Tea at Trianon: Migrant Children, Lost and Found

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 8, 2025

Migrant Children, Lost and Found

The Biden administration has a lot to answer for. From The Daily Mail:

After an estimated 233,000 children who crossed the US-Mexico border alone during President Joe Biden's tenure were lost, law enforcement has started to locate them - only to learn of the horrors they have faced.
Since March, the Trump administration has tracked down 22,638 kids, finding some in 'deplorable' conditions, dead and others being used as sex slaves, officials told Fox News.
'We found children who have been raped,' John Fabbricatore, HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement senior advisor told the network.
'We're talking about debt bondage, where children are being made to work off debt, trafficking debt. We're talking about children that were brought into situations and then treated like sexual slaves.'
At least 27 of those lost children have been confirmed dead, with causes of death ranging from murder, suicide, car accidents or drug overdoses.
'Children are in horrific environments, just environments that they should not be in, where the sponsor is a heroin dealer and that child winds up dying of a heroin overdose,' explained Fabbricatore.
These children are classified by the government as 'unaccompanied minors' -underaged migrants who crossed the US border without a parent or legal guardian. (Read more.)