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…
As the 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans turns 200 this year, it is worth our salt to head to the New York Times in order to check out the Alexandra Jacobs book review of Alex Wright's EMPIRE OF INK: The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper. (Thanks for the Instalink, Sarah.)
Her New York Times review, titled A Spunky History of Newspapers Adds Color to the Black and White, of
this "unsentimental history of the American newspaper from the
Revolutionary War to the beginning of the 20th century" shows how, already two to three centuries ago, "newspapermen were held in low repute" (and how!)
Besides Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, a number of classic authors are mentioned in the review as well as in the book. What they thought about the press and how they fought back, in writing as in deed, can be described as far stronger than any railings and any comebacks Donald Trump has undertaken against "fake news."
Charles
Dickens, a former reporter … whose books were hugely successful
in serial, found the American penny papers “so filthy and so bestial
that no honest man would admit one into his house, for a water-closet
door-mat.” The hero of his “Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit” is
confronted with self-important scandal sheets like The New York Sewer
and The New York Rowdy Journal.
James
Fenimore Cooper filed 14 libel suits against various newspapers, all of
which he won, and declared that “the American press is the pest of
society, the bane of decency, the perverter of truth and the pander of
crime.” (He would fit right in on Threads.)
Edgar Allan Poe once
challenged the editor of The Richmond Examiner, a defender of slavery
who’d written about Poe’s rumored affair with a local widow, to a duel.
The poet showed up too drunk to fight; they repaired to a tavern and
became lifelong friends.
The "water-closet" that Dickens mentions is of course a toilet (WC). As far as Poe is concerned, who can deny they wouldn't love to see a duel between Donald Trump and George Stephanopoulos? (Pistols or sabers?)
If the internet is to be believed (and I'm sorry, I don't remember exactly where I got this particular meme from), Hunter Thompson said something quite similar in the 20th century…
I am impressed by the U.S. team at the 2026 World Cup. One thing they seem to have mastered (and how!) is how to sprint. But I am here to speak about America's previous FIFA extravaganza, one that happened during the Clinton presidency 32 years ago.
As Glenn Reynolds links to Ilya Shapiro's A World Cup to Remember — "the U.S. wins its first two games for the first time since the original tournament in 1930" — it brought to mind the last time the World Cup was held in the United States, in 1994.
• In 1994, European soccer fans were dismissive of FIFA's decision to hold the in tournament in the USA. Not only was "football" not a game of interest for most Yanks, it meant, or it might mean, that matches of interest to Europeans might be held in the middle of the day if not in the middle of the night.
• The above-mentioned Europeans were hardly wrong. The number of soccer fields and teams in America did not seem to rise significantly after the end of the tournament.
• Whoever was the top star of the American soccer team he was, as far as I can remember, never used — not once in the tournament — even when the team had poor results throughout (although they did make it to the knockout round). This made me surly during every match, and I remember thinking that the only reason must be that the coach (Bora Milutinović) probably thought that the top star was having, or had had, an affair with his wife or girlfriend.
• America's final game before being booted out from the tournament was, of all countries, against Iran. The American team played so poorly that when its members were gathered around the Iranian goal for a free shot (or a corner), the goalkeeper grew so incensed at the lack of progress, he left his goal to run across the field to try and participate in scoring a goal against the Islamic Republic. (The ball did not go into the net.)
• All the above is admittedly nothing when compared with the tragedy for the Columbian team. After a player from Columbia had the misfortune of scoring an Own Goal against his own team with the result of it being disqualified. After the whole team returning home, Andrés Escobar was gunned down in Medellín.
• The tournament was won by Brazil after Italy's Roberto Baggio misses his penalty shot, which dedicated its (3-2) victory over Italy to their countryman Ayrton Senna, the Formula One driver who had been killed in an accident at Italy's San Marino Grand Prix six weeks earlier that year (8:48 in the video below, Al Gore at 12:25). Because one of the players had just become a father, a trio of winners went before the cameras, rocking wildly back and forth as they pretended to be cradling babies.
• In 1994, the Brazilians won a record fourth victory and eight years later, a record (and still unequaled) fifth victory, but every time the World Cup has been held in their country (1950 and 2014), they have fared poorly, with one of the most humiliating defeats in one 2014 match, when Germany scored four goals against them in the matter of six minutes (I will never forget the images of the horror-stricken audience) for an end result of 7-1. As I said at the time (2014), Brazilians should stop clamoring for home-soil World Cups, because the beautiful game is so entrenched in that country that it makes their players far too stressed out to perform well…
• In 1998, I was in a São Paulo bar during the finals of Brazil against the French team in France. There were two Frenchmen in the bar who cheered every time the French scored a goal, but they eventually noticed that it didn't make them very popular in the otherwise silent bar, and as France's goals increased, their cheers got more and more modest. After the loss, Brazilians accused their team of having been bribed to forfeit the game. I said that this was nonsense, since never could all players be made to agree with this, in view of the fact that no amount of money could equal the dishonor of losing on purpose. Moreover, a victory would bring just as many riches, besides opening all kinds of monetary contracts in the future. Finally, if I could be made to forfeit a game deliberately, I would insist it be by one goal only, and not by three (the final score was 3-0). However, the Brazilians — even Ronaldo! — did play so badly, I agreed, maybe the French had drugged the Evian bottles handed to Bebeto's team.
• Finally: I have never fully understood the concept of being Offside, and I probably never will.
Over on an X Twitter thread, Students For Liberty take us back to the mid-1980s and reminds us of what our young ones no longer learn in schools and universities:
In July 1985, over a billion people watched Live Aid.
Months earlier, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie had written "We Are the World." All of it was a response to a famine in Ethiopia.
Almost nobody remembers who actually caused the famine
… The crisis was framed almost entirely as a natural disaster, the work of a catastrophic drought striking a poor country. Television footage showed cracked earth, dying livestock, and skeletal children.
The government in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, was barely named in Western coverage. Its policies were not named at all.
… What was actually happening: in September 1974, a Marxist-Leninist military junta called the Derg overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie. By 1977, Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam had killed his rivals inside the junta and taken sole control.
He built a Soviet-style state. He nationalized all rural land in 1975 and imposed grain quotas that peasants had to deliver to the state at prices below the cost of production.
This is the mechanism Stalin had used to engineer famine in Ukraine in 1932. The state destroys the production incentive, then extracts grain by force.
When drought arrived in northern Ethiopia in 1983, there was no surplus and no buffer. Forced collectivization had already destroyed the country's food reserves years before the rain stopped.
… [Médecins Sans Frontières] denounced the program publicly in October 1985. The Ethiopian government expelled [MSF] in December. Investigators later established that a large share of the international aid raised in the West was diverted into the resettlement program itself.
The same money raised to save Ethiopians from starvation paid, in part, for the operation that killed between 50,000 and 100,000 of them.
… If the cause of the Ethiopian famine had been a right-wing regime, it would probably be in every school curriculum alongside Live Aid.
The famine that produced the most-watched concert in history was caused by forced collectivization, forced grain seizures, and a deliberate policy of using hunger as a weapon against civilians. Four decades later, that half of the story still does not appear in most accounts of Live Aid.
higher education’s foul products [aka] the
toxic waste [that] it emits [which] isn’t chemical but intellectual
sludge, in the form of racial bigotry, antisemitism and crude Marxism
…
Marxism, which has never worked in the real world, remains stylish on
campuses — still treated as a hot new concept, though it hasn’t changed
much in over a century.
Racism,
sexism, antisemitism and destructive economic ignorance, all from a
huge and vastly expensive system that was supposed to make our society
better.
requires a willingness which I know doesn’t exist, to turn off the money spigot corrupting people here and abroad. And it might not exist but it NEEDS to. So if all you do is convince others that this stupidity needs to stop you won’t have lived in vain.
Socialism kills, fast or slow. But on the way there, it makes people into dumb animals posturing and killing for no good reason.
The enemy is collectivism. The enemy is welfare. The enemy is turning humans into dependent zoo animals.
Indeed, the dream of the world's leftists and its drama queens, as I have written before, is to make a world where all citizens are de facto welfare recipients (an update from the serfs and the peasants that they used to be during feudalism and in prior eras). And when and if any of said citizens disagree, the latter need to be gagged and gotten rid of — as we have seen in Ethiopia (plus in the USSR, China, Cambodia, etc, etc, etc) — by any means possible…
He may be the spokesman for le Comité Trump France, however Philippe Karsenty is none too happy about the outcome of the Iran War. As Marc Fauvelle's BFMTVguest panel (video at the link) are preoccupied with and debate whether Donald Trump should have been invited to the Versailles palace, Philippe Karsenty doesn't see what there is anything to celebrate in any building in the first place — as he believes that the true subject of the day is that the American president has made a huge mistake vis-à-vis Tehran (0:10, 1:41-3:20, 9:29, 12:06-12:48, 21:18-22:54, 23:11, 23:32-24:40, 24:56, 28:44).
When asked on BFMTV, with a smirk, whether he has now become a Democrat, the spokesman for le Comité Trump France answers that he is simply closer to the Marco Rubio/Pete Hegseth flank of the Trump administration. (Merci pour l'Instalien, Sarah.)
60 minutes Fauvelle - Mercredi 17 juin
Chaque jour, Marc Fauvelle vous accompagne de 19h à 20h dans 60 minutes Fauvelle sur BFMTV.
But what I am hoping is that Donald Trump has simply decided that winning the November mid-terms is the most important thing to do for the rest of this year, as, indeed, the future of his conservative blueprint — in foreign affairs as well as in domestic ones — will depend on that. Hopefully, he plans to return to his usual forcefulness after November — in case, needless to say, the GOP emerges victorious.
BFM TV 17 juin 2026 - Philippe Karsenty prend ses distances avec l'accord de Versailles
Speaking about the vice-president's appearance on a Leftist television show, Steven Crowder said that
The View had JD Vance on and he was too diplomatic for that room. The process is the punishment.
The host of "Louder with Crowder" has allegedly been involved with controversy in the past few years, something I can't say I know much about; in any case, Steve hits the bulls-eye when he went on to point out that when the Left's Drama Queens ask a question,
it's designed to be both the setup AND the answer. It renders you guilty before you open your mouth.
You don't debate it, you narrate it. It’s that easy. st [Just?] say it out loud and everyone watching sees exactly what's happening.
After reviewing the View's lead-on questions — i.e., the left's traps — the Louder with Crowder crew went on to debate whether JD Vance, in view of the next election, wasn't becoming a whole lot more apologetic and ignoring, therefore, the Donald Trump technique on how to take on fake news.
the important Lefty verb “Laphamize,”
which is achieved by deciding upon a narrative for an opposition event,
writing an anachronous review, and then passing it off as reporting?
The View had JD Vance on and he was too diplomatic for that room. The process is the punishment.
When they ask a question, it's designed to be both the setup AND the answer. It renders you guilty before you open your mouth.
As an Apache helicopter is shot down over Iran, Philippe Karsenty is interviewed on RCN, where he provides an overview over the current situation regarding the Iran War.
The spokesman for the Comité Trump France told the listeners of André BARMO'HA that Donald Trump's cease-fire is not anything that Tehran has any respect for, ridiculed MSM (European as well as American) claims that the Islamic Republic is winning, and points out that France seems to be more allied to Iran, China, and Russia than to America or the West, what with the current narrative that America and Israel, not Iran, are responsible for starting the current conflict. (Merci pour l'Instalien, Sarah.)
Moreover, Philippe Karsenty revealed that Iran still has armed forces, in the perspective that Hamas and Hezbollah happen to actually be akin to "delocalized Iranian armies."
Philippe KARSENTY, Homme d’affaires, ancien Maire Adjoint de
Neuilly, Porte-Parole du comité TRUMP France, invité d'André BARMO'HA
Over at Instapundit, Ed Driscoll and Glenn Reynolds reports on Doctor Who, a British science-fiction series with a 60-year+ run which ended up becoming so insufferably woke that it may not return to the small screen for five years and, frankly, it seems slated to disappear once and for all.
This brings up the subject of another TV sitcom, one many conservatives don't particularly seem to care about, but as far as I am concerned, I confess that — even when faced with obvious leftist leanings (say, Penny aka Kaley Cuoco wearing a Vote Hillary T-shirt in 2016) — I have enjoyed The Big Bang Theory, along with its characters, and that I have been enjoying re-connecting with old scenes on various phone apps.
Some episodes that I was particularly impressed with were those dealing with Sheldon's brother (Jerry O'Connell) back in Texas, showing that conservative characters could get a fair deal.
More to the point: In the original series, it was pretty clear that the religious mother of Sheldon "sweet Sam Houston" Cooper was not the character the creators of the CBS TV series, Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, were prone to identify with.
And yet…
And yet, the writers gave Mary Cooper (Laurie Metcalf) some excellent lines, they did not show her losing the debate any time a leftist (not excluding her own son) opened his (or her) mouth (usually to disparage her Christian religion), and especially her main antagonist — Leonard's mother, Dr. Beverly Hofstadter (Christine Baranski) — was so cold and unlikable that Mary came out on top many a time.
However, since the series ended in 2019, it has given rise to several spin-offs. They are the prequel series Young Sheldon and a second prequel series, Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage (with a fourth series promised this summer, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe). FYI: Full disclosure — I haven't seen any episodes on the telly of the second prequel series, mainly short-ish outtakes on various iPhone apps…
These spin-offs have also descended into wokeness. Young Sheldon Cooper seems to — decisively — win every argument he has with either his mother or Pastor Jeff (Matt Hobby), either in private or in front of the entire congregation inside the latter's Baptist church.
The first thing to notice [about the tirade in the opening scene of The Newsroom's Episode 1, sometimes referred to as "The Most Honest Three Minutes In Television History"] is that (exactly like Aaron Sorkin's other TV series, The West Wing) HBO's TV show is fiction, with the entire story and every scene set up, with a central character (a Democratic idealist) giving a brilliant speech with unimpeachable arguments that manages to bring out the truth (sorry, to bring out the Truth with a capital T, nay, more — to bring out nothing less than thuh Reh-ve-lay-tion),
shaming his clueless opponents (and everyone else) in the process —
indeed, silencing the whole room — and, in typical Hollywood fashion,
leaving everyone on a higher plane of truth.
Isn't
this a mainstay of the Hollywood dream factory: the wise man (no matter
how young, as it is as often as nota teenager or even a child)
engaging in theatrics and bringing mind-boggling revelations to his
(clueless and uneducated) peers?
… This works exceptionally well, provided everybody with a differing opinion (or better yet, with facts) agrees to refrain from responding.
In the real world, of course, real people have to put up with differing
arguments, with give'n'take, and with opponents providing replies and
counter-arguments
It seems clear that Mary Cooper (played in the prequels by Zoe Perry, who happens to be the daughter in real life of Laurie Metcalf) is little more than a hypocrite (consciously or otherwise), as are the various men at the church (one of whom the married Bible-thumper — almost? — had a liaison with), and after the death of Sheldon's father, she seems to be utterly naïve regarding men with ulterior motives.
In contrast to the original series, little that the character says is ever helpful or insightful. Unless she manages to break away from her Baptist beliefs. Worst of all, every time Mary Cooper mentions the Bible, everybody has the same reaction. When everybody sighs and/or rolls their eyes whenever this alleged killjoy brings up the subject of religion or going to church — her husband, her daughter, her sons, her mother, her in-laws; indeed, every single one of the other characters — it ends up becoming tedious in the extreme…
Maybe it might not be a bad idea for the writers to consider reading a volume or two in Dennis Prager's Rational Bible series…
… The title of this commentary is “The Rational Bible” because its
approach is entirely reason-based. The reader is never asked to accept
anything on faith alone. In Dennis Prager’s words, “If something I write
is not rational, I have not done my job.”
They beat Christopher Columbus to North America by centuries. Research shows that Vikings first made the remarkable journey across the Atlantic more than 1,000 years ago.
Now, it looks like they’re back.
Just
take in this gang of grizzled Nordic warriors assembled beside a fjord,
weapons in hand, long boats in the background, preparing to raid.
But
look a little closer at the picture above, perhaps at the
sword-brandishing warrior with the long blond hair, and they appear
quite familiar. That’s because this group of fearsome explorers is
actually the Norway national team, posing for [David Yarrow's] iconic image to mark
their first appearance at the World Cup in 28 years.
As talks with Iran continue, it is time to dwell briefly upon an epic adventure movie starring Sean Connery that came out a few years before the Ayatollahs' revolution. Filmed 50 years ago by John Milius on a script loosely based on the Perdicaris affair of 1904, The Wind and the Lion features one of the most patriotic, pro-American battle scenes ever filmed (at YouTube, divided in two parts below): after part one, be sure not to miss the last few seconds of part two as the marines bring the battle to an end, when this brief dialogue takes place.
Capt. Jerome, USMC: Captain Jerome, United States Marine Corps, and you are my prisoner, sir.
The Bashaw of Tangier: You are a very dangerous man, Captain, and your President Roosevelt is mad.
Theodore Roosevelt:
The American grizzly is a symbol of the American character: strength,
intelligence, ferocity. Maybe a little blind and reckless at times...
but courageous beyond all doubt. And one other trait that goes with all
previous.
Theodore Roosevelt:
Loneliness. The American grizzly lives out his life alone. Indomitable,
unconquered — but always alone. He has no real allies, only enemies,
but none of them as great as he.
2nd Reporter: And you feel this might be an American trait?
Theodore Roosevelt:
Certainly. The world will never love us. They respect us - they might
even grow to fear us. But they will never love us, for we have too much
audacity! And, we're a bit blind and reckless at times too.
2nd Reporter: Are you perhaps referring to the situation in Morocco and the Panama Canal[?]
Theodore Roosevelt:
If you say so... The American grizzly embodies the spirit of America.
He should be our symbol! Not that ridiculous eagle — he's nothing more
than a dandified vulture.
With
must-win competitive campaigns to control at least one chamber of Congress to thwart Mean Mr. Mustard, the Ds have raided central casting for unelectable crazies and Schweinehunde.
If any evidence is needed, t'is provided by our old pal from Virginny (thanks for the Instalink, Sarah). After reviewing Damian's four exhibits, be sure to read his Coda in the final couple of paragraphs…
The
Democrats' long plod to November features a new wave of unimaginably
detestable idiot candidates mixed with some old-guard cameos. With
must-win competitive campaigns to control at least one chamber of Congress to thwart Mean Mr. Mustard, the Ds have raided central casting for unelectable crazies and Schweinehunde.* Let's take a look at some of the headliners.
* This makes the mid-terms the Republicans' to lose. [Hard sigh.] Hold your bets.
Exhibit A: Eric Swalwell (xCA-D)
Given enough rope, a Democrat hangs him/herself. Swalwell, a go-to media cudgel for beating on the Trump WH,
had been fed so much rope he hung himself from the high gallows of
frontpage headlines, page six tattle, and 'breaking' chiron crawls. When
the trap opened, it was his
mentor groomer, Nancy Pelosi, pulled the lever and left him to twist in the wind. Where he dangles to this very day.
@GOPoversight On XJanuary 9, 2024: James Comer (KY-D), Chair: "Today,
we interviewed Hunter Biden's art dealer, Georges Bergès. He revealed
how Hunter Biden's amateur art career is an ethics nightmare. It turns
out, the vast majority of Hunter Biden's art has been purchased by
Democrat donors."
ABC’s Hostin: Platner ‘Allegations Are True’ But Our Country In ‘Grave Peril’ June 1, 2026 Sunny Hostin, “The View” co-host: “He’s [scil., Platner]also
made racist remarks against African Americans. So he’s a cheater, he’s
an antisemite — because the fact that he had that tattoo for 20 years
and ‘didn’t know what it was’ is a lie. So he’s a liar, a racist, an
antisemite, he’s a homophobe. So, he’s all the things, and character does matter.
But, we have someone that has almost unbridled power in the White House
at this point. There are no checks and balances, and the only way that
we can maybe bring a bit of our democracy back is by having a Congress
that functions and that has this checks and balances. And I do
think one of the only ways is to win that seat in Maine. So I, like Cory
Booker, said this is a concern, but our country is in grave, grave
peril.” [Liar, cheater, racist, antisemite, homophobe to bring back “a bit of our democracy”. This is so on-brand for TDS.]
James Talarico
is the DNC's idea of a Christian Democrat, that is to say a full-bore
Democrat with a Sunday side hustle -- who is not an Episcopalian (he's
Presbyterian). They are running him in TX as Beto lifted from the grave.
James Talarico On YouTube March 4 (5), 2026: “They’re
going to throw everything they have at us. They’re going to call me a
radical leftist. They’re going to call me a fake Christian. They’ll call
our movement un-Texan, un-American. They’ll call us a threat. The only
truth is, we are a threat…to their corrupt system.”
James Talarico Is Facing Serious Questions About His Creepy Conduct With KidsMay 5, 2026 Talarico
asked his students — sixth graders — to read a passage from The
[Margaret Atwood's] Handmaid's Tale, a novel steeped in sexual violence
and reproductive slavery. His team later clarified that he never asked
students to read the full book, just a passage to find similes in. [►Classic PEDO-ADJACENT DEMOCRAT MENTORING and juvenile wedge indoctrination.◄]
Texas Democratic Senate Nominee James Talarico's Church Includes Porn In Its Library May 30, 2026 [B]ooks accessible to children
in the library at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin [included]
materials with "illustrations of oral sex and masturbation,"
discussions of "anal rape and incest" and graphic explanations of "gay
sex." Other books reflect Talarico's theology that "God is queer" and
promote gender confusion in children, including political activism for
"trans kids" and LGBTQ Presbyterians.
Talarico is a 'Christian' much the same as Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are 'Catholic', which is to say they are neither Christian nor Catholic. What they are are hardcore cutthroat Democrats. It isNOT Christianity that informs Talarico policy,it's the DNC.
James Talarico On X May 8, 2020:“White
skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we
spread it wherever we go—through our words, our actions, and our
systems. We don’t have to be showing symptoms—like a white hood or a
Confederate flag—to be contagious.”
James Talarico June/July 2022 Sermon, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church:“Before we go further, I want to acknowledge that our trans community needs abortion care too.
Defending trans Texans is something we have to do every day at the
state capitol, and you better believe I’ll be giving sermons on that
too.”
Proud Elephant On X March 5, 2026: THIS
IS INSANE: Texas Democrat Senate Nominee James Talarico wrote a letter
[June22, 2022] to Joe Biden begging him to issue an executive order that
would have created abortion clinics in every federal courthouse and national park.
Here's a Q, how does a national party on the 20% side of every 20/80 issue manage competitive near parity with an opposition on the 80% side? One would think the 20 percenters would poll closer to their standing on the issues. [A terrible obvious insight occurs!] Could gerrymandering and ballot fuckery be the political 'miracle' that keeps the 20 percenters competitive? Or is it the dark powers and deep state hiding behind an illusionary democracy?
