Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
The website All That's Interesting presents 44 Glamorous Photos of Dolly Parton while outside Buckingham Palace, the King's Guard plays a moving tribute. Related: Meeting the stars of the Muppet Show, Country Music's Greatest Diva sings with Kermit and meets Miss Piggy after she "has gone country" ("My plan is to eat, sleep, and breathe Country, and someday I shall be queen of country music just like you").
Far-left streamer Hasan Piker was seen and heard singing the meme song "We Are Charlie Kirk" at a stop of his "Fear& LIVE" tour over the weekend
Leading a cheering crowd, Piker sang, "We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame. We'll fight for the Gospel, we'll honor his name," while his co-hosts could be seen laughing on stage. … The song, thought to be AI-generated … is frequently used online in memes to mock Kirk and conservatives.
Piker also reposted an account going after his critics, which read, "The same conservatives crying over Hasan singing a meme song were openly celebrating the murder of American citizens. These people don’t care about anything."
Hasan Piker framed the 9/11 front page
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 22, 2026
This is an enemy of America pic.twitter.com/lxxLFDGuho
How Can a Democrat Work for "All the People" If He or She Wants Half of Them Shot in the Head?!
And at the end of the night, when Bill Clinton was declared the victor, the head of Republicans Abroad France and Democrats Abroad France joined together to say something I found very touching: "Today, we are all Democrats, today, we are all Republicans."
It has always been an American tradition that the winner of an election, both national and regional, would hold a speech in which he said, basically, that he now intends to work for, and serve, all Americans/all Virginians/all New Yorkers, etc…
The question these past months raises is:
How long have the Democrats actually ever believed that?
Or does it turn out to be just one huge load of BS?
In Virginia, it transpires that one Jay Jones running for the office of attorney general fantasized not only about putting two bullets in the head of a Republican opponent but watching his children get gunned down as well.
How — how on earth — can an Attorney general defend the rights of "all" Virginians when he wishes to have an opponent, not to mention said opponent's small children (for the love of God), die in a hail of bullets?! What would the state's top law enforcement officer be wishing (openly or in secret) about the latter's supporters? How on Earth does a Democrat like Jay Jones expect to serve if he (or she) hopes (as logic would dictate) that half his (or her) constituents get shot in the head and that their young children — JJ calls 'em "little fascists" — get murdered along with them?!
This comes after the attempt on Donald Trump's life and the glorification of the heroic Luigi Mangione, as well as leftists of all ages and all backgrounds openly celebrating Charlie Kirk's murder while students at his TPUSA booths are routinely being told to "Kill yourselves." How about Charlie and Erika's son and daughter? Are those tiny tots also "little fascists" who should be gunned down like their dad?!
Indeed, writes Luke Rosiak, the "idea that Democrats were functioning with a Mafia-like code of omertà would also implicate Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger."How do voters expect to have a fair head of government if the governor has nothing but (the utmost) scorn for half the population? (Thanks for the Instalink, Sarah…)
made headlines for lobbing threats and wishing a painful cancer death on Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., in an expletive-filled voicemail … before warning the senator not to "meet me on the streets."
… "Hi, this is Haley McKnight … I hope that one day you get pancreatic cancer, and it spreads throughout your body so fast that they can't even treat you for it."
… "I hope you die in the street like a dog," McKnight continued. "One day, you're going to live to regret this. I hope that your children never forgive you. I hope that you are infertile. I hope that you manage to never get a boner ever again."
(Whichever subject comes up, in all cases Leftists really cannot stop thinking about sex…)
In The liberals’ license: How the left finds release in an age of rage, written three months before Charlie Kirk's murder (via Ed Driscoll), JONATHAN TURLEY reported that
some on the left are turning to political violence and criminal acts. It is part of the “righteous rage” that many of them see as absolving them from the basic demands not only of civility but of legality.
They are part of a rising class of American Jacobins — bourgeois revolutionaries increasingly prepared to trash everything, from cars to the Constitution.
… Of course, it is not revolution on the minds of most of these individuals. It is rage.Rage is the ultimate drug. It offers a release from longstanding social norms — a license to do those things long repressed by individuals who viewed themselves as decent, law-abiding citizens.
… As intellectuals knock down our laws and Constitution, radicals are pouring into the breach. Political violence and rage rhetoric are becoming more common. Some liberals embraced groups like Antifa, while others shrugged off property damage and violent threats against political opponents. It is the very type of incitement or rage rhetoric that Democrats once accused Trump of fostering in groups like the Proud Boys.… The one thing the American Jacobins will not admit is that they like the rage and the release that it brings them. From shoplifting to arson to attempted assassination, the rejection of our legal system brings them freedom to act outside of morality and to take whatever they want.
In Life Behind Communist Lines, Kurt Schlichter explained — in spite of his piece being written a year and a half ago, he got all last week's electoral regions right in his first sentence — that
When you live in a place like California or Northern Virginia or New York or some other blue hellhole, and you are in favor of things like America and freedom, you really are living in enemy territory.
… Leftists are immune to reason. They are insusceptible to argument. They are in the grips of a ridiculous pagan religion and all its tenets – like that climate change is a thing and that structural racism is a thing and that Trump being a tool of Putin is a thing – are received wisdom. These people embrace it all not because they have been convinced of it but because they want to be part of the Bolshevik Borg. What greater show of solidarity could there be than to publicly announce that you accept something totally ridiculous, like that men can get pregnant? If you will show that you will eagerly sacrifice your self-respect and dignity for the cause, you prove yourself worthy of acceptance.
Back to Matt Margolis:
In the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination, Democrats are scrambling to rewrite the narrative on political violence. For years, they’ve hammered Republicans over so-called “dangerous rhetoric,” accusing the right of fueling division and threatening democracy itself. But when faced with a Democrat candidate who openly texted about shooting a Republican and harming his children, they turned a blind eye.
… Jones’ apparent victory proves (yet again) that Democratic moral posturing on violence evaporates the moment it becomes inconvenient to their electoral interests.
In The Party of Intolerance on Full Display of Late, Tom Knighton asks,
How can you find a middle ground with people who only have their middle fingers?
The party of tolerance is tolerant of anything and everything they agree with and are ready to burn people at the stake for refusing to toe the line. Nothing has changed in years upon years.
… t's not even a case of civil disagreement; it's purging everyone out of your life for refusing to spout utter nonsense masquerading as a political ideology.
So: it turns out that if any people are (akin to) Nazis, it's the Leftists.
If anybody is using hate speech, it is the Left.
Who can believe anybody in their right mind on the Left would not want to cheat during elections and lie whenthese drama queens believe, and describe, their opponents to be/as being the scum of the earth? As Dennis Prager famously said, If your opponent is Hitler, why would you not want to cheat if that's what is necessary to defeat a monster like him?!
Over at Behind the Black (thanks to Instapundit), wants "to highlight one fundamental and truly ugly aspect of [the Antifa and leftist protests] that I think we no longer see because it has become so common."
While it is clear these leftist protesters have nothing positive to propose, it is their hate and anger that stands out above all. All they can do is vent hate, pure and simple. … What is different now is the level of emotional hate exuded by these protesters. They are literally so filled with this venom that they now almost routinely lose control of themselves, resulting in violence and vandalism … that even a decade ago was rare. … All I see is hate. Hate for the right. Hate for debate. Hate pure and simple.
This brings us to the issue of Talking Points. In the Leftist's mind, the term is used as a sort of false shorthand, simple-minded repetition, a sort of fakery used by dishonest tricksters — to be debunked by the Left. However, when you think about it, what exactly is wrong with talking points? Talking points, for a conservative, are fewer taxes, strong defense, love of country, etc…. Why should that change? Isn't using the same "points" being, ahem, consistent?
However, there are talking points that nobody ever seems to mention: what are the talking points of the Left? Aren't they truly the ones that that sound, if anything, fake? The talking points of the left is that (wait for it…) people on the right are… (melodramatic pause…) racists. Isn't that the main one? Also, that they are hypocritical, hate speech spewers, and, yes, tricksters. Tricksters who use… dishonest talking points (!). And let's not forget Nazis and (little) fascists. The Left's talking points are nothing but ad homonyms and insults. (Is it any wonder that I assert that The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell can be summarized as A World of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables?)
Related: • The Smug Liars' "Screw-You" Party
• Examining the Left's Concept of "Talking Points"
In 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?, I quote said Republican's speech from February 1860, before he was nominated to be the newly-found party's standard-bearer. Here is Abraham Lincoln imagining what he would say to a group of Democrats (if only they would listen to him):
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 [or… illegal aliens —ed], 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.
Is it any wonder that Ron Hart points out that Democrats Get Their Political Playbook From Lenin, Communism's First Dictator and Mass Murderer?
In The Real Reason for Secularism (For the Left, the Golden Rule and the 10 Commandments turn out to be a major problem), I end the post with these words:
Mark Levin's latest book is called The Democrat Party Hates America. The truth, as we have seen with the Woke movement, is that leftist scholars and activists hate American institutions, the Left hates American values, leftists hate American history, leftists hate American liberty, leftists abhor the Judeo-Christian religion (because of its Golden Rule and its Ten Commandments), and Democrats have hated Republicans since the movement was born in 1854.
Here, according to Instapundit, is the bottom line:
Know the truth: it will set you free.
Vote — and act — accordingly.
Better than any other liberal, Tocqueville understood the importance of ensuring that the collective business of society is done as much as possible by the people themselves, through voluntary effort, rather than by the government.
In line with its name, The Economist has been presenting six primers on the foundations and evolution of liberal thought, from John Stuart Mill to John Rawls, the latest an essay on De Tocqueville and the French exception. (Merci à Sarah pour l'Instalien.)
The great question at the heart of Tocqueville’s thought is the relationship between liberty and democracy. Tocqueville was certain that it was impossible to have liberty without democracy, but he worried that it was possible to have democracy without liberty. For example, democracy might transfer power from the old aristocracy to an all-powerful central state, thereby reducing individuals to helpless, isolated atoms. Or it might make a mockery of free discussion by manipulating everybody into bowing down before conventional wisdom. … he was the first serious thinker to warn that liberalism could destroy itself. Tocqueville worried that states might use the principle of equality to accumulate power and ride roughshod over local traditions and local communities. Such centralisation might have all sorts of malign consequences. It might reduce the variety of institutions by obliging them to follow a central script. It might reduce individuals to a position of defencelessness before the mighty state, either by forcing them to obey the state’s edicts or making them dependent on the state’s largesse. And it might kill off traditions of self-government.
… Tocqueville feared his own country might fall into the grip of just such an illiberal democracy, as it had in the Terror, under Maximilien Robespierre in 1793. The French revolutionaries had been so blinded by their commitment to liberty, equality and fraternity that they crushed dissenters and slaughtered aristocrats, including many members of Tocqueville’s family. His parents were spared, but his father’s hair turned white at 24 and his mother was reduced to a nervous wreck.
He was worried about more than just the bloodshed, which proved to be a passing frenzy. The power of the state also posed a more subtle threat. The monarchy had nurtured an over-mighty state, as French kings sucked power from aristocrats towards the central government. … By contrast, the United States represented democracy at its finest. Tocqueville’s ostensible reason for crossing the Atlantic, in 1831, was to study the American penal system, then seen as one of the most enlightened in the world. His real wish was to understand how America had combined democracy with liberty so successfully. He was impressed by the New England townships, with their robust local governments, but he was equally taken by the raw egalitarianism of the frontier.Why did the children of the American revolution achieve what the children of the French revolution could not? The most obvious factor was the dispersal of power. The government in Washington was disciplined by checks and balances. Power was exercised at the lowest possible level—not just the states but also cities, townships and voluntary organisations that flourished in America even as they declined in France. The second factor was what he called “manners”. … …
Of liberty and religion America also had the invaluable advantage of freedom of religion. Tocqueville believed that a liberal society depended ultimately on Christian morality. Alone among the world’s religions, Christianity preached the equality of man and the infinite worth of the individual. But the ancien régime had robbed Christianity of its true spirit by turning it into an adjunct of the state. America’s decision to make religion a matter of free conscience created a vital alliance between the “spirit of religion” and the “spirit of liberty”. America was a society that “goes along by itself”, as Tocqueville put it, not just because it dispersed power but because it produced self-confident, energetic citizens, capable of organising themselves rather than looking to the government to solve their problems.
Sleeping on a volcano He was not blind to the faults of American democracy. He puzzled over the fact that the world’s most liberal society practised slavery, though, like most liberals, he comforted himself with the thought that it was sure to wither. He worried about the cult of the common man. Americans were so appalled by the idea that one person’s opinion might be better than another’s that they embraced dolts and persecuted gifted heretics. He worried that individualism might shade into egotism. … Increasingly, China embodies everything that Tocqueville warned against: power centralised in the hands of the state; citizens reduced to atoms; a collective willingness to sacrifice liberty for a comfortable life.
