Another Magic Dirt fail

Well, that, or Germans are taking an extraordinary interest in Turkish politics:

Around 50,000 supporters of Turkey’s Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have rallied in Cologne, Germany to demand his authoritarian reign continues. The Islamist crowd chanted “Allah hu Akbar!” and held signs reading, “Erdoğan is a human rights activist”, whilst opponents waved banners insisting “Stop the Erdomania!”

Members of the Turkish-nationalist, fascist-leaning “Grey Wolves” group were among the crowd that gathered on banks of the Rhine River with the city’s huge gothic cathedral in the background.

I wonder why these bona-fide, no-question, Genuine and Real True Germans are so interested in Turkish politics all of a sudden?

And to think people ask how mass deportations could possibly be conducted. I should think there is a pretty good hint right there.

“Viva Mexico rally today. Free burritos and tequila shots!”


Mailvox: Churchianity and Cruz

JM is mystified by the continued enthusiasm of Churchian cuckservatives for Ted Cruz:

I used to respect the authors of this blog and some of those they quote with approval, but I’ve lost respect for them in the last few months, and have dropped them from my blogroll.  I find it both interesting and annoying to see how they rationalize Ted Cruz’s refusal to keep his word into an act of Christian principle.  To be charitable, they may be unaware of all the dirty tricks pulled by the Cruz campaign, but they’d probably find some way to justify them, anyway.

I suspect that Cruz, Jeb, and Kasich never had any intention of supporting Trump regardless of the pleedge they made, and they’re just making up excuses to rationalize their dishonesty.

Most of the women mentioned in this post who are so upset at Trump and Christians who favour Trump are extremely judgmental Calvinists, who seem to be making this a test of Christian orthodoxy.

If these people are so enthusiastic about Cruz’s alleged adherence to the Constitution, why don’t they notice that he isn’t even constitutionally eligible to hold the office he was running for?

It’s just a form of Christian identity politics, that’s all. After all, once you’ve determined that Ted Cruz is the Holy and Anointed One, it’s a little hard to back down and admit that not only are you wrong, but you’ve been listening to false prophets you should never again give any credence.

Like any other cult that’s faced with dealing with false prophecies, the response of the hard core is to double down even as everyone else falls away.

The only reason they’re so upset with Trump is because he has shown their prophets to be false, their principles to be fake, and their pretensions to be ridiculous. I suspect that most of these die-hards are either women or gammas, as neither can ever forgive someone who humiliates them by publicly proving them to be wrong.

I wasn’t even a little bit surprised to see the poster boy for Churchian cuckservatives, Matt Walsh, being prominently featured in the approved quotes club. That is the sort of people JM is dealing with here.


State polls vs national

Nate Silver of 538 addresses the discrepancies while explaining why his systems are, by his own account, “bullish on Trump”:

Another tricky question is how to reconcile state polls with national polls. For example, there have been no polls of Pennsylvania over the past two weeks, during which time Clinton’s lead has evaporated in national polls (and often also in polls of other states, where we’ve gotten them). The FiveThirtyEight model uses what we call a trend-line adjustment to adjust those those old polls to catch up to the current trend. That’s why our polls-only forecast shows Pennsylvania as a tossup even though Trump has only led one poll there all year. Those older polls came from a time when Clinton led by 5 or 6 or 7 percentage points nationally, and they generally showed her up by about the same margin in Pennsylvania. Now that the national race is almost tied, it’s probably safe to assume that Pennsylvania is very close also. Some of the competing models don’t do this, and we think that’s probably a mistake, since it means their state-by-state forecasts will lag a few weeks behind, even when it’s obvious there’s been a big shift in the race.

Bottom line: Although there are other factors that matter around the margin, our models show better numbers for Trump mostly because they’re more aggressive about detecting trends in polling data. For the past couple of weeks — and this started before the conventions, so it’s not just a convention bounce — there’s been a strong trend away from Clinton and toward Trump.

In other words, as I’ve been saying from the start, it’s too soon to tell anything from the state polls. The fact that the trend is towards Trump is apparent, but it’s not certain that it is the start of a cascade preference that will lead to the predicted Trumpslide.

However, it is the first required step in the process, so that’s a good sign for now.


In defense of globalism

The Economist argues for openness, Hillary Clinton, and the corrupt anti-nationalist status quo:

Countering the wall-builders will require stronger rhetoric, bolder policies and smarter tactics. First, the rhetoric. Defenders of the open world order need to make their case more forthrightly. They must remind voters why NATO matters for America, why the EU matters for Europe, how free trade and openness to foreigners enrich societies, and why fighting terrorism effectively demands co-operation. Too many friends of globalisation are retreating, mumbling about “responsible nationalism”. Only a handful of politicians—Justin Trudeau in Canada, Emmanuel Macron in France—are brave enough to stand up for openness. Those who believe in it must fight for it.

They must also acknowledge, however, where globalisation needs work. Trade creates many losers, and rapid immigration can disrupt communities. But the best way to address these problems is not to throw up barriers. It is to devise bold policies that preserve the benefits of openness while alleviating its side-effects. Let goods and investment flow freely, but strengthen the social safety-net to offer support and new opportunities for those whose jobs are destroyed. To manage immigration flows better, invest in public infrastructure, ensure that immigrants work and allow for rules that limit surges of people (just as global trade rules allow countries to limit surges in imports). But don’t equate managing globalisation with abandoning it.

As for tactics, the question for pro-open types, who are found on both sides of the traditional left-right party divide, is how to win. The best approach will differ by country. In the Netherlands and Sweden, centrist parties have banded together to keep out nationalists. A similar alliance defeated the National Front’s Jean-Marie Le Pen in the run-off for France’s presidency in 2002, and may be needed again to beat his daughter in 2017. Britain may yet need a new party of the centre.

In America, where most is at stake, the answer must come from within the existing party structure. Republicans who are serious about resisting the anti-globalists should hold their noses and support Mrs Clinton. And Mrs Clinton herself, now that she has won the nomination, must champion openness clearly, rather than equivocating. Her choice of Tim Kaine, a Spanish-speaking globalist, as her running-mate is a good sign. But the polls are worryingly close. The future of the liberal world order depends on whether she succeeds.

The Economist correctly senses that the time for “the liberal world order” is rapidly running out. Notice how, like much of the conservative media and the cuckservative Republicans, the maintenance of the status quo is its only real principle and completely trumps all of their various ideologies. Everyone profiting from the current setup, from literal Socialist to small government Republican, is willing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against anyone who would first stand for the benefit of his nation and his people.

The Economist is speaking with the voice of the transnational elite, who have no loyalty to any nation, who could not care less about Americans, or French, or British, or Chinese, or anyone else, so long as they are allowed to continue to prey upon them. It is not, as some would have it, an exclusively Jewish elite, but rather, an alliance of rapacious elites from every nation, who share an honor among thieves and defend each other at the expense of the various peoples they have been raping for at least four generations.

Globalism is an evil even greater than Communism, Socialism, Nazism, Fascism, or Feminism, because it is a trans-ideological meta-evil that can take advantage of any ideology except Nationalism. That is why Nationalism is the most effective response to it and that is why those who love either freedom or their own people should support the Nationalists of every nation and of every ideological stripe.


Hillary Clinton’s speech

This is an open thread to discuss Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech at the DNC. Or her epileptic fit, neural seizure, or whatever else happens while she’s making it.

Meanwhile, Google expects everyone to believe that it was just a technical glitch that caused Donald Trump to disappear from the search results for “presidential candidates”.

We found a technical bug in Search where only the presidential candidates participating in an active primary election were appearing in a Knowledge Graph result. Because the Republican and Libertarian primaries have ended, those candidates did not appear. This bug was resolved early this morning.
 — Google Spokesperson

Yeah, that sounds entirely credible. Since we all know how neutral Google is when it comes to this election.

Meanwhile, John Scalzi appears to be considering a career as a comedian, because this is the third-funniest thing he’s ever written:

So, before Hillary Clinton puts a cap on the DNC convention with her appearance tonight, let me talk a little about what I think of her as a presidential nominee, (mostly) independent of the fact of Donald Trump as her opponent for the office. And to talk about her as a presidential nominee, I need to talk a little bit about me as a political being.

I want to talk about Hillary Clinton. But first, I need to talk about me! That’s even funnier than his claim to be a “Rockefeller Republican”. Or his declaration that “voting for Clinton” is “not only a preference, but a moral necessity”.


That was fast

Bernie Sanders is no longer a Democrat:

The nomination was barely sealed up at the Democratic National Convention before Bernie Sanders, who had campaigned against Hillary Clinton for the party’s nod, went back to being an Independent. Sanders, who considers himself, officially, an Independent in Congress because his views lean further left than the Democratic party’s platform, caucuses with Democrats. But until declaring an intention to run for the presidency in 2015, he had rarely, if ever, identified as a member of the Democratic Party.

I thought it was a little strange that someone who wasn’t a Democrat would come so close to winning the Democratic nomination, but then, Donald Trump was only a sometime Republican and that didn’t stop him from winning the Republican nomination.

It just tends to demonstrate the irrelevance of the parties and their nominal ideologies, I guess. But given the timing of this, I think we can safely count out Bernie for any serious campaigning on the Lizard Queen’s behalf.


The DNC vision for America

Yeah, letting these third-world-loving cretins continue running the country seems like a totally wonderful idea, doesn’t it. Do you still seriously doubt what the America 3: Darker and More Vibrant edition is going to be like?
  1. Stop all immigration.
  2. Replace the 1965 Immigration Act with a new Naturalization Act in line with the original one.
  3. Build the wall.
  4. Begin the mass deportations.
That’s what is required just to start Making America Great Again. You may not like the program, you may find it brutal and cruel, but it is what happens when hideously destructive policies have been adopted and allowed to run amok for 50 years.

As hard as it may be to accept, it’s a damned sight more civilized than either of the alternatives.


Alt Right vs conservative

The difference is material. As are the outcomes. On a not-entirely-unrelated note, Donald Trump answered 12 questions at The Donald sub-reddit yesterday. One of them was from Milo:

yiannopoulos_mMILO
America has a proud tradition of stealing the most brilliant and talented people from countries around the world for ourselves. Albert Einstein, Wernher von Braun, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Melania Trump… the list goes on and on. In recent years, however, H-1B visa abuse has become rampant. A program meant bring truly exceptional talent to America has been twisted by globalist politicians and corporations, allowing low-cost, short term labor to steal jobs from everyday Americans and take everything they learn back to their home countries. Will you curb H-1B abuse and make sure visas are going to people who want to become American, stay American, and make America great?

the-realDonaldTrump
I have put forward a detailed plan for H-1B reform to protect American workers which can viewed on the immigration paper on my website. My plan is the exact opposite of Crooked Hillary Clinton.

[–]MeowntainMan
For the lazy

  • Increase prevailing wage for H-1Bs. We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program’s lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.
  • Requirement to hire American workers first. Too many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS.

However, it was another answer that was more significant, as once more, Trump stressed the need to change both economic policy and foreign policy, linking both to the corrupt system of politics that is rigged against the interest of most Americans.


Americans in every party are tired of our rigged system and corrupt politicians, and want to reform our government so it no longer benefits the powerful at the expense of everyone else. They know I will fix it so it works for them and their families. Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. My message is that things have to change, and they have to change right now.


We have to change a foreign policy that has led us to one economic disaster after another, and an economic policy that has failed our poorest citizens. We will never fix a rigged system by relying on the people who rigged it in the first place.


I am going to return the government to the people.


Together, we will Make America Great Again. 


Dud or warning shot?

Wikileaks releases 29 DNC voicemails:

Another shoe has been dropped by Wikileaks. On the night President Obama and Vice Presidential nominee Tim Kaine were scheduled to speak to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, the anti-secrecy whistle-blower group released hacked voicemails of top Democratic officials. Wikileaks put up a page containing 29 mp3 files of calls, identified by phone number, running approximately 14 minutes combined.

None of the messages listened to by The Washington Times contained anything immediately obvious as embarrassing or incriminating. However, the very fact the DNC voicemail system has been hacked is embarrassing and could augur the release of far more damaging material later.

 Given the way Wikileaks likes to draw things out for maximum media impact, one would assume that the release of these innocuous messages is a warning shot, especially in light of how the Democrats and the bitter #NeverTrump die-hards have been attacking Wikileaks as a pawn of Vladimir Putin.

On the other hand, it could simply be a bluff because they don’t have anything more. Only time will tell.

UPDATE: Warning shot.

Wikileaks’ Julian Assange said that the organisation plans to release a “lot more” leaked material on Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party in the run up to November’s presidential election.


Viva Catalunya

The Catalan Republic votes to secede from Spain

In the aftermath of last month’s Brexit vote, there was an outpouring of concern in Europe that the British decision would embolden similar separatist movements across the continent. Earlier Wednesday, this is precisely what happened when Catalan nationalists voted to approve a plan to secede from Spain, defying the nation’s Constitutional Court and challenging acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is currently in political limbo as he struggles to form a government.

The decision was approved by 72 regional MPs out of 135. Ten MPs from the CSP group linked to Podemos, Partido Popular and Ciudadanos walked out of the assembly and the Socialists did not vote. A recent poll shows that 48% of the Catalan population currently supports independence compared with 43% against it.

The vote, symbolic as it may be, was one of defiance toward Madrid as Spain’s Constitutional Court had in recent days prohibited the regional parliament in Barcelona from voting on it. As Ansa reports, the resolution was presented by the pro-secessionist groups Junts Pel Si and CUP. The anti-secessionist parties – PP, Ciudadanos and PSC – have spoken out against the ”illegality” of the decision. PP parliamentary chief Xavier Garcia Albiol has said that the act is tantamount to a ”coup” against the government in Madrid and warned that there will be a price to pay for it. The head of the Socialist party, Pedro Sanchez, said there can be no democracy without common rules, while Albert Rivera, the Catalan-born leader of liberals Ciudadanos, described it as a attack on Spanish democracy. They both have rejected supporting Rajoy’s candidacy to become premier again.

Catalan regional president and pro-secessionist Carles Puidgemont instead says that the position taken by the regional MPs is ”legitimate” and has in recent months confirmed that the goal is to achieve an independent ”Catalan Republic” by the end of 2017.

Isn’t the double-talk from the anti-secessionists all too predictable? Democracy is about the will of the people, not “common rules”. And to call a representative vote that clearly has the support of the majority is not “an attack on Spanish democracy”, it is, rather, a democratic attack on Spanish imperialism.

One hopes that the conquered States of America who are only part of the USA due to military invasion and occupation will one day be permitted their own self-determination too. After all, they’ve been occupied by the USA for considerably less time than Catalonia has been occupied by Spain.