Filled with Hope and Filled with Fears

The story of D-Day.

Bereaved Remainers who daydream that the decision to leave the EU might one day be reversed are delusional

Responding to a Bagehot column in The Economist, Robin Aitkin writes from Oxford that

Wistful daydreaming that the decision to leave the EU might one day be reversed might bring some comfort to bereaved Remainers. They are delusional. Ask this question: if Britain had never joined the EU would we now vote to do so? Looking at the wasteful, sclerotic and undemocratic grouping that it has become, only a Euro-enthusiast of the deepest hue could think that we would.

It is worth remembering that when Britain joined in the 1970s the country’s fortunes were at their lowest ebb. National morale was at rock-bottom and there were serious people who questioned whether Britain

Britain was actually governable, such was the dysfunctional nature of industrial relations. Across the Channel the EEC offered a vision of a better world with Germany still in the Wirtschaftswunder era and France enjoying les trente glorieuses. Britain’s decision to join the EU was akin to that of a drowning man who decides to grab a lifebelt. Today the situation is very different: the European economic model is no longer one that Britain envies and it is Britain which is the magnet for energetic migrants.

Reversing Brexit is now the longest of long shots. But if it is ever to be achieved Tony Blair, a discredited political huckster, is the very last man the public would turn to. Europhiles must find a new face to lead them to the promised land.

Ted Stroll, meanwhile, writes from San Jose, California, that

There is a simple solution to the Brexit conundrum, one that will allow Britain to have its trade cake and eat it too [Special report on the future of the European Union, March 25th]: the UK need only become the 11th province of Canada. Canada and the EU recently concluded a trade agreement and the UK would accede to it as a Canadian province. It would also join NAFTA and enjoy liberal trade terms with the United States.

Adjustments would be few and easy. Canada’s provinces have wide powers and by treaty the UK’s could be even broader. The queen would remain head of state. As a provincial flag, the Union flag would still be flown, with the Canadian flag a discreet presence on government buildings. As Hong Kong and Macau kept the dollar and pataca, so Britain could keep the pound. English would be an official language (though so would French). Such a move wouldn’t be unprecedented. Newfoundland left the UK and joined Canada in 1949. Time to think outside the box.

It did take a few moments before I got the gist of Tom Murphy's comment from Montivilliers, France:

Ted Stroll suggested that Britain should become a new province of Canada after Brexit (Letters, April 6th). There are additional benefits to doing this. Britain would have access both to the boat-building technology of the Inuits and to the oil sands in Alberta. In this way it could have its kayak and heat it.

2 Dystopian Views: Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us; Huxley, on the other hand, warned of an onslaught of news, real or fabricated, that reduced its consumers to passivity and egotism

Responding to an article in The Economist on Newspapers and television, Joseph Ting writes from Australia that

Regarding “The Trump bump” enjoyed by America’s media (February 18th), Neil Postman, in “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, envisaged this dangerously fractured moment in modern history. George Orwell was afraid of overseers depriving us of information. Aldous Huxley, on the other hand, warned of an onslaught of news, real or fabricated, that reduced its consumers to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley contended that when truth is drowned in a sea of irrelevance, we would become a trivial culture.

Both dystopian views have proven presciently true. Real facts are submerged into the swamp bottom of lies and manipulation (Orwellian) by the sea tides of their manufactured alternative cousins. But the media, both print and social, need to take care that this moment-by-moment accounting doesn’t drown us in its thought-extinguishing momentum (Huxleyan).

Wonder Woman: Is The Civil Rights Act of 1964 an affront to sovereignty, privacy, dignity, and property rights? And does it exist primarily to keep an army of litigators employed?

In a nod toward female empowerment the Alamo Drafthouse chain of movie theaters plans to offer several screenings of the soon-to-debut Wonder Woman film to female customers only

reports Benny Huang on the Constitution website.

The company has released a statement saying:

“Apologies, gentlemen, but we’re embracing our girl power and saying ‘No Guys Allowed’ for several special shows…”

This is blatantly illegal.

Not that it should be. Alamo Drafthouse is a private company and should be free to discriminate till the cows come home. The women-only screenings nonetheless violate state and local law in multiple localities. An Alamo cinema in Brooklyn, for example, will be in violation of New York State law which declares it to be

“an unlawful discriminatory practice for any person, being the owner, lessee, proprietor, manager, superintendent, agent or employee of any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement, because of…sex…directly or indirectly, to refuse, withhold from or deny to such person any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges thereof…” 

Similar laws can be found in other cities and states where Alamo Drafthouse is holding its flagrantly illegal screenings.

The reason Alamo Drafthouse is getting away with illegal sex discrimination is because the word “sex” in nondiscrimination laws has morphed before our eyes. Some government entities are now interpreting “sex” to mean “sexual orientation” which is almost always a code word for sexual conduct. It’s also being interpreted to mean “gender identity” or “gender expression.” What this means in practice is that laws that were intended to protect women are now being interpreted to protect men who have sex with men as well as men who think they’re women. The only thing that “sex” apparently doesn’t mean these days is its actual dictionary definition. Consequently, businesses now feel free to discriminate on the basis of sex and no one does anything about it…as long as it’s only men who are being discriminated against, of course.

Isn’t it about time to admit that private sector nondiscrimination are ridiculous? I think so but I’m apparently in the minority on this issue. Almost everyone claims to revere these laws, even conservatives. Most righties support them laws in principle but resent their arbitrary enforcement—and rightfully so. Alamo Drafthouse is proof that the government discriminates in its application of nondiscrimination laws. A law that clearly and unambiguously prohibits discrimination based on sex is only invoked to protect one sex. What’s equal about that?

Nonetheless, a broad consensus exists that private sector nondiscrimination laws are both righteous and necessary. We Americans love them so much that we’ve enacted them by the boatload and created almost as many enforcement agencies to back them up. If a person is refused service he may be able to file simultaneous complaints with the city, county, state, and federal governments. This legal barrage often results in the business owner’s unconditional surrender even if he wasn’t harboring an illegal thought when he decided not to do business with this person. Capitulation is just easier.

Even among conservatives I find myself swimming against the tide on this issue. I’ve tried in vain to explain to my fellow conservatives that they shouldn’t brag about more Republicans than Democrats voting for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It’s true but it’s also a horrible black mark on the party’s record. A few Republicans understood what a monstrosity this law would become and opposed the statist (and racist!) Lyndon Johnson in his efforts to pass the bill. Their names were Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan—perhaps you’ve heard of them?

Politicians certainly don’t speak out against the Civil Rights Act, even conservatives and so-called libertarians like former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. It’s political suicide. I know of only one elected official currently holding office who has ever criticized it—Rand Paul—and he quickly walked it back.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, like all private sector nondiscrimination laws, is big government at its worst. It appears to exist primarily to keep an army of litigators employed. It is selectively enforced against disfavored groups and it is often warped with new “interpretations” that are at odds with its text and original intent. It is an affront to sovereignty, privacy, dignity, and property rights. It’s a crap sandwich that the whole country has been choking on for more than fifty years. It needs to be struck down as unconstitutional and we need to teach our children to be ashamed that it ever existed in the first place.

The Wonder Woman kerfuffle makes me wonder where all of the nondiscrimination hardliners have gone. Former Congressman Barney Frank, for example, ought to be the first to file a complaint with one of our many wasteful, redundant “civil rights” bureaucracies because he has zero patience for people who discriminate. Or at least that’s the position he pretended to hold during the debate over Indiana’s religious freedom law.

Barney Frank operates under the false impression that there’s some kind of law that requires businesses to serve everyone. Said Mr. Frank:

“When you open a business, you are being given a set of privileges and protections from the society to make some money and in return the obligation has always been under basic common law that you serve the general public, that anybody who behaves well can be served…” 

Actually, there is no such law and it would be unconstitutional even if there were. Businesses can decline any economic transaction whatsoever as long as they provide a proper government-approved justification. I think that “I don’t want to” should suffice but the law says that’s just not good enough.

It’s important to really hear what Frank is saying here. He’s not saying that there ought to be a law compelling businesses to serve everyone. What he’s saying is that such a law already exists and has existed since time immemorial. He’s trying to pass this off as some kind of great American tradition, as if forcing businesses to serve the general public without exception has been part of our social contract for generations. This is the big lie that surrounds and pervades the debate over private sector nondiscrimination laws. They want us to believe not only that business owners are bondage servants with no right to pick and choose which economic transactions they will engage in but also that it’s always been this way.

I have encountered Frank’s argument roughly a zillion times while debating private sector non-discrimination laws. The argument is that business owners, simply by going into business, have already agreed to “serve the public” which includes absolutely anyone walks in the door. In essence, that means that they have already waived any rights they may have under the Constitution to protect themselves from government coercion. Any business owner who later decides that he doesn’t want to do business with a particular customer or fulfill a particular order is somehow going back on his word and shirking his duty to the public. This is absurd. Business owners don’t make any such promise to “serve the public” nor should they be required to. They can serve those members of the public they want to serve—or at least that’s the way it should be. It’s a two way street; just as customers can choose which businesses to patronize, businesses should be able to choose which customers they will take on. That’s freedom—and it scares the living crap out of some people.

Another candidate for the Hypocrite of The Year award is opinion commentator and militant lesbian Sally Kohn. In 2015, she wrote a column in which she argued that maximum freedom comes through maximum government coercion. “Everyone deserves equal treatment, and businesses should be forced to serve everyone,” was the sub-header.

The gist of Kohn’s column is that nondiscrimination laws are eminently fair because they bind everyone just as they protect everyone. Anyone who doesn’t like these laws must be accustomed to discriminating without being discriminated against. They’re scared because they feel their privilege slipping away. She tries to pretend that she’s very consistent, pointing out she supports laws that work both ways. Yes, she believes that a devout Mormon couple should be forced to rent a hotel room to a radical lesbian feminist but she also thinks that the same law should apply in the reverse scenario. Kohn writes: “The point is that businesses should serve everyone the same and not discriminate. Once upon a time it was lunch counters. Now it’s wedding cakes.” Yes, then it was movie theaters and Sally Kohn was AWOL. She didn’t force her morality on the movie theater owner the same way she would a devout Christian bakery owner because—let’s face it—her supposed consistency isn’t that consistent.

But mine is. Businesses shouldn’t have to serve anyone and they shouldn’t have to explain themselves to the government. I don’t care if it’s lunch counters, wedding cakes or movie theaters. Economic transactions should be made on a voluntary basis. Period.

Putin to French Newspaper: The Storm in Washington Is Based on Fantasy—"They would rather explain that the Democrats' policy was the correct one, but that an outsider deceived the American people"

After his meeting with Emmanuel Macron in Versailles, Vladimir Putin gave an an exclusive interview to Le Figaro's Alexis Brézet and Renaud Girard (video) from a classroom of the Russian cultural center in Paris (translated from the French translation of the remarks in Russian).

Excerpts related to the accusations of the Kremlin's interference in the 2016 election:

Suspicions of Russian interference in the US election campaign have triggered a political storm in Washington. In France, similar suspicions have been expressed. What's your reaction? 

The Western press talks about Russian hackers. But where does the idea come from? When President Trump mentioned the situation, he said things that are quite right. Maybe it did not come from Russia, maybe there was someone who inserted a USB stick under the name of a Russian citizen. In this virtual world, today, anything can be done. Russia has never hacked. We do not need it. No interest. What's the point ? I've talked to several American presidents, you know. Presidents come and go, but politics do not change. And do you know why ? Because the bureaucracy in America is very powerful. The person elected has his or her opinions, ideals, visions, but the day after the election, people with briefcases, in tie and suits with white shirts come to explain how to act as a good president. And changing something in this situation is very difficult. I say this without irony.

So, are you saying that this storm in Washington is based on nothing but a fantasy? 

Yes, on fantasy. On the desire of those who lost the elections to remedy their situation by accusing Russia of interference. They lost because the winner was closer to the people and had a better understanding of the voters' aspirations. It's hard to admit. One would rather explain and prove to others that the policy followed by the Democrats was the right one, but that someone from outside deceived the American people. That someone rigged the election. But this is not the case. They simply lost: one must know how to recognize one's defeat, and have the strength to do so. Once this is done, it will be simpler to work together. But today, we use the anti-Russian card in Washington, and this is detrimental to international relations. They could of course quarrel among themselves: who is the best? Who is the most intelligent? But hey, it will pass…

Related: If it weren’t for anonymous sources, it seems
that the media wouldn’t have any sources at all

Nixon and Watergate: What Do the MSM and History
Books Fail to Tell Us About the 1970s Scandal?

See also: a Donald Trump interview — on a different subject
("We’re going to make it 10%; Now it’s 35% … this would
be the biggest tax cut in the history of the country …
We want to keep it as simple as possible")

Média

La vidéo intégrale de l’entretien de Vladimir Poutine au Figaro

EXCLUSIVITÉ FIGARO LIVE - Après sa rencontre à Versailles avec Emmanuel Macron, Vladimir Poutine a accordé une interview exclusive à Alexis Brézet, directeur des rédactions du Figaro, et Renaud Girard, chroniqueur international au Figaro.

Les souçons d'immixtion russe dans la campagne électorale américaine ont déclenché une tempête politique à Washington. En France, des soupçons analogues ont été exprimés. Quelle est votre réaction ? [22:18]

La presse occidentale a parlé de hackers russes. mais sur quoi se base-t-elle ? Lorsque le président Trump en a parlé, il a dit des choses tout à fait correctes.  Peut-être que cela ne venait pas de Russie, mais que quelqu'un a inséré une clé USB avec le nom d'un citoyen russe. Dans ce monde virtuel, aujourdhui, on peut faire n'importe quoi. La Russie n'a hamais fait de hacking. Nous n'en avons pas besoin. Aucun intérêt. À quoi bon ? J'ai parlé avec plusieurs présidents américains, vous savez. Les présidents arrivent et repartent, mais la politique ne change pas. Et vous savez pourquoi ? Parce que la bureaucratie en Amérique est très puissante. La personne élue a son opinion, ses idéaux, sa vision des choses, mais le lendemain des élections, des personnes avec des attachés-cases, des costumes-cravates et des chemises blanches viennent expliquer comment il doit agir en bon président. Et changer quelque chose dans cette situation, c'est très difficile. Je le dis sans ironie.

Cette tempête à Washington serait donc fondée sur une fiction absolue ? [25:22]

Oui, sur de la fiction. Sur le désir de ceux qui ont perdu les élections de remédier à leur situation en accusant la Russie d'ingérence. Ils ont perdu car le vainqueur était plus proche du peuple et a mieux compris les aspirations des électeurs. C'est difficile de le reconnaître. On veut plutôt expliquer et prouver aux autres que la politique suivie par les démocrates était la bonne, mais que quelqu'un de l'extérieur a trompé le peuple américain. Que quelqu'un a truqué l'élection. Mais ce n'est pas le cas. Ils ont tout simplement perdu : il faut savoir reconnaître sa défaite, et en avoir la force. Une fois que ce sera fait, il sera plus simple de travailler ensemble. Mais aujourd'hui, on utilise à Washington la carte antirusse, et ça porte préjudice aux relations internationales. Ils pourraient bien sûr se quereller entre eux : qui est le meilleur ? Qui est le plus intelligent ? Mais bon, cela passera…

Update: Damien Sharkov reports on the Figaro interview for Newsweek, while Fox News and BBC News produced similar reports from St. Petersburg…

Putin deftly brushed off [NBC reporter Megyn Kelly's] questions about meetings that members of the Trump campaign – including then-Sen. Jeff Sessions – had with Russian diplomat Sergey Kislyak.
 
“So our ambassador met someone. That's his job. That's why we pay him,” Putin said, according to a translation. “So what? What's he supposed to do, hit up the bars?”
 
He described the focus on Kislyak's contacts as “catastrophic nonsense.”

France's Former Ambassador to Iraq Risks Prison Time on Charges of Tax Fraud and Forgery

A French diplomat and close adviser to the former president Nicolas Sarkozy has gone on trial after he was stopped trying to leave the country with a bag stuffed with banknotes

reports Kim Willshir in The Guardian, with Le Figaro's Anne Jouan adding that the prosecutor is asking for prison time for Monsieur Boillon.

Boris Boillon, who was known as “Sarko Boy”, appeared in a Paris court on Monday on charges of tax fraud and forgery following the discovery.

Boillon, who once appeared on the cover of a celebrity magazine with the headline “The James Bond of the diplomatic world”, was pulled over by customs officers at Gare du Nord in Paris in July 2013 before he boarded a train to Belgium, where he lives with his family near Brussels.

When Boillon opened the sports bag that he was carrying, police found €350,000 (£302,000) and $40,000 (£31,000) in cash wrapped in plastic bags and a plastic box. Boillon claimed he had been paid the money for consultancy work on a stadium construction in Iraq. As well as the fraud charges, he is accused of breaking strict limits on the transfer of cash within the European Union. The forgery charge relates to documents he allegedly presented justifying the cash.

Investigators say they have been unable to trace the source of the money. Boillon, who is facing four charges, could be fined up to €855,000 if found guilty of each and be ordered to serve up to five years in prison.

No Pasarán Boris Boillon has appeared on No Pasarán before, notably when he went on Canal+

to defend Muammar Gaddafi, saying: “He was a terrorist, he is no longer. We mustn’t fall into cliches. We’ve all made mistakes in life and we’ve all the right to be forgiven.”

One cannot refrain from wondering whether the Frenchman's travails aren't due, at least partly, to a political assassination à la François Fillon, in view of the fact that

Boris Boillon — an Arab-[speaker] who served as ambassador in Baghdad — voiced support for George W Bush during the Iraq War! That, of course, makes his sins all the more unforgivable

As Simon Piel and Joan Tilouine confirm in Le Monde,

En Irak, où il fut ambassadeur de 2009 à 2011, il s’était montré favorable à l’intervention américaine. Nommé à Tunis à la chute du régime du dictateur Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, le jeune diplomate n’avait pas hésité à afficher son corps sculpté sur le Web, uniquement vêtu d’un slip de bain, ou à poser en James Bond dans la presse locale. Son ton franc voire arrogant, mal perçu dans le milieu diplomatique, avait choqué une partie de l’opinion publique tunisienne.

Lorsqu’il reçut pour la première fois des journalistes tunisiens, qui l’interrogèrent sur le rôle de la France durant la révolution, Boris Boillon s’emporta, évoquant « des trucs à la con », des « questions débiles », avant de brutalement mettre un terme à l’entretien filmé et diffusé sur les réseaux sociaux. Une attitude qui poussa des centaines de Tunisiens indignés à se réunir devant l’ambassade de France, trois jours plus tard, en scandant « Boillon dégage ». Contacté par Le Monde, M. Boillon n’a pas donné suite à nos demandes d’entretien.

If it weren’t for anonymous sources, it seems that the media wouldn’t have any sources at all

If it weren’t for anonymous sources,

deadpans Benny Huang on the Constitution website, in an homage to a favorite Instapundit meme,

it seems that the media wouldn’t have any sources at all. In the past two weeks the media have promoted a number of weighty stories that rested upon the credibility of people whose names we are not allowed to know. Two of these stories were veritable bombshells that, if true, should rightly land powerful people in prison. It’s too bad both stories were so thinly sourced.

Perhaps the bigger of the two stories, measured at least by the news coverage that it got, was the Washington Post’s scoop that Donald Trump had allegedly shared classified intelligence with the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador concerning ISIS terror plots. That report was followed by a barrage of stories about exactly which beans were spilled and whether they were really classified beans. Each volley of articles only muddied the waters more.

The second bombshell involved a new development in the Seth Rich murder investigation. Rich, a 27 year-old DNC staffer, was gunned down last July in a wealthy section of Washington, DC. Shortly thereafter, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange very strongly hinted that Rich was the source of embarrassing internal party emails leaked to his organization—emails that showed that the system was rigged against the insurgent candidate Bernie Sanders among other juicy details. If that were the real motive for his murder it would seem to point accusatory fingers at officials in the Democratic Party.

This relatively cold case got a little warmer last week when Rod Wheeler, a private investigator and former DC homicide detective, made the astonishing claim that there was solid evidence on the victim’s laptop that he had been in contact with Wikileaks before he died. This claim seemed a little weak considering the fact that Wheeler had not himself seen the laptop and was not even sure which law enforcement agency had it in their possession. Still, he insisted that a source at the FBI had told him that the laptop was the key to cracking the case. Within about 24 hours, FOX News was claiming to have an anonymous federal investigator who confirmed the veracity of Wheeler’s claim. FOX News has now officially retracted that story, though exactly why is a mystery. The New York Times clearly implied that FOX News backed off under pressure from the victim’s family, which is a pretty lousy reason to retract a story if you ask me. If it’s not true that’s something else entirely.

The problem with anonymous sources is that they only have as much credibility as the news outlets that vouch for them. When reporters use anonymous sources they are affirming that the mysterious individual has placement, access, and above all credibility. The reporter is asking his readers for their trust and, by running the story, the news outlet is backing him up. In days gone by[,] reporters usually received the trust that they sought because people didn’t see the media as a bunch of partisan hacks. These days, just saying that “a little bird told me” doesn’t cut it because the media has sullied its own reputation.

Given the declining trust that the public places in journalists, you might think that journalists would scale back their use of anonymous sources but the opposite seems to be happening. Though I know of no database that tracks how often anonymous sources are cited in a given year, casual observation tells me that the practice is more common now than when I started paying attention to the news in the 1990s. Journalist Paul Fahri, who covers the media beat at the Washington Post, concurs. Writing in 2013, he said that “According to sources who didn’t insist on anonymity, more and more sources are speaking to the news media on the condition of anonymity for the oddest of reasons.” I would argue that this trend has only increased since 2013 and that it’s become an epidemic since the inauguration of Donald J. Trump. The news cycle is starting to feel like a middle school rumor mill in which catty girls snipe at each other from behind a veil of secrecy. The news is no longer the news—it’s all the Washington gossip fit to print. This has to stop, at least until the Fourth Estate reestablishes its credibility with the American people, which could take a very long time.

Yet the media seem incapable of hearing any criticism of their profession or their employers. This attitude was driven home last week when a panel of reporters appearing on CNN reacted in shock, disbelief, and anger when their guest, former Navy SEAL Carl Higbie, stated that he was not convinced President Trump had given classified intel to Russian guests. “Tell you what, name those sources, then we’ll have something to talk about,” said Higbie. The exchange that followed was absolutely priceless, mostly for the reaction of hostess Kate Bolduan who lost it on national television. She was incensed that someone wouldn’t take a mainstream media-approved anonymous source as gold.

Journalist Kirsten Powers interjected with the classic defense of anonymous sourcing—Watergate. That scandal was broken by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post who received some tips from a mysterious man in a suburban DC parking garage. Until 2005 Woodward referred to his source, whose real name was W. Mark Felt, as Deep Throat.

Unfortunately, Woodward set a very bad precedent. In the years since Watergate, anonymous sourcing has become almost de rig[u]eur. Every anonymous source is now treated like a latter-day Deep Throat. Never mind the fact that Woodward used his secret source mostly as a starting point and that he didn’t expect the entire story to hold together on that single source’s credibility.

If Kirsten Powers wants to use Deep Throat as an example of anonymous sourcing at its best I can surely provide counterexamples of anonymous sourcing gone horribly wrong. Two such examples can be found at The New Republic (TNR), a publication that liberals tend to hold in high regard despite the various journalistic abominations it has run over the years.

In 2007, TNR ran three dispatches from a GI in Iraq whom they referred to as “Scott Thomas” (pseudonym) or the Baghdad Diarist. The Diarist wrote of American soldiers behaving more or less like savages: disrespecting the bodies of dead Iraqi civilians and running over dogs with their Bradley fighting vehicles. Readers were supposed to feel as if they were getting the ground truth instead of Pentagon spin when in fact they were merely having their preconceived notions confirmed. Unfortunately for TNR, the Baghdad Diarist was basically making all of this stuff up. A US Army investigation into this blatant misconduct found it baseless. None of the details of his story stacked up, “Scott Thomas” refused to cooperate with TNR’s own inquiry, and eventually TNR retracted the story.

To make matters worse TNR was by then still on probation for another incident that happened nine years prior, from which they claimed they had learned some lessons. In 1998 TNR got burned by one of its associate editors, Stephen Glass, who turned out to be a compulsive liar. An investigation later determined that 27 of Glass’s 41 TNR pieces contained at least some made up material and a few were entirely confabulated. Glass of course hid behind anonymous sources.

 … These two examples illustrate the pitfalls of anonymous sources. The Baghdad Diarist was a real soldier deployed to Iraq but he wasn’t credible. There was no way for TNR readers to assess his credibility because they didn’t know who he was. Believing that his account would never be checked, “Scott Thomas” wrote whatever his imagination could dream up, slimed his brothers-in-arms, and hurt the mission. Stephen Glass’s scandal was even worse because his anonymous sources were entirely fictional, a secret he thought he could keep.

When reporters have leeway to cite anonymous sources there’s really nothing to stop them from pulling these kinds of stunts. They can write anything at all and just attribute it to some guy they met in a parking garage. The guy in the parking garage may or may not exist, may or may not be a crackpot, may or may not have an agenda, may or may not have the access he claims to have. We don’t know.

And, I might add, neither may the journalist himself know, for that matter.

Journalism as a profession has some well-deserved black eyes and it would behoove reporters to start earning back the public trust. Anonymous sources do the opposite. Too often they’ve been used as covers for lousy and unethical reporting.

CNN's Don Lemon Ain't Too Happy with Morgan Freeman's Answers

The Scoop's Bob Amoroso posts a video showing CNN's Don Lemon interviewing Morgan Freeman:

 … young, inexperienced pups like CNN host Don Lemon attempts to play the victimization “race card” while interviewing acclaimed Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman, who knows a thing or two about real discrimination.

If anything this brief video clip perhaps best illustrates the disconnect between the generations, when it comes to the issue of race among African-Americans, it’s that same disconnect that immigrants first felt coming to America during the 20’s, 30’s 40’s and perhaps even the 50’s.

Lemon attempts to suggest that racial discrimination among African-Americans is by extension an economic issue, saying; “Do you think race plays a role in wealth distribution?”

Freeman momentarily taken aback by the question and seemed a bit bemused responded, “No. You and I are proof of it.”

Which apparently doesn’t satisfy the CNN host, as he tries again to illicit a response more to his liking, suggesting that some individuals might find it too hard to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps.”

Freemen’s bemusement instantly evaporates, and begins schooling the young progressive pup, by reminding him he was born over 70-years ago in a place called Memphis, Tennessee then stating “um, I had a long haul from where I came from to here…but here we are.”

Lemon interjects saying: “not everybody can do that.”

Freemen sitting back on his chair exclaims “BULLSH*T, everybody can!”

Before 007, Roger Moore Starred with Tony Curtis in The Persuaders — Some Interesting Trivia on the TV Series, Courtesy of No Pasarán

Sir Roger Moore's fellow James Bond actors. as well as other celebrities, join in an outpouring to pay homage after the actor's death.

As Sir Roger himself said of 007, his most famous role:

“Now they’ve found the Bond — Daniel Craig…. I always said Sean played Bond as a killer and I played Bond as a lover. I think that Daniel Craig is even more of a killer. He has this superb intensity; he’s a glorious actor.”

Of course, Roger Moore became famous for handful of TV series. Almost unknown in America, The Persuaders became one of the greatest television hits in Europe, with John Barry's haunting theme music and co-starring Tony Curtis.

One fan is No Pasarán's main blogger, who indeed has authored a number of entries on the TV series' trivia page. Among which are:

Originally, the title of the TV series was going to be "The Friendly Persuaders", but because that sounded too close to a Gary Cooper western (Friendly Persuasion (1956)), it was shortened.

Because Roger Moore deemed that no good photos exist of him as a child, the black and white boyhood picture of Brett Sinclair in the opening credits is that of his son Geoffrey Moore

The filmed sequences presenting Danny Wilde and Brett Sinclair in the opening credits were not filmed expressly for said credits but were taken from various early episodes (all of them in Southern Europe), mainly The Persuaders!: Overture (1971) (the two men racing their sports cars, Tony Curtis and Roger Moore distracted by a blonde in a bikini walking between them, Brett flirting with two beauties) and The Persuaders!: Powerswitch (1971) (the water-skiing shots and Danny shown as a businessman at work at a desk)

Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz of Hungarian immigrants. And if you pay attention, you will find the actor sprinkling inside jokes to his origins through the series. In The Persuaders!: Greensleeves (1971), for instance, his character pretends to be Brett Sinclair's new butler, Grzegorz (Gregor), and explains his (fake) East European accent by his being from a "Hun-GAA-rian" from "BU-dapesht" (unfortunately for Danny Wilde, the black beauty from an African republic that he shares this with speaks the language perfectly). Torn from his Paris hotel shower in The Persuaders!: The Old, the New, and the Deadly (1971) by the telephone ringing which turns out to be a wrong phone number, a dripping wet Danny states, "No, this is not Mr Schwartz, you got the wrong room!"

Related: A 7-Year-Old Spots a Celebrity in an Airport, His Heart Sinking When Roger Moore's Autograph Does Not Read "James Bond"; What Happens Next?

Can't America Impeach Trump and Remove Him from Office? Asks French Radio Channel Giddily; GOP's Reen Answers with One Single Monosyllable

📻 Ce soir 22h/minuit : Jean-Xavier de Lestrade et @samueldoux
🇺🇸 débat : #DonaldTrump
🎤 et @kidfrancescoli en live !https://t.co/RZ2USGOBFk pic.twitter.com/znECSWPXZ6

— Laurent Goumarre (@LaurentGoumarre) May 23, 2017

Est-ce l'Amérique peut se déTrumper ? asks French radio in a play on words meaning both Can America unTrump itself and Can America undo its blunder.

Among the guests of Laurent Goumarre's Le Nouveau Rendez-Vous on the France Inter radio channel devoted to the question whether Donald Trump can be impeached — or, rather, removed from office (a number of people seem to think that they are one and the same) — were Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, Samuel Doux (scénariste, réalisateur et auteur), Kid Francescoli (Chanteur), Norman Spinrad (auteur de science-fiction américain), Constance Borde (Représentante en France du parti démocrate), and Eric Fottorino (Journaliste et écrivain), as well as, last but not least, Paul Reen (représentant du Parti Républicain en France).

Notably, Alice Antheaume spent three and a half minutes in a mocking monologue over Donald Trump's tendency for writing tweets. After Christop Bourseiller went on and on for two and a half minutes with an editorial on the possibility of Donald Trump's impeachment and removal for office, Paul Reen answered with a single monosyllable.

Go to the France Inter link to hear the whole debate…

Donald #Trump et son téléphone portable… une relation passionnelle • la chronique d’@alicanth #NRVfi #donaldtrump pic.twitter.com/SpmcYfB2hy

— Laurent Goumarre (@LaurentGoumarre) May 23, 2017

Le président #Trump est-il tenu par les Russes ? • l'édito de @bourseiller1 #NRVfi pic.twitter.com/QVOjTDZe1Z

— Laurent Goumarre (@LaurentGoumarre) May 23, 2017

A 7-Year-Old Spots a Celebrity in an Airport, His Heart Sinking When Roger Moore's Autograph Does Not Read "James Bond"; What Happens Next?

In the wake of the passing of Sir Roger Moore, one Mark Williamson posts the following reminiscence (is it his own or someone other's?) on Facebook (cheers to Michael White).

Good-Bye, 007; Farewell, Lord Sinclair: RIP Sir Roger Moore (1927-2017)

A good obituary of Roger Moore appears in the Daily Mail thanks to Alexander Robertson and Marc Johnson — cheers to Sarah Hoyt who reveals that

HE WAS MY FIRST CRUSH WHEN I SAW HIM IN THE PERSUADERS.  I WAS TEN.

From the documentary, A Matter of Class:

Here is Roger Moore’s own story, as told by the famous actor himself. This profile also includes the recollections of colleagues and friends like Gregory Peck, Michael Caine, Tony Curtis, Carroll Baker and Maud Adams.

A couple of interesting quotes:

When Sean Connery played James Bond, he played it as the bad boy womanizer. And when Roger Moore played Bond, he played it as the man that — maybe — would marry the heroine …if the circumstances were right.
— Jackie Collins (26:53)

With women, I think the difference between Sean and Roger was that Sean macho'ed them into bed, and Roger loved [laughed?] them into it…
— Michael Caine

Meanwhile, Adrien Guilleminot has a long interesting commentary (en français) on the James Bond films in the Géo monthly.

With the heaviest of hearts, we must share the awful news that our father, Sir Roger Moore, passed away today. We are all devastated. pic.twitter.com/6dhiA6dnVg

— Sir Roger Moore (@sirrogermoore) May 23, 2017

The Daily Mail includes a selection of Sir Roger's quotes

IN HIS OWN SUAVE WORDS... 

Women have played a big part in my life on and off-screen and I think I’ve finally worked them out. I always make sure I have the last word. That word is ‘yes’.

‘It just gave me a stiff neck’ — explaining why taking Viagra left him neither shaken nor stirred.

Intelligence is my most endearing quality, according to [his wife] Kristina. That’s her Swedish sense of humour.

Being eternally known as Bond has no downside. People call me Mr Bond when we’re out and I don’t mind a bit. Why would I?

‘I had creaking knees and my leading ladies could have been my granddaughters’ — on his last appearance as James Bond in A View To A Kill, aged 57.

‘I lie all the time. I say different people, otherwise you’ll upset somebody’ — on his favourite Bond girl.

I’m one lucky b******. In my early acting years, I was told that to succeed you needed personality, talent and luck in equal measure. I contest that. For me it’s been 99 per cent luck. It’s no good being talented and not being in the right place at the right time.

The saddest thing about ageing is that most of my friends are now ‘in the other room’. I miss David Niven the most. I still can’t watch his films without shedding a tear.

Some of the things I’ve done in my life I’m ashamed of. We don’t talk about those, though. If I could give my younger self some advice it would be: ‘Grow up!’

I still have some of Bond’s suits in my wardrobe, but they don’t fit me now. In the 007 days I was so thin that if I turned sideways you could mark me absent.

My mum instilled in me the proverb: ‘I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.’ Those words are always with me and I’m a believer in showing kindness to others and not expecting repayment.

Medicine has always fascinated me and I’m a hypochondriac. It’s not that I wake up every morning and think: ‘I’m dying.’ At my age, I know I am.

Related: A 7-Year-Old Spots a Celebrity in an Airport, His Heart Sinking When Roger Moore's Autograph Does Not Read "James Bond"; What Happens Next?

Before 007, Roger Moore Starred with Tony Curtis in The Persuaders — Some Interesting Trivia on the TV Series, Courtesy of No Pasarán

MSM Headline Scoop: Who Does the Perpetrator of a Terrorist Attack in the UK Turn Out to Be? "An Englishman"

Reporting on the Manchester attack by one Salman Abedi, like all other MSM outlets, is the newspaper 20 Minutes. In that perspective, it is worth remembering that after it was discovered

that the March attack on Westminster bridge was one Khalid Masood, one French article provided the remarkable scoop that "The Assailant Is Allegedly [wait for it…] a 41-Year-Old Englishman." As for the free subway daily mentioned above, it also headlined the critical information, the stunning revelation, that… The Author of the Attack Was English.

Neither article — ain't that incredibly strange? — seems to be found online anymore, not in any case on their original respective websites. Reading the 20 Minutes filler from March, incidentally, it looks suspiciously obvious that the headline was not written by the journalist, but added by an editor. One with an agenda. But, then again, I repeat myself, don't I? Aren't they — MSM editors — all with an agenda?

Related: • Manchester Bomber Identified as Muslim Terrorist, Liberals Worry about ‘Islamophobia’

• Nothing to see here, folks (Lefty media deflects after yet another atrocity)

Stephanopoulos: “This is also likely to inflame anti-Islamic sentiment across Britain, across Europe.”

Martha Raddatz, whose wedding Barack Obama attended, agreed: “It will likely create backlash.”

A backlash? What about the little girls whose lives were so horribly snuffed out, and their survivors? What about their feelings? Much of the media obfuscated for as long as they could. Maybe, they claimed, it was all a big mistake, the carnage caused by “balloons exploding?”

As the hours went by and no names were released, it became more and more certain what had happened, just like when an arrested politician isn’t ID’d by his party affiliation in the first two paragraphs, you can 100 percent take it to the bank that he’s a Democrat.

Same thing in terrorism: When the killer is named, say, Dylann Roof, the public will be informed instantly. When the much more likely scenario unfolds, and the killer is one Salman Abedi, well, his next of kin must be notified … in Libya.

But he’s “homegrown,” and don’t you forget it. An accomplice may have been arrested, but he was a “lone wolf.” ISIS took responsibility, but don’t sweat it. As Obama told us, ISIS is “the j.v.”

Donald Trump Interview: "We’re going to make it 10%; Now it’s 35% … this would be the biggest tax cut in the history of the country … We want to keep it as simple as possible"

President Donald Trump sat down on May 4 for an interview with The Economist. 

DONALD TRUMP, the President of the United States, along with Steve Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, and Gary Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, sat down for a conversation with editors from The Economist on May 4th, 2017. What follows is a lightly edited transcript. 

 … we’re bringing our taxes down so low that you won’t even need the barrier because the taxes are so low, that people are going to stay.

 … We’re letting that money come back in. And that has two barriers which you have to watch. It’s got a barrier of the tax, which we will take care of. We’re going to make it 10%. Now it’s 35%...
Sorry, 10%? The repatriation taxes?
The repatriation. Inversion. The corporate inversions, which is a disaster, with the companies leaving. But they want to bring back their money. Number one, the tax is too high but the other thing that’s too high is the bureaucracy.
Mr Mnuchin: Correct.
President Trump: I have a friend who said even if you wanted to bring it back in you can’t because you have to go through so many papers, so many documents, so many…
Mr Mnuchin: We’re going to make it simple
President Trump: You have to do…Steve, they told me you’ve got to sign books and books of stuff, you pay millions of dollars in legal fees and they almost don’t allow you to bring it back in.
Can I ask you a question about the politics of tax?
It should be like one page.
…
Can I ask you about the focus of the tax cut because you’ve spoken about a massive tax cut for ordinary workers…
Right, this would be the biggest tax cut in the history of the country.
But the biggest winners from this tax cut, right now, look as though they will be the very wealthiest Americans.
Well, I don’t believe that. Because they’re losing all of their deductions, I can tell you.
But something like eliminating the estate tax.
I get more deductions, I mean I can tell you this, I get more deductions, they have deductions for birds flying across America, they have deductions for everything. There are more deductions…now you’re going to get an interest deduction, and a charitable deduction. But we’re not going to have all this nonsense that they have right now that complicates things and makes it…you know when we put out that one page, I said, we should really put out a, you know, a big thing, and then I looked at the one page, honestly it’s pretty well covered. Hard to believe.
Will you keep interest deduction in the corporate tax? Will corporate interest payments…Do you want to answer?
Mr Mnuchin: We’re contemplating it. We’re contemplating it.
So what would your preference be Mr President? You know about that very well.
 … we’re contemplating various things, but one of the things that’s very important is simplicity. We want to keep it as simple as possible. Because even if you do, it’s complicated. I mean even if you keep it simple with taxes it gets complicated.
 … But we’re going to be getting a lot of companies moving back and we’re going to get very few companies leaving the United States because we went from the highest tax rate of…not only major, you know they always say major countries, just about the highest tax rate period. And then when you add all the other things. And then when you add the regulations to the tax…I’ve had people tell me, because I’ve cut massive regulations and we’ve just started, believe me. But we’ve cut regulations massively.
…

Read the whole thing…

The Economist paints a Rosy, If Not Heroic, Portrait of Soros, Depicting His Adversaries as Little Better than Racist

Of course, you can count on a mainstream media outlet like The Economist to write a (mostly) flattering, or at least positive, portrait of George Soros, referred to as the "Canary in the global mine".

Not a word about such things as the Hungarian quietly buying District Attorneys' seats (köszönöm to Instapundit)…

An appetite for risk made George Soros a billionaire, but also made him enemies, as has his congenital philanthropy. In recent months these resentments have reached a new, alarming pitch. Two strands of criticism, in America and abroad, seem to have fused, a confluence epitomised by a pair of obscure letters sent by Republican politicians. A group of senators wrote to Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, and a clutch of congressmen to the comptroller-general, taking aim at the same detail: the role of USAID, America’s foreign-aid agency, in Macedonia, specifically its collaboration with the local arm of Mr Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF).

Mr Soros has supported democratic reform in central and eastern Europe since he distributed photocopiers among activists in the 1980s. His programmes avowedly promote free media, fair elections and clean government, rather than opposition parties, but local autocrats often miss the distinction. The Kremlin, which blamed Mr Soros for peaceful uprisings in Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbours in the 2000s, kicked his affiliate out in 2015. Belarus and Uzbekistan have also given him the push.

His political views and hefty donations have led to vitriol in America as well. Denunciations of George W. Bush and the Iraq war made him a bogeyman among right-wing fulminators and conspiracy theorists. His support for Hillary Clinton and disparagement of Donald Trump—an “impostor” and “would-be dictator”—have reinvigorated his assailants. Recently he has developed a controversial sideline in local prosecutorial races, from Louisiana to Illinois, betting that reformist prosecutors can help change the criminal-justice system. Sometimes the candidates he backs seem as baffled by his interest as their rivals, but 12 out of his 15 picks have won.

 … In any case, Mr Soros’s infamy from the bayous to the Balkans is odd. He is certainly no saint. Some of his wealth comes from currency speculation, as when, short-selling the pound in 1992, he “broke the Bank of England”. He has a French conviction for insider trading in 1988. Yet he has given billions to worthy causes. Michael Vachon, a longtime adviser, points out that Mr Soros derives no personal benefit from his advocacy of, say, the rights of Roma or the abolition of the death penalty. In politics, Mr Vachon says, unlike many big-time donors he “is always lobbying for a public purpose, never for private gain”. Often he promotes policies, as on tax, that could cost him.

 … Whatever the causes, as Soros-bashing spreads—the idea of his global meddling gaining a meretricious credibility with repetition—so do other troubling views. One is the cynical claim that peaceful protesters, whether against Mr Trump’s policies or corruption in Romania, take to the streets only if they are bribed: usually, run the calumnies from Bucharest to Washington, by Mr Soros. “If we’d paid all the protesters they say we have,” jokes Laura Silber of OSF, “we’d be bankrupt many times over. It’s an insult to people standing up for their beliefs.” Second, ever-more supposedly democratic leaders are relying on external adversaries to bolster their positions, confecting them if necessary.

In its final paragraph, The Economist basically calls everyone opposed to "Public Enemy Number 1" a racist or an antisemite if not outright a Nazi.

Finally, there is the particular kind of foe that Mr Soros is made to embody. Portrayals of him as an octopus, or, as in a Hungarian billboard, as a puppet-master, inevitably recall the last century’s anti-Semitic propaganda. Some such echoes may be accidental, the conspiracists unconsciously defaulting to ancient tropes, but they are striking. In a tweet praising Mr Orban, for example, Steve King, a Republican congressman, called Mr Soros a “Marxist billionaire”. That chimes with the old slur against Jews whereby, as Tivadar Soros says in his book, “at one and the same time they held in their hands…the Western capitalist countries and Russian Bolshevism.” “He survived the Nazis,” Mr Vachon says of Mr Soros’s current situation, “and he takes a long view.” No doubt, but in some ways this must be depressingly familiar.

 

Is it time for us all to admit what a steaming pile of hypocrisy our entire conversation on race has become?

The doctrine of “separate but equal” is back

deplores Benny Huang on the Constitution website.

—this time at America’s most elite institution of higher learning, Harvard University. On May 23^rd, black students will receive their diplomas in a separate commencement ceremony just for them.

Michael Huggins, president of Harvard’s Black Graduate Student Alliance (BGSA), helped organize the ceremony. He says that Harvard’s first black graduation is not about segregation because students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds may “attend.” It’s not clear if he means that students of all races are invited as spectators or as participants but it doesn’t really matter. Harvard wouldn’t allow such an event for white students even if the same ground rules applied.

The BGSA’s next president, law student Jillian Simons, is also proud of the event. “There’s an element of celebration and a very somber tone to it because of the things we’ve had to overcome,” said Simons. Her quizzical comment makes me wonder exactly what she thinks she’s “overcome.” Relentless pandering? Yeah, that would be difficult.

I hope she doesn’t mean that blacks at Harvard had to “overcome” racial prejudice. Blacks at Harvard are actually the benefactors of discriminatory admissions policies that lower the bar just for them. In order to gain admittance to this prestigious institution a black applicant can score 450 points lower on the SATs than an Asian applicant. This policy spurred a coalition of Asian-Americans to sue the university. The case is ongoing though I hope Harvard wins because I oppose all private sector nondiscrimination laws. Even so, we should stop pretending that black students have it harder. They’re given special favors and everyone knows it.

Not that I’m really upset about this hypocritical separate (but equal!) graduation. Let them have it—but then let’s all admit what a steaming pile of hypocrisy our entire conversation on race has become. I don’t want to hear any more talk about “inclusion.” It’s a stupid word that more often means its opposite. And while we’re at it, let’s count Brown v. Board of Education as a tragic mistake; after all, separate can be equal as long as it’s blacks who are excluding whites and not the other way around. Also, let’s stop musing about how hard it is for blacks to find their stride in mainstream society. Who ever said they wanted to?
 
Like all vexing social problems, this one has historical roots that deserve examination. I’ll begin by saying that black Americans did not create the parallel society that they currently cling to. White folks did that. Europeans came to this continent and created what was almost a perfect racial black/white dichotomy. The larger white group was the mainstream, while the smaller black group formed the alternative. Out of necessity, blacks set about creating their own parallel institutions—black universities, black professional organizations, black churches, black businesses, black publications, black sports leagues, black fraternities and black sororities.

These two societies were kept separate by law and custom until about the end of World War II. But then something unprecedented happened—with a little prodding by the so-called civil rights movement, the mainstream white majority relented and agreed to break down its own barriers. In historical terms, this happened remarkably fast and with remarkably little bloodshed. A system that had keep people apart for more than three hundred years unraveled in less than twenty.

And that should have been the end of it.

But it wasn’t—not by a long shot. It turns out that black people had developed a fondness for their parallel institutions. That’s understandable of course, though whites were fond of theirs as well and they still had to give them up. White institutions became integrated bi-racial spaces while black institutions were allowed to persist unchanged.

So the revolutionary transformation brought about by the so-called civil rights movement didn’t change quite everything. Two societies continued to exist even after the 1960s and still do today. One is black and the other was biracial before becoming multiracial over time. There was no grand merger between the two, as many white people imagined there would be.

Harvard’s black graduation ceremony is an excellent example of this. All of the graduates who participate in the black commencement on May 23^rd will also graduate with the rest of their class two days later. One ceremony is the multi-hued, pluralistic, let’s-look-like-America graduation; and the other is the monochromatic Jim Crow version. Blacks get two graduations, one of which is set aside for their race. Whites get one ceremony and they have to share it.

How on earth can black America justify this? For starters, they usually try to pretend that their parallel society is still needed because the mainstream society is nearly as white as ever. For a good example of this phenomenon, consider Black Entertainment Television (BET). How many times have you heard it asked why there’s no White Entertainment Television? You know the pat answer to that. Saranya Khurana, who writes at the Odyssey Online, gave the same answer I’ve heard roughly a thousand times: “Most television today is the White Entertainment Television…BET was important for television because it was the first time black Americans had a show to call their own.”
 
So any channel that isn’t explicitly black is white by default? No, that isn’t even remotely true. It may have been closer to the truth when BET was founded in 1983 but even then network television had already featured two black sitcoms (The Jeffersons, Sandford and Son), a black cartoon (Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids), a black music-dance show (Soul Train) and a show about a white family that adopted two black children (Diff’rent Strokes.) So when Khurana says that BET was “the first time black Americans had a show to call their own” she’s wrong.

Black visibility on television only increased in the 1980s. I should know—like most kids of that era I looked forward to watching The Cosby Show every night before bedtime. If I had been a little older I would have watched Eddie Murphy carry Saturday Night Live through some of its toughest seasons before he moved on to a more lucrative career on the big screen. Or I might have watched Arsenio Hall debut as late night’s first black talk show host. During this same period, Oprah Winfrey’s success in daytime television made her a household name.

In the 1990s I graduated to Family Matters, In Living Color, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. All of these programs were hits because Americans of all races tuned in. MTV featured a plethora of black artists including En Vogue, Coolio, and Janet Jackson. Margaret Cho starred in America’s first Asian sitcom, All American Girl. The show flopped but mostly because Margaret Cho isn’t funny. In later years there would be more Asian shows, more black shows, a few Hispanic shows, shows about mixed-race families, shows about step families, shows about same-sex couples, and every other thing you can think of.

So, is BET filling a gap in the entertainment market for black viewers that the white-oriented television industry simply isn’t meeting? Hardly. Television is very multiracial and has been for quite some time. If BET was ever “needed” it certainly isn’t anymore. Yet the channel persists because there’s a demand for it, which is very different from a need. Its viewership consists mostly of blacks who only want to see other blacks when they flick on the television.

White people don’t have that luxury anymore. When they turn on the television they see fewer and fewer people who look like themselves. They certainly don’t have an entire channel of nothing but white people doing stuff white people do. That’s because whites agreed to merge their society, first with blacks, then with everyone else. But the agreement didn’t work both ways.

To a large degree, black America still segregates itself with no end in sight. And isn’t that really the rub of the whole separate but equal Harvard graduation? Sixty years after the so-called civil rights movement it appears that black self-segregation may actually be increasing, which is just insane. Blacks have retreated further into their own spaces, their own dorms, churches, and clubs where they moan about how hard it is being black in America. But it’s just noise, pay it no mind.