90 Miles From Tyranny

Saturday, February 29, 2020

I Would Not Put It Past Them...

Congolese Migrants Riot in Paris, Set Fire to Dozens of Vehicles

Diversity continues to be a strength.

A crowd consisting primarily of Congolese migrants rioted in Paris, setting fire to dozens of vehicles as firefighters battled blazes around the Gare de Lyon train station.

The station was partially evacuated late Friday as police urged the public to avoid the area.

“At least 30 motorcycles, scooters & rental cars have been torched. Part of a building was also set alight,” tweeted reporter Oliver Miocic.

Lots of damage caused by protesters setting fire to parts of Gare de Lyon. At least 30 motorcycles, scooters & rental cars have been torched. Part of a building was also set alight. Reports it is linked to this evening’s concert of Congolese star Fally Ipupa. #garedelyon pic.twitter.com/66TqMqqrcn
— Oliver Miočić (@olivermiocic) February 28, 2020

Another video shows plumes of black smoke rising from a large fire near the station.

Wall Street Journal Shouldn’t Apologize for Article Criticizing China’s Communist Party

The Wall Street Journal should stand firm in the face of China’s action last week to rescind the media credentials of three Journal reporters and order them to leave the country.

Chinese authorities said the expulsion was over the Journal’s publishing a commentary by academic Walter Russell Mead headlined “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia,” which addresses the communist nation’s economic fragility and the worldwide effects of a possible Chinese collapse.

The Chinese government claimed that use of the term “Sick Man of Asia” in the headline of the Feb. 3 article was racist toward the Chinese people.

Next, 53 employees of the Journal signed a letter demanding that the newspaper paper apologize and retract the original headline. They did this even though it is widely known that the Chinese government manipulates the media credentialing process to influence American news outlets to avoid criticism of “sensitive” topics.

The Wall Street Journal should not apologize. This is a ploy by the Chinese government that attempts to exploit Americans’ fear of political incorrectness to stir up racial outrage and gain power over the U.S. media.

Yes, the “Sick Man of Asia” term could be interpreted as archaic as some Asian activists alleged. Nevertheless, it is much closer to a historical term than a racial slur.

Unlike clear and obvious slurs against Chinese people and other racial groups (which are well-known), “Sick Man of Asia” has been used in many nonracist historical contexts as well as in current affairs. In fact, the first recorded use of the phrase was in 1896, in a Chinese newspaper called the North China Daily News, to describe the country’s humiliation.

Since then, the phrase has made its way into many scholarly works and journals. A 2011 article written by Foreign Affairs correspondent Yanzhong Huang describes China’s health crisis with the headline “The Sick Man of Asia.” Scholars have used the same moniker to describe other Asian countries.

Although not a flattering term, it’s probably the rhetorical equivalent of calling an African country “screwed up” or calling Russia a “kleptocracy.”

Naturally, however, the Chinese government has weaponized criticism of the Journal article’s headline to attack the free press and whip up a nationalistic frenzy against the United States.

The forced expulsion of U.S. journalists, including one who currently resides in Wuhan to report on the deadly coronavirus, forebodes a strong push to restrict critical media coverage in China as many residents continue to seek out ways to get noncensored news, especially on the coronavirus and the Hong Kong protests.

This is Exhibit A of the Chinese Communist Party’s propagandistic media strategy: First, conflate criticism of the government with criticism of the entire Chinese race. Then, stir up nationalistic rage and gain leverage over the American media so they steer clear of reporting on the Communist Party’s systematic curtailment of the people’s rights.

It is apparent that Chinese government is desperate to distract the Chinese people from its own free speech issues and economic turmoil. As The Washington Post reports about the Feb. 19 expulsions: “The authorities also appeared to be attempting to stoke nationalist outrage in China at a time of extreme duress for the ruling Communist Party.”

Several weeks ago, a Chinese doctor named Li Wenliang tried to warn fellow citizens about the then-infant coronavirus, but he was suppressed and told off by Chinese police. Now Li is dead from that same coronavirus, and the Chinese people are not able to gain access to his potentially lifesaving information.

When Chinese citizens took to the social media site Weibo with the trending hashtag “We want freedom of speech” (#WeWantFreedomOfSpeech), the government quickly censored them.

As Mead argues in the “Sick Man of Asia’” article in the Journal, along with the Communist Party’s unprepared response to the coronavirus epidemic, China maintains a unitary power structure that may prove too brittle to handle unexpected “black swan” events such as viruses, terrorist attacks, and mass protests.

If the Communist Party fails, there indeed is little to stop China from going into a meltdown, with deleterious effects on the rest of the world.

Mead writes:

Given the accumulated costs of decades of state-driven lending, massive malfeasance by local officials in cahoots with local banks, a towering property bubble, and vast industrial overcapacity, China is as ripe as a country can be for a massive economic correction.

Americans should not buy the Chinese Communist Party’s line. We should be allowed to criticize an increasingly oppressive, fragile government of an unfree...

Fox News hits biggest viewership milestone in network's 23-year history

The Fox News Channel surpassed all-time records in its 23 years on the air in February, with 3.5 million viewers tuning in during prime time.

February was the network's 218th month as the most-watched cable news station, with an average of 3.5 million viewers during prime time and 2 million viewers during a day, according toNielsen Media Research. The boost in ratings is partly due to one coveted demographic: viewers between the ages of 25 and 54. Prime-time viewership grew by 35% overall since February of last year and 27% in the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic.

Fox host Laura Ingraham dominated in ratings and became the most-watched “female host in cable news history” after her show, The Ingraham Angle, averaged 3.6 million viewers.

“Thank you, @foxnews viewers and all the producers and staff who work hard to make this possible,” she tweeted on Wednesday.

Sean Hannity, host of the network’s highest-rated show, said he is “humbled and extremely grateful to the greatest and most loyal audience in all of television."

"While I don’t take myself seriously, I do take my job and responsibility very seriously," he added.

The cable channel beat out competition during the New Hampshire primary, with Hannity garnering 4.7 million viewers on Feb. 11. It was also the network of choice during President Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this month.

Fox News beat MSNBC and CNN in combined viewership from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., with an average of 1.95 million viewers, compared to MSNBC’s 997,000 and CNN’s 683,000.

The Greg Gutfeld Show, a weekly, late night , political satire program, beat Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show in viewers, as well as The Daily Show, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and...