Tag: politics

AfD is relentlessly marching towards power in Germany:

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came up short of victory in eastern state elections in Saxony and Brandenburg on Sunday, but still finished with its highest vote share ever, Politico reports.

Why it matters: The anti-immigrant, nationalist AfD is one of several far-right parties across Europe that have made significant gains at the expense of the political establishment, including in May’s European Parliament elections. Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) remained the strongest party in Saxony with about 32{c54197dde12df2f558a2650e1cd4ae2483dbb80239d1e9c0b6d466bbef15f4fd}, while the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) held onto first place in Brandenburg with 27.2{c54197dde12df2f558a2650e1cd4ae2483dbb80239d1e9c0b6d466bbef15f4fd}, according to initial results.

Worth noting: The results are being viewed as a victory for AfD, but all parties have sworn not to work with the far right in a coalition government. That could be a difficult promise to keep, however, with vote share dispersed across a number of smaller parties.

The so-called “mainstream” parties will refuse to work with them, but they won’t be able to function effectively together because they have nothing in common beyond not being nationalists. For example, some of the obvious fracture points in the rossoverde alliance of PD and M5 in Italy are already beginning to expose themselves.

It’s always wise to put these predictions on the record well ahead of time, before the predictors start performing the Scott Adams two-step. The Z-Man contemplates the upcoming 2020 US Presidential election and confidently makes his call:

The 2020 presidential campaign will be two sides of the 60’s Boomer culture, facing off against one another in one final battle. The male side, represented by Donald Trump, is nostalgic for an America that no longer exists. Trump sees himself as this generation’s Ronald Reagan. Instead of morning in American, though, it is dusk in America. His tenure is a cargo cult of sorts. He and his supporters seem to think if they carry on like it is 1985, it will suddenly become 1985. Trump is pure nostalgia.

Warren is the feminine side of this battle. Unlike Trump, she is not pining for a return to Reagan’s America. She is all of the liberal Boomers in the 80’s and 90’s, who talked about the terribleness of Reaganism, while enjoying the benefits. Just as Boomer feminists talked like Betty Friedan, but lived like June Cleaver, this side of the Boomer political culture publicly hated Reagan and the 80’s economic boom, but privately benefited from it. The conscience of the 60’s was always forgiving….

I guarantee you she will run as the person who wrote the book, The Two Income Trap. And she will win. Trump, for all his stupidity, has known Warren was his big problem all along. That’s why he went after her two years ago.

I disagree, of course. I remain quite confident that President Trump will win in 2020, and by a bigger Electoral College margin than he did in 2016. And while I agree that Warren currently looks like the most likely Democratic nominee, I think it is too soon to declare that she will be the nominee, much less the eventual winner, let alone guarantee it. I’ve seen far too many media-anointed frontrunners wilt under the pressure of the actual caucuses and primaries to express any opinion on the matter yet.

Boris Johnson warns Remainer Tories that their jobs are not sinecures.

Boris Johnson is threatening to sack rebel Tory MPs who vote to block a No Deal exit from the European Union, it has been claimed.

The Prime Minister is set to prevent Remainer MPs within his party from standing at the next general election should they try to prevent a No Deal next week. It comes as a group of cross-party group MPs has agreed to work together to delay Brexit, which could come in the form of a no-confidence vote.

Among the rebel Tory MPs thought to be involved include Philip Hammond, 63, and former justice secretary David Gauke, 47, who has said next week may be the only chance for MPs to stop a no-deal Brexit.

Mr Johnson, 55, will treat Commons votes next week as indications of confidence in his government – disqualifying rebel Tory MPs from contesting their seats, according to Sun columnist James Forsyth.

When pressed for comment by MailOnline, Downing Street would not comment on whether Mr Johnson would following through with his promise, but added: ‘The PM hopes that all MPs will support him and recognise the result of the referendum.’

It’s really remarkable how few political leaders even attempt to maintain any semblance of control over those who are supposed to be their supporters.

It’s rather rich seeing the Remainers who have exploited every technical loophole and invented a few from scratch complaining about Prime Minister Boris Johnson utilizing a time-hallowed one to ensure Brexit is not delayed a second time:

‘As I said on the steps of Downing Street, we are not going to wait until October 31 before getting on with our plans to take this country forward.

‘And this is a new Government with a very exciting agenda to make our streets safer – it’s very important we bring violent crime down;we need to invest in our fantastic NHS; we need to level up education funding across the country; we need to invest in the infrastructure that’s going to take this country forward for decades; and we need to deal with the cost of living, moving to a high-wage, high-productivity economy, which is, I think, what this country needs to be.

‘And to do that, we need new legislation, we’ve got to be bringing forward new and important Bills, and that’s why we are going to have a Queen’s Speech and we’re going to do it on October 14 and we’ve got to move ahead now with a new legislative programme.’

When it was put to Mr Johnson that his critics will say proroguing Parliament is an insult to democracy and a way to deny MPs’ time to stop a chaotic split from the EU on October 31, the Prime Minister said: ‘That is completely untrue. If you look at what we’re doing, we’re bringing forward a new legislative programme on crime, on hospitals, and making sure that we have the education funding that we need.

‘And there will be ample time on both sides of that crucial October 17 summit, ample time in Parliament for MPs to debate the EU, to debate Brexit, and all the other issues. Ample time.’

Asked whether he was planning a general election before the end of the year, Mr Johnson said: ‘No. What you should take from this is we’re doing exactly what I said on the steps of Downing Street, which is that we must get on now with our legislative domestic agenda.

‘People will expect… I need to… we need to get on with the stuff that Parliament needs to approve on tackling crime, on building the infrastructure we need, on technology, on levelling up our education, and reducing the cost of living.

‘That is why we need a Queen’s Speech, and we’re going to get on with it.’

Asked what he would say to members of the public who may be concerned, the PM said: ‘We need to get on with our domestic agenda and that’s why we’re announcing a Queen’s Speech for October 14.’

Despite all their whining about democracy, the Remainers are loathe to take the obvious tactic that remains to them, which is a no-confidence vote that would trigger a new election. They don’t dare utilize it because they know that a pro-Brexit Parliament would replace them. Their dilemma is that they have neither the spirit nor the letter of the law on their side.

All they’ve got is the media. And it’s worth noting that the current Parliamentary session is the longest in British history, so proroguing it is arguably overdue. And note that the Prime Minister’s action is a response to the other parties publicly embracing a plan that requires the Commons Speaker to break the rules of the Parliament.

UPDATE: The Queen AGREES to suspend Parliament

He’s just experiencing the mental vagaries of old age.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is hopping on the defensive. After months of gaffes on the 2020 campaign trail prompting even his brain surgeon to chime in and defend his mind, Biden made a pointed comment about the state of his brain over the weekend. “I want to be clear, I’m not going nuts,” Biden said during a campaign rally in New Hampshire — a comment that surely extended beyond the confusion he was trying to clear up at the time, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Biden made the declaration while speaking to supporters at New Hampshire’s Loon Lake, defending his inability to remember just where he’d spoken at Dartmouth College a few hours earlier. “I’m not sure whether it was the medical school or where the hell I spoke. But it was on the campus,” he said, looking at the gathered reporters as he did it, per the Times.

It appears his handlers would do well to schedule his evening events for 4 PM at the nearest Denny’s. Regardless, I am entirely confident that Creepy Joe Sundown will not be the 2020 Democratic Party Presidential nominee.

“What’s not to like about Vermont? What a neat town!”
– Joe Biden, Keene, New Hampshire:

Unlike the US media, foreign diplomats won’t be fooled again:

Foreign diplomats are still feeling burned after assuming Donald Trump would lose in 2016 — and they don’t want to be fooled again. So many of them are quietly preparing for and predicting a Trump victory in 2020. Some are even trying to game out who will be on the president’s team in a second term. The belief that Trump will win reelection — gleaned from conversations with around 20 foreign diplomats, international officials and analysts who deal with them — appears widespread….

“What I’m saying right now is, I think, shared by many people,” a Middle Eastern diplomat said of the coming presidential election. “It’s his to lose.”

We called it first. Wear it with confidence.

Trumpslide 2020 is in progress:

• AZ: R +4k
• CO: D +42k
• FL: R +93k
• IA: D +6k
• NC: R +185k
• NV: R +26k
• PA: R +70k
• NM: R +7k
• NH: D +7k

Too many commentators are still caught up in the irrelevant Republican-Democrat shell game:

Tulsi Gabbard is running for president of a country that she believes has wrought horror on the world, and she wants its citizens to remember that. She is from Hawaii, and she spends each morning surfing. But that is not what she talks about in this unlikely campaign. She talks about the horror.

She lists countries: Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq. Failure after failure, she says. To drive the point home, she wants to meet on a Sioux tribe reservation in North Dakota, where, she explains, the United States government committed its original atrocity.

“These Indigenous people have been disrespected, mistreated with broken promises and desecrated lands,” Ms. Gabbard says.

Ms. Gabbard, 38, was a soldier in Iraq and currently serves as a major in the Hawaii Army National Guard, which she cites to temper her message: Get out of foreign wars. Leave other countries alone. Not everyone wants democracy.

Her position is hardly new. It’s essentially what George Washington recommended and what Donald Trump promised.

The US government has arguably committed more atrocities and broken more promises and treaties than any other extant government in the world, with the sole exception of Great Britain. That is an easily verifiable fact. The list of Indian treaties alone that it signed, then violated, are in excess of 100. In fact, it’s incredible that any foreign governments even bother to go through the charade anymore.

I’m not a fan of Tulsi Gabbard. But on this particular matter, she’s absolutely correct.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson may be a historian, but I’m confident he can do the math dictated by the recent by-election that cut his parliamentary majority to one.

The Liberal Democrats’ Jane Dodds gave the Prime Minister a political headache as she overcame an 8,000-vote Conservative majority to take the Welsh seat for the Remainer party.

Disgraced expenses cheat Tory Chris Davies, whose conviction and expulsion via a recall petition forced the summer vote, held on to second with a better than expected showing despite the presence of the Brexit Party…. Ms Dodds, 55, secured a majority of 1,425 after a ‘Remain alliance’ with Plaid and the Greens, and Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson signalled this morning that she wants to extend the tie-up to a swathe of other winnable seats.

• Jane Dodds (Lib Dem): 13,826  
• Chris Davies (Conservatives: 12,401
• Des Parkinson (Brexit Party) 3,331 
• Tom Davies (Labour ) 1,680 
• Lady Lily The Pink (Monster Raving Loony) 334 
• Liz Phillips (Ukip) 242 

A Leave alliance with the Brexit Party means the Conservatives will easily win the next general election, which looks increasingly likely for any of a variety of possible reasons. But it also means that the Conservatives have to stop faffing around with idiotic “increase legal immigration” talk and other nonsense that literally no one actually cares about. Of course, given the fact that they were foolish enough to try to convince the Brecon electorate to accept a convicted criminal who had been recalled by petition as their MP, they may not be capable of accepting the obvious political logic here.

The other interesting fact is the way in which Labour got absolutely destroyed. Its position as a weak Remain party appears to be untenable in the current circumstances.

Matt Taibbi’s article on the Democratic presidential candidates is pretty much all you need to know about the 2020 sacrificial lambs:

Four years ago, the rank inadequacy of the Lindsey Grahams and Scott Walkers and Jeb Bushes who tumbled into the pastures of Iowa made great sport for snickering campaign journalists, myself included. We dubbed the field of governors, senators, and congressgoons who couldn’t beat a game-show host the “Clown Car,” and laughed at what many of us thought was the long-overdue collapse of the Republican Party. The joke turned out to be on us.

The GOP error was epic in scale. The Republicans sent twice the usual number of suspects into the buzz saw of a Throw the Bums Out movement they never understood, creating the comic pretext for the Clown Car: twice the canned quips, twice the empty promises, double the rage, frustration, and eye rolls.

Nobody will want to hear this, but Democrats are repeating the error….

Williamson is a small, almost ethereal figure with silver-streaked hair and intense eyes that 19th-century authors would have described as being “like coals.” Her superficial eccentricities and occasional incautious statements (she once said “there’s a skepticism which is actually healthy” on the issue of vaccines) have caused reporters to chortle at her run.

But her speech is not a lifeless collection of policy positions. It’s an interesting, tightly written diagnosis of the American problem. Precisely because socioeconomic stresses have pushed them into heightened awareness, she says, the American public sees what she calls “a transition from democracy to aristocracy,” and the corporate sector’s “insatiable appetite” for money that dominates American life.

Williamson is not a traditional orator, with a voice that fills the room. You can barely hear her without a microphone. But she grabs crowds. Nobody is checking sports scores or Twitter. They’re in.

Williamson goes on to say that most Americans are aware that their government is now little more than a handmaiden to sociopathic forces. She describes a two-party system that, at its worst, operates in perfect harmony with the darkest impulses of corporate capitalism, and at best — presumably she refers more to Democrats here — sounds like institutionalized beggary.

“ ‘Pretty please, can I maybe have a hundred-thousand-dollar grant here?’ ” she says. “ ‘Pretty please, can we maybe have a million dollars in the budget for all this?’ ”

Heads are nodding all over the place.

“They say, ‘I can get you a cookie.’ ”

This elicits a few yeahs from the crowd.

Christ, I think. This woman is going to win the nomination.

Ironically, a lunatic candidate like Williamson is probably the only one with a legitimate chance of beating President Trump in the general election. Because she’s the only one speaking even a modicum of the truth; the US government really is little more than a handmaiden to sociopathic forces.