Tea at Trianon: The Storm Begins

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

Saturday, September 27, 2025

The Storm Begins

From Coffee and Covid 2025:

The news is bursting, so let’s get to it. Your roundup today includes: Trump 2.0’s consolidation phase officially ended last night with the ‘shocking’ indictment of James Comey for lying to Congress, and the next exciting and dangerous “Storm” phase has begun; President Trump signs another domestic terror executive order and this one has sharper teeth—the consolidation phase is over and the Storm Phase has begun; two ivermectin stories from Florida; over-the-counter bill filed, terrifying liberals; DeSantis announces ivermectin-cancer initiatives, which scared them even more; and Secretary Kennedy opts out of United Nation’s stupid health plan.
[...]
Arrests. The Storm has begun. Mark down the name of James Comey in your daily journal as the man who launched the whirlwind. Politico covered the story this morning below the simple, four-word headline, “Comey indictment stuns Washington.” Oh, what tangled webs we weave, when we practice to deceive. (Read more.)

From James Howard Kunstler:

Mr. Comey’s indictment is probably just the opening salvo in what will be a barrage of indictments coming down against government officials who used their powers-under-law to harass, disable, cancel, dis-bar, bankrupt, persecute and ruin thousands of their fellow citizens, including especially the 45^th president and the people who worked for him.
Jim Comey was the engine who pulled the choo-choo train of seditious fakery known as RussiaGate (Donald Trump colluding with Vladimir Putin) into America’s public life, which then expanded into the years-long ass-covering operations of the Mueller Investigation, then Impeachments One and Two, then the J-6 FBI-engineered “insurrection,” then Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional J-6 committee gong show, and then the four various fugazi prosecutions against Mr. Trump in 2024 designed to derail his re-run for office, bankrupt his family, and stuff him in prison for the rest of his life. (Read more.)