Consider the age of monarchs.  Squabbling barons select a supreme ruler – a king or an emperor — to suppress the squabbling.  Peace and prosperity return to the land.  The king makes policy but he can’t do everything.  His minions take care of the details. 

Minions mean bureaucracy.   The bureaucracy grows.  The king grows old and dies.  The dynasty continues.  The bureaucracy continues – always continues, and always grows.  The bureaucracy becomes an establishment kingdom unto itself.  The bureaucracy grows in power and serves its own interests.  The king diminishes in power.  The land grows restless under the increasing regulatory tyranny and taxes.  Legitimacy –what the Chinese called the “mandate of heaven” —  is lost and so is the dynasty.

Change the names and we are at the end of a similar cycle – a cycle that began with the guillotine.  This time it is a world-wide cycle.  The modern king is a modern tyrant – Stalin, Hitler, Mao were the worst.

The socialist idea had been kicking around since the 18^th century.  This seemingly plausible notion shaped the various Marxist evils of the 20^th century.  The Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Nazism, Fascism, and today’s imperious European Union, are all socialist tyrannies of one degree or another.

Bureaucratic agencies become ideal tools for tyrants.  A tyrant can point his agencies in a particular direction and unleash them.  They immediately glory in their new power.  Horrors ensue.  Nazi Germany gave us the Holocaust and war.  Stalin used betrayal.  Friends betrayed friends.  Children spied on parents.  During the Soviet show trials of the 1930’s Stalin’s innocent victims were forced to falsely confess in order to save the lives of their families.  Fear reigns. 

Sound familiar?  How about the FBI inducing General Flynn to plead guilty in order to protect his son?  Mao injected dark comedy by unleashing hordes of children to humiliate their elders.  No one was safe.  Fear reigns.  Sound familiar?  Antifa anyone?  Black Lives Matter anyone?  Greta anyone?  Mao lives!

The United States has become an undemocratic administrative state as well, but only by happenstance.  In this country Congress has ceded much of its power to unchecked regulatory agencies, allowing them to write their own laws — regulations which enable them to prosecute, and persecute, anyone who might stand in an agency’s way.  The agencies are powers unto themselves — judge, jury, and arresting police altogether.  Innocents are often victims.

It isn’t just the regulatory, or administrative, state that is the problem.  There is a growing sense that something is terribly wrong throughout society – throughout progressive liberal society, that is.  How about needles in the street?  How about sanctuary cities, counties and states?  How about the ruins of Detroit?  How about the weekly slaughter in Chicago?  How about suppression of free speech in academia?  How about the corrupt liberal media?  How about big tech bias and censorship?  It seems that our governments, and our intellectual establishments both, no longer serve the average citizen.  They serve only a leftist political ideology, and themselves.

Worst of all, the political ideology that the establishment promotes is antithetical to the native ideology of America.  America was founded as a society with spiritual values.  True America is a society where the family is paramount.  It is a society where a person is rewarded in proportion to his contribution.  It is a society devoted to the individual where the individual is inherently free because his rights derive from the Creator not from the government.  The purpose of government, according to the American ideology, is to serve the individual, not to be his master.  The collection of individuals is to be the master of the government.  This is classical liberalism – now a conservative ideal.  It is the opposite of “progressive liberalism.”

The true American ideology cautions against granting power to any bureaucratic establishment.  In its ever increasing hunger for power the establishment has gravitated to an alien progressive ideology – an ideology of ever bigger government and government control.  But the bossy progressive Left increasingly forbids Americans to be Americans.

Political turmoil is the consequence.  The barons are squabbling.  The Left openly advocates overthrowing the Constitution.  The Right counters with Donald Trump.  The Left politically assassinates him with impeachment.  The Right, with centrist allies, will reelect him anyway.  The Mandate of Heaven has been removed from the elitist establishment.  It is passing to the Deplorables.

It isn’t just in America.  The world as a whole is pivoting.  The dogmatic socialist established order is ending.  We enter the age of the Deplorables.  The Deplorables are ascending in America, with Trump, in Britain with Brexit, in Hong Kong, in much of Europe, in Latin America, in Iran.  Deplorables are the antidote to arrogant globalist socialists.  Deplorables everywhere say “from now on we will make our own decisions.”

Hong Kong Deplorables protest extradition bill (credit: Studio Incendo)

What is it with the Deplorables?  What gives them such power?  Three things, I believe, are elevating them.  Deplorables are pragmatic.  They are not wedded to any extreme ideology.  Deplorables will go with anything that works.  It is no wonder that the Deplorables began in America.  For, as Americans we inherit the pragmatism of our pioneering ancestors.

Second, the Deplorables adhere to the original American ideology of free individuals.  They reject the concentration of government power that has accumulated over the past century.

The third energizer is a technological miracle – the internet.  Establishments everywhere fear the internet.  And properly so.  For the first time we can instantly communicate across the world.  We can find like-minded people everywhere.  We have discovered just how very many people agree with us.

It follows that Deplorables are no longer just an American phenomenon, the phenomenon resonates with people everywhere.  People around the world are much the same.  They value their traditions and customs.  They value their families, their values, their spiritual heritage.  They value their nation.  They resent the imposition of intrusive government by strangers, by bureaucratic globalists.  They are becoming Deplorables.

Born in the still free parts of America, this new movement seems destined to chart the course for the whole world — for this century and beyond.

The Mandate of Heaven no longer rests with the condescending progressive bureaucratic establishment.  It is passing back to the people.  It is passing to Deplorables everywhere in the world.

Consider the age of monarchs.  Squabbling barons select a supreme ruler – a king or an emperor — to suppress the squabbling.  Peace and prosperity return to the land.  The king makes policy but he can’t do everything.  His minions take care of the details. 

Minions mean bureaucracy.   The bureaucracy grows.  The king grows old and dies.  The dynasty continues.  The bureaucracy continues – always continues, and always grows.  The bureaucracy becomes an establishment kingdom unto itself.  The bureaucracy grows in power and serves its own interests.  The king diminishes in power.  The land grows restless under the increasing regulatory tyranny and taxes.  Legitimacy –what the Chinese called the “mandate of heaven” —  is lost and so is the dynasty.

Change the names and we are at the end of a similar cycle – a cycle that began with the guillotine.  This time it is a world-wide cycle.  The modern king is a modern tyrant – Stalin, Hitler, Mao were the worst.

The socialist idea had been kicking around since the 18^th century.  This seemingly plausible notion shaped the various Marxist evils of the 20^th century.  The Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Nazism, Fascism, and today’s imperious European Union, are all socialist tyrannies of one degree or another.

Bureaucratic agencies become ideal tools for tyrants.  A tyrant can point his agencies in a particular direction and unleash them.  They immediately glory in their new power.  Horrors ensue.  Nazi Germany gave us the Holocaust and war.  Stalin used betrayal.  Friends betrayed friends.  Children spied on parents.  During the Soviet show trials of the 1930’s Stalin’s innocent victims were forced to falsely confess in order to save the lives of their families.  Fear reigns. 

Sound familiar?  How about the FBI inducing General Flynn to plead guilty in order to protect his son?  Mao injected dark comedy by unleashing hordes of children to humiliate their elders.  No one was safe.  Fear reigns.  Sound familiar?  Antifa anyone?  Black Lives Matter anyone?  Greta anyone?  Mao lives!

The United States has become an undemocratic administrative state as well, but only by happenstance.  In this country Congress has ceded much of its power to unchecked regulatory agencies, allowing them to write their own laws — regulations which enable them to prosecute, and persecute, anyone who might stand in an agency’s way.  The agencies are powers unto themselves — judge, jury, and arresting police altogether.  Innocents are often victims.

It isn’t just the regulatory, or administrative, state that is the problem.  There is a growing sense that something is terribly wrong throughout society – throughout progressive liberal society, that is.  How about needles in the street?  How about sanctuary cities, counties and states?  How about the ruins of Detroit?  How about the weekly slaughter in Chicago?  How about suppression of free speech in academia?  How about the corrupt liberal media?  How about big tech bias and censorship?  It seems that our governments, and our intellectual establishments both, no longer serve the average citizen.  They serve only a leftist political ideology, and themselves.

Worst of all, the political ideology that the establishment promotes is antithetical to the native ideology of America.  America was founded as a society with spiritual values.  True America is a society where the family is paramount.  It is a society where a person is rewarded in proportion to his contribution.  It is a society devoted to the individual where the individual is inherently free because his rights derive from the Creator not from the government.  The purpose of government, according to the American ideology, is to serve the individual, not to be his master.  The collection of individuals is to be the master of the government.  This is classical liberalism – now a conservative ideal.  It is the opposite of “progressive liberalism.”

The true American ideology cautions against granting power to any bureaucratic establishment.  In its ever increasing hunger for power the establishment has gravitated to an alien progressive ideology – an ideology of ever bigger government and government control.  But the bossy progressive Left increasingly forbids Americans to be Americans.

Political turmoil is the consequence.  The barons are squabbling.  The Left openly advocates overthrowing the Constitution.  The Right counters with Donald Trump.  The Left politically assassinates him with impeachment.  The Right, with centrist allies, will reelect him anyway.  The Mandate of Heaven has been removed from the elitist establishment.  It is passing to the Deplorables.

It isn’t just in America.  The world as a whole is pivoting.  The dogmatic socialist established order is ending.  We enter the age of the Deplorables.  The Deplorables are ascending in America, with Trump, in Britain with Brexit, in Hong Kong, in much of Europe, in Latin America, in Iran.  Deplorables are the antidote to arrogant globalist socialists.  Deplorables everywhere say “from now on we will make our own decisions.”

Hong Kong Deplorables protest extradition bill (credit: Studio Incendo)

What is it with the Deplorables?  What gives them such power?  Three things, I believe, are elevating them.  Deplorables are pragmatic.  They are not wedded to any extreme ideology.  Deplorables will go with anything that works.  It is no wonder that the Deplorables began in America.  For, as Americans we inherit the pragmatism of our pioneering ancestors.

Second, the Deplorables adhere to the original American ideology of free individuals.  They reject the concentration of government power that has accumulated over the past century.

The third energizer is a technological miracle – the internet.  Establishments everywhere fear the internet.  And properly so.  For the first time we can instantly communicate across the world.  We can find like-minded people everywhere.  We have discovered just how very many people agree with us.

It follows that Deplorables are no longer just an American phenomenon, the phenomenon resonates with people everywhere.  People around the world are much the same.  They value their traditions and customs.  They value their families, their values, their spiritual heritage.  They value their nation.  They resent the imposition of intrusive government by strangers, by bureaucratic globalists.  They are becoming Deplorables.

Born in the still free parts of America, this new movement seems destined to chart the course for the whole world — for this century and beyond.

The Mandate of Heaven no longer rests with the condescending progressive bureaucratic establishment.  It is passing back to the people.  It is passing to Deplorables everywhere in the world.

Progressive legislators, interest groups, and government entities are clamoring to impose their utopian climate change agenda on Vermont’s citizens when the legislature commences its 2020 session.  There are numerous Achilles heels in these well-laid (if foolish) plans, and they are easy to spot — ineffectiveness; damage to the economy; inequality; government bloat.

A key watchword in 2020 will be “incentivizing.”  Taxpayers must snap into alertness whenever they hear this shifty expression, because it masks true intent.  In Orwellian fashion, the word generally is presented as a positive, when in fact it is always a negative.  An accurate definition of the word in this context would be “changing behavior by government compulsion.”

For example, the current proposal for Vermont under the Transportation and  Climate Initiative (TCI) is to add 5-18 cents per gallon in tax to Vermonters’ fuels.  Proponents argue that this gas tax will “incentivize” citizens to drive less: a sin tax.  But who in the world thinks that an 18-cent-per-gallon “incentive” will curb consumption?  Advocates argue that it is axiomatic that a higher cost will reduce consumption — but gas averaged $3.99/gallon nationally in May 2011, and is now only about $2.60.

A degree in rocket science is unnecessary to see where this leads.  Once the 18 cents per gallon (presented now as a mere pittance) fails to impact consumption behaviors, the progressives will be back, explaining that the tax must be raised to achieve that goal — even though many low-income Vermonters are already squeezed to breaking point and use gas to travel to work.  The question then becomes how much legislators tax Vermonters to “save the planet.”  But the tax will only go up, always with the moral clarion call of saving the children.

The other end of the “incentivizing” scam comes when the government bureaucracy decides how to spend the money extorted through the gasoline and fuels taxes. The proposal is that the money will be invested in part to “incentivize” the purchase of electric vehicles.  These vehicles perform poorly in cold, rural environments. Yet even if they did perform adequately, this scheme is patently unfair.  As wealthy Vermonters are given an “incentive” to purchase a brand-new $40,000 car in the form of subsidies, perhaps through a sales tax exemption (one proposal), poor Vermonters will not be able to “take advantage” of these programs, and will still pay the same old sales tax every time they muster the meager funds to get another used vehicle.  The wealthy receive a beneficial (and optional) incentive to purchase; the poor pay the tab via forced subsidization.

In its January, 2019 discussion of these complex issues, Resources for the Future (“…an independent, nonprofit research institution in Washington, DC”) assesses the economic impact of various options:

When revenues are used to finance electricity subsidies, the change in economic welfare is about 20 percent smaller than the change in the policy with rebates; the subsidies reduce the economic impact of the carbon price by reducing the price of electricity…. Rural households are generally worse-off than urban households due to their higher share of energy expenditures, but the difference is not generally substantial. And, to the extent that rural households are also low-income, they may still be made better off (as discussed above).

Note the “may still be made better off” vagueness.  But if “revenues are used to finance electricity subsidies,” recipients will be “incentivized” to use more electricity, won’t they?  What of those many Vermonters who live off grid or purchased solar panels — they will be denied the electricity subsidies they were compelled to pay others who are still using grid power.  Resources for the Future also advocates for reductions in wage taxes to offset carbon taxes.  But wouldn’t that just give people more money to offset (afford) that gas tax — that is, cancel out that mysterious “incentive”?  It would also provide a windfall to wage earners who use mass transit or don’t drive a vehicle, and who thus never contributed toward the “revenues” being redistributed.  And what is being contemplated is not chump change — “A carbon pricing policy could generate $74.7–$433.8 million in annual [state government] revenue in 2025, depending on the carbon price amount and number of sectors covered.”  This enhances state coffers at the expense of economic welfare.

As Vermonters hold their breath in hopes that Governor Phil Scott will “hold the line” on these massive new tax and regulatory initiatives, they should recall who took their state over that line.  As Resources for the Future crafts Vermonters’ economic future for them, it identifies who opened the door:

In July 2017, Governor Scott issued Executive Order No. 12-17 to create the Vermont Climate Action Commission (VCAC), a committee of 21 representatives from a range of both for-profit and nonprofit organizations and various state, regional, and local government agencies. The governor directed the commission to “draft and recommend, for the Governor’s consideration, an action plan aimed at reaching the State’s renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction goals while driving economic growth, setting Vermonters on a path to affordability, and ensuring effective energy transition options exist for all Vermonters.”

Where could this Executive Order ever have led but where Vermont now finds itself, with bureaucrats and out-of-state “independents” dictating our farms’ and forests’ futures?  Vermonters are fatigued by the false mantra that imposing regulatory costs “drives economic growth” — ask Vermont’s Rutland County businesses, who were recently informed they must pony up $300 million to retrofit all paved surfaces exceeding three acres in area, to prevent surface stormwater run-off.  The progressives call this “economic growth,” citing the local contractors who have the (optional) opportunity to earn $300 million to perform the mandated excavation and construction work.  (One wonders what the climate impact is of re-paving all that acreage!).  There is currently no government funding of this mandatory implementation: a number of longstanding businesses are threatened with bankruptcy.  The contemplated fuel taxes employ the same foggy logic: that taxing people for driving is beneficial, because the money will be used to “drive economic growth.” 

The governor’s phrase “setting Vermonters on a path to affordability” is also getting tiresome, since all carbon tax studies acknowledge the inherent regressiveness of these taxes — they hurt the working poor the most.  This is why all carbon tax proposals strive to redistribute the wealth they admit they are taking from the poorest of our citizenry — to incentivize us all!

This is the tip of the carbon tax regulatory iceberg: it is far from melting.  In 2020, Vermonters will hear much about “incentivizing” their conduct, and will learn how mammoth this bulging iceberg has become.  Much like paying $10,000 each to out-of-staters to relocate to Vermont, these shenanigans must be called to a halt — voters must be incentivized to vote in 2020.

Vermonters are done being the guinea pigs for social and economic experimentation — Resources for the Future should focus on cleaning up the ecosystem in stinky D.C.  After they get all their “incentivizing” worked out down there, they can vacation in Vermont, where the air is already clean.

Progressive legislators, interest groups, and government entities are clamoring to impose their utopian climate change agenda on Vermont’s citizens when the legislature commences its 2020 session.  There are numerous Achilles heels in these well-laid (if foolish) plans, and they are easy to spot — ineffectiveness; damage to the economy; inequality; government bloat.

A key watchword in 2020 will be “incentivizing.”  Taxpayers must snap into alertness whenever they hear this shifty expression, because it masks true intent.  In Orwellian fashion, the word generally is presented as a positive, when in fact it is always a negative.  An accurate definition of the word in this context would be “changing behavior by government compulsion.”

For example, the current proposal for Vermont under the Transportation and  Climate Initiative (TCI) is to add 5-18 cents per gallon in tax to Vermonters’ fuels.  Proponents argue that this gas tax will “incentivize” citizens to drive less: a sin tax.  But who in the world thinks that an 18-cent-per-gallon “incentive” will curb consumption?  Advocates argue that it is axiomatic that a higher cost will reduce consumption — but gas averaged $3.99/gallon nationally in May 2011, and is now only about $2.60.

A degree in rocket science is unnecessary to see where this leads.  Once the 18 cents per gallon (presented now as a mere pittance) fails to impact consumption behaviors, the progressives will be back, explaining that the tax must be raised to achieve that goal — even though many low-income Vermonters are already squeezed to breaking point and use gas to travel to work.  The question then becomes how much legislators tax Vermonters to “save the planet.”  But the tax will only go up, always with the moral clarion call of saving the children.

The other end of the “incentivizing” scam comes when the government bureaucracy decides how to spend the money extorted through the gasoline and fuels taxes. The proposal is that the money will be invested in part to “incentivize” the purchase of electric vehicles.  These vehicles perform poorly in cold, rural environments. Yet even if they did perform adequately, this scheme is patently unfair.  As wealthy Vermonters are given an “incentive” to purchase a brand-new $40,000 car in the form of subsidies, perhaps through a sales tax exemption (one proposal), poor Vermonters will not be able to “take advantage” of these programs, and will still pay the same old sales tax every time they muster the meager funds to get another used vehicle.  The wealthy receive a beneficial (and optional) incentive to purchase; the poor pay the tab via forced subsidization.

In its January, 2019 discussion of these complex issues, Resources for the Future (“…an independent, nonprofit research institution in Washington, DC”) assesses the economic impact of various options:

When revenues are used to finance electricity subsidies, the change in economic welfare is about 20 percent smaller than the change in the policy with rebates; the subsidies reduce the economic impact of the carbon price by reducing the price of electricity…. Rural households are generally worse-off than urban households due to their higher share of energy expenditures, but the difference is not generally substantial. And, to the extent that rural households are also low-income, they may still be made better off (as discussed above).

Note the “may still be made better off” vagueness.  But if “revenues are used to finance electricity subsidies,” recipients will be “incentivized” to use more electricity, won’t they?  What of those many Vermonters who live off grid or purchased solar panels — they will be denied the electricity subsidies they were compelled to pay others who are still using grid power.  Resources for the Future also advocates for reductions in wage taxes to offset carbon taxes.  But wouldn’t that just give people more money to offset (afford) that gas tax — that is, cancel out that mysterious “incentive”?  It would also provide a windfall to wage earners who use mass transit or don’t drive a vehicle, and who thus never contributed toward the “revenues” being redistributed.  And what is being contemplated is not chump change — “A carbon pricing policy could generate $74.7–$433.8 million in annual [state government] revenue in 2025, depending on the carbon price amount and number of sectors covered.”  This enhances state coffers at the expense of economic welfare.

As Vermonters hold their breath in hopes that Governor Phil Scott will “hold the line” on these massive new tax and regulatory initiatives, they should recall who took their state over that line.  As Resources for the Future crafts Vermonters’ economic future for them, it identifies who opened the door:

In July 2017, Governor Scott issued Executive Order No. 12-17 to create the Vermont Climate Action Commission (VCAC), a committee of 21 representatives from a range of both for-profit and nonprofit organizations and various state, regional, and local government agencies. The governor directed the commission to “draft and recommend, for the Governor’s consideration, an action plan aimed at reaching the State’s renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction goals while driving economic growth, setting Vermonters on a path to affordability, and ensuring effective energy transition options exist for all Vermonters.”

Where could this Executive Order ever have led but where Vermont now finds itself, with bureaucrats and out-of-state “independents” dictating our farms’ and forests’ futures?  Vermonters are fatigued by the false mantra that imposing regulatory costs “drives economic growth” — ask Vermont’s Rutland County businesses, who were recently informed they must pony up $300 million to retrofit all paved surfaces exceeding three acres in area, to prevent surface stormwater run-off.  The progressives call this “economic growth,” citing the local contractors who have the (optional) opportunity to earn $300 million to perform the mandated excavation and construction work.  (One wonders what the climate impact is of re-paving all that acreage!).  There is currently no government funding of this mandatory implementation: a number of longstanding businesses are threatened with bankruptcy.  The contemplated fuel taxes employ the same foggy logic: that taxing people for driving is beneficial, because the money will be used to “drive economic growth.” 

The governor’s phrase “setting Vermonters on a path to affordability” is also getting tiresome, since all carbon tax studies acknowledge the inherent regressiveness of these taxes — they hurt the working poor the most.  This is why all carbon tax proposals strive to redistribute the wealth they admit they are taking from the poorest of our citizenry — to incentivize us all!

This is the tip of the carbon tax regulatory iceberg: it is far from melting.  In 2020, Vermonters will hear much about “incentivizing” their conduct, and will learn how mammoth this bulging iceberg has become.  Much like paying $10,000 each to out-of-staters to relocate to Vermont, these shenanigans must be called to a halt — voters must be incentivized to vote in 2020.

Vermonters are done being the guinea pigs for social and economic experimentation — Resources for the Future should focus on cleaning up the ecosystem in stinky D.C.  After they get all their “incentivizing” worked out down there, they can vacation in Vermont, where the air is already clean.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is a worldwide phenomenon affecting arrogant elites globally. And few elites are more arrogant and self-righteously progressive than the broadcasters at the three government-owned televisions networks in our Anglosphere cousins Britain, Australia, and Canada, the BBC, the ABC and the CBC, respectively. All three networks derive their mission from the notion of instructing and enlightening their viewers, using the tool of broadcasting to improve their minds.

Beware the government bureaucrat that thinks you need enlightenment. Almost inevitably such a charge leads to condescension, and with that superior attitude, to progressivism, founded on the notion that governments can alter human nature and move us toward utopia if only we hand enough power to governments.

But the CBC’s edit to Home Alone 2, a Christmas move broadcast yesterday, was particularly mean-spirited, slight to the POTUS who has mocked “Justin from Canada,” the former high school drama teacher who became Canuckistan’s prime minister. The CBC cut out a memorable, but brief (40 seconds) cameo in which the future president is asked for directions by McCauley Culkin after the child star enters the Plaza Hotel.

YouTube screen grab

You can watch the entire sequence here:

The edit was widely noted – positively and negatively — on Canadian social media:

 

You guys are the biggest bush league “journalists” of all time. Editing out Trump’s cameo in Home Alone 2. What kind of state-sponsored bullshit it that? #Defund

— James (@Jameseast_) December 23, 2019

 

 

@CBC Cutting Trump from Home Alone 2 is disgusting & your pathetic

— Wrestling Fan Forever (@617WrestlingFan) December 25, 2019

 

Comicbook.com quizzed the CBC about the edit:

ComicBook.com reached out to the CBC for comment on why Trump was cut from their Home Alone 2 broadcast, and the CBC replied “As is often the case with features adapted for television, Home Alone 2 was edited to allow for commercial time within the format.”

Yeah, right. One of the most notable scenes in the movie, one offering a fun perspective on a future world leader didn’t make the cut. I call BS. This is what it is all about.

 

@CBC Can you also edit @realDonaldTrump out of the movie Zoolander and the Little Rascals & then send me the copies of those movies & Home Alone 2 as well? So I can relive my childhood without that douchebag.

— Teddy8827 (@TEKO8827) December 25, 2019

 

 

 

Trump Derangement Syndrome is a worldwide phenomenon affecting arrogant elites globally. And few elites are more arrogant and self-righteously progressive than the broadcasters at the three government-owned televisions networks in our Anglosphere cousins Britain, Australia, and Canada, the BBC, the ABC and the CBC, respectively. All three networks derive their mission from the notion of instructing and enlightening their viewers, using the tool of broadcasting to improve their minds.

Beware the government bureaucrat that thinks you need enlightenment. Almost inevitably such a charge leads to condescension, and with that superior attitude, to progressivism, founded on the notion that governments can alter human nature and move us toward utopia if only we hand enough power to governments.

But the CBC’s edit to Home Alone 2, a Christmas move broadcast yesterday, was particularly mean-spirited, slight to the POTUS who has mocked “Justin from Canada,” the former high school drama teacher who became Canuckistan’s prime minister. The CBC cut out a memorable, but brief (40 seconds) cameo in which the future president is asked for directions by McCauley Culkin after the child star enters the Plaza Hotel.

YouTube screen grab

You can watch the entire sequence here:

The edit was widely noted – positively and negatively — on Canadian social media:

 

You guys are the biggest bush league “journalists” of all time. Editing out Trump’s cameo in Home Alone 2. What kind of state-sponsored bullshit it that? #Defund

— James (@Jameseast_) December 23, 2019

 

 

@CBC Cutting Trump from Home Alone 2 is disgusting & your pathetic

— Wrestling Fan Forever (@617WrestlingFan) December 25, 2019

 

Comicbook.com quizzed the CBC about the edit:

ComicBook.com reached out to the CBC for comment on why Trump was cut from their Home Alone 2 broadcast, and the CBC replied “As is often the case with features adapted for television, Home Alone 2 was edited to allow for commercial time within the format.”

Yeah, right. One of the most notable scenes in the movie, one offering a fun perspective on a future world leader didn’t make the cut. I call BS. This is what it is all about.

 

@CBC Can you also edit @realDonaldTrump out of the movie Zoolander and the Little Rascals & then send me the copies of those movies & Home Alone 2 as well? So I can relive my childhood without that douchebag.

— Teddy8827 (@TEKO8827) December 25, 2019

 

 

 

Prosecutors say California attorney Michael Avenatti was over $15 million in debt when he tried to extort up to $25 million from Nike.

Meanwhile, Avenatti’s lawyers say the money he legally requested to conduct an internal probe of the sportswear giant was a bargain.

Both sides made the assertions in court papers filed late Tuesday in advance of a Jan. 22 criminal trial in Manhattan, giving U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe time to decide what the jury will be allowed to hear and see.

For Avenatti, it is the first of three scheduled trials in the next five months. He has denied all charges.

Criminal charges against him in other cases include allegations in New York that he defrauded ex-client porn star Stormy Daniels out of proceeds of a book deal and charges in Los Angeles that he defrauded clients of millions of dollars.

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In their submission, federal prosecutors said they plan to show the jury that Avenatti owed “conservatively, in excess of $15 million.” Those debts were owed to former clients, one of more former law partners, both of his former spouses for child and spousal support in arrears and a lawyer the government has identified only as “Attorney-1,” they said.

Avenatti told The Associated Press on Wednesday that “any claim that I was $15 million in debt is ridiculous, absurd and laughable.”

“I look forward to the upcoming trial at which time I will be exonerated and the truth will be known,” he said.

Prosecutors, however, say they plan to prove the debts through documents and testimony from a witness who helped Avenatti manage his finances and a law enforcement witness.

The evidence will prove “that he had extraordinary indebtedness, and thus the need and motive to quickly generate substantial sums of money at the time when he engaged in the charged conduct,” prosecutors wrote.

They said the debts were relevant at trial to expose Avenatti’s motives, particularly because he has asserted that his motives were “benign or even altruistic.”

Avenatti’s lawyers asserted in their papers Tuesday that Avenatti late last winter was seeking between $15 and $20 million to conduct an internal probe within Nike after lawyers for the company indicated they were interested in such a probe.

Avenatti’s lawyers said thousands of pages of documents submitted to federal prosecutors by Nike in response to a 2017 grand jury subpoena revealed that payments by Nike for the benefit of amateur players “were pervasive,” including payments to high school players through at least 10 different coaches for a Nike-sponsored youth basketball league.

They cited a story by The New York Times that said internal investigations by companies can exceed $100 million, saying Avenatti had sent a link to the story to Mark Geragos, a lawyer he hired to help negotiate with Nike on behalf of an amateur coach who wanted corruption to end. Avenatti plans to seek testimony from Geragos at trial.

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Avenatti also plans to assert that Nike, knowing federal prosecutors were investigating its role in payments to young athletes and basketball coaches, was motivated to cooperate against a high-profile person “against whom the leader of the Executive Branch had expressed disdain.”

President Donald Trump and Avenatti had criticized one another on the internet at a time when Avenatti was appearing frequently on television while he represented Daniels. Daniels has said she had an affair with Trump before he became president. Trump has denied it.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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