Hiring a Teenage Girl for the Benefit of Dilbert's Company

Scott Adams presents a Dilbert cartoon on making hiring decisions to help resolve the most complicated technical decisions of the company…

Our élites constantly lecture everyone about "disinformation," about "big lies", etc; They're the biggest liars of all, with zero accountability

Stacy McCain takes on the J6 Committee's Tantrum (thanks to Glenn Reynolds): 

“… the terrible violence … scrambling to get more police and military reinforcements on the scene … the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and insurrectionists … the attempted political coup and violent insurrection … the mobilizing of a domestic violent extremist movement …”

Listening to that, I was struck by how easily these hyperbolic phrases tumbled out of Raskin’s mouth [that of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland)], as evidence of how insulated inside the echo chamber Democrats have become and, of course, the “journalist” Willie Geist is part of that echo chamber. He is as objective about the J6 Committee as my teenage daughter is objective about Harry Styles.

The predicate of the J6 “investigation,” the fundamental tenet of the belief system in which the Capitol riot was an “attempted political coup,” is that there is no reason to believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent. If no reasonable person could suspect that the election was stolen, then what happened on J6 was an illegal “insurrection,” an attempt to overthrow the legitimate government. Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) are unwilling to hear the arguments made or to examine the evidence cited by those who claim that Biden was not legitimately elected. The bedrock assumption of Democrats is that Biden was elected in a landslide — 81 million votes! the most popular presidential candidate in history! — and thus they view any expression of doubt about Biden’s legitimacy as “insurrectionist” crazy-talk.

This is not how discourse in a democratic society is supposed to operate. Controversies over public policy would never occur, if we all shared the same set of beliefs, and so the fact that there is controversy about any subject (in this case, the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election) requires a public hearing of arguments on both sides of the dispute, so that the electorate may be fully informed. The J6 Committee deliberately avoided such a discussion. Indeed, the whole purpose of this committee (which, by the way, lacks legitimacy under the normal rules of House procedure) was to criminalize doubt about the 2020 election.

It is one thing, when partisans on either side of dispute are seeking to rally their supporters, to make a one-sided argument in favor of a particular policy. This is entirely normal in politics. Yet the proceedings of a congressional committee are not supposed to be partisan rallies. Pelosi’s charade of phony “bipartisanship” — handpicking Trump-haters Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger as “Republican” members of the select committee, over the objections of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — cannot disguise the one-sided nature of the J6 Committee’s business. At no time in the operations of this committee has there been any fair consideration of the views of 74 million Americans who voted to reelect President Trump, 77% of whom think cheating affected the 2020 election.

 … There is a world of difference between a protest motivated by a sincere sense of grievance and an “attempted political coup,” and yet at no time did the J6 Committee ever allow any consideration of the election doubts that inspired the events of J6.

Furthermore, and this is equally crucial, Democrats and the media absolutely refuse to recognize that the outbreak of violence at the Capitol in January 2021 was clearly inspired by the months of “Black Lives Matter” riots that broke out in May 2020 — riots that the Democrats enthusiastically applauded. Many millions of dollars of damage were inflicted, and many people killed or injured, during the weeks of arson, vandalism and looting which CNN reporter Omar Jimenez infamously described as “fiery but most peaceful” protests.

By applauding this destruction, Democrats thereby legitimized violent “protests,” and if the Capitol rioters believed there would be no repercussions for their actions on January 6 — well, why shouldn’t they believe that? Antifa thugs and mobs of urban looters had gotten away with criminal activity which everybody saw happening live on television throughout the summer of 2020, and Democrats never objected to those “mostly peaceful” protests.

Glenn Greenwald strikes back (thanks to Instapundit) in a Twitter thread:

The issue isn't so much NBC and CNN failed to cover the materials in the Hunter Biden laptop about *Joe Biden's* business activities in Ukraine and China (though that's true). The main issue is that both networks repeatedly *lied* about it by calling it "Russian disinformation."

I'll never stop talking about this and don't care if it's annoying. This is a huge journalistic scandal: almost every major news outlet ratified an outright lie to manipulate the 2020 election and - to this day - not one of them, not one, has apologized, explained or retracted.

 

This is why I say - and I mean - that these corporate news outlets and their employees deserve your deep contempt. They constantly lecture everyone about "disinformation," about "big lies", etc. They're the biggest liars of all, with zero accountability.

I promise you: if you talk to @HuffPost's political reporters and editors, they really believe they're the good guys, fighting disinformation, etc. etc. 

Every time I say this - these corporate news outlets deserve your hatred and contempt - people in these outlets, including friends, DM me, upset. But tell me: how can you justify this? Everyone knows this was a CIA lie. Yet *not one of you* has admitted you broadcast lies.

Back in February 2020, nine months before the election, Caroline Glick wrote, presciently, that it all boils down to the politics of projection: 

Since 2016, the Democrats have repeatedly projected all of their prejudices, malicious actions and plans onto Trump and the Republicans … [For instance] the collusion that Clinton and later the FBI, CIA, the Democrat Party, the media and a special prosecutor accused Trump of carrying out with the Kremlin was actually conducted by Clinton and her campaign with active assistance from the CIA, FBI, the media and the Democrat Party against Trump. In accusing Trump, they were describing their own actions. 

 … Since the impeachment hearings last January, Democrat lawmakers and aligned media have been pushing the claim that Trump will refuse to accept the election results if he loses. Just as Trump is repeatedly asked whether he condemns white supremacists, he and his campaign advisors have been asked repeatedly by reporters whether he intends to concede if the results of the election are not in his favor. At Tuesday’s debate, Wallace continued the practice. He asked the candidates to pledge to accept the election results.

 … What is clear … is that if you want to understand who the Democrats are and what they are doing, all you need to do is look at what they are accusing Trump and his colleagues of being and of doing

Related: • Of the 47 countries in Europe today, 46 of them currently require government-issued photo IDs to vote
• Joe Biden, Why Are You Calling Denmark a White Supremacist Country? And You, Barack Obama: Why Are You Calling Africa a Racist Continent? 
• Democrats don't support voter fraud; they just worry about disenfranchising the deceased
• Voter ID: Apparently not allowing minorities to cheat is a form of racial oppression
• Let’s dispense with the myth that liberals are really against voter fraud; Voter fraud is actually an essential part of their election strategy
• If the Democrats learned anything from their 2016 debacle it’s that they didn’t cheat nearly enough
• Isn't America Being Governed by a Mafia Family Dynasty, setting things up so that there will always be Democrats in power?
• Inside of a month, Democrats have redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy — And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party
• Voter Fraud: A Note to Leftists Who Claim that "Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced"
• Dennis Prager: The Numerous (and Sweeping) Anomalies Regarding the 2020 Election That Cannot Be Ignored

"Defund the Police" Vs. "Defund the FBI": What Tocqueville and the Founders Might Have Pointed Out

According to non-thinking Republicans (that would be RINOs, for the most part) and to non-thinking Democrats (that would be the lot of them), "Defund the Police" and "Defund the FBI" seem to be, at best, two sides of the same coin.

1/4)  Seeking the Approval of Those Who Hate Us

That, at least, was how Mike Pence made headlines after the FBI raided Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in August, saying that calls to defund the FBI was “just as wrong” as shouts by leftist drama queens and crisis seekers to defund the police.

“The Republican Party is the party of law and order,” [the former VP] said. “Our party stands with the men and women who stand on the thin blue line at the federal and state and local level, and these attacks on the FBI must stop. Calls to defund the FBI are just as wrong as calls to defund the police.”

Is that truly the case, however? Is "Defund the FBI" really the equivalent of "Defund the Police"?

I have written before on conservatives (more than a few of them fairly religious, unfortunately) who, as admirable as they otherwise may be, don't seem to use their brains and are just clueless (maybe not as clueless as Joe Biden, but certainly far less willing to fight).

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

In that perspective, Trump’s former vice president added this:

“I also want to remind my fellow Republicans, we can hold the attorney general accountable for the decision he made without attacking the rank-and-file law enforcement personnel at the FBI.”

Fine.  But again, why isn't any progressive on the left-leaning side making similar comments regarding local police forces?  Why can't they — why can't we all — be against the cops who are corrupt or who shoot and/or kill unarmed civilians (white as well as black) while not exonerating the rest of them? Why must only conservatives and Republicans play the Nuance and Self-Blame games while the Left (and the Rinos) get to scream their virtue signals to their hearts' content? Why the usual double standards?

For instance, listen to one Matt Lewis. He claims to be a "conservative", which may be true, but it seems more likely that he is using the left's old trick whereby leftists write letters and posts claiming that "I am a lifelong and faithful Republican except that there is just this little problem that I cannot stomach that dreadful person (Trump/Bush/Reagan/Palin/etc/etc/etc…) that my party nominated" followed by (this being an actual Matt Lewis quote) "Today’s Republican Party is 180 degrees different from the party that most of its members—like myself—signed up to join."

When you mention "the devastating revelations in the Jan. 6 hearings" (ho-hum) and the "many outrageously cynical flip-flops for the party of Trump", Matt Lewis — without ever once alluding to any of the Democrat party's many faults — you might just be a Liz Cheney-type RINO, and therefore an outright fake conservative.

But no matter. Let us hear what Matt Lewis has to say regarding alleged Republican hypocrisy:

After a 2020 election cycle that saw the “law and order” party criticize Democrats for wanting to “defund the police,” we’ve seen quite a few members of the right’s commentariat blithely wave off video of MAGA rioters beating Capitol police officers with flagpoles. (Those cops’ lives don’t matter, to the Blue Lives Matter crowd.) Now, a lot of those same voices on the right are saying, “Defund the FBI.” So much for lionizing the law enforcement heroes who run toward danger.

Do the FBI's "law enforcement heroes … run toward danger", Matt Lewis?  Or do they run towards hymn-singing pro-life activists and towards Melania's underwear drawer in Palm Beach?

Why the reversal? It’s not because the police have suddenly become more abusive, and it’s not because Republicans figured out that standing against law enforcement wins votes. The real reason concerns Trump’s attempt to avoid accountability and oversight.

The police have not become more abusive, Matt Lewis?! See Tucker Carlson's replies below (section 3/4). That Matt could write this post without even alluding to the many instances of concern regarding the politicized FBI (not to mention the the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland calling not just January 6 protesters but reg'lar run-o'-the-mill parents "domestic terrorists") — after refraining from even alluding to the many instances of grave problems with the 2000 election — seems to confirm that he is a fake conservative or a RINO in the Romney/Cheney mold. Someone who Hates Our Very Existence.

Indeed, the first indication that Matt Lewis is not being straightforward is — again — that he never, ever, not once, pauses to do what seems to be obvious, i.e., condemn the leftists' "Defund the Police" slogan. Wasn't that what, after all, started the whole mess in the first place? Couldn't Matt Lewis have done so just once, at least in a brief aside?

This is one of the main ways of identifying an undeclared partisan such as a RINO, by the way, and this you can (try to) explain to a Republican (real or fake), to a Democrat, and/or to an Independent alike, as well as to a foreigner:  a self-professed conservative, man or woman, black or white, who gets on his high horses always and only, or mainly, concerning scandals real or alleged related to members of the GOP.

At this point, let us turn to Instapundit, who links to The very bad reason white Democrats want to defund the police. Here, The New York Post asks, "if higher socioeconomic status and greater insulation from violent crime do not entirely explain the white vs. non-white “wokeness gap,” what does?"

The answer, [contends Zach Goldberg], is that group-based feelings of guilt and shame over perceived white privilege and racial inequity tend to prevail over worries about risk. Particularly in the aftermath of high-profile racialized police incidents (such as Floyd’s death), white Democrats — who score high on measures of collective shame and guilt — become fixated on distinguishing themselves as “good white people,” who are doing something (however counterproductive) to protect minorities from the “racist” institutions that “victimize” them. The downside of depolicing either doesn’t register, is rationalized, or [is] dismissed altogether. 

 … these findings should at least give pause to those who dismiss white depolicers as “limousine” liberals supporting “virtuous” policies without having to live under them. 

The reality might be even more disturbing: Gripped by “white savior” ideology, they may actually be willing to endure the consequences for what they falsely perceive will bring about equity and justice. If only they wouldn’t impose this tradeoff on the rest of us.

Read the whole thing™. (Merci `a Monsieur Driscoll pour le hyperlien.)

Below, I focus on more historical reasons for what separates the two movements.

2/4)  The Historical Perspective: The Origins of the American Republic

Because we are not here to simply take down Matt Lewis.

We are here to discuss in general terms whether Defunding the FBI is really on the same level as Defunding the Police.  Is it tit for tat, and nothing more? Is the one as bad as the other? Is one just replying with a Nyah-nyah to the other side?

The answer comes from de Alexis de Tocqueville:

One of the most pertinent things that the writer of Of Democracy in America found in his 1830s visit to the young American republic was how every citizen felt connected to all concerns, local as well as national, was a participant therein, and how well the Republic functioned because decisions were always taken at the lowest (at the most local) level possible.

In "Democracy in America," published in 1833, Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the way Americans preferred voluntary association to government regulation

writes Niall Ferguson (thanks to Instapundit).

"The inhabitant of the United States," he wrote, "has only a defiant and restive regard for social authority and he appeals to it . . . only when he cannot do without it."

Unlike Frenchmen, he continued, who instinctively looked to the state to provide economic and social order, Americans relied on their own efforts. "In the United States, they associate for the goals of public security, of commerce and industry, of morality and religion. There is nothing the human will despairs of attaining by the free action of the collective power of individuals."

What especially amazed Tocqueville was the sheer range of nongovernmental organizations Americans formed: "Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations . . . but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fetes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools."

That concerns policing as well.

A local cop (of whatever race) will hardly agree to gratuitously aiming at or arresting the son of, say, the Doe family down the street as a "white supremacist" or as a "domestic terrorist" or some other sort of wild criminal charge since he has known John Doe (and his parents and his family) since young John was a kid (whatever the cop's age, older or in the same age bracket).  And if he did, the cop's own neighbors — especially the cop's own mother — would be sure to intervene, and browbeat her policeman son for acting like a twerp.

Consider the difference with an FBI member, or certainly an FBI leader, thousands of miles from home, whose new "neighbors" are professional politicians in the Democrat-dominated Washington DC along with the rest of the professional Drama Queens, crisis seekers, and hoi pollo whose cocktail parties and whose cool kids' parties he wishes to attend and whose women he wishes to meet.

In general, America's local decisions attitude implies trust:  trust in one's neighbors, trust in one's fellow citizens, trust in a We-Can-Do-It spirit.

This is what the American Revolution was about.  If you want to attach a religious dimension to the Spirit of '76, what the revolutionaries fought for was adhering to the Bible's command to "Treat (and love) your neighbor like yourself."

The message "Don't tread on me" is not only a warning (to Britain and to George III) to "stay away or reap the consequences"; It is a — rather dispassionate — affirmation of the Biblical command, with strong practical implications. It implies that the use of bureaucrats (not just policemen) and all types of aristocrats in life is often unnecessary.

As W Cleon Skousen's The 5000 Year Leap (A Miracle That Changed the World) points out, the independent attitude was all that was needed for progress to spring forward by leaps and bounds, once the equality of man was declared and, better yet, ensconced in the fabric of a new nation.

If you can treat things on the local level as well as, or better than, at the national level (or simply at a larger level), there is not much need for bureaucrats and a socialist state.

This, not at all incidentally, explains why modern-day leftists, and why the Deep State, hate the Judeo-Christian religion, along with America itself. (Shouldn't the average schmoe be feeling (collective) shame and guilt?)

(Regarding local control, incidentally, if you believe that the South's Democrats fought for States' rights during the Civil War, know that it is nothing less than The Greatest Myth in U.S. History.)

As Dennis Prager writes (in Whites Aren't Hated for Slavery but for Making America and the West),

the left … hates America, which it regards as the paragon of capitalism. By becoming the most successful country in history, America, the quintessential capitalist country, remains a living rebuke to everything the left stands for. If America can be brought down, every left-wing egalitarian dream can be realized. … What the left does very much seek is to destroy America as we have known it -- the capitalist and Judeo-Christian enclave of personal freedom.

This is what Democrats abhor:  the idea that the average citizen and neighbor is worthy of trust.  This is what the Left can't stomach. That policemen are more loyal to their community and to America writ large than to its central government. They want to defund the police in order to put more power in the hands of the national police force in Washington whose members, or at least whose leaders, are less loyal to their neighbors in the communities in which the grew up than to their new "neighbors" the national politicians and the Deep State (not to mention the new state religion).

3/4)  Watch Some FBI Maneuvers that Would Not Likely Be Duplicated Among Your Everyday Police Force

Following August's Mar-a-Lago raid, the FBI raided dozens of Trump supporters nationwide in September, meaning that In 2022, whether you're considered dangerous or not depends on who you voted for. Tucker Carlson contrasts the FBI raids with rifles and body armor on pro-lifers singing hymns at abortion centers with the FBI's lack of interest in the firebombings of pregnancy service centers:

 … what's really stunning is nobody — the people who've lectured us for years, "the criminal justice system is just too mean", that "MS-13 are children of God" — they don't have a problem with this at all. The people who claim to hate mass incarceration, it turns out, are strongly for the mass incarceration of anyone who disagrees with them; and they're doing it. 

As Julie Kelly has reported relentlessly, judges have sentenced dozens of January 6 defendants to months in prison, followed by probation. Why? Oh, because they entered a public building as police officers stood by, lifted the ropes for them. What was that about, by the way? Don't ask, shut up. They belong in jail.

As of this week, dozens of January 6 defendants are still being held in pretrial detention. No one notices. Where's the Republican Party in that? Nowhere. At the same time, the FBI has made zero arrests — none — to protect pro-lifers from actual violence — not hymn singing, firebombing. The CompassCare Pregnancy Services center in Buffalo was firebombed in June. No arrests have been made. In fact, the FBI seized surveillance footage from the facility and never gave it back.

 … See how this works? So, a group aligned with Joe Biden firebombs a building (firebombs!) and the FBI does nothing. Instead, they send agents with automatic rifles to the home of a 55-year-old man with 11 children because he sung hymns in an abortion clinic. 

4/4)  Conclusion

What it all boils down to, doesn't it?

On the contrary: "Defund the Police" and "Defund the FBI" complement each other exceedingly well. But not in the way Pence and Lewis think.

If you want to defund the Police, you do not want to defund the FBI; indeed, you want to defund local policemen for the nation to have to rely on a centralized police force, one that is loyal to the power in place instead of to the neighbors in one's tiny community.

If you want to "Defund the Police", you want to actively "fund" the FBI. Conversely, if you want to "Defund the FBI", it is because you trust in, and because you want to fund, your neighbor — the average American citizen (black or white) — to wear the local police uniform.

The national police force is open to politicization. Local police forces are not. (Not as much, at least.)

A number of members of the FBI are willing, perhaps eager, to see the establishment of a police state, or at best blind to it.

In that perspective, shall we let the last word go to Steve Bannon?  Lest you think that I have been too polite and courteous throughout this just-the-facts-ma'am post, Steve will let go a broadside or two.

In response to Mike Pence, Steve Bannon argued that the FBI's raid on President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate 

represented the actions of a "police state," which he said justified why some Republicans were calling for its dismantling.  "There is no comparison of any defunding the police," he claimed. "We've never called for defunding the police. We're calling for defunding the police state."

Anti-Tehran Demonstration in Paris Marches on Iranian Embassy Only to Be Tear-Gassed by French Police

Across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, thousands of demonstrators, many (perhaps most) of them Iranian, gathered at le Trocadéro this weekend to protest against the anti-woman repression in Iran and the warmongering policies of the ayatollahs in Tehran. 

In the wake of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of the police almost a month ago, one sign read "End sexual apartheid. Close all [Western] embassies in Iran." 

On the other side, it read "European Union must stop nuclear deal. Biden must stop giving money to the Islamic Regime in Iran" with the four final words covered in red to symbolize blood. 

Chanting such slogans as femme, vie, liberté ! (Woman, life, freedom!), the protestors left the colorful square during the Sunday protest to try to march on the Iranian embassy in the French capital, report Le Monde and the AFP, only to be tear-gassed by the French police before they could reach their destination.

A similar protest and similar clashes have taken place in London…

Here are some of the photos  that I took at le Palais de Chaillot.

The MSM Guidebook on How to Determine the Blame for Various Types of Disasters

The Media Rushes to "Katrina" Ron DeSantis, writes Ace of Spades, leading Instapundit's Gail Heriot to echo Townhall's Brad Slager and make the following comment:

The media can’t wait to blame DeSantis for Hurricane Ian.  Of course, that’s nothing new.  Bush got blamed for Katrina.  And the recent report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights put the blame on Trump for Hurricane Maria.  What’s interesting is how the blame gets assigned to the federal, state, or territorial level depending on where the Republicans are.

Almost five years ago, I tried to figure out how conversations are carried out in the MSM's news rooms during disasters, the natural types as well as other kinds:

3 Political Scandals of the Past Two Decades in the USA, and How the MSM Managed to Find the Culprits

1) WHO IS GUILTY?! In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, rescue efforts were bungled in Louisiana's largest city. Who should be blamed for the scandal?

Should it be the mayor of New Orleans?

Well, ain't Ray Nagin a Democrat? So: scratch that.

Should it be the governor of the Pelican State?

Well, ain't Kathleen Blanco a Democrat? So: scratch that.

Should it be the president of the United States?

Hold on: who's in the White House? Ain't it a hombre by the name of George W Bush? And ain't he a Republican?! Yup, it certainly appears so. Well (Snaps fingers) there you go! Nailed it!

2) WHO IS GUILTY?! In 2014, lead poisoning was found in the water supply of the town of Flint, Michigan. Who should be blamed for the scandal?

Should it be the president of the United States?

Hold on: who's in the White House? Ain't it, lessee here, this fellow by the name of, uh, Barack Obama? And ain't he a Democrat? So: scratch that.

Should it be the mayor of Flint?

Well, ain't Dayne Walling a Democrat? So: scratch that.

Should it be the governor of the Great Lakes State?

Hold on a second: ain't Rick Snyder a Republican?
But (Snaps fingers) of course! Nailed it!

3) WHO IS GUILTY?! In 2018, a false ballistic missile alert threw Hawaii into a panic. Who should be blamed for the scandal?

Should it be the governor of the Aloha State?

Well, ain't David Ige a Democrat? So: scratch that.

Should it be the legislature of Hawaii?

Well, ain't the state's senate 100% Democrat? And isn't its House of Representatives Democrat, 46 to 5? So: scratch that.

Should it be the president of the United States?

Hold on: Who is in the White House? (Lemme think…) Ain't it a dude by the name of Donald Trump? And ain't he a Republican? Well (Snaps fingers) there you go! Nailed it! 

That turned out to be pretty easy…

Update: thanks to Ed Driscoll for his hypelink, which, among other things, features

• martynWW's Simpler chart for hurricanes:

  

Another update: In early 2026, a failure of the Potomac interceptor resulted in the largest spill of wastewater in U.S. history. In view of the fact that the District of Columbia and Maryland are in the hands of members of the Democrat party, Salena Zito reacted by saying, tongue firmly in cheek, that 

It is interesting to me in a profession that loves to point out the political party of a disaster to not see the mention of any political party related to this disaster.

Note to Google & Blogger: Immediately Un-Ban No Pasarán's Posts on the Nazis' (Hostile) Attitude Towards the Christian Religion!

"This post was unpublished because it violates Blogger Community Guidelines.
To republish, please update the content to adhere to guidelines."

THAT DIDN'T LAST LONG!

Is Google's Blogger joining the Woke Left and their Cancel culture?! (To be sure, they probably already have, and that years ago…)

Apparently, the Left cannot stomach the idea that they cannot paste the group they claim to hate the most (Nazis! Fascists!) on their adversaries and their faith(s). (By the way — quick aside — whatever happened to the importance of the so-called Godwin rule?! Dropped by the wayside, we can guess, as soon as it proved unhelpful to the Left…)

No sooner had Ed Driscoll, on September 10, linked to a post on No Pasarán (卐mas Caroling: The Extremes Hitler Wanted to Go To in Order to Replace Christianity with the “Religion” of National Socialism) than the post was removed ("unpublished"). 

Google! Blogger! After one week, it is time to reinstate that post — in addition to the handful of others you have removed!

The Caroling post dates from 2012: For 10 years, nobody has had reason to complain about that post for the simple reason that — like everything else we (try to) do on No Pasaràn since the blog was founded, 18 years ago — it is (or certainly tries to be) entirely fact-filled, it is entirely dispassionate, and there ought to be nothing controversial about its conclusions. 

To reiterate: Barely had Ed Driscoll linked to Mark Judge's Adolf Hitler Thought More Like Nancy Pelosi Than Donald Trump piece than my 10-year-old post giving ample evidence of a campaign of Nazi hostility to Christmas and to the Christian religion was banned — as was indeed, a follow-up post three days later replying to a couple of wise-ass leftists in the comments section alleging that my post was wrong.

Despite [the] evidence, [Richard Weikart writes in Hitler's Religion (The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich)], the idea that Hitler was a Christian still pops up in Progressive arguments and on atheist websites. “One of the reasons they argue that Hitler was a Christian is that they are atheists or agnostics and want to bash Christianity. They’re wanting to show the evils of Christianity, so making Christianity responsible for the Holocaust meets their idea about Christianity representing all the evils in the world.”

The following day, September 11, I discovered that three other posts were "shut down" on No Pasaràn very recently, on August 25, i.e., two weeks after the banishment as well as between Ed's posts of July 16 and of September 10 linking to No Pasarán's 卐mas Caroling. It's not entirely clear when that post — which Instapundit has linked to a few times over the years (Danke schön, Herr Driscoll und Professor Reynolds) — was removed, i.e., the fourth to be "unpublished."

The three other posts banned, all at least seven years old (!), are:

• Adolf Hitler in Religious Surroundings: Is There Really Evidence That the Führer Was a Christian? (December 2012)

• By laying the crusades at the feet of Christianity, Obama was unwittingly laying ISIL's atrocities at Islam's feet  (December 2015)

• Homo Scandals? Reporters are quick to self-censor when they have reservations about the damage their stories might do to beloved causes (the latter, from December 2014 — which in my mind was the least uncontroversial of the lot given its focus on the gay agenda — was restored within an hour or two of my complaint on September 11, 2022, and is the only one so restored)

When going into Blogger, I find the post(s) concerned "unpublished", i.e., reverted to Draft status (that's where the four screenshots in this post come from), along with the option Request review and with the message

This post was unpublished because it violates Blogger Community Guidelines. To republish, please update the content to adhere to guidelines.

Except they never indicate which part(s) of the content is (are) in violation of the guidelines. It's not like they are highlighted in yellow or marked in red or something.

As far as I can see, there is not many ways to communicate with Blogger or Google about their Blogger Content Policy. All I can do is click on the orange Request review button (see screenshots above and below) and wait. 

Incidentally: if any reader(s) have any information about how to contact Google, Blogger, or Facebook in a more reliable way, their input — to be published in Instapundit's and/or No Pasarán's comments section — would be much appreciated. 

Facebook? Wait a minute! Why mention Facebook at this time? Because on the day after the 2020 election, and without any kind of warning, I was totally banned from Zuckerberg's website. Almost two years later, I have still not been reinstated or, indeed, ever received any reason whatsoever for my banishment (my Facebook page was a place where I studiously tried to avoid politics), either as a courtesy or an automated reply or as a written answer to my (numerous) attempts to contact the powers that be.

Google! Blogger! There are not one, but two books that provide the exact same correction to the historical fallacy (the… lie?) that Adolf Hitler in any way was associated with Christianity.

Besides Richard Weikart and his Hitler's Religion, we have Ray Comfort, whose “Hitler, God and the Bible” points out der Führer devised a master strategy to crush all Christian churches, explains that it would be either ignorant or disingenuous to call Hitler a Christian:

In a special Christian Broadcasting Network program, Comfort cites the head of Hitler Youth, Boldur von Schirach, who said, “Destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist Movement.”

 … The CBN program explains how Hitler put on a religious, even Christian, façade, until he became powerful.

 … But later one of his inner circle acknowledged: “I’m absolutely clear in my own mind, and I think I can speak for the Fuhrer as well, that both the Catholic and Protestant churches will vanish from the life of our people.”

There are also numerous articles or fillers from respected (and usually left-leaning) periodicals — all duly linked by this… very blog (!) — that provide the same correction to the historical fallacy (or lie), which is in fact easily witnessed to by simply referring to such Nazi slogans as "Kirchenkampf" and "Out with Jesus!"

They include to The International Herald Tribune, Life Magazine, and  The Daily Mail, along with Denmark's foremost historical publication. Google and Blogger: do you want to ban those periodicals as well?

• Kirchenkampf: Hitler Was Determined to Diminish the Number of Catholic Schools (The International Herald Tribune) 

• How Hitler's Nazi propaganda machine tried to take Christ out of Christmas (The Daily Mail)

 • "Out With Jesus": During His 12 Years in Power, Hitler Tried to Ban the Tradition of Christmas (Denmark's Historie monthly)

• Just for the record, Hitler detested Christianity (Jonah Goldberg)

• Worshipping Little Else But the Aryan Race, Hitler Abhorred the Christian Faith and Wanted to Replace Christmas with the Pagans' Yuletide (Life Magazine)

One week is more than enough, Google and Blogger. Stop the hysterics, ignore the fearmongering, and re-publish my posts. All of them. Now. (And thanks for linking this post, Instapundit.)

A week later, this NP post replying to leftist attacks with dispassionate facts is still "under review"

Not PC: "If we can't condemn Islam for Muslim terrorists, why do we condemn Christians" for the Crusades? And, while we're at it — update — how about domestic and "white terrorists"?

 

"All the News that's fit to ignore." However, this post has been re-published… 

Cheers, Elizabeth: You Brought Us So Much, Your Majesty

Today is no time to remember the Germanic origins of the Windsor family nor the scandals which rocked the Crown nor the reaction in Ireland nor, indeed, such items as the previous record-holder, Queen Victoria, or Prince Philip's humor. (If you click on one link in this post, Philip's "humour" should be it.)

Today is the time to mourn the head of the Anglican Church, Elizabeth II, under whose charm Winston Churchill (and most of her other 14 prime ministers) fell — who held a particular post in the culture, from James Bond 007 (Daniel Craig) to the Simpsons through the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten. (Cheers to our mate Ed Driscoll.)

And Géo Magazine brings us a diaporama of the queen's life while predicting what to expect in the coming days and during the funeral of Windsor Castle's chief inhabitant, seemingly the UK's last tie to World War II and to the British Empire.

A couple of (somewhat) remarkable things that Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III did — when they were still Princess Elizabeth and Prince Charles (aka the Prince of Wales) — was give their successors names that no king had used for some 200 to 300 years. 

The previous King Charles (II) passed away in 1685 while the previous King William (IV) died in 1837, and neither seem to have done much to deserve unfettered admiration. In fact, William IV seems to  be remembered today mainly as the uncle and predecessor of Queen Victoria, while both King Charles II and his father (Charles I) were seen at the time (as well as in modern times, somewhat) as something akin to traitors, leading to Cromwell's trial and beheading of Charles I — so Elizabeth's choice of a name was particularly courageous. 

Incidentally, the future King William V broke the 20th century's naming spell in 2013, by making his son the future King George VII…

Update: As far Power Link's Week in Pictures comment about Charles inheriting the throne at the age of 73 is concerned ("it is amazing that the guy is taking the throne at an age when most men have started into retirement. Whatever happened to boy kings, etc?"), it is far from uncommon for one monarch having an exceedingly long reign, immediately followed by the son or daughter (quite naturally) with a rather short one. With Victoria and Edward VII, it was similar (reigns of 63 years and 9 years, respectively), as it was for their contemporaries, Denmark's Christian IX and his son Frederik VIII (42 years and 6 years).

Of the 47 countries in Europe today, 46 of them currently require government-issued photo IDs to vote

Is Ensuring Election Integrity Anti-Democratic? asks John R. Lott, Jr, Founder and President of the Crime Prevention Research Center, in a speech at Hillsdale College:

 … in 2005, the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform issued a report that proposed a uniform system of requiring a photo ID in order to vote in U.S. elections. The report also pointed out that widespread absentee voting makes vote fraud more likely. Voter files contain ineligible, duplicate, fictional, and deceased voters, a fact easily exploited using absentee ballots to commit fraud. Citizens who vote absentee are more susceptible to pressure and intimidation. And vote-buying schemes are far easier when citizens vote by mail.

 … It was a truly bipartisan commission that made what seemed at the time to be common sense proposals.

How things have changed. Some of the Commission’s members, Jimmy Carter among them, came out [in 2020] to disavow the Commission’s work. And despite surveys showing that Americans overwhelmingly support measures to ensure election integrity—a recent Rasmussen survey found that 80 percent of Americans support a voter ID requirement—Democratic leaders across the board oppose such measures in the strongest terms.

 … Sadly but predicably, [President Biden suggested] that requiring voter IDs would mean returning people to slavery. 

But the fact is that the U.S. is an outlier among the world’s democracies in not requiring voter ID. Of the 47 countries in Europe today, 46 of them currently require [the common-sense policy of] government-issued photo IDs to vote.

When it comes to absentee voting, we Americans, accustomed as we are to very loose rules, are often shocked to learn that 35 of the 47 European countries—including France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden—don’t allow absentee voting for citizens living in country. Another ten European countries—including England, Ireland, Denmark, Portugal, and Spain—allow absentee voting, but require voters to show up in person and present a photo ID to pick up their ballots. It isn’t like in the U.S., where a person can say he’s going to be out of town and have a ballot mailed to him.

England used to have absentee voting rules similar to ours in the U.S. But in 2004, in the city of Birmingham, officials uncovered a massive vote fraud scheme in the city council races. The six winning Labor candidates had fraudulently acquired about 40,000 absentee votes, mainly from Muslim areas of the city. As a result, England ended the practice of mailing out absentee ballots and required voters to pick up their ballots in person with a photo ID. 

Up until 1975, France also had loose absentee voting rules. But when massive vote fraud was discovered on the island of Corsica—where hundreds of thousands of dead people were found to be voting and even larger-scale vote-buying operations were occurring—France banned absentee voting altogether.

On the topic of buying votes, I should point out that we in the U.S. did not always have secret ballots. It wasn’t until 1880 that the first state adopted the secret ballot, and the last state to adopt it was South Carolina in 1950. Perhaps surprisingly, when secret ballots were adopted, the percentage of people voting fell by about twelve percent. Why was that? Prior to the adoption of the secret ballot, lots of people would get paid for voting. In those days, people voted by placing pieces of colored paper in the ballot box, with different colors representing different parties. Party officials would be present to observe what color paper each voter put into the box, and depending on the color, the voter would often get paid. Secret ballots put an end to this practice. 

France learned in 1975 that the use of absentee ballots led to the same practice—it allowed third parties to know how people voted and pay them for voting a certain way. This same problem is now proliferating in the U.S. in the form of “ballot harvesting,” the increasingly common practice where party functionaries distribute and collect ballots.

Defenders of our current voting rules point out that in lieu of absentee voting, some European countries allow “proxy voting,” whereby one person can designate another to vote for him. And while it is true that eight of the 47 European countries allow proxy voting—meaning that 39 do not—there are strict requirements.

 … How about our neighbors, Canada and Mexico? Canada requires a photo ID to vote. If a voter shows up at the polls without an ID, he is allowed to vote only if he declares who he is in writing and if there is someone working at the polling station who can personally verify his identity.

 … Those who oppose election integrity reform here in the U.S. often condemn it as a means of “voter suppression.” But in Mexico, the percent of people voting rose from 59 percent before the reforms to 68 percent after. It turned out that Mexicans were more, not less, likely to vote when they had confidence that their votes mattered.

H.R. 1, the radical bill Democratic Party leaders have been pushing to adopt [since 2021], would prohibit states from requiring voter ID and require states to allow permanent mail-in voting. And mail-in voting, I hardly need to point out, is even worse, in terms of vote fraud, than absentee voting. With absentee voting, a person at least has to request a ballot. With mail-in voting—as we saw in too many places in the 2020 election—ballots are simply mailed out to everyone. With loose absentee voting rules, a country is making itself vulnerable to vote fraud. With mail-in voting, a country is almost begging for vote fraud.

If the rhetoric we hear from the Left today is correct—if voter ID requirements and restrictions on absentee (or even mail-in) voting are un-democratic—then so are the countries of Europe and the rest of the developed world. But this is utter nonsense. 

Those opposing common sense measures to ensure integrity in U.S. elections—measures such as those recommended by the bipartisan Carter-Baker Commission in 2005—are not motivated by a concern for democracy, but by partisan interests.

I made this very point in a post 10 years ago (during the election of 2012), which I updated in 2021. If America is "racist" for its (common sense) election laws, then so is just about every country in Europe and, indeed, on the planet:

• Joe Biden, Why Are You Calling Denmark a White Supremacist Country? And You, Barack Obama: Why Are You Calling Africa a Racist Continent?

Also from Hillsdale College's free speech digest, Imprimis: “Zuckerbucks” and the 2020 Election by Mollie Hemingway, author of Rigged (How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections)

Months after the election, Time magazine published a triumphant story of how the election was won by “a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.”  Written by Molly Ball, a journalist with close ties to Democratic leaders, it told a cheerful story of a “conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes,” the “result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans.”

 … The plan by Democratic strategists to bring activist groups into election offices worked in part because no legislature had ever imagined that a nonprofit could take over so many election offices so easily. “If it can happen to Green Bay, Wisconsin, sweet little old Green Bay, Wisconsin, these people can coordinate any place,” said Janel Brandtjen, a state representative in Wisconsin. 

She was right. What happened in Green Bay happened in Democrat-run cities and counties across the country. Four hundred million Zuckerbucks were distributed with strings attached. Officials were required to work with “partner organizations” to massively expand mail-in voting and staff their election operations with partisan activists. The plan was genius. And because no one ever imagined that the election system could be privatized in this way, there were no laws to prevent it.

Read the whole thing™
— many eye-opening details — and
don't forget to vote in November…

More related:
• Democrats don't support voter fraud; they just worry about disenfranchising the deceased
• Voter ID: Apparently not allowing minorities to cheat is a form of racial oppression
• Let’s dispense with the myth that liberals are really against voter fraud; Voter fraud is actually an essential part of their election strategy
• If the Democrats learned anything from their 2016 debacle it’s that they didn’t cheat nearly enough
• Isn't America Being Governed by a Mafia Family Dynasty, setting things up so that there will always be Democrats in power?
• Inside of a month, Democrats have redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy — And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party
• Voter Fraud: A Note to Leftists Who Claim that "Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced"
• Dennis Prager: The Numerous (and Sweeping) Anomalies Regarding the 2020 Election That Cannot Be Ignored

The Midterms: Inform Yourself. Register. Assess. Vote.

Thanks to ¡No Pasarán! reader Damian Bennett

Corruption and Contempt: In Any MSM Article About Concerns Regarding the Fairness of the 2020 Election, the Words "Baseless" and "(Big) Lie(s)" MUST Be Inserted

Many publications provide their writers with “style sheets,” a list of dos and don’ts with respect to things like diction, punctuation, grammar, and linguistic etiquette

explains American Greatness's Roger Kimball (thanks to Ed Driscoll and to Sarah Hoyt) whose personal list of “dos”, like mine, includes the Oxford comma.

Over the last year or so, I have noticed an innovation, at once stylistic and substantive, that has taken root throughout the regime media. It is this: whenever referring to Donald Trump and the 2020 presidential election, be sure to insert editorial comments to the effect that any concerns about the fairness of that election are “baseless” or the result of “lies.” 

I do not remember when I first noticed these little injections of partisan squid ink, but by now they are ubiquitous in the anti-Trump fraternity. Just one example: in a column Saturday about Donald Trump’s weekend rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, the writer claimed Trump “spent much of his speech focusing on his baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election” (emphasis added). 

Or how about this bit from later on in the piece: “Trump spent much of his speech touting the accomplishments of his term as president . . . and promoting the lie that the 2020 election was ‘rigged and stolen’” (again, emphasis added). What do you think?

Or how about this: Trump was in Wisconsin “ostensibly” to stump for Tim Michels, the person Trump backs for Tuesday’s GOP gubernatorial primary, but he devoted much of his speech “focusing on his baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.”

I noticed the same thing early on, I find it infuriating.  The words do not just appear in the articles' bodies themselves; but also in their very headlines.

In any event, I think this new habit betrays the insecurity that often accompanies braggadocio. If I am right about that, then the practice might well be counterproductive. The intent, of course, is to make a mockery of Trump’s claims that there was something rotten in the state of Denmark and, by so doing, undercut not only Trump but also the suspicions of those many millions of people—more than 40 percent of Americans—who believe that the election was tainted. 

Is it working? I do not believe it is. Granted, for those who are already convinced that the 2020 election was on the up-and-up, the liberal sprinkling of words like “baseless” and “lies” into any discussion of Trump’s reaction to the 2020 election seems simply to be stating the obvious. A further point: since the people who believe, or say they believe, that the 2020 election was conducted fairly are also, most of them, regime-certified figures, the habit has the appearance of an echo chamber, instilling confidence and certitude only among those who already agree with the main proposition, viz that the election was fair, that Trump lost, and that his continued complaints are “baseless” “lies.”

 … But for the millions upon millions of Americans who harbor doubts about the election, and a fortiori, doubts about the regime-endorsed anti-Trump caravan, the whole show is just more evidence of deep-state corruption and contempt for those Hillary Clinton memorably dismissed as “deplorables.” 

For them, being continually bashed over the head by partisan hectoring masquerading as honest reporting is an unpleasant, and deeply unpersuasive, experience. Partly, their reaction is like Gertrude’s in Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Partly, I suspect, it recalls what Burke said in Reflections on the Revolution in France: 

Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.

Unfortunately, those loud and troublesome pests, though few, control almost all the levers of political, and state police power. They are eager to maintain that virtual monopoly. Donald Trump and the spirit he awakened challenges their control. Hence their hysteria and unremitting, importunate chink.

The Day the Pilot Who Led the Attack on Pearl Harbour Met the Pilot of the Enola Gay; & 19 Other Wise Voices About Hiroshima

Fourteen years after the end of World War II, according to Wikipedia, the pilot who commanded the attack on Pearl Harbor happened to meet with none other than the pilot of the plane which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Wikipedia:

In 1959, [Mitsuo Fuchida] was among a group of Japanese visiting the tour of U.S. Air Force equipment given by General Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Fuchida recognized Tibbets and had a conversation with him. Tibbets said to Fuchida that "[y]ou sure did surprise us [at Pearl Harbor]" in which he replied "what do you think you did to us [at Hiroshima]?" Fuchida further told him that:

You did the right thing. You know the Japanese attitude at that time, how fanatic they were, they'd die for the Emperor ... Every man, woman, and child would have resisted that invasion with sticks and stones if necessary ... Can you imagine what a slaughter it would be to invade Japan? It would have been terrible. The Japanese people know more about that than the American public will ever know.

In September 1949, incidentally, after hearing how the Western forces had treated their enemies with love and forgiveness and after subsequently reading the Bible, Mitsuo Fuchida had converted and become a Christian. (Aligato to Ed Discroll-San.)

Over at The Daily Signal, Hans von Spakovsky remembers

the many Americans who fought and sacrificed … 73 years ago in the Battle of Okinawa. The event was Operation Iceberg. It was the bloodiest battle and the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

Indeed. As I pointed out, back in 1998,

Unlike the majority of wars which flicker out when the outcome becomes obvious, World War II in the Pacific grew increasingly bloody as U.S. forces approached the Japanese homeland. For instance, the battle for Okinawa, the costliest battle for the Americans — and one of the costliest as well for the Japanese — did not end until June 21, 1945, i.e., after the Germans' surrender in the European theater.

Nor did the fighting in the Philippines end until June 10, also (a full month) after the Nazi surrender.  Back to Hans von Spakovsky:

The Battle of Okinawa only served to raise those estimates, as had the recent brutal battle for Iwo Jima, where U.S. casualties numbered 26,000 over five weeks of fighting. Only a few hundred Japanese had been captured out of the 21,000 troops who fought to the death.

Those expected casualties were the major reason for President Harry Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb.

 … The far more dangerous attacks on the Allied fleet were by dense waves of suicide kamikazes diving their planes into ships. The Fifth Fleet lost 36 ships in the Battle of Okinawa and suffered damage to another 368 ships. Almost 5,000 U.S. sailors and pilots were killed and almost as many were wounded, with over 700 Allied planes being shot down. It was the biggest naval loss of the war.

 … The Battle of Okinawa was the deadliest fight of the Pacific island campaign. The Japanese knew they could not win. Their purpose was simply to make the battle as costly as possible to the Americans and to hold them off as long as possible, allowing Japan to prepare for the defense of their home islands. Thus, Japanese commanders considered all their forces and the residents of Okinawa totally expendable.

Americans incurred almost 50,000 casualties on Okinawa, including over 12,000 dead.

 … Truman’s decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August ended the war and all Japanese resistance, thereby preventing the enormous American casualties that would have resulted from a land invasion of Japan.

In his history of The Second World War, Antony Beevor has this to say about the final months in the Pacific:

On 9 March [1945] … 334 Superfortresses carpet-bombed Tokyo, sparing neither residential not industrial zones.  Altogether 83,000 people died and another 41,000 were severely wounded, a far greater toll than when the second atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki five months later

 … General MacArthur opposed the area bombing of Tokyo, but American hearts had been hardened by the kamikaze campaign against US ships.  LeMay, however, did not answer to MacArthur, and his only concession was to drop leaflets warning Japanese civilians to leave all towns and cities with any industry

 … On 8 May, when news of Germany's surrender reached the rifle companies of the 1st Marine Division,  the most usual reaction was 'So what?'  It was another war on another planet, as far as they were concerned.  They were exhausted and filthy, and everything around them stank.

 … 'The sewage of course was appalling,' wrote William Manchester, a marine sergeant on Okinawa.  'You could smell the front line long before you saw it; it was one vast cesspool.'

 … General Ushijima Mitsuru … left behind a strong rearguard, but eventually a battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment occupied the citadel of Shuri.  It found it had only a Confederate flag with it, so to the embarrassment of some officers the Stars and Bars were raised until they could be replaced with the Stars and Stripes

 … The capture of Okinawa may not have hastened the end of the war.  Its prime aim was to serve as a base for the invasion of Japan, but the suicidal nature of its defence certainly concentrated minds in Washington on the next steps to consider

Related:
• Hiroshima 15: Examining the Issues Surrounding the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Japan (Erik Svane) 

• Hiroshima 17: During WWII, Japan Killed 7 Times More People (Most of Them Civilians) than They Lost (Victor Davis Hanson) 

• Hiroshima 18: The Imperial Japanese Army was every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, and more lethal (Trent Telenko)

• Hiroshima 19: The Horrific Treatment of Civilians During Japan's "Reign of Terror"

• Hiroshima 14: "I regard Hiroshima revisionism as the greatest hoax in American history" (Robert Maddox)

• Hiroshima 13: Although It Is Not Said Openly, Hiroshima Also Played a Purifying Role, IE the Baptism of a New Japan, the Event that Put an End to 50 Years of Crimes (Le Monde)

• Hiroshima 12: Political Correctness in Japan: The comment "tramples on the feelings of victims", so… Shut the F**k Up and Lose Your Job! (re the forced resignation of Japan's defense (!) minister)

• Hiroshima 11: If Western elites cannot find perfection in history, they see no good at all; most never learned the narrative of WWII, only what was wrong about it (Victor Davis Hanson)

• Hiroshima 10: If Not for the Atom Bombs, Japan, as we know it today, would not exist (S L Sanger, author of “Working on the Bomb”)

• Hiroshima 9: Over one million warning leaflets were dropped over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities 5 days before the Hiroshima bombing (Bill Whittle)

• Hiroshima 8: Was It Wrong to Use the Atom Bomb on Japan? (Father Wilson Miscamble)

• Hiroshima 7: Some Facts About Hiroshima and World War II That You Hear Neither From America's MSM, University Élites, and History Books, Nor From Japan's (New York Times)

• Hiroshima 16: Did Japan's top officers know a bomber was approaching Nagasaki, 5 hours beforehand, and do nothing?

• Hiroshima 6: "Lance or spear practice was a regular women's exercise to practice for the anticipated U.S. landing" (a Japanese American)

• Hiroshima 5: Japan's plans for defense involved mobilizing the civilian population, including women and children, for the customary suicidal battle tactics (Thomas Sowell)

• Hiroshima 4: "Les 300 000 morts d'Hiroshima ont épargné bien davantage de Japonais, qui auraient été écrasés sous des bombes ordinaires" (Charles de Gaulle)

• Hiroshima 3: A mainland invasion could have resulted in millions of Japanese deaths—and that's not counting civilians (Wall Street Journal)

• Hiroshima 2: Hand-wringing over Hiroshima is just virtue-signaling by people who never said a bad word about Stalin or Mao’s mass murders (Glenn Reynolds)

• Hiroshima 1: Unlike the ends of the majority of conflicts, World War II in the Pacific grew increasingly bloody as U.S. forces approached the Japanese homeland (Erik Svane)