Tag: politics

The promised rise of nationalism

It is here. It is now. You may recall that I was one of the very few observers of European politics who predicted this years ago. I said it would take two election cycles for the nationalists to come fully to power. We’re still in the first one.

  • In a recent poll by the Czech Academy of Sciences, the ANO scored 30.9 percent, more than the two traditional heavyweights in Czech politics — the Social Democrat CSSD and the right-wing ODS — combined, who scored just 13.1 percent and 9.1 percent respectively.
  • The takeover of the OeVP in May by “Emperor Kurz” was as swift as it was radical. First he ended the decade-long unhappy coalition with the Social Democrats (SPOe). Then he rebranded the OeVP and its black party colour as a turquoise “movement” tough on migrants and easy on taxes. The strategy of “putting Austrians first” propelled the sluggish OeVP to pole position in opinion polls and Kurz to near-rock star status.
  • The People’s Party (OVP) got 31.6 per cent of the vote, according to exit polls from pollster SORA. Mr Kurz’s party is tough on migration, easy on taxes and widely Eurosceptic after rebranding itself over the last few months to propel its popularity in the wealthy Alpine nation. The 31-year-old is expected to form a coalition with the right-wing populist Freedom Party (FPO), who got 26.9 per cent of the vote, according to the latest projections. 
Of course, as with Brexit, the nationalists still have to deliver and free their nations from both the migrant invasions and the chains of the European Union. But be that as it may, it is clear that they have the democratic mandate of their nations, as well as the duty, to do so.

Dismantling Obama

The God-Emperor is systematically eradicating Obama’s bureaucratic and legislative legacies:

With each passing day, President Donald Trump unravels another piece of Barack Obama’s legacy. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The Paris climate accords. The Iran nuclear deal. Transgender people serving in the military. And, now, that most personal of policies for the former president: The Affordable Care Act.

And yet Obama watches from the sidelines, mostly silent, as Trump punches holes in the dry wall of his freshly finished legacy.

Sure, he’s living his best, most fabulous post-presidential life — jetting around the world, spending time with his family, spending time with the rich and famous, making millions to write books, making hundreds of thousands of dollars for the simple act of opening his mouth.

But Trump is ticking through each of Obama’s policy achievements — foreign and domestic — and trying to dismantle them. CNN’s Chris Cillizza wrote Friday that unraveling what Obama wrought seems to motivate just about everything Trump has done as President.

On a not-necessarily-entirely-unrelated note, one thought that occurs to me about the Weinstein situation is that the chans have been buzzing for weeks about an imminent, and decisive, move by the God-Emperor against the bi-factional ruling party and the deep bureaucracy. Now, this could be nothing more than wishful thinking on their part, but I had been already wondering what the true purpose of the NFL attack could be, other than shoring up his public support, since it was so obviously a major distraction for the media and the public alike. Now I’m wondering if it might have been to set the stage for the coming revelations that are said to be “beyond massive”.

An interesting consequence of the Weinstein case is the way in which it has prepared the public to find revelations an almost unthinkable degree of corruption and evil in powerful places to be credible. If the God-Emperor is going to go nuclear on his establishment enemies, the planets would appear to be in a favorable alignment.

You’re not one of them

And also, you have to go back.

Hats, as Racked explored earlier this year, have historically signaled that the wearer is part of a team — and when is the desire to belong more acute than in middle school? Of course, teams don’t exist without opponents, and for some to feel like they’re on the inside, others need to be left out.

It was clear to one mother, who asked to remain anonymous, who fell into the latter category and who didn’t when she picked her son up from his middle-school trip to DC: “Our school district has a good amount of minorities in it, but we were all stunned. Every single white kid besides maybe one or two walked off the bus with a red hat on,” she said.

While she, her husband, and their children were all born in the United States, they are Muslim-American and not white, and the hats were just the most recent and most visible symbol of a racial divide that, she says, her son has seen escalate since November.

“I think 12-year-old boys use it as a form of bullying — identifying themselves as part of this group to the exclusion of others just for the fun of it. That’s what it seemed like to me,” she says. “Us over here with the red hats, and you over there… you’re not even an individual anymore. Now you’re just one of the brown kids and you’re not one of us.”

The God-Emperor’s winning never ends. The Red Hats are the sans cullottes of the 21st century. Never forget that homogeneous nations are usually derived from heterogeneous empires.

You may not like these developments. You may think that they are cruel, racist, and wrong. And your opinion of that matters about as much as your opinion of a melon striking the pavement after being dropped from 100 meters high. Civic nationalism has observably failed. The melting pot was always a propagandistic lie. Human nature did not change when the Declaration of Independence was written, and in any event, it was not written for the 80 million post-1965 invaders of America.

Retreat in Catalonia

Spain and the EU managed to call the Catalan bluff:

Don’t let the cheers in the Catalan Parliament fool you. There’s been a full-blooded retreat from the separatists. After rowdy demonstrations, a covert referendum (which drew a violent response from Spanish police) and vows to set up a new republic, Catalan President Carles Puigdemont blinked.

Many lawmakers gathered for a special session of the regional legislature were hoping to hear a declaration of independence. Instead, he put the process on hold to make another appeal for talks with the Spanish government. No deadline. No leverage. And Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s response was powerful: he started the process that could see Puigdemont’s administration stripped of its powers.

Already last night cracks were opening up in the separatist coalition, suggesting a regional election may be necessary next year.

Perhaps Puigdemont had no real choice. The EU made it clear an independent Catalonia would be isolated. The region’s biggest companies were pulling out. And elite Spanish police officers were waiting to arrest him.

The reason the Catalan bid for independence is going to fail is that they don’t want actually want to be independent. They simply want to move up one rung on the EU totem pole. And that isn’t something that anyone in their right mind is going to fight or die for.

The Spanish misplayed this situation badly, but were ultimately saved by the fact that the Catalans were always ultimately hoping for the EU to swoop in and tell its member state that it had to let Catalonia go. Once the EU belatedly clear that it had no intention of doing so and called the Catalan bluff, the secessionists had no choice but to blink. Because they never, ever, intended to fight.

The return of La Serenissima

Now that Catalonia is on the verge of independence, Lombardia and Venezia are next:

Italy facing its OWN Catalonia: Referendums in Lombardy and Venice could TOPPLE EU

This month the Lombardy region and the city of Venice will both vote on new powers of autonomy at referendums which are now taking on increasing levels of controversy. Previously seen as a low-scale vote on local powers, the referendums are now experiencing symbolic overtones following last Sunday’s Catalonian chaos.

Last weekend more than 800 people were injured by police as a referendum on independence for Catalonia was held – against the express wishes of leaders in Madrid and Brussels. And now Italy is facing similar chaos with two referendums set to be held on October 22, although in these instances the votes are state-approved and will not face violent opposition.

I’m pretty sure the Venetian referendum will pass. I’m less confident about the Lombardian vote, since there are some heavily socialist regions of the province, but it stands a reasonable chance of passing, especially given what we’re seeing out of Spain. And unlike Catalonia, neither Venetians nor Lombardians are at all keen on the EU. It’s time to let Garibaldi’s Folly pass into history and bring back the great Italian city-states of the Renaissance.

Basta bugie, no UE! 

Media: Wait, don’t you live in Lombardia?
VD: (whistles innocently)

EU or independence

The EU helpfully clarifies the situation for Catalonia:

European Union officials have ruled out helping to mediate the clash between Spain’s government and Catalan officials over Catalonia’s upcoming independence referendum.

European Parliament President Antonio Tajani said at an EU summit in Estonia on Friday that the dispute is “a Spanish problem in which we can do little. It’s a problem of respecting Spanish laws that Spaniards have to resolve.”

Catalan officials, including the mayor of Barcelona, have asked the EU to mediate the tense standoff ahead of Sunday’s planned vote that Spanish authorities say is illegal.

Tajani says the EU is maintaining its support of Spain’s government because “on a legal level, Madrid is right.” He says: “I think it’s important to talk on a political level after Monday.”

The EU has said Catalonia will be ejected from the bloc, if it declares independence.

And now we’ll be able to discover if the Catalonians really want to be independent, or if they just wanted a direct line to EU largesse.

90 percent for independence

To absolutely no one’s surprise, the Spanish attempts to stop the Catalan independence referendum completely backfired:

Catalan officials claimed 90{c6770088f688fedd109195fb76ded7bc5c58269bd213a4319575b4bd99e8e8ff} of 2.2 million voters had called for independence in an ‘illegal’ referendum blighted by violent scenes which left at least 888 people injured. World leaders condemned the brutal scenes after officials revealed that hundreds of protesters have been injured so far. Officers were seen kicking and stamping on protesters as they stormed buildings and seized ballot boxes.

Footage captured in the village of Sarria de Ter in the province of Girona showed authorities using an axe to smash down the doors of a polling station where Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was due to cast his vote.  He said the region had won the right to become an independent state with the referendum results due in a few days. And in Barcelona, the region’s capital, officers fired rubber bullets at thousands of protesters demonstrating against their votes being denied.

Now, I am as dubious as anyone else about the accuracy of the reported vote. But seriously, who on Earth is advising the Spanish government? One would think they actually wanted Catalonia to successfully succeed, given how inept and counterproductive their crackdown was.

The players crumble

The NFL players are beginning to grasp that it is futile to fight the God-Emperor on rhetorical grounds:

Only 11 NFL players did not stand during the national anthem during the first set of games Sunday. That is a stark contrast from the 180 who kneeled last week, according to ESPN’s Darren Rovell.

This is why it is always a good idea to stop and think before reacting. Especially when you’re dealing with an opponent who is very, very good at anticipating the other side’s probable reaction.

It will be amusing to see how the owners who supported the protests will now try to climb back after leaping to take the side of the players.

NFL Week 4

Prognosis: Red.

Week 3

-14{c6770088f688fedd109195fb76ded7bc5c58269bd213a4319575b4bd99e8e8ff} NBC OAK-WSH
-17{c6770088f688fedd109195fb76ded7bc5c58269bd213a4319575b4bd99e8e8ff} FOX NYG-PHI
-03{c6770088f688fedd109195fb76ded7bc5c58269bd213a4319575b4bd99e8e8ff} CBS CIN-GB

Week 4

-06{c6770088f688fedd109195fb76ded7bc5c58269bd213a4319575b4bd99e8e8ff} CBS CHI-GB

A reader with connections at Anheiser Busch reports that the phone calls and emails there are “at least 3 to 1 against NFL, and against Goodell in particular.”

NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” is off 7 percent this year, ESPN’s Monday night down 5 percent, Fox down 11 percent, CBS 19 percent.

Starve the SJW beast. But to be honest, I can’t watch any football today anyhow. I’ve simply got too much to do.

Making America Employed Again

The God-Emperor strikes again:

The Department of Justice announced Thursday it has filed a lawsuit against a Colorado corporation for allegedly discriminating against U.S. workers.

The complaint alleges that in 2016, Crop Production discriminated against at least three United States citizens by refusing to employ them as seasonal technicians in El Campo, Texas, because Crop Production preferred to hire temporary foreign workers under the H-2A visa program.

“In the spirit of President Trump’s Executive Order on Buy American and Hire American, the Department of Justice will not tolerate employers who discriminate against U.S. workers because of a desire to hire temporary foreign visa holders,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “… Where there is a job available, U.S. workers should have a chance at it before we bring in workers from abroad.”

This is great. This is excellent. Now, BUILD THE WALL!