HELLO again! We’ve had another great week of articles on TCW – the site where you can access the comment (and news) other media ignore.
Laura has been in fine form – her devastating article on Rochdale stands out. She found the report on the failure of the authorities to respond to the grooming gangs grim reading. These children have continued to be abused by gangs, who might as well have been given a licence to carry on torturing them, as well as by an ineffectual, uncaring establishment. It was 2017 that we published our first of many articles on this scandal.
There was however good news for the recusants amongst us and Tuesday (a day I was out of action with dental surgery) proved to be a big day for three of our favourites – Donald Trump, Andrew Bridgen and Mark Steyn. Trump’s spectacular win in Iowa will go down in history. A record margin (more than 51 per cent of the vote). Yes, he will be the Republican presidential candidate and, if not stopped by the politically motivated gagging orders on him, should sweep to victory in November. Some, like this Guardian Trump-hater think ‘It’s not “anti- democratic” to bar him from office; it’s needed to protect democracy’. ‘Oxymoronic’ springs to mind, but that’s the argument they’ll use to try and stop him.
Tuesday was also the day Andrew Bridgen led his Westminster debate on excess deaths. My belated report proved popular. And what I missed, TCW‘s wonderful readers made up for. From Ellie (one of several triggered by the shadow minister’s speech):
‘I have just read the Hansard transcript. One Ghanaian-born woman, aged forty, Labour member for Erith and Thamesmead, shadow minister for women’s health and mental health (I never knew that such a post existed), said: “The Opposition have stated clearly, and I confirm again, that we believe vaccines are the most effective health interventions in relation to coronavirus and health in general. It is clear from extensive independent research that the covid-19 vaccines have been and continue to be extremely successful at preventing deaths” – Abena Oppong-Asare.’
And from Frederica: ‘The shadow minister seemed as though she was more interested in reading verbatim what looked more like an election manifesto than addressing the issue at hand! I suggest that her speech had been written for her and she hadn’t really bothered to read it through first. Her delivery was stumbling and halting. She refused absolutely to “give way”, for which she was criticised at the end. Her face showed hostility and her body language was defensive! They don’t like criticism, do they?’
Spot on.
The third event of significance that day was the start of Mark Steyn’s Mann v Steyn ‘hockey stick’ trial after a 12-year wait. You can catch up with his own review of the week’s proceedings here. He’s on tip-top form as you see from this report of his opening statement delivered on his own behalf – a bravura performance.
So much for the good news. It was a grim, grim week for the spread and spread of anti-Semitism. On X (Twitter) and on the streets.
Tweeting is contagious in the way it encourages disinhibition and licenses bigotry. No one is being banned for this. I have no hesitation when such comments are posted on our site. But on X under the guise of ‘free speech’, is OK. Take Dr David Cartland’s (now deleted) tweet of ten or so names of key Covid policy architects putting ‘Jew’ by each name, followed by a leading question as to its significance. An essential taboo has, terrifyingly, been broken. Crazy, smearing anti-Jew aspersions go from bad to worse. Epstein was a Mossad agent, didn’t you know?
Where’s the BBC programme taking these people to task? Nowhere.
It’s more ‘licensing’ of dangerous behaviour. On our streets, as well as social media, pro-Palestinians are free to call Zionists ‘filthy animals’ (click this link for the evidence, and worry). But be ‘Islamaphobic’ at your peril. Look at the primary school bullied by pro-Palestinian protesters into closure. It shouldn’t be tolerated.
Where too is the investigation of the pro-Palestinian apologists of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) whose propaganda the MSM (from the BBC to the Telegraph) uncritically rely on and we keep paying for in foreign aid? Here on TCW, Karen Harradine’s report is an eye-opener. And, as Andrew Devine wrote, the government and the media are indeed useful idiots for Hamas. The Spectator Australia continues to be an exception. Rachel Weiss’s well-researched article on Qatar, home to the billionaire Hamas leaders and the biggest financier of Wahabbist terror, yet treated by the US and Israel as an honest broker, caught my eye. Israel’s aid to Gaza (which is significant) all goes through Qatar – why? To fund billionaires and Hamas.
I can’t close without mentioning an article Laura sent me during the week that lifted the lid on Hollywood’s shameless and weak-minded celebrities who turned on Robert Kennedy Jr, just turned 70 (no, he doesn’t look it). A birthday party had been organised for him. It was going to be big. It had lots of ‘sleb’ endorsements and acceptances. Performers and well-wishers included Martin Sheen, Mike Tyson, Dionne Warwick, Andrea Bocelli and more –until they took fright. A Jessica Reed Krause, the social media director who’d been promoting the party, gave it to them. The trigger was X again:
‘Dionne Warwick took to Twitter to deny her attendance, tweeting, “I don’t know anything about this event. No, I’m not backing him. No, no, and no!”’ Once that snagged the media’s attention, all the others followed. ‘I do not endorse RFK Jr, nor will I be attending his party,’ Martin Sheen wrote. They all piled in and RFK Jr pulled out. And the party for the candidate the MSM loathed, and had ignored it till then, was slavered over.
Reed Krause said: ‘As soon as it started falling apart, names dropping like flies, everyone from Vanity Fair to NBC and Rolling Stone jumped all over it. The story stretched across every major outlet within a matter of hours. Which goes to show how much these maggots thrive on negative news.’
Indeed; it also goes to show what a threat Robert Kennedy is to the Democrat establishment. Despite X, a Gallup poll (January 11) gave him the highest ‘favourability’ rating in the 2024 presidential race. Higher even than Trump, which is food for thought.
PS: South Carolina Senator Tim Scott is expected to endorse Trump this week.