BFMTV Debates: Republicans in France Discuss the Supreme Court's Decision on Roe Vs Wade (Videos)

In the wake of, and following the hysteria regarding, the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe Vs. Wade, Paul Reen and Philippe Karsenty — both conservatives heavily outgunned, as usual — appeared on two BFMTV debates.

The head of Republicans in France appeared on the debate entitled IVG/USA : La grande régression ? (video) which led to Pauline Boutin penning an article about the point of view of Paul Reen, who in turn reacted by quipping that

The title is a bit misleading as I eventually said that it is possible that SCOTUS could use the same logic and send other decisions back to the states, like gay marriage, for the people to decide, they did get it correct in the article though. 

As for Philippe Karsenty, he appeared on BFMTV's Ce que risquent désormais les femmes qui avortent dans certains Etats américains (video) where Paul noted that, besides "the biased moderator interrupting him every 5 seconds,"

I am shocked that BFM is spreading the lie that women in LA risk 10 years of prison time if they now have an abortion. This only applies to the physicians not the women.

Philippe Karsenty listens to François Durpaire

Before heading for the BFMTV studios, Paul Reen summarized the following talking points:

1. SCOTUS decision is merely a legal decision , not political and not moral. They are not criminalizing abortion like Biden said in his speech. They are simply returning the decision to each state to decide as it should have been done in 1973 since abortion is not included in the US Constitution. This is important to state since most French and Europeans do not understand how the 3 branches of govt work in the US. They think SCOTUS creates laws, idiot Democrats think the same thing since liberal left wing judges constantly « legislate from the bench ». But only the Federal législature (Congress) and State legislatures are supposed to create laws. 

2. Now each state must decide, they will vote codify laws for abortion. They will start to do this immediately, probably in parallel with Congress but the states will act quicker and Congress is so polarized they probably won’t get anything agreed to. Again, unlike the hysteria just incited by Biden, IMO the majority of states will vote in favor of abortion. Blue states will continue with no restrictions, most red states will allow abortion with restrictions and a small minority will ban them completely. The open question is still whether those states will allow abortion in the rare cases of rape and incest. Bottom line for me is that any increase in restrictions is a good thing!

3.Biden has completely politicized this of course and added to the outrage and hysteria for political purposes. He blames it all on Trump and said the Nov election is all about abortion rights. He is so desperate because his presidency is a complete and utter failure.

4. Now the US has to prepare for more Left wing , unhinged violence. Since the leak of this decision, Biden had many chances to tell people to stop harassing SCOTUS justices at their homes but never said a thing. Kavanugh and his family’s life was even in danger by a crazy leftist , luckily prevented by police. It is actually against federal law to protest at the homes of justices. Good that Biden said something in his speech to protest peacefully but it’s too little too late, the left is in rage and will attack pro-life associations, private people , churches , whatever.

5. Obviously this will galvanize Democrats to get to the polls in Nov but between no and Nov, we’ll see many states agreeing to keep it legal so I still believe that Republicans will win big.

6. Nancy Pelosi has said that SCOTUS is completely hypocritical as they just ruled that it is not constitutional that New York State impose  severe restrictions on concealed carry gun laws, but states CAN restrict abortion rights.  The big difference is that the right to bear arms is IN THE CONSTITUTION !

It should be emphasized that by returning the decisions to the states , it’s returning the decision back to THE PEOPLE. States are very different in the US and the people vote per state. This is a completely foreign concept for the rest of the world.

To this I added more things to ponder:

Les Français et les européens présentent souvent les décisions de la cour suprême américaine comme étant équivalentes À une décision similaire sur l’avortement en France

C’est oublier que les États-Unis ne sont pas un pays similaire à la France ou au Danemark. Les États-Unis sont plus une fédération comme l’Union européenne (en fait, un peu entre les deux, entre un pays et une union).

C’est ici qu’on voit l’hystérie de la gauche, tant aux États-Unis qu’en Europe

1) il est habituel de présenter les Américains comme des Néandertaliens qui sont beaucoup plus régressifs que les Européens.

Or, en ce qui concerne l’avortement — en admettant que l’on présente la procédure comme une chose positive — les Yankees ont été beaucoup plus « en avance » que les Européens

Les États-Unis ont souvent autorisé l’avortement jusqu’à 24 semaines, alors que les Européens autorisent l’avortement « seulement » jusqu’à 13-14 semaines.

En outre, on voit the partisanship de la gauche américaine quand on sait à quel point ils ont insisté pour autoriser l’avortement « sur demande » et même parfois, après la naissance (!).

2) dans cette perspective, on voit À quel point la décision de la cour suprême est, somme toute, banale. 

Ce que les juges ont fait, c’est de remettre l’union américaine … à égalité avec… l’Union européenne (!)

En effet, les 50 états des USA sont  désormais exactement au même niveau que les 27 membres de l'UE.

Il n’y a pas de Décision européenne pour toute l’Europe, tout se fait au niveau des états membres. Des pays comme l’Irlande, le Portugal, et la Pologne ont tous interdit l’avortement (sont-ils toujours interdits ? Je ne le sais…) ainsi que d’autres « droits » comme le divorce…

To this Paul replied that

I also wanted to than Erik for his comments which were perfect. We never have the time to say everything we want and I wanted to speak on Dobbs. 

 

Related to the points that Erik wrote, keep in mind how the case made its way to SCOTUS which gave them the opportunity to rule on Roe. It was the case In Mississippi, « Dobbs vs Jackson Womens Health Organization ». You should all get familiar with it plus Alito’s response. 

 

Dobbs actually started  back in 2018 where the Republican State Legislature actually VOTED to restrict abortions in their state to 15 weeks (I think from 24-26 weeks). ONE week more than France and THREE weeks more than the 12 week limit in France in effect until this year. 

 

The Democrats immediately filed lawsuit screaming that this was unjust to women and a violation of Roe v Wade (actually Casey which addressed « undue » state limitations but didn’t specify number of weeks). THE Mississippi Republicans didn’t give up and kept appealing the decision even though every local and circuit liberal judge sided with the crazy democrats. Until it reached SCOTUS. They decided to take it and voila. 

 

So I think that much of the blame can be put on the Democrats themselves for their arrogance and inability to compromise and extreme movement to the left by pushing abortion rights up until 9 months (7 state before the Roe reversal and probably many more to come). Not to confuse the fact that the SCOTUS decision was NOT political, strictly legal, but that the sentiments in the US society today among red states and pro-lifers is that they are completely fed up with extreme pro choicers and have hardened their responses as a result.

Let's end this post with a hat tip to Tucker Carlson, who points out the double standards of the left, i.e., that "insurrection" is actually fine when practiced by Democrats, leftists, and like-minded drama queens…

IVG/USA : La grande régression ? - 25/6

Dans le siège de la décision de la cour suprême américaine, qui a révoqué le droit fédéral à l’avortement, faut-il s’inquiéter pour d’autres droits aux États-Unis ? Est-ce la grande régression ? On en parle avec : Antoine Heulard, correspondant BFMTV Washington. Gérard Araud, ancien ambassadeur de France aux Etats-Unis. Paul Reen, président de “Republicans in France”. Le maître Julia Grégoire, conseillère juridique, porte parole Democrats abroad France. Et François Durpair [sic], consultant Etats-Unis pour BFMTV.

In the Longest Day in History

The story
of D-Day.

Two dozen photographs from the landings in Normandy can be checked out on the Fox News website.

The nation awoke on June 6, 1944, to learn that its heroic youth crawled from the sea and fell from the sky overnight in an effort to wrest an enslaved Europe from Hitler's clutches. 

Americans knew that the young lives of every soldier, sailor and airman, along with the fate of the free world, hung upon the outcome of the invasion.

Over at The Lid (danke schön zu Instapundit), Jeff Dunetz points out that the movies call D-Day “The Longest Day,” but a more apt description would be “The Day That Saved The World From Tyranny.”

 … if it wasn’t for the sacrifice of those heroes from Britain, Canada, and the United States, the Empire State Building might have become the world’s tallest German Schnitzel stand.

Jeff Dunetz mentions Franklin Delano Roosevelt's prayer, which is also the focus of a Fox News report. Kerry J. Byrne points out that the FDR prayer is now set to be part of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Today's commemoration of all who have had to stagger out of the blood foaming surf to die on a foreign shore brings to an end an initiative No Pasarán started 16 years ago. 

On every June 6 since a couple of years after the blog was founded in 2004, the anniversary has been commemorated — in addition to a link to my (oft-praised) "story of D-Day" — by one line from Paul Anka's thrilling score from the film The Longest Day, one of the best war movies (and simply one of the best movies) ever made. 

Sixteen years, and 16 lines, after Many Men Came Here As Soldiers, the lyrics sung by Mitch Mitchell and the Gang has reached its conclusion.

I kind of referred to the initiative, albeit very indirectly, back in a post in 2007, on the day the initiative started

One of the best movies ever filmed, and one of the best books ever written…

Many men came here as soldiers
Many men will pass this way
Many men will count the hours
When they live The Longest Day

Many men are tired and weary
Many men are here to stay
Many men won't see the sun set
When it ends The Longest Day

For those who might be interested, below are the lyrics, the commemorations, and the hyperlinks from 2007 to 2022:

The first three commemorations were simply the title and a link to the story of D-Day; by 2010, I was adding photos, cartoons, and/or various links to such things as the Gene Simmons Military Tribute (a must-see — and a must-hear — below)…

Many men came here as soldiers
Many men will pass this way
Many men will count the hours
As they live the longest day

Many men are tired and weary
Many men are here to stay
Many men won't see the sun set
When it ends the longest day

The longest day, the longest day
This will be the longest day
Filled with hopes and filled with fears
Filled with blood and sweat and tears

Many men, the mighty thousands (75th anniversary edition)
Many men to victory
Marching on, right into battle
In the longest day in history

Passing expanded background checks after a shooting is tantamount to demanding stricter drivers tests after a hit and run

 … passing expanded background checks after a school shooting is tantamount to demanding stricter drivers tests after a hit and run

writes David Harsanyi in his Daily Signal article on The Trouble With Do-Somethingism on Guns. (merci à EJ).

Whether America is more prone to mental illness or not, these incidents are almost exclusively perpetrated by young men who have exhibited serious antisocial behavior. All of them break a slew of existing laws. All of them have either obtained guns illegally, or legally before having any criminal record. In many, if not most, cases, the shooter is already on the cops’ radar because he has threatened others or written insane, violent manifestos.

In a study of mass shootings from 2008 to 2017, the Secret Service found that “100 percent of perpetrators showed concerning behaviors, and in 77 percent of shootings, at least one person—most often a peer—knew about their plan.”

Rather than focusing on these tangible entry points for potentially useful legislation, instead of proposing ideas on better identifying shooters before they act, instead of thinking about how schools could be structurally safer, instead of debating the efficacy of putting more cops in schools—and none of these are panaceas, mind you—Senate Democrats were busy dunking on Republicans for failing to support bills that have absolutely zero to do with mass shootings.

Sen. Chuck Schumer planned to introduce HR 8, an expanded background check bill, and HR 1446, a bill that would close the alleged “Charleston Loophole” (before he realized it wouldn’t be politically expedient). “Alleged” because Dylann Roof, who murdered nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, got a clean background check, not because of any “loophole,” but because local prosecutors had failed to respond to the FBI’s request for information. It was a case of human error, or negligence. 

 … And passing expanded background checks after a school shooting is tantamount to demanding stricter drivers tests after a hit and run.

Democrats, obsessed with largely irrelevant issues like AR-15s and “universal background checks,” are largely living in the early 1990s. President Joe Biden’s address to the nation consisted of a litany of hackneyed talking points he’s been regurgitating for decades now—including that transcendently stupid joke about deer in Kevlar. “As a nation, we have to ask, when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden said—again.

 … Republicans will have to deal with a barrage of preposterous smears. “There is no such thing as being ‘pro-life’ while supporting laws that let children be shot in their schools, elders in grocery stores, worshippers in their houses of faith, survivors by abusers, or anyone in a crowded place,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted.

This was indicative of the sort of demented accusation thrown around these days. One suspects liberals who take to the internet to accuse Republicans of abetting infanticide aren’t really interested in compromise. Unlike Ocasio-Cortez, who champions laws that empower people to terminate the lives of the viable unborn, I don’t know of a single Republican who supports the gunning down of elementary school children.

Indeed, law-abiding Americans have no obligation to take ownership of a madman’s actions. Nor is there any reason for them to surrender their right to self-defense so that Murphy, who, evidenced in many of his comments, is only interested in incrementally limiting gun ownership. That’s his right, of course. He should try to repeal the Second Amendment.

Related: • In View of the Texas Mass Murder, Should the NRA's Convention in Houston Be Cancelled?
• What Is to Blame for the Connecticut Shooting? Does the Blame Lie with the Right to Bear Arms Or Can It Be Found Elsewhere? (Ten-year-old post, but still entirely pertinent)
• T'is easy to tout the success of gun control laws in the rest of the Western world when you ignore certain pertinent facts from Europe
• Mourning "all lives lost to gun violence" is like calling the people murdered on 9/11 victims of “airplane violence”

In View of the Texas Mass Murder, Should the NRA's Convention in Houston Be Cancelled?

In the The Epoch Times, Frank Fang reports that

Donald Trump said he will still deliver his scheduled speech at the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) annual meeting in Houston on May 27, following the deadly school shooting in Uvalde that killed 19 students and two teachers.

In the wake of the Uvalde incident, the question has arisen: should the NRA event be outright cancelled? 

All over the planet, we are told by leftist Americans and foreigners alike that nowhere should guns be owned or held by private citizens — which is nothing less than insane — that weapons should be left in the hands of the police.

I discussed this on French television last Wednesday, when I was the very first American, Republican, and/or pro-Republican to accept an invitation to a debate on the children's massacre in Texas.

Well, what do you know? It seems that, if anything, the Uvalde incident proves nothing less than — get  this — the very necessity of private citizens to own and bear arms.

The parents and other citizens of Uvalde made the (understandable) mistake of trusting the police. But the law officers sat (or stood) around for an hour, not just refraining from engaging the killer at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, but actually using their powers to arrest a number of people. As it happens, the people that the cops arrested were the frantic parents and citizens of the town begging them to intervene, hand-cuffing said civilians in the back and unceremoniously laying them on their stomachs, their noses in the dirt.

No, Democrats. No, leftists. No, drama queens. No, people around the globe who say that security should be entrusted exclusively to the police: cops cannot be entrusted to do the right thing. (Not always, in any case.)

(In that perspective, see also the actions, or lack thereof, of police officers during Florida's Stoneman Douglas High School standoff as well during the ordeal of Doctor Petit prevented from saving his family members from being burned alive in his Connecticut house in 2007.)

Any real red-blooded American, whether a civilian or in uniform — and provided they had a weapon — would have stormed the school building immediately.

Instead, the cops — police on all levels (local, state, federal…) — seem to have gotten tangled into command issues and/or into bureaucracy.

So far, the NRA has released a statement, which, truth to tell, sounds a bit lame. Also disappointed in Ted Cruz for once (very rare), who said we shouldn't politicize the issue. True, but instead, everybody should be punching back twice as hard.

As the convention starts in Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center, I hope they come up with something that sounds like the following:

We have been told that it's inconsiderate, or uncouth, to hold our meeting in the wake of the tragedy of Uvalde, and that is something we have been told by people, American as well as foreign, claiming that guns belong in no one's hands but those of the police. Even if our support for law officers is theoretically unconditional and second to none, we ought to take a hard look at how the cops acted or, rather, failed to act in Texas.

This is the reason — this is precisely the reason — that citizens need to be armed.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. Or, in the case of the Robb Elementary School, minutes that turned into an hour. 

Think of another mass shooting, also in Texas, unreported in America and across the globe, because in December 2019, as it happens, only three people were killed. Hold on, you ask: Three people? Certainly a tragedy, but why, then, call the West Freeway Church of Christ event a "mass" shooting? Well, because that low figure was due only to one parishioner pulling out his weapon and gunning down the (would-be) mass shootist. Jack Wilson is what we call "a good guy with a gun."

Welcome to Houston, NRA members…

Update: Ann Althouse (via Glenn Reynolds): 

If the police don't arrive and save us from violence, how can this event support the argument for restricting guns? This is the very situation that makes the most responsible people want to own guns. It reminds me of the summer of 2020, when there were riots, and the police stood down.

• FBI Reveals How Many Active Shooters Were Stopped by Citizens (via Stephen Green)

Related:

• What Is to Blame for the Connecticut Shooting? Does the Blame Lie with the Right to Bear Arms Or Can It Be Found Elsewhere? (Ten-year-old post, but still entirely pertinent)
• T'is easy to tout the success of gun control laws in the rest of the Western world when you ignore certain pertinent facts from Europe
• Mourning "all lives lost to gun violence" is like calling the people murdered on 9/11 victims of “airplane violence”

Discussing Gun Control on French TV in the Wake of the Uvalde Tragedy

On Wednesday, I was the very first American, Republican, and/or pro-Republican to accept an invitation to a debate on the Uvalde tragedy in Texas on French television.

Among the things I brought up during the news show on the BFMTV channel, or tried bringing up — there were three people against me, after all, or five, counting the two moderators (sic) — were the 2011 massacre of 77 people in Norway, most of them teenagers, as well as other non-American mass killings which I mentioned years ago in a rebuttal letter to the New York Times — see how the French drama queen seated next to me goes almost berserk when I try to broach the subject of the 10 to 15 victims each in various German and Finnish schools or universities.

Beyond that, my main message was the "two taboo subjects" on the gun control issue, which are the same as those discussed in a piece from National Review's John Fund: 1) the leftists' "tolerance" for and "lack of judgment" against people with mental illness (leading the latter to being freed from psychiatric hospitals); in addition to 2) “gun-free” zones, praised everywhere, but actually counterproductive.

L'Amérique sous le choc après la fusillade dans une école au Texas - 25/05

Au lendemain de la fusillade qui a tué au moins 19 écoliers et deux enseignants dans une écoleélémentaire d'Uvalde au Texas (États-Unis), les réactions attristées et choquées se sont succédées ce mercredi. Outre-Atlantique, l'invariable débat sur la détention et la régulation des armes à feu est relancé par un Joe Biden affligé. On y revient avec: Antoine Heulard, correspondant de BFMTV à Washington (USA). Erik Svane, membre des Républicains Overseas. François Durpaire, consultant États-Unis de BFMTV. Amandine Atalaya, notre éditorialiste politique. Ulysse Gosset, notre éditorialiste politique internationale. Et Mahali Chalais, journaliste de BFMTV

 

Le 25/05/2022 à 17:29 | Durée : 22:59
Par Olivier Truchot et Alain Marschall

As it happens, I had taken a train to Switzerland that morning when, not an hour later, I got not one call from the BFMTV channel, but two from a duo of reporters independently, almost at the same time, for two different news shows, neither knowing a fellow colleague at the same station was calling me, within a minute or two.

I immediately decided to cancel my trip, bailed out of my TGV Lyria at the very first stop (Dijon) and ran to another quai — with four bags and one cat — to get on the next train back, leaving only four minutes later.

Update: I have since penned this post: In View of the Texas Mass Murder, Should the NRA's Convention in Houston Be Cancelled?

Related:

• What Is to Blame for the Connecticut Shooting? Does the Blame Lie with the Right to Bear Arms Or Can It Be Found Elsewhere? (Ten-year-old post, but still entirely pertinent)
• T'is easy to tout the success of gun control laws in the rest of the Western world when you ignore certain pertinent facts from Europe
• Mourning "all lives lost to gun violence" is like calling the people murdered on 9/11 victims of “airplane violence”

The "Texas Sharpshooter" Logical Fallacy Explains the Thought Process of Leftists and Drama Queens

  … claiming “direct cause and effect” is exactly what [the the Drama Queens are doing, but only] when it suits them!

Linking to William Lehman's Texas Sharpshooter theory//fallacy, Sarah Hoyt comments that

IT’S NOT JUST THAT DEMOCRATS LIE. IT’S THEY ALSO BELIEVE THEIR OWN LIES

William Lehman:

“Texas sharpshooter” … refers to the “Logical Fallacy” by that name.  Hubspot defines this fallacy as follows: This fallacy gets its colorful name from an anecdote about a Texan who fires his gun at a barn wall and then proceeds to paint a target around the closest cluster of bullet holes. He then points at the bullet-riddled target as evidence of his expert marksmanship.

Speakers who rely on the Texas sharpshooter fallacy tend to cherry-pick data clusters based on a predetermined conclusion. Instead of letting a full spectrum of evidence lead them to a logical conclusion, they find patterns and correlations in support of their goals and ignore evidence that contradicts them or suggests the clusters weren’t actually statistically significant.

 … there are morons and the insane in the world, and one seems to feed off the other.  Then there are the Svengalis of the world, that use any crisis, any disaster, to further their agenda, and when those three intersect and show up on my radar, well, I just naturally get my back up, and feel the need to call this shit out … the latest bullshit from the NYT and the “Anti-Defamation League”

 … David Leonhardt (NYT) is at it again. https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20220517&instance_id=61553&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN&regi_id=28200476&segment_id=92459&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F095cc587-8474-5c7c-834e-f5a99763488e&user_id=10d59faf3e1d1200e0ddca9ff23febad

Oh, he’s not alone, this time he’s using data provided by the “Anti-Defamation League,” that well known truly fair and unbiased arbiter of all that is good and fair in the world.  This is where the “logical fallacy” part comes in.  See the ADL has come up with this magical number of 450 US murders that were “committed by political extremists.”  (all of this, of course, is in the wake of the shooting in Buffalo, and is an opportunity to “Wave the bloody shirt.”  Sadly, they never even wait until the blood is dried.)

Now before we even get into the conclusion these fine folks come to, let’s look at the numbers they’re using. 450 murders in a decade.  Remember the definition of the fallacy?  “Cherry-picking data clusters based on a predetermined conclusion?”  There were more than 21,000 murders in this country in the latest year on record. (CDC and FBI data for 2020) There were 38 “mass shootings” in 2020, 43 in 2021, and 30 so far this year. 

NOTE, this doesn’t count things like the black supremacist that ran his sports utility vehicle through a parade killing seven and injuring 60, because it wasn’t done with a gun.  It doesn’t count the black supremacist that opened fire in the Subways of NYC earlier this year, because he didn’t kill anyone (due to sucking at shooting, not due to lack of trying.)  They also didn’t count the Chinese on Taiwanese shooting the same day. 

Why didn’t they count those you ask?  Well, according to the ADL “the precise explanation for any one attack can be murky, involving a mixture of ideology, mental illness, gun access and more. In the immediate aftermath of an attack, people are sometimes too quick to claim a direct cause and effect.”  Yet, claiming “direct cause and effect” is exactly what they’re doing, when it suits them! 

They go on to “libsplain” (Hey, if “mansplain” is a word, so is libsplain!) that: “Right-wing violence is endemic to being right-wing, and that really, you can’t be a Republican without being a violent hate-filled monster or at least hauling the mail for those that are,” that being a racist, and believing in something they’re calling “replacement theory” a “radical conspiracy theory” that those evil bastards on FOX news spout. 

Now it’s funny that the shooter in buffalo specifically called out FOX news as an evil part of the conspiracy against white people, in his manifesto, but we’re supposed to ignore that.  It’s also sort of ironic that the NYT has been harping for a couple of years now that “the changing demographics mean that white males will be a voiceless minority within fifteen years.” and that’s good, but believing in this “replacement theory” is evil… 

They also run their position from the “known revealed truth” that being a racist or a white supremacist automatically makes you a conservative republican. From the ADL article: “All but three of the 29 murders (90%) documented in this report had ties to forms of right-wing extremism, including white supremacy, anti-government extremism of several types, right-wing conspiracy theory adherents and toxic masculinity adherents.” 

The problem with that, first, it’s a self-eating ice cream cone. “We say that white supremacy is right-wing, so right-wingers are the people doing the violence.” The second problem is that the manifestos these insane little fuckers keep leaving don’t support the right-wing claim.  This most recent one claims to be a “Moderate Leftist Authoritarian Ecowarrior” in his manifesto posted just before the crime.  Then you get into the “sovereign citizen” insanity which they also label as “right-wing.”  I’ve dealt with those morons as a cop, and folks, they are SOOO far out there you need the Hubble just to see their ass.  Right-wing they are not.  Look, I could play the same game and call the ADL left-wing terrorist sympathizers, but I’ll refrain.

The issue is this: The NYT is going on record as claiming that “The Buffalo killings are an extreme expression of a worldview that has become increasingly central to the identity of the Republican Party.” https://puffnachrichten.com/opinion/the-buffalo-shooting-was-not-a-random-act-of-violence/16927/ (This version enables you to evade their paywall.)  in one day, they have 8 different “leader” articles about how Republicans are the party of hate and need to be silenced. https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/todaysheadlines?campaign_id=2&date=2022-05-17&emc=edit_th_20220517&instance_id=61544&nl=today%27s-headlines&regi_id=28200476&segment_id=92449&user_id=10d59faf3e1d1200e0ddca9ff23febad

Free speech for me, but you shut the fuck up, they explain.

Their system failed.  The most gun adverse system in the nation (or second behind CA) let an eighteen-year-old mentally ill individual go, after dealing with him in high school for violent threats.  In a state where “red flag” laws are the law of the land, no one stopped this sick little fucker from buying a gun.  He was committed to a mental hospital, yet no one did the paperwork to deny him the right to get a rifle… and now there are ten people dead, and they want to tie it to republicans, and to the gun. 

Oh, by the way, remember that Texas clock tower shooter I mentioned at the start?  [Charles Whitman] was a democrat too. Semiautomatic wasn’t needed, a standard-issue magazine with 20 rounds or thirty rounds wasn’t needed, he did it all with a three-round magazine bolt action rifle as you find in every hunting camp in America.  Remember the guy in WI that plowed into the parade? He did it with a Ford. 

Last weekend, there were 104 Americans shot dead in the streets.  I don’t know how many were killed with a knife, or a club or beat to death, but based on the statistical averages, at least 300.  Yes, you’re three times as likely to be killed by some other means than by being shot. Are they any less dead because it wasn’t a “hate crime?’ If in fact it wasn’t, and really how do you kill someone except out of hate?

The issue is not the type of firearm, it’s not the magazine capacity, it’s not even the fact that it’s a firearm, and it’s surely not what flavor of politics the killer claims or espouses.  The issue is mental health and criminal behavior.  As long as we are letting the crazies and the crooks run the streets, we’re going to have dead people.

No, Democrats, George Orwell’s 1984 Was NOT a How-To Manual: Joe Biden Creates a New “Ministry of Truth”

The 1st Amendment basically protects speech that you do not agree with. We don’t need a law that protects speech that people and the government already agree with. But this new Ministry of Truth does just that.

UPDATE: After only 3 weeks, Biden has been forced to put a 75 day hold on his “Ministry of Truth” after massive pushback by the Republican Party concerned with freedom of speech.  A bipartisan review of the “Disinformation Board” will take place during this time but the White House is vowing to continue its work. The Board’s Director, Nina Jankowicz, has chosen to resign and the Biden Administration is defending her as a victim and immediately smearing Republicans with actual disinformation:  “These smears leveled by bad-faith, right-wing actors against a deeply qualified expert and against efforts to better combat human smuggling and domestic terrorism are disgusting,” deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.

After appearing at a France 24 television debate, the head of Republicans in France, Paul Reen, has penned an article for the French readers of the Causeur magazine.  (Here is the French version.) 

You may know by now that the Biden Administration has created a Disinformation Governance Board which is part of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This Board will determine what information being circulated in the media, on-line and throughout social media platforms is “true” and what is “not true”. They, and only they, will be the deciders of truth. This announcement would be seen as a joke if it were not so serious.  

Republicans and some Independents have compared this to Orwell’s 1984 “Ministry of Truth” that forces the people to believe that 2+2=5, not 4. The idea that the Government will have a Board to police the truth is such a dystopian, totalitarian concept that the news sent shock waves throughout the country, an earthquake of opposition, except of course from Democrats who found it to be a wonderful and necessary idea to silence those evil, lying white supremacist Republicans. “Move on, nothing to see here”.

What you may not know is that only after the uproar, did the DHS Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, try to quickly “clarify” the role of the Board in an effort at damage control. He emphasized that it will be a non-partisan board that will not attack free speech in any way and will only focus on disinformation related to immigration control and other threats to our national security.  And we’re expected to believe this from a DHS Secretary who is responsible for overseeing the greatest invasion of illegal immigrants in US history (over 2 million people in 2021) and refuses to even acknowledge that we have a crisis?

It’s also important to point out when and how Mayorkas announced this Disinformation Board. It was during an April House Committee hearing to address Homeland Security. A Democrat congresswoman asked Mayorkas what his department is doing to address, as she called it, “…the disinformation we saw during the 2016, 2020 and possibly the upcoming 2022 midterms elections”  that she said were “specifically targeted at people of color and Spanish speaking Americans” and “are a serious threat to our security.” Mayorkas was very proud to announce the creation of his Disinformation Governance Board as a solution to the congresswoman’s concerns. So it was in response to election “disinformation” concerns that the Board’s announcement was initially made, not immigration control. In his follow up hearing to address Republican concerns, he never again mentioned election “disinformation” but educated minds can see through his spin.

The New Minister of the Ministry of Truth is a known supporter of disinformation

Who did Mayorkis choose to lead this new “non-partisan” Ministry of Truth?  Her name is Nina Jankowicz and she’s considered a “Russian disinformation expert”. Ms Jankowicz is well accredited with a Masters degree in Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European affairs. She spent a year studying in Russia, has worked in Kiev, advising the Ukraine Government on communication strategies as part of the Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellowship and published a book titled “How To Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict”.   Sounds impressive as far as credentials, but what has she done to combat disinformation? 

Nothing. She actually supports it.

She is a Democrat Party activist, spreader of disinformation and critic of free speech. Ms Jankowicz joined Clinton and all Democrats insisting that Trump had colluded with Russia to steal the presidency in 2016. A hideous conspiracy theory carried out for 4 years that we now know is completely false after a 2 year investigation by an independent council. Also, in 2020, right before the Trump/Biden election, Ms Jankowicz praised Big Tech’s censoring of the NY Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, calling the laptop story Russian disinformation, “a fairytale”, and “a Russian influence op”. ‘We should view it as a Trump campaign product,’ she told the New York Daily News at the time. Twitter repeatedly took down the Hunter Biden laptop story and prevented it from being spread on the platform. 

We now know that the story is true. The laptop turned into the FBI by a store owner is actually Hunter Biden’s and it is filled with very incriminating information regarding his financial dealings with Ukraine, Russia and China, and could implicate President Biden in illegal activities. The story was blocked by Big Tech on all social media platforms prior to the 2020 election. If it hadn’t been blocked, studies estimate that 17% of Biden voters would have changed their votes to Trump, which could have changed the election to Trump. The FBI and Department of Justice investigations are currently underway. 

Ms Jankowicz is also on record criticizing the US First Amendment saying free speech is bad for “marginalized communities.” Shortly after Elon Musk announced his purchase of Twitter, she told National Public Radio:

“I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities”

When Republicans grilled Mayorkas on how he could choose such a partisan to lead the Board, he simply responded “I wasn’t aware of that”, with no plans to change his appointee. Ms Jankowicz has never apologized for or corrected any of the disinformation that she helped spread. Is this really the kind of “non-partisan” leader we’re expected to believe can impartially run such a Board? Of course not but if you’re a desperate Biden Administration that is failing on accounts, she is exactly the type Minister you would want for the Ministry of Truth.

The 1st amendment of the U.S. Constitution addresses Freedom of Speech. It protects all citizens with the right to speak opposing opinions, including to the government, in speech, media and in peaceful demonstrations. This is the bedrock policy of the U.S. which enables for a free and fair democracy. The 1st Amendment protects all speech except calls for violence. 

The 1st Amendment basically protects speech that you do not agree with. We don’t need a law that protects speech that people and the government already agree with. But this new Ministry of Truth does just that. Whatever good intentions it might have, it takes the US Government into an area of censoring speech they do not agree with. This is how dictatorships govern, silencing any opposing views until there is no longer free speech at all, no longer a democracy, no longer freedom. And yet it’s the Democrats who are always screaming that if you vote Republican it’ll be the death of our Democracy! 

Not just a U.S initiative but a Global Movement

Minister Jankowicz also said,

“We need the platforms to do more, and we frankly need law enforcement and our legislatures to do more as well … the U.K. has an online safety bill that’s being considered right now where they’re trying to make illegal this currently, quote, ‘awful but lawful content’ that exists online where people are being harassed.”

It’s critical to note that she praises the UK’s “online safety bill” that aims to regulate on-line speech even more. This is not a US problem alone. It is a global phenomenon of Leftists working together to silence any opposing views. This government information control became glaringly evident during COVID and has only accelerated. In mid-April 2022, the European Union approved new rules aimed at policing Big Tech platforms. As reported by the Financial Times, “The EU will force Big Tech companies to police content online more aggressively after approving a major piece of legislation that sets the rules for the first time on how companies should keep users safe on the internet …”  

Of course some regulation of on-line information is necessary, such as calls to violence, pornography and human trafficking to name a few but a growing global governmental effort to crack down on “disinformation” undoubtedly leads to censorship of opposing (conservative) views, and the eventual enforcement of government penalties. Both Left Wing Americans and European leaders are pushing a “New World Order” where free speech is eliminated in our once great Western Societies. This slow movement to authoritarianism will result in even more global, government-directed censorship. For example, the European Union is now supporting the proposal to make the World Health Organization (WHO) into a global health authority, and the WHO, in turn, is setting up its own censorship network.

Disinformation actually comes from the Biden Administration after their disastrous policy results 

After only 15 months of Biden’s leadership, the U.S. has record inflation rates, record gas prices, record illegal immigration and record crime rates across the country. Rather than changing policy, Democrats tell themselves that blocking the truth, sending disinformation and censoring opposition must therefore be the priority.

Given the disastrous performance of the Biden Administration, it should come as no surprise that they have created a “Ministry of Truth” to use the full weight and power of the government to try and change the narrative and to censor opposing views, it’s been their plan for years. The current White House has been open about working with Big Tech social media companies to monitor (spy on) American’s posts, tweets and chats to crack down on what they decide is disinformation. It’s Biden’s allies as well, because we all know that there are powerful Democrats working behind the scenes of the Biden Administration that are very influential in creating policy. 

Do you still think Biden is really in charge?  Ex President Obama has now decided to come out of the shadows and speak openly about policy. In a May 2022 speech at Stanford he spoke about the dangers of disinformation and how they are the biggest threat to democracy. He called on companies to do more to stop “fake news” (conservative opinions and advocated for more government intervention and regulation. He stated:

It’s time to “pick a side” on whether social media companies should be regulated by the government and made more responsible for the content published on their services….”he stated, arguing that online “disinformation”  ) is threatening the future of freedom around the world.

The Biden Administration has always been rooted in disinformation.  From the first day of his campaign, Biden lied about what Trump said in Charlottesville, VA, spreading the “very fine people on both sides” lie.  Trump never called Nazis very fine people. Every informed, honest person knows that he was referring to the peaceful protesters who were against tearing down controversial statues, not the Nazi’s. Biden continues to spread this lie to this day, with even more dementia-fueled anger.

The Biden Administration has lied about nearly every policy failure imaginable: that the horrific withdrawal from Afghanistan couldn’t have been done any better, that Russia’s war on Ukraine is the cause for every economic issue in the U.S., that massive illegal immigration is good for America and that soaring crime rates are the fault of racist Republican’s rhetoric. A majority of Americans now see through these lies despite the disinformation from the White House Press Room and the media efforts to blame Trump and his supporters. Americans know that the current economic issues started far before the war began and that the failures are due to Biden’s policies of out of control spending, war on fossil fuels, war on police and open borders. Biden even recently sent out a blatant lie via Twitter that of course was not flagged, a tweet that lies about vaccine availability and also seems to say – no need to worry folks, unemployment is down so the economy is strong!

 “When President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine available. In the last 15 months, the economy has created 8.3M jobs and the unemployment rate stands at 3.6%, the fastest decline in unemployment to start a Presidents term ever.” White House May 12, 2022.

It falsely claims that there were no vaccines before he took office. The truth is that it was under Trump that the vaccines were developed and released, and everyone knows that unemployment was down in 2021 because 2020 was the complete economic shutdown of the country, and record numbers of people were forced into unemployment.

Biden and the Democrats continue to spread the disinformation that “the 2020 election was the most secure election in U.S. history”. An election that had an unprecedented number of mail-in votes (67 million) due to Democrats convincing their constituents that voting in person would be too dangerous due to COVID, and who did all they could to basically eliminate any Voter Identification (ID) requirements. Here in France they have learned that voting in person, with proper ID are critical to ensuring election integrity and any efforts to change this would be immediately rejected.  

Any Republicans who have tried to discuss the possibility of fraud in 2020 have been black listed for spreading the “Big Lie” conspiracy theory according to Democrats. But since the election, people have not stopped working to uncover evidence and a recent documentary film by Dinesh D’Souza titled “2000 Mules” uncovers proof of massive fraud. Everyone should pay to see “2000 Mules” via on-line streaming. Biden also continues to spread lies about the Jan 6 Capital protesters being “insurrectionists” (See my article on Jan 6 published in Jan 2022), and most recently spreading lies that the Supreme Court will soon outlaw mixed and same sex marriages, after the leak on possibly sending abortion rights back to the States to decide.

Despite Biden’s efforts at spreading disinformation, according to the latest May NBC poll, Biden’s favorability ratings have plunged to record low (39%) and a huge 75% of American believe the country is heading in the wrong direction. Democrats are facing a pending “REDWAVE” victory by Republicans in November that could result in Republican majorities in both the House and Senate.  The creation of a Ministry of Truth to cover for their lies and disinformation is just another desperate move to change the narrative. When they cannot defend their failures, they simply turn to censorship.

This Ministry of Truth must be disbanded immediately. The Republican Minority is working hard to persuade moderates to vote with them to disband it and have presented legislation to do so. But as the Democrats currently hold the majorities it will be a difficult battle until November when hopefully the balance of power in Congress will change. All freedom loving patriots in the U.S. and Europe must continue to speak out and defend freedom of speech and rebel against global government’s censorship efforts under the guise of “disinformation” for the sake of our freedoms and democracies.

The threat of censorship in America is — ironically — corroborated by the very fact that the Drama Queens at the Network News have been ignoring their counterparts in Biden’s ‘Ministry of Truth’, from its founding to its quick demise

Although they’re in the First Amendment business, network newscasts largely ignored the rise and fall of a federal government board that raised red flags about the potential targeting of speech. 

 … The three traditional nightly network newscasts—on ABC, CBS, and NBC—didn’t cover Jankowicz’s resignation or the pause of the board, according to the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog that tracks news reports for bias.

And for a 21-day span, the disinformation board gained only one minute and 23 seconds of coverage May 1 on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” but no other attention from NBC, ABC, or CBS. 

Sources for Paul Reen's article:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-dhs-secretary-mayorkas-testifies-in-senate-as-end-of-title-42-immigration-rule-nears
https://www.hstoday.us/federal-pages/dhs/dhs-standing-up-disinformation-governance-board-led-by-information-warfare-expert/
https://pulitzercenter.org/people/nina-jankowicz
https://nypost.com/2022/04/28/who-thought-a-clearly-partisan-hack-should-be-bidens-disinformation-czar/
https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/24/poll-one-in-six-biden-voters-would-have-changed-their-vote-if-they-had-known-about-scandals-suppressed-by-media/
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-04-21/la-ent-obama-disinformation-stanford
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2022/05/16/new-nbc-poll-shows-75-percent-say-country-is-on-wrong-track-transgenderism-also-takes-a-hit-1238323/
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president-biden-job-approval-7320.html

Buffalo Shooting: Paul Reen Takes On the Race-Baiters of the France 24 Channel

This week, the head of Republicans in France (RIF) was a guest on the English-language version of France 24 for a debate on (quote unquote) "Racism going mainstream? Buffalo shooting inspired by far-right conspiracy theories." Needless to say, the conservative was, as usual, outgunned, in this case by Curtis Young and Jennifer Carlson, not to mention the "moderator" himself, but Paul Reen fired back at that the drama queens with both barrels… (Paul's latest article, incidentally, is on Joe Biden's Ministry of Truth…)

He is not a lone wolf. The 18-year-old who travelled to Buffalo, New York to livestream a shooting spree targeting Black shoppers had the complicity of an "anything goes" internet where hate can spread at the speed of light, and a "land of the free" mantra where he could buy assault weapons over the counter.

In the wake of Joe Biden calling the shooting domestic terrorism in the name of White supremacy, François PICARD's panel argues over how the "Great Repacement", a conspiracy theory imported from France, went from the fringe to Fox News to Capitol Hill. Will the far right carry White supremacist ideas all the way to victory in November's midterm elections?

Produced by Charles Wente, Elise Marné and Imen Mellaz

 

The USA's "Mexican Mafia" and Its Politiqueros: Testimony in Dinesh D'Souza's "2,000 Mules" Suggests Deeper Democrat Involvement in Illegal Immigration Than Imagined

 
Dr. Rich Swier and Before It's News have reproduced the entire new Dinesh D’Souza documentary that Pamela Gellar unearthed on Sunday. UPDATE — the 1:27:00 video has just been removed for copyright claims, at least on Pam's website.  It may still be on other websites, for the time being, but don't go see it — obviously — if you think it's ethically wrong to do so.

In any case, posting a Youtube video of the very first scene in the movie — the brief outtake from an infamous Joe Biden speech — albeit in a private message to one single solitary other person, is FYI what got me banned from Facebook, with no explanation, the very day after the 2020 election, with no reply ever to any of my letters and emails over the next year and a half.

The new film by Dinesh D’Souza, 2,000 Mules, analyzes data obtained by True the Vote, and showing how ballot harvesting manipulated the 2020 election.

“America needs to wake up” and take the malfeasance that occurred in the 2020 election — most notably through ballot traffickers — seriously, or it could happen again in future elections, True the Vote president and founder Catherine Engelbrecht.

 … The film details how paid operatives, or “mules,” trafficked ballots, “typically in the middle of the night,” to mail-in drop boxes.

Among the guests is Hans von Spakovsky, who, willingly or otherwise, gives a new interpretation to illegal immigration. Conservatives have been thinking that illegal immigration in and by itself has been the desire of leftists and drama queens for generations.

The reality may be different. Prior to von Spakovsky's arrival (at 1:06:16), we see an informant or a whistle-blower explain that the elections in San Luis, Yuma County, Arizona are "fixed, they have been fixed" (1:01:54).

Members of the Latino minority "are an easy target because most of the Hispanics that live in the town are not well educated as far as the law [is concerned]. … I call it 'the Mexican Mafia', seriously."

This is the point at which Hans von Spakovsky comes in:

But unfortunately, this is so common in some parts of America, particularly the Hispanic community, that they have a special name there.  There, they call them Politiqueros. And these are individuals who are paid by campaigns, or political parties, to go into neighborhoods and collect absentee ballots, to pressure and coerce voters…

The co-author of Our Broken Elections goes on to explain why absentee ballot fraud or mail ballot fraud is the easiest and most common type of election fraud:

They're the only kind of ballot that is voted outside the supervision of election officials and outside the observation of poll watchers. Transparency, as you know, is very important in the election process, and there's no one there, at a voter's home to observe what's happening. 

In any case, maybe we conservatives have been naïve to believe that the Democrats (aka the control freaks) were more or less laissez-faire in letting Latinos in and simply expecting them to vote leftist. No, whether the drama queens are English-speakers or Spanish-speakers, getting the immigrants to vote the correct way takes far more involvement than that.

Related: • A coup? On election night, we watched states call for Biden before votes were counted, while states that Trump has a solid lead in, stopped counting

• Voter Fraud — A Note to Leftists Who Claim that "Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced"

• Dennis Prager: The Numerous (and Sweeping) Anomalies Regarding the 2020 Election That Cannot Be Ignored

• Inside of a month, Democrats have redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy — And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party

• Isn't America Being Governed by a Mafia Family Dynasty, setting things up so that there will always be Democrats in power?

• The Take of Bill Maher's Coronavirus Expert Guests Happens to Apply Perfectly to the 2020 Election 

• One of Erik's French TV appearances: 99% of the Capitol Protestors Were Entirely Peaceful, as Were 99% of the Group Which Entered the Premises 

• Stare Decisis: The Areas that Precedent Is Not Supposed to Include and Be Concerned With 

• How Would Reagan React to the November Election's Voter Fraud and the Riots of 2020? How About Abe Lincoln? 

• How to Reply If You Are Being Badgered by Leftists Insisting that You Accept the 2020 Outcome as Fair'n'Square (based on Americans Anonymous)

• Leftists' Abhorrent Behavior: The Democrat Party seeks to demonize, criminalize, and extinguish dissent from the 75 million supporters of Donald Trump"

• The Mote in Thine Own Eye: Why Are Conservatives So Naïve That They Refuse to See the Beam in the Eye of Those Who Hate Their Very Existence? 

For the first two years of World War II, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were allies; Hitler and Stalin secretly planned and jointly began the war that inflicted such horror and destruction

As troops recently returned from Ukraine rolled through Red Square in armored personnel carriers, Putin justified his assault on Russia’s neighbor as a response to mounting violence by US- and NATO-backed fascists.

Thus writes Jeff Jacoby about the May 9 parade, during which Vladimir Putin held a Victory Day speech telling the country's soldiers that among various other things, "You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War Two."

As Antony Beevor notes in his history of The Second World War, "In Soviet eyes the definition of 'fascist' included anyone who did not follow the orders of the Communist Party." Might that not be generalized, in post-communist times (and even perhaps in pre-communist, i.e., in Tsarist, times [although the foreign demonization would in the latter case involve another word than (the post-WWI) "fascist"]?), to "Russian eyes" and to "Russia's ruling party"? 

Back to Jeff Jacoby, who begs to differ regarding "the lessons of World War Two":

Just as Putin’s Ukraine narrative is a confection of nonsense — from his repeated insistence that NATO has been engaged in a hostile attempt to “encircle” Russia to his absurd contention that Ukraine is not a real nation and has no right to sovereignty — so too is the legend that Russia was an innocent victim of Adolf Hitler, and that the launch of World War II was a monstrous crime committed by Germany alone.

There is no denying that a vast number of Soviet citizens lost their lives in World War II. Without the Russian people’s appalling suffering and sacrifice, the Allies might not have triumphed in the end.

But there is also no denying that Moscow was Nazi Germany’s partner in unleashing the war, the deadliest in human history, in the first place. Victory Day is a good opportunity to review the record of Russian culpability in plunging the world into war — a record the Kremlin’s propagandists have been trying to obscure for decades.

World War II is commonly said to have started on Sept. 1, 1939 , when German forces invaded Poland. But it would perhaps be more accurate to date the start of the war nine days earlier. On Aug. 23, 1939, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov signed a treaty of non-aggression, whereby their governments agreed to conquer and divide Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe. It was under the terms of this pact that the Nazi Wehrmacht moved into western Poland on Sept. 1 and Josef Stalin’s Red Army invaded Poland from the east 16 days later. 

“Soviet and German forces set up brutal occupation regimes in their respective spheres and forcibly transferred hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens to forced-labor sites,” recounts Mark Kramer, the director of the Cold War Studies Project at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

 … Devouring half of Poland didn’t slake Moscow’s appetite. In the months that followed the Nazi-Soviet takeover of Poland, as Hitler’s troops conquered Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, and France and bombed much of London into rubble, Stalin’s forces continued their illegal war of aggression and conquest. Writes Kramer:

Even as the Red Army was imposing Soviet rule on eastern Poland, Soviet troops also began moving into the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), which had enjoyed some two decades of independence after the First World War. In subsequent months, as Soviet military and state security forces continued to pour into the Baltic countries, they compelled the local governments to comply with Moscow’s demands. Eventually, in mid-1940, Soviet occupying forces replaced the indigenous governments with puppet regimes that voted for “voluntary” incorporation into the USSR. The same pattern was evident in the formerly Romanian territories of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, which the Soviet Union occupied and annexed in late June 1940.

The only major impediment to the expansion of Soviet rule in Eastern Europe came in Finland, where the entry of Soviet troops at the end of November 1939 sparked a brief but intense war.

In short, for the first two years of World War II, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were allies. They secretly planned and jointly began the war that inflicted such horror and destruction. Later, of course, Hitler double-crossed Stalin and ordered the Wehrmacht to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941. But before that turning point, the two totalitarian powers cooperated closely. …

Armored vehicles rolled through Red Square in Moscow during a rehearsal for today's Victory Day military parade.

In 2014, Putin made it a crime for Russians to “spread intentionally false information” — i.e., to tell the truth — about the atrocities committed by Soviet forces during World War II. As a result, writes Kramer, “the brutality of the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland, including massacres and widespread rapes, is a taboo subject in Russia nowadays.” In much the same way, Putin has made it illegal for Russian journalists today to report on Moscow’s massive violations of human-rights crimes in Ukraine.

In his Victory Day remarks, Russia’s dictator linked the record of the Red Army in the 1940s with that of the Russian troops now fighting in Ukraine. There are indeed parallels between the two, though decidedly not the ones Putin wants the world to focus on.

From 1939 through mid-1941, Soviet Russia collaborated with the Nazis in wreaking slaughter and savagery on the nations of Europe. The regime that rules in Moscow today is of course not responsible for Stalin’s evil alliance with Hitler. But no one should be fooled as Putin seeks to cloak himself and his calamitous Ukraine war in the “heroic” history of World War II-era Russia. Moscow and Berlin together started that horrific war, and used it to impose a reign of tyranny across Europe. Germany no longer terrorizes its neighbors. Russia still does.

“Soviet and German forces set up brutal occupation regimes in their respective spheres and forcibly transferred hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens to forced-labor sites,” recounts Mark Kramer, the director of the Cold War Studies Project at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

As is pointed out in a special Stalin's Final Secrets issue of the Géo magazine, Molotov denied the existence of a special protocol in the non-aggression pact until his 1986 death, and the truth did not surface until after the end of the Soviet empire in 1991. Most infamously, the special protocol allowed  the Führer and the Vozhd to carve Europe into zones of influence making it, as Balthazar Gibiat calls it, a sort of pre-Yalta Yalta agreement (albeit one formed of course in peacetime, not during a war, i.e., the very war that the special protocol directly led to).

Update: Spasiba, Tovarich Driscoll, who wrote about the same topic eight years ago… 

Update 2: This brings up the so-called "paranoid" "witch hunts" against communists in post-war America. Here is a question that is seldom brought up: Who was head of the Kremlin when the term "McCarthyism" was coined? A fellow by the name of Stalin. As for the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), another question is, how many people are aware that the maligned council was not solely involved with communists? Indeed, it was formed the year prior to the Nazi/Soviet non-aggression treaty, in 1938, to investigate disloyalty by subversive organizations tied to either pro-Soviet communists or — yes — pro-German fascists?

Update 3: You know how Democrats and their left-leaning allies abroad always seem to be in the process of aiding America's enemies — and not just aiding them but providing them with the most generous of gifts — from the Ayatollahs' Iran to communist China? Well, it may sound depressing to learn that there is a "groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War" which states that basically FDR and even Winston Churchill might belong to that very same group. In Stalin's War (A New History of World War II), we are told by Sean McMeekin that 

World War II endures in the popular imagination as a heroic struggle between good and evil, with villainous Hitler driving its events. But Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia—and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler’s war; it was Stalin’s war.

 … Hitler’s genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941–1945 fulfill Stalin’s goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the “Anglo-Saxon” capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.
 
McMeekin also reveals the extent to which Soviet Communism was rescued by the US and Britain’s self-defeating strategic moves, beginning with Lend-Lease aid, as American and British supply boards agreed almost blindly to every Soviet demand. Stalin’s war machine, McMeekin shows, was substantially reliant on American materiél from warplanes, tanks, trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, fuel, ammunition, and explosives, to industrial inputs and technology transfer, to the foodstuffs which fed the Red Army.
 
This unreciprocated American generosity gave Stalin’s armies the mobile striking power to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.

From the British edition:  

With Hitler dead and the Third Reich in ruins, Stalin created an immense new Communist empire. Among his holdings were Czechoslovakia and Poland, the fates of which had first set the West against the Nazis and, of course, China and North Korea, the ramifications of which we still live with today.

Until Barbarossa wrought a public relations miracle, turning him into a plucky ally of the West, Stalin had murdered millions, subverted every norm of international behaviour, invaded as many countries as Hitler had, and taken great swathes of territory he would continue to keep. In the larger sense the global conflict grew out of not only German and Japanese aggression but Stalin's manoeuvrings, orchestrated to provoke wars of attrition between the capitalist powers in Europe and in Asia. Throughout the war Stalin chose to do only what would benefit his own regime, not even aiding in the effort against Japan until the conflict's last weeks. Above all, Stalin's War uncovers the shocking details of how the US government (to the detriment of itself and its other allies) fuelled Stalin's war machine, blindly agreeing to every Soviet demand, right down to agents supplying details of the atomic bomb.