Tea at Trianon: Badass

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

Wednesday, January 7, 2026

Badass

From James Howard Kunstler:

The capture of Nicolás Maduro is driving the Lefty-left batshit crazy for a very good reason: it portends the extinction of their financial life-support, since Señor Maduro used his country as a money laundry for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and, in turn, cartel drug money, to funnel gazillions through Cuba to America’s Democratic Party and its political satellites. Not even George and Alex Soros can fill that hole.
For a nearly failed state, Cuba has been able to exert undue influence on US political life through the decades. Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles was trained-up in Marxist revolution there in the 1970s and traveled to Cuba many times during her stint in Congress. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal dropped into Havana during the last election year. NGOs such as the Center for Democracy in the Americas act as distribution nodes for money that comes through Cuba and supports Lefty-left activists around the USA. Don’t be surprised if a lot of this laundered money ended up in the bank accounts of US congresspersons and senators, too. Remember this when you watch them howl on your screens. (Read more.)

From Tierney's Real News:

Dear America,
Here’s a question for everyone who hates Donald Trump, and I ask it with genuine curiosity and just a touch of smug clarity:
So tell me, what would you do? Because so far, all I hear is outrage with no operating instructions.
You inherit a country with $30+ trillion in debt, a border that was effectively unenforced for decades, trade deals that hollowed out manufacturing towns, endless foreign wars with no victory conditions, NATO allies who openly admitted they weren’t paying their share, a federal bureaucracy that outlives presidents, and a media class that abandoned neutrality a long time ago.
Those are facts. Not vibes. Not opinions.
Now answer the question.
Do you renegotiate trade deals and bring jobs back knowing Wall Street will scream? Or do you keep the status quo and call it “global cooperation”?
Do you pressure NATO allies to finally pay their bills, something they later admitted they did because of Trump, or do you keep sending American money so no one calls you rude?
Do you enforce existing immigration law, which Congress already passed, and accept the media hysteria? Or do you selectively ignore the law and pretend that’s compassion?
Do you pull troops out of endless wars and get accused of abandoning allies, or keep Americans dying indefinitely because withdrawal looks messy?
Do you confront a bureaucracy that slow-walks orders and leaks to the press, or do you pretend that unelected agencies undermining elected authority is just “how government works”?
And now let’s add the newest example everyone’s suddenly hyperventilating over: What do you do with Maduro?
A narco-trafficking dictator with a U.S. arrest warrant. A man who ran his country into the ground, starved his people, crushed dissent, and turned Venezuela into a cartel-run failed state.
Do you: Look the other way because “international norms”? Issue strongly worded statements while people suffer? Or do you take him into custody, put him on a plane, and let a federal court handle it, like we do with criminals?
Because that’s what leadership looks like.
This isn’t “running Venezuela for oil.” This isn’t imperialism. This isn’t some Marvel-villain fantasy. It’s law enforcement at the international level, something we used to understand before performative outrage replaced common sense.
And notice the irony: Venezuelans are dancing in the streets, while the left are losing their minds from their couches screaming about legality. (Read more.)