The Last Aztec Princess

From The Collector:

 When the Spanish arrived in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec were ruled by Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, better and less accurately known as Moctezuma II, the powerful huey tlatoani who had expanded the empire to its greatest extent. Chroniclers marveled at his many wives, lesser wives and concubines, as well as his numerous children, with one claiming he had at least 100. History recorded just a few, however, including two sons who died during the conquest and one legitimate daughter, often called the last Aztec princess: Isabel.

Little is known for certain about Isabel’s life before the arrival of the Spanish colonizers. Her birth year, which of Moctezuma’s many wives was her mother, or even the correct translation of her Nahuatl name, are unknown. Some contemporary records and documents kept by the Spanish give her birth year as 1510, which would have made her just 9 years old at the time the conquest began in 1519, and when she first married. Others describe her as a maiden, suggesting she was not a child but a girl of marriageable age, while still others indicate she was born before Moctezuma became huey tlatoani, which occurred in 1503, making her a young adult when Hernán Cortés and his contingent of conquistadors arrived.

Contemporary accounts are equally unclear about her lineage, with some suggesting she was the daughter of Moctezuma’s first wife and others indicating she was born of one of his secondary wives. Marriages were often undertaken to cement alliances with neighboring groups, while marrying within family groups to preserve the noble or semi-divine bloodline was also common, ultimately making either wife an equally likely candidate for a child considered his heir. The ruler also had many concubines, though records do seem to agree that Isabel was not the result of any of those unions; some half-siblings who would later come to challenge her status as Moctezuma’s heir were. (Read more.)

Share

The Myth of Stolen Land and the Erasure of Indigenous Agency

 From Alexander Muse at Amuse on X:

By the time Spanish missionaries and soldiers established a sustained presence in California in the late 18th century, indigenous California had already been transformed by forces internal to the continent. Disease, resource pressure, and intertribal conflict had reduced populations and altered political structures. Spain claimed California as a colonial possession, governed it for just over half a century, and integrated it into a broader imperial system. When Mexico gained independence, it inherited Spanish sovereignty. California then passed from Mexico to the US in 1848 through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, a treaty negotiated between two recognized states following a declared war, and ratified under the international law of the era.

One can condemn the war. Many did, even at the time. But condemnation does not erase the legal fact of transfer. Mexico ceded California in exchange for $15M and the assumption of $3.25M in debt. That is not theft in any coherent legal sense. It is state succession, a mechanism by which sovereignty has changed hands throughout recorded history.

At this point, critics often shift the argument. The land may have passed legally between colonial powers, they say, but it was never theirs to give. It belonged to the tribes. This objection deserves careful treatment, because it raises the hardest questions.

The US government itself recognized these questions. In the early 1850s, federal negotiators entered into treaties with California tribes, treaties that involved the cession of land in exchange for reservations, goods, livestock, and federal recognition. These agreements were not symbolic gestures. They were attempts, however flawed, to regularize sovereignty through consent rather than extermination. Some treaties were shamefully mishandled, delayed, or ignored by Congress. That failure remains a stain. But the existence of the treaties matters. It shows that tribal leaders were not treated merely as obstacles to be cleared, but as parties capable of bargaining, choosing, and surviving.

To insist that these agreements were meaningless because tribes were too weak to consent is to deny indigenous agency altogether. It implies that native leaders were incapable of understanding tradeoffs, incapable of acting strategically, and incapable of making binding decisions for their people. That view is not morally enlightened. It is condescending.

The moral record of the US in California is mixed, and often dark. Violence, displacement, and broken promises occurred. None of that is in dispute. But moral wrongdoing does not automatically negate sovereignty. If it did, nearly every nation on earth would be illegitimate. Borders everywhere are the product of conquest, negotiation, succession, and compromise. To single out California as uniquely stolen is to apply a standard that no historical society could meet. (Read more.)

Share

Should Queen Isabella I of Castile be Canonized?

 From The Catholic Herald:

Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, Archbishop of Mexico City and Primate of Mexico, has publicly defended the cause for the beatification of Queen Isabella I of Castile during a formal visit to Spain.

Speaking in Valladolid during a meeting with the diocesan commission overseeing the cause, Cardinal Aguiar said that sustained historical and spiritual study had led him to a firm conviction about the personal sanctity of the Spanish queen and the importance of making her legacy better understood. “We want the essential facts of her life and spirituality to be known,” he said, stressing that the process required time, seriousness and balance rather than polemic or nostalgia.

The Mexican cardinal highlighted in particular Isabella’s Royal Decree of 1503, which stated that the indigenous peoples of the newly encountered territories in the Americas were to enjoy the same rights as subjects of the Spanish Crown. He described the decree as “an extraordinary position for its time”, arguing that it reflected a deeper moral vision rooted in Christian anthropology rather than political expediency.

The meeting in Valladolid brought together senior figures from the Spanish and Mexican Churches. Cardinal Aguiar was received by Archbishop Luis Argüello García, who is also president of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, alongside members of the commission for Isabella’s cause. The gathering was held at the Archdiocese of Valladolid’s spirituality centre and was described by participants as both cordial and substantive.

Archbishop Argüello said that Isabella’s life was marked by fidelity to Christ and the Church’s missionary mandate, which in turn shaped her political vision and her concern for unity rooted in shared faith. The Valladolid visit also formed part of the Intercontinental Guadalupan Novena, an initiative launched in 2022 to promote devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe while encouraging renewed reflection on evangelisation and social renewal across the Ibero-American world. (Read more.)

Share

Juarez (1939)

 

 

The 1939 film Juarez depicts the debacle of the French attempt to establish hegemony in Mexico under the auspices of Maximilian von Habsburg. The unlikely combination of characters involved in the fiasco shows that once again truth is stranger than fiction. Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, styling himself as Emperor of the French, was the master manipulator of the affair which sent the Austrian Archduke Maximilian to his doom. Maximilian's consort was the intelligent and mercurial Charlotte (Carlota) of Belgium, a granddaughter of Louis-Philippe, the Citizen-King. Although Juarez is a simplification of an extremely complicated series of events, it brings to life the historical reality of such fascinating personalities coming together.

I personally think that the film was misnamed; it should have been called Carlota, since Bette Davis turned her supporting role as the Empress of Mexico into the heart and soul of the drama. In typical Bette fashion, she upstages everyone else, including the great Paul Muni as Benito Juarez. Brian Aherne is perfection as the noble, charming and romantic Maximilian, the most hapless of Habsburgs, and one of the most liberal, too. The film does not show his marital infidelities, but it does play up the irony that Maximilian's reforms were similar to those proposed by Juarez. This did not endear the Emperor to the wealthy landowners and he lost their support. The real struggles of Maximilian and Carlota with their childlessness is poignantly portrayed, as is their genuine horror when they realize that they have been duped by Napoleon III. Maximilian perceives that the imperial Mexico of his dreams is nothing but a cruel charade, and that the original plebiscite that brought him there had been rigged. Nevertheless, he and Carlota have fallen in love with their new country and have come to identify so deeply with Mexico's agonies that there is no turning back.

The gradual disintegration of Carlota's sanity is perhaps one of Bette's greatest achievements as an actress. Carlota's breakdown at the Tuileries is a heartrending scene, with Bette authentically capturing the mannerisms of a person descending into mental illness. In actuality, Carlota's complete psychological collapse occurred not at the Tuileries but in Rome, where Pope Pius IX sighed: “Nothing is spared me in this life, now a woman has to go mad in the Vatican." The Empress never saw her husband again; he was shot by order of Juarez, while Carlota spent the next sixty years secluded in a Belgian castle. As for Mexico, in years to come the Church would be persecuted there; many of the faithful would be martyred.

The scene of the most stunning beauty is one earlier in Juarez where Carlota in black is praying at the foot of the statue of Our Lady. The prostrate Empress begs to have a child, and for the success of the Mexican enterprise, surrounded by the votive candles, with darkness hovering beyond the small sphere of light. Her faith in the face of insurmountable difficulties is all the more radiant if the viewer knows that her prayers will not be answered according to her heart's desires. Her posture of supplication communicates a total oblation of self to the will of God. Once again it is demonstrated that sometimes God chooses not to save a people or a nation through political means. Rather, He intends to sanctify in the crucible of sacrifice.

 

Share

"Land of the White Jaguar"

 From Archaeology Magazine:

CHIAPAS, MEXICO—Live Science reports that archaeologists from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) appear to have finally identified the long-lost Maya city of Sak-Bahlán, or “Land of the White Jaguar,” deep in the jungles of Chiapas. The site was home to the Lakandon-Ch'ol people, Maya rebels who resisted the Spanish conquest of their territory. After their capital city of Lacan-Tun was captured in 1586, the Lakandon-Ch'ol moved further inland and established Sak-Bahlán, where they remained for 110 years. The investigation was led by INAH archaeologist Josuhé Lozada Toledo and relied on GIS technology and historical records, especially a 1695 eyewitness account written by Spanish friar Diego de Rivas, to find the settlement. The team located the site near the Jataté and Ixcán rivers, near the border between present-day Mexico and Guatemala. “It was the most arduous field trip I've ever had in my life, but in the end, we found the archaeological evidence, right at the spot I had marked,” Lozada Toledo said. The Spanish eventually discovered and conquered the rebel stronghold in 1695, renaming it Nuestra Señora de Dolores, before it was abandoned a decade later. To read more about the Maya in Chiapas, go to "From Head to Toe in the Ancient Maya World: Nasal Prostheses." (Read more.)

Share

Human Trafficker Busted: ICE Probe Uncovers Brutal Exploitation Ring

 From Gregg Jarrett:

Hugo Hernandez-Velazquez, a Mexican national and leader of a large, brutal sex trafficking operation, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after an extensive investigation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to Breitbart. Hernandez-Velazquez, 48, was extradited from Mexico to the United States in February 2021. He pleaded guilty to a sex trafficking charge in April 2023 and received his sentence on July 10, 2025.

According to federal prosecutors, Hernandez-Velazquez and his family in Mexico used force, fraud, and coercion to lure young women from Mexico into prostitution in the United States. The traffickers falsely promised these women marriage proposals from men living in the United States. However, once the victims arrived, they were enslaved in the sex trade. The victims were beaten, forced to undergo abortions, drugged, and threatened with violence against their families if they refused to comply. (Read more.)

Share

Where Fake Narratives Go to Die

 From Overton:

Karoline Leavitt didn’t wait for the media to set the tone—she fired the first shot. Before a single question was asked, she went straight after The Washington Post for what she called a dishonest and manipulative headline on the fentanyl crisis. Their headline: “The mysterious drop in fentanyl seizures on the U.S.-Mexico border.” Leavitt called it what it was: spin.

“How is this mysterious?” she asked.

She pointed directly to the administration’s border policies and cooperation with Mexico as the reason for the decline.

“This administration’s strong border policies are the reason there has been a decrease in fentanyl trafficking,” she said.

“His strengthened relationship with Mexican President Sheinbaum and all of the measures he has been taking to deter illegal human and drug trafficking at our United States southern border is the reason for plummeting fentanyl seizures at the U.S. Border.”

But the issue wasn’t just the headline. It was what Leavitt described as intentional narrative engineering. (Read more.)

 

From The Vigilant Fox:

Karoline Leavitt came out swinging in today’s White House briefing, taking direct aim at The Washington Post, defending FEMA’s readiness, and confirming that Trump’s new 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum will take effect at midnight.

She didn’t wait for reporters to steer the conversation. Before a single question was asked, Leavitt launched into a sharp critique of the Post for what she described as a dishonest and manipulative headline about the fentanyl crisis.

The headline read: “The mysterious drop in fentanyl seizures on the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Leavitt called it what it was: spin.

“How is this mysterious?” she asked. “There is no mystery about why there is a decrease in fentanyl coming into the United States!”

She credited the administration’s policies—particularly its border strategy and strengthened ties with Mexico—for the decline.

“This administration’s strong border policies are the reason there has been a decrease in fentanyl trafficking,” she said. “His strengthened relationship with Mexican President Sheinbaum and all of the measures he has been taking to deter illegal human and drug trafficking at our United States southern border is the reason for plummeting fentanyl seizures at the U.S. Border.”

But to Leavitt, this wasn’t just about a misleading headline. She called it intentional narrative manipulation.

“This is clearly trying to intentionally manipulate the minds of Americans, and I think the American people understand why there has been fentanyl drop.”

And when the Post left out the administration’s explanation entirely?

“Our office responded to this inquiry, we provided a whole host of the reasons that fentanyl seizures have dropped at the southern border, and The Washington Post refused to run them,” she said.

“And that’s despicable.” (Read more.)

Share

The Bishops’ Legal Setback

 News from Christine Niles.

Share

Deal with the Cartel

 From Sharyl Attkisson:

President Trump has named eight killer drug cartels to the list of foreign terrorist organizations. That’s part of his effort to secure the US southern border and cut down on trafficking of fentanyl and other illegal drugs that have been distributed in record proportions in the past four years.

Trump’s executive order names the infamous Tren de Aragua in Venezuela; Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) based in El Salvaor; and Cártel de Sinaloa, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, Cártel del Noreste (formerly Los Zetas), La Nueva Familia Michoacana, Cártel de Golfo (Gulf Cartel), and Cárteles Unidos, all in Mexico, as terrorist organizations. That designation opens up a host of new enforcement actions and penalties for those dealing with the criminal groups.

But you might be surprised to know that the US admits having a signed cooperation agreement with at least one of these groups: Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel.

I was surprised this story didn’t receive more attention when I first reported it in 2011.

At the time, I was breaking shocking news on the “Fast and Furious” controversy where the US was actually engaged in secret operations to facilitate the delivery of assault rifles and other weapons into the hands of Mexican cartels.

Many sources and law enforcement officials were telling me that it was an open secret in their corners that the US cooperated with the Sinaloa cartel in order to supposedly get information on other cartels that we considered worse, such as the Zetas. We were even allowing the Sinaloa cartel to traffic drugs in America— or so the story was told.

While it sounds unbelievable, there seemed to be confirmation that came in a court case in Chicago against a key Sinaloa cartel member, the son of a top Sinaloa leader. (Read more.)

Share

Open Letter to the Pope on Immigration

Pope Francis recently wrote a letter criticizing Trump’s deportations of illegal immigrants. Let me say, as a Catholic, that the both the Catholic catechism and writings of past popes and even the American bishops have upheld the right of every nation to maintain a border and make laws about who comes in. If a nation allows immigrants to come in, it has a right to make laws creating an orderly process of immigration. It has the right to turn people away, and it certainly has a right to deport illegal immigrants who not only violated the laws by coming in, but further broke the law by committing violent crimes or drug-dealing, human-trafficking, etc. And all this about Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus being migrants, they may have been migrants but they were not breaking the law, they did not break any border laws as they never left the confines of the Roman Empire. Plus they were obviously not dealing in contraband goods or other criminal activity.  Now I know many non-Catholics think that Catholics believe that every utterance of the Pope is directly from Heaven; we do not believe that. When the pope speaks ex cathedra, which is rare, the he speaks infallibly. However, Catholics are supposed to respect what the Pope says and look to him for guidance, but when he says something that is just plain false, which contradicts both Scripture and Tradition, then a person must follow their conscience. Here is the letter which I sent via @Pontifex on X:

Holy Father, the American people, and most especially American Catholics, have bent over backwards to help immigrants, even illegal immigrants, for decades, sometimes at great cost to themselves. Americans have been assaulted and killed by illegal aliens. Huge amounts of our tax money have gone to assist them. We have even sent money to their home countries. Many American missionaries, some from my own parish, have risked their lives and their health to minister to the needy in countries in Latin America. There is no lack of generosity here. While lecturing President Trump, Holy Father, I would hope you also have words for the leaders of the countries from which the migrants are fleeing. The leaders of Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, etc have created unlivable situations for their people. The immigrants I know love their homelands and would rather be there except the circumstances were horrific. Please Holy Father, help those immigrants to stay in their beloved homelands by guiding their leaders in the path of justice. President Trump does not need such guidance but there are plenty of tyrannical dictators in Mexico, Latin America and South America who do. And I wish, Holy Father, that you might offer some words of sympathy for the American women and girls who have been murdered and raped by migrants who entered illegally. OR sympathy for the family of Dave Funk who was killed by an illegal alien driving drunk just last January. We have a growing number of homeless people who should come before non-citizens. Americas are suffering, too.

 More, on the podcast, HERE.

Share

The Intolerable Alliance

 From Armas:

The Trump Administration has been in office only fifteen days and the pace of events only accelerates — and that goes double for the revivified United States focus upon our near abroad in the Western Hemisphere. One week ago we were discussing the designation of Mexican cartels as foreign-terror organizations: this week we are discussing the White House’s surprise declaration that “the Mexican drug-trafficking organizations have an intolerable alliance with the government of Mexico,” which is of course entirely true — which is why it was never said before. But it is said now, and so it is worth exploring the case for the existence of that alliance in detail, which my headliner column at The Spectator does. An excerpt:

The central figure in the Mexican-regime case is the man who served as President of Mexico from 2018 through 2024, and still controls the ruling MORENA coalition through his proxies and family members throughout the party apparatus. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in addition to being an inveterate anti-American in his demagogic politics, is widely understood to have been in the pay of the Sinaloa Cartel for most of the past twenty years. This was more or less common knowledge in Mexico, and the regime did not trouble itself to hide the evidence. AMLO, as he is known, spent nearly his entire presidency defending the Sinaloa Cartel against the Americans, and sometimes against his own security apparatus. He paid more visits to the Sinaloan Cartel headquarters town of Badiraguato across six years than he did to Washington, D.C.; he took a special trip to pay respects to the elderly mother of jailed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera; he ordered his own security forces to release one of “El Chapo’s” captured sons; he intervened to spring the cartel-corrupted Mexican flag officer Salvador Cienfuegos from American detention; he effectively banned U.S. law enforcement from working in Mexico; and he even vowed to use the Mexican armed forces to defend the cartels against American action.

This is not even the whole list, but it will do.

Read it all.

(Read more.)

Share

Trump Says Biden’s Border Wall Sale Is ‘Almost A Criminal Act,’ Will Seek Restraining Order

 From The Daily Wire:

President-elect Donald Trump tore into the Biden Administration for selling off parts of the border wall following an exclusive Daily Wire investigation, charging that it is “almost a criminal act” and also that he intends to seek a restraining order.

Trump made the statement after a Daily Wire investigation revealed that the Biden administration was selling off portions of the border wall in public auctions, with a goal of unloading the border wall before Trump takes office in January. One Republican Senator found that the administration was recouping just 0.2% of the original cost of the wall material to taxpayers.

“The administration is trying to sell it for five cents on the dollar knowing that we’re getting ready to put it up,” Trump said in a press conference. “What they’re doing … It’s almost a criminal act. They know that we’re going to use it and if we don’t have it we’re going to have to rebuild it and it will cost double what it cost years ago and that’s hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“I spoke with the Attorney General of Texas, I spoke with the Senators of Texas, I spoke to a lot of people and hopefully they’ll be able to stop it. We’re going to be having a restraining order,” Trump added. “I am asking Joe Biden today to please stop selling the wall.” (Read more.)

Share

The Old Story of Defeated Empires

 From EL PAÍS:

Two very wise gentlemen sat at a table to reflect, with a century-and-a-half of experience between them. They have at their disposal enormous amounts of knowledge, data, arguments and nuances regarding major issues of continental history and the life of the ancients: as in, those who lived in what is now called the Americas, before the arrival of the Spanish.

On one side is the Peruvian Luis Millones, one of the most renowned anthropologists of the Southern Cone. Millones has analyzed the life of the Inca people with devotion and ease. On the other side is the Mexican Eduardo Matos, an eminence of Mesoamerican archaeology. He’s responsible for the rescue of the remains of the old Aztec capital, from the depths of modern Mexico City. (Read more.)

Share

Save Them Now

 From Sara Carter:

In this episode, Sara discusses the critical issue of human trafficking, particularly child trafficking, in the context of the current border crisis.

Guests Tara Rodas and Jaco Booyens share their experiences and insights into the government’s systemic failures in protecting vulnerable children. They highlight the alarming statistics of missing migrant children and the complicity of various government agencies in facilitating trafficking networks. The conversation emphasizes the urgent need for accountability, reform, and a united effort to rescue and protect children from exploitation. (Read more.)

Share

Secret Mayan City with Full of Pyramids and Plazas

 From Arkeonews:

Tulane University researchers used laser-guided imaging to uncover vast unexplored Maya settlements in Campeche, Mexico, revealing more than 6,500 pre-Hispanic structures, including a previously unknown large city with stone pyramids.

The ability to examine large regions from the comfort of a laboratory thanks to Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) technology has revolutionized the way archaic researchers study ancient civilizations in recent years.

The research project, led by doctoral student Luke Auld-Thomas alongside his advisor, Professor Marcello A. Canuto, both affiliated with Tulane’s Middle American Research Institute (MARI), used Lidar technology to study an area of 130 square kilometers in Campeche.

As part of a “non-archaeological” survey, the 50-square-mile area was mapped in 2013 using lidar, a remote-sensing technology, according to a study published today in the journal Antiquity. Examining this “found” dataset, the researchers discovered the ancient city concealed in plain sight in a region teeming with Maya settlements. They found evidence of over 6,500 structures in all.

The research focuses on a part of Campeche that had previously been overlooked in traditional archaeological research. “The government never knew about it; the scientific community never knew about it,” says lead author Luke Auld-Thomas, an archaeologist at Tulane University, in a statement. (Read more.)

Share

How Illegal Immigrants are Crossing the Border

 Megyn Kelly interviews James O'Keefe.

Share

Texas Rancher Sues Biden-Harris Government Over Influx of Illegal Immigrants

 From The National Pulse:

A Texas rancher, Michael Vickers, and Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe have filed a lawsuit against Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The lawsuit, filed by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), claims that current border policies have resulted in record numbers of illegal immigrants entering the United States, causing significant harm to Vickers’s ranch and other areas in Texas.

Michael Vickers, who owns a 1,000-acre ranch in Brooks County, says that the Biden-Harris government’s immigration policies have led to extensive damage to his property. According to the lawsuit, Vickers has incurred over $50,000 in fence and gate repairs due to the influx of migrants crossing his land. The complaint also mentions the environmental damage caused by trash and litter left by illegal immigrants, which has negatively impacted the food and water sources for Vickers’s livestock. (Read more.)

Share

Orestes Brownson on National Greatness

 From The Imaginative Conservative:

Brownson’s essay titled “National Greatness” appeared in January, 1846 in his Brownson’s Quarterly Review and two years after his conversion to Catholicism. The time was witness to the immigration of the “Catholic Hordes,” an increase from 35,000 in 1790 to 1.6 million in 1850.

Rumors had churned in 1843 that Brownson, a Presbyterian and Transcendentalist, was converting to Catholicism at age 41.[3] A decade earlier he had created The Society for Christian Union and Progress and authored his first book, New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church.

He is largely unfamiliar to American Catholics, and he would likely reference our contemporary political order as heathenism founded in the non serviam of Eden and the beginning of the City of the World, the New World Order and a failed standard.

Following that date, Brownson turned his attention to his Boston Quarterly Review which became in time Brownson’s Quarterly Review.

The 1846 date is good background for Brownson’s thesis on national greatness: Texas was annexed during the Polk presidency; the Mexican-American War began; covered wagons meandered west; all representing a time the country completed that westward course of empire, but not without some shady transgressions, the one exception the first baseball game.

The issue is replete with the argument that manifest destiny was a “mission” on the part of the American people who owned a special virtue. Whether the “mission” was nationalism or imperialism, the underlying theme was one of cultural purity.

For Brownson, questions abounded as to whether or not the current circumstances were tokens of national greatness and whether God had divinely elected the American people to do this work of manifest destiny. (Read more.)

Share

A Habsburg Archduke on Mexico’s Throne

 From The Hungarian Conservative:

Mexican conservatives approached Maximilian as early as in 1859 with the proposal of making him ruler of their country. He seemed like an ideal candidate: he was unlikely to ever rule Austria, was proven to be a competent administrator of Lombardy, and furthermore, was a royalty from a European nation that was neutral in the conflict between Mexico and the intervening powers. This scheme could finally materialize in 1863, when the French Empire and its Mexican conservative allies gained a foothold in Mexico, after Napoleon III invaded the country in 1861. To lend legitimacy to his enterprise, the French emperor allowed his Mexican allies to invite Maximilian to the throne.

Maximilian arrived at Mexico in 1864 and was subsequently crowned emperor. Despite his title and the name of the new state, Mexican Empire, Maximilian was not in charge of the whole country. Republican rebels, led by Benito Juárez still ruled many regions, especially in the northern areas, along the border with the United States.

As emperor, Maximilian continued his programme of reforms just where he had left off in Lombardy. He affirmed many of Juarez’s reform laws, including freedom of religion, and the secularization of the church landholdings. Maximilian was supported by a small, but influential group of Mexican scientists and scholars, referred to by historians as ‘los imperialistas’. Influenced by Positivist ideas, these progressive minds sought to use the monarchical framework to implement reforms. Their vision was of a centralized liberal autocracy; therefore, these intellectuals strived to reform the administration, the municipality structure, and the legal code of the country. The ‘imperialists’ also supported Maximilian in his quest to expand education and uplift the Indians. (Read more.)

Share

Joe Biden's EV Mandate

 From The Last Refuge:

The issue that should concern everyone is not the Joe Biden administration and their ideology around climate change, or the EPA, or even the viability of EVs themselves.  The issue that should draw the biggest concern is how the regulation originates; what is the impetus; who are the beneficiaries? The regulation itself did not originate in the EPA, nor was it created from an origination process amid climate ideologues in the administration.  Everything starts with BlackRock positioning their assets.  From that empirical point, all political activity then takes place, which includes the regulations to support the BlackRock objective.

A massive, multinational investment firm is in control of political outcomes in the USA.  That should be the emphasis, not necessarily the regulation that flows as an outcome of that control, and certainly not the debate over whether EVs are a viable alternative to combustion engines. BlackRock, and the control agents of finance, banking and investment, would like nothing more than to see Congress have debates about climate change, the viability of EVs as an alternative to combustion engines, the nuances of power grid generation from alternative energy sources, the scale of energy need as estimated and debated for the next two decades, etc.

All these points of debate become useful political policy issues that divide and contrast.  Sure, Congress would love to hold hearings about EV viability, U.S. grid compliance, the need for subsidized charging stations, etcetera, etcetera.  Because what is not discussed in this debate is where the subject matter comes from. BlackRock positions their money to benefit from policy.  BlackRock, like others, then manipulate the policymakers to support their position.  We The People end up in a debate over EVs, while the BlackRock executives dance merrily into cocktail hour, discuss the latest climb in their value, and debate which politician should get a cut of the proceeds.

Nowhere in the political process on Capitol Hill does anyone ask, “How did the BlackRock investment group know to support Chinese EV plants in Mexico?”

The obvious fire of corporatism/fascism is ignored while the politicians, and us, debate the ramifications of the smoke, EVs. Democrats would love to debate EVs and say the Republicans are planet killers.  Republicans would love to debate EVs and say the Democrats are taking away your freedom. (Read more.)

Share