Category Archives: Politics on the left

The parties of the left are now the parties of the wealthy

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The ideological differences across the world were never better displayed than here: Financial Times Person of the Year: George Soros. And just to make sure it’s not a backhanded award because of his creepy and harmful influence, here are the FT’s own words:

The Financial Times’s choice of Person of the Year is usually a reflection of their achievements. In the case of Mr Soros this year, his selection is also about the values he represents.

He is the standard bearer of liberal democracy and open society. These are the ideas which triumphed in the cold war. Today, they are under siege from all sides, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia to Donald Trump’s America.

And if you have any doubts about which side of the fence the FT is on, then go through this at CNN: George Soros: Billionaire philanthropist the far right loves to hate.

Hatred never enters into it but fear does. The parties of the left are now the parties of the wealthy and super-wealthy. They have the money, the media and the Marxism, a formidable combination, but for the moment at least they do not have the momentum. For a different perspective from the FT, there is this: Soros an enemy of democracy. From which:

His ideological zeal to push for an open society that seeks to undermine national sovereignty and run roughshod over the will of the citizens knows no boundaries.

And he’s hardly the only one of his kind. The pages of the Financial Times are filled with them.

The one certainty is that there is no certainty

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With the Deep State found at every turn, it is hard to know where to look for sense on PDT’s pull-out of American forces from Syria. The one person whose views I therefore most wished to hear were those of Caroline Glick at The Jerusalem Post. She has now published this, which the headline writer described as: TRUMP’S DECISION TO PULL FORCES OUT OF SYRIA HAS UPSIDES. In the article itself, she is more positive, with this her conclusion which she links to Nikki Haley’s speech to the UN last week:

By abandoning the anti-Israel fake “peace process” and striking out on a new path based on reality, and by walking away from Obama’s pro-Iran policies in Syria and Lebanon and backing Israel in its efforts to defeat its enemies, the Trump administration is demonstrating what pro-Israel really means. So long as it is true to its word, Israel is safer and stronger for it.

OK. But there are two sides to this as she makes clear.

For the past two years, the Trump administration has continued implementing Obama’s pro-Iran policy in Syria. Efforts to change the US mission have failed, largely due to Pentagon opposition. During his visit to Israel in August, National Security Advisor John Bolton said that the mission of US forces had been expanded to block Iran from asserting control over Syria. But since the administration didn’t request a new mandate from Congress, the mission remained officially what it has been since 2014.

It is true that on the ground, the US forces in Syria do far more than fight ISIS. They block Iran from controlling the Syrian border with Iraq and so prevent Iran from controlling a land route from Tehran to the Mediterranean Sea.

US forces also have blocked Turkey from taking over Syrian Kurdistan and have prevented Turkish President Recep Erdogan from carrying out his pledge to destroy the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces. If the US chooses not to arm and supply the SDF, once the Americans leave, Syria’s Kurds – America’s only loyal allies there – will either have to cut a deal with Russia and Iran or face Turkey alone.

US forces in Syria also block Russia from taking over Syria’s oil fields. On February 7, forty US Special Forces troops blocked hundreds of Russian mercenaries from seizing the Conoco oil field on the eastern side of the Euphrates.

Finally, US forces in Syria act as a deterrent against Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah aggression against Israel. With US forces on the ground, they fear that provoking a war with Israel will be tantamount to going to war against America. With US forces out of Syria, their fear of attacking Israel will diminish.

Nevertheless, she still sees the positives, and it is quite striking that the Israeli reaction generally has been so quiet. It is the same people who oppose a border wall in the US who are also the ones most critical of Trump’s decision. The one certainty is that there is no certainty, no matter what you do.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS: There is an apparent assumption that PDT just does what he does with no groundwork and preparation. However, as noted by Baa Humbug in the comments: Saudi Crown Prince MbS Sends Replacement Troops To Defend Kurds in Syria…. There is also this to dwell on if it doesn’t turn your stomach: THE NEW YORK TIMES WAS AGAINST WAR IN SYRIA BEFORE IT WAS FOR IT.

Almost a year ago, on Jan. 19, 2018, that same editorial board raked the president over the coals for even daring to continue America’s policy of military adventurism. The Times expressed concern that more American troops beyond the 2,000 initially deployed could soon be sent overseas in a mission without any clear goals. “Syria is a complex problem. But this plan seems poorly conceived, too dependent on military action and fueled by wishful thinking,” The Times said.

Who would depend on these people to protect our way of life?

From the Wall to Wall Street

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TRUMP VOWS VETO OVER WALL!
FRUSTRATION BUILDS
SHUTDOWN LOOMS

Meanwhile, in The Oz, this is the headline story in the paper – allies warn as Trump pulls troops out of Syria – but it’s no news anywhere else, including at The Jerusalem Post, where the top story at the moment is “SODASTREAM TO OPEN FACTORY IN GAZA”. In fact, you can already barely find the story in the online edition of The Oz.

Then in the realm of manufactured news, we have this:

GOODBYE 23,000: STOCKS CONTINUE ROUT...
DOW -464...
WORST MONTH IN DECADE...
WIRE: Recession near? 

I am hardly the only one who wonders whether this is an anti-Trump fit of hysteria, in part through a Deep State effort in selling off shares, and in part through the Fed having raised rates for the seventh time since Trump was elected. They really are out to get him, and they are utterly indifferent who ends up paying the price.

In The News there is no truth and in The Truth there is no news

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That was the old soviet joke when the two major papers of record were Izvestia [The News] and Pravda [The Truth]. Nowadays our own equivalent is Fake News which is everywhere. We are living in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four which for most people seems quite a comfortable way to travel. We get our three-minute hate and we re-calibrate by the day who our enemies supposedly are and on we go. The Emmanuel Goldstein of our time is Donald Trump, and everywhere I go, these same three-minute hate sessions show up, with my main effort to try to contain them to three minutes. Truth, what truth? We live in a post-modern age where no such thing any longer exists. So why all this? Because this has just shown up today: ‘Junk News’: Russia Report Done By Anti-Conservative Academics:

A new study has claimed Russia’s online interference tried to aid the conservative movement and Donald Trump. There’s a big problem with that assessment. It comes from a left-wing operation that previously classified more than 11 different conservative outlets as “junk news.” And two of those authors were also involved in this report.

The study was released by the Oxford University Computational Propaganda Project and Graphika. It argued that fake accounts, ads, and tweets “all clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party — and specifically Donald Trump”

The Oxford University Computational Propaganda Project had attacked several conservative outlets as “junk news” in previous studies. Those targeted outlets include Drudge Report, NewsBusters, CNSNews, MRCTV, Breitbart, the Daily Caller, Free Beacon, LifeNews, National Review, the Federalist, and the Red State. (Three of those are operated by the Media Research Center, which runs NewsBusters.)

So here it is reported as straight news by the venerable Associated Press and no doubt everywhere else: Russia social media influence efforts ongoing, report says.

Russia’s sweeping political disinformation campaign on U.S. social media was more far-reaching than originally thought, with troll farms working to discourage black voters and “blur the lines between reality and fiction” to help elect Donald Trump in 2016, according to reports released Monday by the Senate intelligence committee.

And the campaign didn’t end with Trump’s ascent to the White House. Troll farms are still working to stoke racial and political passions in America at a time of high political discord.

The two studies are the most comprehensive picture yet of the Russian interference campaigns on American social media. They add to the portrait investigators have been building since 2017 on Russia’s influence — though Trump has equivocated on whether the interference actually happened….

The reports were compiled by the cybersecurity firm New Knowledge and by the Computational Propaganda Research Project, a study by researchers at the University of Oxford and Graphika, a social media analysis firm.

And so on and so forth. And to cap it off we have this: Why ‘Truth’ Is James Comey’s Word of the Year. It’s that very same Mr Comey formerly of the FBI who wrote this:

The media has been working, in fits and starts, to report the truth, and the lies. Their reward has been a constant stream of attacks from the President, attacks designed to destroy the media’s credibility and the very idea that truth is knowable, but they have kept at it. In part, the media has stayed on the case because the American people have kept at it. Rather than withdrawing, numb, they have stepped forward. An overwhelming majority support the work of a special prosecutor to find out what is true about the conduct of the President and his associates. More people voted in the 2018 midterm elections than in any similar election in memory. Those voters handed control of the House of Representatives to the opposition party. The design of the Founders — that crashing of interests to get at truth — will work to protect our democracy.

In 2018, we defended our values. And that’s the truth.

Not even Orwell could have imagined it, and that was just fiction. This is the real thing, and if you are not actually astonished by just how brazen and corrupt this is, perhaps you too are now part of the problem.

Evil to the core

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These people are savages and beyond disgusting, but they are on a mission to destroy the president that, if successful, would also destroy their very own country.

On CNN’s “New Day” Saturday, hosts Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul put up a graphic showing every Trump-related entity known to be under investigation. It was disconcerting, to say the least.

CNN

The half-dozen entities include the Trump Foundation, the Trump Organization, the Trump presidential campaign, the Trump transition team, the Trump inaugural committee and the Trump administration itself.

Every one a fishing expedition with no actual identified wrong-doing being looked into. Just hoping that something will turn up. People evil to the core since they are undermining everything they supposedly stand for as ethical and just in a free and democratic society.

Meanwhile: Trump’s Accomplishments. These are the ones listed under The Economy.

  • Decreased black and Hispanic unemployment to a record low.
  • Decreased jobless claims at the lowest level since 1969.
  • Black business ownership jumped 400 percent.
  • Increased consumer confidence to the highest level in 18 years.
  • Decreased youth unemployment to 52-year low.
  • Increased median income to highest in history.
  • Increased business investments 39 percent.
  • Decreased food stamp use by 500,000 in one month.
  • Increased homebuilding permits to the highest since 2007.
  • Increased oil production to 10 million barrels a day for the first time since 1970.
  • Increased the stock market to an all-time high.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “In one and a half years, President Donald Trump and his policies have been done more to advance life, religious liberty, the economy, deregulation, government reform, and Israel in the history of America. More pro-life and pro-religious liberty policies have been implemented in this short time than all previous presidents combined. It is no wonder certain segments of the media would rather focus on a negative narrative than these accomplishments.”

 

One is too old and the other is too young and both are mortal dangers

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One is too young to think of herself as president. But she does. The other is too old to take on the job but wants it anyway.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez has not spent so much as a second in a legislative role anywhere, and will only enter the House as a junior Democrat in January, the youngest female ever elected. Do you therefore think she is out of the running come 2024? Ha!

Meanwhile: Too old to run? Biden wrestles with age as he eyes 2020 run.

As he considers running for president, Joe Biden is talking with friends and longtime supporters about whether, at 76, he’s too old to seek the White House, according to several sources who have spoken with the former Democratic vice president.

The real issue is this: Don’t Underestimate Dumb Voters’ Appetite For Idiot Leftist Politicians. From which:

Of course, Ocasio-Cortez blabs about “socialism,” but her rantings are straight out of Marxism for Dummies. Nothing she says threatens the rice bowl of the zillionaire donor base Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have cultivated. Free college, free medicine, free this, free that – it’s all just more graft for the Democrats to distribute, and it will all come from the pockets of people like you. Do you think the people who write the checks to the DNC are going to end up paying the bill for this nonsense? Really?

I wish it were only money at stake. I’m afraid the future will just have to take care of itself, since you may be sure that these are the sorts of people who will continue to rise to the top on the left. If there is going to be an actual resistance, preventing such people from rising to the top is where it will have to be found.

Nancy Pelosi sexist

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Is what Nancy Pelosi said intended to be an insult: Pelosi Mocks Trump: ‘As If Manhood Could Ever Be Associated With Him’?

Let’s get this parsed correctly.

1) Pelosi is trying to insult the President.

2) In intending to insult the President, she says: “It’s like a manhood thing for him. As if manhood could ever be associated with him. This wall thing.”

3) This is only insulting if manhood is a positive attribute which Pelosi denies is present in PDT.

4) The intended insult is that the President lacks manhood, whose absence diminishes PDT’s being since its presence is positive.

5) Thus “manhood” is understood by Pelosi to be preferable to its absence.

6) Manhood is an aspect of “the patriarchy”, almost by definition.

7) There are therefore aspects of the “patriarchy” whose presence is a positive feature in any male.

8) Such aspects of the patriarchy, such as manhood, are useful features in a president.

9) Can a woman show “manhood”?

10) Is Nancy Pelosi being a blatant sexist?

On veut vivre pas survivre!!

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France today, and who knows who’s next:

• The French state has been bankrupt since 2004. A minister finally admitted it in 2013.

• French GDP hasn’t risen above 2% in 50 years. Yes – FIFTY. The average annual GDP growth rate between 1949-2018? 0.78%.

• In 2018, 14% of the population in France live below the poverty line (they earn less than 60% of the median income).

• Worse, more than 50% of French people have an annual income of less than €20,150 a year (about $1,900 US per month).

• The ‘official’ unemployment rate is 10% – about 3.5 million citizens (in reality, it’s much higher).

• The youth unemployment rate is 22%. Yes, you did read that right.

• Astonishing but true: the French government employs 25% of the entire French workforce…and it’s impossible to fire them.

• Because the citizens make such little money, they pay no tax. Less than 50% of French pay any income tax at all; only around 14% pay at the rate of 30%, and less than 1% pay at the rate of 45%.

• The government can’t deliver services without taxes, so it borrows money. France’s debt-GDP is now 100%.

The world of my youth is virtually gone. It’s a fantastic loss. What will replace it? What could replace it?

From Understanding the Gilets Jaunes Uprising which you should read through for some real insight.

Anti-Semitism and the Women’s March

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From The Women’s March is Melting Down.

The development of the origins of the Women’s March and its transformation into a vehicle that promoted a small coterie of women—three of whom bizarrely professed their admiration for the openly anti-Semitic, homophobic, and misogynistic Nation of Islam preacher Louis Farrakhan—was a deliberate act, one that had nothing to do with the general spirit out of which the March was born….

According to several sources, it was there—in the first hours of the first meeting for what would become the Women’s March—that something happened that was so shameful to many of those who witnessed it, they chose to bury it like a family secret. Almost two years would pass before anyone present would speak about it.

It was there that, as the women were opening up about their backgrounds and personal investments in creating a resistance movement to Trump, Perez and Mallory allegedly first asserted that Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people—and even, according to a close secondhand source, claimed that Jews were proven to have been leaders of the American slave trade. These are canards popularized by The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, a book published by Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam—“the bible of the new anti-Semitism,” according to Henry Louis Gates Jr., who noted in 1992: “Among significant sectors of the black community, this brief has become a credo of a new philosophy of black self-affirmation.”

Liars, racists and anti-semitic.

 

“The people of this country don’t want …”

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Full story: PELOSI, SCHUMER PLEAD TO TRUMP: ‘LET’S DEBATE’ BORDER FUNDS ‘IN PRIVATE’. Instead, very public with the best bits in the video above. Might also mention this as well: Pew Survey: Out Of 27 Nations Polled, Zero Want More Immigrants to Move to Their Country and that includes Australia. As for Trump and the Dems, here’s the transcript of the relevant bits on border protection:

TRUMP: “We need border security. People are pouring into our country including terrorists. We have terrorists — we caught 10 terrorists over the last very short period of time. Ten. These are very serious people. Our border agents, all of our law enforcement has been incredible, what they have done, but we caught 10 terrorists. These are people that were looking to do harm. We need the wall. We need — more important than anything, we need border security of which the wall is just a piece. It’s important. Chuck, did you want to say something?”

SCHUMER: “Yes. Here’s what I want to say. We have a lot of disagreements here. ‘The Washington Post’ today gave you a whole lot of Pinnocchios because they say you constantly misstate how much of the wall is built and how much is there, but that’s not the point. We have a disagreement about the wall, whether it’s effective or not —“

TRUMP: “’The Washington Post’ —“

SCHUMER: “— not on border security, but on the wall. We do not want to shut down the government. You were called 20 times to shut down the government. You said, ‘I want to shut down the government.’ We don’t. We want to come to an agreement. If we can’t come to an agreement, we have solutions that will pass the House and Senate right now and will not shut down the government. That’s what we are urging you to do. Not threaten to shut down the government.”

TRUMP: “If you don’t want to shut down the government —“

SCHUMER: “Let me just finish. Because you can’t get your way — let me say something, Mr. President. You just say, ‘My way or we shut down the government.’ We have a proposal that Democrats and Republicans will support to do a C.R. that will not shut down the government. We urge you to take it.”

TRUMP: “If it’s not good border security, I will not take it.”

SCHUMER: “It’s very good border security.”

TRUMP: “If it’s not good border security, I will not take it.”

SCHUMER: “ It’s what —“

TRUMP: “Because when you look at these numbers of the effectiveness of our border security and when you look at the job we are doing —”

SCHUMER: “You just said it is effective.”

TRUMP: “Can I tell you something?”

SCHUMER: “You just said it is effective.”

TRUMP: “These are only areas where you have the walls. Where you have walls, Chuck, it’s effective. Where you don’t have walls, it’s not effective.”

PELOSI: “Let’s call a halt to this. We have come in here with the first branch of government. Article One. The legislative branch. We are coming in in good faith to negotiate with you about how we can keep the government open.”

SCHUMER: “Open.”

TRUMP: “We are going to keep it open if we have border security. If we don’t have border security, Chuck, we are not going to keep it open.”

PELOSI: “We will have border security.”

SCHUMER: “You are bragging about what has been done. We want to do the same thing we did last year this year. That’s our proposal. If it’s good then, it’s good now and it won’t shut down the government.”

TRUMP: “We can build a much bigger section with more money.”

SCHUMER: “Let’s debate in private.”

TRUMP: “We need border security. I think we all agree that we need border security.”

SCHUMER: “Yes, we do.”

TRUMP: “See? We get along. Thank you, everybody.”

REPORTER: “You say border security and the wall. Can you have border security without the wall?”’

TRUMP: “You need the wall. The wall is a part of border security.”

REPORTER: “Can you explain what it means to have border security?”

TRUMP: “Yeah. We need border security. The wall is a part of border security and you can’t have very good border security without the wall.”

PELOSI: “That’s not true. That’s a political promise. Border security is a way to effectively honor our responsibility.”

SCHUMER: “The experts say you can do border security without a wall, which is wasteful and doesn’t solve the problem.

TRUMP: “It totally solves the problem and it’s very important.”

PELOSI: “This spiraled downward from when we came at a place to say how do we meet the needs of American people, who have needs. The economy, people are losing jobs and the market is in a mood. Our members are already —“

TRUMP: “We have the lowest unemployment that we’ve had in 50 years.”

PELOSI: “People in the Republican Party are losing their offices now because of the transition. People are not —“

TRUMP: “And we gained in the Senate. Nancy, we gained in the Senate. Excuse me. Did we win the Senate? We won the Senate.”

SCHUMER: “When the President brags that he won North Dakota and Indiana, he is in real trouble.”

TRUMP: “I did. We did win North Dakota and Indiana.”

PELOSI: “We came in here in good faith and we’re entering into this kind of a discussion in the public view.”

TRUMP: “But it’s not bad, Nancy. It’s called transparency.”

PELOSI: “I know. It’s not transparency when we are not stipulating to a set of facts and we want to have a debate about you, confront some of these facts.”

TRUMP: “You know what? We need border security. That’s what we will be talking about. Border security. If we don’t have border security, we will shut down the government. This country needs border security. The wall is a part of border security. Let’s have a talk. We will get the wall built and we have done a lot of wall already. It’s a big part of it.”