Tea at Trianon: Blue Sky, Discord, the Dark Web & MKUltra

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, April 29, 2026

Blue Sky, Discord, the Dark Web & MKUltra

From Tierney's Real News:

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) is a black-tie banquet in Washington, DC. that’s organized by a group of reporters assigned to the White House. The annual event is held at the Washington Hilton, which has hosted the dinner for decades.
The Washington Hilton is also where John Hinckley shot Reagan in 1981. President Trump has boycotted the WHCD during all of Trump’s first term and last year, so this dinner would have been his very first as Commander in Chief and it was a big deal.
Before we go on and discuss the shooting, I want to remind people WHY President Trump had boycotted the WHCD dinner so far. This background is crucial context, because it shows how DC elites went from seeing Trump as a potential savior in 2011 to a punchline.
Many Republicans are not aware that in 2011, at the WHCD, President Obama and Seth Meyers mercilessly roasted and mocked Donald Trump for considering a GOP Presidential run. It was humiliating and degrading. (Read more.)