Author: VD

On the record

It’s important to put the pollsters on the record. Democrats are doubling down on the Blue Wave:

A political analyst updated his outlook for the House just days before midterm elections, giving the Democrats an even greater edge over Republicans hoping to maintain power. Dave Wasserman, who is House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, tweeted Wednesday that their forecast was being updated, predicting that Democrats gain 30-40 seats, up from 25-35 seats. Wasserman added that this prediction could change before the Nov. 6 midterm elections.

The forecast suggests a so-called “blue wave” is more becoming more likely. Democrats need to flip 23 seats to take control of the lower chamber. In the Senate, which the GOP also controls, 24 Democrats and two independents who caucus with Democrats, are up for re-election. Nine Republicans are up for re-election. Only one seat, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s, D-N.D., is rated anything below “toss-up” at “lean-R,” according to Cook Political Report.

RealClearPolitics gives Democrats a smaller edge in the House than Cook, factoring in a number of toss ups. Their latest House elections map shows Democrats taking 203 seats versus 198 for Republicans. Thirty-four races are listed in the “toss ups” category.

So, we’re expected to believe that the President’s approval ratings are rising to the highest level of his presidency at the same time that the mid-term elections are going strongly against him? It does not add up. And while Wasserman is waffling only five days out, I will stick to my prediction from May 31, 2017, there will be no “blue wave”.

Nate Silver presently predicts an 84.9 percent chance of Democrats taking the House.

CBZ vs Kindle Unlimited

Question for Arkhaven fans: We are giving serious thought to taking the comics out of Kindle Unlimited in order to offer higher-resolution digital editions in CBZ format. The files would be about 20 megs apiece and would cost the same $2.99 as the Kindle editions. Despite the files going to the backers free, we still sell literally hundreds of copies of each Kindle edition, not including the KU downloads.

But due to the way Amazon pays virtually nothing for a KU edition, one CBZ sale would be the equivalent to 22 KU sales. Also, since it appears that Amazon has begun playing algorithm games with our books in order to reduce the visibility of our Kindle editions, there is no material benefit to our being on KU anymore.

The resolution would be 3150 x 2100 vs 1280 x 800. Please share your opinions.

When Truth is Hate

Robert McCain doesn’t leave any doubt about who is the father of these Children of the Lie in the American Spectator:

George Soros has been a major funder of much of the institutional infrastructure the Left has built during the past 20 years. David Horowitz’s site Discover the Networks says that “a strong case can be made for the claim that Soros today affects American politics and culture more profoundly that any other living person.” Such organizations as Media Matters for America are beneficiaries of Soros’s vast wealth. While the total of his political expenditures over the years is perhaps beyond calculation, it is known that between 2003 and 2011, for example, Soros spent more than $48 million to fund media properties. Given his enormous influence on the Left, it is understandable that conservatives suspect that Soros is behind every allegedly “grassroots” left-wing activist group. It’s not a paranoid conspiracy, but a documented fact that, for example, the Black Lives Movement received more than $30 million from Soros’s tax-exempt organizations. Likewise, it has been documented that so-called “Antifa” groups, implicated in riots in Berkeley and elsewhere, got money from Soros-funded foundations. And it should surprise no one that Soros has spent many millions in support of an open-borders immigration agenda.

“Soros’s agenda is fundamentally about the destruction of national borders,” researchers David Galland and Stephen McBride wrote in a 2016 article titled “How George Soros Singlehandedly Created The European Refugee Crisis — And Why.” Galland and McBride documented the involvement of Soros’s Open Society Foundation in the crisis that flooded Europe with millions of Muslim migrants. When Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban took action to halt the influx of “refugees” into his country and named Soros as the sponsor of this invasion, Soros responded: “[Orban’s] plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle. Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.”

This was a startling admission, and it is clear that Soros also views America’s borders as an “obstacle” to his plans. In their book The Shadow Party, Horowitz and his co-author Richard Poe explained that a massive 2006 pro-amnesty rally in Los Angeles involved no fewer than eight groups funded by Soros, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the National Council of La Raza. As for the current migrant caravan from Honduras, it is being supported by the so-called “CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project,” a coalition of four organizations, three of which receive funding from — you guessed, didn’t you? — George Soros.

To identity Soros as the sponsor of this open-borders agenda, however, is to be guilty of hate, as explained last week in a Washington Post headline: “Conspiracy theories about Soros aren’t just false. They’re anti-Semitic.” You will not be surprised to learn that the author of that article, Talia Levin, works for Media Matters, which is funded by Soros. Levin previously worked at the New Yorker, but was fired in June after falsely accusing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent of having a Nazi tattoo (the agent, it turned out, is a Marine Corps combat veteran who lost both legs in Afghanistan). So here we have a Soros-funded writer declaring in the pages of the Washington Post that it is an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory to say that Soros is doing what he’s actually doing.

In other words, telling the truth is now “hate speech.”

Let’s apply logic to what we’re being told here. If telling the truth is now speaking hate, and taking an anti-Satanic position is now anti-Semitic, doesn’t that necessarily require the conclusion that George Soros and others who share his religion do not worship the Christian God, but rather, the god of this world?

The 14th Amendment lie

Ann Coulter efficiently disposes of it:

As the court has explained again and again and again:

“(N)o one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in (the 13th, 14th and 15th) amendments, lying at the foundation of each, and without which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, and the protection of the newly made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him.”

That’s why the amendment refers to people who are “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States “and of the state wherein they reside.” For generations, African-Americans were domiciled in this country. The only reason they weren’t citizens was because of slavery, which the country had just fought a Civil War to end.

The 14th Amendment fixed that.

The amendment didn’t even make Indians citizens. Why? Because it was about freed slaves. Sixteen years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, the Supreme Court held that an American Indian, John Elk, was not a citizen, despite having been born here.

Instead, Congress had to pass a separate law making Indians citizens, which it did, more than half a century after the adoption of the 14th Amendment. (It’s easy to miss — the law is titled: “THE INDIAN CITIZENSHIP ACT OF 1924.”) Why would such a law be necessary if simply being born in the U.S. was enough to confer citizenship?

Even today, the children of diplomats and foreign ministers are not granted citizenship on the basis of being born here.

Anyone claiming otherwise is either a) ignorant, or as is much more likely the case, lying. Ben Shapiro and any other lawyer attempting to claim that the 14th Amendment establishes birthright citizenship should be disbarred.

Interview with a sociopath

This interview is taken from a British dating show on which a convicted murderer appeared as a contestant. It’s interesting to see the similarity to the way gammas talk total nonsense about themselves.

How would you describe yourself?

John Cannan: ‘I think a ruff would suit me. Tights and sword, I can see me on some bridge, on some galleon, being a pirate – yes, I can handle that. Yes, I have a dislike of inflated egos – people who are, they look at me – “I’m great”, type. I don’t like that, I can’t handle that sort of inner weakness.’

That kind of pretention?

JC: ‘Yeah, I don’t like that at all. I just like just normal, average people.’

What do you look for in a person? What attracts you?

JC: ‘I think apart from the physical side, again I think somebody who’s pleasant, who’s natural, who’s relaxed, somebody who’s calm – just pleasant, someone nice.

You’re not worrying about if they’re career orientated?

JC: ‘No; no, no; no, no. As somebody who’s career orientated myself, I couldn’t blame them for that. No, not at all.’

Do you admire any famous people, past and present?

JC: ‘Yes, I’ve admired a few. People like Gandhi, philosophers like Bertrand Russell. Present day people like Prince Charles, who’s socially aware. Physically, somebody like Stephanie Beacham.’

Who’s that?

JC: ‘No, it’s actually… I think she’s in Dallas, or from Crest or something. No, joking apart, somebody natural, nice, pleasant, somebody with character, a little personality.’

Practical?

JC: ‘Practical, yes. Just somebody normal – somebody who’s easy and relaxed to be with.’

Now what about TV comedy programmes, is there anything that you like?

JC: ‘I’m a little bit dry as regards humour. Dave Allen, Benny Hill is OK.’

How dare you say Benny Hill?!

JC: ‘It’s a bit slapstick, I know, Benny Hill is OK – or he used to be, not so good nowadays, but he used to be. Yeah, that type of… mainly dry humour.’

Now, do you have any ambitions for the future, or do you feel like you’ve achieved your ambitions already?

JC: ‘I’ve achieved them. Basic, financially I’ve achieved them.

So you’re just going to curl up and keel over then?

JC: ‘No, no, not at all. I’m just looking now – I’m in a sedimentary period, where financially and career wise, I’ve achieved what I’ve wanted to achieve, I’m just now looking for what, the next thing to achieve.’

I’m always suspicious of people who use words improperly, such as the use of the word “sedimentary” when he meant “sedentary”. Keep in mind that the man was completely unemployed at the time. And on what planet was Benny Hill ever “dry humour”?

One thing I’ve learned over half-a-century on the planet is that the small things matter more than most people believe. Even the smallest error that reveals a pretense can tell you a great deal about an individual.

Australian shenanigans

The promoter of Milo and Ann Coulter’s Australia tour is trying to pull a fast one:

Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to visit Australia for a five-show tour alongside conservative speaker Ann Coulter in December. The pair was set to discuss the topic “how to save Australia”.

But on Monday, tour promoter AE Media emailed ticket holders advising them that “due to unforeseen circumstances” Milo Yiannopoulos’ 2018 tour had been cancelled. Instead of being offered a refund, fans were told their tickets would be honoured in the form of tickets to see the joint speaking tour of British conservative personality Tommy Robinson and self-descibed “western chauvinist” Gavin McInnes.

Mr Yiannopoulos confirmed the news in a post on Facebook and Instagram.

“Yesterday, I woke up to the news that my Australian tour with Ann had been cancelled and the promoter was “transferring” tickets to another series of events,” he wrote. “This is illegal. If you’re a ticket holder and want a refund, they are obliged to give you one and I will make sure that happens.”

It’s always interesting to learn who is deemed acceptable and who is not. Needless to say, this sort of thing is only one of the many reasons that I have never accepted a speaking invitation to any group, university, or corporation.

Facebook bans Proud Boys

Don’t complain about being deplatformed, build your own damn platforms!

Facebook has started banning both individual accounts and pages, as well as associated groups, that are affiliated with the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys. The news was first reported today by Business Insider, which noted that members of the Proud Boys and adjacent online communities had begun complaining about the takedowns on Twitter.

The removals come in response to an act of violence in New York City earlier this month, in which members of the Proud Boys assaulted anti-fascist protestors outside a Republican club in Manhattan where Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, also an original co-founder of Vice Media, was speaking. Facebook confirmed to The Verge that it was banning Proud Boys members and affiliated groups and pages from both its main social network and from Instagram. McInnes’ personal page is still active, but a number of high-profile groups, pages, and accounts have begun to disappear today.

“Our team continues to study trends in organized hate and hate speech and works with partners to better understand hate organizations as they evolve,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “We ban these organizations and individuals from our platforms and also remove all praise and support when we become aware of it. We will continue to review content, Pages, and people that violate our policies, take action against hate speech and hate organizations to help keep our community safe.” The company is citing violations of its rules on hate speech and the organizing of groups that spread hate both online and offline as the reason for the bans and removals.

The social media giants need conservatives and other right-wingers on their sites more than we need to be on them. We have repeatedly demonstrated that. The Darkstream has become popular enough that YouTube is now throttling recommended videos there and it is probably only a matter of time before that channel is deplatformed, which is why it has been on BitChute for the last few months.

People follow content, not platforms. Platforms are worthless without content. Yes, a change of platform will reduce one’s audience, but the part of the audience lost, the part that can’t bother to follow you to the new platform, is the trivial and largely irrelevant part. I’d rather have 2,500 staunch followers than 250,000 casual fans. Being deplatformed from Twitter and losing my 33k followers there did not harm me or slow me down in the slightest. I’ve never used Facebook for anything important. This blog is already backed up in multiple locations and we will not even break stride if Google forces Blogger to shut it down… although you should subscribe to either Castalia Book Club or the Daily Meme Wars to be alerted to the new site when the time comes.

When, not if.

Everyone needs to stop expecting fairness from their self-declared enemies or thinking that cucking just a little will cause them to spare you. If the next wave of deplatformings doesn’t affect you, then the one that follows the social media giants’ fury and despair when the Blue Wave fails to appear very well may.

Darkstream: In Defense of the US Border

From the transcript of the Darkstream:

The problem is that Americans don’t understand that the frontier closed over one hundred years ago. These people are not coming to America to become Americans, they’re invading America to demand tribute. There’s an old saying about the Danegeld: once you pay the Danegeld you’ll never be rid of the Dane. The United States brought in immigrants, brought in refugees, and all they did was encourage more. And that’s why the United States is falling apart.

The average IQ has fallen by as much as eight points. The country is literally stupefying itself, enstupidating itself, however you want to describe it, the country is actively lowering its standard of living and its ability to maintain its infrastructure. It is not sustainable. Trump understands what is politically possible better than me, that’s true, but it’s not about politics. War is not about politics. When Clausewitz talks about war being politics by other means, that’s the whole point, it’s about other means. Once you’re in the realm of defending borders, that’s not something that you need to win support for, you either do it or you don’t, and if you don’t do it then you have failed. It’s that simple.

Gordon says the entire West is infested with that mentality. That’s absolutely true and it’s not an accident. It’s a mentality that has been pushed systematically on the West by a coalition of peoples whose interests are intrinsically anti-Western. It’s not a single group of people. It’s not just the Jews, it’s not just the socialists, it’s not just the various immigrant peoples,  it is a coalition of peoples whose interests are in general opposed to the interests of the Western people.

Now the West has brought it on itself, you know. The fact that the West colonized these other countries, the fact that the West imposed their economic systems and their currencies and their legal systems and everything else on other countries, is now coming back to bite the West. This is a normal reaction to empire. If you study the empires of the past, whether you study the Athenian empire, whether you study the Roman empire, whether you look at some of the Chinese empires, whether you look at the German empire, whether you look at the British empire, all of these empires were fundamentally weakened by the nature of their having established their rule over foreign nations because it’s a relationship that goes both ways. When you set up a colony in another nation you obviously affect that nation, but that nation also affects you. That’s why the Dutch have an issue with the people who obtain Dutch citizenship through living in the Netherlands Antilles.

This is a historical pattern that repeats itself over and over and over again, and the logic of empire is what is now destroying the United States empire. People say, well, you know, the US is not an empire, we don’t have an emperor. Well, who was the emperor of the Athenian empire? You can’t name it,  there wasn’t one, because an empire is not about what you call the ruler or rulers, it’s fundamentally about whether one nation is ruling over a series of other nations or not.

A reader is reminded of the historical cycle described in the ancient Chinese classic:

The latest Darkstream immediately brought to mind the famous opening lines of Three Kingdoms:

“Here begins our tale. The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.”

The urge to unite speaks to man’s hubris and arrogance, and the eventual division, to the inevitable end of that folly and hubris.

Ending “birthright citizenship”

Let’s hope that the God-Emperor follows through on this planned executive order as soon as possible:

President Trump plans to sign an executive order that would remove the right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born on U.S. soil, he said yesterday in an exclusive interview for “Axios on HBO,” a new four-part documentary news series debuting on HBO this Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET/PT.

Why it matters: This would be the most dramatic move yet in Trump’s hardline immigration campaign, this time targeting “anchor babies” and “chain migration.” And it will set off another stand-off with the courts, as Trump’s power to do this through executive action is debatable to say the least.

Trump told “Axios on HBO” that he has run the idea of ending birthright citizenship by his counsel and plans to proceed with the highly controversial move, which certainly will face legal challenges.

  • “It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t,” Trump said, declaring he can do it by executive order.
  • When told that’s very much in dispute, Trump replied: “You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order.”
  • “We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States … with all of those benefits,” Trump continued. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.” (More than 30 countries, most in the Western Hemisphere, provide birthright citizenship.)
  • “It’s in the process. It’ll happen … with an executive order.”

The President is absolutely correct. He has the legal authority to do it. The problem is that he has set a disturbing precedent of making statements like these, then backing down. He absolutely has to stop doing that, and start firing any bureaucrat or Cabinet member who attempts to derail his objectives.

It’s not that hard. Build the Wall, Drain the Swamp, Start the Trumpslide.

Devstream: Building a New Alternative to Twitter and Gab

From the transcript of the Darkstream:

Twitter is controlled by SJWs. There is a central control there that dictates what the official perspective is, and so when they look at something like Gab, then they say, “Well, this is like Twitter,  Twitter has a core perspective there, so Gab must as well.” And then they look at what the dominant influence there is, and when you go to Gab – I haven’t been on it in in months – but you know, a year ago when I was on it, you could not get away from the Alt-Retards, you could not get away from the Fake Right. And so it’s not surprising that Gab was universally condemned for the political perspective that you could not help but encounter there.

Nobody says the same sort of thing about Infogalactic. They kind of made a half-hearted attempt, but nobody could do that because they would go there and they would see that it just wasn’t true. Because what we are doing with Infogalactic is that we’re giving the control to the user. The user’s perspective is what is going to ultimately define what he sees, and so it’s impossible to claim that Infogalactic is Wikipedia for Nazis or Wikipedia for Communists or any of these other sort of things. You can’t do it because the answer to all of it is yes. Anyone can use it, and anyone will see what it is that they prefer to see. The control is in the user’s hands. We’re not talking about something that is some sort of free speech thing, we’re not talking about that at all, we’re talking about from a basic technological point of view the perspective is under the control of the user.

I’ll give you an example. If you look at any Wikipedia page, people tend to think of it as being just one page, but every page is really a vast vertical stack of pages. The problem is that the page that you see on the subject is the one that the 535 Wikipedia admins have determined is the One True Page. That is the only perspective that is permitted and if you violate that perspective they will override you, they will block you, they might even kick you off. In the case of Infogalactic what we’re doing is we’re taking that vertical stack and we’re spreading it out and then we’re allowing you to decide which of all of those pages is the one that you want to see. That’s the approach we will take to all our social media efforts.

NOTE: Ironically, in light of the criticism that this approach will “lead to echo chambers”, this video is the second one in succession on the Darkstream channel to have its recommendations removed. Between the rampant Big Social censorship of what can be posted on any social media or commenting system and various alternative sites and individuals being removed from the Internet, it should be apparent that you’re going to be forced into an echo chamber whether you happen to find them desirable or not. The only real question is if you would prefer the perspective of the echo chamber you inhabit to be one that you choose or one that is imposed upon you by SJWs.