Is America still the land of the free?
How did a motley and disorganized mob of idiots become an "insurrection" on Jan 6 last year? Comments below by Peter Baldwin, a former Australian Labor Party politician
What poses the greater threat to American democracy – the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, or the political and institutional response to it?
This is a question well worth asking as the first anniversary of this episode approaches, especially now we have much more information on which to base an assessment than was available during the saturation media coverage in the immediate aftermath.
American left-wing columnist Glenn Greenwald, who co-founded online magazine The Intercept, is in no doubt. In several lengthy articles he compares the response to the riot with what followed the 9/11 attacks two decades earlier, of which he was – and is – extremely critical.
A frequent claim made by political figures and in the media is that the Capitol riot is, if anything, more serious than the 9/11 attacks. As such, it requires special legislation and special measures to refocus the “war on terror” on those depicted as domestic terrorists.
The Democrats have proposed a rewriting of the law pertaining to domestic terrorism that alters the focus almost entirely to the “white supremacist” threat. According to former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, the legislation has the bizarre effect of excluding jihadist terrorists from its ambit.
Who are these potential domestic terrorists who must be subjected to close surveillance, curtailment of their civil liberties, exclusion from any role in the military or even banned from airline travel?
It is not just the obvious candidates, such as those involved in right-wing militias. According to impeccably left-liberal American historian and journalist Anne Applebaum, the net should include anyone who continues to harbour or express doubts about the fairness of the 2020 US presidential election.
In an article in The Atlantic, Applebaum ruminates about the appropriate term for those who remain sceptical about the election – according to polling, most Republican voters. Here is her preferred term and who it should be applied to: “For want of a better term, I’m calling all of them seditionists – not just the people who took part in the riot, but the far larger number of Americans who are united by their belief that Donald Trump won the election, that Joe Biden lost, and that a long list of people and institutions are lying about it.”
Seditionist? Just for holding an opinion? You have to wonder if Trump derangement syndrome really is a thing, if one of the most respected and scholarly liberal writers can come up with this kind of stuff.
There seems to be a complete loss of perspective. Applebaum’s most recent book, Twilight of Democracy, surveys what she sees as the main threats to the liberal democratic order. And who would that be? The “deplorables”, of course, and their equivalents in other countries, the working-class people who in bygone times were a core part of the Democratic coalition, and those who speak for them.
Applebaum devotes an entire chapter to conservative Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Yet the book makes no reference whatsoever to the encroaching threat posed by the growing power and influence operations of the Chinese Communist Party regime – undoubtedly the greatest threat to the liberal democratic order since World War II.
So, how to characterise the events of January 6, 2021?
Trump’s decision to call the mass rally for that day was reckless and futile, and his temporising before calling on the rioters to withdraw was culpable. Indeed, his entire conduct after the election was idiotic. Once the US Supreme Court decided on December 11, 2020, not to hear the detailed challenge filed by the Texas attorney-general, joined by other states, on the grounds that the state “lacked standing”, the realistic options for overturning the election result were over.
All the ploughing on after that achieved was the loss of two Senate positions in the Georgia run-offs, giving the Democrats a majority with the casting vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris.
As to the riotous conduct – the forcible entry into the Capitol Building – it is hard to think of a single figure of any political prominence who has defended it. These were criminal acts that led to deaths and serious injuries that warrant the appropriate and proportionate use of the criminal law. The disruption, albeit only for several hours, of the proceedings of the congress as it formalised the election outcome was a very serious matter.
Almost everybody can agree on that much. But that is not nearly enough for what the Democrats need to justify their war on “domestic terror”. This requires the inflation of what occurred to an insurrection, indeed an “armed insurrection”, a veritable coup d’etat, instigated by Trump and his supporters, a greater threat to US democracy than the 9/11 attack, some claiming the greatest threat since the civil war.
What would not be justified to stop an army of “seditionists” trying to violently overthrow the government? In the following weeks there was a succession of scary reports of likely further incursions, including on Inauguration Day. To ward off this possibility 26,000 troops were deployed around the Capitol – more than at the height of the civil war when the Confederate capital was a mere 200km away.
So, let’s try to get a sense of proportion here, starting with the “armed insurrection” claim that CNN and other parts of the media continue to affirm. On CNN’s Facts First web page, they point out that of the more than 700 people charged over the riot, three were charged with bringing a firearm into the Capitol precinct. Others brought items such as flagpoles, a hockey stick and pepper spray. In earlier congressional testimony, the FBI said no firearms were confiscated on the day.
Contrary to some early reports, the only use of firearms that day, and the sole death due to anyone’s deliberate action, was the shot that killed Trump supporter and military veteran Ashli Babbitt. Babbitt, all of 54.4kg and 1.57m tall, and unarmed, was shot in the throat without warning and at close range by a Capitol policeman as she crawled through the shattered door of the Senate chamber.
The treatment of this shooting by officialdom and the media was remarkable. Was serious consideration given to whether the shooting was remotely warranted, especially given that two heavily armed police were clearly visible directly behind Babbitt? Could the shooter really have felt he was in imminent danger? After an inordinate delay, and next to no media pressure, the Department of Justice issued a perfunctory statement that the shooting was justified – no grand jury investigation, nothing.
As far as most of the media were concerned, this was a non-event. Indeed, some articles implied that she deserved it. Babbitt should not have been there, but did she deserve a bullet to the throat? Clearly deplorable lives do not matter much.
The sheer dishonesty of mainstream media coverage in the days and weeks that followed the riot was extraordinary. It went beyond distortion to outright lying, exemplified by reporting on the death of Officer Brian Sicknick of the Capitol Police.
On the day of his death, media reports claimed he had been bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher by Trump supporters. This was known to be false almost immediately as his family reported Sicknick spoke to them on the night of the riot, stating he felt OK.
Yet the media persisted with the battered-with-fire-extinguisher account for weeks thereafter, belatedly switching to another lie that his death was caused by “bear spray” when it was revealed that he had suffered no physical trauma whatever.
The lying stopped only with the very late release of the autopsy report, which indicated Sicknick died of a stroke two days after the riot.
So if this was an attempt at a violent insurrection or coup, it would have to be the most incompetent such attempt in the history of the world. What do those who assert this imagine was the plan? Maybe they thought the QAnon shaman, the clown with the bearskin cape and wooden spear, could hold out with his companions and their three handguns against the might of the US military, like the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae.
There was, undeniably, violence committed by a small minority of protesters. However, if you look through the list of charges (more than 700 in all), most are for things like “disorderly conduct”, “parading, demonstrating or picketing”, or “remaining in a restricted building”. The sentences being handed out for these offences so far have been at the top end of the possible range, in some cases exceeding even the penalties proposed by the prosecutors.
Furthermore, a large number of those charged have been held without bail in the most appalling conditions, including solitary confinement, prompting a DC judge to demand an investigation: “I find that the civil rights of the defendant have been abused. I don’t know if it’s because he’s a January 6th defendant or not, but I find this matter should be referred to the Attorney-General of the United States for a civil rights investigation into whether the DC Department of Corrections is violating the civil rights of January 6th defendants … in this and maybe other cases.”
Alone among her colleagues, even senator Elizabeth Warren was moved to comment: “Solitary confinement is a form of punishment that is cruel and psychologically damaging.”
The “armed insurrection” claim is just too ridiculous for words – especially given that, according to a reporter for the liberal New Yorker magazine who embedded himself among the “insurgents”, they had been instructed by the rally organisers not to bring guns.
At this stage, the main goal of the Democrats is to use the house committee inquiry into the riot currently under way to implicate Trump in the breaching of the Capitol, despite his words urging the crowd to make their voices heard “patriotically and peacefully”.
And what did the cunning Trump have in mind when he authorised the deployment of the National Guard several days before the riot?
After Ohio representative Jim Jordan signalled his intention to ask why these troops were not requested or deployed on the day, along with other potentially difficult questions, Nancy Pelosi used her authority as Speaker to ban Jordan and his colleague Jim Banks from serving on the January 6 committee.
This was an unprecedented step, nullifying the longstanding convention that party leaders select their representatives on committees. In protest, Republican house leader Kevin McCarthy withdrew all his party’s nominees. The only GOP representatives who agreed to serve were Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both vehemently hostile to Trump.
The result, not surprisingly, is that the committee hearings have amounted to little more than a propaganda exercise, a media circus, typified by the solemn reading out by Cheney of a series of text messages sent at the height of the chaos between various pro-Trump figures and the president’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
The texts were released by Meadows in compliance with a congressional subpoena and were treated by parts of the media as a smoking gun implicating Trump. As I noted above, Trump’s conduct on and in the lead-up to the riot was futile, reckless and culpable. However, ironically, the texts actually exculpate him from the claim he conspired in and intended the breaching of the Capitol.
For example, a text from his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, reads as follows: “We need an Oval address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand. He’s got to condemn this shit ASAP.”
It would be strange, to say the least, if this was all planned by Trump, yet Donald Jr, reportedly one of his closest confidants, was kept out of the loop.
It is striking, and lamentable, that among the left-wing media the aforementioned Greenwald is almost unique in his preparedness to take up the issues described above.
What has become of the civil libertarians and human rights activists who would normally be the first to challenge and expose the kind of abuses described above?
This has not been without consequence for Greenwald. He was effectively forced out of The Intercept, which he co-founded. The reason? He insisted on reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop story that blew up in October 2020, shortly before the election. The standard media narrative about this, at least at the time when it might have mattered, was that this was a Russian disinformation campaign designed to discredit Biden.
If so, why did neither Joe Biden nor Hunter Biden repudiate it at the time? How to account for the fact that the chief executive of Hunter’s business confirmed the veracity of the incriminating emails? Instead, they both went to ground, refusing to respond to questions about it – and the media, at least those members who were allowed anywhere near Joe Biden, played along dutifully, failing to even ask him any questions about the laptop (except for one brave soul who shouted a question and was excoriated by his colleagues for doing so).
The laptop story, which we now know to be based on accurate information, indeed effectively confirmed by Hunter Biden in a later interview, appeared first in the New York Post. Australian journalist Miranda Devine was closely involved, recently releasing a book on the subject.
If corroborated, it would be a genuine bombshell, indicating that candidate Biden could be seriously compromised with the US, and the West’s, most significant geopolitical adversary – the Chinese Communist Party regime.
Yet it was comprehensively suppressed, not only by other traditional media but also by the social media censors who prevented its transmission and sharing. The effective blackout meant that, according to one poll, 36 per cent of Biden voters were not even aware of the laptop story.
This bespeaks a mainstream media more concerned with running protection for the Bidens and undermining Trump than honest reporting, a departure from the traditional principle of journalistic objectivity that even the venerable New York Times makes no bones about, indeed defends.
This was demonstrated earlier during the Mueller inquiry into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. What transpired during this episode is profoundly disturbing, and not just because of media behaviour, but for the role played by key state instrumentalities such as the FBI, CIA and the Department of Justice.
For more than two years, the media relentlessly amplified any story supporting the Russian collusion narrative, which was finally put to rest when the Mueller report stated they were unable to find evidence of any such collusion.
This included the salacious allegations in the “Steele dossier”, prepared by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, a piece of opposition research indirectly funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign. Yet it was the key piece of evidence provided to the court empowered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to issue warrants to conduct surveillance on the Trump campaign.
More recently, as a result of indictments issued by special counsel John Durham, we now know the key information source for Steele had been interviewed by the FBI in January 2017, in the course of which he acknowledged that the Steele allegations were basically just rumours and bar talk. Yet the FBI continued to rely on this spurious information when filing two further FISA warrants that certified that the information in the Steele dossier was verified and corroborated.
The Capitol riot was an abomination, perpetrated by several hundred idiots. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an armed insurrection or a coup warranting a new “war on terror” directed at a section of the domestic population subject to vilification because of the opinions they hold.
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Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has been banned from Twitter
Twitter heralded the new year on Sunday by deleting the account of congresswoman and contentious Donald Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene, who incurred a fifth “strike” for posting Covid-19 misinformation.
Not to be outdone, within hours YouTube, owned by Google, removed a three-hour interview between popular American podcaster Joe Rogan and Robert Malone, one of the pioneers of mRNA technology, which underpins Covid-19 vaccines.
What they had to say was just too dangerous for you to hear, according to the social media giants, which have taken it on themselves to look out for your health (only as far as it relates to Covid-19).
Well, brace yourself, I’m going to tell you.
Malone, an immunologist with decades of experience and numerous peer-reviewed papers to his name, reckons we focus too much on vaccines and not enough on treatment, advocating greater use of drugs such as ivermectin for infected patients.
He also thinks the pandemic has fuelled what he calls “mass formation psychosis”: a lot of people doing neurotic, irrational things such as driving in masks or queuing up for hours without symptoms to be tested for a mild disease that’s endemic, or just lashing out at strangers minding their business who don’t want to wear a mask for hundreds of days.
Greene, meanwhile, who has made bonkers claims on other subjects, said Covid-19 deaths caused by “extremely dangerous” vaccines were being ignored, posting a chart from a publicly available source that seemed to suggest more than 20,000 Americans had died from Covid-19 vaccines. Greene was wrong to fearmonger about the vaccines, which clearly have reduced the severity of Covid-19. Even Trump recognised this, recently telling supporters they should get their boosters.
Yes, there have been some deaths, but they are rare and inevitable when a large share of the population is suddenly vaccinated. Greene’s early strikes, though, arose from claims Covid-19 was dangerous only for the over-65s and obese, and Covid-19 vaccines were failing – exaggerations, to be sure, but not entirely without factual merit.
Vaccine was a poor choice of word in hindsight given what most people thought that meant and what was originally promised: stopping transmission and infection. But who cares what they or I believe anyway? In the universe of terrible things to say on social media, their statements would not stand out.
Individuals have never had so much scope to check, relatively quickly, others’ claims on whatever topic from a variety of public and private sources. The idea social media giants or even public health officials and governments have a monopoly on truth is farcical. Science is a method, a process of debate. Almost by definition, there is no progress without a minority that challenges the consensus, making the tech censorship by scientists quite shocking.
What was “dangerous misinformation” a year ago is now acceptable. Zerohedge, for instance, a popular Twitter account that aggregates articles by sceptical investors, was deleted in February 2020 for suggesting SARS-CoV-2 might have leaked from a Chinese lab in Wuhan. A few months later Twitter restored the account, saying: “We made an error in our enforcement action in this case.”
Should we really punish and censure those who were ahead of the curve?
Unelected, high-income tech bros living in San Francisco shouldn’t be able to censor what individuals say based on vague “community guidelines”. It’s no good to say Google, Twitter and Facebook are private companies so can do what they want. In the 21st century, they own, indeed they are, the town square, where once, in liberal democracies at least, you could yell out whatever you wanted, no matter how crazy or misinformed.
Moreover, governments that typically say they respect freedom of speech shield tech giants from liability from what their users publish, protections without which they might not even exist. So they have social obligations to the constitutions and traditions of the nations in which they operate.
The internet was meant to liberate us from governments and publishers, not launch a new totalitarian conformist society. It’s early days, but the social media giants are beginning to mimic what their Chinese counterparts do, censoring and reporting individuals. “If we did it for Covid, we can do it for X and Y,” you’ll start to hear in a few years.
Free speech was never absolute. If some expression could obviously cause harm, such as yelling fire in a crowded theatre, the classic example, a case for restrictions could be made. But there’s no evidence tweets by politicians or three-hour videos with eminent scientists harmed individual, let alone public, health.
I suspect public health isn’t in fact a priority of the tech oligarchs, given it never was before 2020 and there were plenty of other harmful behaviours and claims that could have been censored. Will they ban alcohol advertising?
There’s plenty of evidence social media causes psychological harm, especially for teenagers. Anonymous users on social media still can say the most vile and hurtful things, and that’s OK. But heaven forbid anyone talk about hydroxychloroquine, which few people could even spell, or cast doubt on the effectiveness of vaccines, which most people have already taken.
Condemn the forced masking of five-year-olds, which two years ago would have been considered insane under these circumstances, and risk digital oblivion. Advocate for a Black Lives Matter national uprising and the inevitable violence that entails, and watch the likes roll in.
Two friends contacted me to say they were listening to Malone’s podcast with Rogan, having never heard of either. Censorship campaigns don’t work; they attract attention to people and ideas. Even if you intensely dislike Greene, Malone or their arguments, it’s important to speak out in favour of free speech.
Next time you might be in the frustrated minority.
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The Ungracious Generation and Its Demonization of the Past
Victor Davis Hanson
The past two years have seen an unprecedented escalation in a decadeslong war on the American past. But there are lots of logical flaws in attacking prior generations in U.S. history.
Critics assume their own judgmental generation is morally superior to those of the past. So, they use their own standards to condemn the mute dead who supposedly do not measure up to them.
Yet, 21st-century critics rarely acknowledge their own present affluence and leisure owe much to history’s prior generations, whose toil helped create their current comfort.
And what may future scolds say of the modern generation that saw more than 60 million abortions since Roe v. Wade, even as fetal viability outside the womb continued to progress to ever earlier ages?
What will our grandchildren say of us who dumped on them more than $30 trillion in national debt—much of it as borrowing for entitlements for ourselves?
What sort of society snoozes as record numbers of murders continue in 12 of its major cities? What is so civilized about defunding the police, endemic smash-and-grab thefts, and carjackings?
Were our media more responsible, professional, and learned in 1965 or 2021? Did Hollywood make more sophisticated and enjoyable films in 1954 or 2021? Was there less or more sportsmanship among professional athletes in 1990 or 2021?
Was it actually moral to discard the “content of our character” and “equal opportunity” principles of the prior civil rights movement of 60 years ago? Are their replacement fixations on the “color of our skin” and “equality of result” superior?
Would America have won World War II with the current labor participation rate of only 6 in 10 Americans working? Would our generation have brought all American troops home and quit World War I in fear of the deadly 1918 Spanish flu pandemic?
Are we proud that most standardized tests of student knowledge and achievement continue to decline, despite record investments in education?
Do we ever pause to consider that we enjoy our modern standard of living and security because we were once a meritocracy that quit judging our workforce by tribal affinities and ancient prejudices?
Our generation talks of infrastructure nonstop. But when was the last time it built anything comparable to the Hoover Dam, the interstate highway system, or the California Water Project—much less sent a man back to the moon or beyond?
If prior generations were so toxic, why do we continue to take for granted the moral and material world they bequeathed to us, from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to our airports, freeways, and power plants? Did we ever defeat anything comparable to the Axis powers or Soviet communism?
We know the symptoms of the current epidemic of hating the past.
One is Orwellian renaming and statue-toppling. Historical revision often responds to puritanical mob frenzies, rather than to democratic discussion and votes of relevant elected officials.
Where is the pantheon of woke heroes who will replace the toppled or defaced Thomas Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt?
Whose morality and achievement should instead be immortalized? Were the public and private lives of Che Guevara, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Margaret Sanger, and Franklin D. Roosevelt without sin?
Racial fixations tend predictably in one direction. In good Confederate fashion, we lump all individuals who look alike into inexact collectives of “white,” “black,” or “brown”—often to stereotype the supposed evils of so-called white supremacy.
But if we go down that tribalist and simplistic road of caricatured oppressors and oppressed, will future generations tally up each group’s merits and demerits, to adjudicate the roles of millions of individuals in making America worse or better?
What standard would they use to judge our ignorant world of racial stereotyping—proportional representation in Nobel Prizes, philanthropy, scientific breakthroughs, or lasting art, music, and literature versus statistics on homicides, assault, divorce, and illegitimacy?
Immigration—when legal, diverse, measured, and often meritocratic—has been the great strength of America, as typified by industrious arrivals who chose to abandon their own homeland to risk new lives in a foreign United States.
But if America is so flawed and so irredeemable, why in fiscal year 2021 are nearly 2 million foreigners now crashing its borders—illegally, en masse, and intent on reaching a supposedly racist nation that is purportedly inferior to those they abandon?
According to the ancient brutal bargain, assimilation and integration grant the immigrant as much claim to America’s present and past as the native-born. But then shouldn’t the antithesis also be true?
Shouldn’t immigrants at least respect those of the past who created the very country they now so eagerly desire, and died in awful places, from Valley Forge to Bastogne, to preserve?
Never in history has such a mediocre, but self-important and ungracious generation owed so much, and yet expressed so little gratitude, to its now-dead forebears.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/12/30/the-ungracious-generation-and-its-demonization-of-the-past
*************************************************James O’Keefe Undeterred After Recent FBI Raid, Legal Action Against Project Veritas
James O’Keefe, the founder of undercover news outfit Project Veritas, says he’s continuing his investigative work undeterred by the recent FBI raid of his and other Veritas reporters’ homes and a criminal investigation of Veritas by the Department of Justice regarding a diary allegedly belonging to President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden.
O’Keefe says materials unrelated to the Biden diary probe were unlawfully seized from him and his team during the raids.
“In this case, a special master has been appointed by the Southern District of New York and we’re continuing on with new stories,” O’Keefe told The Epoch Times. “We’re not stopping at Project Veritas. We keep moving forward.”
O’Keefe had asked in November for the appointment of a special master to supervise the review of the information on his phones, telling U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres that the devices contained sensitive information related to Project Veritas investigations and legal matters.
“In addition to attorney-client privileged materials, both phones also contain newsgathering materials which are critical to the exercise of a free press and protected by the First Amendment,” states O’Keefe’s motion, a copy of which was seen by The Epoch Times.
He said journalists have to keep telling the truth regardless of whether their character is attacked or they are threatened.
“You have to do the right thing, no matter what,” O’Keefe told The Epoch Times during a Turning Point USA event on Dec. 28.
O’Keefe says Project Veritas’s purpose is to investigate and expose corruption and fraud in public and private institutions. He said whistleblowers seek out his organization because they know it has journalistic integrity, adding that many of the large corporate media outlets collude with those in power instead of questioning them.
“Rather than investigate the people in government, rather than challenge those in authority, they echo those in authority,” O’Keefe stated during a November interview with The Epoch Times.
O’Keefe is set to release a new book this month, “American Muckraker,” which covers what he and his organization have experienced and learned on the front lines of investigative journalism.
“I spent five years writing this book, and it covers all these themes about privacy, ethics, undercover journalism, power, whistleblowing, suffering,” he said. “And it really takes you in from the perspective of a muckraking journalist in the 21st century—what it means to be a journalist, to fight the powers that be. Where do the boundaries lie on privacy, ethics, consent? What does it take? This is a handbook.”
O’Keefe’s organization has been hailed by conservatives, defended by media ethics organizations, and criticized by many on the left. According to Project Veritas’s website, they have eight legal cases that are pending against several liberal organizations and individuals, including The New York Times and CNN. They have won all seven of their previous lawsuits.
Despite being maligned by certain media outlets, pundits, and politicians, O’Keefe says he’s still hopeful for the future.
“I’m at risk of sounding like a hippie here, but I think that the issues that unite us are, in fact, more powerful than what divides us, and that was evidenced by the fact that the ACLU defended me,” he said.
“I don’t think we’re as divided as people would have us believe.”
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France takes down EU flag from Arc de Triomphe after Right-wing anger
French authorities took down a temporary installation of the European Union flag from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Sunday after Right-wing opponents of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, accused him of "erasing" French identity.
The giant flag was raised in place of a French flag on New Year's Eve to mark France's turn at the rotating presidency of the EU Council, which it will hold for the next six months.
The arch, a monument to war dead, and other landmarks including the Eiffel Tower and the Pantheon are also being illuminated with blue lights.
But Mr Macron's Right-wing rivals for the presidential election, which is four months away, seized on the removal of the tricolor and called it an affront to France's heritage and veterans.
"Preside over Europe yes, erase French identity no!" tweeted Valerie Pecresse, the conservative candidate, who according to polls could be the main challenger to Mr Macron in the forthcoming vote. She urged him to restore the French flag, saying: "We owe it to our soldiers who spilled their blood for it."
Flag’s removal ‘was in line with planned schedule’
Marine Le Pen, the far-Right candidate who had vowed to file a complaint with the State Council, France's highest court for administrative matters, also denounced the move.
Eric Zemmour, a far-Right media pundit who is also running against Mr Macron, called it "an insult".
On Sunday, Ms Le Pen called the overnight removal of the EU flag "a great patriotic victory" and claimed on Twitter that a "massive mobilisation" had forced Mr Macron to backpedal.
But an official in the French presidency said the flag's removal before dawn was "in line with the planned schedule", insisting that, unlike the blue lights for monuments, it was only supposed to be at the Arc for two days.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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