Thursday, June 06, 2024

Gigi: A D-Day Survivor's Tale of WWII and the G.I. She Met

Les porte-drapeaux Gary (Nadeau)
Nadolski et Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski

Among the participants at the September 11 commemoration in Paris last year, was a Franco-American couple who were flag carriers Gary (Nadeau) Nadolski and Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski

Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski is the second standard-bearer from the left
while Gary (Nadeau) Nadolski is the first flag-bearer from the right

A D-Day Survivor from Normandy Is Still Together with the American GI She Met After WWII

The interview starts with the interviewee questioning the No Pasarán interviewer (moi) about the flag (thanks to Sarah) I was carrying and what the snake upon it symbolizes. (A few times that I have taken the flag to pro-America demonstrations, members have wearily asked me if I wasn't some leftist trying to crash the demonstration with a symbol of something critical, even devilish.) I explain to one and to all that it was/is the Navy Jack flown by the USA's first ships in the late 1700s. Bearing a rattlesnake and the words "Don't Tread on Me", the First Navy Jack is based on the Gadsden Flag.

At 1:11, Mrs. Nadolski explains that she was a little girl of 7 in Normandy on June 6, 1944 (then named Gigi Laîné), and that she remembers the day very well.

I get up with my parents and my sister, and we see things falling from the skies. My parents tell me, We are all leaving our home and going to hide in a ditch. Bombs start falling around the house and thank God we got out, because a bomb landed on our house. So we didn't go back, we stayed in the ditch for six days. My two elder brothers went to the farm next door to get food.

After the war, my parents//my mother put us in a boarding school in Paris went to live in a , because they had no more. After the war, my parents could not rebuild their farm, the government did not want to pay our bills, I'm not too sure about the details, so we stayed in the boarding school for seven more years. Every morning, for the first years at the boarding school, we received peanut butter every morning, it was the first time I had ever tasted that.

My husband I met on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. It turned out that we were both working for NATO, he on the seventh floor and I on the ninth floor of the same building.  I worked for the administration and he in another section. And one day he invited me to drink a café on the Champs-Élysées. Then he invited me to a movie, and we continued dating, and that's how it all started.

At one point, we were transferred to the United States, and in Chicago I immediately got a job, working for the Encyclopedia Britannica. We stayed 27 years in the U.S., I became an American, and my children are all born in Chicago. They have dual citizenship, and so do I. But when I go to America, I lose my French nationality. You're not allowed to have dual citizenship in America. [This is not true, a mistake.] But I am French, 100%. Being an American is perfect, but I prefer being French. 


The 22nd Commemoration in Paris of the September 11, 2001 (911 9-11) Attacks Anniversary

A l'occasion du 22eme anniversaire des attentats du 11 septembre, un hommage organisé par la Mairie du 16ème Arrondissement a été rendu aux victimes devant l'Arbre de la Liberté sur la Place des États-Unis.

Parmi les nombreux participants, dont the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) et the American Legion Paris Post 1, on a pu reconnaître Erik Svane (holding his Navy Jack), Paul Reen, et Marie-Thérèse Foreau de RIF, ainsi que les porte-drapeaux Gary (Nadeau) Nadolski et Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski.

Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski is holding the Stars and Stripes while
Gary (Nadeau) Nadolski is holding the American Legion's dark blue banner


Wearing red white 'n' blue while bringing
the First Navy Jack to the 911 commemoration

Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski is holding the Stars and Stripes while
Gary (Nadeau) Nadolski is holding the dark blue banner of American Legion Paris Post 1

 

Wednesday, June 05, 2024

Appearance on BFMTV and Interview for Le Parisien Daily


Regarding the Trump conviction, I was interviewed on BFMTV on July 1 at 5 pm by Julie Hammett on Julie jusqu'à Minuit. Much of what I said were similar talking points as those from this post.

J'étais aussi interviewé par Salomé Vincendon pour son papier avec Camille Bluteau dans Le Parisien, mais mes propos ne semblent finalement pas avoir été retenus. Voici ce que je lui avais écrit :

Est-il exact d'affirmer, comme le fait le New York Times, que « la condamnation du président dans le cadre d'une enquête criminelle à New York [révèle], une fois de plus, pourquoi il est inapte à exercer ses fonctions » ?

Avec cette armada de huit ans de impeachments, d'enquêtes et de procès, ne faut-il pas se réjouir que les démocrates transforment les États-Unis en une république bananière, avec des tribunaux fantoches se livrant à des procès-spectacles, afin de "transformer fondamentalement" le pays en un État à parti unique ?

Donc Donald Trump serait désormais un criminel reconnu coupable ?

Pour mettre cela en perspective : Sakharov était un criminel reconnu coupable. Soljenitsyne était un criminel reconnu coupable. Vaclav Havel était un criminel reconnu coupable. Martin Luther King était un criminel reconnu coupable. Et Nelson Mandela était un criminel reconnu coupable.

Autant nous dire que le sort de Sakharov prouve que Léonid Brejnev était un citoyen bien plus intègre que ne l'était le physicien, alias « l'ennemi intérieur numéro un ». Autant dire que les 18 années passées par Mandela dans la cellule de la prison de Robben Island prouvent la décence totale, et la nécessité nationale pour l'existence, du gouvernement d'apartheid en Afrique du Sud.

Un tweet X amer que j'ai lu hier déclare amèrement que de toutes les façons, Trump «va toujours foutre la [emoji de m--de] autant que possible et sans vergogne.»

Vivre sous un régime communiste ou une dictature de l'apartheid vous donne le droit – voire… le devoir – de «foutre la [emoji de m--de] autant que possible et sans vergogne.»

L’Amérique de la Gauche a finalement compris que les Occidentaux avaient tort d’exiger que l’Union soviétique, la Chine communiste et les régimes similaires imitent les États-Unis et les démocraties libérales de l'Europe Occidentale. Au lieu de cela, les États-Unis et les pays de l'Europe devraient essayer de ressembler davantage à une république bananière comme la Chine, Cuba ou le Venezuela.

Sunday, June 02, 2024

What Other Countries Have Persecuted and Prosecuted Opposition Leaders?


After the Trump verdict, Peter Aitken of Fox News asks, Who else is on the list of infamous countries that prosecuted opposition leaders?

(See also: Who Else, Besides Donald Trump, Is a Convicted Felon?)

Donald Trump joins a growing list of world leaders convicted after leaving office, with many critics in the U.S. claiming that such measures hurt the country’s image as a global leader. 

 … Here are some other countries where opposition leaders or candidates have faced prosecution, sometimes even ahead of elections. 

RUSSIA

No case in modern politics of opposition suppression stands as notorious as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing saga to keep his chief political rival Alexei Navalny out of office: Russian courts determined Navalny had violated probationary terms by leaving the country, during which time he suffered an attempt on his life while in Germany.

 The Russian court ultimately convicted Navalny on charges of extremism and sentenced him to 19 years in prison, where he ultimately died due to brutal conditions during his confinement. …

HONG KONG

Trump’s verdict overshadowed news out of Hong Kong that 14 opposition figures had been convicted of "conspiring to subvert state power," drawing condemnation from watchdog groups such as Amnesty International, who called the decision "unprecedented" and "the most ruthless illustration yet of how Hong Kong’s National Security Law is weaponized to silence dissent."

Former lawmakers Leung Kwok-hung, Lam Cheuk-ting, Helena Wong and Raymond Chan are among the dozen defendants who could face life in prison when sentenced later this year, ABC News reported. …

INDIA

Critics have accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using the courts to prevent his main political rival Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of the capital Dehli, from running and campaigning for the upcoming elections. …

BRAZIL 

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won re-election in 2022 after leaving prison due to the country’s Supreme Court nullifying his conviction on money laundering and corruption charges, citing serious biases in the case against him.

Lula, arrested as part of "Operation Car Wash," allegedly had traded favors with a construction company in exchange for the promise of a beachfront apartment. His arrest and conviction deeply divided Brazil and led to heated legal back-and-forth over the following years. 

Fox News gets it totally wrong here: the only official being prosecuted is Lula's opponent, Jair Bolsonaro — the president who has been hounded ever since he claimed that Lula's socialists "won" the 2022 election only through voter fraud. (Obrigado to Sarah Hoyt.)

VENEZUELA

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has seen a number of his opponents jailed for various crimes, with opposition leader Nelson Pinero of the center-right Encuentro Ciudadano party recently jailed on charges of incitement to hatred, El País reported

The Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin) allegedly entered Pinero’s house without a search warrant. Another politician, presidential candidate Delsa Solorzano, denounced the arrest, saying that "Nelson is one more political prisoner of this dictatorship, which has taken 300 citizens to jail for thinking differently." …

CAMBODIA

Kem Sokha, the Cambodian opposition leader, was convicted of treason and sentenced to 27 years in jail. He appealed his charges, which Amnesty International condemned as "baseless" and urged the country’s authorities to "end their ongoing crackdown against opposition groups."

As I wrote in irony last August:

In conclusion, can't we say that Americans are lucky?

America has finally figured out that people in the West were wrong to demand that the Soviet Union, Communist China, and like régimes should imitate the United States. Instead, the USA should try to become more like a banana republic such as China, Cuba, or Venezuela. …
• Related: Who Else, Besides Donald Trump, Is a Convicted Felon?