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Posted (edited)

Get your shit together France. He cannot appeal and avoid the sentence.

Former French President Sarkozy handed 5-year jail term

Quote

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced to five years in jail on Thursday for criminal conspiracy over attempts to raise campaign funds from Libya and will soon become the first former president of France to serve time in prison.

The sentence was harsher than many expected and marked a spectacular downfall for Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012. He will spend time in jail even if he appeals the ruling, which he said he would do.

As he exited the courtroom, Sarkozy, visibly moved, expressed his anger at what he said was a “scandalous” ruling.

“If they absolutely want me to sleep in jail, I will sleep in jail, but with my head held high,” he told reporters, adding that he was innocent. “I will not apologise for something I didn’t do.”

“What happened today ... is of extreme gravity in regard to the rule of law, and for the trust one can have in the justice system,” he said of the ruling, as his model and singer-songwriter wife Carla Bruni stood by him.

Sarkozy was found guilty of criminal conspiracy over efforts by close aides to procure funds for his 2007 presidential bid from Libya during the rule of late dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

He was acquitted by the Paris court of all other charges, including corruption and receiving illegal campaign financing.

Sarkozy will go to jail
However, the prison sentence is enforceable immediately, with the judge saying Sarkozy would have just a short period to put his affairs in order before prosecutors call on him to head to jail. That should happen within a month.

“We were shocked because when we started hearing the decision being read out, we thought his innocence would be recognised,” one of his lawyers, Jean-Michel Darrois, told reporters. “We hope the appeals court will see things more clearly and will recognise his innocence.”

Sarkozy, who has always denied the charges, was accused of making a deal with Gaddafi in 2005, when he was France’s interior minister, to obtain campaign financing in exchange for supporting the then-isolated Libyan government on the international stage.

The judge said there was no proof that Sarkozy made such a deal with Gaddafi, nor that money that was sent from Libya reached Sarkozy’s campaign coffers, even if the timing was “compatible” and the paths the money went through were “very opaque”.

But she said Sarkozy was guilty of criminal conspiracy between 2005 and 2007 for having let close aides get in touch with people in Libya to try and obtain campaign financing. From May 2007, he was president and covered by presidential immunity, the court added.

This was the second time this year that a French court handed down a ruling with immediate effect on a major political figure.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen was convicted in March of embezzling EU funds and given an immediate five-year ban on running for office.

Le Pen was prompt to react to Sarkozy’s sentencing, saying it was “a grave danger” that judges were opting for immediately enforceable rulings and not waiting for appeals.

Reactions among French politicians were mixed, with several on the right rushing to give support and criticise what they said was a biased ruling, while on the left, some welcomed the ruling as proof of the independence of the judiciary.

Vincent Brengarth, lawyer for economic justice campaign group Sherpa, which was party to the Libya trial, also welcomed the ruling. “This confirms we have an independent justice system that can be brave,” he said.

Sarkozy’s legal woes
Despite his legal battles and having his Legion of Honour, France’s highest distinction, stripped in June, Sarkozy remains an influential figure on the French political stage.

He recently met with his former protege, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, and has also lent credibility to Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), saying the far-right, anti-immigrant party now forms part of the “republican arc.”

Sarkozy has faced several legal battles since leaving office.

Last year, France’s highest court upheld his conviction for corruption and influence peddling, ordering him to wear an electronic tag for a year, a first for a former French head of state. The tag has now been removed.

Also last year, an appeals court confirmed a separate conviction for illegal campaign financing over his failed re-election bid in 2012. A final ruling from France’s highest court is expected on that case next month.

 

Edited by Thetexashammer
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Posted
2 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

and will soon become the first former president of France to serve time in prison.

Better than being executed or exiled I guess.

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Posted
1 hour ago, UpperWestside said:

What is it with other countries like France and Brazil having a legal system that isn’t letting politicians walk on major charges like this? I wonder what it’s like living in a place where the rule of law actually means something.

Is it your opinion that other countries don't act like vindictive children when their party is in control? 

 

Tangentially related from the BBC:

Why 'the most controversial queen in history' was so hated
8 days ago
Deborah Nicholls-Lee
 

Once the most despised woman in Europe, Marie Antoinette was vilified as an empty-headed libertine, a conspirator and a reckless spendthrift – and then publicly executed. Now a major exhibition interrogates some of the myths that surround her.

"All eyes will be on you," cautioned Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, in April 1770, as her daughter, the 14-year-old Archduchess Maria Antonia prepared to marry the future King Louis XVI of France at the Palace of Versailles. Yet the scrutiny endured by Marie Antoinette, as the Archduchess was later known, was far crueller than anticipated. She was vilified as a libertine, a conspirator and a reckless spendthrift, whose exorbitant lifestyle was bankrupting the country – accusations that would precipitate the French Revolution and lead to a rare and shocking spectacle: the public execution of a queen.

Our fascination with Marie Antoinette has never waned, but increasingly her story is being questioned. Did she deserve to be despised, or was she a martyr caught between conflicting interests and destroyed by lies? For Dr Sarah Grant, the curator of Marie Antoinette Style, opening at the V&A on 20 September, she is the "most fashionable, scrutinised and controversial queen in history". Marking the 270th anniversary of the birth of this mould-breaking but maligned figure, the show celebrates her sense of style, and interrogates some of the myths associated with her.

One such myth is her apocryphal "let them eat cake" comment, a brattish response to devastating bread shortages. Attributed to "a great princess" in Rousseau's Confessions, written in 1765 when Marie Antoinette was aged 10 and still in Austria, it cannot have come from her. More fake news appears in the form of the "diamond necklace affair" (1785-6), in which a necklace of more than 600 diamonds was falsely ordered in the queen's name, solidifying her reputation for excess despite her vindication at trial. A replica, along with the Sutherland Necklace, reportedly containing stones from the original, features in the exhibition.
The young queen's lavish lifestyle was certainly salt in the wounds of the starving poor – she found diversion in extravagant parties, gambling and fashion

Other items speak to her legacy as a tastemaker: opulent furnishings from the French Revival (1800-1890), for example, that emulated elements of her style, and frilly pink shoes from Sofia Coppola's Oscar-winning Marie Antoinette (2006), designed by Manolo Blahnik, who confesses in the catalogue's foreword that he remains "enraptured by everything about her".

The young queen's lavish lifestyle was certainly salt in the wounds of the starving poor. Bound to a weak-minded and rather dull husband, who was more interested in hunting than in her, and was for seven years medically unable to consummate their marriage, she found diversion in extravagant parties, gambling and fashion. Her fancifully decorated dresses with vast structural panniers, crowned with towering ornamental hairstyles, were widely copied at the time, and later inspired pop stars such as Madonna and Rihanna, and fashion designers such as Vivienne Westwood, Dior and Moschino.
'Madame Déficit'

The moniker of "Madame Déficit", however, was unjustified. Though she spent less than the king's brothers, and was just one of a series of profligate French monarchs, the foreign queen became a convenient scapegoat for the French government's handling of funds. "It's the spending on wars that is actually what bankrupts France, certainly not the money that Marie Antoinette is spending," Grant tells the BBC. "Her wardrobe budget is the equivalent today of around $1 million, but France spent $11.25 billion on just the American War of Independence."

Even scaling back her spending made her new enemies. "When she stops wearing silks, the silk industry is in uproar because their livelihood is threatened," says Grant. And when, in 1783, she tried to project a different image with a portrait of her in the more casual "country" attire that she would popularise, it was swiftly replaced by something more elaborate and formal. "She is expected to create a regal spectacle," Grant continues. "That is how the monarchy maintains its authority."

The folklore surrounding this early modern celebrity also overlooks her philanthropy. She recycled her wardrobe each year, sharing it between her staff; and she adopted several children, including Jean Amilcar, originally from Senegal, who she released from slavery. She also "turned down offers of expensive gifts from her husband" and "gave generously to charities", author Melanie Burrows (née Clegg), who has written widely on the period, tells the BBC. Far from being the "empty-headed idiot she is often portrayed as", argues Burrows, she was "well-intentioned, generous and kind-hearted".
Marie Antoinette was considered too prominent, too vivacious, and too willing to use her charm to meddle in political affairs

Presented to the French court as a peace offering after years of hostility with Austria, Marie Antoinette had split allegiances that mired her in suspicions − not all unfounded − that she shared military secrets with Austria. She was deemed indifferent to the French people, and derogatory references to her as "L'Autri-chienne" (a wordplay on the French for both Austrian and bitch) exemplify the distrust that fuelled public feeling.

Unlike a king, a queen had no official power and was meant to remain in the background. Marie Antoinette was considered too prominent, too vivacious and too willing to use her charm to meddle in political affairs, secretly lobbying ministers and opposing the constitutional reforms the country cried out for. As far as her enemies were concerned, she needed to be brought down. Libellous pamphlets circulated, some pornographic, accusing her of promiscuity (Count Axel von Fersen is, in fact, her only known lover), orgies, lesbian relations and even incest.

The gossip was "all driven by misogyny", argues Grant, adding that "a lot of the myths that persisted... arose in the 19th Century when her biographies [were] written by men". According to Burrows, the queen was actually quite prudish. She rarely drank, she says, engaged in only "very mild flirtation" and "hated to be seen naked even by her own maids". Yet these tropes persist. In Marie Antoinette's World – Intrigue, Infidelity, and Adultery in Versailles (2020), Will Bashor speculates that her chronic uterine bleeding was caused by venereal disease. But he also argues that she was "emotionally abused", "bored" and "neglected", and though he finds her guilty of seeking pleasure outside her marriage, concludes that, for him at least, she was "forgiven".  

In reality, "she was a devoted mother," Dr Laura O'Brien, Associate Professor of Modern European History at Northumbria University in the UK, tells the BBC, referencing the "gentler and more emotional connection" the queen had with her children, in contrast to her own upbringing. She was the first French queen to breastfeed, and to dress – as seen in the rejected portrait – in a manner suited to parenthood and life at her rural retreat.

The continuing fascination with Europe's most loathed queen is also linked to the tragedy of her story: a child bride from a royal dynasty forced into an impossible situation, and ultimately reduced to a tragic figure in a white chemise, her hair shorn short, carried by cart to her death. For revolutionaries, she became a symbol of everything France needed to change, and her execution in 1793 attempted to cleanse the country of the worst of the Ancien Régime.

Whether or not Marie Antoinette's death was justified, it failed to stifle her influence. A trend emerged for short "porcupine" haircuts and blood-red chokers suggestive of the guillotine's cut. She was detested by those who believed the stories surrounding her, but she was also widely – and enduringly – admired. "For me, this exhibition is another dream fulfilled," Blahnik commented in a recent interview. "The re-vindication of Marie Antoinette."  

Marie Antoinette Style is at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London from 20 September 2025 to 22 March 2026. The accompanying book is published by V&A Publishing.

 

 

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Posted
4 hours ago, Bevo said:

Is it your opinion that other countries don't act like vindictive children when their party is in control? 

 

Who is acting like a vindictive child, now?

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Posted (edited)

That was my point - this has been going on at least since watergate (as far back as you and I go) and keeps getting worse each year. It’s almost like observing a meeting between two large groups of opposing councils without a mediator - and then bringing those same groups back together each year. It’s like Lord of the Flies, man.

Edited by Bevo
Posted
19 minutes ago, YChang said:

Seriously, what a weird premise to use. 

I just find that kind of stuff interesting. The same sort of thing happened to Cristopher Columbus where he was vilified because he wasn’t from their country and likely wasn’t born Catholic.

Posted
9 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

I will console Carla Bruni.

Better hurry, she's facing a Caged Heat scenario herself.

 

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/07/10/carla-bruni-sarkozy-charged-with-witness-tampering-in-husbands-illicit-campaign-financing-

 

Quote

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was given preliminary charges Tuesday for involvement in allegedly pressuring a witness who accused ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy of receiving illegal campaign financing from Libya.

Former supermodel and French first lady Bruni-Sarkozy was placed under judicial supervision on Tuesday, which included a ban on contact with all those involved in the proceedings, with the exception of her husband, according to officials.

The charges against Bruni-Sarkozy include witness tampering and participation in a criminal association with an attempt to commit fraud in efforts to deceive magistrates investigating her husband on suspicion of receiving illegal funds during his 2007 presidential election campaign, the official said.

 

 

Posted
5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Wait, you think Watergate was a product of vindictive political opposition?  

i think the President was a Republican and Congress was Democrat and I think it left bad blood between the two parties that spilled over to later presidencies.

Posted

Just like you won't find hardly any Nixon defenders today, there weren't many in 1973.

There sure as fuck weren't a bunch of Republicans screaming wEaPoNizAtion while drumming up charges against Jimmy Carter.

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Posted
1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

Just like you won't find hardly any Nixon defenders today, there weren't many in 1973.

There sure as fuck weren't a bunch of Republicans screaming wEaPoNizAtion while drumming up charges against Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter.  Who had to fucking bail on his peanut farm.

And now, we have a POTUS (1) openly profiteering directly from the office, and (2) getting fanatical support from the very kind of folks who insisted that Carter couldn't keep the peanut farm.

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Posted

And, before the obstruction of justice part, Nixon's basic crime was knowledge of a relatively petty burglary.

Something Trumpists would proclaim as trumped up charges.

But it was the tawdriness of the basic crime that made it so disgusting.  And then the cover-up, that displayed Nixon's basic corruption.

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Posted
49 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I wasn't the most seasoned observer at the time, but I recall about zero partisan political rancor over that.

LOL

You and I were 9. 

Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, Bevo said:

LOL

You and I were 9. 

I was actually 7-8, but my mom watched it obsessively.  We were nominally an R family, but both sets of grandparents were FDR diehards.  No one defended Nixon.

Shit, I don't think even Ford's pardon was much of a partisan issue, it was mostly debated on the merits with a cynical nod to the fact that a D probably wouldn't have done it.

For those who didn't or don't know, Watergate was pretty much non-stop covered daily by all three networks, from 9-5, at least, every weekday.  And I think my Mom watched every single minute of it.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
1 hour ago, Bevo said:

I just find that kind of stuff interesting. The same sort of thing happened to Cristopher Columbus where he was vilified because he wasn’t from their country and likely wasn’t born Catholic.

What the hell are you talking about?

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Posted
15 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Is Bevo trolling?

No, Twice went on a tangent because he thought/hoped I said something that I didn't. The Democrat/Republican goal is to demonize the opposing party. When Congress is Dem and Pres is Pub there will be impeachment hearings. When Congress is Pub and Pres in Dem, there will be impeachment hearings. When Pres and Congress are both Dem there will be shit talking but nothing will happen. When Pres and Congress are both Pub there will be shit talking but nothing will happen. 

This shit talking and impeachment talk/proceedings gets worse with each passing congressional term. Both parties act like vindictive children and their constituencies seem to eat it up. 

Europe is not immune to this behavior, either. I think we as a species must like conflict. 

Posted
Just now, wildcat09 said:

What the hell are you talking about?

 

Read up. The current thought is that he was villainous. Who knows if this thought will change over time. When I was growing up, he was thought of as a hero. Either way, most of the atrocities were documented by a single source who wasn't reliable and who had ulterior motives. There was also animosity towards Columbus. Some of the thoughts are that this animosity was because he was possibly of Jewish decent and had ancestors who were forced to convert to Catholicism. And while widely considered Italian and born in the city-state of Genoa, new DNA evidence presented in 2024 suggests Christopher Columbus may have had Spanish or Sephardic Jewish origins, though this research is still pending peer review. For centuries, written records and documents have also indicated a Spanish or Portuguese heritage for Columbus. Anyway, when you do read up, google something specific like Christopher Columbus upbringing and early childhood. 

Posted
37 minutes ago, Bevo said:

I just find that kind of stuff interesting. The same sort of thing happened to Cristopher Columbus where he was vilified because he wasn’t from their country and likely wasn’t born Catholic.

I agree it is interesting! Just not so much in the context of Upper’s argument. 

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Posted

Ah, I see, you're one of those "he actually didn't do anything bad or if he did actually brutally murder thousands of people it's because he was secretly a Jew" lunatics. 

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Posted
9 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Ah, I see, you're one of those "he actually didn't do anything bad or if he did actually brutally murder thousands of people it's because he was secretly a Jew" lunatics. 


No, I actually like reading about certain topics that may require an analytical approach. 

Posted
7 hours ago, Bevo said:

Is it your opinion that other countries don't act like vindictive children when their party is in control? 

 

Tangentially related from the BBC:

Why 'the most controversial queen in history' was so hated
8 days ago
Deborah Nicholls-Lee
 

Once the most despised woman in Europe, Marie Antoinette was vilified as an empty-headed libertine, a conspirator and a reckless spendthrift – and then publicly executed. Now a major exhibition interrogates some of the myths that surround her.

"All eyes will be on you," cautioned Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, in April 1770, as her daughter, the 14-year-old Archduchess Maria Antonia prepared to marry the future King Louis XVI of France at the Palace of Versailles. Yet the scrutiny endured by Marie Antoinette, as the Archduchess was later known, was far crueller than anticipated. She was vilified as a libertine, a conspirator and a reckless spendthrift, whose exorbitant lifestyle was bankrupting the country – accusations that would precipitate the French Revolution and lead to a rare and shocking spectacle: the public execution of a queen.

Our fascination with Marie Antoinette has never waned, but increasingly her story is being questioned. Did she deserve to be despised, or was she a martyr caught between conflicting interests and destroyed by lies? For Dr Sarah Grant, the curator of Marie Antoinette Style, opening at the V&A on 20 September, she is the "most fashionable, scrutinised and controversial queen in history". Marking the 270th anniversary of the birth of this mould-breaking but maligned figure, the show celebrates her sense of style, and interrogates some of the myths associated with her.

One such myth is her apocryphal "let them eat cake" comment, a brattish response to devastating bread shortages. Attributed to "a great princess" in Rousseau's Confessions, written in 1765 when Marie Antoinette was aged 10 and still in Austria, it cannot have come from her. More fake news appears in the form of the "diamond necklace affair" (1785-6), in which a necklace of more than 600 diamonds was falsely ordered in the queen's name, solidifying her reputation for excess despite her vindication at trial. A replica, along with the Sutherland Necklace, reportedly containing stones from the original, features in the exhibition.
The young queen's lavish lifestyle was certainly salt in the wounds of the starving poor – she found diversion in extravagant parties, gambling and fashion

Other items speak to her legacy as a tastemaker: opulent furnishings from the French Revival (1800-1890), for example, that emulated elements of her style, and frilly pink shoes from Sofia Coppola's Oscar-winning Marie Antoinette (2006), designed by Manolo Blahnik, who confesses in the catalogue's foreword that he remains "enraptured by everything about her".

The young queen's lavish lifestyle was certainly salt in the wounds of the starving poor. Bound to a weak-minded and rather dull husband, who was more interested in hunting than in her, and was for seven years medically unable to consummate their marriage, she found diversion in extravagant parties, gambling and fashion. Her fancifully decorated dresses with vast structural panniers, crowned with towering ornamental hairstyles, were widely copied at the time, and later inspired pop stars such as Madonna and Rihanna, and fashion designers such as Vivienne Westwood, Dior and Moschino.
'Madame Déficit'

The moniker of "Madame Déficit", however, was unjustified. Though she spent less than the king's brothers, and was just one of a series of profligate French monarchs, the foreign queen became a convenient scapegoat for the French government's handling of funds. "It's the spending on wars that is actually what bankrupts France, certainly not the money that Marie Antoinette is spending," Grant tells the BBC. "Her wardrobe budget is the equivalent today of around $1 million, but France spent $11.25 billion on just the American War of Independence."

Even scaling back her spending made her new enemies. "When she stops wearing silks, the silk industry is in uproar because their livelihood is threatened," says Grant. And when, in 1783, she tried to project a different image with a portrait of her in the more casual "country" attire that she would popularise, it was swiftly replaced by something more elaborate and formal. "She is expected to create a regal spectacle," Grant continues. "That is how the monarchy maintains its authority."

The folklore surrounding this early modern celebrity also overlooks her philanthropy. She recycled her wardrobe each year, sharing it between her staff; and she adopted several children, including Jean Amilcar, originally from Senegal, who she released from slavery. She also "turned down offers of expensive gifts from her husband" and "gave generously to charities", author Melanie Burrows (née Clegg), who has written widely on the period, tells the BBC. Far from being the "empty-headed idiot she is often portrayed as", argues Burrows, she was "well-intentioned, generous and kind-hearted".
Marie Antoinette was considered too prominent, too vivacious, and too willing to use her charm to meddle in political affairs

Presented to the French court as a peace offering after years of hostility with Austria, Marie Antoinette had split allegiances that mired her in suspicions − not all unfounded − that she shared military secrets with Austria. She was deemed indifferent to the French people, and derogatory references to her as "L'Autri-chienne" (a wordplay on the French for both Austrian and bitch) exemplify the distrust that fuelled public feeling.

Unlike a king, a queen had no official power and was meant to remain in the background. Marie Antoinette was considered too prominent, too vivacious and too willing to use her charm to meddle in political affairs, secretly lobbying ministers and opposing the constitutional reforms the country cried out for. As far as her enemies were concerned, she needed to be brought down. Libellous pamphlets circulated, some pornographic, accusing her of promiscuity (Count Axel von Fersen is, in fact, her only known lover), orgies, lesbian relations and even incest.

The gossip was "all driven by misogyny", argues Grant, adding that "a lot of the myths that persisted... arose in the 19th Century when her biographies [were] written by men". According to Burrows, the queen was actually quite prudish. She rarely drank, she says, engaged in only "very mild flirtation" and "hated to be seen naked even by her own maids". Yet these tropes persist. In Marie Antoinette's World – Intrigue, Infidelity, and Adultery in Versailles (2020), Will Bashor speculates that her chronic uterine bleeding was caused by venereal disease. But he also argues that she was "emotionally abused", "bored" and "neglected", and though he finds her guilty of seeking pleasure outside her marriage, concludes that, for him at least, she was "forgiven".  

In reality, "she was a devoted mother," Dr Laura O'Brien, Associate Professor of Modern European History at Northumbria University in the UK, tells the BBC, referencing the "gentler and more emotional connection" the queen had with her children, in contrast to her own upbringing. She was the first French queen to breastfeed, and to dress – as seen in the rejected portrait – in a manner suited to parenthood and life at her rural retreat.

The continuing fascination with Europe's most loathed queen is also linked to the tragedy of her story: a child bride from a royal dynasty forced into an impossible situation, and ultimately reduced to a tragic figure in a white chemise, her hair shorn short, carried by cart to her death. For revolutionaries, she became a symbol of everything France needed to change, and her execution in 1793 attempted to cleanse the country of the worst of the Ancien Régime.

Whether or not Marie Antoinette's death was justified, it failed to stifle her influence. A trend emerged for short "porcupine" haircuts and blood-red chokers suggestive of the guillotine's cut. She was detested by those who believed the stories surrounding her, but she was also widely – and enduringly – admired. "For me, this exhibition is another dream fulfilled," Blahnik commented in a recent interview. "The re-vindication of Marie Antoinette."  

Marie Antoinette Style is at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London from 20 September 2025 to 22 March 2026. The accompanying book is published by V&A Publishing.

 

 

IMG_2736.gif.7c55120536ff788c99df1a19cc7cd380.gif

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Bevo said:

When Congress is Dem and Pres is Pub there will be impeachment hearings.

That's just not true until relatively recently in these days of hyperpartisanship.

And certainly not in terms of criminal prosecution.  Trump richly deserved his and would have been convicted but for his election.

Watergate was a very bipartisan deal.

Clinton was a fishing expedition by Republicans that finally landed on something that stuck.

Trump's impeachments were pretty well-deserved, if somewhat performative given R majorities.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
1 hour ago, Bevo said:

This shit talking and impeachment talk/proceedings gets worse with each passing congressional term. Both parties act like vindictive children and their constituencies seem to eat it up. 

That is such bullshit.  if you think impeaching Trump was purely political and not legitimate action taken against the most deserving criminal President in History, you are a moron.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

That is such bullshit.  if you think impeaching Trump was purely political and not legitimate action taken against the most deserving criminal President in History, you are a moron.

It's just more "both sides"-ing, which they do for the plain purpose of hand-waving away just what you talked about.  "We get to disregard Trump's impeachment and the conduct that led to it because all presidents get impeached."

It's the classic approach of putting a jaywalker and a murderer side by side and saying "see, both sides elect criminals, so we need to disregard all discussions of criminality and fitness related to same."

Nothing changes.  They follow the exact same path, leading to the exact same result: excusing ALL wrongdoing, applying NO rules or standards at all.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

It's just more "both sides"-ing, which they do for the plain purpose of hand-waving away just what you talked about.  "We get to disregard Trump's impeachment and the conduct that led to it because all presidents get impeached."

It's the classic approach of putting a jaywalker and a murderer side by side and saying "see, both sides elect criminals, so we need to disregard all discussions of criminality and fitness related to same."

Nothing changes.  They follow the exact same path, leading to the exact same result: excusing ALL wrongdoing, applying NO rules or standards at all.

Well, there is a more benign desperate desire to normalize this shit so that it isn't that dire for the republic.

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Posted
Just now, TwiceHorn said:

Well, there is a more benign desperate desire to normalize this shit so that it isn't that dire for the republic.

Dude.  STOP.  ATTRIBUTING.  BENIGN MOTIVES.  TO THIS BULLSHIT.

They have no interest in a functioning, surviving Republic.  They want a dictatorship, enabled and empowered by the very rationale they advance.  They keep telling us that's what they want.  Why do you insist on not believing them when they repeatedly tell you exactly who they are?

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Posted
19 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Dude.  STOP.  ATTRIBUTING.  BENIGN MOTIVES.  TO THIS BULLSHIT.

They have no interest in a functioning, surviving Republic.  They want a dictatorship, enabled and empowered by the very rationale they advance.  They keep telling us that's what they want.  Why do you insist on not believing them when they repeatedly tell you exactly who they are?

Note that I didn't say benign without qualification.  Just more benign than outright supporters of the regime.  Same effect either way, though.

Posted
1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

It's just more "both sides"-ing, which they do for the plain purpose of hand-waving away just what you talked about.  "We get to disregard Trump's impeachment and the conduct that led to it because all presidents get impeached."

It's the classic approach of putting a jaywalker and a murderer side by side and saying "see, both sides elect criminals, so we need to disregard all discussions of criminality and fitness related to same."

Nothing changes.  They follow the exact same path, leading to the exact same result: excusing ALL wrongdoing, applying NO rules or standards at all.


 

you are correct. I wouldn’t say Dems are Jay Walkers though. They are the good guys. Fuck those pubs and independents and libertarians… dirty little shits they are.

Posted
4 hours ago, Bevo said:

i think the President was a Republican and Congress was Democrat and I think it left bad blood between the two parties that spilled over to later presidencies.

robert de niro goodfellas GIF

Posted
7 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

What the hell are you talking about?

You see Columbus was a Jew. Many people don’t know that.  The space laser program started with him. He crossed the ocean and people feinted at his appearance and never woke up from being so starstruck by him. He had great ratings. The best ratings. Ratings so high among these people you wouldn’t believe it.

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Posted
38 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

You see Columbus was a Jew. Many people don’t know that.  The space laser program started with him. He crossed the ocean and people feinted at his appearance and never woke up from being so starstruck by him. He had great ratings. The best ratings. Ratings so high among these people you wouldn’t believe it.

NPR did not mention space lasers, weird.
 

 

Christopher Columbus may have been a Spanish Jew, according to a new documentary

 Summarize

Miguel MaciasOctober 16, 20245:00 AM ET
 

Christopher Columbus landing in America with the Piuzon Brothers bearing flags and crosses, 1492.

Christopher Columbus landing in America with the Piuzon Brothers bearing flags and crosses, 1492.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images/Hulton Archive

SEVILLE, Spain — Conventional history states Christopher Columbus was from Genoa, Italy, but he may have been, in fact, a Sephardic Jew from the eastern Iberian Peninsula, according to a new documentary by Spain’s national broadcaster that also rekindles questions of religious persecution and the treatment of Indigenous communities.

Broadcast by Spanish national public network RTVE on Oct. 12, the day of Spain’s national holiday marking the arrival of Columbus’ expedition to the Americas, Colón ADN, su verdadero origen, or “Columbus’ DNA, his true origin,” follows forensic medical expert José Antonio Lorente as he studies multiple hypotheses regarding the origin of the famed explorer and contrasts the information with scientific and historical evidence.

The documentary concludes that the most plausible theory is one maintained by a Catalan architect who has dedicated many years trying to demonstrate that Cristóbal Colón — Columbus’ name in Spanish — was a Jewish man from the region of Valencia, on the Mediterranean coast of eastern Spain.

Some in the scientific community, however, have expressed skepticism about the methods and scientific rigor that Lorente employs, and highlight the fact that Lorente’s findings have not been presented for peer review yet.

Columbus’ origins come into question

Few things about Christopher Columbus can be stated as facts. Legend has it that at a party with noble Spaniards he demonstrated the possibility of the impossible by making an egg stand on its tip. There is a trick, of course: he flattened the edge of the egg without breaking it.

But there are some details that have not been questioned by most people through the years. Like the fact that Columbus came from Genoa, in Italy. That he persuaded Spain’s Catholic monarchs to sponsor an impossible voyage to the Indies traveling west instead of east from Spain.

Lorente, a forensic medical expert at the University of Granada, has researched Columbus’ origin for the past 22 years. In the documentary, he considers a number of theories about the origin of Columbus, examining them against DNA evidence and historical records.

Finally, Lorente arrives at the garden of Francesc Albardaner, a Catalan architect who authored the book La catalanitat de Colom. According to Albardaner, Columbus was a Sephardic Jew, part of the that Jewish diaspora associated with the Iberian Peninsula. Columbus would have followed Jewish traditions and customs, although in the public sphere he acted as Christian. He was born into a family of silk weavers from the Spanish city of Valencia, where there was a long tradition within the Jewish community of silk weavers.

But in order to determine Columbus’ ancestry, Lorente has to overcome a first hurdle, to shed light on the question of where the true remains of the sailor are.

 

People visit the tomb of Christopher Columbus at the Cathedral of Seville on October 11.

People visit the tomb of Christopher Columbus at the Cathedral of Seville on October 11.

Cristina Quicler/AFP via Getty Images

Columbus’ disputed resting place

The mausoleum of Christopher Columbus here in Seville features four bronze heralds representing the four Spanish kingdoms before they came under a single rule, in 1469. On the heralds’ shoulders, a massive tomb that the Catholic Church and local authorities assure contains the remains of Columbus.

But Columbus’ resting place has been in dispute for centuries. The Columbus Lighthouse is a huge mausoleum monument to the explorer located in Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic. The monument was inaugurated in 1992 and, according to Dominican authorities, Columbus’ remains are inside the mausoleum.

There seems to be agreement among historians about the fact that the remains of Columbus, who died in Spain in 1506, were at one point taken back to Hispaniola, the Caribbean island containing the Dominican Republic and Haiti. But that's where historical agreement ends. Some claim the remains of Columbus made their way back to Spain, while others say the wrong bones were taken from Santo Domingo, and therefore Columbus remains in the Dominican Republic.

In Columbus’ DNA, his true origin, Lorente uses DNA from Hernando Colón, son of Christopher Columbus, and distant cousin Diego Colón to verify that the few bones that were housed at the Cathedral of Seville are indeed the true remains of the sailor.

Lorente’s conclusion is unequivocal: Christopher Columbus was of Jewish descent. That led to a process of deduction based on historical evidence. The documentary states that during Columbus’ time there were only an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Jewish people living on the Italian peninsula. By contrast, there were about 200,000 Jewish people living in what is now Spain, an estimate that may be low, since tens of thousands of Jewish people had converted to Catholicism over the previous century, victims of constant persecution.

Also in the documentary, Albardaner, the Catalan architect, says Genoa had expelled its Jewish population in the 12th century. There were virtually no Jewish people living in Genoa in the times of Columbus, who lived from 1451 to 1506, and Jewish people doing business were only allowed to enter the city for three days at a time.

If the DNA evidence studied by Lorente suggests Columbus was a Jewish man, then it becomes highly improbable that he was from Genoa, according to Albardaner.

 

Forensic medical expert José Antonio Lorente examines DNA evidence in an image from the documentary Colón ADN, su verdadero origen.

Forensic medical expert José Antonio Lorente examines DNA evidence in an image from the documentary Colón ADN, su verdadero origen.

Story Producciones

Why would Columbus lie about his heritage?

On Oct. 19, 1469, a young couple was married in Valladolid, Spain. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand II, the Catholic monarchs, came to be known for a number of historical achievements, such as unifying the kingdoms that now comprise Spain, or the so-called reconquista (reconquering) of Al-Andalus, the vast region of southern Spain that had been under Muslim control for centuries. But during the Catholic monarchs’ rule the Spanish Inquisition also acquired unprecedented powers. A judicial institution linked to the Roman Catholic Church, the Inquisition sought to identify heretics and order Jews and Muslims to convert to Catholicism, using brutal methods.

But Muslims were not the only people living in the Iberian Peninsula that the Catholic monarchs seemed to want to get rid of. In 1492 the monarchs signed the Alhambra Decree, which ordered the expulsion of Jewish people, seeking to eliminate their influence on Spain's large population of converts, and to make sure its members did not revert to Judaism. The monarchs ordered the remaining Jews to convert or face expulsion from Spain.

Devin Naar, Sephardic studies program chair at the University of Washington, told the BBC's Newshour that escaping persecution in the times of the Catholic monarchs and the Spanish Inquisition was not as easy as simply converting to Catholicism:

“What the Spanish Inquisition did was that it targeted, not Jews as Jews and not Muslims as Muslims, but rather initially and specifically those who were of Jewish or Muslim origin, but who had converted to Catholicism. And there was the perception that they had continued to practice Judaism on one hand or Islam on the other hand in secret. The Inquisition used a variety of different means to try to coerce confessions. It used all of the different medieval tools that we might think about, including burning at the stake,” Naar said.

So Columbus may have been hiding his Sephardic origins to avoid stigmatization, persecution, or even death.

Naar adds that the claim that Columbus was of Spanish-Jewish origin or converso origin — conversos is what the Spanish called Jewish converts to Catholicism and their descendants — has been around for more than 100 years.

Disagreement from the scientific community

The release of the documentary on RTVE has sparked criticisms from the scientific community. Most notably, a recent article published by the Spanish newspaper El País has several experts questioning the process Lorente used to reach his conclusions.

"I don't understand how data that the scientific community has not yet endorsed is presented to society, which puts the data itself and the hypotheses proposed at risk," Antonio Alonso, a geneticist and former director of Spain’s National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences is quoted as saying.

Rodrigo Barquera, an expert in archaeogenetics at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, told El País he was surprised that Lorente’s findings had been shared without prior scrutiny from others in the scientific community.

Even the DNA angle is questioned by Antonio Salas, who directs the Population Genetics in Biomedicine group at the Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela, telling El País: “The documentary promised to focus on DNA analysis. However, the genetic information it offers is very limited.”

Lorente, in response, told El País that the documentary is a film, not a scientific publication, and he promises scientific findings will be presented in the near future.

The evolving role of Columbus in history

Columbus’ actions, once regarded as accomplishments, have become a symbol to many as a starting point for a history of abuse. To others, Columbus, 1492, and what came after, are still worth celebrating.

To this day, Spain marks Oct. 12 as a national holiday, also widely known as Hispanic Heritage Day, to commemorate the arrival of Columbus’ expedition in the Americas. And to this day, Spain’s popular culture has not been able to shake up the use of the controversial term “Descubrimiento de América” (the discovery of America) to refer to that moment in history.

In Latin America and to many U.S.-based Latinos and Native Americans, the so-called “discovery of the Americas” was only the beginning of a cruel history of extermination, subjugation and colonization of its native people and lands. This continues to play a role in international diplomacy. Just last month, the recently elected first woman president of Mexico did not invite the Spanish king to her inauguration as part of an ongoing spat between the two countries over the history of Spanish colonization. Spain’s current government, led by the progressive Socialist Party, said that Mexico’s decision was unacceptable.

 

Protesters topple a statue of Christopher Columbus during a demonstration against government in Barranquilla, Colombia on June 28, 2021.

Protesters topple a statue of Christopher Columbus during a demonstration against government in Barranquilla, Colombia on June 28, 2021.

Mery Granados Herrera/AFP via Getty Images

The United States has recognized Columbus Day as a federal holiday since 1934, when President Roosevelt designated the standing. For many in the Italian American community, the presumed fact that Columbus was originally from Italy has been a reason for pride and celebration. In 2022, however, President Biden issued a proclamationon Indigenous Peoples Day, and both are observed on the second Monday of October, but most government websites continue to list “Columbus Day” as the federal holiday the nation celebrated this week.

Spain did take measures to remediate the harm done to Sephardic Jews. In 2015 the Spanish Parliament approved an act granting Spanish citizenship to Sephardic Jews with Spanish origins. Spain has not provided reparations to descendants of Spanish Muslims who once lived in the Iberian Peninsula.

Posted

Yep we got a full blown "Do your research" person here. Columbus was a great Jewish guy. So Jewish even Jesus is amazed by him. There Columbus was just spreading joy amongst the natives and trying to convert them to Judaism and he gets unfairly blamed for their demise.

  • Fuck You 1
Posted (edited)

Now read about the source for the widely accepted atrocities that he supposedly committed. Where was he when they occurred? Were the murderers truly under his command? Tell me about his adopted son. How did that happen?

Has a non native ever been falsely portrayed over the years? Did that happen to the beheaded French queen?

 

Have others been falsely portrayed over time due to power squabbles? Did it happen to Catherine the Great? Could it happen to someone else? Did it happen to mad king Ludwig (to some extent)?

im not saying it did.

Im saying I’m interested in the subject and the thesis. 

Edited by Bevo
Posted
8 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Dude.  STOP.  ATTRIBUTING.  BENIGN MOTIVES.  TO THIS BULLSHIT.

They have no interest in a functioning, surviving Republic.  They want a dictatorship, enabled and empowered by the very rationale they advance.  They keep telling us that's what they want.  Why do you insist on not believing them when they repeatedly tell you exactly who they are?

I kinda feel like when someone tells me what they want to do that I might should believe them. We crossed the rubicon into fascism this year. That much is clear. Even though this is still more reminiscent of 1920's Italy, but fascism all the same. Will it end disastrously and fail? You better believe it will, but fascists do not have the ability to hold their movement together. The issue is that by the time it fails it will either have possibly cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens in the United States or it will have even more far-reaching effects around the globe. That's really the only suspense left.

  • Like 1
Posted
4 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Now read about the source for the widely accepted atrocities that he supposedly committed. Where was he when they occurred? Were the murderers truly under his command? Tell me about his adopted son. How did that happen?

Has a non native ever been falsely portrayed over the years? Did that happen to the beheaded French queen?

 

Have others been falsely portrayed over time due to power squabbles? Did it happen to Catherine the Great? Could it happen to someone else? Did it happen to mad king Ludwig (to some extent)?

im not saying it did.

Im saying I’m interested in the subject and the thesis. 

You are interested in conspiracies and things that are not true. To the ignore list you go where you belong. Engaging with people like you is not worth it, ever. Go both sides it with the king of that stuff on here. I'll never have to read it since they're also on ignore.

Posted
26 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

You are interested in conspiracies and things that are not true. To the ignore list you go where you belong. Engaging with people like you is not worth it, ever. Go both sides it with the king of that stuff on here. I'll never have to read it since they're also on ignore.

If studying possible historical misrepresentations makes me a conspiracy theorist then you can include me as one. But more likely it just makes you look close minded to history academicians. Funny that UFOs, Moon Landings, and all the other similar bullshit don't interest me. But I do consider you a truculent fool so I just put you on ignore as well. 

 

 

Posted
9 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

That is such bullshit.  if you think impeaching Trump was purely political and not legitimate action taken against the most deserving criminal President in History, you are a moron.

Everyone knows Trump is a lying, thieving, raping, pedophile piece of shit. 

But what Bevo presupposes is,

maybe he isn’t?

 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 2

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