New Rule: Bill Maher must deal in reality if intends to keep calling his show Real-Time.
On August 6, 2021, Real-Time with Bill Maher and guests Ben Shapiro and Malcolm Nance engaged in a discussion on Tucker Carlson’s trip to Hungary and interview with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. In under two and a half minutes, Bill Maher described Viktor Orban as “a real-world dictator,” compared Orban’s rise to power to Adolf Hitlers, and ruling an “Autocracy” and as “dangerous” and had gotten “rid of democracy.”
His guest Malcolm Nance made the point that Orban used his democratic election to “Dismantle Democracy” and also compared his rise to power to Adolf Hitler.
Neither Bill Maher, his guest, or his team however did their homework or apparently passed grade school history.
Adolph Hitler first tried to come to power by a military coup during the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. He was eventually elected in 1932 and sworn into office Jan. 30, 1933. A month later on February 27, 1933, the Reichstag was set on fire. The next day on February 28, 1933, the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending rule of law and democracy was issued. Over the next year and a half, Hitler centralized power into his own hands and ordered the Knight of the Long Knives – 24 hours of extra-judicial killings of political opponents.
Viktor Orban on the other hand was first elected as Prime Minister in 2010 and has been re-elected a number of times and is due to stand for election next year.
Maher however is not alone in his mud-slinging against Orban, the past several years he’s been a favorite whipping boy in media outlets claiming that Orban has transformed Hungary into an authoritarian dictatorship.
Media Trashing
February 10, 2018 ‘As West Fears the Rise of Autocrats, Hungary Shows What’s Possible’ by Patrick Kingsley, The New York Times.
December 25, 2018 ‘On the Surface, Hungary Is a Democracy. But What Lies Underneath?’ By Patrick Kingsley The New York Times.
April 2, 2020 ’The EU Watches as Hungary Kills Democracy’ By Yasmeen Serhan was published in The Atlantic.
May 6, 2020, ‘Hungary: The First Dictatorship in the EU?’ By Jamie Dettmer in Voice of America.
September 24, 2020 ‘How Orban broke the EU – and got away with it’ by Lili Bayer in Politico.
On August 10, 2021 The New Yorker ran an interview with Princeton Academic Kim Lane Schepple touted as “an expert on Hungarian politics and constitutional law.” During this interview, Schepple argued that Viktor Orban is “the ultimate twenty-first-century dictator.”
This was an interesting analogy considering for years that honor has been awarded to Vladimir Putin (Russia), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iran), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela). More bizarre, while proclaiming Orban “a dictator,” Schepple discussed the opposition arguing:
“One of the ways that Orbán governed was by positioning himself in the middle of the Hungarian spectrum, at least as his rhetoric goes. For the opposition to defeat him, they had to unite all of the other political parties. There is the Socialist Party, which is the former Communist Party and now has no Communists in it. Anybody who was a former Communist under the old regime is in Orbán’s party, not in the Socialist Party. And then there are some liberal parties, and there’s a little Green Party. And then there’s the former neo-Nazis, Jobbik, who have moved a bit toward the center. In order for the opposition to win, given the way the election system is structured, all those parties have to work together. And after ten years of Orbán, they’ve finally decided to.”
But Autocracies and Authoritarian Dictatorships don’t fear losing elections and don’t voluntarily submit themselves to “searching test of popularity.”
Unfortunately for Schepple, Maher and Nance Objective Standards of dictatorships, especially for what is an Authoritarian Dictatorship, do exist and Orban doesn’t meet any of them.
Kirkpatrick Doctrine
In the 1960s, Ayn Rand offered a generalized description of dictatorships to Playboy Magazine:
“There are four characteristics which brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule—executions without trial or with a mock trial, for political offenses—the nationalization or expropriation of private property—and censorship. A country guilty of these outrages forfeits any moral prerogatives, any claim to national rights or sovereignty, and becomes an outlaw.”
Unlike Maher, Nance, or Schepple, Rand herself was a political refugee who had lived as a member of a repressed minority under two dictatorships – first as a Jew in Tsarist Russia and then as a class enemy in the Soviet Union (Rand’s father had owned a local pharmacy in St. Petersburg making him bourgeoisie).
In 1979, after the Carter Administration’s failed Human Rights Foreign Policy, Georgetown political scientist Dr. Jeane Kirkpatrick published Dictatorships and Double Standards demarking authoritarian dictatorships and how they differed from totalitarian dictatorships. Kirkpatrick’s analysis of the Shah of Iran and Samoza’s Nicaragua noted:
“Both these small nations were led by men who had not been selected by free elections, who recognized no duty to submit themselves to searching tests of popular acceptability. Both did tolerate limited opposition, including opposition newspapers and political parties, but both were also confronted by radical, violent opponents bent on social and political revolution. Both rulers, therefore, sometimes invoked martial law to arrest, imprison, exile, and occasionally, it was alleged, torture their opponents. Both relied for public order on police forces whose personnel were said to be too harsh, too arbitrary, and too powerful. Each had what the American press termed “private armies,” which is to say, armies pledging their allegiance to the ruler rather than the “constitution” or the “nation” or some other impersonal entity.
. . . neither sought to reform his society in the light of an abstract idea of social justice or political virtue. Neither attempted to alter significantly the distribution of goods, status, or power . . .”
Kirkpatrick further demarked that the difference between Authoritarians Totalitarians were:
“There are, however, systemic differences between traditional and revolutionary autocracies that have a predictable effect on their degree of repressiveness. Generally speaking, traditional autocrats tolerate social inequities, brutality, and poverty while revolutionary autocracies create them.
Traditional autocrats leave in place existing allocations of wealth, power, status, and other resources which in most traditional societies favor an affluent few and maintain masses in poverty. But they worship traditional gods and observe traditional taboos. They do not disturb the habitual rhythms of work and leisure, habitual places of residence, habitual patterns of family and personal relations. Because the miseries of traditional life are familiar, they are bearable to ordinary people who, growing up in the society, learn to cope, as children born to untouchables in India acquire the skills and attitudes necessary for survival in the miserable roles they are destined to fill. Such societies create no refugees.
Precisely the opposite is true of revolutionary Communist regimes. They create refugees by the million because they claim jurisdiction over the whole life of the society and make demands for change that so violate internalized values and habits that inhabitants flee by the tens of thousands in the remarkable expectation that their attitudes, values, and goals will “fit” better in a foreign country than in their native land.”
Further, the Authoritarian Dictatorships that the United States allied with to contain Soviet expansion during the Cold War consisted of men like Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines), Augusto Pinochet (Chile), FRETNE (El Salvador), Anastasio Somoza Debayle (Nicaragua), Jorge Rafael Videla (Argentina) and Francisco Franco (Spain).
Viktor Orban to date meets none of the criteria and resembles none of these men.
Hungary’s Real Record
After seeing this mudslinging I decided to check Hungary’s record. To be sure, Hungary has been denounced by multiple “human rights” monitors, but a closer look reveals discrepancies in these criticisms.
Hungary has executed no political opponents, dissidents or criminals because Hungary doesn’t have the Death Penalty and hasn’t had it since 1990.
Hungary’s received positive marks from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. According to the Committee’s Executive Summary:
“The co-operation received by the delegation throughout the visit was excellent. Moreover, a number of the CPT’s previous recommendations had been taken into account, in particular as regards procedural safeguards against police ill-treatment and contact with the outside world for prisoners. The Hungarian authorities also appeared to have taken action to address the long-standing issue of prison overcrowding and its negative consequences for the daily life of prisoners. The Committee trusts that these efforts will be pursued actively in the coming months. At the same time, the CPT considers that vigilance is required as regards the manner in which persons in police custody and prisoners are treated and prisoners serving (whole) life sentences or very long terms are handled. The Committee also considers it important to pursue efforts to de-institutionalize social care home residents.
As regards immigration issues, the delegation found that nothing had been done since the CPT’s 2017 ad hoc visit to put in place effective safeguards to prevent ill-treatment of persons returned by Hungarian police officers through the border fence towards Serbia. It was also clear from the information provided by the Hungarian authorities during the 2018 visit that there are still no legal remedies capable of offering such persons effective protection against their forced removal and/or refoulement, including chain refoulement.
The CPT’s delegation had follow-up talks on this subject with senior officials, including as regards the inadequacy of the
Government’s response to the CPT’s report on its 2017 visit. The report emphasizes that the outright refusal of the Hungarian authorities to take action in the light of key recommendations made by the CPT may prompt the Committee to open a procedure under Article 10, paragraph 2, of the Convention.”
And in terms of co-operation:
“C. Co-operation
- The co-operation received by the delegation throughout the visit, from both the national authorities and staff at the establishments visited, was excellent. The delegation enjoyed rapid access to all the establishments it wished to visit (including those which had not been notified in advance), was able to interview in private persons deprived of their liberty and was provided with the information it needed to accomplish its task.
The CPT is also pleased to note that the management of police and prison establishments visited took immediate action in the course of the visit in order to address the delegation’s concerns about the state of health and/or conditions of detention of individual persons or provided appropriate assurances to the delegation that all possible preventive measures would be taken. This concerned in particular the need for a thorough assessment of a detained person’s medical condition at the holding facility of the National Bureau of Investigation in Budapest (see paragraph 36), the situation of a prisoner with reduced mobility in Unit 1 of Budapest Remand Prison (see paragraph 104) and the physical or mental health of individual prisoners who were subjected to solitary confinement as a disciplinary sanction or on security grounds in Block B of Budapest Strict and Medium Security Regime Prison (see paragraph 107).
Further, the CPT would like to express its appreciation for the assistance provided before, during and after the visit by the CPT’s liaison officer, Mr. András Szücs, from the Office of the Prosecutor General.
- As regards the follow-up given to the CPT’s recommendations made in previous visit reports, the information gathered during the 2018 visit suggests that measures have been undertaken in a number of areas. For instance, procedural safeguards against police ill-treatment have been strengthened in respect of criminal suspects and contact with the outside world for inmates serving whole life sentences and other prisoners has been improved.
The Hungarian authorities also appeared to have been active to address the long-standing issue of prison overcrowding and its negative consequences for the daily life of prisoners. This matter has been particularly scrutinized by other bodies in recent years, notably by the European Court of Human Rights.2 Although this matter was not an area of focus during the 2018 periodic visit, the representatives of the Hungarian government and prison governors met by the delegation showed strong determination in meeting the objective of a “zero overcrowding” in prisons in the future. In this context, it should be noted that the official capacities of all the prison establishments have been reviewed in the light of the CPT’s standards of at least 4 m² of living space per prisoner in multi-occupancy cells (without counting the in-cell toilets/sanitary annexes in the calculation).3 It also emerged from the information provided to the delegation that the prison population significantly dropped since the previous periodic visit in 2013.4 The delegation could see for itself – in Budapest Strict and Medium Security Regime Prison in particular – that a lot was being done to offer a sufficient amount of living space for each prisoner and to improve material conditions in the cells. The CPT trusts that these efforts will be actively pursued in the months to come.”
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 0 Journalists have been killed, imprisoned, or missing in Hungary.
Hungary’s current constitution adopted in 2011, a year after Orban rose to power, states:
“1. Hungary shall be an independent, democratic state governed by the rule of law.
- Hungary’s form of government shall be that of a republic.
- Type of government envisioned
- The source of public power shall be the people.
- The people shall exercise its power through its elected representatives or, in exceptional cases, in a direct manner.”
By contrast within the first decade of coming to power Vladimir Putin (2000 – 2010), saw the high-profile assassination of Journalist Anna Politkovskaya and dozens of journalists murdered, imprisoned or missing. An entire Wikipedia Page is dedicated to the seemingly endless string of Journalists murdered in Russia Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko was assassinated by polonium-210 poisoning believed to be instigated by Vladimir Putin. In his second decade of power (we are currently approaching his third) opponents have been murdered, had their children kidnapped as hostages, or imprisoned. Putin repeatedly engaged in acts of aggression against Ukraine and annexed Crimea. The Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch (largely a puppet of first the Soviet Union and now Putin) abandoned the Patriarch of Constantinople to the mercy of Turkey, after the latter recognized the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Putin has been accused of War Crimes, Torture and Kidnapping.
Still, the mainstream media continues its narrative of accusations against Viktor Orban as an authoritarian dictator and comparable to Adolf Hitler.
At present Hungary is rated 69/100 by Freedom House.
Equally interesting is that only across the border, Adolf Hitler’s homeland of Austria was rated 93/100 by Freedom House (and ten points higher than the United States which only received 83/100 score). Yet in it’s last visit the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment noted:
“During its periodic visit to Austria, the CPT’s delegation reviewed the measures taken by the Austrian authorities in response to various recommendations made by the Committee after its previous visits. In this connection, particular attention was paid to the treatment of persons detained by the police and the conditions under which irregular migrants were held in police detention centers. The delegation also examined various issues related to prisons, including the situation of juvenile prisoners and inmates subjected to court-ordered forensic placement (Massnahmenvollzug). In addition, it carried out a targeted visit to a psychiatric hospital in order to examine the use of means of restraint (freiheitsbeschränkende Massnahmen).
Throughout the visit, the delegation received very good co-operation from both the national authorities and staff at the establishments visited. However, at Otto Wagner Psychiatric Hospital, the delegation repeatedly faced major obstacles to gaining access to medical files and interviewing patients in private.
Police custody
As was the case during the 2009 visit, the vast majority of detained persons interviewed by the delegation indicated that they had been treated correctly whilst in police custody. However, the delegation did receive several allegations of excessive use of force at the time of apprehension (such as kicks and/or punches after the person concerned had been brought under control); some allegations of excessive use of force by police officers were also received from psychiatric patients who had been transferred against their will to Otto Wagner Psychiatric Hospital. Further, a few allegations were received from detained persons that they had been subjected to physical ill-treatment or threats during police questioning.
The CPT stresses the need for the Austrian authorities to remain vigilant and to pursue their efforts to prevent police ill-treatment. In particular, it recommends that police officers throughout Austria be reminded, at regular intervals, that all forms of ill-treatment of persons deprived of their liberty are not acceptable and that no more force than is strictly necessary should be used when carrying out an apprehension. The CPT also recalls that an essential component of any strategy to prevent ill-treatment lies in the diligent examination by the competent authorities of all complaints of ill-treatment brought before them and, where appropriate, the imposition of a suitable penalty. In this connection, the Committee expresses some doubts as to whether investigations carried out by investigators of the Federal Bureau of Anti-Corruption (BAK) – and even more so those carried out by criminal police officers of the regional police headquarters – against other police officers can be seen to be fully independent and impartial.
As regards the implementation in practice of the fundamental safeguards against ill-treatment (namely the right to have the fact of one’s detention notified to a relative or another trusted person and the rights of access to a lawyer and to a doctor), the report gives a generally positive assessment. Nevertheless, the CPT expresses concern about the fact that certain long-standing recommendations regarding fundamental safeguards have still not been implemented. In particular, it is not acceptable that many juveniles (some as young as 14 years of age) are still subjected to police questioning and are requested to sign statements without the benefit of having either a lawyer or a trusted person present. Further, the situation had not improved as regards access to a lawyer for detained persons who could not afford to pay for a lawyer themselves. It remained the case that such persons could have a telephone conversation with a lawyer free of charge through the 24-hour hotline of the Bar Association, but could not usually benefit from the presence of a lawyer during police questioning.
In this regard, the CPT emphasizes once again that allowing detained persons to benefit from the presence of a lawyer during police questioning is an important safeguard against ill-treatment; this safeguard should be available to all detained persons, irrespective of their financial situation. The Committee also reiterates previous recommendations aimed at guaranteeing the confidentiality of conversations between detained persons and their lawyers and ensuring that the right of detained persons to have a lawyer present during police questioning is never denied.”
Further, Austria has seen the rise of an equally right-wing politician Sebastian Kurz.
Considering these stark contrasts where is the foundation for what appear to be baseless accusations against Viktor Orban?
Concerning Behaviors
There are of course concerning behaviors in Hungary – consolidation of Hungarian media into a few hands, Parliament granting Orban’s Ministry the power to rule by decree during Medical Emergencies at the height of Covid last year (power was revoked a few months later, but the government maintained the power to declare Medical Emergencies).
According to the aforementioned, The New Yorker article Orban has resorted to blacklisting opposition and opponents through economic starvation.
While these are all legitimate concerns they are no more, and a great deal less concerning than what has been happening here in the United States where 90% of all media is owned and controlled by six companies, and Governor’s like Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, and Andrew Cuomo seized power to rule by decree without the consent of their state’s legislatures.
These behaviors and methods are concerning, but the concerns about the media conglomeration and blacklisting don’t make their way into several watchdog reports and Covid Emergency powers (that were granted and revoked by the Hungarian Parliament) were only within the past year (after a decade of Viktor Orban holding political power).
What does make its way into report after report is Orban’s rejection of feminism, the LGBTQ+ agenda, immigration, and restricting external actors funding and influencing Hungary’s internal situation.
Hungary Report
Amnesty International’s summarized report states:
“Women and transgender people were discriminated against in law and in practice. Asylum-seekers were refused safe entry at borders and were expelled. Changes to laws to contain COVID-19 restricted freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. The government continued to undermine judicial independence and public confidence in the judiciary.”
Translation –
Hungary voted to not implement the LGBTQ+ and Feminist Agenda by State power and not have Open Borders.
But Hungary’s Constitution explicitly establishes Equal Rights for Men and Women prohibition of collective expulsions:
“Article XIV
- No Hungarian citizen may be expelled from the territory of Hungary and every Hungarian citizen may return from abroad at any time. Any foreign citizen staying in the territory of Hungary may only be expelled by a lawful decision. Collective expulsion shall be prohibited.”
Article XV
- Women and men shall have equal rights.”
However, last year Hungary passed laws giving clearer definitions of legal terms, including on Transgenderism stating:
“biological sex determined by primary sex characteristics and chromosomes,” and “The mother is a woman, and the father is a man.”
Marriage is also between a man and a woman and only married couples may adopt.
Abortion is regulated by Hungary’s Human Life Amendment and not permitted after 12 weeks for non-therapeutic reasons stating:
Article II: Human dignity shall be inviolable. Every human being shall have the right to life and human dignity; embryonic and fetal life shall be subject to protection from the moment of conception.”
By contrast, just across the border Austria’s report from Amnesty International specifically focuses on Austria using Covid-19 to actively curb Freedom of Movement, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Expression, Excessive use of Force, Repression of Muslim associations etc . . . Still Austria is generally viewed as a Free Nation and her Chancellor is not labeled the next Adolf Hilter.
Austria on the other hand fully institutionalizes the LGBTQ+ Agenda and Austria’s right-wing Chancellor Sebastian Kurz co-signed a public letter dragging Viktor Orban for these new changes.
Conception of State
The real issue at stake in Hungary is the reason and role of the State in society. Hungary, which doesn’t in fact even remotely meet the conditions of autocracy or dictatorship, is being pilloried because its conception of Government is representative, of the people and that the State’s existence is for the protection of the Hungarian people, culture, language, social values, and descendants. The Left-Wing critics on the other hand conceive the State’s reason for existence to mandate and coerce traditional societies to transform into whatever vision their particular movement conceives.
Simply put, Hungary is being accused of being an authoritarian dictatorship because it refuses to behave like a totalitarian one.
Hungary refuses to alter, transform or mandate Hungarian society follow the decrees of the LGBTQ+ and Feminist Movements like Austria does, therefore Viktor Orban is an Autocrat while Sebastian Kurz is merely a right-wing politician.
This is a repeated trend that is bringing real fascism to the world again.
Much like implementing communism economically during the 20th Century, in today’s political scene the LGBTQ+ and Feminist Agendas are used as boosters to pad Human Rights and Democracy records, even of countries that are ruthless dictatorships. Who can forget that Columbia University invited then Iranian dictator Ahmadinejad to speak in 2007. Columbia University’s President tried to save face by then being rude and calling him names (no explanation for why he extended the invitation in the first place). According to Columbia Magazine:
“For many students, personal objections to Ahmadinejad’s religious fundamentalism and antiliberal policies were secondary to concerns that his vilification would increase the risk of a war with Iran.” . . . He parried Bollinger’s provocative introduction with a gentle lecture on basic courtesy, and won some applause by accusing the U.S. of hypocrisy and double standards with regard to nuclear power, terrorist labeling, military aggression, and the plight of the Palestinians. But when asked during the question-and-answer period about the executions of homosexuals in Iran, Ahmadinejad replied through an interpreter that, “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.”
The remark drew derisive laughter and boos from much of the audience and became the most talked-about of all his quotes. Some students felt that this denial of fact did more to discredit Ahmadinejad than anything else, validating the notion that free speech, among its other virtues, permits an objectionable speaker to hang himself with his own words.”
One of the worst dictators in the world during the 2000s received applause at an American University on American soil, with the main objection not being his torture and murder of Iranians, but his anti-gay views.
More recently Netflix struck a deal with Saudi Arabia to be allowed to show LGBT content in the Islamo-Fascist Kingdom in exchange for censoring political criticism of the House of Saudi. Yes, criticism of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was removed from Netflix’s platform so Queer Eye for the Straight Guy could be shown.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is quoted as saying:
“It is a troubling compromise, it is not something we approached easily or lightly. But, on balance, we think it’s a good move.”
GAVIN NEWSOM’S CALIFORNIA
This trend of giving real Fascist and Proto-Fascist States a pass on actual violations of freedom and human rights – providing it implements Left-Wing Social Engineering and Goals such as the LGBTQ+ agenda – while hurdling baseless smears at Democratically Elected Representative Governments defending traditional societies is on full display currently in California.
On April 9, 2021, the same Bill Maher that compared Viktor Orban to Adolf Hitler, had a melt-down about the fact that two million voters (well above the Constitutionally mandated number of voters required) signed a petition to recall Gavin Newsom. From the same platform that Maher denounced ‘autocracy’ ‘dictatorship’ and ‘authoritarianism’ Maher blasted voters:
“We’ve got to stop. We should not be recalling this governor,” affirmed Maher. “It’s one of those stupid things California does. It’s going to be a circus. Every unemployed actor in the state is going to be running. Caitlyn Jenner is running!”
“We have too much democracy in this state,” complained the host . . .”
These comments didn’t age particularly well when it was reported two weeks later that Newsom had ordered the California National Guard to have F-15 Fighters ready to use against Americans protesting Newsom’s power grab in California, in the same manner, that they have been used in Afghanistan and Iraq. These revelations should have resulted in Newsom’s removal from office and arrest – but they haven’t. To date, there are no reports of Viktor Orban ordering the Hungarian Air Force to mobilize against the Hungarian People.
This is only the latest outrage by a Governor who has been in power for two and a half years, was Lt. Governor for several years before that, and Mayor of San Francisco. Currently, California is a one-party state. The California Democrat Party holds Supermajorities in both houses of the California State Legislature. The Assembly has 60 Democrats and 19 Republicans, the Senate has 30 Democrats and 9 Republicans. They control the Governorship and by extension most of the Judiciary.
California has been replacing legal American Citizens with foreign populations that are illegal and do not have the right of citizenship – therefore inflating its census count, its seats in Congress and Federal Funding, while shrinking the number of eligible voters.
California uses mail-in-voting where elections are conducted in part by mail, without poll watchers or oversight.
Press freedom has been severely curtailed in California.
July 8, 2020, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sent Newsom a letter denouncing California law enforcement violence against journalists.
Radio Television Digital News Association likewise has condemned attacks on Journalists by Law Enforcement in California. In one violent clash, a KPCC reporter covering a protest was tear-gassed and shot in the throat.
Currently proposed laws to further protect reporters in California from police violence and arrest continue to languish in the State Legislature and new amendments have been introduced to allow Police Commanders the authority to decide for journalists what is and is not something that may be reported on.
According to the letter in the past year:
“at least three dozen cases within the past year alone of journalists being detained, arrested or injured by law enforcement officers while those journalists lawfully were performing their duties.”
On September 23, 2020, The Committee to Protect Journalists demanded California investigate California-based tech company Sand-Vine for allowing its software to be used to violate press freedom in other companies.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has sued multiple California Public Universities and Community Colleges for violating the constitutional rights of students and also by the Alliance Defending Freedom.
In terms of using state power to protect corruption, Newsom’s office was reported as protecting PG&E after their actions resulted in the death of 84 people.
During the Covid-19 emergency last year Newsom began ruling by decree, changing laws by unilateral edict on a variety of issues, which neither his party in the State Legislature or the California Supreme Court have been willing to curtail. In the past year, the United States Supreme Court has more than five times declared his decrees unconstitutional, prompting the irate justices to note that in a year:
“This is the fifth time the court has summarily rejected the Ninth Circuit’s analysis of California’s covid restrictions on religious exercise,”
The American Civil Liberties Union ended up suing multiple California municipal governments for illegal curfews and unlawful assembly laws. They also sued to overturn the only law in the nation where law enforcement can sue individuals that make misconduct complaints against them – a statute that completely suppresses whistleblowing.
During the Covid-19 Crisis, Newsom shuttered businesses, commerce, and employment of millions (provided of course they weren’t his friends) and then was so negligent that the State of California paid $31 BILLION USD to criminals – all the while legitimate claims languished for months and many have still not been paid. Additionally, this year he was caught misleading the public about the real extent of wildfire fire-prevention efforts placing lives at risk.
When confronted at a recent press conference about California’s many problems, Newsom whose political career spans since the turn of the Millennium, responded with having a tantrum about “everybody outside this state is bitching about this state” flipping out on reporters. Newsom even whined that he’d been taking “a lot” from the press for months.
Newsom failed to grasp that this might have something to do with him shuttering the state and then violating his own Covid protocols to attend a dinner at the French Laundry Restaurant with wealthy donors and lobbyists. He did it again this year when he sent his kids to a summer camp that had emailed them they would not enforce mask mandates and then only yanked them after photos went public again. Worse, Newsom then attacked critics for ‘weaponizing’ his son who was at home crying after being taken out of summer camp In full display of the narcissism and elitism that characterizes his actions, Newsom first failed to grasp that that is exactly what he did to millions of Californian kids and their families and second the reason his son is at home crying is that his Dad is a megalomaniac who put his career over his own son’s needs.
As one irate Californian parent pointed out in a public letter to Newsom in the California Globe:
“These are the words of California Governor Gavin Newsom July 28, 2021, on CBS News, following the exposé of his son’s no-mask summer basketball camp.
Here is the reality, Governor Newsom: nobody is weaponizing your kids. People are questioning YOUR decisions, not your child’s. Nobody faults your son, nobody is blaming him for anything.
We’re blaming YOU.
YOU chose to send him to a camp where the staff and children were running around maskless. YOU received the email where it clearly states that the camp will not be enforcing mask policy. And yet you sent him all the while demanding our kids remain masked up at home for the last 16 months.
I don’t know which is worse – sending your offspring to a maskless camp in the first place, while clamping down again on the rest of us, or pulling him out so he can come home and cry with you while watching the news. Nice parenting. No long terms effects, I’m sure, nothing to see here, move along.
Who’s been weaponizing kids, Governor Newsom?”
Even Cal-Matters acknowledged on August 2, 2021 ’Newsom sometimes his own worst enemy.‘
And Newsom and his allies’ reaction to the lawful recall election which over two million voters signed petitions for has been equally autocratic.
In January, Newsom and the California Democrat Party received backlash when they characterized a lawful searching test of popularity as “a coup.”
Eighty-Eight-year-old Senator Diane Feinstein stated in an interview:
“It can go both ways,” Feinstein said of the recall. “I think it’ll go the positive way for this governor. I think it’s a misuse of recall, and recall is really a gross abuse of public power. You don’t want the individual to even complete their term.”
Apparently, this senile Senator didn’t get the memo – the majority of polled voters don’t want Newsom to complete his term and have very specific reasons.
After the recall campaign qualified, the California Democrat Party immediately stepped in to change the recall rules (including election dates). This bill was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom to give himself a leg up in the election.
Newsom’s allies (and employees of the University of California) have resorted to a smear campaign of delegitimizing a lawful and constitutional election in the press with the help of The New York Times.
The Washington Monthly’s delusional writers characterized it as:
“After a near-perfect political career, the Golden State Governor is fighting a recall–and a California political system that can devour a governor.”
More recently Newsom attacked Larry Elder for stating:
“We have the phenomenon of yet another possibility that we may face more mandates including face masks and vaccines. If I become governor, when I become governor assuming there are mandates for masks and statewide mandates for vaccines, they will be suspended right away. This is America. We have freedom in America. Virtually anyone in California who wants to be vaccinated can do so,” said Elder.”
More recently, instead of dealing with any of the problems and governing, Newsom went for a photo op of himself ‘cleaning’ a homeless camp. He gave a politically correct sound bite:
“What you see here is unacceptable,” Newsom said. “We had a big fire here. This is a high safety risk, a public health risk. There are hundreds and hundreds of rats running around. People should not live in conditions like this and we’ve accepted it too long.”
He also failed to explain why these camps and conditions exist three years into his Governorship and after ten years of his combined Governorship and Lt. Governorship.
Bill Maher has complained about how California, the nation’s most regulated state, imposes draconian restrictions on every aspect of daily life while allowing Big Agriculture to starve the state of water and even threatened to leave California for good this year. But what Maher doesn’t seem to get is that yes, this is the fault of the current Governor nearly three years in office.
Viktor Orban on the other hand has not thrown tantrums about elections and his Premiership of Hungary appears to be far more successful and less scandal-ridden than Newsom’s Governorship of California. There are currently no reports of Orban starving Hungarians or causing mass wildfires across Europe endangering lives by diverting the Danube to benefit the shareholders of Nestle and Coca-Cola.
So why does Newsom get a pass for such an atrocious Governorship on American soil?
He is a high-profile political figure advancing these agendas – often by decree and in violation of duly passed laws by representatives of the people.
LEFT-WING SOCIAL ENGINEERING FASCISTS PASS
Despite being one of the worst Governors in recent history, Newsom has made a name for himself as a politician who flouts the rule of law to push abortion rights and the LGBTQ+ agenda.
In 2004, Newsom illegally issued (by decree) same-sex marriage licenses in San Francisco in violation of California and Federal Law. In 2019, he announced his intention of building an LGBTQ+ inclusive administration in California. In 2020 Newsom made it law that Men who identify as women are housed with real female inmates. He has banned state-sponsored travel to states that don’t implement these policies. He supports abolishing sex and gender as a matter of biological existence on death certificates in favor of psychosis.
In 2019, during the rash of abortion bans throughout the country to challenge Roe, Newsom proudly declared that California would be a happy provider of illegal abortions for women. The same year he required every University campus to provide college women with access to the abortion pill to induce miscarriages for toilet abortions.
Newsom’s wife is not even referred to as ‘First Lady’ (and considering her politics this is about right) but instead as ‘First Partner’ (again considering her politics is about right). He is according to Politico a “self-described feminist” and rails against toxic masculinity and men in general in gun control.
Any amount of outrage, violations of freedoms and human rights, corruption or other abuse is acceptable if the politician agrees to push through Left-Wing Social Engineering voluntarily or involuntarily.
We saw this with President Bill Clinton and the Feminist Movement rallying around him when he was accused of rape, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation of the female White House Staff, lying under oath, and use of the IRS and FBI to retaliate against political opponents and sexual victims.
We are seeing it again now.
In the past month, Apple announced that it would shed consumer privacy and begin scanning every photo in your phone without your consent looking for Child Pornography. Why Apple has suddenly decided to brand itself as pedophile’s preferred platform, or label its 900 million users worldwide as child pornographers until proven innocent is unknown. But more than 7,000 privacy experts have signed a letter denouncing this new feature and its possible and probably exploitation by autocracies worldwide. As Edward Snowden commented on the new feature in the new IOS update:
“Apple 2021: We compare from your photographs and iCloud with a government blacklist and call the cops about it.”
This is even more chilling considering only a couple of months ago search Bing deleted all photos of Tank Man during the 1989 Pro-Democracy Movement from its internet users. This was later chalked up to being “human error.”
Even more so now that The New York Times has reported Apple’s new relationship with the Communist Government in mainland China.
Again it’s also not surprising.
Al Gore, Bill Clinton’s former Vice-President, is a member of Apple’s Board and this technology measure was first proposed back in the 1990s. The July 1998 edition of The Phyllis Schlafly Report dedicated an entire issue to Al Gore’s anti-privacy technology push:
“But the Clinton Administration opposes our right of encryption. Vice President Al Gore, Attorney General Janet Reno, and FBI Director Louis Freeh, are all demanding the authority to read our encrypted messages. They believe that to be sure you are not breaking the law, the Federal Government should have access to all your private files and messages at any time and without your knowledge.
That would be tantamount to giving the government the power to steam open all the letters we send through the mail. That’s only done in totalitarian countries. No free nation has ever tried to snoop on the content of private messages — until the Clinton Administration. . .
When you put messages in code, whether it’s an old-fashioned code written on paper or a newfangled code concocted on a computer, there must be a “key” to enable you and the recipients of your communications to read them. The Clinton Administration is demanding access to all encryption keys through a system called “key recovery” or “key escrow.” Under one scheme, all Americans would be required to deposit the keys to their software files and communications with a “third party” who would rapidly comply with government agency requests without telling us. As an alternate, the Clinton Administration is pressuring the industry to make it impossible for Americans to buy any encryption system that doesn’t have key recovery built into it.”
But then the 1990s saw the government diving headfirst into real Totalitarianism in spying on every American and building databases of our personal information. Again Al Gore was leading this initiative and he is now on the board at Apple. Schlafly commented:
“On July 12, Al Gore announced that the Administration will continue to push for the adoption of a massive public key infrastructure to give the government access to all encrypted communications. In a blatant bid for a police-state surveillance society, Gore warned about “the dangers of unregulated encryption technology.”
Stopping the exploitation of technology’s invasion of privacy is now the justification for a tool that will exploit technology to invade privacy. After all, a tool that can scan your Iphone for photos of Child Pornography could with a few modifications easily collect images of children from your phone. It was only in 2019 that Facebook’s “view as a specific person” tool to increase user privacy was exploited by a hacker to steal login information for 50 million accounts for two years.
Then there’s the fact that censors that banned books in the 20th century only went after obscene materials to “protect society” until the Communist Party came to power and protecting society included “counter-revolutionary” books including the Bible.
In 2018, Apple announced it was housing Chinese iCloud Keys in China. Reuters reported the consequence being:
“That means Chinese authorities will no longer have to use the U.S. courts to seek information on iCloud users and can instead use their own legal system to ask Apple to hand over iCloud data for Chinese users, legal experts said.”
Only last year China prosecuted two businessmen for selling audio versions of the Bible in a crackdown to “eradicate pornography and illegal publications.” The Tech Transparency Project investigation reported that Apple has been deeply involved in censorship in China by removing 3,200 apps from the App Store.
But all that is happening at Apple and its transformation into Police Informant is okay because Tim Cook is gay, because Apple is launching a new Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, because NPR and survivors laud this new form of fascism and only pedophiles would oppose it.
FALSE EQUIVALENCE SMEAR FORCE
Meanwhile, the False Equivalence Smear Force of these Fascist Loving Liberals resort to gaslighting the public in general by bad faith comparisons any defender of traditional society or even a dissident voice as the next coming of Hitler.
In 1978, Phil Donahue embarrassed himself by trying to equate Ayn Rand’s touchiness with what she saw as a heckler during a TV appearance with her criticisms of Islamo-Fascists in the Middle-East conflict with Israel as equally intolerant. In this verbal skirmish, Donahue ended up on the receiving end of a Randian roundhouse when she pointed out that she doesn’t murder or terrorize people she doesn’t like. The Arabs were. Donahue’s characterization, so quickly blown out of the water, wasn’t just ill-thought-out – it was downright stupid.
More recently, Season 3 of Mrs. Maisel saw the late Phyllis Schlafly was smeared in an episode as an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist atomic bomb-loving psychopath running for Congress. Amy Sherman-Palladino (the creator of the show) is either to stupid or to malicious (and probably both) to grasp that Schlafly’s criticism of “New York Kingmakers in the Republican Party” were directed at the very rich, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Nelson Rockefeller and his bid to be President, not Jews. Sherman-Palladino appears to not be too knowledgeable about recent history despite creating a show about it – Nixon was a Liberal Republican as even The New York Times noted in 2012.
She likewise fails to grasp or appreciate that Schlafly was a Rosie the Riveter during WWII working in a munitions factory, and as Schlafly stated publicly in 1995 her view on the atomic bomb was that:
“For the men who fought World War II, the atom bomb was a lifesaver in every meaning of the word. Dropping the bomb on Hiroshima meant the difference between life and death to hundreds of thousands of our best and brightest young men.
Dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima meant that those fine young American men could come home, grow up to live normal lives, marry and raise families, instead of dying a tortured death 5,000 miles away. The lucky ones would have identifiable graves.
What the Hiroshima bomb accomplished was to preempt General George Marshall’s horrendous plan to defeat Japan: an island-by-island invasion at a projected cost of a half-million American deaths.”
For the record: Amy Sherman-Palladino is a Generation Xer, born twenty-one years after WW2 in 1966. The lives of American men that came before her don’t seem to be her problem. Sherman-Palladino also appears to forget that the Atomic Bomb was being used against the Axis Powers and that Imperial Japan was just as racist and genocidal as Nazi Germany, in some cases more so. The Rape of Nanking doesn’t generate as much press as the holocaust because it isn’t fashionable, but that doesn’t make it any less horrific or the Empire of Japan any more deserving of having its war crimes whitewashed.
It also doesn’t make Phyllis Schlafly “a monster” for preferring to see the atomic bomb used against the nation that originated those atrocities, instead of sending American teenage boys with a gun to die in foreign graves.
Dr. Jeane Kirkpatrick earned the hatred of Left-Winger’s everywhere for having the audacity to call them the thugs and murderers that they truly are and critique liberalism for romanticizing them at the expense of the people suffering under them. When she died, World Socialist Web Site billed their obituary for her as ‘Jeane Kirkpatrick: from “social democrat” to champion of death squads’ claiming:
“Having begun her politically conscious life as a self-described socialist, Kirkpatrick ended up an advocate and apologist for military dictators, right-wing death squads and CIA-backed terrorists.”
Kirkpatrick’s crime was pointing out that since 1917, Revolutionary movements of “the people” had waged war against traditional societies and committed worse offenses than even authoritarian dictatorships. Men like Anastasio Samoza certainly were murderers who tortured and disappeared critics and political opponents but didn’t try to remake Nicaragua into some sort of revolutionary society. The Sandinistas, on the other hand, were exporting Soviet-exported totalitarianism to Latin America and were less likely to allow it to evolve into a Democracy.
Viewing Revolutionary Dictatorships, that view a traditional society as something to destroy, as less of a threat than Authoritarian dictatorships, that merely seek to dominate the political apparatus, is not death squad championing. It’s dealing in reality.
Incidentally, after losing power in 1990 during the collapse of the Soviet Union it appeared Nicaragua was shed of them for good. This proved illusionary. In 2006 Daniel Ortega was elected President with the Sandinista Party and immediately returned to dismantling democracy. 2014, El Pais reports ‘Massacre of Sandinistas in Nicaragua unleashes a campaign of repression: Police and military launch a witch hunt in the communities of the opposition’; In 2017 CulturalSurvival.org reported ‘Sandinistas Slaughter Indigenous Yatama Party in Nicaraguan Elections’; The Post-Gazette reported ‘Death squads have returned to Nicaragua’, last year they were actively involved in Covid denial and organized a super-spreader pro-Sandinista rally. Two days ago (August 14, 2021) The New York Post reported ’Nicaraguan police raid offices of an opposition newspaper.’ Even Democratic Socialists of America came out against the Ortega Government in 2019 provided of course that it didn’t involve the United States of America “as the dominant imperial power in Latin America for decades” doesn’t provide any aid to the Pro-Democracy Movement.
Again, none of this has happened in Hungary under Viktor Orban. There are no death squads roaming the streets. Journalists are not being disappeared. Elections still happen on a regular schedule with the possibility of Orban losing and accepting that loss of office like he did from 2002 – 2010.
CONCLUSION
Bill Maher has billed himself for years as a voice of reason and real-talk. His show’s format is essentially a foul-mouth 21st-century version of Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver, in which he dishes nuggets of wisdom in a paternal fashion to his audience.
But what Maher isn’t dishing is reality when he makes these comparisons between a man who has less power than the Mayor of New York City and Adolf Hitler, while legitimizing a conception of government as a tool for revolutionary ends instead of being the representative and protector of traditional society.
Maher is also feeding the ‘woke mob’ he loudly proclaims to detest so much. While slamming Viktor Orban as Hitler-lite, he continues to give legitimacy to the ‘woke mob’ while attempting to push back against them. He recently referred to the mob and cancel culture as “the online hall monitors of righteousness”; the “woke police”; and other descriptions that grant them the legitimacy of righteousness while questioning their methods. If Maher really wants to push back against the ‘woke mob’ then he should start calling them what they are – ‘art vandals’; ’narcissists’; ’social murderers’; ‘book burners’; ‘Going Postal‘, ‘rapists’, ‘murder-murderers‘ and other terms that actually describe their actions.
I did – in the last piece I wrote, I coined the phrase Trans-Klan to apply to the segment that has repeatedly threatened to pipe bomb, beat, rape and murder J.K. Rowling (not to mention acts of violence and terrorism against many others).
Maher has this same problem when he doesn’t understand why ‘liberals’ defend Islamo-Fascism, instead of calling them what they are ‘Anti-Muslim Infidels’, which is incidentally what the Saudi morality police would label them as. Ben Affleck called Maher a racist over Islam years ago. Maher responded with bewilderment instead of serving him the fact that Affleck’s entire career is offensive to Islam which banned movie theaters in its Holy Land of Saudi Arabia as anti-Islamic in the 1970s (the first movie theaters allowed to re-open happened in 2018). Maher could have also pointed out to Afleck that if he really respected Muslims he wouldn’t be making movies like Gone Girl that was so offensive to Islamic values and sensibilities that it was edited down before being released in United Arab Emirate cinemas.
Maher also isn’t dishing Cosmopolitanism when he fails to appreciate or understand that Hungary is one of the most colonized countries in world history. For the past five hundred years, Hungary has been subject to the Ottoman Empire, Austrian Empire, and the Soviet Union. Only briefly during the late nineteenth century was Hungary able to demand at least equal time in name forming, the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy. Much of this support was undermined by the assassinations of Hungary’s supporters in the Austrian Imperial Family: Empress Elisabeth (1898) and Crown Prince Rudolph (1889).
Present-day Hungary has only been free for thirty years – or maybe one or two generations. Their native ethnic population throughout the entire country is smaller than the population of Tokyo, Dehli, Seoul, Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, or Paris.
The last Imperialists to colonize Hungary were the Soviets. During their rule – Russian language studies were compulsory in Hungarian schools, Catholicism was banned, and Marxist-Leninism was the official educational theory.
In 1988, Viktor Orban was a founding member of the ‘Alliance of Democrats’ for a free Hungary. In 1989, Orban made a speech in Heroes Square commemorating the Freedom Fighters of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. In the 1990s, Orban launched his political career during the first free elections in decades. He briefly served as Premier from 1998–2002, before becoming Leader of the Opposition after losing the 2002 elections. In 2010, he became Premier again.
Orban has demonstrated that he is capable of losing elections, surrendering political power and then working to regain the confidence of the people.
Unlike Bill Maher or Nance, Orban spent the first 27 years of his life living under a Soviet Dictatorship occupying his native homeland.
Are Hungarians going Fascist or are they trying to revive and rebuild, AGAIN, the Hungarian nation?
The evidence points to the latter.
On the other hand real evidence does exist that Fascism and Totalitarianism are becoming a real concern and have been growing every year in the West since the break-up of the USSR. If Maher is really concerned about this growing trend then maybe he should spend a segment every week reminding his audience that currently, 6 companies own 90% of the media thanks to Bill Clinton. Maybe he should get off his whining about Viktor Orban and start talking about Gavin Newsom before he ends up with another Andrew Cuomo. Sexual harassment may have been the official reason Cuomo resigned, but anyone watching that mess also knows that Al Capone wasn’t really put away for tax evasion either.
Maher should bring on intellectual heavyweights rarely heard in current mainstream media like Objectivist Peter Schwarz, Academic Camille Paglia, Conservative Anne Schlafly Cori, or Freelance Journalist Jennifer Bilek that can provide something besides the regular canard.
If Maher intends to have discussions on “Critical Race Theory” he should balance out segments by actually inviting Black critics like Leo Terrell, Alveda King, Star Parker, Thomas Sowell, and Larry Elder who were actually born before the Civil Rights Act was passed, lived during Jim Crow, and dispute that Critical Race Theory is the experience of every black American. In fact why not have a full panel? The BLM perspective is pushed by 90% of the media, why not give Black critics equal time in the name of Racial Equity?
If Maher’s going to talk about Dictatorship maybe he should invite people that actually lived and escaped from one like Chai Ling (the former Commander-in-Chief of Tiananmen Square HQ during the 1989 Protests), Jan Wong who was part of Mao’s Cultural Revolution a witness to the April 5, 1976 uprising and Journalist who covered the Tiananmen Square Massacre. And he should facilitate a check-up on the very relevant criticisms Phyllis Schlafly made (sparing neither Clinton or the Republican Congress) in July 1998 Liberty vs. Totalitarianism, Clinton-Style:
“Two of the principal mechanisms by which the rulers of 20th-century police states maintained their control over their people were the file and the internal passport. These governments kept a cumulative file (called the dangan in Communist China) on every individual’s performance and attitudes from school years through adult employment. Citizens carried an internal passport or “papers” that had to be presented to the authorities for permission to travel within the country, to take up residence in another city, or to apply for a new job.
These two methods of personal surveillance — efficient watchdogs that prevented any emergence of freedom — required an army of bureaucrats fortified by a Gestapo, a Stasi or a KGB, plus the ability to commandeer an unlimited supply of paper and file folders. Technology has now made the task of building personal files on every citizen and tracking our actions and movements, just as easy as logging onto the Internet.
Unknown to most Americans, coordinated plans are well underway to give the Federal Government the power to input personal information on all Americans onto a government database. The computer will record our school, business, medical, financial, and personal activities, and track our movements as we travel about the United States.
These plans were authorized by the so-called conservative Congress and are eagerly implemented and expanded by the Clinton Administration liberals. They plan to force all Americans to carry an I.D. card linked to a federal database, without which we will not be able to drive a car, get a job, board a plane, enter a hospital emergency room or school, have a bank account, cash a check, buy a gun, or have access to government benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid.”
And then ask the relevant question why Al Gore is now sitting on the Board of Directors for Apple Inc?
If Maher wants to serve up some Cosmopolitanism while he is at it, invite back African intellectuals like Ayaan Hirsi Ali (it’s been too long), and have Obianuju Ekeocha on for a first time to discuss Woke Corporate Neo-Colonialism in Africa.
Anyone besides powder-puffs like Ben Shapiro who cut his teeth railing against Big Bird and Elmo on Sesame Street, and Malcolm Nance whose counter-terrorism experience involves pushing conspiracy theories like 2016 Green Party Nominee Jill Stein having a show on Russia Today.
This isn’t a plea for more conservatives, it’s a plea for people that can and do think outside the box and are actually in contact with objective reality.
If Maher plans on keeping the Moniker “real-time” then it’s high time he went back to being politically incorrect and stop comparing Viktor Orban to Adolf Hitler until Orszaghaz burns down.
