Answering Batya Ungar-Sargon's views on Elon Musk. Megyn Kelly Ep. 1013

 

Batya Ungar-Sargon talks to Megyn Kelly about Elon Musk, click above

Email: to Megyn@megynkelly.com

Dear Megyn,

A longish email below, for you to do with as you wish. I do hope you can pass it on to Batya, as it's mainly addressed to her, for her comments on Elon Musk. 

I'm a very long-time supporter of yours, from your early Fox days. 

I love Batya too. I have both her books in hardcover (photo proof below!). 

I've loved every time you have Batya on your show. But... then.. then... she hates on Elon?!. Holy Musk-rats, Batman!! I'm a big-time fan-boy of Elon's, Long TSLA and have to respond. Normally I'd have done so in your YT Comments, but I needed more space.  

ME: I'm an old Aussie, living in China for over 40 years -- Beijing, Shanghai, and now Hong Kong. I worked in the Australian Embassy, Peking, in the 1970s, and then in private business and consulting in China for many years. I've established, run and sold a businesses here in Hong Kong. 

I speak, read and write Chinese. Am married to someone from Beijing. I'm no fan of the CCP, nor of Xi Jingping and have said so often in a blog I've kept for 16 years. I do like and respect the Chinese people and Chinese culture. 

Below are my comments on each of Batya's claims as to why she doesn't like Elon.  They start at 1:04:25. My comments outdented, Batya's indented. The bits I comment on are highlighted. 

"His [Musk's] entire supply chain is in China..."

1. No, his entire supply chain is not in China. It is in what he calls "40 geographical regions" around the world, including Europe, Asia and the US. 

2. Musk is obsessed with the difficulty of handling the supply chain, which he says is the most difficult part of production. Go to his X account and search "supply chain" to see. One example:

3. China is likely the largest source of inputs for the Tesla. But that is not in the least surprising. From both my own personal experience and that of the many companies I know with business in Asia, China is a reliable, efficient and low-cost supplier. 

4. Musk's complaints about supply chain disruptions have mainly been about those from Germany (Renesas) and Japan (Renesas). He has also complained about China (CATL) and South Korea (LF), but less often -- because the failures are rarer. 

"... and he is unbelievably close with the CCP."

I'm reminded by this by Thomas Sowell: "There are no solutions, only trade-offs'. The trade-off for Musk and Tesla in relation to China was: (i) Are we going to go into the China market, the largest consumer and producer market in the world, the largest car market in the world; the trade off for which is restraining our criticism of the CCP or (ii) Are we going to stay out of the market, so we can retain our virtue and continue to criticise the CCP on X? 

Musk made the choice. I guess there are many that might disagree. But the TSLA stockholders did not. The Tesla factory in China is the largest in the world. It was built, By the way, in record time, vs builds in Germany and the US, and from which much was learned. 

There is no "solution" here. No case in which Tesla could enter the China market and then have its "maverick" CEO willy nilly bashing Xi Jinping on his social media platform. Talk about an edge case of FAFO!

"Xi Jinping asked him to build a showroom for Tesla in Xinjiang which is where the Uyghurs are being genocided and [Musk] complied."

I really don't like the use of "genocided" here, just as I don't like its use against Israel, and have written repeatedly against it, on my blog. "Genocide" has a specific meaning. It applies neither to Gaza nor to Xinjiang. 

That said, I never really liked the Han Chinese treatment of Uyghurs, and said so on my blog as early as 2008. I was an early denouncer of their treatment. Yet there is an argument, from the Han Chinese side, and others, that what is being done is to de-radicalise the extremist Muslims in an area they call, not Xinjiang, but "East Turkmenistan".  Bejiing has good reason -- with regular example in the rest of the world -- of what radical Islam, of what Jihadis, can do. 

"He didn't have to do that. he's the richest man on the planet." 

This is irrelevant for what Musk does is not for the money. I fully believe he loves mankind and is doing what he can to make it multi-planetary for the long-long term. There's heaps of things he "didn't have to do", if money were the only goal. Note, By the way, how he lives. He owns no houses. He owns no luxury yacht. He has a private plane, because it makes it quicker to get around to dispense his extremely valuable time. 

So he has this unbelievably obsequious relationship with China who I believe is our greatest adversary. "... unbelievably obsequious" is a value judgement. For sure he's not been a critic of Xi and the CCP, for the obvious reason. The United States is a robust and rowdy democracy with its full measure of free speech. China is not. It's a Leninist dictatorship. Were he to do the "maverick" thing in China, his business would be bust. Refer again to the Thomas Sowell quote. There are no solutions (ie, ideal outcomes), only trade-offs". This is a trade-off that Musk and Tesla have made to be in the world's largest car market. 

Some of the views Elon has expressed about China I would not have. For example, I'm not sure there was need to opine on the Taiwan question. For me, the status quo is the best that Taiwan can expect; ther is no point in demanding "independence", which it already has de facto, just not de jure. Yet it's true that what Elon said about Taiwan, being part of One China, is the policy of virtually every country in the world including the United States and the United Nations. 

As to his praise for the CCP handling of the Chinese people, he's right. I'm no fan of Xi or the CCP. And yet I've witnessed with my own eyes the massive improvements in the livelihoods of the ordinary Chinese people. Visit China, and you'll see. You'll bump into Chinese people who are warm, friendly and happy. True!

I don't see how you can truly be an American Patriot when you have to bend the knee to China and have proven willing to bend the knee to China over and over again. 

This is unfair. Given the comments I made immediately above, I don't for one minute think it's a fair characterisation to say that Elon has "bent the knee". He has praised the CCP, to be sure. And even Xi Jinping. But they are not beyond all praise, even occasionally from me, who has regularly given them stick. The CCP does indeed have a vision for China, has long-term aims, does well for its people. To note that is not to "bend the knee". 

And thus, calling into doubt his patriotism is a bit of a low blow. Which smacks more of the sort of thing that one usually hears from "the other side". Casual ad hominem. I would class Elon Musk, along with Donald Trump, as two of the strongest, proudest patriots out there. Both have suffered for what they are trying to do for they country they love. No fair, Batya!

He's such a maverick on Twitter when it comes to American politics, but he has never once said a negative word about the CCP, which of course engages in tons and tons of you know human rights violations the genocide of the Uyghurs and of course undermines America at every turn that it can. 

Just to repeat my comments above. He cannot be in China the "maverick" that he is in the U.S. He's either in China, with its restrictions, or he's not. There are only trade-offs! 

Again, repeat my comment about "genocide" of the Uyghurs. Han Chinese (ie the majority) treatment of Hui Chinese (ie, the Uyghurs) is tough. It's not genocide. 

So on that front I'm I'm very uncomfortable with him being this close to power. 

Me, not at all. For reasons above.  

The way that he related to American workers over the H1B visa squabble over Christmas when he literally endorsed a tweet calling Americans "retarded" I really, really, really didn't like that.

He came out in favour of the H1B visa, against the likes of Steve Bannon. Just that he thought it should be revamped to remove the rorting. He did Like an X post saying some young Americans are "retarded", a word he uses a touch too often for my taste as well. But, what? We're going to be upset by Hurty Words now? Like Trump has never said any? I dunno. Kind of equal treatment required here.  

I don't think he is has the same values as the MAGA movement. 
He's not religious. 

Well! I'm not religious either. I would have voted for Obama and even Hillary'16 (god help me), but would have voted for Trump in 2020 and last year. I'm an Aussie, but now big Trump fan. Do I need to be religious for that? 

I live with two women, one a Buddhist, the other Catholic. Me an atheist. We get along fine. I'm fine with all religions, Catholic, Buddhist, Jewish (I'm a judeophile and philo-semitic). Just one I don't like, Islam, because it's more of a supremacist ideology than a simple Abrahamic religion and certainly not the "Religion of Peace". 

But I digress. Do we need to be religious to be Republicans? To support Trump? (I'm pretty sure The Donald is not really religious...).

He's never been married.

Wrong. He's been married three times, twice to the same woman. However, would it matter if he'd never been married? If so, why?

He has this kind of transhumanist view. He thinks that Americans are going to be you know people are going to become computerized and that intelligence is going to be machine made. All of this stuff for me really puts him at odds with the values of the MAGA movement.

Transhumanist? I think Elon is simply saying that that's where he sees homo sapiens going eventually. As a kind of Cyborg. Not that he plans it, or welcomes it (though he might), just that that's where our AI and technology is leading us. Which, by the way, is the theme of many a Hollywood movie.... 

As for "being at odds with the values of the MAGA movement", I wonder. How many others, newly welcomed into the Big Tent, might also not hew to every single value of the MAGA movement, whatever these might be. RFK Jr? Tulsi? The All-in guys? Certainly not me, an Aussie here in Hong Kong, who nonetheless enthusiastically supports Donald Trump, his team and his bro Elon Musk. 

....*

And I also think that you know the media of course is criticizing him for all the wrong things. But so that's kind of where I'm at on this.

Not sure whether Batya is saying that Trump is being criticised for all the wrong things, or whether she means Musk. It really ought to be Musk. Because it's he who's being criticised for all the wrong things. By people who either don't know him or don't want to know him. 

To my mind, he's the Leonardy da Vinci of our time. The unique blend of inventor, artist, mathematician, constructor, entrepreneur and visionary. 

I feel blessed -- by that non-existent god -- to be living in the Age of Musk. We'll never see his like again this century. 

There's a final practical note, here, Batya. There are plenty of people on the Left who are hitting hard on Elon, including many death threats. We don't need someone who's on "our side" to be beating up on him as well. Particularly when, as I believe, those views are largely either wrong, or out of context. To use your words, criticised "for all the wrong things". 

Best regards
Peter Forsythe
Hong Kong
+852 9308 0799

My blog is at PeterForsythe <dot> Com

Two old dogs -- Peter Forsythe and Byron
holding up Batya's two books. 
In depths of Hong Kong winter

======================

Toby vs Godzilla

 

Islam's war against the west

 

	Gad Saad ⁦‪@GadSaad‬⁩ We will conquer the West through three means: 1) By the womb of our women 2) By hijrah (immigration) 3) By using your miserable freedoms against you. They have been saying it loudly for decades but you know your friend Ahmad eats prosciutto and is gay so don't worry about it.   26/2/2025, 1:44 am

Gad Saad is spot on with this. I've had friends say pretty much exactly this to me. My friend Muhammad is cool, so Islam must be nice. Meantime the above strategy holds. It's the distillation of Muslim Brotherhood ideology and strategy. 

We may not be at war with Islam. But Islam is at war with the west. We have no choice about that. Islam has the concept of Dar al-Islam -- the "land of peace" -- and Dar al-Harb -- "the land of war", aka the lands of the infidel, aka the lands where Islam does not -- yet -- hold sway. 

"... To add insult to injury..."

 

Trump policies popular

Harvard Harris poll, 19-20 February, 2025

Whatever the hysteria on the Left over Trump's warp-speed moves to implement what he said he'd do -- all their talk of "illegal", or "anti-constitutional" or "non-transparent", of "chaos" -- the policies, as they are being implemented, are popular. In some cases up to 81% support, which is basically everyone. 

The results are from a Harvard Harris poll carried out last week, results above. These are his top ten policies. Every single one is substantially popular. 

ADDED: There's another figure not above: 58% of respondents say that Trump is doing better at this time, than was Biden at the same time. That's a huge lead.

Note the popularity of closing borders and sending back illegal immigrants who have committed a crime. This is something that's popular in all countries -- in Europe, the U.K., Australia, Canada. They all have over 75% support. The problem in Europe, as we just found out from the German elections, is that you have proportional representation and you can't get a clear result as you do in the U.S. and the U.K. In those countries, at least you can get a clear change. In Germany and across Europe, you end up with a squidgy smudge, of a mix of politicians. Even if most Germans would like something more conservative -- and tough on illigal immigration -- as the AfD. 

ADDED: 

Here's the chart of illegal U.S. southern border crossings, since Trump. 

Remember how Kamala used to say that it was difficult to control the entries, how she blamed the Republicans for not supporting Biden's Immigration Bill, which was nothing more than a bill to usher in more immigrants and call them "legal", excuses after excuses. And when challenged why couldn't she issue Executive Orders to shut down illegal immigration, replied with a fog of nonsense and deflection. 

Illegal immigration to 29/1/25. Numbers remain 93% down, up to today

Turns out it just took some Executive Orders to bring order back to the border. Order at the Border. 

"But shoot... I'm a pack rat."

 

Why PAY terrorist organisations when they’re perfectly willing to hate us for free?

	Elon Musk ⁦‪@elonmusk‬⁩ As many people have said, why pay terrorist organizations and certain countries to hate us when they're perfectly willing to do it for free?   23/2/2025, 10:30 pm

The most feared trial in ancient Rome...

 

Population decline is happening all over the world | Stephen Shaw

Click above for the video

The main reason is not that women on average are having fewer babies. The main reason is that the number of women who are childless is increasing. The number having one or more children has stayed the same. The number having zero has surged. 

The reason for the increase in childless couples is social. The pressure is on to get a job and have a career. Men and women alike feel they can have children "later'. Just that "later" never happens, or happens suddenly, and then there's no time.  

I'd not heard of Stephen Shaw before. He's speaking above at the recent Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London. 

That the world faces a true existential crisis from declining population hasn't really hit the public yet. Elon Musk has been banging on about it for some time. As have I here on this blog. See here. 

(And as early as 2010, I posted about declining world birth rates: "The end is nigh; don't do anything")

There’s NEVER been a “Palestinian” State…. Never…

	Imtiaz Mahmood ⁦‪@ImtiazMadmood‬⁩ Basic History for the Uninformed: 1. Before Israel, there was a British mandate, not a Palestinian state. 2. Before the British Mandate, there was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian state. 3. Before the Ottoman Empire, there was the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt,… pic.x.com/dOaX0v3y3J   23/2/2025, 5:00 am

More trouble brewing...

 

“Islam is not the source of terrorism!” | Angela Merkel

	Imtiaz Mahmood ⁦‪@ImtiazMadmood‬⁩ "Islam is not the source of terrorism!" ~ Angela Merkel Saying otherwise will be Islamophobia. Meanwhile, in the last 30 days, there were 115 Islamic attacks in 24 countries, in which 860 people were killed and 872 injured. You don't hear about this because it does not fit… pic.x.com/epicRPJ8Td   23/2/2025, 2:00 pm

Really? 

Merkel speaks 100% nonsense here. Click above for the video of her nonsensical lies. 

Does she not realise that the reason "Islamic authorities" don't speak up to denounce "violent Islam" vs "peaceful Islam" — as she pleads for them to do - is because there is no difference between the peaceful and the violent? 

Islam is Islam. 

Islam doesn't need Islamic scholars to explain itself to us. 

Islam easily understood via the Koran, the Hadith and the Sharia law -- the Trinity of Islam. At its core it is the max supremacist religion in the world. It specifies that its supremacy shall be extended "by the sword", by terrorism, by battle, by "fighting in the way of Allah" until all the world is subjugated to the will of Allah. Until we submit, "submission" being the meaning of the word "Islam". The chaos across Europe now is not despite Islam, but because of it. 

I believe Merkel doesn't know this and is just spouting pabulum written for her. Which also happens to fit in with her world view that "wir Schaffen das", ie, "we can do this", as she said at the beginning of the migrant surge in 2015. 

It turns out Germany "cannot do this", cannot handle the supremacist hordes, as proven by multiple, ongoing, raging Islamic attacks on the German host population. And across Europe wherever there are large Islamic enclaves. 

She, Angela Merkel, is the one person most responsible for the disastrous current surge in violent crime across Germany and everywhere in Europe that's welcomed waves of illegal Islamist immigrants. 

Yes please, U.K.: *do* ban Halal slaughter!

	The British Patriot ⁦‪@TheBritLad‬⁩ BREAKING 🚨: The Muslim Council of Britain warns that if halal slaughter is banned, it could lead to Muslims choosing to leave the country. Should halal slaughter be banned in the United Kingdom? pic.x.com/PAd2Dv1TZT   22/2/2025, 11:40 pm

Muslim Council of Britain "warns" they will leave if Halal slaughter is banned…

How about the MCB "promises"? Wouldn't we like this to be a promise if we do the right thing by animals. Which is to say, slaughter them humanely, rather than by the barbaric way Islamic "halal" demands.

The U.K. has had it with entitled, selfish, animal-torturing  ingrates. 

Please note: if Halal-type slaughter were done by anyone other than Muslims, the Greens and PETA peeps would be all over it, raging against it.

But it's Muslims. Who get cranky if they don't get what they want. Never mind the feelings and values of the country they're living in. 

So, yeah, Sir Keir, go ahead and ban Halal! 

How free speech in Germany is disappearing

Click above for the video

Anything which "insults" you. Or hurty words. Or nasty tweets. Or sarcastic memes.Or something which a politician doesn't like.  All these are now punishable in Germany. By stiff fine or jail time. 

Many on the right have commented on how exulted the 60 Minutes interviewer seems to be. Looks like she just loves what the Germans do to muzzle those horrid "far right" folks. Oh, how I wish we could do that here in the United States, she's thinking....

Germany is now the land of "you have free speech, but...". What Salman Rushdie has called the "but brigade". Free speech, but... is not free speech. 

Their idea of "democracy" in Germany is that you have elections to elect the proper people. Nice lefties. But if the electorate vote in "far right" parties like the AfD, then you have to annul the election. As they recently did in Romania for the same reason. Democracy is for me, but not for thee. Free Speech is for me, but not for thee. That's the concept of Democracy on the Left, there in Germany and in the United States of the Left. And why they lost their minds over the recent speech by JD Vance, to the Munich Security Conference, criticising Europe for losing some of the values shared on the West, like Free Speech. They didn't like that, not one little bit. 

Warren Smith maker of the video above, is an ex teacher, who was forced out of his school for discussing free speech issues with a student, specifically quizzing the student on views of J.K. Rowling. 

Added: "JD Vance is right. Europe has abandoned Western Values"

McKinsey Study That Spawned Corporate DEI Programs Unravels

The McKinsey study gave corporations air cover to promote DEI programs while saying that it was simply "good for business." It was not. 

No other company has been able to replicate the findings. And they refuse to reveal the names of the companies they surveyed. 

Following in from this video below of abc's the View, having a typically out of date and ignorant take on DEI, which is to lash back at the Trump admin's banning of DEI programs in government, for the single reason that it's Trump. Sunny Hostin as usual leading the charge of the ignoramus brigade. She really is a doozy. 

The View ERUPTS Amid STAFF LAYOFFS As Bosses DEMAND Panel To TURN DOWN Trump Derangement! youtu.be

Wooden cat's scratch post...

 

Curtis Stone's restaurant in LA, Gwen, looks superb!

 

Click above for the video

Wildfires and homeless encampments aside, things are still happening in LA.

Here above is Curtis Stone, Aussie chef and reality star, with his Hollywood restaurant, Gwen. Aussies are all over LA, mainly in acting. Here's one in food. 

I gotta say, it looks wonderful. And almost makes me give up my hermit existence here in Hong Kong and make the hop over the pacific to give it a go. We could meet son there, who spent four years right nearby, at UCLA... 

Nikkie and Marcus, 17 September 2017

In Siena Park Discovery Bay, HK

 

Don't let him fool you George....

 

Nothing happening in LA after the fires. Nothing.

Click above for the video

Adam Carolla's house was spared in the wildfire, but he still doesn't know when he can return to it and doesn't even know the timeline, coz there's nothing online to give a timeline of what's going on. 

Please note: there is literally nothing happening all along the Pacific Coast Highway here, and nothing being done to clear the debris. After five weeks isn't this some kind of scandal? Some kind of incompetence?

“Germany in Revolt” | Katja Hoyer

Click above for the video 

I’ve not heard of Katja Hoyer before but she seems sound with a good head in her shoulders. 

She describes the problems with the proportionate voting system vs the first past the post of the U.K. and the U.S.  where you can get genuine change. Whereas in the proportional system as in Germany, you just get a ashufflimg of the parties and no real change. The populations of Europe consistently want to have secure borders, control of illegal immigration, with numbers from 75% to 90% demanding this, but never getting it. Hence the rise of parties like the AfD.  Which the Left, of course, calls “far right” because they have the temerity to reflect the will of the people.

But when these truths are shown to them by JD Vance — as at the recent Munich Security Conference— the political establishment and media go mental. Katja tells all. 

From the intro:

Germany’s ruling Social Democrats(SPD) are facing losses the party has not seen since the 19th century in this weekend’s federal elections, while the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) is set to double its vote share. 

Here, historian and journalist Katja Hoyer explains how a failing economy, out-of-control migration and intrusive Net Zero policies have led to mass disaffection with the mainstream parties. She also discusses the growing class divide, the rise and fall of ‘left-conservatism’, and why JD Vance’s warnings about free speech resonated with East Germans.

Who has been running the U.S. presidency in the last four years? A: Not Joe...

Click above for the video

I didn't know Lindy Li until this video. I'd only heard that she was a Terrible Person, from Democrats upset that she, a major Democrat fund raiser, had criticised the Harris-Walz campaign for being directionless (it was) and for wasting the donations (it did).

In this video above Lindy Li gives names of who it was running the Biden administration. Actual names. Mostly of people we hadn’t heard of, other than Jill and Hunter. 

Spoiler: It was not Biden. 

Lindy Li, is a former campaign advisor and prominent commentator on U.S. politics who’s made significant contributions to the political landscape. After moving from China to America at the age of five, she eventually attended Princeton University where she became the first woman to serve as class president for all four years. 

Her early career included roles as a financial analyst at Merck and Morgan Stanley before pivoting to politics, where she served as the Women's Co-Chair and Mid-Atlantic Regional Chair at the Democratic National Committee. She was also involved in the Asian American outreach team for Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign. 

Li has recently transitioned from her Democratic roots to align with conservative politics, citing a toxic culture within her former party as one of many reasons for her departure. She has been vocal in criticising both President Biden and Vice President Harris, claiming that their leadership has stifled dissent within the party. 

She currently co-chairs the Justice Unites Us Super PAC, focusing on increasing Asian-American voter turnout, and has been recognized as one of Pennsylvania's most powerful women. In January 2025, she was appointed to President-elect Donald Trump's inaugural fundraising committee, marking a significant shift in her political affiliations.

 

 

The Secret Elephant Breeding Grounds...

The Far Side

 

Artza box – gift boxes from the Land of Israel

https://www.artzabox.com/

Sent from my iPad

"5 Harsh Truths About Decluttering for Seniors..."

I think about this a lot, coming up to 80, as I am. I do keep ongoing decluttering, but still have stuff that I can't bring myself to get rid of. Mainly old letters, for example. Imagine! People writing in longhand. Puttng the paper in the envelope, writing on the address, and putting a stamp on it, then taking it to the post office. Then there's the memory of the excitement of seeing familiar writing on the envelope when you get it in your far clime. And sometimes to go back and reread some old favourites. 

How can you get rid of that?

Still, the thoughts in the above video are somewhat interesting. The thing I don't like about it is that the voice, I'm pretty sure, is AI. Don't like this trend. 

"The truth is Stan, I'd like a place of my own"

 

“JD Vance’s message at Munich” | Dominic Green

Vice President JD Vance’s Friday speech at the Munich Security Conference was the most significant American address in Germany since 1987, when President Reagan declared: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The U.S. saved Europe from itself three times in the last century, in World War I, World War II and the Cold War. Mr. Vance offered to save Europe from itself again. But this time, the cavalry won’t be coming.

In Munich, a historic byword for appeasement, Mr. Vance issued a call to arms. The most worrisome threat to Europe, he said, isn’t from Russia or China. It is “the threat from within.” Really, this is a threat from above. Europe’s governing class has eviscerated the “fundamental values” that Europe shares with the U.S. It has reneged on its military commitments to America and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It has opened its gates to mass immigration and Islamist terrorism. To evade the electoral reckoning, it censors, smears and suppresses the objections of the lawful majority: a “surefire way to destroy democracy.”

Mr. Vance’s Munich speech came three days after his equally devastating address at the Paris AI Action Summit. The European Union, he said, has fallen behind in tech development because it manages artificial intelligence through risk aversion and regulatory restriction. Mr. Vance called this a “terrible mistake” that America “cannot and will not accept.” Europe’s self-imposed incapacity will create markets for “autocratic governments” and technologies of repression. The alternative is to embrace the future with “optimism rather than trepidation.”

Combine the two speeches and you have the classic American one-two. Economic and individual freedom support each other. Innovation, competitiveness and risk-taking are the natural partners of liberty, free speech and democracy. Europe should be the natural partner of the U.S. and a key link in the emerging American-led alignment. But Europe is divorced from reality. President Trump and Vladimir Putin’s negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine will, like many recent heavyweight boxing bouts, be held in Saudi Arabia. While Mr. Vance was dispensing tough love in Europe, the president had more important things to do, such as hosting a state visit by Narendra Modi of India. 

Friends don’t let friends drift into the strategic twilight. Nor do they censor American social-media companies, as British and European politicians frequently threaten. They don’t petition the legislature to ban their country’s second most popular political party, as 124 German lawmakers did in January; or overturn election results, as recently happened in Romania; or, in a British case that Mr. Vance described, arrest people for silent prayer across the road from an abortion clinic. Liberalism was born in Britain. It will die there if this goes on.

The recent contraction of speech rights in the U.K. and Europe is as undeniable as its causes are obvious. No one voted for mass immigration or to dissolve freedom and national identity into an unelected bureaucracy in Brussels. No one chose to live in societies where keeping the peace means the return of de facto blasphemy laws amid constant irruptions of Islamist terrorism. When Europe’s voters back parties that oppose out-of-control migration, official Europe calls them “far right.” As Mr. Vance said in Munich, no democracy can survive “telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief, are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.”

The Afghan asylum seeker who rammed his car into a crowd of union demonstrators in Munich the day before Mr. Vance spoke—killing a 2-year-old girl and her mother and injuring more than 30 people—made the vice president’s argument for him. So did German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who said Mr. Vance’s Munich speech was “not acceptable.” Kaja Kallas, a vice president of the European Commission, accused Mr. Vance of “trying to pick a fight.” Senior European diplomats were quoted calling the speech “mad,” “dangerous,” and “outrageous.” While Britain’s Labour leadership ducked from sight, a “government source” told London’s Times that Mr. Vance was “bat s—.” 

Mr. Vance caused snobbish panic in all the right places. In reality, not all the gaps between Europe and the U.S. are as wide as the Atlantic Ocean. Defense spending in Europe has risen steadily since Barack Obama started complaining about “free riders” in NATO. A U.S.-Russian agreement on Ukraine offers a chance to rebind Russia and its energy sector to Europe under American supervision. On the other hand, the gap on China is wide and set to widen further. Germany is committed to a pro-China export policy, and the import of Chinese-made solar panels and electric cars is a European Union policy priority. 

Another commonality between the U.S. and Europe is the popular search for what Mr. Vance called a “new direction.” When Mr. Vance connected the dots among “end of history” vanity, swollen welfare budgets, speech controls and a willed failure to defend borders, he could have been describing his own country under the leadership of Mr. Obama and Joe Biden. Like Americans, Europeans are in revolt against illegal immigration, Islamism, rule by bureaucracy, judicial activism, media bias and government censorship. Europe’s leaders fear this popular Atlanticism. Of course they want to censor it. The last thing they want is another American revolution. 

But the people of Europe may get the deciding vote. They, not their failed rulers, are Mr. Vance’s real audience. Like Reagan in 1987 and John F. Kennedy in 1963, Mr. Vance went to Germany to give hope to the beleaguered.

Mr. Green is a Journal contributor and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

JD Vance’s message at Munich

"DOGE Is America's Most Important Project" | Farzad

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Farzad talks to Alexandra Merz, @TeslaBoomerMama about everything DOGE. She used to work in a ratings agency. She describes how they're ALL corrupt. You pay the money, you get the good rating. Which is what I'd suspected, but never known so clearly.

She describes herself as an "Elon Fan Girl", as I'd describe myself as Elon Fan Boy. Feeling privileged to live in the Age of Musk. The entrepreneur and manufacturing genius of the millenium. Working, for free, for the government, to try to make it better, leaner and more efficient. 

"It's a mad, mad, mad, mad intestinal tract..."

 

"CBS's Margaret Brennan BLAMES free speech for the HOLOCAUST" | The Based Conservative

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00:00 - The preview
01:21 - The intro

01:33 - CBS"S Margaret Brennan BLAMES free speech for the Holocaust 03;15 - My thoughts 04:05 - Naomi Seibt is pitting facts 08:03 - Eva Vlaardingerbroek 10:29 - Sweeden has fallen 11:21 - My thoughts 11:35 - Eva Vlaardingerbroek with Tucker carlson 12:56 - Eva Vlaardingerbroek speech on taking back europe 14:27 - my thoughts 14:48 - REAL european media loves JD vance 16:40 - The AfD is NOT far right 19:05 - my thoughts 20:02 - the Citizens of Europe LOVE JD Vance 28:38 - THANKS FOR WATCHING

For the record; first time I've posted something by "The Based Conservative".

I watched J.D. Vance's recent speeches in Europe and thought them pretty good. Straight shooting. Clear. Well delivered.

Turns out that the elites in Europe didn't like them one little bit. Watching the audience, all in their uniforms and finery, the likes of Macron, Scholtz, Starmer, Gueterras, von der Leyen, Noses turned up, as at a fart in an elevator.

Especially the one about Free Speech. For them it's "free speech for me, but not for thee". The Germans -- in the shape of Boris Pistorius -- did their best to debunk his thesis but only thereby proving it. Not realising the irony, obviously. Which the Germans are not known for. Irony....

It used to be that Free Speech was a thing of the Left. They now deny it, while claiming to support it. 

An old leftie friend of mine asked me, as Elon Musk was buying Twitter, "are you a Free Speech absolutist?", the question dripping with venom. Clearly, to her, my only virtuous answer would have been "no". Even though Free Speech absolutism of the Voltaire sort -- "I may not agree with you, but will defend to my death your right to say it" -- was the position of the Left until five minutes ago. 

Also: no way the AfD leader, Alice Weidel is a "far-right activist". Which the European elite claime, as J.D. Vance went to meet her. The American media were also against her. But she's middle of the road. She's a conservative who believes in:

• Euroscepticism: which many Europeans do, including all of the Left until five minutes ago.
• Immigration control: which 75-85% of Europeans also demand (but never get...)
• Free Market economic policies. "Far Right"?? Hardly.
• Social issues: she holds views that the majority of Americans voted for last November. Are they all "far right"? By the way, Alice Weidel is an out lesbian. For the record.... (no virtue points for that??). She doesn't believe in transing children. That's a view of the vast majority of both the United States and Europe.
• On what earth is Weidel "far right", except in the perfervid minds of the far left?

"Qatar's WAR against Israel & The U.S. (Dominating the media and academia with oil money)" | Oran Cahanovitc

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I feel silly for not knowing in detail about how much Qatar support and promotes Jihadism around the world. I should have known, and did to some  degree, but not the extent of it, as Oran Cahanovitc of travellingisrael.com above sets out. I mean, all this time, we've been, like, "Iran, Iran, Iran". When the calls out should have included Qatar and its horrid King.

Surely the west, led by the US, should do something. Like stop their funding of U.S. universities. Like pulling out the U.S. base there. Like not giving it the next World Cup. It's a rotten, corrupt, Jihadist country. Working its best to bring about the downfall of the west. But pretending otherwise. 

They're a major promoter of the evil Muslim Brotherhood. A Jihadist, Islamist organisation hat's so wicked, they've been banned in many surrounding Arab countries, including Egypt. 

0:00 - Intro 0:51 - Qatar 3:35 - Using the media against Israel 13:05 - Sponsor 14:00 - Using academia against Israel 19:00 - Summary