What are we supposed to do when the "watchdog" journalists lie as much or more than the politicians?

If the latest polling data is any indicator the journalistic establishment is losing its running battle with President Donald Trump

writes Benny Huang.

According to an Emerson College poll released on February 7^th, Americans find the Trump Administration to be more truthful than the news media. Poll numbers like that don’t bode well for an industry that lives and dies on its credibility.

The internals of the poll reveal that 49% of voters consider the Trump Administration to be truthful while 48% say the opposite. Only 39% of the public says the news media are truthful while 53% says they aren’t. The results evinced a predictable party-line trend with Republicans vouching for President Trump’s honesty and Democrats defending the Fourth Estate.

And both sides are a bunch of bozos. Yeah, I said it. Both the media and the Trump Administration are deliberately deceptive. Both offer competing narratives that cannot both be true though they are usually both false. It has become almost impossible to discern the faint outline of truth through the fog of lies—and that’s a serious problem.

Now I know that I’m really pissing off the guys in the MAGA hats by calling their man a liar. I can hear them now: “What do you mean Trump’s a liar?! Are you some kind of open borders, new world order, establishment Republican lickspittle?” No, I’m not. I’m actually a pretty doctrinaire conservative, to the right of President Trump on almost every issue—which isn’t surprising in light of the fact that he was a registered Democrat as late as 2008. I challenge anyone to read my catalog of articles on the many different sites I’ve contributed to over the years and tell me that my conservative credentials are lacking. It’s precisely because I’m a conservative that I place a high value on truth. That’s what used to separate us from the liberals. Does it still?

I don’t mean to imply that Trump and the media shovel equal quantities of bull crap. Clearly, the media produce more of it if only because Trump is one man and the media are a deception machine of epic proportions. Even if the entire administration’s lies were considered in aggregate, there’s just no way that Team Trump could possibly lie as much as the networks, the cable news outlets, the big websites, the major newspapers and the weeklies combined.

Part of the reason Donald Trump is the president today, as remote as that possibility seemed just a few short months ago, is that he tapped into America’s justifiable anger with so-called journalists. He popped the bully media in the nose and plenty of Americans, including this American, cheered. He went on CNN and called them the “Clinton [News] Network” to their faces—which they clearly are. We later learned that eight CNN reporters had accepted invitations to what appears to be an official Hillary Clinton campaign media strategy session at the Manhattan home of a wealthy campaign donor. Jeff Zucker, president of the network, declined his invitation though he allowed his “journalists” to attend and he failed to blow the whistle on the unethical schmoozefeest as any responsible newsman would have.

For a particularly egregious example of the media’s lies look no further than their coverage of the Russian hacking allegations. While it’s pretty clear that the plutocrat ex-KGB man Vladimir Putin preferred Trump to Clinton, there is literally no evidence that the Russians “hacked the election.” Hacking the election would have meant Russian agents getting inside voting machines, which would have required the introduction of malware via removable media. The Russians would have had to repeat this feat a few thousand times to have any noticeable effect on vote tallies. Such an operation would have been extremely risky and almost certainly would have left behind incriminating traces. There is zero evidence that this happened. In fact, there’s less evidence of Russia “hacking the election” than there is of Obama being born in Kenya—and admittedly there’s precious little of that.

A more plausible scenario is that the Russian government launched an influence operation not unlike the kind their Soviet predecessors wielded against Ronald Reagan during the 1984 election cycle (see the definitive English-language history of the KGB, “The Sword and the Shield,” p. 243) or the kind the Obama Administration employed in an attempt to unseat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015.

But it wasn’t enough for the media to chase down legitimate leads pointing toward a foreign government-orchestrated influence operation. They had to claim, over and over again, that the election was hacked. Not John Podesta’s email box, not the DNC, but the election itself. Journalists spoke recklessly and seemingly without regard to the actual meaning of words. During a 30-day period ranging from December 8, 2016 to January 8, 2017, the big three networks made claims of a “hacked election” 49 times! They made these claims despite the fact that the Department of Homeland Security specifically denied that Russian hacking had been aimed at vote tallying equipment. Is it any wonder that a majority of Democrats believe that their candidate was literally cheated of her rightful victory by the long arm of Moscow? They’re victims of Fake News™–and from supposedly reputable news outlets.

But Trump engages in his own deception about his Russian connections—namely that he doesn’t have any.

 … The whole situation is rather unsettling. Before the earthquake election year of 2016, I usually felt as if I could make some sense of current events by reading the news with a discerning eye. Those days are over. No one’s telling me the truth and nothing adds up.

So both Trump and the media lie, but whose lies are worse? To put it another way, whose lies are more consequential to the long-term health of the nation? It’s not an easy question to answer and it reminds me of the task we Americans were asked to undertake in 2016—that is, determining which of two candidates sucks less. This time the matchup isn’t Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton but rather Donald Trump against the sorry-ass journalists who form our supposedly free press.

With much reflection, I have decided that I blame the media more than Trump. The media have been absolutely awful for as long as I can remember. They abandoned their sacred charge of protecting us from crooked politicians a long time ago and they lack the credibility to start doing it now.

Part of the reason that Americans enshrined the ideal of a free press in our Constitution is because we always suspected that ambitious men would need some adult supervision. Ambitious men’s deceptions, though not excusable, are almost a given. But the journalists were always supposed to be the watchdogs, a role they completely abdicated in the Obama years if in fact they ever filled it in the first place. What are we supposed to do when the journalists lie as much or more than the politicians?

What the rest of the world forgets when they point an angrily critical finger at America's racial intolerance

In the New York Times obituary of E. R. Braithwait, Sewell Chan produces some memorable quotes of the Guyanese author, diplomat, and former Royal Air Force pilot whose book “To Sir, With Love,” a memoir of teaching in London’s deprived East End, was adapted into a hit 1967 film starring Sidney Poitier.

Early in the book, Mr. Braithwaite recounts his disillusionment and struggles with joblessness after being passed over for work because of racial discrimination, contrasting his experiences in Britain with the years he had spent in the United States.

He wrote of America: “There, when prejudice is felt, it is open, obvious, blatant; the white man makes his position very clear, and the black man fights those prejudices with equal openness and fervor, using every constitutional device available to him.”

He added: “The rest of the world in general and Britain in particular are prone to point an angrily critical finger at American intolerance, forgetting that in its short history as a nation it has granted to its Negro citizens more opportunities for advancement and betterment, per capita, than any other nation in the world with an indigent Negro population.”

 … [Eustace Edward Ricardo Braithwaite’s] other books include “A Kind of Homecoming” (1962), about searching for his ancestral roots; “Choice of Straws” (1965), a mystery novel set in London; “Reluctant Neighbors” (1972), about a black man and a white man who share a short but fraught train ride; and “‘Honorary White’: A Visit to South Africa” (1975), based on a 1973 visit he made there to lecture.

50 best quotes about Europe and Europeans, from Mencken to Jefferson

50 best quotes about Europe and Europeans, from HL Mencken to DH Lawrence, from WH Auden to Henry Miller, from Churchill to Thatcher, and from Louis XIV to Bismarck, along with, last but not least, Thomas Jefferson:

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

Jacques et Jille (Version Française)

From The New Yorker

In an effort to placate China's cultural sensitivities, Hollywood is willing to make all manner of changes to their films

 … in an effort to placate [Chinese] cultural sensitivities, filmmakers have been willing to make all manner of changes to their work

writes Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post,

whether it means removing scenes of laundry air-drying on a Shanghai street from “Mission: Impossible III” (too poor-looking) or excising a stunt when James Bond kills a Chinese security guard in “Skyfall” (too offensive).

Not to mention Kung Fu Panda 2. This echoes the No Pasarán post Hollywood's Offerings Promise Only to Get More Anti-American.

Ann Hornaday 's Washington Post article:

For the past several years, Hollywood and China have been engaged in a wary dance that could be both lucrative or disastrous, depending on what’s at stake. As the Chinese investment sector and middle class have grown, the American film industry has eagerly courted both — as a source of financing, and as a movie-hungry market. With an average growth in box office of 35 percent a year since 2011 — compared with a relatively flat performance in the United States — China has become the new holy grail in putting rear ends in seats.
 
And there are plenty of seats to be had: China is now building around 26 screens a day to accommodate burgeoning demand in that country, whose population hovers around 1.3 billion. Although the state much prefers indigenous movies — allowing for tighter control of stories, images and social messages — the biggest demand is for mainstream Hollywood blockbusters. After years of severely limiting access to American product, in 2012 China signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States — which had objected to unfair trade practices — agreeing to allow at least 34 non-Chinese movies into the country every year, and allowing their home studios to keep 25 percent of the box office receipts.

The Chinese film industry, owned and controlled by the state, has also bolstered its domestic means of production, with an eye toward making the kinds of slick spectacles it can export to the rest of the world. U.S.-China co-productions are increasingly the order of the day, proving advantageous to Hollywood because they aren’t subject to the 34-movie quota, and to China, which is eager to up its game vis-a-vis production values, prestige and “soft power” relevance.

So far, the relationship has produced some hits and a few notable misses, especially when it comes to the American creative class navigating Chinese state censors who oversee which movies get into the country. No one who wants a piece of the world’s largest market would be stupid enough to alienate their audience by making the villain Chinese; but while few mourn the passing of “yellow peril” stereotypes or equally offensive ethnic cliches, attempts to cater to the Chinese market can veer toward pandering. Movies from “X-Men: Days of Future Past” to “Gravity” to “Iron Man 3” have tweaked content and casting to appeal to Chinese audiences. The science fiction film “Looper” changed an entire plot line to take place in Shanghai when filmmaker Rian Johnson received Chinese funding.

In the case of “Looper,” the Chinese locations and characters wound up looking unforced and organic, even forward-looking. But, in an effort to placate cultural sensitivities, filmmakers have been willing to make all manner of changes to their work, whether it means removing scenes of laundry air-drying on a Shanghai street from “Mission: Impossible III” (too poor-looking) or excising a stunt when James Bond kills a Chinese security guard in “Skyfall” (too offensive). Even more sobering is the fact that films dealing with such subjects as homosexuality, a free press and democratic dissent — think “Brokeback Mountain,” “Spotlight” and “Selma” — never make it past square one with Chinese censors.

As China’s most high-profile domestic production, made in tandem with an American company (Legendary Pictures) and a huge American movie star (Matt Damon), “The Great Wall” has an enormous amount riding on it, financially and symbolically, in terms of China’s global reputation as a cultural player. Two 2016 co-productions offer stark illustrations of what’s at stake: While “Kung Fu Panda 3” was a huge hit, “Warcraft” — which underwent tinkering to make it China-friendly — was a bomb.

 … American filmmakers must maintain a delicate balance between artistic freedom and the Chinese investment and box office revenue they need to survive. Add the backdrop of Trumpian uncertainty, and you have a reminder of why “may you live in interesting times” isn’t considered a blessing, but a curse.

Related: Chinese Film Studios Are the Planet's Largest, Mass-Producing
Films Designed to Build a Positive Image of the Country

• Further Inroads into Hollywood for China's Communist Party and Its Censors

A Pro-Trump Speaker Was Ousted from TV Studio for Obama Remarks? That Was News to the Woman in Question Who Never Knew About It Until the Following Day

Via Eric Martin sur NDF, nous avons droit (pour ainsi dire) au droit de réponse de Evelyne Joslain, suite à sa soi-disant éviction de BFM TV:

J’entre en plateau vers 13h30. Les invités entrent et repartent. Les 2 journalistes ne s’arrêtent pas pour autant; leur annonce repasse en boucle : « Trump, le président le plus controversé de l’histoire »… Aussi, lorsqu’après 16h, quelqu’un me fait signe des coulisses que c’est l’heure, je ne m’étonne pas et je pars. On ne me dit absolument rien. Je n’ai pas été « virée », « expulsée » ou « renvoyée » comme un malfaiteur, ainsi que tous les gros titres visent à le faire croire. Je n’ai d’ailleurs jamais été de ma vie renvoyée de nulle part.  Commodément, l’émission a été censurée et n’est plus accessible …

3° Montage et battage médiatique :

Avertie le soir, au milieu des célébrations, je ne prête pas attention. Le lendemain, je découvre les divers articles sur Google. On peut reconstituer assez facilement le piège : dès 17h10, une heure après mon départ, un premier article paraît, de BuzzFeed France, un pseudo organe de presse spécialisé depuis juin 2016 dans les fausses informations et la calomnie des gens de droite, de Trump jusqu’aux personnes les plus humbles. …

4° Interprétation possible :

Le directeur de BFM TV … est-il aux ordres de BuzzFeed ou [de 24 internautes (anonymes)] non-identifiés qui auraient le pouvoir, de l’ombre, de décider qui doit tomber, ou a-t-il voulu se prémunir contre le CSA alors que les propos incriminés n’ont rien d’offensant et sont banals aux Etats-Unis ? Qui obéit à qui et pourquoi ? Voilà les questions que les rédactions, toutes subventionnées, qui ont répété servilement la même histoire mensongère, auraient dû se poser. Voulait-on me donner une leçon ? Selon le texte (toujours comme un malfaiteur), « l’auteure (sic!) n’en était pas à son coup d’essai : déjà, en aout 2016, elle avait dit qu’Hillary Clinton était corrompue » (quel scoop !). Ce qui indique recherches et préparation, j’avais été condamnée avant même mon entrée sur ce plateau.

Lire tout le droit de réponse de Evelyne Joslain sur NDF…

The Rape Culture Is Perfectly OK If the Victim Is a Conservative Woman

I’m beginning to think that there might be something to this “rape culture” thing that progressives keep talking about

notes Benny Huang.

Exhibit A is “No Favors,” a recent song by rapper Big Sean featuring Detroit’s most renowned bad boy Eminem. The track is notable for its grisly lyrics including what sounds like Eminem fantasizing about raping conservative pundit Ann Coulter with various household objects.

“And f–k Ann Coulter with a Klan poster/
With a lamp post, door handle, shutter/
A damn bolt cutter, a sandal, a can opener, a candle, rubber/
Piano, a flannel, sucker, some hand soap, butter/
A banjo and manhole cover/
Hand over the mouth and nose smother/
Trample ran over the tramp with the Land Rover/
The band, the Lambo, Hummer and Road Runner/
Go ham donut, or go Rambo, gotta make an example of her/
That’s for Sandra Bland, ho, and Philando.”

It’s bad enough that there are people in this world like Eminem who entertain dark rape fantasies. What’s more disturbing is that the guy who spun these vile lyrics also practiced them for hours before committing them to an audio track that he knew would be heard by millions of people. Worse yet is that no one stopped him—not Big Sean, not the album’s producer, not GOOD Records owner Kanye West, not even the execs at GOOD’s parent company, Universal Music Group.

Kanye and his higher-ups could have tossed that whole track in the garbage if they had wanted to but they didn’t. It’s not as if musicians have absolute artistic license in the studio. As long as the record company is producing and promoting the final product, performers are little more than glorified employees. So how did “No Favors” ever see the lights of day? Eminem’s accomplices must have been at least ambivalent toward, if not supportive of, the heinous lyrics.

Other than a few conservative websites, I don’t know of any media outlet that has made a fuss about Eminem’s ode to sexual violence. Prominent feminist groups don’t seem upset. What’s that thing they always say at their “Take Back the Night” rallies? “Silence is complicity?” Yeah, that’s it.

Are we all pretty blasé about rape now? Hardly. In other contexts—contexts that don’t involve conservative women—our society is actually hypersensitive about rape. That may sound shocking because it implies that there’s such thing as excessive zealotry in the campaign to eradicate rape. Well, guess what? There is. There’s something very wrong with people who throw themselves into fits of hysteria over every accusation, even the false ones, or people who refuse to believe that false accusations even exist. Think of the Duke Lacrosse case, the mattress girl case, the UVA case, the Tawana Brawley case, etc. Calling them “hypersensitive” is the nicest word I can think of.

Given this hypersensitivity, it’s difficult to make the case that our society just doesn’t care about rape. We’re so adamant in our opposition that we’ve sought to eliminate rape at its root—namely, by obliterating “rape culture,” the entire milieu that encourages and excuses sexual violence. This is where things get tricky because we don’t all necessarily agree on what constitutes rape culture. To some people—let’s just call them feminists—rape culture is a term that means anything they don’t like. It’s no coincidence that traditionalism, gender roles, and sexual mores—three things that feminism have been trying to vanquish since at least the 1970s—are now considered key elements of rape culture. If you stick up for these much maligned concepts you may be called on the carpet for enabling sexual violence. It’s a silencing tactic, and an awfully effective one at that.

The endless search for hidden rape culture has become something of a parlor game in which the person who spots the most rape culture in the most places “wins.” Some people find rape culture in some very unexpected places including the 1944 Christmas duet “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” The song features a man trying to persuade a woman to snuggle a little longer with him by the fire instead of braving the driving snow outside. He’s probably trying to convince her to sleep with him, though that’s left unstated. The fact that the woman in the song seems to want to stay the night and only worries about what people will think of her if she does is not supposed to matter.

“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” stirred up a lot of debate this past December, enough for the reliably liberal website Vox to cover the controversy. Vox quoted Stephen Deusner of Salon calling the Christmas classic “a date rape anthem.”

As far as I can tell “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” has sparked more controversy than “No Favors.” Neither Vox nor Salon has, to my knowledge, covered the “No Favors” controversy, which is probably because a controversy is not a controversy until the media decide to cover it. When the media shrug off actual episodes of blatant, undeniable rape culture we tend not to be aware of their existence.

And that’s where we are today—a man asking his date to stay a little longer by the fire generates more headlines than a man who wants to “make an example” out of a woman by penetrating her with various household objects. I wonder why that might be? I can think of several reasons. There’s the fact that “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is an old song that harkens back to an era that liberals love to hate but don’t really understand. There’s also the fact that “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is about an anonymous woman whereas “No Favors” is about Ann Coulter—and raping her isn’t really such a big deal, is it?

Not to people who matter—media figures, music moguls and the like. That’s why I say that rape culture is very real, though generally concentrated in liberal enclaves. That does not mean that red state America is some kind of rape-free paradise. What it does mean is that wherever the Left’s values dominate there is bound to be a winking, nodding acceptance toward casual rape talk aimed at conservative women.

Don’t believe me? I’ll provide two examples though there are certainly more.

Two celebrities of at least some notoriety independently expressed their desire to see former Governor Sarah Palin raped by black men. In 2008, the very unfunny comedienne Sandra Bernhard said that Palin would be “gang-raped” by “big, black brothers” if she set foot in Manhattan. Bernhard clearly relished the thought, probably because she is a homosexual and frustrated that she can’t get Sarah Palin in the sack.

More recently, female rapper Azealia Banks tweeted that she wanted to see Palin raped by “some of the biggest, burliest, blackest Negroes.” Banks, by the way, is also a homosexual and probably as mad as a wet cat that she isn’t Palin’s type. In another tweet, Banks stated: “Sarah Palin needs to have her hair shaved off to a buzz cut, get headf—cked by a big veiny, ashy, black c—k then be locked in a cupboard.” At the time, Banks was upset with Palin because of some Fake News™ she’d read concerning the former Alaska governor’s take on slavery. A fabricated quote attributed to Palin was “Even the French understand that slavery wasn’t our fault because the Negroes liked it.” Palin never said that, of course, but because Azealia Banks is paranoid of racism and because her IQ is lower than whale dung, she found the quote credible. Then she wished rape upon another woman.

“In my honest defense, I was completely kidding,” Banks later wrote. “I happen to have a really crass, New-York-City sense of humor, and regularly make silly jokes in attempts make light of situations which make me uncomfortable.”

Yeah! So chill. It was just a “silly joke.” It’s a New York Thing, you wouldn’t understand. Believe it or not, I almost believe her. Palin is despised in New York City, just as she is despised in most urban centers. If I walked into a Manhattan pub and started mouthing off about Sarah Palin getting raped, would anyone stop me? How many would egg me on? Plenty, I’d wager.

It’s hard to deny that America has a conflicted, almost schizophrenic attitude toward rape. This attitude may not be on display in the sleepy, conservative towns where most conservatives live, but it certainly exists on college campuses, in big cities, and in the entertainment industry. On the one hand, people fall all over each other to condemn alleged rapes as swiftly and severely as possible, often not caring if a particular accusation is even true. And on the other hand, people don’t really care about the obvious glorification of rape as an instrument of revenge when the object happens to be conservative woman.

Bumper Stickers — An Entirely American Phenomenon

Even without an election, the Americans do rather like a bumper sticker

writes a bemused David Millward in the Daily Telegraph.

They can be anything from a proud parent letting everyone know their child is an “honor student” – whatever that is – to one with a child serving in the military.

It all seemed rather alien to me when I arrived in the US a couple of years ago. British motorists are rather more reserved. There may be the odd football sticker, or a window sticker saying 'baby on board', but that is about it.

Perhaps we Brits are too buttoned up. But telling fellow road users that one is a woolly liberal , tree hugger or gun-toting fundamentalist Christian conservative does appear to be a peculiar manifestation of the American character.

By virtue of the language in his observations, David Millward proceeds to demonstrate rather conclusively that he leans to the left…

80 great quotes about love and romance: from Adam and Eve to chemsex

The Daily Telegraph has compiled a list of 80 great quotes about love and romance, from Adam and Eve to chemsex.

Left-Leaning Editorial Cartoonists Adapt Tired Ol' Memes for the Trump Era

Thanks to The New Yorker's Tom Toro, we now have a Donald Trump-era update of the leftist editorial cartoons that are hilarious except for the inconvenient fact that they seem to be based upon little, if any, substantial reality.

As I wrote back in December,

Like cartoonists around the world, [The Economist's] Kal has drawn GOP elephants mocking activists' fears even as they are forced to climb onto the rooftop of such buildings as the US Congress [and the White House] because of the rising waters.

Think of Los Angeles and New York, of Aberdeen and Brighton, of Capetown and Sydney: Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that in the past five weeks, the past five months, the past five years, and the past 50 years (even the past 500 years?), the oceans do not seem to have risen by as much as a single inch?

Thousands of [leftists] are howling in outrage as they read this … and as I go on to ask: So who are truly the irrational people here? Isn't science supposed to require the challengers of the status quo to prove their contention?

It used to be that we poked fun at the Chicken Littles and the other boys who cried wolf. In the era of the drama queen, every "The sky is falling!" is taken as holy writ, used to clobber clueless citizens (aka "racists", "deplorables", etc, not least… "deniers"), even as taxes are raised ever higher to increase the size of the administrative state so that politicians and bureaucrats alike can rush to our "rescue".

Hasn't it occurred to you that this snooty (not to mention self-serving) attitude is precisely what, over the past year, skeptical citizens have started to vote against?

More examples of  "provocative" (sic) editorial cartoons in the links below:

• It used to be that we poked fun at the Chicken Littles;
In the era of the drama queen, every "The sky is falling!" is taken as holy writ

• Editorial Cartoons: Are They Humor or Are They Propaganda?
 

Instapundit Learns that Le Pen's Front National Is Actually Left-Wing, Something a French-Based Blog Has Been Reporting on (and Trying to Bring to Their Attention) for at Least 6 Years

So on Monday, February 6, Instapundit admitted that, contrary to reports that seemed to depict the iconoclasts of the Front National as perhaps a French equivalent to the members of America's tea party movement, Marine Le Pen turns out to be really quite Left-wing. Stephen Green authored the post after seeing a news item penned by the usually reliable Daniel Hannan.

Of course, this is hardly news to No Pasarán. Being a blog whose primary focus, when it debuted 13 years ago, was France and foreign anti-Americanism (the internal danger from the last eight years did change the focal point somewhat), many of whose bloggers through the years have been based in Paris — along with its sister (mainly French-language) blog Le Monde Watch — we have been reporting on the Le Pen clan and its party for years.

Throughout the years, No Pasarán and Le Monde Watch have reported on such various news items (most of them from the French newspaper of record, Le Monde) as the Front National's Marine Le Pen criticizing privatization and "extreme" free market policies, on her opining that France needs "a strong state", and on one of her top aides speaking of taking advantage of the fears engendered by globalization and surfing on insecurity and on social suffering.

Meanwhile, one leftist leader got incensed when journalists suggested that the Left and the extreme right's Le Pen family are fighting over the same (anti-capitalist) backyard.

Indeed, in 2015 one libertarian critic was led to ask, Is the Le Pen Party Extreme Rightist or Is It Actually a Reincarnation of the Communist Party?

Moreover, a Harris poll in the Fall of 2012 found that members of the Front National supported Barack Obama over Mitt Romney in that year's election by almost 3 to 1 (70% vs 26%).

Last but not least, there is Marine Le Pen's assertion that France Should Leave NATO, "Turn Its Back" on the American "Hyper-Power", and "Turn Towards Russia".

The post that summarizes all the rest is perhaps a No Pasarán item from the Spring of 2011, detailing the time when a New York Times reporter attempting to write an in-depth portrait on Marine Le Pen reported that, to his utter surprise, the economics of the leader of France's French "far-right party" turn out to be "frankly leftist"!

The money quote was the following:

Marine Le Pen sums it up in one sentence when the New York Times's Russell Shorto "pointed out [to her] that in the U.S. she would sound like a left-wing politician". She shot back that “Obama is way to the right of us”!

Since at least the Spring of 2011, just about every time that the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen has been mentioned on the internet (certainly if the coverage was positive), we sent emails to the blogger(s) involved and/or left messages in the appropriate comments section (if applicable) referring to the above-mentioned post with the NYT's in-depth portrait of Marine Le Pen and warning that the members of her Front National may not be the equivalent of America's tea partiers, while Marine herself may be no Geert Wilders and, certainly, no Nigel Farage (as the British iconoclaust pointed out himself by refusing to link his UKIP with her FN).

Of course, 10 years ago, a Le Monde interview with Michael Moore revealed the amazing (albeit hardly surprising) news that the director of Sicko and Capitalism (A Love Story) admits in so many words — "Dude, I am on Marx's Tomb!" — to being nothing less than… a full-grown Marxist(!). Ten years of attempting to contact American bloggers (again, by mail and/or in the comments section) every time Moore was in the news and/or mentioned in a post with this earth-shattering admission has likewise failed to register.

We don't know if we sometimes go overboard trying to contact you. Possibly we have, once or twice. But, generally speaking, we have tried to send you no more than one email or at most two emails a month.

All we wish to do here is join in spreading the good word and fighting the good fight.
Or, certainly, hand the ammunition to the band of brothers in the front-lines fighting the good fight.

It's simply, especially when we sometimes discern that our ammunition is occasionally of a particularly potent mixture, that we wish you would reach out and take the ammunition that we hand to you.


P.S.:

Speaking of really good, outstanding material: Last week, we found on a friend's Facebook page of all places — by a denizen from flyover country (in Tennessee, no less) — what we truly and honestly believe to be the very best singular statement (and not only of the past year) on Donald Trump's so-called Muslim ban, on immigration in general, on America's character, on the Statue of Liberty, and on the true and full meaning of the Emma Lazarus poem at its base.

Here, in a couple of sentences, Chip Crain sweeps away all the leftist arguments in the process of plunging to the very heart of the matter: it is hard to believe, he says, that

many people have read the entire poem or understand what was being said in it preferring to quote one part of one line "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" while conveniently ignoring the rest of the sentence "yearning to be free" or the rest of the poem itself.

 … I am against allowing those who want to change our country. I'm against those who are coming not with the intention of assimilating into a free society but rather to establish a society like they left. The poem doesn't protect those who are coming to our shores to recreate the life they left. In fact it says the opposite.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp. Cries she with silent lips."

In other words, stay at home those who wish to bring your old ways here. We aren't a society saying 'give us anyone.' We are opening our shores to those who want to live in a free society that is different from what you left.

(Read the whole thing™.)

"What exactly is the success that the Democrats are trumpeting?" Asks France's Far Left Weekly; "What remains of the Obama inheritance?"

From Marianne, one of the most left-leaning weeklies in France, comes this jewel from Stéphane Trano.

After pointing out misconceptions and exaggerrations about the 2016 election, coupled with some cold facts about Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration (the deficit worsened by trillions of dollars, etc), the French journalist living in the Northeastern United States asks:

What exactly is the success that the Democrats are trumpeting? … What remains of the Obama inheritance? … A president is measured by the impact that he leaves behind him, not on his performance on the scene of power. … Apart from that health law which is nowhere near the generous and egalitarian system that Europeans think it is, there is emptiness… [On the international scene], the memories of all are still fresh enough to remember that the eight years of this president were those of great diplomatic and military hypocrisy. But denial, in this area, as in others, is stronger than remembrance.

 … America is lucky in that it is a pragmatic society: by bringing the Republicans back to power, against all expectations, it has flanked a magisterial slap in the face of the "progressives" who believed that everything was allowed them. It did so not out of madness or irresponsibility, but because it has confidence in the capacity of its institutions to "absorb" this type of democratic choice, however disturbing it may be for those who consider themselves better educated and more enlightened than others. This is called alternation, a banality that the Democrats now want to call a scandal and a catastrophe.

Stéphane Trano:

On ne peut pas blâmer les Démocrates américains de tenter, par tous les moyens, de masquer la portée de leur échec en l’attribuant à toutes sortes de motifs, même les plus fantaisistes. La pilule est certes amère. Toutefois, la part la plus intéressante de cette hystérie collective est le phénomène d’auto-persuasion qui en est le moteur et que la plupart des grands médias du pays alimentent.

L’argument numéro un des perdants est la faillite du système électoral et, en particulier, le fait que la candidate démocrate, Hillary Clinton, a remporté le scrutin populaire. C’est oublier que la situation, même si elle n’est pas commune, s’est produite à quatre reprises au cours de l’Histoire des Etats-Unis, et qu’elle ne constitue pas de difficulté particulière aux termes de la Constitution. De plus, le 115^ème congrès, sorti des urnes le 8 novembre 2016 et en fonction depuis le 3 janvier 2017, a vu 52% des électeurs voter pour les Républicains au Sénat et 55% à la Chambre des représentants. Il n’y a donc aucune anomalie dans les élections de 2016 de ce point de vue.

Le second argument est celui du piratage informatique à grande échelle des élections, sur ordre du président russe Vladimir Poutine, afin de faciliter l’élection de Donald J. Trump. Là encore, l’idée ne tient pas debout. Aucune trace de défaillance dans le nombre limité de votes électroniques aux élections n’a été décelée. Les services du renseignement américain, en dépit de leur conviction affichée selon lesquelles il existe un indice « haut » de confiance dans le fait qu’il y a eu piratage, ne sont pas tenus de produire le moindre élément de preuve au public, puisque de telles informations sont par essence classées « secret défense ». Il faut donc les croire sur parole.

 …

Une mauvaise candidate

Hillary Clinton n’a eu besoin ni de Vladimir Poutine, ni de Julien Assange et encore moins de « pirates » pour perdre les élections de 2016. Ce ne sont pas de prétendues « fausses » informations qui ont heurté sa réputation déjà bien entamée auprès de nombreux électeurs américains, par exemple, dans l’affaire des emails, mais au contraire, son refus obstiné de prendre cette affaire au sérieux et de répondre aux interrogations. On ne voit pas, non plus, quelles « fausses » informations ont poussé l’électorat noir américain à se sous-mobiliser lors du vote du 8 novembre, ou les femmes et les plus jeunes à bouder sa candidature, après la défaite de Bernie Sanders lors des primaires démocrates.

Hillary Clinton, dont l’ambition n’est pas éteinte par la défaite, a affiché un visage froid, autoritaire et cassant, durant sa campagne. Elle n’a pas su développer un programme à la fois lisible et crédible, qui aurait pu emporter un vote, à la fois populaire et du collège électoral, si tranché qu’il n’y aurait eu aucune contestation. Comment, en effet, se revendiquer de l’héritage de Barack Obama, lorsque cet héritage peine à brandir autre chose que l’Obamacare, dont même les démocrates savent qu’il n’est pas financé au-delà de 2017 et coûte, en réalité, une fortune au regard des bénéfices qu’il apporte ?

Mensonges et déni

Car au-delà de cette loi sur la santé qui n’est en rien un système généreux et égalitaire tel qu’on le pense du côté des Européens, c’est le vide. Même si le Secrétaire d’Etat John Kerry blâme ces derniers jours le gouvernement anglais, prétendant qu’il est à l’origine de l’incapacité d’Obama à agir plus concrètement et durablement au Moyen-Orient contre l’état islamique, la mémoire de tous est par chance encore assez fraîche pour se souvenir que les huit années de ce président ont été celles d’une grande hypocrisie diplomatique et militaire. Mais le déni, dans ce domaine comme dans bien d’autres, est plus puissant que la mémoire.

Les âmes sensibles sont outrées par l’idée de construire un mur à la frontière entre les Etats-Unis et le Mexique. On a beau leur montrer les mille kilomètres de ce mur déjà construit, y compris sous le premier mandat d’Obama, cela n’a guère d’effet et n’entraîne aucune interrogation sur les raisons pour lesquelles le bon président n’en n’a pas retiré une seule pierre.

Un autre exemple est celui de la crise financière de 2008 et du retour au « plein emploi » huit ans plus tard : quel président n’aurait point réussi ce « prodige » en creusant le déficit de son pays, comme Barack Obama l’a fait, de près de 5000 milliards de dollars ?
 
La période 2008-2016 n’a pas non plus été celle de législations majeures en matière d’armes à feu, d’incarcérations, de recul de la peine de mort, de maîtrise des frais de scolarité ou de gestion des prêts étudiants parvenus à des hauteurs astronomiques.

Quel est donc ce succès dont les Démocrates se revendiquent au juste? Est-ce celui des villes défigurées sous les coups de boutoir du géant Amazon, à la fois propriétaire du puissant Washington Post et importateur massif de toutes les chinoiseries possibles qui inondent un marché américain ou l'on ne sait plus fabriquer une chaussette?
 …

Quel héritage Obama?

Alors, que reste t-il de cet héritage Obama, au juste ? Une posture, bien évidemment. Après George W. Bush et le mensonge irakien, n’importe quel président aurait été auréolé de gloire. On attendait d’Obama, toutefois, un peu plus qu’un physique avenant, un talent rhétorique et l’humour dont il a tant usé. Car c’est à ce que laisse un président que l’on mesure son impact, pas à sa performance sur la scène du pouvoir. L’Amérique n’est pas plus sympathique dans le monde qu’elle ne l’était avant son arrivée, ni plus sûre, ni plus égalitaire. Mais elle a la chance d’être un pays pragmatique : en ramenant au pouvoir, contre toute attente, les Républicains, elle a flanqué une gifle magistrale aux « progressistes » qui se croyaient tout permis. Elle ne l’a pas fait par folie ou par irresponsabilité mais parce qu’elle a confiance dans la capacité de ses institutions à « encaisser » ce type de choix démocratique, si perturbant soit-il pour des milieux qui s’estiment mieux éduqués et éclairés que les autres. On appelle cela l’alternance, une banalité que les Démocrates veulent aujourd’hui faire passer pour un scandale et une catastrophe.

Cherchez l’erreur.

Related: Stéphane Trano on the November 2016 election:
America's Democratic Blow to the MSM Empire

Boris Johnson's finest moments on camera

Courtesy of the Daily Telegraph, we are pleased to present to you Boris Johnson's finest moments on camera.

Remember that, prior to becoming the UK's foreign secretary, the London mayor was hounded by the IRS to such an extent that, in 2015, he into gave up the U.S. half of his dual citizenship.

Animals that look like celebrities

From the Daily Telegraph: Animals that look like celebrities, in pictures

Do People Understand What Is Really Being Said in the Emma Lazarus Poem at the Base of the Statue of Liberty?

There has been a lot of discussion lately about Emma Lazarus' poem "The New Colossus" at the base of the Statue of Liberty and how it applies to the new immigration policy. 

And yet, reflects Chip Crain (writing from Tennessee), from what he has read and heard so far, it is hard to believe that

many people have read the entire poem or understand what was being said in it preferring to quote one part of one line "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" while conveniently ignoring the rest of the sentence "yearning to be free" or the rest of the poem itself.

The poem means the USA is willing to open their shores to people yearning for freedom not simply avoiding persecution, war or to attempt to bring about a political change via terrorism or any other means. This is saying we don't welcome people to establish colonies of their old world countries here on our shores. The entirety of the poem is a rejection of the ways of their former countries and a celebration of the new colossus that is the USA.

I'm not supporting Donald Trump's immigration restriction (which is country based not religion based but clearly established a priority of certain religions over others for admittance) but I do support limiting immigration to those 'yearning to be free' over those yearning just to get away. I am in favor of welcoming anyone who wants to exist in a country of freedom, where individual effort is rewarded and nothing is given or taken unfairly. A country that rewards individual effort and turns their shoulder to giving people something for nothing.

Likewise, I am against allowing those who want to change our country. I'm against those who are coming not with the intention of assimilating into a free society but rather to establish a society like they left. The poem doesn't protect those who are coming to our shores to recreate the life they left. In fact it says the opposite.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp. Cries she with silent lips."

In other words, stay at home those who wish to bring your old ways here. We aren't a society saying 'give us anyone.' We are opening our shores to those who want to live in a free society that is different from what you left.

Taking time to insure those coming want what we are offering and not simply running away from what they have and with no intention of participating or even changing what it means to be American is not un-American. On the contrary it is exactly the sentiment spoken of on the Statue of Liberty.

I don't know if Trump's ban will accomplish what he wants but it isn't un-American on face value in my humble opinion. It is humorous that the list of banned countries was started by Obama and no one complained about it then.

After Conservative Writer Dares Mention Un-PC Opinions on French TV, Diversity Does Not Last Long

The Observatoire des Journalistes et de l'Information Médiatique (OJIM) has taken up the case of the conservative writer thrown off for daring to hold politically incorrect opinions about Barack Obama and, worse, to mention them on live TV. Negative views of Donald Trump? Those one is free to express over the airwaves, indeed, 'tis almost a duty to do so…

Pour commenter le direct de l’investiture de Donald Trump, et par souci de pluralité, BFMTV avait invité sur son plateau une essayiste favorable au nouveau président américain. Le moins que l’on puisse dire est que la pluralité n’aura pas duré longtemps…

Car Évelyne Joslain, auteur de Trump : pour le meilleur et pour le pire (Presses de la Délivrance, 2016) et membre des Républicains, n’avait pas l’intention de se prêter au jeu de la pensée lisse et politiquement correcte.

Interrogée sur le président sortant, Barack Obama, elle a en effet déclaré : « Obama fait partie des gens qui détestent l’Amérique. Pendant 8 ans, il a servi son idéologie mais pas l’Amérique. » Aussitôt, les réactions outrées (ou gênées) ne se sont pas faites attendre sur le plateau. Bien peu de choses pour Mme Joslain qui poursuit : « Je remets en cause son patriotisme et aussi sa dévotion par rapport à l’église qu’il fréquentait. »

Invitée à en dire plus sur le sujet, celle-ci a estimé que Barack Obama était « plus musulman dans son cœur que chrétien ». Et de faire remarquer que beaucoup d’informations, comme les écrits d’Obama lorsqu’il était à l’université par exemple, sont littéralement « sous scellé ». « Tout ça, on n’a pas le droit de le savoir », dénonce-t-elle.

De quoi choquer les journalistes sur le plateau, et aussi quelques internautes et téléspectateurs, qui ont aussitôt saisi le CSA (24 signalements, assure-t-on). Suite à ces déclarations, Évelyne Joslain a tout bonnement été conduite hors plateau pour y être sermonnée par Hervé Béroud, directeur général de BFMTV, qui a qualité ses propos d’« inacceptables ».

Comme dit plus haut, la pluralité n’aura pas duré longtemps, et la chaîne d’information en continu va donc désormais pouvoir reprendre son lynchage habituel envers Donald Trump, contre lequel, en revanche, toutes les opinions négatives et tous les coups sont permis.

An American Leader Attempting to Make Medicine Cheaper and Embattle Multinationals? If It's a Not a Democrat, Then Coverage Must Be Unfavorable

Some of the most surreal attacks on conservatives are when the latter engage in policies and strive for goals that would be relentlessly praised were they pursued, and had they been passed, by a leftist.

What are a couple of things for which Barack Obama was most celebrated (not least abroad)? Wasn't it (allegedly) making health care affordable for everyone, while, in the process, (allegedly) taking on the rich 1%?

Hakon Redder, Nicoline Kjelland, and Caroline Burchardt have a front page article in a Danish newspaper blaring that Trump's Pressure on [Medicine] Prices Threatens Novo's Market of Billions, while one of the print version's inside headlines warns of "Tough Trump's Onslaught on the Pharmaceutical Industry."

Possibly you might expect this from a conservative publication, whose name translates as The Stock Market, The Stock Exchange, or, simply, The Exchange. But Børsen is no exception to the volleys fired against The Donald from all parts of the tiny kingdom's mainstream media.

What is called Donald Trump's own broadside led to a drop of 4.5%, later 5%, in Novo Nordisk's shares, followed by drops in those of competitors Genmab and Lundbeck.

So what have we here?

A U.S. president attempting to bring the prices of medicine down, in the process threatening the income of multinational companies (that awful Big Pharma, no less).

Coming from a Democrat, wouldn't this be celebrated, and that the world over—even in the (so-called) conservative publications of Scandinavian countries?

But 'tis a Republican, and only scare quotes are included in the reporting thereof, along with warlike battle expressions like Shock and Trump's Medicine Attack.


And so it is that: despite the fact that over the very next few days, the Ritzau Finans agency could report (in typical Paul Krugman fashion?) that The Shock of Trump's Medicine Attack Is Abating — after all, Novo has enjoyed a dream start in 2017 (not least because of "hijacking" 30% of the market insulin) — and; despite the fact that Børsen admits that shares around the globe have risen impressively due to the prospect of Donald Trump in the White House (almost 10%, with Dow Jones passing a historic milestone), we have Mads Gravesen warning in typical downcast fashion that investors ought to ask themselves how long it can last, all the while we have an editorial bellowing that Trump Must Be Crippled by All People Who Love Freedom.

Must be "crippled"?! Try that line of attack one against Obama or any democrat, and see how long you last…

Guess Which President the MSM Labels a Liar?

Presidential Lies
another cartoon by Gorrell
(merci à Arnaud)

See also Press Alert
by Ramirez

Sur les chaînes françaises, on préfère les crétins qui ne connaissent des Etats-Unis que les lieux où les gauchistes se réunissent pour trépigner en vase clos

Quand vous regardez la télévision française, vous devez savoir qu’on vous ment presque sans cesse et qu’on tente de vous lessiver le cerveau

accuse Guy Millière qui va reprendre un terme inventé par un bloggueur de No Pasarán (pour désigner Libération) il y a une douzaine d'années.

J’ai quitté la France, entre autres, parce que je ne supportais plus la Propagandastaffel à la française.

Je n’y reviendrais pas s’il ne venait de se passer ce qui s’est passé sur BFM Télévision, une chaîne sur laquelle j’ai été invité une seule et unique fois, pour commenter l’attentat de Charleston. Je n’ai pas été éjecté du plateau, mais mon intervention a été immédiatement effacée du site de la chaîne, à la façon dont au temps d’Hitler et de Staline on effaçait des photographies ceux qu’on venait d’éliminer d’une balle dans la nuque.

Une femme que je connais bien, une amie, une personne qui sait de quoi elle parle, a été invitée à commenter les cérémonies inaugurales de la présidence Trump. Dans un immense effort de pluralisme qui a du leur déchirer le cœur, les programmateurs de la chaîne ont invité cette femme. Ils savaient qu’elle connaissait les Etats-Unis réels, ce qui représentait pour eux un risque : sur les chaînes françaises, on préfère les crétins qui ne connaissent des Etats-Unis que les lieux où les gauchistes se réunissent pour trépigner en vase clos.

Ils savaient qu’elle était conservatrice à l’américaine : à l’idée d’inviter une conservatrice, ils ont dû être au bord de la crise de nerfs. En général, les conservateurs à l’américaine sont maintenus loin de tout micro. Ils savaient qu’elle soutenait Trump : dans un contexte où, sur tous les plateaux de télévision, on n’invite que des gens qui détestent Trump, à la rigueur des gens qui disent un peu de bien de Trump tout en lui trouvant de gros défauts, ils ont sans doute songé que c’était l’audace absolue.

Ils n’ont pas songé que cette femme pouvait dire la vérité. Et, comble de l’horreur, elle a dit la vérité !

Qu’a-t-elle dit ? Trois phrases sur Barack Obama. Juste trois phrases :

«Je remets en cause son patriotisme et sa dévotion à l’église qu’il fréquentait. Je pense qu’il était en désaccord avec lui-même sur beaucoup de choses. Je pense qu’il était plus musulman dans son cœur que chrétien. Il n’a pas voulu prononcer le terme d’islamisme radical, ça lui écorchait les lèvres. Je pense que dans son cœur, il est musulman, mais on en a terminé avec lui, Dieu merci».

J’aurais pu prononcer ces phrases. Obama n’a cessé de nuire à son pays et au monde : non seulement on peut remettre en cause son patriotisme, mais on doit dire qu’il déteste les Etats-Unis. Obama n’a jamais été chrétien : il a été musulman, puis est censé être devenu membre d’une église antisémite adepte de la théologie noire de la libération, la Trinity United Church of Christ. Tout montre qu’il est resté plus musulman que chrétien. Il n’a jamais utilisé les mots islamisme radical. Le monde en a terminé avec lui. Juifs et Chrétiens ont parfaitement le droit de remercier Dieu.

Sur des chaînes de télévision américaines, même les plus à gauche, CNN et MSNBC, ces phrases auraient pu être prononcées dans le cadre d’une discussion.

En France, celle qui les a prononcées s’est vue couper la parole et le micro, puis a été immédiatement exclue du plateau.

Un site de crétins gauchistes désinformateurs pour lecteurs crétins gauchistes sans neurones a vu l’émission et a fait un article pour dénoncer BFM. Le directeur de la chaîne (je ne citerai pas son nom, il ne le mérite pas) a répondu, je cite : «ce sont des propos inacceptables sur notre antenne. On les condamne fermement».

En ce début d’année, Dreuz a besoin financièrement de votre soutien, cliquez sur : Paypal.Dreuz, et indiquez le montant de votre contribution.

Au sein de la Propagandastaffel à la française, BFM est la chaîne de télévision la plus «ouverte», ce qui en dit long sur les autres.

La femme qui a dit la vérité s’appelle Evelyne Joslain. Je lui apporte ici mon entier soutien, et je lui transmets le sentiment renouvelé de ma vive estime.

Elle est l’auteur de l’un des trois livres lisibles sur Trump : le mien, Après Obama, Trump ?* (une suite est pour bientôt), celui d’André Bercoff*, et le sien, Trump : Pour le meilleur et pour le pire*.

La population française n’est pas informée du tout : elle a le choix entre un lavage de cerveau constant et la nécessité de chercher ses informations ailleurs, comme les Allemands qui en avaient assez de Goebbels devaient essayer de capter Radio Londres, comme les Russes au temps de l’Union soviétique devaient tenter d’écouter Radio Free Europe. C’est répugnant.

La quasi-totalité des journalistes français sont des imposteurs.

C’est une honte et un scandale.

© Guy Millière pour Dreuz.info.

Toute reproduction interdite sans l’autorisation écrite de l’auteur.

* En achetant le livre avec ce lien, vous soutenez Dreuz qui reçoit une commission de 5%. Cette information est fournie pour assurer une parfaite transparence des conséquences de votre action, conformément à la recommandation 16 CFR § 255.5 de la Federal Trade Commission.

‘Isolated incident’? Violent episodes from the Left are beginning to feel like Groundhog Day; As long as the Left remains self-righteous, it will continue to terrorize the rest of us

As long as the Left remains self-righteousness, it will continue to terrorize the rest of us

warns Benny Huang at Conservative Review.

Pop star Madonna let everyone know that in the era of Donald Trump she’s choosing love over hate—though the decision was apparently very difficult. Speaking at the Women’s March on Washington, the aging “material girl” mentioned that she’d spent a lot of time wallowing in thoughts of blowing up the White House. Thankfully she decided against it though not because she had any moral qualms about terrorism. It’s just that, according to her, blowing up the White House “won’t change anything.” It’s good to know that Madonna opposes killing the First Family and a slew of incoming staffers for purely tactical reasons. 

It occurs to me that Madonna was doing nothing more than virtue signaling—that is, demonstrating what a good person she is without doing much of anything. She wants a pat on the back for not succumbing to political terrorism as an outlet for her rage. If that’s not a testament to her loving nature, what is?

This is the same woman who produced a music video on the eve of the Iraq War in which she tossed a hand grenade at a George W. Bush look-alike. After filming, she decided not to release that video for fear that it might be misconstrued as anti-military. But can you see the pattern? Whenever someone Madonna doesn’t like occupies the Oval Office she indulges her darkest assassination fantasies.

Madonna’s speech, just like the march itself, relied heavily on the theme of love conquering hate. She began by shouting “Welcome to the revolution of love!” to the adoring audience. The crowd responded with about as many hoots and hollers as when she admitted her terrorism fantasies several minutes later. She ended her speech by leading the crowd in chanting “We choose love.” This basic dichotomy of love on one side—their side—and hate on the other, has become so hackneyed that I can hardly believe that people still use it; but they do. Like a one-trick pony, the American Left reaches for different variations on this dummy-proof bumper sticker slogan over and over again, usually to the exclusion of reasoned argument.

One clever version trotted out in 2016 was “Love Trumps Hate,” a double entendre that played upon their hate object’s surname. For another example, think back to California’s Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that allowed Californians to decide how they would define marriage. The name of the initiative was unfortunate because it lent itself so easily to the disparaging “No H8” meme. When the choice was presented in those terms—love on one side and hate on the other—it wasn’t easy to stand against the forces of “love,” no matter how vengeful and bilious they proved to be.

The reason this love-versus-hate juxtaposition is so often employed is because it’s effective. Why learn another trick when the old one works so well? Politics is a propaganda war and we conservatives have been on the losing side of it for a long time because we don’t see it for what it is. A well-framed, emotionally-charged slogan does more to persuade than a million think tank white papers. That’s just reality. The intellect matters less than the heart—and the gut matters most of all.

Far too often, conservatives’ ineffectual response to the love-versus-hate formulation is to point out that the other side is pretty hateful too. Which it is, of course, though I would caution against drawing any equivalence. While the Left is clearly nastier, they are also shameless which means that no amount of highlighting their vitriol ever makes them blush.

Even in Madonna’s speech, the one she kicked off by welcoming the protestors to the “revolution of love,” she still said “F–k you” to her detractors. And the crowd roared. But that’s different, you see, because Madonna was merely hating on haters. As the hack journalist Jonathan Capehart once said on MSNBC, tolerance “should not be a two-way street.”

And clearly it isn’t. On the same day Madonna spoke, across the country in the other Washington, a Trump opponent shot a man in the stomach outside of a Milo Yiannopoulos event, mistakenly believing him to the Trump supporter and a white supremacist. In reality, the victim was a Bernie Sanders supporter.

 … Can’t you just feel the love?

‘Isolated incident!’ the Left shouts. Well no, not really. Episodes like these are beginning to feel like Groundhog Day, only less funny. The scene in Washington State wasn’t quite so different than the one in Washington, DC. On Inauguration Day in the nation’s capital 217 leftist “protestors” were arrested and six police officers were injured, in addition to lots of smashed windows and a few scattered fires. The AP report labeled all counter-Trump voices at the event “protestors,” even those who were clearly engaged in wanton destruction. Other media reports were quick to point out that the so-called protests were “mostly peaceful,” a throwaway line that reporters like to include whenever people on the Left engage in mayhem, lest anyone draw broad generalizations. Left-wing riots aren’t really riots, you see, unless it can be proven that every person in attendance took part. The old “mostly peaceful” canard is never used when the protestors are conservative. When conservative protests are entirely peaceful, the media focus instead on what potential violence might happen in the future or on the protestors’ “tone.”

It seems that there are so many “isolated incidents” of leftist mayhem that we should stop seeing each one in a vacuum. For those with eyes to see there is a clear pattern. Leftists convince us to ignore the pattern by accusing us of judging the “protestors” by a few supposed bad apples. Funny how many bad apples seem show up at anti-Trump rallies all across the country, just as they showed up at Black Lives Matter events, Occupy events, anti-Iraq War events, anti-WTO events, and wherever else two or more leftists scheme.

What happened in DC was not a peaceful protest gone wrong. It was a pre-meditated riot gone right. Responsible journalists should stop talking about it as if it were anything else.
 
Of course, not everyone in attendance necessarily got the memo that the whole thing was slated to be an orgy of destruction, though they would have to have been naïve not to foresee what eventually happened. An organized coalition promised that they would wreak so much havoc that DC would be shut down. Does that mean that every protestor who attended was part of this coalition? No, though they would have been treated that way if it had been conservatives crashing a hypothetical Hillary inauguration. Even still, anyone who attended the Washington riot and pretends that he thought he was taking part in a nonviolent protest is either lying or stupid.

Yet no matter how many times we point out that there is just as much hate on their side—if not more—they brush it off. In their minds, their hate is not hate because they only hate people who deserve it. Never for a moment do these people lose faith in their own goodness. They don’t doubt that they are the most benevolent, the most open-minded, and the most accepting of all people; in other words, that they are liberals in the truest and finest sense of the word. If they occasionally fantasize about killing the president that’s not really hate because a) they don’t actually follow through with it, and b) the president kind of deserves it.

My hope is that some day the scales will fall from their eyes and they will see what grotesque monsters they have become. It’s a long shot, I know, but it may be our only chance for survival. As long as the Left remains self-righteousness, it will continue to terrorize the rest of us. If only we could strip them of their unshakeable conviction that they are the good guys they might start to see what demented psychos they have become. This is will be no easy task, of course, because most leftists have dehumanized their opponents so thoroughly that they don’t see hating them as a fault. It isn’t even hate. …