Tea at Trianon: Getting Kicked Off X

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, February 11, 2026

Getting Kicked Off X

Oh for that warning voice! From Mark Judge at Hot Air:

I’ve been kicked off of X.  Last weekend, I got a notice that I was suspended. This was followed by a notice saying I was unsuspended, which was then followed by another notice saying I was suspended, fully this time, and that the matter is closed. Who did it? The list of suspects could be longer than an Agatha Christie novel. Despite being owned by Elon Musk, X is still vulnerable to censorship.
In my view, there are three possibilities.
  Fans of the Washington Post. The Washington Post was decimated last week, with owner Jeff Bezos cutting half of the staff. The destruction was the glorious realization of a lifelong dream of mine, and I was euphoric as I celebrated the demise of this evil institution. Washington Post reporters, like most journalists, are censors. It’s possible they dogpiled me and flooded Elon with complaints. Sally Quinn herself may have dropped the payload.
  Secondly, Hollywood. Or rather, the people in Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry who are not thrilled about my Anti-Communist Film Festival. A piece just ran on Breitbart exploring how the AFI theater in DC strung me along for months, only to reject my request to rent the theater to show The Lives of Others on its 20th anniversary. The Lives of Others is about the East German Stasi, the secret police who played for keeps. It’s possible my X account was sunk by the theater kids in America’s elite institutions. They are the American Stasi.
  Third, Jim VendeHei. When the Washington Post got nuked, VandeHei, a media figure who gave the world both Politico and Axios, was howling bloody murder and offering advice to save the paper. I shared an item I wrote about Jim - in fact, I shared it quite a lot. To everyone. It has some salty language in it. That could have done me in, although a warning would have been nice. (Read more.)