Kirill, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox church, calls Putin's presidency “a miracle of God”; while one priest said the Russian army “was cleaning the world of a diabolic infection”

This crusade against a liberal European future is being fought in the name of Russkiy mir—“the Russian world”, a previously obscure historical term for a Slavic civilisation based on shared ethnicity, religion and heritage.

Thus writes The Economist in The New Russian Cult of War. While reading the article, remember that the word "Russia" does not appear in any Christian (or Jewish) Bible (nor does "America" or any other nation besides Israel and the Egypt of the Pharaohs). See also the take of a famed Russian political prisoner and exile.

Thanks to Evelyne Joslain, most recently the author of a post that declared that For decades, the Kremlin has accused NATO of encircling, threatening, oppressing Russia… accusing the West of exactly what Putin is doing to his neighbors, who are not his vassals but countries liberated from centuries of Russian yoke.

The Putin regime has revived, promulgated and debased this idea into an obscurantist anti-Western mixture of Orthodox dogma, nationalism, conspiracy theory and security-state Stalinism.The war is the latest and most striking manifestation of this revanchist ideological movement. And it has brought to the fore a dark and mystical component within it, one a bit in love with death. As Andrei Kurilkin, a publisher, puts it, “The substance of the myth is less important than its sacred nature…The legitimacy of the state is now grounded not in its public good, but in a quasi-religious cult.”

The cult was on proud display at Mr Putin’s first public appearance since the invasion—a rally at the Luzhniki stadium packed with 95,000 flag-waving people, mostly young, some bused in, many, presumably, there of their own volition. An open octagonal structure set up in the middle of the stadium served as an altar. Standing at it Mr Putin praised Russia’s army with words from St John’s gospel: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

His oration, delivered in a $14,000 Loro Piana coat, made much of Fyodor Ushakov, a deeply religious admiral who, in the 18th century, helped win Crimea back from the Ottomans. In 2001 he was canonised by the Orthodox church; he later became the patron saint of nuclear-armed long-distance bombers. “He once said that the storms of war would glorify Russia,” Mr Putin told the crowd. “That is how it was in his time; that is how it is today and will always be!”

… Links between the church and the security forces, first fostered under Stalin, grew stronger after the fall of Communism. Whereas various western European churches repented and reflected after providing support for Hitler, the Moscow Patriarchate has never repented for its collusion with Stalin in such matters as the repression of Ukrainian Catholics after 1945.

 … The allegiance of its leaders, if not of all its clergy, has now been transferred to Mr Putin. Kirill, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox church, has called his presidency “a miracle of God”; he and others have become willing supporters of the cult of war.

  … Its garish culmination can be seen in the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces in Kubinka, 70km west of Moscow, which was inaugurated on June 22nd (the day Hitler launched his invasion) in 2020 (the 75th anniversary of the war’s end) with Mr Putin and Kirill in attendance.The cathedral is a Byzantine monstrosity in khaki

 … More zealous churchmen have gone further. Elizbar Orlov, a priest in Rostov, a city close to the border with Ukraine, said the Russian army “was cleaning the world of a diabolic infection”. As the cathedral shows, the Russian people’s sacrifice and victories in the great patriotic war, which saw both the loss of 20m Soviet citizens and the creation of an empire greater in extent than any of the Tsars’, are central to Mr Putin’s new ideology of the Russian world. Today, though, the foes and allies of the 1940s have been shuffled around, allowing the war to be reframed as part of an assault on Russia’s civilisation in which the West has been engaged for centuries. The main culprits in this aggression are Britain and America—no longer remembered as allies in the fight against Nazis, but cast instead as backers of the imaginary Nazis from which Ukraine must be saved.

Project Russia

More important to the cult even than the priests are the siloviki of the security services, from whose ranks Mr Putin himself emerged. Officers of the FSB, one of the successors to the KGB, have been at the heart of Russian politics for 20 years. Like many inhabitants of closed, tightly knit and powerful organisations, they have a tendency to see themselves as members of a secret order with access to revealed truths denied to lesser folk. Anti-Westernism and a siege mentality are central to their beliefs. Mr Putin relies on the briefs with which they supply him, always contained in distinctive red folders, for his information about the world

In this realm, too, a turn towards the ideology now being promulgated was first seen in 2005, when a faction within the FSB produced an anonymous book called “Project Russia”. It was delivered by courier services to various ministries dealing with security and Russia’s relationship with the world, warning them that democracy was a threat and the West an enemy.

 … In his Munich speech in 2007 Mr Putin formally rejected the idea of Russia’s integration into the West. In the same year he told a press conference in Moscow that nuclear weapons and Orthodox Christianity were the two pillars of Russian society, the one guaranteeing the country’s external security, the other its moral health.

 … One of the few people he appears to have spent time with is Yuri Kovalchuk, a close friend who controls a vast media group. According to Russian journalists they discussed Mr Putin’s mission to restore unity between Russia and Ukraine.Hence a war against Ukraine which is also a war against Russia’s future—or at least the future as it has been conceived of by Russia’s sometimes small but frequently dominant Westernising faction for the past 350 years. As in Ukraine, the war is intended to wipe out the possibility of any future that looks towards Europe and some form of liberating modernity. In Ukraine there would be no coherent future left in its place. In Russia the modernisers would leave as their already diminished world was replaced by something fiercely reactionary and inward looking.The Russian-backed “republics” in Donetsk and Luhansk may be a model. There, crooks and thugs were elevated to unaccustomed status, armed with new weapons and fitted with allegedly glorious purpose: to fight against Ukraine’s European dream. In Russia they would be tasked with keeping any such dream from returning, whether from abroad, or from a cell.

At CPAC, an Interview with Defenders of American Exceptionalism Podcast

During CPAC 2022, I was interviewed by Steven Airey and Dylan Liles for Defenders LIVE Episode 824: LIVE at CPAC Day 2, between minutes 1:02:44 and 1:27:44.

But by all means, check out the other interviewees, before and after… 

We ran the gamut of subjects, from Ukraine to January 6; one of the main issues we touched upon, however, was education in America. 

As I wrote in one of my most important posts on the 1619 Project two and a half years ago, Americans don't realize enough (American conservatives and American liberals alike, blacks and whites alike) to what extent the United States has imported the European curriculum (the Frankfurt School must certainly be among the originators of this), a great part of which concerns, overtly or not, the demonization if not of America, then certainly of the government-free/free market model… 

Do not think that Europe's role in this is secondary or passive. Au contraire:  Europe's influence in these teachings is paramount and must not be minimized.

From the Europeans' school benches in the 19th century to the establishment in the United States of the Frankfurt School — certainly the European élites' most successful gambit has been to take over at least parts of American education over the course of the 20th century — with the more or less willing aid of the Democrat Party.

I am the son of diplomats who, every three years, would be posted in the embassy of a different national capital — among the places I lived in through my childhood were Denmark, the United States, France, and Belgium:
In Scandinavia I learned about slavery in America along with the treatment of the Indians.

In France I learned about slavery in America along with the treatment of the Indians.

In Belgium I learned about slavery in America along with the treatment of the Indians.

In Scandinavia we did not learn much about the Sámi people — a people, and a word, even most Scandinavians would barely recognize (they are better known as Lapps or Laplanders, but with no Swedish blood-letting attached to their names, only romantic folklore).

In France we did not learn much about Napoleon's conquest of Haiti and the horrors perpetrated on the blacks of that island, along with the reenslavement (!) of the former slaves liberated during the French Revolution.

In Belgium we did not learn much about the kingdom's Congo colony — where, 20 to 40 years after Appomattox, indeed all the way into the early 20th century, blacks were not only the equivalents of slaves, but the terror and brutality meted upon them dwarfed any punishment seen on a Southern plantation, the most terrifying being the most horrific instances of maiming (having hands and/or feet chopped off) if they did not meet their masters' expectations. Marco Margaritoff:

Through the enslavement of locals who worked or starved to death, Belgium made a fortune. Hundreds of thousands of Congolese fled, while tens of thousands were killed or had their arms cut off for rebelling. Between 1880 and 1920, the population plummeted from 20 million to 10 million.

Nor, needless to say, does any American schoolchild learn much, if anything, about the Sami, Haiti, or King Leopold's Congo Free State.

When King Leopold's Ghost (A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa) was translated into French and Dutch, writes Adam Hochschild,

The Belgian prime minister clearly wanted the row to end. "The colonial past is completely past," he told the [Guardian]. "There is really no strong emotional link any more. . . . It's history."

That's it. The only country where the "past" — if and when leaning towards the negative — is never "completely past" is the United States. The only sins, real or alleged, that there is a strong emotional link to is America's.

As Walt Whitman wrote in the midst of civil war, around 1863 or 1864,

The Democratic Republic has paid her to-day the terrible and resplendent compliment of the united wish of all the nations of the world that her Union should be broken, her future cut off, and that she should be compell’d to descend to the level of kingdoms and empires ordinarily great! There is certainly not one government in Europe but is now watching the war in this country, with the ardent prayer that the united States may be effectually split, crippled, and dismember’d by it. There is not one but would help toward that dismemberment, if it dared. I say such is the ardent wish to-day of England and of France, as governments, and of all the nations of Europe, as governments. I think indeed it is to-day the real, heart-felt wish of all the nations of the world …

 … We need this hot lesson of general hatred, and henceforth must never forget it. Never again will we trust the moral sense nor abstract friendliness of a single government of the world.

The reason is very simple: the hatred for America started in the 1780s, when George Washington …

Do read the whole thing™…

For decades, the Kremlin has accused NATO of encircling, threatening, oppressing Russia… accusing the West of exactly what Putin is doing to his neighbors, who are not his vassals but countries liberated from centuries of Russian yoke

On the Dreuz website, Evelyne Joslain comments on the Russian invasion of 2022: Tandis que l’Ukraine agonise. A radio host at the Libre journal du Nouveau Monde on Radio Courtoisie, Evelyne Joslain is the author of a handful of French books on the United States. (See also The Economist's The New Russian Cult of War and the take of a famed Russian political prisoner and exile…)

The West is united behind Zelinsky, at least as far as fine words are concerned. We are overwhelmed by emotions, but as for the determination to defend the West, it is non-existent. Only volunteer fighters from all our democracies, who have spontaneously committed themselves to defending Ukraine and our civilization, are saving our honor. For, make no mistake about it, Putin is not going to stop at the borders of Ukraine. This Third World War that we so much want to avoid has already begun.

Even if the Kremlin were stopped, China and Iran would miraculously remain, since we are faced with a new Axis of Evil which has patiently built itself up and is not hiding its aspirations to destroy not only the EU (which would hardly be a drama) but also NATO and the USA as the world's foremost power. The Axis wants a New World Order, with its currency, its international banking system, its laws... Would that suit all those, American as well as foreign, who have railed against "American imperialism" for decades?

Recall that Beijing and Moscow both have veto power at the UN (a resolutely anti-West body that serves no purpose except to comfort dictators), where both enjoy an absurd commercially-protected nation status. True enough, the Russian and Chinese countrysides belong fully in the Third World, but we are not supposed to know that. As for the third Axis, Tehran, the same Westerners who scold Putin in front of the television cameras are, behind Vienna's closed doors, busy with the Russians and the CCP polishing Obama's resurrected Iran Deal. Obama had wanted this agreement out of sheer infatuation for the Islamists. Biden desperately wants it back (and to hell with Congress, a presidential order will do) because it is fine to take oil from dictators and enemies of the United States (all of them) but in no case, Heaven forbid, from American producers.

There is no more anti-American and traitorous to their country than the current American left, and nothing more hypocritical and absurd than state environmentalism, the primary concern of Western leaders. As for the ayatollahs, they demanded and obtained from the squatter of the White House that it be a Russian, Mikhail Ulyanov, who does the negotiating for the United States! This shows the seriousness that Biden gives to martyred Ukraine: the "Ukrainian crisis", as he calls it, is an annoying setback (for leftists, everything is "crisis" and therefore good for exploitation, which he does).

Note also that, just like for the first Iran Deal, no regional power is invited to participate: this takes place only between China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. This agreement is essentially for the benefit of Iran: to pull it out of the isolation where its unacceptable methods have placed it. No advantage for Westerners, except for politicians and for a few big companies, therefore very special interests — "one hell of a bonanza to rake in"… As for the nuclear bomb, given the time that they've been fooling the IAEA's inspectors, the Iranians probably already have it.

We are also confounded by the treachery of Macron and Johnson, bound like Biden, to respect the Budapest Memorandum solemnly signed by their respective countries in 1994, that is to say to ensure the territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for the docile surrender of its nuclear weapons. Instead, our leaders are in a rush to get back to business and deepen our dependence on hostile powers. The sanctions only affect 2/3 of the Russian economy. Above all, NATO's military force depends on the occupant of the White House (through the blame lies on the shoulders of the Europeans who have done nothing to acquire within the Alliance armies worthy of the name, with the exception of France, Turkey, and Great Britain). But above all, Biden is anything but a leader: corrupt to the core, he is involved in Mafia affairs with Ukrainians, Russians, and Chinese, so he's in their pockets. All being show biz, the media conceals these inconvenient truths and focus on the tragedy of Ukraine which is dying.

Putin probes the softness of a largely decadent, de-virilized, and pathetic West, which finds all the technical excuses not to get involved. After 25 days of aggression-invasion, money is flowing into Ukraine but not the really “offensive” weapons it demands, only “defensive” weapons. We therefore limply support a war that we believe to be lost in advance because we fear that a Putin who cannot afford to back down will use a missile to settle the seizure of Ukraine. We give in to Putin's nuclear blackmail without realizing that he is playing games with us. He made it clear that balancing by mutual deterrence was obsolete by 2020.

We are therefore terrified for reasons for which we are completely responsible: the West has unilaterally disarmed, both with regards to conventional and nuclear forces, the United States and the European Union (thanks to the idol, Obama, Russia has 1,500 nuclear warheads, twice that of the USA). And they have also unilaterally dispossessed themselves of their fossil fuels, preferring to give them all 1 billion dollars a day for Russian gas, obeying the dictates of frenzied ecologists.

For Putin, the situation was ideal: in the United States, the coming to power by fraud of a particularly shabby and destructive trio: Biden, Harris, Pelosi, the top three honchos in the nation, amply proved to what degree they are unworthy of their functions. Another major figure of the West and NATO are Canada's Trudeau who, like Biden, has shown his totalitarian streak, one against his own people; Britain's Boris Johnson, often more buffoonish than Prime Minister; and France's Macron who supports Ukraine by disguising himself as Zelinsky. And none of the above have denied their involvement in environmental fraud, quite the contrary: any "way out of the crisis" goes through the "green transition", they say, first Covid later the "Ukrainian crisis".

Who dares to counter them? Half of America is willing, but hardly any of the deeply indoctrinated Europeans. In polls, environmentalism is the third concern of the French just after their purchasing power and their health. Not a presidential candidate in France (which has become a non-event) who does not sacrifice to this heresy! They even all have a specific green program, even if it is obviously the left that leads the way since environmentalism is nothing but re-distributionist Marxism. Ignoring the most basic decency, environmentalists even organized demonstrations all over France on Saturday March 12, to protest the "appalling" fact that Ukraine was capturing all the media attention to the alleged detriment of the planet...

Environmentalism, that suicidal madness, a sad Western exception that amazes all the other countries on the planet that cannot be blamed for profiting from so much stupidity. The truth emerges about Putin: if Ukraine has a level of corruption equal to that of Russia, Putin is nevertheless the aggressor and demonstrates how he is nothing European. He is completely penetrated by the Eurasian theses of Alexandr Dugin, theses which adapt very well to all Asian and Muslim elements, uniting them in the same hatred of the West and in the same Neo-Eurasianist supremacy.

Moreover, "Mad Vlad" reveals his medieval mentality and his Asian fiber: he is both Attila the Hun and Yvan the Terrible. And he hasn't changed as his last defenders would like to believe, he finally lets himself be seen as he is, perhaps because he is about to celebrate his 70th birthday and wants to ensure his legacy, perhaps because he is sick (his swollen figure suggests heavy treatments), or simply because he will not always have the windfall of a Biden in front of him.

If the West can come to its senses in time, nothing should be given to Putin. He must give back everything he has wrongfully acquired — Crimea, the seas, the provinces — and be condemned to reparations for the approximately 200 billion dollars of damage he and his armies have caused. For human suffering and his crimes, he must be tried by a special tribunal. For decades, the Kremlin has accused NATO of encircling, threatening, oppressing Russia… accusing the West of exactly what Putin himself is doing to his neighbors, who are not his vassals but countries liberated from centuries of Russian yoke. 

It is about time for NATO to give some push-back, with teeth, to this tiresome neo-Soviet propaganda.

18th Anniversary of My First Post for No Pasarán

A few weeks after the founding of No Pasarán, 18 years ago, I was invited to join as the blog's fourth blogger (after Douglas, Jonathan, and Liminal aka U*2, and prior to N Joe).

The blog's inaugural pledge was that we

 "will commentate on current events with all the psychotic calm and serenity of a Palestinian father who explains that he can't wait for his 2 surviving sons to become martyrs"

Of the more than 13,000 posts that have been written since 2004 (13,687, to be exact, as of today), I consider the following couple of posts to be two of the most important:

• The Era of the Drama Queens: Every Crisis Is a Triumph

• The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell: A world of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables

Today is the anniversary of my first contribution, which related how I attended a conference in Normandy (at a museum linked to the D-Day landings, no less!) with some of France's best-known journalist VIPs and how I rose to challenge the group on the French media's coverage of the Iraq conflict.

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Growling for Colombani

Any of you who have seen me over the past 10 days knows how furious I get anytime I read or hear the French media trying to stuff down our throats their self-serving lying charges (those against Aznar, Bush, and Blair, i.e., anybody whom they don't feel any sympathy with).

So when I read that the Mémorial de Caen was organizing a conference with Jean-Marie Colombani, among others ("QUELLE LIBERTÉ POUR L'INFORMATION DANS UN MONDE INQUIÉTANT ?" [What freedom for information in a distressing world?], organized in tandem with Les Amis de l'hebdomadaire La Vie and Reporters sans Frontières), I knew I had to attend. I wanted to give Le Monde's director a piece of my mind (in a diplomatic manner, natch). Three hours before it started at 7 pm on March 23, 2004, I jumped into my trusty jalopy, and drove the 260 km to Caen, arriving just in the nick of time.

And sure enough, the first thing any of the five intervenants did (with a constant wry smile on his face) was to attack the lies of politicians, ridicule the partisanship of the media, and bemoan the jingoism of the population (meaning those of the US, the UK, and Aznar's Spain exclusively, bien sûr). It was Jean-Marie Charon, "Sociologue des médias" (whatever that means), who opened the débat — the others being (left to right on the admittedly unclear photo) Colombani, Walter Wells, Directeur de l'International Herald Tribune (beard), Jean-Jacques Lerosier, Grand reporter à Ouest-France, and Jacqueline Papet, Rédactrice-en-chef de RFI, with the moderators answering to the names of Daniel Junqua, Journaliste et Vice-président de RSF, and Jean-Claude Escaffit, Journaliste à La Vie et Directeur des Amis de La Vie.

Before I left Paris, I'd reviewed and written down (in telegraph-style) a handful of arguments: these ranged from the Iraqis quoted in Reason, on Iraq the Model, and in Le Monde itself, to Doug's post on Le Monde's partisan mistranslation of Michael Ignatieff's piece in the New York Times.

The only problem was a rather big one, I learned as a I headed for my seat: questions would not be permitted, except in written form on small pieces of paper handed over to one of the animators. So I knew I had to pay close attention if I wanted to find an appropriate moment when to jump in. And I would obviously not have time to develop any of the arguments (especially since Eskaffit seemed to be a control freak).

It happened towards the end. There was a brief lull as Wells was about to make his last extensive remarks. Suddenly everybody turned to me as I let out : "Je pense que nous devons tous remercier les médias français pour leur admirable abilité à détecter les mensonges. Mais je ne comprends pas pourquoi ces spécialistes en la matière ignorent des sujets qui ont été traités dans le Herald Tribune, par exemple." (This was punctuated by Eskaffit's protests on his mike, you realize.) "Nous avons pu y lire des articles détaillant ce qu'on pourrait taxer de mensonges dans le camp de la paix, comme le fait que les Allemands, les Russes, et les Français avaient pas mal d'affaires avec les autorités baasistes, et que Total devait avoir un contrat exclusif avec Saddam Hussein. Pourquoi les médias français n'en font-ils pas autant état que de ce qui concerne les Ricains, les Rosbifs, et les Espagnols?"

[Translation: "I think we should all be grateful to the French media for their admirable ability to detect lies. But I do not understand why these experts in the field are ignorant of topics that have been covered in the Herald Tribune, for example." (This was punctuated by Eskaffit's protests on his mike, you realize.) "We have read articles detailing what could be taxed as lies from the peace camp, such as the fact that the Germans, the Russians, and the French had quite a lot of business dealings with the Baathist authorities, and that Total had an exclusive contract with Saddam Hussein. Why don't the French media make as much fuss about that as about the Yanks, the Limeys, and the Spaniards?"]

Eskaffit was growing increasingly more vocal in asking/telling me to keep quiet (shades of Chirac?) — he claimed that "de toutes façons", nobody could hear me — so seeing the end approaching (and having a hard time competing against a microphone), I pulled out my final ace — the final ace being a book, which I held above my head. (Yes, there did seem to be a somewhat theatrical element to this scene; why do you ask?) "Et en matière de mensonges, il y a ce livre d'un rédacteur de La Croix, qui a été licencié pour l'avoir publié, qui s'appelle Comment la presse nous a désinformés sur l'Irak. Et qui raconte les partis pris des Français pour diaboliser Bush, pour sanctifier Chirac, et pour communier avec les partis de la 'paix'."

[Translation: "And in terms of lies, there is this book by an editor of La Croix, which is called How the Press Disinformed Us on Iraq, and who indeed was fired for publishing it. And who details the bias of the French to demonize Bush, to sanctify Chirac, and to commune with the 'peace' parties."]

Even a few audience members had by now started to tell me to keep quiet, but that seemed an appropriate place to end anyway, so with that I sat down.

As for Eskaffit, he went on talking to the intervenants… ignoring completely what I had said. (While a couple of people behind me asked to see the book.) Well, I felt I had done my blogger's duty, so to speak, so I sat back, pretty content with myself.

Then, as Junqua made his last remarks, I understood that some people had heard me; the RSF moderator surprised me by pulling out his own copy of Alain Hertoghe's book (which he had in his briefcase), and explained that it provided a negative view of the French media during the Iraq war. But then he added that there was another book, detailing the French press's doings during the first Gulf war, with a positive slant, and that one could not read the first book without comparing it to the second. He tried to conclude that Hertoghe's book was a partisan "brûlot" that was not very friendly to his colleagues. (This from a colloque which had just declared that, happily, the old tradition in the press of refusing to criticize one's colleagues had now become "caduc"!)

I wasn't going to let him get away with that as the final word, so I let out another comment: "Les médias ont complètement censuré ce livre!" (But Eskaffit immediately started interrupting again.)

 [Translation: "The media thoroughly censored this book!"]

Afterwards, I went up to speak to some of the intervenants. Wells asked to see Hertoghe's book, which he wanted to check out. As for Junqua, he admitted it was news to him that the La Croix editor had been fired as a result of the book's publication.

So, all in all, a satisfying 10 minutes. (But hardly worth doing again, not at that distance. At least not without a couple of chums to have a drink with, afterwards.)

P.S. This is my first post for ¡No Pasarán! Muchas gracias, amigos, for inviting me to participar.

Posted by Erik at 20:03

No Pasarán at 18: We "will commentate on current events with all the psychotic calm and serenity of a Palestinian father who explains that he can't wait for his 2 surviving sons to become martyrs"

Eighteen years ago, after enduring months of unceasing tirades of criticism and venom from Europe (and especially France) linked to George W Bush's 2003 invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a handful of independent bloggers (Douglas, Jonathan, and Liminal aka U*2) made good on their vow to unite their efforts and create a single, common weblog, one by the name of No Pasarán! (I would join five weeks later, and N Joe a year or two later.)

Of the more than 13,650 posts that have been written since 2004, I consider the following couple of posts to be two of the most important:

• The Era of the Drama Queens: Every Crisis Is a Triumph

• The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell: A world of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables

Below are the first two days of No Pasarán!

Update: Many thanks for the greetings, Ed Driscoll; we couldn't have survived as a blog this long had it not been for you and your fellow bloggers' daily endeavors at Instapundit…

Friday, February 20, 2004

Let's cool off	Il faut décompresser
Being a tad worried about my reputation [over at the blog Merde in France] I have decided to not write any controversial posts on this blog. Therefore, I will commentate on France's current events with all the psychotic calm and serenity of a Palestinian father who explains that he can't wait for his two surviving sons to become martyrs. How's that?	Etant un tant soit peu soucieux de ma réputation, je tâcherai de me limiter à des postes qui ne provoquent point de polémiques sur ce blog. Donc, je vous relaterai la situation en Fwance avec tout le calme et toute la sérenité psychotiques normalement employés par un père palestinien qui vous explique qu'il a hâte de voir ses deux fils survivants se transformer en martyres. Ça vous va?

United States

Le Monde's website is advertising a "lexicon for better understanding the United States" on the right-hand side of its front page. Although you have to pay in order to access the dictionary that contains over 400 "words of America," the advertisement is telling. If you click on the ad, a slide show opens with the following definitions:

(1) Sex: Sodomy remains illegal in a number of American states, and Bush promotes abstinence.
(2) Botox: 7.4 million Americans spent 7.7 billion euros on plastic surgery in 2000.
(3) Televangelists: The successors of nineteenth century traveling preachers, televangelists are television stars.

It's comforting to know that Le Monde is doing its part to break down misunderstandings and stereotypes between French and Americans. Now we just need Conan O'Brien to come up with a dictionary for Americans to understand France.

International Law:

Last month, the ship, Bugaled Breizh, sunk off of southern England. Five Frenchmen died. The culprit was allegedly a Philippine-registered vessel called the Seattle Trader, which may have collided with the Bugaled Breizh. Although the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea indicates that vessels are under the jurisdiction of the country in which they are registered and therefore any action with respect to the Seattle Trader should be authorized by the Philippine government, France is bringing justice to the alleged culprits and is hunting them down. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has denounced France's actions as "gun-boat diplomacy."

International Law:

Three years after the Convention was created, France has ratified the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which restricts production of certain pesticides, industrial chemicals and unintended byproducts of combustion such as DDT, PCBs and dioxin. France was the fiftieth country to ratify the Convention, and "fifty" was the number required for the Convention to enter into force.

The United States is a signatory to the treaty, and President Bush submitted the Convention for ratification to the Senate back in 2002.

Posted by Jonathan at 14:37

And here is the second day of the blog: 

Saturday, February 21, 2004

We have no bananas to-day!

Let's check in on our friend Dieudonné. Where do we find his career?



The stunt he pulled seems to be costing him dearly, according to Le Monde. The paper writes that the show he was supposed to have yesterday at L'Olympia was canceled. The venue's directors issued a press release stating that, after receiving anonymous threats, they were canceling the show due to the "climate of extreme tension we have observed over several days." They say that Olympia would "not have the means to guarantee the security of its audience and employees." Indeed, Olympia claim that on Tuesday they received a letter from police headquarters that "reminded [the director] of his responsibilities" and pointed out "that the staff in private establishments are responsible for safety and security on their premises." Contacted by the AFP, Dieudo's agent said the "funny man" didn't want to "react in anger."

So much for that. Dieudonné decided to hold his show in the street outside the theater.

They came by the hundred to chant the slogan "freedom of speech" and to support Dieudonné, who decided to have his show on a platform erected on the sidewalk opposite Olympia, the venue where he was supposed to have performed on Friday and which canceled this.

The humorist raised his arms, greeted his fans, the "descendants of slaves," the "Arabs," the "blacks" and also the whites of all ages who had massed on the boulevard des Capucines in Paris, surrounded by anti-riot police. "We love you," shouted young girls, waving their cameras.

Libération is writing derisively that now Diedonné "takes himself for a defender of the black cause" and reports that the "comedian" said "400 years of slavery and we don't have the right to speak!"

Alain Finkielkraut is criticizing those who leveled threats against l'Olympia (causing the venue to fear for its safety), as he thinks they are "transforming [Dieudonné] into a martyr for human rights and freedom of speech."

Dieudonné is now claiming that he's been banned from French public television. "I've been banned from the TV... just like Coluche and Bedos once were." This was categorically denied however by France 2. Do you imagine they have any interest in seeing him ever again? Do you think many other venues will want to book him now? Can we now ask, as W. once did, "Dis donc Dieudo, les recettes de ton dernier spectacle, ça achète beaucoup de bananes?"

reconnaissance

Le Monde is also offering a slide show of reconnaissance photos (note that in French reconnaissance means "gratitude") from World War II. Some are from the Imperial War Museum, some from the Aerial Reconnaissance Achives and some from the Public Record Office. They include that now famous photo of Auschwitz-Birkenau ("at its criminal apex") and of Omaha Beach (on D-day).

On décompresse...

Ça se fait comme ça... con nosotros

Posted by Douglas at 20:32

Blurring the Faces of People Who Are Already Wearing Masks: Is CNN a Serious Network?

CNN Blurs Image of People (Kids, in This Case, to Be Sure) Who Are Already Masked

CNN finally had to give in and allow a scandal involving a beloved Democrat to come forward: namely, the (in)famous picture of Stacey Abrams maskless among schoolchildren.

Apart from the obvious hypocrisy involving the Georgia "Governor" which has been dissected again and again (and rightly so), CNN decided to blur the faces of all the kids. There is only one problem:  the kids are… already wearing masks. (Which, indeed, is the whole point of the news story.)

So, CNN did not actually blur the faces of the kids, just their eyes and the top of their faces.

What's the point?! Nobody (apart, perhaps, from each kid's mommy and daddy) can recognize any of them anyhow.

It has probably been a rule that everybody in the past 5,000 to 10,000 years who wears a mask cannot be recognized. This is the reason why — this is precisely the reason why — outlaws and robbers from time immemorial, when committing a crime, hide their facial features behind… masks.

To be fair, CNN is not alone in this; everybody does it, not excluding Fox News, which was the only channel, as far as I know, which decided to blur the entire video (see below) of the recent news report featuring schoolkids erupting in applause as they were told that masks were gotten rid of.

Yes, here we can see the faces of the kids tearing off their masks. But so what?

I find the whole blurring thing annoying — even though I want to be of an understanding nature.

It seems to me that it started about two decades ago. First, it was T-shirts and signs in the background. We weren't supposed to see an (unpaid) ad for Coca-Cola, i guess. Then it became faces.

People have been blurred. Kids. Babies. Newborns. What is the point?!

I hate to say this, I hate to sound "hateful," but nothing looks more like a baby than another baby. Not to you, the parent, granted, but to everybody else (especially strangers).

I recently watched a(n Italian?) documentary on the Costa Concordia disaster showing personal videos inside the ballroom in which everybody starts reacting to the sound of the ship striking a rock off Isola del Giglio. Needless to say, their faces are blurred.

What's the point?!

There are probably good legal reasons involved.

But it shouldn't go this far.

When I worked on a feature on the Lego company for the Reader's Digest at the beginning of my career, the company kept the ages of the CEO's three children a secret (the CEO was the son or grand-son of founder Ole Kirk Christiansen, I believe), in case kidnappers read the story. The dead-tree editors blurred the kids, or their ages, one could say. And since the threats were real, for good reason.

But let's not go too far. Must it be a automatic reaction, at this point?!

It doesn't excuse CNN's producers for not being professional and not noticing the obvious, that telling their professional face-blurrerers (is that an actual full-time job?) to blur the (tops of) faces of people (even kids) who are unrecognizable in the first place is going beyond the call of duty…

One Exception Was John Vinocur, Who Was a Breed Apart: “Journalists used to act like cynics but at heart we were idealists; Now we’re often cynics masquerading as idealists”

The title of Bret Stephens latest opinion piece in the New York Times is When Did ‘Me,’ ‘We’ and ‘Us’ Become the Media’s Preferred Pronouns?

But on the front page of its global edition (the International New York Times is the successor paper of John Vinocur's beloved International Herald Tribune), the title is a more sober Honoring old-school journalism.

In Honoring old-school journalism, Bret Stephens discusses the present state of the craft, and mentions his friend, the late John Vinocur, as the antidote.

The IHT pundit, almost all of whose final decade of weekly opinion pieces were linked to by No Pasarán, died at 81 on February 13.

I feel exactly like Bret Stephens, when he says that Vinocur's 

column in The I.H.T. was the one thing I would never miss 

when he (Stephens) was a graduate student in England and later when he worked as a journalist.

Over drinks not long ago, a friend summed up the way journalism had changed over the course of his career. “Journalists used to act like cynics but at heart we were idealists,” he said. “Now we’re often cynics masquerading as idealists.”

I thought of that line twice last week. The first time was on Wednesday, while reading, against my better judgment, about the abrupt resignation of Jeff Zucker as president of CNN. The second was on Sunday, after learning that my friend John Vinocur, the former executive editor of The International Herald Tribune, had died in Amsterdam at 81.

In these two stories lies the difference between the kind of journalism Americans used to venerate and the kind we have today.

 … When did “me,” “we” and “us” become the news media’s preferred pronouns?

One journalist who was not much for navel gazing was Vinocur, whose column in The I.H.T. was the one thing I would never miss when I was a graduate student in England and later when I worked as a journalist in Brussels and as an editor in Jerusalem.

From reading him over the years, I gleaned that Vinocur had covered, so it seemed, everything. The Biafran war. The Munich massacre. The Rumble in the Jungle. The Stroessner regime in Paraguay. Spy games in Germany. The Mitterrand monarchy in France. He was almost absurdly well sourced, thanks to years spent as The Times’s bureau chief in Paris and Bonn. And his prose — confident and confiding, energetic and endearing, intimate in detail and Olympian in scope — was, by far, the best in the paper.

 … [His lines from a vintage Vinocur lede] … made the morning paper a joy to read. And they gave a young journalist a sense of what his vocation might be like when practiced at its best: adventurous, literary, significant. As I read John in my 20s, I figured out what I wanted for my own career: to see the world without illusions — but without losing the ballast of personal ideals.

About 10 years ago, I got an unexpected visit from John in my office at The Wall Street Journal. Would I, he asked, give him a job? He was retired from The Times. But he still knew everyone, he had plenty to say, his skills were intact. In this way I became his editor, he became my mentor, and we became friends.

For the next several years he delivered a string of columns that look only better with the passage of time. From a 2015 column on the Minsk agreement, which helped set the stage for the present crisis in Ukraine: Its holes, he wrote, were “so gaping as to allow Russia to drive tanks unhampered through an open Ukrainian border for next to forever.” From a 2017 column raising alarms about Berlin’s increasingly neutralist foreign policy: “Is there a kind of German complicity or reflexive softness involving Russia that permits Moscow’s blatant (and strategic) lying without anything resembling serious retaliation?”

For many readers, these topics may have seemed distant. They didn’t trend on Twitter. They didn’t have the gossipy salaciousness of a newsroom scandale.

But they mattered. They looked outward. They dwelt heavily on the inner mechanics of politics and diplomacy. But they did so not for the sake of the game itself, but for the large things at stake.

I last saw John in Florida, shortly before the pandemic began. We had a gloomy conversation about the state of journalism. But when we parted, he said, “It’s a noble profession.”

It is. We should do more to live up to his example.

Good-Bye, Friend: RIP, IHT's John Vinocur

If there ever was a pundit worth quoting from the International Herald Tribune (which used to be jointly owned by The New York Times and The Washington Post), it was John Vinocur. 

The lone conservative pundit who rose to become the executive editor of the IHT (amazing, as he was a conservative) was always worth reading, as I discovered through the years that it became more and more evident that the plethora of liberals there (half from the Times and half from the Post) were often boring and oftenpredictable (not to mention flat-out wrong). 

And No Pasarán linked to John's pieces in the IHT many a time over the years, — not least when he seemed to be the only man in the MSM not to feel "a thrill go up the leg" about Barack Obama — and he was the true red-blooded conservative (not the David Brooks type) in a liberal newspaper.

I communicated with him once or twice — precisely because our blog would be quoting large swathes of his pieces. When I started blogging, indeed, I decided that I would not only link to pieces on the internet but regularly quote extensive excerpts on our blog (which turns 18 this month), because you never knew when a website would disappear.

I communicated this to him at the time, and he seemed happy about it as well as intrigued.

But I admit that I never believed that the website of a major newspaper like the IHT (the descendant of an American-language newspaper founded in Paris in 1887) would suffer that fate. But because the Times did nothing to save it, the IHT's online presence is gone from the web (probably for all time) — that is, with the exception of Vinocur from the early 21st century, if you are a reader of No Pasáran.

I'll be honest: I cannot deny that I'm damn proud that I started copy/pasting long quotes, or the IHT's Vinocur would be lost on the internet (perhaps for all time?).

God bless you, John Vinocur. And godspeed.

• Related: Not John Vinocur, Who Was a Breed Apart: “Journalists used to act like cynics but at heart we were idealists; Now we’re often cynics masquerading as idealists”

PS: Here is a piece mentioning Joe Biden that dates from the election of 2004 (on this occasion, Instapundit is — again — involved):

Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Europe in for a letdown if it's counting on Kerry, says Vinocur

Via Instapundit and Just One Minute: the IHT's John Vinocur, who went to Oberlin, had an article to-day on a U. Michigan seminar (thanks, Mr. Minuteman, for the link) attended by ranking Dems and European diplomats. Vinocur has Senate Foreign Relations committee chairman Joe Biden making the following remarks:

Recalling that he had talked to six European government chiefs about the war, Biden caricatured how they would have done things better. "Blah blah blah, international cooperation," the senator mimicked. He added, in his own voice, "Give me a break, huh."

When Biden offered the possibility, beyond more civility, of a future in contrast to the Bush administration, it was in a plague-on-your-houses context. He said of the two, Europe and Bush, "You have fallen in love with international institutions to the extent that this administration has fallen in love with unilateral action."

For good measure, Biden threw in the view that the European Union will not have a unified foreign policy, and with it, the phrase, "I hope you do, I wish you well, but I see no evidence you're going to spend the money needed" to create a serious European military force either.

January 6 — What the American media will never tell you

Un an après l’attaque du Capitole, le parti Démocrate fait feu de tout bois pour accabler Trump et le camp républicain. Pourtant, les dégâts générés par les antifas ou le mouvement Black Lives Matter – soutenu par de nombreux démocrates – sont bien plus importants.

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.)

It’s been one year since the Trump rally of Jan 6 2021 ended with the attack and breach of the U.S. Capital Building.  We’ve all seen the horrifying videos and pictures in the media. This was not just a shocking and terrible day for the country but, speaking as a Republican, I can say that it was even more terrible for Republicans. This was the last thing Trump supporters wanted. Those responsible for the violence are criminals and should be held fully accountable and punished to the full extent of the law. I haven’t heard one Republican Politician, political pundit or patriotic Republican support the breach of the Capital.  But the acts of violence are so antithetical and uncharacteristic of Republican and MAGA principles of peaceful protests that it makes perfect sense for Republicans to question the media narrative of exactly what happened, why and especially what has happened afterwards in American politics.

The Democrat Leftists and their supporting media in the U.S. repeatedly call the breach on the Capital an “insurrection”, an attempted “coup d’état” by violent Trump supporting racist, white supremacist, domestic terrorists; the greatest attack on our democracy since the Civil War, worse than Pearl Harbor and even Sept 11 (an incredible insult to the 3000 Americans who lost their lives on 9/11) and that the violent attack was incited and supported by Trump himself.

But if this hysterical, hyperbolic rhetoric were true, why has the Left felt it necessary to lie so much about what did and did not happen? Yes, Trump did hold a rally not far from the Capital on Jan 6 with thousands of supporters, as the joint session in Congress was set to confirm the election results. The purpose of Trump’s rally was to convince Republicans in Congress to join those Republicans planning to contest the certification of certain states election results that were potentially based on fraudulent votes. This would force at least some discussion and debate on the Congressional floor which is lawful under the constitution. 

What the media won’t tell you is that many Democrats have also contested results of past Presidential elections including the recent 2016 election when Trump beat Hillary Clinton.  Democrats objected based on the now proven false accusations that Trump stole the election by colluding with Russia. A lie that Democrats continued for the entire Trump presidency and even today.  So Trump’s objective was simply to have Republicans see the support he had from the American people.  Any violence to disrupt this process on Jan 6 would serve no benefit to Trump. It is proven that Trump called for supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” march to the Capital. But the violence did disrupt the process. After Trump called for all rioters to leave the Capital and the senators and congressmen and women returned, they immediately called for a certification of all states votes with no discussions. Biden was confirmed.

I, as well as most Republicans, agree that Trump did fail to not speak forcefully enough and quick enough to the rioters to stop. But why spread lies about it? Anti Trumper Liz Cheney (R-WY) who is now Vice Chair of the Select Committee to investigate Jan 6, has been spreading the lie that Trump made no statement during the riot for 187 minutes (over 3 hours). The media won’t tell you that this is a provable lie. The timeline of events clearly shows that Trumps first statement via Twitter was 23 minutes after the initial break-in, to “stay peaceful and support our police”, he then sent a second tweet 35 minutes later. After another hour he sent out a video message telling everyone to leave. That’s 2 statements and a video message over 2 hrs.

Not a Government overthrow, more a disorganized protest

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-protests-idUSKBN29B24S
https://www.voanews.com/a/2020-usa-votes_thousands-storm-us-capitol-shameful-assault-our-democracy/6200429.html

The media told you that thousands of armed Republicans invaded the capital to kill politicians and overthrow the government. The media won’t tell you that it was actually hundreds of frustrated patriots that foolishly entered the Capital, following a group of violent instigators. Not one protester was found to be carrying a firearm. Many witnesses even say that some of the police allegedly opened the doors from the inside to let protesters in, as can be seen in many videos where police were actually escorting protesters through the hallways.

5 people killed but not by Republicans

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/06/politics/us-capitol-lockdown/index.html
The media then told you that violent, armed Republicans caused the death of 5 people on their way to trying to hang Vice President Pence. That one of the 5 was a Capital Police Officer who was attacked by the Republican mob and bludgeoned to death using a fire extinguisher.  The media won’t tell you the actual truth that came out much later that there never was an attack with a fire extinguisher and instead the police officer died the following day of natural causes, caused by multiple strokes and was confirmed by his family. 3 of the remaining 4 deaths were of Trump supporters who also died of natural causes such as heart attacks. The 5th and last person who died was also a Trump supporter who was the only victim shot and murdered that day, and by a Capital Police Officer. Her name was Ashli Babbitt. She was unarmed and draped in an American Flag. She was a veteran in the Air Force. The police officer was never convicted of a crime and set free.  The misguided Republicans who decided to follow the criminal instigators made poor decisions, they should not have been inside the Capital, but they were not trying to overthrow the government and Ashli Babbitt did not deserve to be shot in cold blood.

Americans deserve honest investigations and answers  

Over the past year there have been many investigations (primarily by Republicans) with videos and eye-witness statements claiming that some of the primary instigators were Anti -Trump imposters posing as MAGA supporters. Repeat, some not all.  In fact, these alleged imposters have been filmed shouting to break into the capital and these videos are readily available on right wing websites. What is surprising is that of all those charged and arrested by the FBI for participating in the Capital riot, these filmed instigators were allegedly never arrested. I am not saying it is fact or proven that these were anti-Trump imposters, but the American people deserve answers to the questions of who really instigated the break-in on the ground, why were police officers told to stand down and not intervene to prevent it and why weren’t the National Guard in place to support the police?  But anyone who raises these questions is immediately shamed and considered a dangerous, right wing conspiracy theorist.
725 arrested, none for sedition, insurrection or terrorism

According to the official U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Website, 725 people have been arrested and charged by the DOJ in connection with the Capital Building break-in. This required a massive nationwide man hunt in all 50 states by the FBI, as an attack on a Federal building is considered a federal crime. While over 600 have been charged with simple trespassing, per the DOJ website, “at least 225 defendants have also been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers, approximately 10 individuals have been arrested for assaulting a member of the media, or destroying their equipment, and at least 275 defendants have been charged with corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, or attempting to do so.”   A small detail – not one person has been charged with insurrection! To date, only 70 defendants have been sentenced receiving between probation and 5 years. More serious charges of obstruction face maximum sentences up to 20 years in prison.

unAmerican “Gulag” prison conditions

Another 80 defendants (approximately) are being in held in a “temporary” jail in Washington D.C.  awaiting their trials, many have been there for nearly one year. The media won’t tell you how they are being treated. It is being reported that this jail is extremely poorly maintained. Republican politicians recently demanded to see them and described their conditions as outrageous. “They have been beaten by the guards” said Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene on Dec 7. “They are called white supremacists. They are denied religious services, haircuts, shaving, and the ability to trim their fingernails. They’re denied time with their attorneys, they are denied the ability to even see their families and have their families visit there. They are denied bail and being held there without bail. Many of these people have never been charged for a crime before. Some of them are veterans. And the treatment is unbelievable.”

No comparison to Black Lives Matter and Antifa damage and deaths of 2020

There will be hundreds of defendants in court starting in 2022 and certainly throughout 2024. It’s important to detail what many of these defendants are being charged with – trespassing, assaulting police officers and media, and obstructing an official proceeding. Quite remarkable when you think back to the 3 months of riots in 2020 by Black Lives Matter and Antifa who committed the identical crimes,  and worse,  but were often not imprisoned and released under bail funded by Democrat politicians and even V.P. Kamala Harris. During 3 months in 2020, BLM and Antifa caused nearly 570 violent riots, in 220 locations around the US, causing the death of over 30 American citizens including at least one retired police officer and injuring over 2000 other officers. 

In terms of property damage comparison, the Capital Building caused $1.5Million of damage while the BLM/Antifa riots caused $2 Billion worth (most costly riots in US history according to a Princeton University study). Often overlooked is that these BLM/Antifa riots included a 4 month sustained attack on a Federal Building in Portland, OR. This was the Federal Courthouse that was burned and damaged. Like the Federal Capital Building attack, shouldn’t this be a Federal crime? When the Democrat Governor finally allowed Trump to send in the National Guard, the rioters attacked them and tried to set fire to the building while the Guard were still inside. Democrat politicians criticized the National Guard and compared them to Nazi “Stormtroopers”.  Never during the 3-4 month riots on ordinary Americans and a Federal Courthouse did Democrats say that our Democracy was under attack. No, they and their media simply repeated the lie that these were mainly “peaceful protests”. The importance is not to minimize the unacceptable violent break-in at the Capital but to point out the blatant hypocrisy of the Left, their egregious lies and exaggerations of Jan 6 to not only blame Trump as a domestic terrorist but also all Trump supporters.

Politically biased Committee set to smear all Republicans as “insurrectionists”

So now we wait to hear from the House Select Committee on the Jan 6 “insurrection”, led by Democrats.  I, and most Americans, would be happy to see a bipartisan, transparent and thorough investigation of the Jan 6 events. Unfortunately in today’s politically polarized congress and Democrats in the majority, that is not possible. This select Committee is nothing but a politically biased committee against Trump and Republicans, with a pre-determined outcome – convict Trump (once again) and try to put him in jail. 

The evidence of this is overwhelming. When the committee was formed in June 2021, Leader Pelosi was to choose 8 Democrats and the Republican Minority leader, Kevin McCarthy was to choose 5 Republicans. When McCarthy submitted his 5 names, Pelosi took the unprecedented step of denying 2 of them. These were two outspoken Trump supporters. She refused them for spreading alleged “misinformation” as of course only Nancy Pelosi is the arbiter of truth. Basically she refused any Republican who she thought would disagree with the Democrats findings. So McCarthy removed all 5 Republicans in protest saying he wanted no part of a political sham committee. 

Pelosi then made another unprecedented step of asking two famously anti-Trump Republicans to join her Committee, Lynn Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), so she could call it “bi-partisan”. Both Cheney and Kinzinger voted to impeach Trump. They naturally accepted and Cheney was even appointed as Vice Chair. Both have been shunned by the Republican Party as a whole and especially in their respective states.  

So the Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans will stretch this political sham masking as a bi-partisan committee throughout 2022 and beyond, in the hopes it will help them in the Nov 2022 elections. McCarthy has vowed to conduct his own investigation in parallel. Sadly the many questions that the Americans deserve to be honestly and transparently answered may never be. The Democrats will continue to smear all Trump supporters as “insurrectionists” to try and deflect and distract from the catastrophe that is the Biden/Harris Administration. But no political propaganda, no false committees, no lies and smears by the media will ever be able to distract Americans from such a colossal failure as Joe Biden.

Let’s take actions to never allow a breach of the Capital again, penalize those that are truly responsible, and begin to focus on reducing inflation, protecting our borders, reducing crime and supporting our police, ending COVID and returning to global leadership. Now there’s a New Year’s resolution!

Mountie: What Is Called a "Vaccine" Is—Literally—Nothing of the Sort; in Fact, it is a Large-Scale Drug Trial with Gene Therapy

When you hear some brain dead parrot repeat the talking point “trust the science,” politely ask them to provide a definition of science. They never can because they don’t know. What they are really saying, but are too stupid to realize, is that they are saying “trust authority and don’t ask questions.” This, my friends, is the antithesis of science. 

When a suspect is arrested, he is told that he has the right to remain silent. With the development of the Coronavirus “vaccine”, that no longer seems to be the case — and that, for common citizens. Easton Spectator publishes an extraordinary letter from an RCMP Mountie (obrigado to Sarah Hoyt) that is essential for the debate. And without further ado, here is 'Corporal Richard Mehner, your “vaccine” free Minotaur': 

The low T wannabe tyrants in Ottawa have decided that I can no longer serve as a police officer because I refuse to tell them if I have submitted to their “vaccine” edict. I’ve served in the RCMP for 21 years and one of the first things I said to any person I ever arrested was “you don’t have to say anything to me.” Unfortunately, our government has told me that I have to tell them what’s in my body, and if the right drug is not inside me, I have to get it as condition of my continuing employment, human rights be damned. Why did I put vaccine in quotations above you ask? More on that later. Buckle up and tighten the straps on your government mandated shame muzzle, this goodbye email will likely ruffle some feathers.

 … Since the pandemic began, until now, I was in a position to see every single sudden death file that came through our detachment area. What did I notice in this position? Nothing. No upwards trend whatsoever. Funny enough, I didn’t see people dropping dead in my neighbourhood either.

This was a very stark contrast to what I saw in media. A non-stop chorus on TV, radio, and internet, of case counts, hospitalizations and deaths. At no time in my life had I seen anything like it. A complete disconnect between my observed reality and that which was portrayed by my government and the government subsidized mainstream media. And they were reporting deaths in care homes. Care homes? When did the media ever report deaths in care homes unless it was some sort of instance of gross negligence? It’s called end of life care for a reason. People go to care homes at the end of their life. Death is the natural consequence, and this fact used to be understood as common sense.

When the statistics started showing that the vast majority of anyone dying from Covid, either had one or more co-morbidities, or was older than the average life expectancy, my skepticism of the pandemic narrative only grew. Then in the summer of 2020, I got Covid. For a few days I was really tired and shivered a lot. Then it was over. I survived the “deadly” disease like the vast majority of anyone else who caught it. To be honest, I’ve had worse Flus, and worse hangovers.

 … Since I was already skeptical of the pandemic, I was naturally skeptical of the need for a “vaccine”. Oh look, vaccine is in quotations again. Why am I doing that?

Because it’s not a f^#king vaccine!!!

A vaccine is created when a virus from nature is made harmless in a lab and then cultivated there. The vaccine, created from the neutered virus, is then injected into a person. The body then reacts to the vaccine just like it would to the unaltered, dangerous virus. However, because the vaccine is a modified harmless version of the virus, it doesn’t cause disease and the body’s natural immunity is able to “learn” how to cope with the virus. This “learning” is lifelong and is why people develop an immunity to whatever they were inoculated against. People who have been vaccinated against Measles do not get Measles, and the same with mumps etc etc. None of the so called Covid “vaccines” meet this definition. If you were wondering why “vaccinated” people are still getting Covid, and spreading it, this is why. The fact that “vaccinated” people still get Covid and spread it should tell you that this madness will never end as long as you buy into the official narrative.

  … How these new Covid “vaccines” work is based on a brand new technology never used on a massive scale. … Make no mistake here. This is a large scale drug trial and whoever was jabbed is taking part. … 

As I was already skeptical about the entire pandemic narrative, I decided a long time ago that I was not going to take any of these “vaccines”. So as I had decided to sit back and watch how the so called pandemic unfolded, I decided to observe the vaccination campaign. One of the first things I noticed is that people like me were completely ignored and never talked about. What do I mean by people by like me? I mean people who had Covid and recovered. Suddenly, natural immunity didn’t exist anymore. Everyone had to get the vaccine regardless of whether they had natural immunity or not. Wait….. what? No one would ever suggest someone who had measles or polio should get vaccinated against those diseases. Why was natural immunity suddenly not talked about anymore? But if you knew where and how to look, it was talked about, and studied. The largest study was in Israel where the researchers concluded that natural immunity conveyed 27 times more protection than vaccination. Not double, not triple, 27 times! 

 … And now we are able to see much of the results of this mass vaccination campaign. And despite what you’ve been told, it’s not good.

 … Don’t be afraid. The government, and their mouthpieces in the mainstream media, have promoted a nonstop campaign of fear for almost 2 years now. Turn off your television and radios. Do your own research and question everything. Knowledge begins with asking questions. With each new variant they will try and frighten you, despite the fact that never in the history of virology has a virus ever mutated to become more deadly. Selective pressures always favour a more contagious, but less deadly mutation. The new “scariant” is Omicron.

 … When you hear some brain dead parrot repeat the talking point “trust the science,” politely ask them to provide a definition of science. They never can because they don’t know. What they are really saying, but are too stupid to realize, is that they are saying “trust authority and don’t ask questions.” This, my friends, is the antithesis of science.

Related: Here Is the Key Question Regarding the Coronavirus
• And here are the 7 Basic Points about Covid-19 that You Need to Know
• Is the Yellow Star Really an Inappropriate Reference for the Vaccine Passport?
And from the March 2020 and April 2020 archives:
• Is There 100% Irrefutable Proof that the Covid19 Pandemic Is Overstated?
• Anti-Americanism in the Age of the Coronavirus, the NBA, and 1619