Thursday, April 9, 2026

Who’s Afraid of Emmanuel Macron?


French President Emmanuel Macron is doing that peculiar French thing again…acting tough while looking weak.  He gave a speech last Friday at Yonsei University in Seoul during which he demanded that nations not become “vassals” of China or the United States.  Macron wants South Korea to join Canada, Australia, and the European Union in forming what he calls a “coalition of independence” (because “coalition of the willing” was taken) united by shared love for “international order,” “democracy,” and wasting money on “climate change.”

What a tool.  I understand that “the powers that be” have so successfully co-opted the West’s political systems that they regularly install absolute nincompoops as nominal leaders (Biden, Starmer, Carney, Merz, and European Queen Ursula, just to name a few) and call it “democracy,” but Macron is such a doofus that his “leadership” is laughable.  

Remember when the little Rothschild banker came to power a few months after President Trump had taken office and he couldn’t stop talking about standing up to “bullies”?  After putting on some high-heeled loafers and taking some lessons on masculinity from his former-schoolteacher-turned-much-older-wife, Macron insisted on turning a handshake with Trump into a death grip meant to showcase French power.  In that effete style of speech that Gaulish-Roman aristocrats enjoy — in which words sound as if they’re dropping from lips suckling grapes and licking honey — le petit fromage told the world that his fierce handshake and determined stare were the perfect weapons for countering President Trump.  Trump just laughed and patted the little French boy on the shoulder as one does to help the weak feel strong.

Fast-forward a decade, and Macron hasn’t learned a thing about being tough.  He still prances around the world like a eunuch looking for long-lost cojones.  He says he wants countries to resist the “hegemonic powers” of China and the United States by clinging to the rules-based “international order.”  Okay.  Good luck, tiny dancer.  

What’s left of the international order without the two most powerful nations on the planet?  The United States has assumed the responsibilities of the globe’s police chief since WWII.  Through its naval fleet, it ensures the security of maritime trade.  Through its economic clout, it ensures the stability of the international financial system.  Through its military might, it decides which dictators get black-bagged in the middle of the night.  As China continues its geopolitical ascent, its tentacles have stretched further into international organizations such as the United Nations’ World Health Organization and across continents with its Belt and Road Initiative.  Mark Carney has spent his time as Canada’s prime minister practically groveling at the feet of China’s Xi Jinping and begging the communist dictator to save his wintry vassal state from the bad orange man down south.

France, on the other hand, continues to be ejected from former African colonies whose peoples have grown tired of French meddling.  The French military excels only at surrendering.  And France remains distinct from Germany only because of the United States.  When little Macron insists on restoring a French-led “international order,” he sounds a lot like little Napoleon, who insisted on being called “emperor” while imprisoned on Saint Helena.

As for urging all who hear his grating voice to unite in defense of “democracy,” that’s a lark!  Europe is where “democracy” goes to die.  Every time non-Establishment political parties win the most votes in former nations (now just multicultural zones of Islamic conquest within the federation of European nothingness) such as France, Germany, and the Netherlands, “the powers that be” proudly block the winners from exercising any power.  

Europe’s political class shamelessly calls this the “firewall” against “far-right” political parties.  Of course, if you believe that nations should have borders and that government powers should be limited, you are designated “far-right.”  Just as Democrats bastardize language in the United States by calling everyone who cares about the Bill of Rights a “fascist,” the European Establishment labels anyone who believes in self-determination and personal liberty a “Nazi sympathizer.”  Then they prosecute the members of those fake “far-right” parties for expressing opinions out loud.  

That’s right!  Europe’s little gang of dimwitted yet dangerous dictators — Macron, Starmer, Merz, and the ruling queen — insist on locking up the “fascists” for their speech in the name of “democracy”!  When the “firewall” fails — as it did in Romania a little over a year ago — the European oligarchy simply cancels the election and insists on a rigged do-over (or outright overthrows the government as it did, with the help of the U.S. State Department and CIA, in Ukraine in 2014).  

When little European tyrants such as Macron stand on footstools, puff out their chests, and shriek about “democracy,” they have no intention of supporting the decisions of the people.  What they mean is, let’s form a European Commission of aristocrats, have them choose a ruling monarch, and call that a “democratic” election.  That’s how the nations of Europe lost their sovereignty and why the people of Europe must now bow down to unelected Queen Ursula von der Leyen.  

Even if mini-mouse Macron’s calls for “international order” and “democracy” fail to rally a sufficient posse of vassal states willing to take on the United States and China, he’ll surely find ready volunteers who want to keep shooting their economies in the gonads over “climate change,” right?  Who doesn’t want to continue wasting taxpayer dollars on fighting the weather?  While Russia, China, and the United States continue spending more on their militaries than ever before, the soft-headed “leaders” of Europe have been pretending to wage war against nature.  “Tilting at windmills” was one of Cervantes’s best jokes in Don Quixote.  The Europeans — having jettisoned their civilization for that of their Islamic invaders — no longer understand why pretending to fight imaginary monsters is funny!

For decades, Europe’s quixotic “leaders” have spent their military budgets on wind and solar energy.  In the name of “fighting climate change,” Europe’s brilliant tacticians severely limited hydrocarbon exploration, extraction, and processing.  Germany ignored scientific reason after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan and rid itself almost entirely of nuclear energy.  First, Europe’s braintrust made the sub-continent dependent upon the Russian Federation for energy.  Then, that same gaggle of Mensa geniuses sanctioned Russian energy in the name of Ukrainian “democracy.”  Now Europe is largely dependent on the United States, Russia, and the Middle East for energy.  Europe’s producers must spend more to make things.  Europe’s consumers must pay more to buy things.  Europe’s middle class keeps getting poorer.  How many times can Europe’s moronic “leaders” cripple their economies before Europe’s peoples raid the museums for functioning guillotines? 

If little-bitty Macron doesn’t want France to be a “vassal” of China or the United States, he should strive to deregulate his nation, protect private property, incentivize innovation, grow the economy, and encourage self-sufficiency.  Instead, France and the rest of Europe embrace bureaucratic rule-making, collective ownership, expansive welfare, centralized economic planning, and dependency upon U.S. military muscle.  If you spend your country’s wealth on fighting bad weather and providing Islamic invaders “free” food and housing, don’t complain when China and the United States refuse to take you seriously.  

To be fair to Europe’s retarded governing class, we’re fighting similar idiotic policies being promoted by the fifth-column Democrat Party in America, too.  The difference is that Americans are actively trying to right the ship, and, as President Trump continues to demonstrate, our military can still blow things up.  

Reality is not kind to those who prefer handouts and fantasy to handwork and preparation.  Because Europe’s “leaders” have hollowed out their economies and militaries for decades, they are in no position to influence the future.  They will take what they get and be grateful…as all desperate vassals must.


Podcast thread for April 9

 


Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Americans Are Done With Feckless, Useless, and Weak Fake Allies


Give Donald Trump credit for his ambition – he’s not only taking out America’s longstanding enemies, but he’s redefining the entire post-war world order. No biggie – he’s just changing everything about the world that we all grew up in. But we’re conservatives, so when you change something, you generally need to demonstrate a good reason to do so. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it, and so on. But the old order was broken. Disastrously so. The behavior of the formerly great Western European powers during this existential struggle against the Muslim Marxist murder mullahs – the Iranian government is shockingly super-deep into faculty lounge campus communism (listen here) – only confirms it. Trump didn’t cause this reality; Trump saw this reality and acted, thereby becoming the most consequential president since Ronald Reagan.

Yes, his actions are destroying the world order as we knew it and grew up with, but not all destruction is bad. There’s creative destruction, where you clear out the deadwood and the inflammable underbrush that could fuel an inferno. That’s what Donald Trump’s doing. And that’s what the old version of NATO has been trying to stop. Remember the classic formulation of NATO’s role: keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down. Well, the Germans aren’t getting up anytime soon. They’re too busy hamstringing themselves. They’ve ensured that they can’t rely on their own energy generation by closing down their nukes and buying fuel from their enemies. And they’ve imported a third-world fifth column both out of existential guilt and the desperate need to make up for the birth dearth among the broken and exhausted people of their country. Germany is dying, and a majority of Germans believe it should. As for the Russians, until they invaded Ukraine, they had become merely a hypothetical threat since the end of the Cold War. That’s why the Bundeswehr was not too long ago practicing maneuvers with broomsticks; it couldn’t rustle up an armor division to save its life, literally.

NATO’s other role was to keep the Americans in, but also to keep them down. Yeah, they wanted America there, carrying the bulk of the defense of Western Europe, spending massive amounts of money on bases and infrastructure – those of us who were stationed in Germany are fully aware of how much American cash energized the local economy. But NATO membership implies multilateralism, that we Americans weren’t going to do anything big without our allies. And this gave our allies a tremendous ability to keep us in check. Remember that the entire post-war foreign policy system was not simply about keeping the Russians at bay. It was also designed to control the Americans. Allowing countries like Cuba to continue to plague us, enforcing international law that only serves to limit American action, and tying America to operating with allies all acted as a brake on the USA’s pursuit of its own interests. This was a feature for the globalists, not a bug.

But Trump wasn’t going to play that. Trump wasn’t interested in having America’s interests held in check by foreigners and by America’s own foreign policy establishment. Remember, their ideology eschews parochial patriotism. Their primary loyalty is not to the United States – why do you think Secretary of State George Shultz would bring a new ambassador, point to a globe, and ask them to find their country, with the right answer being the USA? Many of the Foggy Bottom types failed that test.

Opponents try to portray Trump as crazy or even treacherous because he refuses to adhere to the old world order, but Trump’s patriotism is actual patriotism. He sees foreign policy not as an academic exercise or a necessary effort to keep those dumb, greedy Americans under control, but as a business in which it is natural to use one’s strengths to one’s advantage. Just look at the tariffs issue – before he came along, did you realize just how unfavorable our tariff deals were to the United States? The New York City real estate developer can’t conceive of a reason why we would accept less than whatever we are strong enough to take.

One of the things that made the old world order work was that NATO could seize the moral high ground, in the sense that the Western powers were the good guys and that it was worth the costs imposed on the United States to protect like-minded democracies. But as their culturally, socially, and politically exhausted ruling classes clung to power long after change had become overdue, they lost that moral high ground. In Great Britain and Germany, you can be arrested for saying things. Why again are we promising to put blood and treasure on the line to defend countries that don’t recognize free speech from… a country that doesn’t recognize free speech? 

Nor did it help that, for generations, the Europeans have blatantly failed to carry their weight within the alliance. America picked up the rucksack, and they picked up purses. The formerly great powers allowed their militaries to wither to such an extent that, even if they were inclined to assist the United States in the current conflict, they couldn’t meaningfully do so. The front-line states are different. The Finns and the Poles can fight, but they lack the luxury of frivolity that the UK, France, and Germany share. They look across the border and see Russians. The UK, France, and Germany invite in a bunch of Third World barbarians and tell themselves they are our moral superiors. We’ve been telling them for decades they’ve got to pick up the pace, that we can’t subsidize their Third World welfare states by allowing them to outsource their defense to our wallet. And they haven’t listened. In fact, they’ve laughed at us. That is, until Ukraine, and they expect us to fix that, too.

Shaming them are other allies that actually do perform. Look at Japan, which is picking up its responsibilities in the Western Pacific. And, of course, there’s Israel, which is actively integrated into the Iranian campaign. It’s fighting as an American peer. No NATO country can do that. No NATO country can even come close to doing that. Little Israel provides more raw combat power, not to mention technological, cyber, and intelligence dominance, than all the other countries of NATO combined. No other NATO country could pull off the great F-15 recovery mission; the ship on the upcoming Townhall cruise will generate more combat power alone than most NATO navies.

Of course, the straw that has really broken the camel’s back – and the camel’s back has suffered a compound fracture – was not just the Europeans’ refusal to affirmatively assist in the destruction of the mullah’s regime that will threaten Europe long before it threatens us. No, the Europeans actually refused to allow us to use their bases or overfly their airspace. We weren’t asking them to fight, just to get out of the way, and they couldn’t even do that. Oh, and if you don’t think Keith Starmer’s UK government told Lloyd’s of London to stop insuring ships going through the Strait of Hormuz to complicate America’s campaign, you are hopelessly naΓ―ve. Such allies are functionally indistinguishable from opponents.

Now, the Western NATO countries will tell you that they’re loyal allies. Why, they helped America when America came under attack 25 years ago. Yes, to an extent, they helped, and they did suffer casualties. We honor those heroes. But let’s not fool ourselves that most of the NATO countries were all-in on the fight (even in Kosovo, trying to get the Europeans to do something was a challenge). We invoked Article 5, and they responded. Thanks. They met their minimum obligation back then. But we’re talking about their obligation now. It’s not one and done. When you’re in alliance, your obligations continue. And the major Western NATO powers have failed to meet theirs in even the most minimal way by simply letting us fly over their countries and refuel on our joint bases. It’s not exactly a confidence builder that they’ll be there if the balloon goes up with China. It doesn’t help that many of leaders seem eager to buddy up to the Chi Coms.

One of the arguments we get from the Euros is that we can’t very well expect them to do their part after Trump has been so mean to them. Why Trump did this, and Trump said that, and blah blah blah. Muh Greenland!

Excuse me?

Stop.

They are not being asked to do anything for Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is not calling them to his colors.

They are being asked to fulfill their obligations to the United States of America.

The United States of America is calling them to our colors.

Donald Trump is the elected president of the United States.

The European powers do not get a say in who we elect president.

Their obligations don’t stop if they disapprove of our choice of chief executive.

Is there some sort of hurt feelings exception to the obligations of alliance?

Who the hell do these pipsqueaks think they are?

These pipsqueaks ought to think they are in trouble, and they need to think very carefully about their choices because they are running out of friends. On the America First side, many of us – including guys like me with a NATO medal – have long been skeptical of the alliance, but many traditional Republicans have stood with it and argued for its preservation. That’s ending. When you have traditional Republican hawks like Hugh Hewitt and Lindsey Graham stating outright that it appears NATO in its present form has outlived its usefulness, that is a sea change in the American political system. You aren’t coming back from that.

It’s very clear that NATO cannot go on as it was before. But don’t mourn the fact that things must change because things always change over time. NATO has endured in its present form for almost a century. That’s a long time for any paradigm to persist. But instead of mourning its passing, or even worse, trying to use heroic measures to resuscitate it so it can linger on pointlessly a bit longer, we should embrace the reality that NATO must change. 

But we also need to appreciate the fact that NATO evolving is just one of the changes to the global order. Most of our old enemies are going to be gone. Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran are all going to be off the board. We will be free to face China with nearly the full weight of our power, especially once we inevitably tell the Europeans that Russia and Vladimir Putin – you know, the guy making war on Ukraine who our allies subsidize by buying oil from him – is their problem.

We will inevitably be strengthening our new alliances with allies who provide a net benefit to America – the frontline NATO nations, Japan, the Philippines, the Gulf states, Israel (Hardest Hit: The podcast cretins), and maybe even India. The UK, France, Germany, Spain, and the increasingly ridiculous Canada are becoming irrelevant to us. This is the result of choices. By choosing Donald Trump, America has chosen to put America first, and by abandoning America, the formerly great powers have chosen to become mere afterthoughts.


Trump still angry with NATO's stance on Iran war after meeting with alliance’s chief

 NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was in the U.S. on a mission to temper Trump’s displeasure over NATO allies' refusal to help him protect commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz

U.S. President Donald Trump lashed out at NATO after meeting with the military alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, making clear that his anger over the organization’s stance on the Iran war remained acute.

“NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!” the president wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday evening.

Asked at a briefing earlier Wednesday if he might try to pull the U.S. out of NATO, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “it’s something the president has discussed, and I think it’s something the president will be discussing in a couple of hours” when he meets Rutte.

Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister, was in the U.S. on a mission to temper Trump’s public displeasure after NATO allies refused to help him protect commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz or let the U.S. use some of their bases to attack Iran during the war that began on Feb. 28. Trump has also revived his grievance that NATO countries wouldn’t give him Greenland, a Danish territory.

Rutte left the White House without a word to reporters after a meeting of about two hours.

“Yes, it’s true, not all Europeans lived up to those commitments, and I totally understand that he’s disappointed,” he told CNN later — after praising Trump and taking his side over the European countries, including Spain, that had openly opposed the war and refused to assist the Americans.

At the same time, however, he defended the “large majority of European nations” that provided basing, logistics and overflight support. He spoke of “widespread support” on the continent for the goals of degrading Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capacities, while acknowledging that most Europeans wanted to reach these goals diplomatically.

Rutte criticized this diplomatic approach, saying diplomacy could take too long, and compared the situation with Iran to North Korea. He evaded questions about whether Trump would leave NATO or withdraw troops from European countries.

At the briefing, Leavitt said she had a message from the president: NATO was “tested and they failed” over the course of the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran.

“It’s quite sad that NATO turned their backs on the American people over the course of the last six weeks, when it’s the American people who have been funding their defence,” she said.


Leaving NATO would be challenging. A law enacted in 2023 that was championed by then-Senator Marco Rubio, now Trump’s secretary of state, prevents a president from suspending or terminating the NATO treaty unless the Senate agrees by a two-thirds majority or Congress passes a new law.

Neither of those are possibilities, as Republicans who favour the alliance will likely side with Democrats to circumvent any action Trump might urge Congress to take. In any case, the GOP holds a narrow majority in both houses.

Yet there’s still plenty Trump, who has been dismissive of the alliance across both of his terms, could do to undermine or pull the U.S. back from it. The U.S. is NATO’s indispensable partner — with 80,000 personnel in Europe and has a central role on missile defence, nuclear deterrence and intelligence sharing.

“Workarounds like troop reductions or funding cuts could erode U.S. participation without formal exit while stopping short of treaty withdrawal,” according to a Bloomberg Intelligence note.

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/donald-trump-nato-mark-rutte-iran

What ChatGPT Is Doing to Student Writing

Today’s students can write a perfect sentence that says absolutely nothing.

Is the End of the American Federation of Teachers in Sight?

Is the End of the American Federation of Teachers in Sight?

Commentary by Madison Marino Doan & Emily for Daily Signal

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 13: President of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten speaks during a rally in front of the Department of Education to protest budget cuts on March 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. On Monday, the House passed a continuing resolution that would cut over $1 billion from D.C.'s budget, potentially leading to layoffs and reduced public safety, school, and transportation services. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

President of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

recent poll found that a clear majority of Americans favor limiting politics in the classroom. This is bad news for teachers’ unions, who often advocate against that very thing. 

Consider the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). With 1.8 million members, the AFT is one of the largest teachers’ unions in the country. It has gained prominence less for advancing classroom outcomes and more for engaging in political activism far removed from instruction. This political activism has been evident recently, as illustrated by AFT president Randi Weingarten speaking at a “No Kings” protest in Minnesota and the organization’s increasing focus on anti-ICE efforts.  

Taken together, these developments reveal a widening gap between teachers’ unions and both the public and the educators they claim to represent. Rather than focusing on classroom instruction and professional support, large unions have increasingly prioritized ideological activism, often at the expense of students, parents, and even their own members.  

Teachers’ unions should focus solely on supporting educators, students, and their families. On paper, this may be what many teachers’ unions claim to do. The mission of the AFT, for example, is to “champion fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education.” But there’s a difference between theory and practice. Realistically, the actions of larger teachers’ unions, such as the AFT, aren’t aligned with these objectives. 

Adamantly pushing political agendas—such as LGBTQ+ practices or advocating for biological boys to be able to compete in girls’ sports—in schools across the country doesn’t give students a high-quality education. Instead, it takes time away from students learning how to read or write critically and authentically.  

In addition, using member dues to lobby for left-wing causes or endorse political campaigns doesn’t benefit teachers. Staunchly opposing education choice such as education savings accounts ultimately hinders parents’ freedom to make the right decisions concerning their children’s education.  

Unions also have a track record for keeping kids out of the classroom. Oftentimes, when school strikes are encouraged by the unions, students and families are the ones who pay the price.  

The Defense of Freedom Institute has tracked the impacts of teacher union strikes since 2010 and found that there have been 858,517 employees on strike, 140 strikes in 30 states and the District of Columbia, and 672 days of lost instruction (the equivalent of nearly four school years). For families already struggling with learning loss, these disruptions are not abstract labor disputes; they are lost opportunities that cannot be recovered.  

These are just a few examples of how teachers’ unions have strayed away. This is a problem. The good news is that teachers recognize this, and they’re leaving in large swaths.  

Teachers’ unions like the AFT have seen a steady decline in membership since the landmark 2018 case Janus v. AFSCMEThis case held that public-sector unions cannot mandate that non-members pay union dues, meaning teachers who choose not to join also cannot be charged dues or agency fees. 

Janus did not weaken unions by fiat; it simply gave teachers the option to opt out, revealing how many no longer felt represented. Prior to the 2018 decision, Heritage Foundation analysts wrote that “these agency fees had allowed the unions to amass a considerable war chest over the decades.”  

Thankfully, in their stead, alternative options for educators have appeared. A prominent alternative is the Teacher Freedom Alliance, which is free for teachers to join and offers liability insurance for members. This insurance protects educators from risks they may encounter in the industry.  

Since its launch a year ago, over 12,000 educators have joined the Teacher Freedom Alliance. Why? The organization’s mission to “develop free, moral, and upright American citizens” is attracting educators. Its focus on quality curricula and better instruction is free of ideological interference and emphasizes teaching the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic.  

If teachers continue leaving these unions in large enough waves, teachers’ unions like the AFT may be forced to focus less on promoting political agendas or risk closing up shop. This is good news for students, parents, and the profession itself.  


French far-right leader romantically linked to Italian princess

 

France's far-right presidential hopeful Jordan Bardella is in a relationship with Italian socialite Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, according to celebrity magazine Paris Match.

In what has all the hallmarks of a staged "scoop", this week's front page carries photographs of the couple taken recently on holiday in Corsica with the headline "The idyll that no-one expected."

Rumours of a love affair have been circulating since January when the pair were seen together at an event in Paris to mark the 200th anniversary of Le Figaro newspaper.

But the 30-year-old president of the Rassemblement National (RN) party has consistently deflected interview questions, saying that his private life was his "last space of liberty." 

 

 

The Paris Match story suggests the decision has been taken to make the relationship official.

Bardella will run for the French presidency next year if a court rules in July that historic party leader Marine Le Pen is ineligible because of a conviction for misuse of EU parliamentary funds. Polls say either RN candidate would stand a good chance of winning.

Press commentators on Thursday said it was important for Bardella to be able to enter a presidential campaign with clarity about his personal life and who might possibly accompany him to the ElysΓ©e as first lady. 

 

 

But they also suggested the RN might want to defuse early any possible resentment among poorer voters about their leader's entanglement with an ultra-rich aristocrat.

Maria Carolina – also Duchess of Calabria and Palermo – is the 22-year-old daughter of Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro, one of two contenders to leadership of the royal house of Bourbon-Two Sicilies which ruled Sicily and southern Italy in the 19th Century. The heirs lost their throne when Italy was unified.

Maria Carolina – whose title carries no legal standing in the Italian Republic - is a distant descendant of France's Sun-King Louis XIV. 

 

 

According to her official website, she grew up in Rome, Monte Carlo and Paris and is now "actively involved in cultural, social and humanitarian initiatives that reflect her family's heritage and values. She also participates in creative and philanthropic projects alongside her sister Princess Maria Chiara."

She speaks six languages, has more than 350,000 followers on social media, and a close interest in the fashion world.

Since her father abolished the so-called Salic law, which allows only male heirs – she can expect to be the next head of her royal house.

Next to pictures showing her and Bardella walking, holding hands, and clambering over rocks, Paris-Match waxes lyrical about a couple "reinventing courtly love – 21st Century-style".

"A classical elegance – a couple incredibly atypical," it says. "On one side, a politician from the ranks of the people. On the other, a princess from the highest reaches of the nobility. 

 

 

"She was brought up in the opulence of Paris, Rome and Monaco. He is heir to no name, but the pure product of social ascent. Born in a council flat in [the Paris suburb of] Saint-Denis, he belongs to that French tradition of personalities who impose themselves not by their birth – but by their will."

According to the magazine, the couple met in Monaco during the Grand Prix of May last year, to which Bardella had taken his racing fan father.

Paris-Match is owned by the French billionaire Bernard Arnault, lead of the LVMH luxury goods conglomerate.  

 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clye1288l8no?xtor=AL-71-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_ptr_name=twitter&at_format=link&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_campaign_type=owned&at_medium=social&at_link_origin=BBCNews&at_link_id=1D6008C2-3427-11F1-8C56-A57CEC959147&at_campaign=Social_Flow&at_link_type=web_link   

 

 

 

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Trump Administration Kills the Most Annoying Car Feature Obama Forced on Drivers


RedState 

The Trump administration is eliminating Obama-era off-cycle credits that incentivized automakers to install automatic start-stop technology in vehicles, effectively killing what many drivers consider one of the most annoying features of newer models.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin highlighted the victory on Wednesday — building on the February repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding — while sharing a Wall Street Journal article highlighting drivers celebrating 'the demise of the most hated feature in their cars.'

Zeldin mocked the technology as an Obama administration climate zealot "participation trophy."

"The start/stop concept in vehicles is almost universally DESPISED. So, the Trump EPA has now REMOVED the ridiculous climate participation trophy the Obama Admin created to get this hated feature installed," he wrote on X. "The incentives for manufacturers to make your car die at every red light and stop sign have now been ELIMINATED!"

The Journal reports that a significant percentage — 58 percent — of new gasoline non-hybrid cars had these universally despised systems installed by 2024.

The start-stop engine control is, hands down, an abomination. We own an F-150, and to hear that thing shut down and then start back up at red lights brings shame to my family and me. Fellow drivers often point and laugh as the air conditioning bogs down on a hot summer day, and the vehicle ever so slightly lags before moving forward after hitting the gas, needing a split second to start again.

It turns an icon of American pickup truck design into something one imagines David Hogg and his string-bean arms would design when conceptualizing a vehicle. 

Good riddance.

The White House, very effectively, I might add, captured what it is like to drive one of these vehicles and stop at an intersection. Sometimes, I half expect to look in the rear-view mirror at a red light and see my salt-and-pepper hair turn blue.

In October 2012, the Obama EPA finalized the “2017 and Later Model Year Light-Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards” rule. 

As part of that package, the agency created “off-cycle credits” — a regulatory incentive that allowed automakers to earn compliance points toward stricter GHG emissions standards by installing certain fuel-saving technologies. Automatic engine start-stop systems were explicitly eligible for these credits. 

Adoption by manufacturers rose sharply after those credits kicked in, from less than 1% of new gasoline non-hybrid models in 2012 to the aforementioned 58% in 2024.

Never mind that real-world fuel savings proved modest and inconsistent at best — many studies showed only marginal gains in typical driving, especially once frustrated owners simply turned the system off or dealt with the annoying restarts.

In a 2011 White House press release, the administration touted the upcoming fuel economy standards, saying they should "spur manufacturers to increasingly explore electric technologies such as start/stop, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric vehicles."

They should have explored it, realized nobody liked it, and killed it with fire. 

Fortunately, Zeldin and the EPA are doing just that. Figuratively, of course.

No more forcing gimmicks on the public under the guise of environmental virtue.


Mid-Air Birth Flies Home How Stupid Birthright Citizenship Is


The extreme manipulation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause must end now if the republic is to survive.



To borrow from comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s famous redneck schtick, if you were born on a flight over U.S. air space, you might be a U.S. citizen. 

The latest birthplace debate underscores just how insanely stupid sweeping birthright citizenship has become in the modern age. And it’s another example of why the U.S. Supreme Court needs to fix a flawed 130-year-old interpretation of the Constitution. 

‘A Child Born on a Plane’

Multiple corporate outlets had some fun reporting on the “stork” story of a passenger who gave birth over the weekend during a flight from Jamaica to New York City.  The Caribbean Airlines flight “landed at New York’s John F. Kennedy international airport with one more person than it took off with,” the liberal Guardian guffawed.

As the cheeky piece explained, the citizenship status of the newborn remained up in the air because officials had yet to make clear the citizenship status of the parents — “and where the plane was at the exact moment the baby was born.” The child would, of course, automatically be a U.S. citizen if either parent is a U.S. citizen. If not, it depends on precisely where the birth occurred. If the answer is within 12 nautical miles of the U.S. coastline, the newborn just won the U.S. citizenship lottery. 

“… [A] child born on a plane in the United States or flying over its territory would acquire United States citizenship at birth,” the State Department’s rule states. 

All of this drives home the point that the expansive view of birthright citizenship is a bastardization of the law — and it needs to end. This Supreme Court has a chance to bring sanity to more than a century of manipulation of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, twisted to appease myriad monied interests. 

‘Wherein They Reside’

Last week, the court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara, a challenge to President Donald Trump’s first-day-in-office executive order denying automatic citizenship to children born to illegal aliens or to “birth tourists” and others that have long gamed the system. 

As Hans Mahncke wrote this week in The Federalist, the question before the court is whether the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause extends to “every child born on American soil, no matter who the parents are or why they are in the United States.” And American waters and airways, as the ridiculous expanded interpretation goes. 

While it seems inconceivable that the three liberals on the court would stand with Trump on doing away with the birthright citizenship, members of the conservative majority seemed skeptical of the government’s arguments. Perhaps that’s because, for reasons not entirely clear, Solicitor General D. John Sauer failed to press the jurisdictional language of the amendment. But the justices seemed to be missing the key point of a post-Civil War constitutional amendment meant to extend U.S. citizenship to former slaves, not to grant it to millions of children of noncitizens by virtue of being born within the boundaries of America. 

The Amendment declares:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Ira Mehlman, director of media for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), contends the phrase that pays in the 14th— is “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” 

“What does it mean to be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States? Does it simply mean that you’re here and you have to obey the laws like everybody else? Or does it mean something deeper,” Mehlman said this week on The Federalist Radio Hour. “We know that, for instance, children born to foreign diplomats in the United States are not U.S. citizens because they’re simply not subject to the jurisdiction of the country.” 

Mahncke wrote that the real argument turns on one word in the Citizenship Clause, which has largely escaped scrutiny: reside. 

“Perhaps because it comes at the end, it has been treated as an afterthought, but careful reading shows how central the term ‘reside’ is,” Mahncke asserts. “The clause does not say ‘are born,’  ‘are physically present,’ or ‘pass through on a tourist visa.’ Citizenship is granted only to those who actually ‘reside,’ establishing a precondition for the clause’s application…”

‘The Consequences Are Severe’

The justices on the highest court in the land may not get it, but most Americans do. 

A Rasmussen Reports national poll released Tuesday found 59 percent of likely U.S. voters support limiting automatic birthright citizenship to births where at least one parent is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. That includes 39 percent who strongly support such limits. About one-third surveyed (34%) are opposed, including 23 who strongly oppose limitations.

A Pew Research Center poll in June found Americans divided on automatic citizenship to children born to illegal immigrant parents.  

Right on cue, corporate media outlets and liberal organizations have been pushing a narrative and polls that show overwhelming support for birthright citizenship. As always, in polling much depends on how the question is asked.

One thing is for certain, the crafters of the Citizenship Clause did not foresee the rise of “birth tourism,” which has, according to FAIR, “exploded into a coordinated global enterprise, with roughly 33,000 tourist-visa births per year and more than 70,000 total foreign births annually.”

“The consequences are severe: nearly 1.5 million U.S.-citizen children raised overseas with primary loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, an explosion of chain migration, and more than $150 billion in annual net costs shifted onto American taxpayers,” the Federation reports

And it’s safe to say the denizens of 1868 did not envision babies born mid-air and the dividing line between citizen and noncitizen. For the real originalists on the court, and the liberal justices selectively claiming that space, the Citizenship Clause is more than location; it’s the intent of the time in which it was written.  

On that score, birthright citizenship should be blown out of the air.