Category Archives: Politics

High Hills

Posted on by

Via Mike in Switzerland, this story:

Shocking photos of Congresswoman Katie Hill are revealed as she’s seen NAKED showing off Nazi-era tattoo while smoking a bong, kissing her female staffer and posing nude on ‘wife sharing’ sites.

Amusingly, she’s into polyamory:

The then 22-year-old began a throuple relationship with Hill and her husband Kenny Heslep shortly after she started working for Hill in 2017

All that’s missing here is a trip to Burning Man. She’s a complete degenerate, meaning she’s representative of the core Democrat constituency these days. Beats me why anyone thinks this is a problem.

Share

From Russia with div

Posted on by

This morning I listened to the Joe Rogan podcast with Edward Snowden, the former NSA technician who blew the whistle on illegal US government mass surveillance programs.

According to Snowden, Barrack Obama really only wanted to do what’s best for the country but the Deep State convinced him to maintain these programs in the interests of national security. Trump, meanwhile, has harnessed the intelligence community to go after groups he doesn’t like, and as such is much more dangerous than anyone.

My guess is his lengthy exile in Russia has made him a little fond of the bathtub vodka. What other explanation is there for issuing dark warnings of the unaccountable power of rogue intelligence agencies but think they’ve been working on behalf of Trump? The man’s an idiot; I expect he was hoping Hillary would win, and then pardon him. She’d be more likely to pull the switch while he’s strapped in the chair.

Share

Ridin’ the bruv train

Posted on by

Regular readers will know how I feel about the modern British police, particularly the leadership. Here’s a video which surprises even me:

In a different age this woman would be sent out to the forest to fetch firewood, being of little use for anything else. But in the modern era she gets to speak to us as if we’re retarded children, telling us which words we may or may not use to address people who are probably insane.

Now I’ve speculated before about how it’s only a matter of time before the British public begin to do what happens in a lot of the world, and see the police as nothing more than a nuisance to be avoided at all costs. We’re already seeing incidents of police men and women being beaten and humiliated while citizens just walk on by or, increasingly, stop and guffaw. This morning a couple of Extinction Rebellion morons thought stopping a tube train at Canning Town and preventing city boys and builders getting to work was going to be the same as lying down in the road on Westminster Bridge. They thought wrong:

What is so heartwarming about this – aside from Swampy getting a good shoeing – is the mantra in Britain has for years been “don’t intervene, leave it to the police”. Only the people on the platform knew damned well the police wouldn’t do anything about these idiots, and even if they did the station would be shut for hours. So they shook off a lifetime of indoctrination and dragged them down so everyone could go to work unimpeded. As the tweeter said, problem solved in 60 seconds.

What interested me most was when the police arrived they arrested the two protesters, not the two who climbed up after them. I suspect the police might have got a whiff of a changing wind here. Had they turned up and done anything other than arrest the two crusties, they might well have found themselves on the receiving end of a mob beating. The police leadership might be stupid, but those who have to walk into a fired-up crowd are not.

Today’s incident, coming off the back of the authorities’ decision to ban any more unauthorised Extinction Rebellion protests in London, might be a sign things are starting to turn. On top of that, it looks as though Boris might have reached a deal with the EU which can pass a parliamentary vote and see Britain leaving the EU at the end of the month as planned. While probably not perfect, it is better than May’s appalling Withdrawal Agreement and does actually represent Brexit in more than name only. That will leave an awful lot of Remain activists unemployed, and a fair few MPs staring down the barrel of a P45 cannon at the next election.

All in all, things are looking a little brighter after today, aren’t they?

Share

Beating Kurds and Away

Posted on by

A couple of days ago Turkey decided to send its army south over the border into Syria and start massacring Kurds. Apparently this was Trump’s fault, as he’d withdrawn the couple of hundred US special forces who’d been helping the Kurds fight ISIS, and many people saw this as giving a green light to Erdogan. I’m going to take the lazy blogger’s option of simply repeating what I said last time this happened back in December:

I have a lot of sympathy for the Kurds. They seem less insane than anyone else fighting in Syria, more organised than anyone trying to manage territory in Iraq, and they are well-disposed towards America and their allies. They’ve been screwed over by the major powers on several occasions, suffered terribly at the hands of Saddam Hussein and ISIS, and been oppressed by the Turks. I would like to see their lot improved, and I will be deeply unhappy if the Turkish army move into Syria and start massacring them. If somehow they find themselves in possession of advanced anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry with which they can inflict heavy losses on their enemies, I’d not be too upset.

However, let’s get realistic here. The US was never in Syria on behalf of the Kurds. US forces on the ground may have formed informal alliances with Kurdish groups, but there was never a US policy of protecting Kurds in Syria, at least that I’m aware of. To begin with, what do people mean when they say America should not abandon “the Kurds”? Do they mean the Kurds in Syria fighting Assad and ISIS? The Kurds in Iraq, who run a peaceful, semi-autonomous region subordinate (in theory) to the government in Baghdad? The Kurds in Turkey? And with whom should the alliance be made? The PKK? The Peshmerga commanders?

I asked a few people on Twitter who the Kurdish leaders were, what were their names. Nobody knew. When people talk of Palestinians we know they fall under the leadership, however flawed, of the PA and Hamas. We know the names of the leaders and what their policies are, and these people regularly attend meetings with the large powers and mediators to discuss their aims. But who represents “the Kurds”? What do they want? If Trump is “betraying an ally” this suggests an alliance was formed and promises given. Okay, but when, and by whom, and with what authority? Did any Kurdish leader meet Trump or a member of his administration? Did they meet any of Obama’s? Nobody who is screaming “betrayal” can answer any of these questions: they want war to continue indefinitely in support of an alliance they can’t describe on behalf of people they know nothing about. If this is what passes for political wisdom in the US these days, it’s little wonder they’ve been neck-deep in unwinnable wars since I left university. Fighting a war used to be a serious undertaking, now it’s something advocated on a whim to spite one’s domestic political opponents.

If Americans want to fight a war on behalf of the Kurds, they need to first come up with a clear strategy. What are the objectives, and over what timelines? And on behalf of which Kurds are they fighting? If they attempted to draw up such a plan, they would see why they need to give the matter a wide berth. The Kurds are not some homogeneous bloc, they are fractured along several lines and were they somehow to get their own state it would likely be completely dysfunctional as the various groups squabble among each other. There’s also the small matter that the most capable Kurds are invariably socialist; I get the impression a lot of Americans don’t know that. If America were to support the Kurds in any meaningful sense it would entail severely distabilising the national government in Iraq, as well as taking on Turkey in a big way. I’m not saying these are necessarily bad things – I’d like to see Turkey booted from NATO and Erdogan put in his place – but they need to be part of an overall strategy which the political classes in Washington simply lack the competence to put together, let alone pull off. Hell, they can’t even agree to protect their own borders.

Most of the meltdown we’re seeing from the American political classes is yet another example of Trump doing X and therefore they must oppose it. The rest is from people who think American soldiers should be sent to fight and die in pointless, century-old sectarian feuds in the Middle East because otherwise the country’s reputation will be tarnished – as if it’s currently held in high regard.

The most moronic take is that Turkey’s assault on the Kurds plays into Putin’s hands, as if Russia gives a damn about either of them. If anything Russia would prefer Turkey stays out of Syria, given they’re firm backers of the Assad who, presumably, would like to run things without interference from his neighbours. We’re at the point where if Trump exploded a thermonuclear device over Moscow during rush hour, half of America would say he was acting on Putin’s orders.

To my knowledge, Congress never approved sending US troops into Syria so they have no business being there in the first place. If the Europeans carping from the sidelines feel so strongly about the Kurds, they are free to send their own soldiers to protect them, assuming they have any, their guns work, and they can get there. And all those ISIS prisoners in Kurdish jails? Well, why were they still breathing?

Share

Thick’s Turn, Parliament Facked

Posted on by

One of the characteristics of Tony Blair and New Labour was a delusional belief in their own intelligence and abilities. He and his cronies really did think they could open up the bonnet of the United Kingdom and rearrange the engine and gearbox so that it worked better. However, it soon became apparent they had no idea what they were doing. For example:

In 2003, Tony Blair chose his close friend and former flatmate Lord Falconer to be Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. At the same time, he announced his intention to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor and to make many other constitutional reforms. After much surprise and confusion, it became clear that the ancient office of Lord Chancellor could not be abolished without an Act of Parliament. Thus Lord Falconer duly appeared the following day in the House of Lords to carry out his duties from the Woolsack.

What is lacking in modern politicians is any sense of humility, the notion that perhaps things are that way for a reason and don’t need “improvement” from some grifter of average intelligence.

From 1911 to 2011, a British Prime Minister was allowed to call a general election at any time prior to the 5-year term limit. This meant that a government could, if they wished, go back to the public to confirm their mandate without having to wait in limbo until the 5 years were up. This seemed to work pretty well: early elections weren’t a feature of British political life, and we were mercifully free of constitutional crises.

Then in 2011 those two towering statesmen David Cameron and Nick Clegg introduced the Fixed Term Parliament Act, for reasons which could hardly be described as pressing. This removed the ability of a Prime Minister to call a general election, instead requiring a vote of no confidence or a two-third Commons vote. Fast forward to September 2019, and we have a Prime Minister who controls neither his own party nor parliament unable to move forward with his legislative agenda. The public have made their preferences clear, but parliament is defying both them and the government. Before the Fixed Term Parliament Act Boris Johnson could simply have called a general election, to secure a mandate for delivering Brexit (or not). But now he’s stuck: he can’t secure a two-thirds majority because the last thing these MPs want is to go before an angry public, and nobody is putting forward a vote of no confidence. So unless the antics of Jacob Rees-Mogg goads them into doing so, or Johnson somehow organises a no confidence vote against himself, we’re just stuck in deadlock.

This is the problem with modern politicians. They arrive in a bubble of hubris and set about meddling with things they know nothing about, consequences be damned. Regardless of your views on Brexit, it is revealing how utterly bereft of brains or talent our political classes have been for years.

Share

Fossil Fool

Posted on by

A couple of days ago I listened to Joe Rogan’s podcast with Bernie Sanders. The thing with Sanders is he’s actually pretty good at identifying genuine problems. In 2016, what he was saying about blue collar America wasn’t much different from Trump’s message, which is partly why so many of the Bernie Bros couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary. However, Sanders’ solutions to the problems he identifies are terrible, consisting of top-down authoritarianism presiding over a command-and-control economy, much like what he saw in the Soviet Union on his honeymoon. Take for example his proposals for tackling climate change around the hour mark of the podcast:

Sanders has bought wholesale into the nonsense that we have 12 years left to save the planet, but his solutions are even more daft. His proposal is to “tell the fossil fuel industry that their short term profits are not more important than the future of the planet”. He then goes on to say “you cannot keep producing a product which is destroying the planet.” Rogan asks him whether this means he will tell the fossil fuel companies to stop selling their products, and Sanders replies that yes, “this is the bottom line”.

It’s hard to know where to begin with such stupidity. The only major oil and gas companies the US government would have some degree of control over should it issue such an order are ExxonMobil and Chevron. While most international oil companies work overtime not to fall foul of the US government in ordinary circumstances, faced with what amounts to closure orders from a President Sanders they’d cease all cooperation immediately. Sanders talks about the need to work with Russia and others but it’s hard to imagine Gazprom and Rosneft shutting down production because a septuagenarian multi-millionaire from Vermont deems it necessary. Although if Theresa May were still British Prime Minister you could well imagine her closing down BP in order to seal her “legacy”.

But the impossibility of implementing the policy isn’t even the most stupid part. Sanders speaks as though the fossil fuel companies sell products with no utility, as if they don’t underpin the entire way of modern life. He seems to think they’re luxury products we can do without if only the right leadership is shown. I see this with a lot of people: they think cars should be electric, and electricity generated by solar, wind, and hydro power and therefore we don’t need fossil fuels any more. What staggers me is the ignorance among the general public about what fossil fuel products are actually used for. Even making the ludicrous assumption we could switch our cars to electric and generate all electricity from renewables, how do we power planes, ships, and tractors without fossil fuels? Even my erstwhile environmental engineer friend didn’t seem to understand that a demand for fossil fuels will likely remain until the very end of human existence. She didn’t seem to consider the economics of her preferred policies at all, let alone the effects at the margins (i.e on the poor), which puts her in good company with Bernie Sanders and most of the public who subscribe to swivel-eyed environmentalism. One minute Sanders is bemoaning the difficulties low-paid workers face in America, the next he’s saying we should make basic energy products as expensive as diamonds.

As I’ve said before, I have a theory that when a certain number of generations have taken the bottom two levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for granted, the society starts to self-destruct. A critical mass of people simply lose connection with the foundations which prop up their society, start meddling with them, and eventually call for their destruction. I’ve tried to think of a similar instance from history, and the closest I can find is China’s decision in the 15th century to destroy their ships in an effort to isolate themselves from the perils of free trade. And even that doesn’t come close to ordering a halt on fossil fuel production. What’s that saying that whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad? We’re here, folks.

Share

Ilhandled

Posted on by

Unsurprisingly, people are rather upset about this:

Goaded on by the president, a crowd at a Donald Trump rally on Wednesday night chanted “send her back! send her back!” in reference to Ilhan Omar, a US congresswoman who arrived almost 30 years ago as a child refugee in the United States.

But it’s important to remember this didn’t come out of a clear blue sky.

If someone who looks, dresses, sounds, and acts foreign stands up as an elected member of the US Congress and continuously slanders millions of ordinary Americans as white supremacists, what do people think is going to happen? That they’ll just take this abuse on the chin? There is no population on earth which would put up with such a person for very long, and Omar and her ilk seem determined to see just how far the tolerance of the American public can be pushed. She’s playing a very dangerous game, and she’s at least half-responsible for making “Send ’em all back!” a slogan in American politics, something which would have been unheard of even two years ago. As I’ve said before:

America has been fortunate so far that white nationalists have tended to be grossly incompetent. This is because there’s been no future in subscribing to it, it’s a dead-end losers’ game. But if Somalis in headscarves are going to spend their time denouncing white people from congress, while at the same time you have a tens of millions of disenfranchised right wingers who happen to be white, an avenue of opportunity might open up. And then instead of the bunglers some competent people arrive on the scene who’ve carefully observed how the ruling classes behave, know how to evade their counterattacks, and form a movement which suddenly becomes too big to shut down. And then the fun really begins.

This has gone far beyond Republicans versus Democrats. The American ruling classes need to get a handle on this woman, and fast.

Share

Sisters Sledge

Posted on by

Staying on the topic of my brilliant foresight, here’s what I had to say in February:

I have a feeling [Nancy Pelosi’s] biggest challenge is going to be putting a leash on the likes of AOC.

And in January:

The current Democrats are a coalition of lunatics headed by the sort of ultra-privileged, wrinkly old white people they claim to despise. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer look as though they’re about raise an objection to a black family moving into their gated community, not cede power to an upstart Latina from Queens.

…

In short, AOC is going to present a far bigger headache for establishment Democrats than she is Republicans in the coming years.

And here we are:

The public spat between Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, got a lot nastier on Wednesday, with the freshman congresswoman suggesting that the speaker is “singling out” her and her colleagues based on their race.

Pelosi has worked to keep the Democratic caucus in line, specifically four newly-elected outspoken progressives: Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass..

However, a feud between Pelosi and the quartet escalated after Congress passed a border funding bill that the four young Democrats opposed. Pelosi discussed the bill, and those in her party who oppose it, in an interview last weekend. She told the New York Times: “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world, but they didn’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.”

Ocasio-Cortez said to The Washington Post on Wednesday that the “persistent singling out” by the Speaker may be more than “outright disrespectful.”

And people say politics is unpredictable these days.

Share

Malice forethought

Posted on by

Back in December I wrote the following in regards to Somalian congresswoman Ilhan Omar:

Any society which allows rank outsiders to enter and immediately set about agitating for radical change probably won’t last very long. Any society which allows foreigners to take part in their national political process such that they attempt to overturn parts of the constitution, suppress free speech, and denounce the population as racist is engaged in a suicide pact.

Here’s Tucker Carlson a few days ago:

No country can survive being ruled by people who hate it.

…

There are signs that some people who move here from abroad don’t like this country at all. As we told you last night, one of those people now serves in our Congress.

Think about that for a minute. Our country rescued Ilhan Omar from the single poorest place on Earth. We didn’t do it for the money, we did it because we are kind people. How did she respond to the remarkable gift we gave her?

She scolded us, called us names, showered us with contempt. It’s infuriating. More than that, it is also ominous. The United States admits more immigrants more than any other country on Earth, more than a million every year. The Democratic Party demand we increase that by and admit far more. OK, Americans like immigrants, but immigrants have got to like us back.

That’s the key, it’s essential. Otherwise, the country falls apart.

It appears Tucker has been reading my archives. Good for him. Naturally, Omar’s response was to call him racist. But he also made this very good point:

In some ways, the real villain in the Ilhan Omar story isn’t Omar, it is a group of our fellow Americans. Our cultural gatekeepers who stoke the resentment of new arrivals and turn them into grievance mongers like Ilhan Omar. The left did that to her, and to us. Blame them first.

Indeed: the real problem is not immigrants hating America, it is Americans hating America, and this can easily be extrapolated to the UK and other western countries.

Share

Ticket to Pride

Posted on by

Last year we discovered that being the victim of domestic abuse anywhere in Latin America was enough to warrant an asylum claim in the USA. In Britain things aren’t a whole lot better:

Four newly arrived LGBT Syrian refugees will be able to openly express their sexual identity when they join the Pride celebrations in central London on Saturday.

The first thing desperate refugees do when they reach the host country is join in with a massive public jamboree?

They arrived in London on Thursday after waiting for more than two years to be airlifted to safety. Their situation was resolved after the Guardian highlighted the plight of 15 LGBT Syrian refugees stranded in Turkey this year. Others in the group were expected to follow soon.

Are gays persecuted in Syria? It’s an honest question: parts of the country are dominated by religious nutjobs now, but Damascus is still under the control of the Assad government and I don’t think he’s got much interest in hounding gays. His regime was pretty brutal to anyone who opposed him, but it was broadly secular and while I can’t imagine it was as accepting as Brighton, I’m not sure gays were put to the sword as a matter of course. Besides, these lot were in Turkey. Can you be gay in Turkey? Yes, you can, which is why the article must resort to woolly guff like this:

While some Syrian refugees who flee to Turkey are relatively safe, there were concerns over the safety of this group because of homophobic attitudes in the country. Same-sex relationships are legal but negative attitudes prevail and some refugees have reported being pelted by rocks, followed in the street and attacked if people suspect they were not heterosexual.

So they’ve been granted refugee status on the basis that, although homosexuality is legal where they are, “negative attitudes prevail”? Seriously? And have these individuals been pelted with rocks for being gay? Or are they claiming refugee status based on stories of what happened to other people?

Members of the Syrian group were forced to conceal their sexual identity and in some cases to live in hiding. Some received death threats because of their sexuality.

I’m wondering what any of this has got to do with Britain. And how much work is the word “some” doing in this case?

The refugees said they were at risk not only from the population at large but also from their own families, who in some cases did not know about their sexual identity.

His family doesn’t know he’s gay, but he needs asylum in Britain in case they find out.

Toufique Hossain and Sheroy Zaq, of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, who launched the legal action, said: “These men have been forced to conceal an enormous part of their identity, not just in their country of origin but also in Turkey. The detriment they suffered as a result of their sexuality in Turkey simply could not go on any longer; we had to ensure that their resettlement was expedited through legal channels. We are elated that they will at last be able to be open about their sexuality in all walks of life, just in time for Pride.”

Well, I can at least understand why they’re up for a party. I would be too if I’d just pulled off a stunt like that. These people are not refugees in any meaningful sense of the word, and all it’s doing is hardening attitudes to people who face genuine, life threatening persecution. And isn’t it interesting to contrast the efforts expended to grant these individuals asylum with the British government’s decision to refuse it to Asia Bibi.

Share