RC : Trump — de la victoire aux primaires à l’investiture officielle lors de la Convention, que peut-il arriver ?

Le 3 avril 2024, Evelyne Joslain reçoit :

• Philippe Karsenty, ancien maire adjoint de Neuilly-sur-Seine, porte-parole des Republicans Overseas in France
• Erik Svane, auteur de bandes dessinées
• Marc Amblard, avocat
• Daniel Clément, médecin

Thème : “Trump : de la victoire aux primaires à l’investiture officielle lors de la Convention, que peut-il arriver ?”

Patron d'émission du Libre journal du Nouveau Monde à Radio Courtoisie, Évelyne Joslain est l'auteur d'une poignée de livres sur les États-Unis et l'Occident. Parmi ceux-ci, son chef d'œuvre est paru il y a queques semaines. 

Voici la revue de livre de La Révolution Culturelle.

Cliquez sur le lien pour entendre l'émission d'une heure et demie…

Photos of World War II's Oskarsborg Fortress During Two Trips up the Oslo Fjord

During the night (i.e., the early morning hours) of April 9, 1940 — 84 years ago today —

Distances from Berlin
to neighboring Denmark
and to Norway

and mounting undeclared surprise attacks, Adolf Hitler invaded his first countries since his takeover of Western Poland in 1939 — thus bringing the first six months' "phony war" to an end. (Never forget that Hitler did not "invade Poland"; he invaded the Western part of Poland, while — two weeks later — his Soviet ally, Stalin, invaded the Eastern part. Nor did Germany "start World War II" (i.e., alone); the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, signed only a week earlier, accomplished that.)

Back to 1940. The direct neighbor of Germany, the tiny flat nation of Denmark, fell only after a few hours. But much further away, the far larger Scandinavian country of Norway, with fjords and mountains and other natural defences, had time — as Commander Salamander has recounted (mange takk til Glenn Reynolds) — to organize a defense as well as the evacuation of Oslo's VIPs, thanks to the Oskarsborg fortress, which managed to sink Germany's most modern battleship as, in the middle of the night, the German fleet attempted to sail up the Oslofjord (120 km in length!) past it in the dark and in total silence with all lights off. This stratagem was unsuccessful, as the fortress and other artillery batteries opened fire. Seeing the Blücher torpedoed and sink under the chilly waters of Drøbak Sound, the rest of the German ships made the wise decision to discontinue the attack.

What I'm not sure is clear to many readers is that Oskarsborg's torpedo battery was not directed head-on at (real or would-be) invaders;

The lengthy Oslo Fjord

no, the warheads were deliberately directed towards the Norwegian rear (i.e., towards Oslo). Torpedoes were not supposed to hit an enemy ship (or several enemy ships) head-on but the artillerymen would wait until they had passed by and then send the "fish" to hit them "in the butt" — as was famously done to Blücher.

To explain the photos below, you need to know about a familiar Danish pastime: A very popular weekend trip Danish tourists take is the Oslo vacation.

Copenhagen to
Oslo and back

The tourists, rich or poor, get to the "Oslo" dock at Copenhagen's harbor in the evening of a Friday and climb aboard Oslofærgen (the Oslo ferry), with the usual night entertainment such a ship has. The genius of the arrangement is that the ship doubles as a hotel for the night (in fact, for two nights, forth and back), and the next morning, after sailing along the Swedish coast and up the (120-km) Oslo Fjord, the passengers awaken and leave the ship as it docks in the Norwegian capital. Tourists have the entire day to visit the city, or its environs, and on Saturday evening, the ship sails back to Copenhagen — again doubling as a hotel with the usual ferry entertainment, and on Sunday morning, they are home in Denmark. (The pricier the cabins, the bigger your porthole or even a full-fledged window while the cheapest tickets/rooms are in the body of the ship and have none.) Thus, the weekend becomes a tourist visit to an exciting foreign city in addition to two exciting sailing trips/hotel stays including food and entertainment.

The photos below come from two trips to and from Oslo (four sails in all), one in September, one the following January. You will excuse a couple of personal and irrelevant photos…

The guns of the Oskarsborg Fortress can be seen in white

Close-up of the Oslo Fjord fortress:
four cannon visible, the one furthest to the left in profile

A smaller island to the North (tiny bridge straight above
my left wrist) is actually linked to fort's main island

Leaving the fort behind, the danger has seemingly passed;
but that is an illusion — the real threat to enemy ships
is the secret (and camouflaged among the rocks)
torpedo battery whose warheads will hit you in the stern
(Håøya in the rear and the smaller island in the foreground)

As the fjord grows narrower, another ferry appears behind us

Still followed by another ferry in the distance

The width of the fjord tightens considerably

Looking over the fjord from its northernmost
point, Oslo's Akershus Slott castle

Only in Scandinavia:
Kondomeriet — the condom boutique
on Oslo's Karl Johans Gate
(in Norwegian, "Gate" does
not mean gate but street)

Deciding what, if anything, to buy

Good to have a jacuzzi to yourself

At the entrance to the fjord, the latter is still wide open

Gorgeous sunset on the way home to Copenhagen

Man-spreading in the empty jacuzzi

Sailing from and (here) back to Copenhagen,
the ferry inevitably sails by Hamlet's Elsinore castle, Kronborg

Other items of interest: the kings of Denmark and Norway were brothers. Only 35 years earlier, Norway had established its independence from Sweden and the newly-(re)born kingdom asked the younger brother of Denmark's crown prince Christian to accept the nation's crown. Prince Carl accepted, and became king under the name of Haakon VII (In the Norwegian movie linked by Cdr Salamander, The King's Choice, all the characters (including the king's son and heir, Prince Olav) are played by Norwegian actors (while the Germans are played by Germans), except the king himself, who is played by a Danish actor, given that Haakon VII never lost his Danish accent).

In that perspective, in the early 1930s, the two brothers almost had no choice but to go to war with each other. Greenland had always been part of Denmark, but Norway (who, for much of her history had been part of Sweden or Denmark) decided that part of the largest island on the planet ought to be called Erik the Red's Land (after the father of the Viking who discovered America) and belonged to Oslo. The issue was eventually resolved by jaw-jawing, by deciding the case at the Permanent Court of International Justice — to Denmark's satisfaction. 

Speaking of Greenland, and of World War II, after Denmark was occupied on April 9, 1940, the Danish ambassador to the United States, Henrik Kauffmann, eventually decided to go against the (now-forced-to-cooperate-with-the-Nazis) government in Copenhagen, declared his embassy "independent", and, in that perspective, invited American troops to occupy the island so the Germans could not do so. This has led to another recent film, the Danish production of Vores mand i Amerika (title brilliantly translated as The Good Traitor, as Kauffmann and the Greenland governors were condemned for treason and thus condemned in absentia to death. (Meanwhile, another island in the Atlantic, Iceland, at the time also Danish, was occupied by British forces.) In one 1942 issue of the National Geographic, one of the governors of Iceland welcomes warships of the U.S. Navy to Godthaab (Nuuk). The name of the governor? Aksel Svane — the cousin of my grand-father.

Finally, Churchill was always skeptical of Denmark's reliability as an allied nation, given the speed with which King Christian X (remember, Haakon's elder brother) announced the kingdom's surrender. At least, until the force of the resistance groups to the Germans started growing. Interestingly, Denmark could also have sunk a German troop ship likewise sailing in total silence with all lights off in the dark through Copenhagen on April 9 and thus immediately established its credentials as a fighting or at least a resisting nation. But the guns at the Kastellet were not loaded. His opinion of Denmark was elevated when the Danish authorities learned of the Germans' 1943 decision to disarm the Danish military, and the Danish fleet made the decision to sail for allied or neutral ports or to scuttle their warships.

Shocker: French Weekly Outs One of the KGB's Major Spies During the Cold War — None Other Than Its Own Former Editor-in-Chief

Philippe Grumbach interviews François Mitterrand at Socialist Party HQs

A right-leaning conservative French weekly has uncovered one of the Soviet Union's top spies in France during the Cold War, and it turns out to be none other than its own editor-in-chief in the 1970s.

The former honcho at L'Express, Philippe Grumbach (1924-2003) was close to both François Mitterrand and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (VGE), indeed one of the latter president's closest advisers. (This brings to mind the Stasi's greatest coup during the Cold War, when the East Germans succeeded — also while VGE was growing in power — in placing a communist spy (Günter Guillaume) in Willy Brandt's West German cabinet.)

For 35 years, while (among other things) at the head of one of France's top five weeklies, and the most anti-communist of the lot (Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, Jean-François Revel, François Mauriac, Raymond Aron, etc…), Brok (as Philippe Grumbach was known by his Soviet handlers) spied for the Kremlin.

The revelations come after examination by France's DGSE spy fighters of the Vasili Mitrokhin archive in London, the vast treasure trove that the KGB archivist took with him when he defected to the West in 1992.

From the 1930s and the Cold War to the modern Putin era, Moscow's secret services never seem to have had trouble finding Frenchmen willing to spy for them, from NATO officers to some of the highest VIPs in la République.

It turns out that suffering from a bad case of ADS (America Derangement Syndrome), as it has for two or three centuries — anti-Americanism was one of the major reason for the founding of this very blog, 20 years ago — France was a nest for Russian spies.

As I quote a former KGB agent in my book on anti-Americanism in France, it was never hard to find traitors and spies in France, as they thought that, in truth, they and the Russians were on the same side, the real enemy being the devious and dastardly Uncle Sam. As for Philippe "Brok" Grumbach, it turns out that he was recruited at age 22 by the KGB in 1946, i.e., while Stalin was head of the USSR.

Minister for Air Pierre Cot (glasses, bow tie) in 1933 next to his chief of staff, Jean Moulin

Ramirez Cartoon: It's a Good Thing the Biden Borders Are Secure

A Michael Ramirez cartoon on the security of the Southern border…

Gary Varvel Cartoon: Is the Current Mideast Conflict Due to the Fact that Israel Has the Wrong Leader?

A Gary Varvel cartoon on the current Middle East crisis and the truth about its roots

Related • To Peacenik Protesters Everywhere (Pro-Palestinian or Other): 
The People that Hamas Slaughtered Mercilessly at Israel's Rave — They Are YOU! 

• The Genocide Charge Against Israel: What is
the Difference Between War and Genocide in the First Place?

October Surprise In March/April? Is the invisible hand of the Dark Powers working to install a Democrat House Majority before the November election?

Fox News reports that Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chairman of the House select committee on China, is announcing he's leaving Congress on April 19, which, Elizabeth Elkind points out, will temporarily leave House Republicans with just a one-seat majority.

Causing Chad Pergram to ask: Could the Republicans' slim House majority slip away before November?

Have RINOs and/or NeverTrumpers decided that, instead of "boldly" voting with the Democrats, they would be more circumspect and just resign? And did they make such decisions interdependently or were they, like Stephen Breyer (and — to be fair — Anthony Kennedy), pressured/blackmailed/bribed into resigning behind closed doors ? (Thanks for the Instalinks, Steve and Sarah…)

This would seem to confirm the suspicious mind of one No Pasarán die-hard, one Damian Bennett, who has given a lot of thought into the matter, gathering the evidence in the process, leading him to pen this in the middle of the month:

It seemed innocuous. Preening anti-Trumper reading the writing on the wall takes a powder.

• Republican To Suddenly Leave Congress March 12, 2024
• Ken Buck Torches GOP After Declaring He’s Leaving Congress In Days March 12, 2024
  Representative Ken Buck, one of the few Republicans willing to call out his party’s ridiculous efforts to impeach Joe Biden, announced Tuesday that he will leave Congress in less than two weeks. ... Buck had announced in November that he would not seek reelection, but he indicated at the time that he would complete his current term. 
  

Oh! Oh! Oh! Noble Cassius departs the arena* because of the woeful civility of politics.

* For the lowest circle of Hell.

“I think this place [Congress] is dysfunctional. Instead of having decorum, instead of operating in a professional manner, this place has just devolved into this bickering and nonsense and not really doing the job for the American people.”

Here's a certainty, whatever the discomfort of his twisted civic panties, Buck's resigning removes him from "doing the job for the American people", at least the American people of Colorado's 4th district who elected him. 

Wait.

Report: 5 More Rinos Could Leave Congress To Give Dems Majority Before 2024 Election March 15, 2024

After Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., made a surprise announcement Tuesday that he will be leaving Congress by the end of next week, the RINO representative said more resignations could be coming down the pipeline. When asked by Axios about receiving criticism from colleagues over his decision to resign, Buck reportedly replied: “I think it’s the next three people that leave that they’re going to be worried about.”

Bucks’ imminent departure leaves the GOP with a two-seat majority in the House. Three more Republicans leaving would, of course, put the Democrats in charge.

Special elections for the vacated seats could, of course, maintain a Republican majority -- or not. (Expelling George Santos is looking like another GOP 'genius' move right now.)

So. [Loooooong heavy pause.] With DJT ineluctably ascendant and Biden electorally unsalvageable, what is the Democrats' Plan B? Is the invisible hand of the Dark Powers working to install a Democrat House Majority before the November election? A Democrat House Majority to dead-stop the Biden impeachment, to pass a law 'clarifying' the 14th Amendment barring DJT from the November ballot -- among other 'democracy' saving measures (e.g., warrantless monitoring of your phone, your bank account, your email, your browser history)? You tell me. 

The problem with the unimaginable is that it cannot be imagined. It can only arrive and stupefy.

Hate evil. Peace out.

Damian Bennett goes on to add:

Also see this, Don Bongino at 39'40''. The trick is to deny all candidates (DJT, RFK, Biden) 270 electoral votes and throw the election into the House, where each state delegation gets ONE vote. The winner must garner 26 votes. Supposing a 50-50 split I surmise that gives the deciding vote to Kamala Harris (as per the legislative process). Long-shot. Hail Mary, the Democrats come to Jesus.

The Dems are running out of options. Can they steal another election? Whatever, something is afoot.

 

Are Biden and Macron, in Addition to Numerous Other Policitians (Foreign as Well as American), Afflicted with Hatch Syndrome?

Today is Orrin Hatch's birthday. If still alive, he would turn 90 today. As luck would have it, one of No Pasarán's most veteran readers, an ex-DC lobbyist named Fred from the Beehive State, met his senator back in the day and, as we discussed France's president, he shares the following memories of the Utah politician. (Thanks for hatchin' an Instalink, Sarah…)

FYI, I've always thought of Macron as a lightweight, I do not follow him (at all) but I presume he is now severely afflicted with Hatch Syndrome.

I named this after Utah's Senator Hatch. I remember when he was first elected, [when] he first got to DC, he was a good senator, voting and talking pretty much the "right" way. As it happened, I dealt with him (a tiny bit) when I was tangentially involved with lobbying Congress in the late 1990s. I noticed a few things.

He had a very competent staff; they got things done. He was extremely self-important. He seemed to think he was always the smartest person in the room. He was very "tactful" in his language, always acting like he supported our position …

However, there was something wrong, I surmised, because he used good words, but it seemed he did not really know what he was talking about. I ultimately came to the conclusion that he had spent 20+ years surrounded by yes-men. "That is a good idea, Senator." "Brilliant, Senator." "Right, good thing to do, Senator." He likely had not been told he was wrong ... well, since the 1970s??

It creates, to over-state the case a tad, it creates an idiot. Hatch was not stupid. He still voted generally the "right" way, but (for example) then he rammed through the Disney-pushed extension of copyright law (we cannot let Steamboat Willie just fall into the public domain now, can we?). The result was he thought he was important enough (or something) and he ran for president. Talk about a joke, I mean, he might have made a better president than W turned out to be, but come on, my cat would have been better (I should say your cat, as I do not have a cat). Arrogant, self-important, all the worst case scenarios you can think of. They are all that way.

Sorry this is so long, but two more things. I contend that it is Hatch Syndrome that has Joe Biden, likely the stupidest president since, well, ever, challenging ordinary Americans to IQ tests. He would get walloped by at least 75% of the population, but he has no clue. (Oh, and this was true before senility set in.)

Also, I cannot really blame any of them for being this way. The entire Senate, and maybe most of the House, is populated by people who are this way, but what would you expect? How would you hold up to decades of nothing but sycophantic affirmation? It seems to me that 20+ years of that would turn anyone into a Hatch Syndrome victim.

[Granted, I may not blame them, but I do resent the fact that I constantly get victimized by them.] 

Many years later, Fred had another Hatch-and/or-his-staff encounter. (Incidentally, I once took the same underground tram between the Senate and the Capitol once, in the 1980s; I was seated in the same tiny carriage as Ted Kennedy and another man (perhaps Orrin Hatch?); all I had on me was one of those booklets with a dozen detachable DC postcards — I asked Teddy for an autograph — he grabbed my booklet and quickly signed one of the cards (at random); it turned out to be the one displaying the White House…)

Sorry, if you are still reading, I have another Hatch story. I went to DC maybe in the early 00s with a couple of kids [from] Jr. High I guess. Someone arranged a tour of the Capitol through Hatch's office. We go into the Senate Office Building and then downstairs to the little tram that runs over to the Capitol. I happened to be in the car with one of the staffers guiding the tour. We get to talking and he says something like "These tours are usually guided by unpaid staff, but I'm paid staff, Senator Hatch has plenty of staff." "Why does he have plenty of staff?" I ask. "Well, he got the extra staff when he was chair of the Judiciary Committee. He's no longer chair, but he got to keep the staff."

The country's in the very best of hands.

Presenting the Have-Fun-with-the-Instapundit-Ads Game

Four years ago, during the Covid scare/the Covid languor, I invented the Instapundit game.

The goal of [that] game is to read a post on Instapundit, while keeping the name of its author hidden below the bottom the screen. … What you have to do now is figure out, to the best of your ability, who is the author of the post! … [The] Instapundit game … should only be played, really, by veteran readers of the Glenn Reynolds blog … 

Now — on the occasion of No Pasarán's 20th anniversary — a second InstaPundit game has been created (yes, again, by moi), and it can be played by virtually anybody.

Not long ago mankind saw the dawn of the advent of advertisements on the Instapundit blog. The Blogfather explains:

SOME PEOPLE DON’T LIKE THE NEW ADS. Sorry, the problem is that InstaPundit has been demonetized by Google, for unspecified “dangerous” content [coupled with] the trend of cutting advertising to right-leaning sites …

Well, if you don't like the new ads, why not have fun with 'em? The goal of the game is to see if an advertisement can seem to apply to the text of a post below or above (or close to) it, in such a manner that the ad's photo or video could (almost) be taken to be an integral part of that post, deliberately chosen by the person posting. Then you do a (short) screen recording (a screenshot video? a video capture? a screencast?) — maybe 5 to 10 seconds — highlighting the sentence that is closest in soul to the ad.

Here are three ads leading to four or five examples…

(Incidentally, I do not know if the average reader is seeing the same ads as I, i.e., if ads are region-connected; I am based across the ocean in Paris, but the ads are in English, so I suppose it is more than possible that at least part of the time we are seeing the same ones…)

Maybe one day we can have the InstaOscars to see which entries are most deserving of an award…

And finally, to InstaPundit, thanks for the memories.

We couldn't have survived for twenty years without you…

DOB 2004: No Pasarán Turns 20

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

 

The blog's inaugural pledge was a tongue-in-cheek declaration that we

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

Of the more than 13,700 posts that have been written since 2004, I consider the following couple of posts to be two of the most important:

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

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

In addition, there is this guest piece that I posted on American Thinker earlier this year:

• Let's Stop Using the Words "Trump Tried to Overturn the 2020 Election" (It's Unprofessional Journalism)

Thanks to blogs like Instapundit — without which we would hardly have survived this long…

Speaking of which —
And now for something completely different:
Presenting the Have-Fun-with-the-Instapundit-Ads Game

A Concrete Sidewalk and the Head of Kaylee Gain: Shades of Zimmerman and Rittenhouse

If the young teenage girl had been armed as Maurnice DeClue slammed her head into the concrete sidewalk with all her might, would she have been justified in firing her weapon into the belly of her tormentor?

I'm asking because her injuries are so awful that after Kaylee Gain was left twitching and convulsing with seizures on the sidewalk, she is still in hospital, risking permanent brain damage and even death. Could shooting "Little Miss Thugette" have prevented a dismal future for Kaylee's entire family? Update: 11 days later, the St. Louis teen is still unconscious, suffering from a fractured skull. (Thanks for the Instalink, Sarah…)

You know why I am asking, dont'cha? This is exactly what Trayvon Martin was doing to George Zimmerman in February 2012 when the "white Latino" having his head smashed into the concrete pulled out his gun and fired it into the body of his tormentor.

What is it with leftists and/or blacks and/or a combination thereof — you know, the people who always go on and on and on lecturing us about tolerance and debate & discussion contrasted with hate and haters and bigots — that they are so consumed by… hatred for their (alleged) opponents (although in most cases they barely knew them personally, if at all) that the psychopaths go berserk in their willingness to engage in vicious violence that results in great bodily harm or death? 

(Similar question: what is it that our teachers (sic) have been teaching in schools and universities that their pupils and students behave this way?)

While leftists are always blabbering about fighting and defeating hate, nobody is hated as much in America or around the world (with the possible exception of the Israelis and the Jews) as America's Republicans, America's conservatives, and America's whites. 

(One benefit we can thank the left for is how well this makes a case for the Second Amendment…)

Think also of two Wisconsin events of August 2020 and November 2021 (one of them without racial overtones), Kenosha's Kyle Rittenhouse case and Waukesha's Christmas Parade massacre (we know far less about that event — the deadliest of all — because a white person was not the presumably responsible, or the presumably guilty, party and the latter turns out to be a member of a minority and therefore enjoys Hamas status).

Let's hear what Ann Coulter has to say:

there's only one ethnic group that sacralizes its criminals … The main problem facing the black community isn't that a sizable number celebrate its criminals, though that's bad. It's that there's such a sizable number of criminals to celebrate.

Related: • Comparing 3 Deadly Events — In Waukesha, Brooks killed twice as many people as Rittenhouse and the Charlottesville driver did combined
• The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell: A world of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables
• The Era of the Drama Queens: Every Crisis Is a Triumph

I was watching Dennis Prager's Fireside Chat in December 2021, which was also comparing the two Wisconsin events, and in response to the Left's charge that a 17-year-old should not carry a gun, Dennis made the case that in the United States, 17-year-olds are allowed… to… join the military. Now the army, navy, and air force are a source of stability in the U.S. (although the Left is hard at work trying to change that) so, at this point, it is appropriate to recall the famous quote by G K Chesterton,

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but the because he loves what is behind him.'

In that perspective, it is altogether proper to return to the Badger State and ask the following question:

Did Kyle Rittenhouse go to Kenosha with an AR-15 because he is a white supremacist (or a Christian nationalist) who hates all Wisconsin rioters, and/or all leftists, and/or all blacks? 

Or did Kyle Rittenhouse go to Kenosha to protect the neighbors and the neighborhood where his loved ones (whatever the color of their skin) live (and work)?

The answer, of course, is that initially, Kyle Rittenhouse did not fight, he did not threaten the rioters, he did not flaunt his rifle.

We will expand on this issue, because what one of the prosecutors said in one of his final remarks regarding Rittenhouse, is essential to the case, and comparable to George Zimmerman and to Kaylee Gain…

Here are some of the arguments of the Kenosha prosecutors, revisited…

• Crossing State Lines

The image suggested is of unsavory far-right types driving hundred, if not thousands of miles — a redneck driving through the forests of Georgia (chewin' and spittin' tabaccah), a militiaman crossing the burning deserts of the West — to go to a place where they knew no one and had no place being.

In fact, the state line was, so I've heard, one mile away or so, while the place he went to was 20 minutes away, and all this in the very same urban area.

Which is far from uncommon.

Back in the 1990s, I met an Indian and his wife at a Paris event.

When he heard that I was planning a road trip from the West Coast East across the Rockies, he asked me to come visit him on his reservation in the state of Washington

When I flew into Seattle, I imagined dancing natives, falling shacks, rusting studebakers, howlin' winds, tumblin' tumbleweeds, perhaps even a wigwam and a drunken native lying in the dust.

In fact, the reservation was inside Seattle or inside a suburb of Seattle. On one side of the street, you were outside the reservation; on the other side, which looked exactly the same, you were inside the reservation.

Beyond that, it is somewhat surreal that those who want the nation's Southern border to be basically open could make such a fuss about state borders.

• Portraying Rittenhouse as a Sniper

When a prosecutor displayed the "Automatic Rifle" (sic) -15, he held the weapon up for what seemed minutes pointed at an audience, unarmed and seated in a way that they hardly able to budge — like a sniper on a battlefield, hard to spot and perhaps invisible to his enemies. 

Rightfully or otherwise, a sharpshooter calmly picks people off from a hiding place with no danger to himself — such as DC's Beltway Sniper did in 2002.

Let the rejoinder go to Ann Coulter, who explains that, besides not being on a battlefield,

Rittenhouse was not at a grade school, but in the middle of a riot that did $50 million in damage to the town of Kenosha

 … Name one "active shooter" in history who strolled about with a gun for hours, not shooting anyone -- until he was chased, cornered and assaulted. Rittenhouse had a gun not because he was violent, but because the "protesters" were, as the evidence abundantly demonstrated.

 … The same people who wanted to give Guantanamo war criminals civilian trials think an American who refused to acquiesce in his own murder didn't deserve legal representation.

Kyle Rittenhouse is on trial so that no one will dare stand in the way of the left's shock troops ever again.

And that seems to be sadly (albeit understandably) Kyle's reaction as well, as recorded by Fox News' Sam Dorman and Andrew Murray:

"[With] what I was dragged through and what I had to go through — to facing life in prison — I wouldn't say it was worth it," he said, adding, "hindsight being 20/20."

Rittenhouse has previously said going to Kenosha was "not the best idea."

But he noted, "Of course, defend yourself."

• Saying that Rittenhouse should have let himself be pummeled

And so here we come full circle back to the case of Kaylee Gain and to the left's admonishment of George Zimmerman: one of a Thomas Binger aide's final arguments was that Kyle Rittenhouse should not have made such a big deal about it, that he should just have accepted getting into a fistfight and even been willing to let his tormentors beat him up.

This is an insane argument. (Or, to quote our British readers, "not cricket".) Do you know sports? In a boxing match, in an MMA fight — not to mention simply a football match, a badminton match, or, for our British friends, a cricket match — where there is little to no animosity between players, fighters, or teams (there may even be a healthy dose of mutual respect, such as that in MMA fights where the loser, his face often bloodied and his nose sometimes broken, walks up to the winner and shakes his hand or even gives him a bear hug) — there are definite rules known to all (not to mention weight classes [so that a heavyweight doesn't engage with, say, a bantamweight] and [at least until the Woke movement reared its head] discrimination by sex) and, just to be sure, there is a nominally neutral referee present throughout the bout, ready to intervene.

How could Rittenhouse know — indeed, how on Earth could prosecutor Thomas Binger and his assistants know — that if Rittenhouse hadn't taken out his rifle or simply refused to fight back, he would only have received only bruises or scratches? Not a single soul would have slammed his head into the sidewalk or used the skateboard or his own rifle butt to crush his skull?

In this fairy tale, the prosecutors describe the leftist psychopaths exactly as how the right-leaning Rittenhouse did in fact behave.

Look at Maurnice DeClue. Look at Trayvon Martin. This is the type of person — multiplied by 30 or more — that Rittenhouse was faced with.

Only when the arsonists (several of them armed) became menacing, only when a mob started chasing him down, and only when the rioters tried to kill him (with a skateboard, which is perfectly capable of literally bashing a person's brains out, just like a concrete sidewalk is, or with a gun) — in response to his extinguishing the fire in a dumpster they were pushing towards a gas station (more of a hateful act or more of a loving act? I ask you) — did Rittenhouse shoot back. 

But not before trying a peaceful solution, i.e., running away from the confrontation, crying "Friendly" to assure them of his non-violent intentions, and attempting to seek cover from the (present but non-operating) police force.

Speaking of which: In a way, there is a kernel of truth in the charge that Kyle Rittenhouse shouldn't have been there and shouldn't have been carrying a gun? Police officers should have been there! Well, sure, we can all agree on that. All of us. And police officers ought to have been doing their jobs — with their guns. But they were not! (Thanks to Democrat politicians, leftist ideologues, and other Drama Queens.) Which is why civilians, young as well as old, took over their task…

Following Trump's Super Tuesday's Wins, Republicans in France Are Invited on French TV and Radio

Super Tuesday: "Joe Biden est sénile et faible", affirme Paul Reen (président des "Republicans in France") pic.twitter.com/LKch4fCtUZ

— BFMTV (@BFMTV) March 5, 2024

Following Trump's Super Tuesday bonanza, a number of Republicans in France (RIF) members were invited to join French TV and radio stations…

It started on Super Tuesday itself, and while the world waited for the results that evening, Paul Reen faced a handful of leftists on BFMTV as he announced on its talk show that "Joe Biden is senile and weak".

Philippe Karsenty was interviewed the next day by Émilie Tran Nguyen on France Info TV and faced three pro-Democrat leftists, one American and two French. The website's shorter version cut off the final minutes of the talk show segment. Check out the longer version instead — 15:44/16:04-34:34 — to see the whole thing, not least Philippe's final acerbic remark.

Over at Le Figaro TV, Paul Reen, président des «Republicans in France», était l’invité d’Anne-Emmanuelle Isaac dans «Points de Vue». Here he was allowed to speak much more freely, and without interruption, than in usual MSM shows. Long version: 0:00-22:30. 

Meanwhile, Anntoinette Danskin-Lorrain responded to Nelly Daynac at CNews, appearing at the 1:55:10 minute mark of the final (and most important) issue of the day (1:49:45-2:03:15).

The following morning, Philippe Karsenty found a friendlier audience at La Ligne Droite de Radio Courtoisie présentée par Maud Koffler avec Didier Maïsto, journaliste indépendant. Check out nearly 45 minutes of discussion at 1:32:32-2:16:21 (that starts with the Trump campaign's version of "Over There" that I had never heard before).

Avec Philippe Karsenty, analyste des médias, fondateur de l’observatoire Media-Ratings, homme politique, conseiller municipal de Neuilly-sur-Seine