to claim their opponents are murderers, it's a good indication their position isn't as strong as they think.

“Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy”: If Lincoln was gay, why would any of his opponents have passed up hurling cheap shots at him?


In 1837 Lincoln moved to Springfield to practise law and met Joshua Speed. They shared a bed for four years. “No two men were ever more intimate,” is how Speed summarised their relationship.

Just how intimate is a touchy subject among scholars. “Such sleeping arrangements were not uncommon on the Illinois frontier,” asserts Michael Burlingame, a historian at the University of Illinois, who does not see any “proof of a homosexual relationship” in Lincoln’s bedsharing. Mattresses, after all, were expensive at the time.  

 … “Lover of Men” is unlikely to precipitate a wholesale re-evaluation of Lincoln’s legacy. Some Americans will continue to see the great patriot in much the same light as before; others will lambast the documentary’s findings as woke nonsense. In the 21st century, America remains a house divided.

Michael Burlingame at Chicago's
Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in March 2009
In response to an Economist article about the alleged homosexuality of Abraham Lincoln, John Dury sets the matter straight. (As usual, a media outler's readers display more common sense than the "expert" journalists supposed to inform said readership…)

Was James Buchanan gay?

Was Abraham Lincoln gay?” (October 5th), asks the latest documentary on the subject. Americans in the 19th century understood perfectly well that men could have sexual relationships with each other and had no hesitation in saying so.

James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States, was widely believed to have had a sexual relationship with William Rufus King, who briefly served as vice-president under Franklin Pierce. The two lived together in a boarding house in Washington and attended social functions together. Andrew Jackson referred to them as “Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy”. Others described King as Buchanan’s “better half” and his “wife”.

Such claims were never made against Lincoln by his contemporaries, despite being a frequent target of vicious political attacks. Our ancestors were no less observant than we are. Why would any of Lincoln’s opponents have passed up such a cheap shot?

John Dury
Port Townsend, Washington