Author: VD

No duel-citizenships for legislators

Israel doesn’t permit dual-citizenship legislators. Why does the USA?

Approximately one-third of the Knesset members who will be sworn in at a special ceremony on Tuesday are newcomers to the Israeli parliament. Among them are five who, before pledging to serve the Israeli people, had to formally renounce foreign citizenships.

The requirement to give up non-Israeli citizenship did not take Rachel Azaria (Kulanu), Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union), Haim Jelin (Yesh Atid), Abdullah Abu Maaruf (Joint Arab List), and Yoav Kisch (Likud) by surprise. While Israelis may hold dual citizenship, a Basic Law passed in 1958 states that Knesset members cannot pledge allegiance as parliamentarians unless their foreign citizenship has been revoked under the laws of that country….

Azaria, a 38-year-old Jerusalem deputy mayor, renounced her American citizenship, which she had held by virtue of her mother having been born in the US…. Two years ago, when the 19th Knesset was sworn in, there were also five new MKs who had to give up foreign citizenships in order to take their seats. Like Azaria, two of them — Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett and Yesh Atid’s Rabbi Dov Lipman — gave up their US passports.

One can’t help but notice that Israel also has a wall….

Imperial overstretch

Perhaps you may recall the discussion of when and where the late-stage imperial US military is going to meet its inevitable debacle that finally signifies to the world that the empire is fully in decline. This proposed scenario would appear to be an excellent candidate in the unlikely event it should come to pass.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is prepared to throw the power of its naval force – and urges the world to join in – to block the Iranian oil shipments circumventing unilaterally imposed US sanctions against Tehran.

“Iran is trying to bypass the sanctions on it through the covert smuggling of petroleum via the sea. As these attempts expand, the navy will have a more important role in efforts to block these Iranian actions,” Netanyahu said at a navy cadets’ graduation ceremony in Haifa on Wednesday.

Failing to explain how exactly Israel’s relatively small naval force would impose the suggested blockade against Iranian oil tankers, Netanyahu only emphasized that Israeli sailors are well-trained and adept at carrying out sea missions against adversaries.

The scenario would be bad enough if it was only the Israeli Navy putting itself at risk of being sunk, but there is no way the Israelis would make such a move without expecting the US Navy to come to its rescue once it found itself in well over its head.

And getting into a green-water naval war would arguably be the worst possible scenario for the dominant blue-water navy and conjures up images of the French Navy at the Battle of the Nile, only in this case, it would be the sea power that would be at a serious disadvantage from land-based missiles and torpedoes despite its air superiority.

Voxiversity 011: The Socio-Sexual Hierarchy: Alpha

Voxiversity is back and on track with the 11th video, the second in the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy series, which addresses the topic of the Alpha rank and behavioral pattern. We have a new producer, hand-picked by the previous producer who I am pleased to observe is rapidly becoming too successful and important to make YouTube videos for me, and I think you will see that he made the right choice.

Our goal is to not only get back to the original goal of making two Voxiversity videos per month, but to make more than that, assuming that we can maintain the level of quality that has been established. Voxiversity 012 will address the Gamma and will be released a lot sooner than you probably expect.

Racism and rhetoric

You may recall that I predicted this very division in the Democratic Party years ago. It’s the same political dynamic, writ large, that Omar rode into the Minnesota state legislature.

House Democrats erupted in protest over plans to vote this week on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism – an indirect sanction on freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in response to the suggestion that supporters of Israel have “allegiance to a foreign country.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said on Wednesday that there may not be a vote this week on the measure, saying “We’re discussing what is the best way to address it,” according to the Washington Post.

Walking into them meeting, a confident Pelosi told the media that the Omar situation “would be resolved,” adding “I think you make more of it than there is . . . to be very honest with you — the press loves to foment unease in the Democratic Party but we are very united” regarding the Democratic House agenda.

Moments later, all hell broke loose:

Inside the meeting, according to multiple people present, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tried to keep her caucus focused on a planned Friday vote on a sweeping campaign and elections reform bill. She acknowledged “internal issues,” according to notes taken by a Democratic aide present, and urged members not to “question the motivations of our colleagues.”

But moments later, multiple House members stood up to challenge the decision — endorsed by Pelosi and the rest of the House Democratic leadership — to move forward with a resolution condemning religious hatred. Initially the measure targeted only anti-Semitism, with some Democrats pushing for a direct rebuke of Omar, but by Tuesday night — facing backlash from members not on board with the plan — leaders decided to expand it to include anti-Muslim bias. -Washington Post

Several Democrats those who took issue with the measure were members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who opposed even an indirect rebuke of Rep. Omar when they should be focusing on how to attack President Trump.

“I think there’s a big rise in anti-Semitism and racism, and that’s a bigger conversation we need to be having.” said Rep. Cedric L. Richmond (D-LA). “But it starts at 1600 Pennsylvania. It doesn’t start with one member out of 435 members of Congress.”

“Why are we doing this?” asked Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), who said that a resolution would be “redundant and unnecessary,” likely referring to the January 11 rebuke of Omar after she accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of contributing to pro-Israel politicians.

“We’ve individually and collectively already responded to the fact that we oppose all ‘-isms’ that do not treat people in this country fairly and justly,” said Coleman. “To continue to engage in this discussion is simply an opportunity to give both the media and Republicans distractions from our agenda. We’ve got important work to do.”

Other members, including Richmond, said it was unfair that the caucus would take action against one of its own members while other GOP lawmakers have uttered offensive remarks with no retribution. This week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) accused Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) of anti-Semitism for a tweet referring to Tom Steyer, a Democratic donor of Jewish descent as “Tom $teyer,” and Richmond and several other members mentioned Trump. -Washington Post

“We need to have equity in our outrage,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) who said after the meeting that she was focused on “the occupant of this White House who is seeding every form of hate, emboldening it with racist rhetoric and policies. That is who we all need to be focused on, and this is a distraction.”

According to those present, Omar attended the meeting but did not speak.

Jewish lawmakers, meanwhile, insist that the House needs to pass the resolution condemning anti-Semitism in response to Omar’s remarks.

What we’re learning here is that the concepts of 4GW apply to rhetoric as well as war. “Racism” is effective because it is based on a perception of societally punching down. But Jews can no longer effectively play the victim game in a multiethnic empire where they are the most powerful identity group among the ruling elite. That is why the accusations of “anti-semitism” are still effective with white Baby Boomers but have no effect whatsoever on rival immigrant populations and younger US citizens.

Also, the best rhetoric points towards the truth. And call it what you will, claiming that supporters of Israel cannot possibly have any allegiance to Israel is not only untruthful, it is downright incoherent.

Mailvox: a tale of two Marvels

WP explains the current Marvel situation:

There were two Marvel comics universes. (For simplicity I’ll say two though that is not accurate.)  One was the main one and one was the ULTIMATE universe which was meant to be a more gritty version which started in the year 2000.

The character Nick Fury was always a white man but in the ultimate version they made him a black man and they specifically made him look like Samuel L. Jackson. One could assume that they did this hoping to force the hand of higher-ups to cast Samuel L. Jackson for any future movies that were made.  That is what eventually happened.

Becoming the guy in charge of a 300 million dollar movie is hard.  Becoming the guy in charge of a comic book is much easier. Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury demonstrates that becoming the guy in charge of the comic can mean you decide how the 300 million dollar movie looks.

SJWs appear to have noticed this.  They made a WOKE replacement for all of the main Avengers.  Little black girl Iron Man, womyn Thor, Asian Hulk, black Captain America etc.

In recent years Marvel Comics seemed to want to force a female character to be their flagship character.  A big problem with this was that most of their female characters that people like were X-Men and Fox owned the movie rights to X-Men so those characters were neglected.  They decided to make Captain Marvel into their Wesley Crusher.

For reasons they also re-tooled Captain Marvel to be more repulsive and masculine, they did this repeatedly even though the comics were failures. With this in mind it’s notable that a Captain Marvel movie got made at all – no one cares about this character or could reasonably expect it to be very profitable.

Guys like Robert Downey Jr. eventually have to age out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  It would appear that the SJWs knew that and created the WOKE replacement comics to be the source material for the 2.0 Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Which may explain why Disney is looking to eject the comics altogether, since they know that Marvel Comics (SJW edition) is not only NOT going to plant more movie seeds, but is actively attempting to control the movie products. After all, if Disney wants SJW versions of the IP it owns, it is perfectly capable of producing them on its own. Soy Wars (nee’ Star Wars) is sufficient proof of that.

Milo banned from Australia

And here I was proud of being personally banned from Google’s Mountain View campus. But to have an entire country quaking in fear of you? Now THAT is an accomplishment!

The Morrison government has banned right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos from entering Australia in a fresh crackdown likely to infuriate his conservative supporters but please critics who believe he is anti-Semitic. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can reveal the controversial speaker was told this week his visa application had been rejected and he cannot enter Australia.

I can understand how very important it must be to all Australians to keep anti-semites out of the country. No doubt that’s why they don’t permit any Muslim immigration….

JBP vs VD: a rational assessment

This video series promises to be interesting, particularly if James Fox Higgins carries through by completing a comparative analysis of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life versus my Jordanetics. He’s done six videos to date, taking him through chapter four of the latter.

Not to give the whole thing away, but the answer, of course, is yes. Jordan Peterson is lying to you.

On a not-unrelated note, the Voxiversity video The Madness of Jordan Peterson just hit 50,000 views. YouTube instructs us to celebrate.

Your fans love this video! Your video hit 50K views. Create a post to celebrate with your fans!

So, that was fun…. 

Alt-Hero #6 in print

The sixth issue in the revolutionary Alt-Hero series is now available in print. Limited edition gold logo editions are now available from Castalia Direct.

Hell hath no fury like a superhero humiliated in public.

After the debacle at the Eiffel Tower, Captain Europa is determined to hunt down the renegade superhumans who embarrassed him in front of the world. And when Jean-Michel and Christian finally surface after spending weeks in hiding, the Global Justice Initiative is on their trail as fast as Shade can drive his supercar to Paris.

But there is a new player on the scene, a mysterious one with strange and surprising resources. And even a team of superheroes will find it hard to find a pair of young men inside the 300 kilometers of bone-encrusted tunnels that make up the Catacombs of Paris, especially when they don’t want to be found.

Ensafening Wisconsin

We’re announcing tonight that undocumented folks will be eligible to receive driver’s licenses and ID cards. This makes our roads and our communities safer, and helps strengthen our economy and Wisconsin families.
– Governor Tony Evers, Wisconsin

Well, if it strengthens the economy, then it must be good. Pursuant to which I note that the Japanese economy exploded upward after it invaded Manchuria. Perhaps Governor Evers should consider that as a next step.

Ben Shapiro Wrecked by One Perfect Tweet!

Ben Shapiro@benshapiro
Omar: The nefarious Joos and their money and dual loyalty undergird American support for Israel.
NYT: The question raised is…is Omar right?

Glenn Greenwald@ggreenwald
Isn’t it notable how the person who mocks every claim of racism & bigotry as the by-product of whiny, authoritarian, overly-sensitive snowflakes suddenly leads the callouts, denunciations, & demands for safe spaces when it comes to his own group? Almost like he has no principles.

I laughed. I cried. Much better than Cats. Now, answer the question, Ben. Is Omar right? And if not, why not?

As others have already observed, nothing demonstrates the lack of influence AIPAC possesses in Washington DC like the entire political class of both the Republican and Democratic parties, including both executive and legislative branches, uniformly denouncing a single Congresswoman criticizing AIPAC’s excessive influence.

Glenn Greenwald has more on the subject:

There are so many points to be made about this episode, each of which could justify its own entire article. It is, for instance, beyond dispute that what Omar is saying is true given that the very first bill passed by the U.S. Senate this year was one that allowed punishment for American citizens who boycott Israel, while U.S. citizens in 26 states are formally punished for boycotting this foreign nation, as we reported last month in the case of a Texas elementary speech pathologist who lost her job for refusing to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel (to keep her job with Texas, she’s allowed to boycott any other nation or even an American state: just not this one favored foreign nation).

Thus far, the two federal courts to rule on such laws have struck them down as unconstitutional violations of the free speech rights of American citizens on behalf of Israel.

How can anyone possibly pretend that it’s invalid or offensive to observe, as Congresswoman Omar did, that some in America demand allegiance to a foreign nation when American citizens are allowed to boycott American states but are punished for boycotting this one specific foreign nation?

As Yoram Hazony writes: “an empire will usually have a particular ruling nation at its heart.” It’s not exactly a mystery which nation presently rules the U.S. empire.