We Demand Bread and Circuses!

By Rich Kozlovich

Let me start by saying the last thing in the world I would want to be is an English Royal, and for obvious reasons.  So I could easily understand Meghan's difficulties, but I found her explanations of racism self-serving and totally dubious.  As for Harry's desire to be left alone, which is an attitude I can certainly applaud, but in both cases I have to ask:  If that was really true, why do they act in ways that makes sure no one leaves them alone?

Where you aware of the fake "Royal Tour" to NYC by Harry and Meghan (actually perhaps I should be saying Meghan and Harry in order to clarify the relationship).   No?  Me neither, and neither was Thomas Lifson author of, Harry and Meghan’s ‘made-for-Netflix’ fake royal tour of New York, who posts a video by a Aussie commentator who outlines a growing view of people who recognize this couple's lack of class, dignity, vacuous hypocrisy and utter lack of credibility with this comment regarding a must see video:

Andrew Bolt is an Australian writer and TV commentator who deserves a wide audience here. I read a lot of his material that appears in the Murdoch-owned Aussie newspapers, sent to me by Australians.   Even (or especially) if you despise these egomaniacal shallow celebrities, this video will reward your investment of time.

I think these two vacuum tubes are totally meaningless to the world and the important events that really do impact humanity.   Furthermore, I hope I have the good sense to never publish another thing about either of them for the rest of my life. 

I put them in the same category as professional sports. Too expensive, too time consuming, too leftist, and a distraction from the real issues of the world, as were the Games of Rome.  We're now emulating the Romans demanding bread and circuses. 

Roman politicians passed laws in 140 AD to keep the votes of poorer citizens, by introducing a grain dole: giving out cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses", became the most effective way to rise to power.

	... Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.[7]

Juvenal here makes reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power. The Annona (grain dole) was begun under the instigation of the popularis politician Gaius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 BC; it remained an object of political contention until it was taken under the control of the autocratic Roman emperors.

Rome had become a gigantic welfare state, and it fell because they failed in understanding their history, affirming their responsibilities and allowed tyranny and corruption to become so malignant they finally went broke.  

Can anyone explain to me why what's happening now is any different? 

A Who’s Who Of Left-Wing Hacks: Behind The Aspen Institute’s Upcoming Report On Silencing Dissent

For the past six months, this liberal Dream Team has been hard at work on their big report to help the federal government work with corporations to squash news they call 'disinformation.'

By Christopher Bedford  June 17, 2021

 Most people haven’t heard of the Aspen Institute. Others maybe recall some mention of their annual Aspen Ideas Festival. A few more might somewhat remember a minor political dust-up from 2020 when Michael Bloomberg, who was blowing money on a doomed bid for president at the time, had to grovel and beg forgiveness for simply stating the facts on crime at an Aspen conference five years prior.

The “festival,” which The Economist called a “mountain retreat for the liberal elite” and “a corporate Never-Never Land,” refused to release the video; it’s a safe space for the right types of people, and liberal billionaire technocrats are precisely the right type of people.

And you better believe “the right types of people” are sitting on the institute’s Commission on Information Disorder. Behind the psychiatric name, the commission is a group of liberal activists, donors, journalists and tech executives, a disgraced foreign royal, and even a corporate “senior vice president of social impact,” who must be in charge of all the junior corporate vice presidents for diversity. For the past six months, this liberal Dream Team has been hard at work on their big report to help the federal government work with corporations to squash news they call “disinformation.”

So what will this “disinformation” be? A look at the commissioners hints strongly that it will be you, me, and anyone else who disagrees with Katie Couric and her left-wing friends..........When not sitting on commissions to decide what conservatives should be permitted to say, Kathryn is a major donor to a notorious disinformation campaign. In the last election cycle, she gave $500,000 — half a million dollars — to PACRONYM, which works closely with ACRONYM, which was the lead example in an OpenSecrets expose on “Dark Money,” exploring how “networks hide political agendas behind fake news sites.............To Read More......

Prince of the Wokes Joins the American One-Party State

Daniel Greenfield April 13, 2021 @ Sultan Knish Blog

The Aspen Institute claims that its Commission on Information Disorder represents a "diversity of expertise, backgrounds, and lived experience". To boost that diversity which includes the spectrum of the lefty ruling class of 5 former government officials, 4 academics, 3 left-wing activists, a Googler, one billionaire's wife, and a former morning show host, it added a prince.

Or Aspen’s bio democratically describes him, "Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex".

The commission is funded by Craig Newmark, the billionaire who got rich destroying the media by creating Craigslist, and also funds the Election Integrity Partnership, which accuses conservatives of disinformation, and the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at Poynter’s fact-checking machine. It goes without saying that Newmark is a Biden donor.

“Disturbingly,” as Indira Lakshmanan, the Newmark chair in journalism ethics at Poynter who commissioned a study about media trust put it, some 44 percent of Americans “believe the press invents negative stories” about President Donald Trump.

Crazy, right? Almost as crazy as Craig Newmark Philanthropies funding a plot to embed 1,000 lefty activists into newsrooms through an organization called the GroundTruth Project.

Why would people not trust a media that functions suspiciously like a disinformation network for a ruling class, and declares that the existence of political dissent is a disinformation crisis that must be censored out of existence using social media monopolies and a royal prince?

There’s something almost too perfect in a billionaire who got rich from a company sued over sex trafficking recruiting a prince to tell the commoners to shut up and fall into line.

But that’s what the American One-Party State looks like.

Big Tech tyranny meets the British monarchy has a happy ending as Silicon Valley tyrants finally find their prince to act as a public face of their campaign to carry on King George III’s fight against the rule of the people, their right to bear arms, and to freely speak their minds.

The diversity of Harry's lived experience and expertise as part of the British monarchy will no doubt contribute to the Aspen commission's fight against "information disorder" and "disinformation" by shouting, “off with their heads” while sticking out his pinky finger.

Disinformation is a fancy way of saying that conservatives post things on the internet that the Aspen Institute and oligarch donors like Craig Newmark don't like and want to get rid of.

Or as the Commission states, the "lawful and ethical means by which the federal government can promote fact-based information to counter the most dangerous disinformation campaigns."

The Feds have plenty of means at their disposal for providing “fact-based information” or, more often, everything from strings of spin to uninhibited lies that would make Baron Munchausen blush like a schoolgirl. The government spends $1.5 billion a year on public relations. And that’s a fraction of the inconceivable total which no one is likely to even be able to calculate.

The Voice of America alone has a budget of over $200 million. Then there’s the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which is a taxpayer-funded effort to spread lefty propaganda. These are dubiously lawful or ethical projects, but they exist, and it’s not what Aspen means.

Or as Lord William Campbell wrote of the American Revolution, "I found the people of this province did not yield to any of their Northern Brethren in the violence of their measures and contempt of all Legal Authority". The embattled colonial ruler pleaded for military support in the "province of South Carolina" and "Authentick Information” from Britain.

The Aspen Institute is also interested in "Authentick Information” and is enlisting the scion of a monarchy against which Americans fought for their freedom of speech to get rid of it again.

Rashad Robinson, a fellow Aspen disinformation commish, heads Color of Change which has fought to censor conservatives, including the David Horowitz Freedom Center, by convincing MasterCard and other payment processors to stop allowing donations to conservatives.

Color of Change not only listed the David Horowitz Freedom Center as a white supremacist organization, it also smeared a black church in Harlem as a white supremacist group.

It’s tough out there when you’re fighting disinformation by lying about your victims.

The Aspen Institute's disinformation commissioners want to know how to "engage disaffected populations who have lost faith in evidence-based reality". They might want to ask themselves.

Aspen, like much of the lefty media and the non-profit complex, keeps shouting there’s an information crisis. But the problem isn’t information, it’s trust. Lefties radicalized institutions and turned them into echo chambers with less interest in the facts, and “evidence-based reality” than Hunter S. Thompson on mescaline, typing frantically while trapped at a Bunuel film festival.

In a few months, Governor Cuomo went from a hero to a villain, not because anything he did changed, but because the political agendas of the media required a new narrative. The external reality of an objective world has very little to do with any of the lies and hate campaigns. A mass murderer can go from a hero to a monster and, in a few months can become a hero again.

Why would anyone in their right mind trust institutions that specialize in creating horrifyingly ugly hyphenated compound words like “evidence-based” to mean that their complete detachment from truth, facts, or reality in pursuit of a political agenda is somehow factual or scientific.

It’s bad enough that the ruling class lies and censors, but its crimes against language and meaning are especially offensive. Instead of coming out and saying that they would like to censor their political opponents, they create commissions to study “information disorders”. Instead of calling their opponents liars, they accuse them of “disinformation”. Instead of declaring that they’re right, they claim that their views are “evidence-based”.

This is the gibberish of an American radical ruling class that uses a specialized language as bad as anything out of Orwell’s Newspeak. A specialized language can be the mark of a professional class or a ruling class. A professional class, like doctors, lawyers, engineers, does something useful and needs a specialized language to describe the intricacies of its world. The American ruling class likes to pretend that it is a professional class. That’s why it loves donning the mantle of science and insisting that its beliefs are “evidence-based”.

But government is not a profession and the Aspen Institute is not a government of elected officials. Instead it’s a regime of former officials, of figures who belong to powerful Big Tech monopolies, like Google that can choke off free speech, and the Duke of Sussex.

The ruling class doesn’t adopt a specialized language because it’s trying to describe something very complex, like the inner depths of the human heart or the outer reaches of space. The language of the ruling class isn’t simplifying complex concepts, it’s complicating simple ones.

A specialized language that complicates simple ideas is the tool of either fraud or tyranny.

Is it easier to say “Disinformation” or “Lie”? Does calling a lie “disinformation” add anything except making it sound like an authoritative expert diagnosis, instead of an opinion?

The entire “disinformation” agenda is a lie about a lie, and is based around a specialized language that makes its crude ideas seem sophisticated and the work of experts. Calling “people we disagree with” a “disinformation network” makes speech sound threatening. And redefining “fundamental political differences” as an “information disorder” turns a societal conflict into a technological concept while accusing your political opponents of being a “disorder”.

And you know what happens to “disorders”.

Prince Harry made the right move by moving to California. The powers and privileges of the British Monarchy have been narrowly circumscribed, while the One-Party State, as it exists in California, has no known limitations on its power... except possibly the Supreme Court.

Harry is in demand to add that royal spice of noblesse oblige to the repression. America’s lefty oligarchs have borrowed the old motto of monarchy that controlling our politics is their public service. But the actual monarchy was much better at selling the myth of its moral grandeur by dressing it up in the trappings of a royal court. That’s why Craig needs Prince Harry.

Censorship sounds better with class and tyranny with tea goes better than another commission.

The American One-Party State is an underwhelming collection of Big Tech billionaires, activists, and celebrities whom few Americans have any interest in worshiping or obeying. After the American Revolution had been fought and won, there was speculation that the new country would have to find a monarch from some royal dynasty to provide a government figurehead.

But Americans did not want a king. The wokies however have finally found their prince.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.  Click here to subscribe to my articles. 

Thank you for reading.

 

Taxes Will Be a Royal Pain for Meghan and Harry

January 16, 2020 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty  

(Editor's Note:  As most of my readers know I could care less what happens to these "Royal" pains in the butt, and I'm not just talking about Harry and Meg.  I include the "Royals" from all over the world.  However, I posted this article to demonstrate how cleverly leftists, and those who support leftism, work to preserve their wealth, all the while demanding more from everyone else. RK.)

I’m part of the small minority that thinks the big news from the United Kingdom is that “Brexit” will finally happen, thanks to Boris Johnson’s landslide victory last month.

Most everyone else seems more focused on the latest development with the royal family. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, better known as Harry and Meghan, have decided to partially extricate themselves from the cloistered world of the monarchy – in part so they can take advantage of “the freedom to make a professional income.”

More power to them, I guess, if they can monetize their celebrity status.

The U.K.-based Economist expects that they’ll rake in lots of money.

In stepping down as “senior royals” while pronouncing that they “value the freedom to make a professional income” the Duke and Duchess threaten to unleash the spirit of capitalism on the very core of the monarchy. …The Sussexes are determined to turn themselves into a global brand. Their first move after they announced that they were stepping down from many of their royal duties was to unveil the name of their brand, Sussex Royal… Various branding experts have pronounced that Harry and Meghan have “a ready-made brand” that could earn them as much as £500m in their first year. InfluencerMarketingHub, a website, points out that, with 10m Instagram followers, they could expect $34,000 for a sponsored post. …They will need more than Prince Harry’s inheritance, which is estimated at £20m-30m, to keep up with the global super-rich.

I don’t have a rooting interest in their financial success. Indeed, I suspect they’ll wind up being annoying hypocrites like Harry’s dim-bulb father, lecturing us peasants about our carbon footprints while they fly around the world in private jets.

That being said, I am interested in the intricacies of international taxation.

And that will be a big issue for the couple according to Town and Country.

Now that Meghan and Harry intend to retreat from their royal roles, attain “financial independence,” and live part-time in North America, Meghan and Archie’s tax and citizenship plans are a little up in the air. …Meghan is still a US citizen, and therefore required to pay US taxes on her worldwide income. Prince Harry could technically elect to be treated as a US tax payer and file jointly with Meghan, but “he would never do that,” explains Dianne Mehany, a lawyer specializing in international tax planning. …When Meghan and Harry announced their engagement back in 2017, Harry’s communications team confirmed to the BBC that Meghan “intends to become a UK citizen and will go through the process of that.” …Once gaining UK citizenship, Meghan could elect to relinquish her US citizenship, and save herself the trouble and expense of filing US tax returns. “The only problem there is, she would have to pay the exit tax,” Mehany notes…regardless of what type of employment or contract work Meghan pursues, it will be taxable in the US. …”The real tricky thing,” Mehany notes, “is to make sure they don’t spend too much time in the United States, so that Harry becomes a resident of the United States, at which point his entire worldwide wealth would become subject to US taxation, which I know they want to avoid.”

For all intents and purposes, Meghan and Harry will face the same challenges as a multinational company.

• Multinational companies have to figure out where to be “domiciled” just as Meghan and Harry have to figure out the best place to reside.
• Multinational companies have to figure out where to conduct business, just as Meghan and Harry have to figure out where they will work.
• Multinational companies have to figure out how to protect their income from taxes, just as Meghan and Harry will try to protect their income.

For what it’s worth, the Royal couple already is being smart.

As reported by the U.K.-based Telegraph, they’re minimizing their exposure to the rapacious California tax system.

The Duchess of Sussex has moved her business to a US state used by the super-rich to protect their interests from scrutiny. The Duchess’s company Frim Fram Inc was moved out of California in December and incorporated in Delaware, which tax experts suggest could be done to avoid being hit with tax liabilities in California. …the move was made on New Year’s Eve…”You would want to do it on New Year’s Eve simply because if you go one minute into the next year you would owe some taxes to California for the year of 2020,” said Alan Stachura, from financial services firm Wolters Kluwer. …Mr Stachura, who helps companies incorporate in Delaware, added that the state offers “a tax benefit for items like trademarks and royalties”. …Experts say there are several benefits in moving a corporation to Delaware, including the state’s flexible business laws and its low personal income tax rates. …A source said that as the Duchess is no longer resident in California it was appropriate for the registration to be moved.

I can’t resist commenting on the last line of the excerpt. The fact that Meghan is no longer a resident of California is irrelevant.

After all, she’s not becoming a resident of Delaware.

Instead, she and her husband are being rational by seeking to minimize the amount of their money that will be diverted to politicians (the same is true of everyone with any sense in the United Kingdom, whether they are on the right or on the left).

It’s a shame Meghan and Harry feel too insecure to acknowledge that reality.

P.S. The Town and Country article noted that Prince Harry “would never” allow himself to become a tax resident of the United States because he wants “to avoid” America’s worldwide tax system.

That’s completely understandable. He probably learned about the nightmare of FATCA after marrying Meghan and wants to make sure he’s never ensnared by America’s awful internal revenue code.

Meghan Markle refuses to move back to the States until Trump is gone

January 13, 2020 By Monica Showalter

Hollywood celebrity is tough to shuck, at least for Meghan Markle, last seen in a starring role as duchess of Sussex.

Instead of marveling at her fairy-tale ending with her marriage to Prince Harry in the U.K., she's made it clear she wants to go back to the Hollywood celebrity circuit, that B-list group that makes loud left-wing noises to get attention — and movie roles. Harry can come along for the ride if he wants, but he's probably going to get chewed up and spat out in the long run. She'll dump him when he gets inconvenient. It's pretty clear by the latest stunt she pulled that she's not loyal to him, and to heck with his family, too.

So instead of living as a royal, which means abjuring politics in the name of representing a nation, she's going to accept Hollywood roles; sell trinkets on the Kardashian model; and, best of all, spread her political wings............

See, she can't stand being in a country where ordinary people might vote for Trump.  It's too, too dreadful.  She can't bear to be in a room with us, or share some country space.  The U.S. simply isn't big enough for all of us.

It goes to show what a poisonous influence she is to the British royal family, which has bent over backward to be kind to her and accommodate her.........To Read More.....

My Take - And everyone is surprised why?  Actually, before they were even married I had predicted there were going to be problems. Now there are, and bigger than I anticipated.

Harry and Meghan are going to get divorced at some point. Harry is clearly clueless, but time will fix that.....usually....maybe........, but if he's going to be a real man, it will happen, because she's not going to change.

After that he's going to have to come back to England with his tail between his legs. At this point England is going to seriously start a public discussion on why exactly they need a royal family.

Charles, his brother Andrew, and now Harry have been serious embarrassments to the family and the nation, and Andrew may end up facing criminal charges at some point. Europe would be better off if they all dumped these arrogant, self-serving pampered fools. But, the fact of the matter is, no matter how socialist they become, Europeans actually love their class distinction.  They suffer from  a serious case of cognitive dissonance.