Tea at Trianon: Harassing Family Should Be Completely Off-Limits

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, September 10, 2018

Harassing Family Should Be Completely Off-Limits

Congressman Devin Nunes and his family are harassed by the "Resistance." From The Federalist:

In addition to agenda-driven reporting, the localized resistance, comprised of both media figures and political opponents, has gone to strange lengths to badger Nunes’ extended family.

Last month, Gerald Nunes, Devin’s uncle, was accused of “harass[ing]” the video crew of Devin’s Democratic opponent, Andrew Janz, while Janz’s team was shooting a campaign video. The Janz team originally started shooting the video on land Gerald owned, although he had not given the crew permission to do so.

Gerald confronted the crew and asked them to leave his property, and a member of the irrigation district later called the police. The crew then moved to land nearby that Gerald rents. The result of this staged filming fiasco targeting Nunes’ uncle? Janz posted a tweet accusing Devin Nunes of “send[ing] one of his relatives to stop” Janz’s team from filming and referring to Nunes and his relatives as “triggered snowflakes.”

Of all the land in Fresno and Tulare counties, Janz chose land occupied by Nunes’ family as the ideal location to shoot his commercial. Mere happenstance? Unlikely. But surely a perfect opportunity for resistance-type figures to harangue Nunes’ family members, then frame Nunes as responsible.
Nunes’ uncle isn’t the only one whom political activists have pestered. His 98-year-old grandmother also received an unannounced visit from a Fresno Bee reporter.

Meanwhile, Nunes’ wife, a public school teacher in Visalia, also has been targeted. Her emails were recently released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) due to a request from an individual in Los Angeles. Nunes’ Chief of Staff Anthony Ratekin stated, “A left-wing group used the information [from the FOIA] to file a frivolous ethics complaint against Rep. Nunes based on a willful misreading and blatant misrepresentation of the information.”

The group, Campaign for Accountability, refused to comment on whether they had collaborated with the LA individual who filed the FOIA, even when this writer contacted them several times regarding the matter. The ethics complaint is filled with sheer speculation and innuendo accusing Nunes of financial improprieties.

For example, it notes that Nunes invested less than the minimum investment amount in another winery, speculating this means he either lied on his financial returns or received favorable treatment. According to Nunes spokesperson Jack Langer, however, Nunes simply pooled his money with other investors in a holding company to meet the minimum investment, after having cleared the investment with both the House Ethics Committee and the winery. (Read more.)