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For Trump, it’s lonely at the top

King Charles III and Queen Camilla were at their most emollient in Washington, where they exchanged a flurry of presents with Donald and Melania Trump. The King’s gifts to President Trump included a framed copy of the design plans for the Resolute Desk, which was originally given to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880. Trump appeared to shelve his hostility toward the United Kingdom for declining to participate in the Iran war, but he quickly made up for his forbearance by pummeling another NATO ally.

Why America’s democracy needs the British monarchy

Perfect spring sunshine beamed down on King Charles III and Queen Camilla as they slowly made their way down the sloping lawn of the British Embassy in Washington this week. None of the hundreds of eager Americans gathered at the Embassy’s garden party had ever seen a British king in the nation’s capital. The last visit was in 1939, by King George VI, when a similar garden party took place in the shadow of the gathering storm in Europe.

A royal reunion

Oh don’t go giving him more ideas. President Trump is hosting King Charles III in Washington today – the first state visit by a King of England since 1939 – and now the Daily Mail is saying that the two are distant cousins. According to royal journalist Robert Hardman, Charles and Trump (through his mother Mary MacLeod) share a common ancestor in the Scottish aristocrat the 3rd Earl of Lennox (1490-1526), who furnished England with its line of Stuart kings. On learning this the President’s thoughts turned – where else – to real estate. “Wow, that’s nice,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I’ve always wanted to live in Buckingham Palace!!! I’ll talk to the King and Queen about this in a few minutes!!!

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What Harry and Meghan don’t get about royal visits

King Charles III’s state visit to Washington this week is the monarchy executing its core diplomatic function with precision and dignity. In Donald Trump’s Washington, an invitation to an event with the British monarch remains the most sought-after in the city. By stark contrast, the King’s son and daughter-in-law careen around the globe representing no one but themselves. They dress up as royals in a sustained exercise in self-promotion and profiteering that repels observers and belittles the very institution that gave them their platform. One upholds the Crown’s purpose, while the other commodifies it. The Sussexes’ grift cheapens the Crown’s reputation and insults the public’s intelligence The King and Queen travel as invited guests of the US government.

Why America still longs for monarchy

Even when he’s not visiting the United States, King Charles III might occasionally daydream about what his reign would be like today if things had worked out differently 250 years ago. The King is not, of course, the head of government anywhere nowadays, and were Charles the king of America, he wouldn’t necessarily wield any more power here than he does in modern Britain. Yet there’s reason to think he possibly could – for the truth is, Americans love monarchy at least as much as they fear it, and they love the royal family, too.

Why Donald Trump won’t embarrass the royals

Elizabeth II was never particularly enthusiastic about birthdays. They were a good excuse for a parade or an honors list, but not a patch on a major wedding anniversary, let alone a jubilee. Those were a celebration of true dedication, not of mere longevity. Even so, were she still with us, the late Queen would have acknowledged that her centenary on April 21 is a big deal. It would also have created a delightful conundrum for the Buckingham Palace anniversaries office, the department that sends out 100th-birthday congratulations from the sovereign. At the start of her reign, she was sending 385 of those each year across all her realms (by telegram). By the end, it was over 16,000 (by card).

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Charles III is fighting for the monarchy’s life

On September 10, 1946, British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin remarked, “kings are pretty cheap these days.” His comment was directed at the displaced monarchs who floated, dispossessed, around Europe, but it might also have been a dig at the ailing king George VI, who had found his métier in wartime but struggled to regain it afterwards. Less than six years after Bevin’s comment, the king died and Elizabeth II assumed the throne, leading to an unprecedented period of monarchical duration, stability and popularity. Yet after her own death last September, at the age of ninety-six, and the subsequent accession of her son, Bevin’s statement has assumed new and unlooked-for relevance.

Welcome to All Kings Day

King Charles III is planning a state visit to Washington DC next month. He is rumored to be staying at the White House, attending a state dinner and possibly addressing a joint meeting of Congress. The last royal to address Congress was Charles’s mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II speaking to a full chamber in May 1991, during George H.W. Bush’s presidency, around three months after the end of Operation Desert Storm. Britain contributed more than 50,000 troops to Iraq during the Gulf War which was – and remains to this day – the largest deployment of British military personnel since World War Two. (Pay no heed to Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman, who this morning tweeted that “King Charles II” was coming: the previous Charles has been dead for 341 years.

Is Prince Harry about to spend a lot more time in Britain?

For lovers of self-destructive hubris – a quality that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex surely possess in spades – the saga of Prince Harry’s security is surely the gift that keeps on giving. His attempts to obtain British taxpayer-funded armed protection whenever he brings his family back to the UK have been expressed with much fervor and repetitiveness. And now, in this season of miracles, it looks as if he might have got his wish after all.  It seemed certain, after various expensive and amusingly humiliating courtroom defeats, that Harry’s desire to hire members of the London Metropolitan Police as his private security detail whenever he is back in the country of his birth would be denied.

King Charles will make a splash at US-250

If only work had started sooner on the new extension to the East Wing of the White House. Then President Donald Trump might be able to inaugurate it with a party for the man who owns arguably the grandest ballroom in the world (one Mr. Trump knows well). Discussions are ongoing for a state visit to the US by King Charles III and Queen Camilla next year. President Trump has now logged an unprecedented two state visits in an easterly direction and common courtesy dictates a return invitation for the Windsors to pay a visit to the White House. Next year is the obvious date. It will be 250 years since the US came into being by extracting the colonies from the rule of the King’s fifth great-grandfather, George III.

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Meghan Markle’s comeback: welcome to the Meghanaissance

Maybe it was always going this way. After being a briefcase girl, an actress, a D-list celebrity and blowing it as a real-life royal, perhaps the only natural next step for Meghan Markle was to become an influencer. Look at Fergie, once married to Prince Andrew. Now the Duchess of York makes her living writing romance novels, selling jam and giving “exclusive” interviews to any tabloid that’ll buy her lunch.   The truth is that there is no glamor in being an ex-something. Look at the washed-up ex-wives and girlfriends of sports stars, selling herbal tea on Instagram for a few bucks and being paid to show up at crappy provincial nightclubs filled with teenagers. (It’s harder to be fussy when you need to pay the bills.

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Meghan has ‘moved on’ from the royal racism row

After over three years of incessant scheming, moaning and making specious accusations of racism against her in-laws, Meghan Markle’s PR team are insisting she has "moved on." In a statement press secretary Ashley Hansen claimed: “The Duchess of Sussex is going about her life in the present, not thinking about correspondence from two years ago related to conversations from four years ago. “Any suggestion otherwise is false and frankly ridiculous. We encourage tabloid media and various royal correspondents to stop the exhausting circus that they alone are creating.” It’s important to add here that the statement was first posted by the Sussexes’ personal cheerleader and royal reporter Omid Scobie.

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Meghan Markle ‘may not have been welcome’ at coronation

Prince Harry will attend the coronation of his father, King Charles III next month alone, according to Buckingham Palace. Meghan Markle will stay in California with Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. After months of speculation, with the sources claiming that the Sussexes "weren't sure" if they would attend after the latest fall out from Harry's bombshell memoir, Spare, it has now be announced that the prince will attend, but his wife, Meghan stay in California with their children, Buckingham Palace says. Critics have bashed the pair for not deciding quicker, after they were formally invited over one month ago. A source close to the family, who will attend the coronation said: "Her presence may not have been entirely welcome. It's more likely she would have been booed.

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Alvin Bragg’s busted flush

Alvin Bragg’s busted flush Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s indictment of former president Donald Trump was finally unsealed yesterday and the near-universal reaction was… really? That’s it? The charges are so weak that prominent Trump critics Senator Mitt Romney and former national security advisor John Bolton are scoffing. Bolton even predicted the case would easily be dismissed. Bragg claims Trump allegedly falsified business records in order to cover up a crime. What crime? We don’t know, because Bragg won’t tell us. So, a Soros-backed DA is dragging his political opponents into court for bookkeeping errors while downgrading half of NYC’s other crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. What a sane world we live in! -Amber Athey On our radar LET’S GO...

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Former Spectator deputy editor turns government censor

Biden’s pornbrained FCC nominee One of President Joe Biden’s most embattled nominees for the powerful Federal Communications Commission was a staunch supporter of Ugly George, New York City’s “Cult Porno King,” and his right to showcase naked women on cable channels he leased, Cockburn has learned. Gigi Sohn is a lawyer by trade — and her past legal activism suggests that she’ll take a lax approach towards the never-ending influx of sexually explicit content on TV. Back in 1995, the Associated Press reported that Sohn “lamented” a court decision that upheld a law designed to limit people like Ugly George’s ability to air sexually explicit content during daytime hours.

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Prince Harry’s latest contradiction 

Prince Harry has bared his soul in explosive interviews for the publicity of his upcoming memoir, Spare. Just kidding. Naturally Humdrum Haz is droning on about the same obscure claims he and his wife have been recycling for the past two years. The evil "institution," the big bad press and the mystic royal "they," who seems to be a nonbinary Illuminati-like figure pulling the strings of the entire British Isles. This time, with ITV’s Tom Bradby, the Duke claimed, “I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back.” Who could possibly imagine why King Charles and Prince William might want to keep Harry at arm's length? Anyone? "It never needed to be this way," the prince said. He wanted a family, not an institution!

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A united royal Christmas… without Meghan and Harry

It was no surprise that Prince Harry and Meghan were absent from Britain's royal Christmas celebrations at Sandringham after their recent outbursts. Their Netflix documentary cemented what we already knew: there is no going back. Instead, the pair opted for a Californian Christmas. Away from the pomp and pageantry of the royal family’s traditions, the day was described as low-key, choosing to spend their days playing games like "pin the tail on the Catherine" and throwing darts at King Charles’s face. I’m kidding, they’re far too mature for that. In Britain, we saw a family in unity. Even Prince Andrew attended the Christmas Day church service at St. Mary Magdalene and, somehow, was received well by crowds.

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The sartorial splendor of King Charles III

Much ink has been spilled over the clothes in Netflix’s fifth season of The Crown, which debuted last week. The award-winning show about Britain’s royal family has reached the scandalous “Diana Affair,” in which every outfit of Ms. Spencer's is seen as a rapier against the formal codes of the Firm. Her looks are meticulously replicated by costume designer Amy Roberts (or as much as possible given the slimmer, taller frame of Elizabeth Debicki, who plays Diana). Despite their spousal difficulties, a talent Diana and Charles shared was dressing. His attention to playfully using fundamentals (color, cut, textile quality) lends to a personal style that is both timeless and surprisingly contemporary.

The brilliance of British civilization

The day after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, I received a note from a friend in the Midwest asking whether I thought the British monarchy would survive her by more than a decade. I replied that of all British institutions the monarchy is the strongest — and that I expect it to last as long as Britain herself. Everything I witnessed in the week after the Queen died seems to me to justify this judgment, in particular the conduct of King Charles III, about whom my friend was skeptical. The events also confirmed my lifelong opinion that British civilization is the finest the world has ever seen; so fine, indeed, that I suspect that the citizens of most countries today are unable to appreciate the nature of its greatness, and how it came to be great; Americans, perhaps, especially.

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JustStopOil protesters attack waxwork King Charles with chocolate cake

The JustStopOil activists are on the loose around Europe again. This time they’ve chosen to stop off at Madame Tussauds in London — the museum of life-sized wax replicas of famous celebrities and icons. So, who did they set their sights on? Kylie Jenner? Taylor Swift? Or any of the other gas-guzzling, private plane flying celebs? Nope. This time twenty-year-old Eilidh McFadden and twenty-nine-year-old Tom Johnson covered a waxwork model of King Charles III with chocolate cake. https://twitter.com/JustStop_Oil/status/1584491199771316225 Perhaps in their simple minds, this gesture made sense. Two fingers up to the Establishment and all that. But the new king is known for his extensive environmental campaigning.

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