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Supra-human Tray Gowdy: “President Obama’s abuse of executive power is a threat to our democracy”
December 31, 2016 — xanthippaGuest Post by Juggernaut: How I learned to Love Donald Trump.
November 28, 2016 — xanthippaLife is much better with a variety of opinions. Juggernaut, my young friend, certainly has a great man well thought out opinions. Since I have been a bit away as of lately (a number of meat-space issues have kept me away for much too long), he has offered to share with us his opinions on the recent US election of God Emperor Trump, Kek be praised!
How I Learned to Love the Donald
by Juggernaut
My stance
I’m not inherently a liberal or a conservative. I look at things objectively and look at evidence before making conclusions. On this subject, many people like using data to support their own preconcieved conclusion. I guess Im not good on the theatrics of politics.
Clinton is the ugly status quo we all hate and Trump is an alternative offering some improvements coupled with lots of troubling positions too. Johnson was the lesser evil.
I was wrong.
Most thought Clinton would win, especially the left leaning media of course. In my projection, I predicted 46 out of 50 states correctly: more accurate than most pundits.
I was wrong on Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Florida was a tossup and most didn’t think he would win the other 3 states. Three weeks ago, even his own supporters believed winning via Nevada, Colorado and New Hampshire was more feasible.
Even him and his own supporters were prematurely calling it rigged. He won all 4 of those states by a margin of ~2%.
My error was in assuming the rust belt was out of his reach because both Democrats and Republicans were blindly partisan. I was half right. Many Democrats only vote for charismatic candidates like Obama and the rust belt only leaned slightly blue to begin with.
Electoral College
Before the election, I had lamented the fact that only 15 states matter electorally while your vote doesn’t really matter in the other 35 states. But in this election we saw 3 solid blue states turn red. Millions of forgotten invisible rust belt workers have had their say, and that’s great. It’s what the EC was built for. Really, there’s no perfect system. Popular vote gives less populous regions a disadvantage, and EC gives an advantage to swing states. No easy answers here.
Why Clinton lost.
I could name a number of bad decisions she made in her campaign:
She attacked Donald but never made a strong case for herself
“America is already great” = complacency.
Starting a weird anti-Russia obsession to court hawkish Republicans
Campaigning in solid-red states like Arizona
Ignoring Wisconsin and Michigan, taking them for granted.
Picking Kaine as a running mate (he added nothing to the ticket)
Plus, lots of other baggage: scandals, Iraq, etc.
Why Donald won.
In the primaries, it was simple. He had 17 opponents, and that meant he was able to win even if 60% of the party didn’t like him. He didn’t have to debate any single candidate in depth, and in a crowded field, the loudest person gets the most attention. Republicans were tired of Bush’s RINO/neo-con policies. Also, they were tired of their polite establishment candidates like Romney and McCain losing.
Let’s make it simpler. Charisma always wins. McCain, Romney, Kerry, Dole, HW Bush, Mondale and Carter all fit in the same category. Intelligent and qualified, but boring and tone-deaf. Donald was by far the most charismatic. Opponents don’t want to admit it but he got endless coverage due to the fact that he was entertaining and knew how to trigger emotions.
I care about logic and the issues but most voters vote on emotion. Donald was by far superior in tapping into the emotions of the voters. People were angry and felt the establishment was a joke, and he provided that.
Trump supporters are not monolithic
Biased media outlets wanted to paint a monolith of his supporters largely being racist rednecks, but really it’s a more complicated picture.
If I were to construct a pie-chart of his supporters, it would look something like this:
10% – racist / xenophobic
10% – isolationists / protectionist / rust-belt
20% – fiscal conservatives
20% – people who view Clinton as a greater evil
20% – partisan Republicans
20% – people who are angry at the establishment
Obama’s failings.
Much of this election result was due to Obama failure to communicate. He was great at the motivational speeches, but a laid off factory worker with an almost-empty refridgerator and a daughter wearing the same pair of shoes for 5 years isn’t as optimistic.
Obama exists in a professorial Harvard bubble with some Chicago sensibilites, but the same sobriety that gives him a good temperment has resulted in him being too afraid to express condemnation and frustration where appropriate. Donald is the anti-Obama. Obama is cautious, business-casual, overly politically correct, mild-mannered. Donald is brash, bold, loud, angry and blunt.
Trump is the establishment
Many of Trump’s supporters are echoing the same kind of naive optimism of Obama’s win in 2008. Obama was a stock Democrat, not much different than Kerry in policy, but he convinced people via marketing that he represented change despite having conventional policies.
Trump was a billionaire political donor, friend of the Clintons, to begin with. He already backpedaled on most of his hardlined positions last week.
In a way, he’s our first third paety president, but he appointed mostly establishments Republicans. From his perspective its brilliant. He can silence opposition. If you work for an administration, its harder to criticise it.
Trump is not revolutionary
The only thing thats revolution is his rhetoric. Its not unthinkable for America to elect Trump. Hes a demogogue and second world countries are full of Trumps.
Fiscally, Hes a liberal Republican who likes taxes low, spending high and debt high. On foreign policy, hes keeping most of the old guard in place. On immigration and trade, hes different, but he backpedaled on that.
Anti establishment doesn’t exist
There will always be an establishment. Anti establishmenr politicians only want to replace the current establishment with their own. Certain groups of people will be favored and certain groups will be left out, and it will always be that way.
97% of Congressional incumbents were re-elected, and Congress holds most of the government’s power.
Trump’s moral character is condemnable, his anti intellectual populism is repugnant, but his ability to defy the odds, defy big money interests, galvanize millions and be a leader in that regard is admirable. No matter how many asterisks we can place next to it, Trump is synonymous with success.
If his run, results in more people questioning our government and culture, it could be consequentially good. But most other discussion will be theatrics.
Democrats don’t get it
They’re going to nominate a more progressive and more moralistic Democrat in 2020, make more “you dont care about ____ people” argument, and theyll lose anyway.
Donald will be endlessly parodied on SNL, he will become America’s most endearing but oafish cartoon character. He’ll take the route of political convenience and offer purely cosmetic changes.
And americans will likely re elect him again in 2020 because he is a born leader.
Final Statement Geert Wilders at his Trial, 23 Nov. 2016
November 24, 2016 — xanthippaThis is an example of an opposition politician on trial for speaking up against the government’s official policy.
Which is his job!
It’s built in to the title of ‘Opposition Party Leader’ – which he is. And if current pols are to be believed (yeah – I did say IF), he will be the next Prime Minister of the Neatherlands.
Donald Trump and the ridiculous claims of ‘anti-Semitism’
November 21, 2016 — xanthippaWhat he said:
The USA has now been proven to be more oppressive than the former USSR!!!
November 17, 2016 — xanthippa
Oh, this brings back so many flashbacks!!!
Including using ‘wheat paste’ – a type of ‘glue’ (if you can call it that) that is made up from mixing wheat flour with water.
As kids behind the iron curtain, this was the ‘go to’ home-made recipe for glue when no real glue could be bought in the stores. It is temporary at best and dissolves at the first rain…without making any mark whatsoever on the material it had been pasted on.
And, it would also ‘flake off’ if it dried out too much – say about 12 hours after being applied in a low humidity environment.
In other words, using ‘wheat paste’ glue is proof that no property damage was intended or inflicted. Yet, the arrest and charges and potential jail sentence remain. To be served in mosly Islamic part of the prison, no doubt…
WTF!!!
MEK protest at Canada’s Parliament Hill: has there been a genocide in Iran?
October 7, 2016 — xanthippaYesterday, I went for a drive with my friend. As we drove past the Parliament Hill, we saw a lot of people protesting.
As journalists, this awoke our interest: there is no way to know what event/protest will happen on Canada’s Parliament Hill, or when, because the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police – the guardians of the Parliament Hill – and whose copyright is protected by the Disney Corp. – just in case you had not been intimidated by their legal reach within the copyright ‘law’) refuses to publish the list of officially permitted protests on ‘The Hill’.
Because someone might counter-protest the demonstration – and that would just bee too stressful for Canadian law enforcement to, well, police.
So, seeing an interesting event happening on ‘The Hill’, I pulled over and let my buddy walk over and investigate what this whole thing was about.
It turns out that the rally was by MEK, and that they were protesting the Mullahs’ involvement in the war in Syria. I think this is very news worthy – but, please, ask yourself why you have to go to an obscure and minor blog such as mine to get this news, worthy of global attention (in my never-humble-opinion)…
This is important – please, help spread the news!!! The MSM surely won’t…
Viktor Orbán: naive and self destructive immigration politics rules in the EU
September 17, 2016 — xanthippaTranslated by CrossWare from this original Hungarian-language source.
Viktor Orbán: naive and self destructive immigration politics rules in the EU
by Dalma Tóth
2016 September 16.
He believes the next opportunity to attempt any change in the EU politics is in Vienna on September 24, where the countries of the “Balkan route” are going to meet. He will suggest a correction of the existing failing migration politics there, but he is not sure it will achieve any success.Hungary can do one thing: have a successful referendum to support our efforts to change the immigration politics of Brussels.
Viktor Orbán at the same time stated it is a success that the EU countries agreed, Bulgaria must receive financial help. They made concrete headways about the assistance, which is good news as the costs of defense is significant and the pressure continues to increase on their southern border.The Prime Minister expressed that the best news of the summit was: the V4 group (Visegrad Four: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) were the only countries, that brought concrete suggestions how to reform the EU, what should happen and explored how to make nation level cooperation more successful while keeping it voluntary with less friction. It shows – he explained – the meeting between the V4 Prime Ministers was very successful.
He stated the members of the summit accepted a schedule which shows the main stages of the process which will crystalise in a document next year in Rome and will end the self-evaluation process after BREXIT. In this document the V4 will represent a strong and clear opinion – he added.
According to Viktor Orbán, Germany and Greece are the two key countries which are crucial to solving the present crisis. Until Germany does not have an upper limit for accepting migrants, it will continue to draw masses there. Greece should finally show its compliance with the Schengen rules and stop all the illegals entering Europe. Until these two countries change their politics, we can only do one thing: continue to work within the Schengen/Dublin regulations and stop all the illegals with the use of law and force.
He touched on: Hungary suggested new policies for non-EU member states to handle the increasing tensions in the area and to compensate for EU’s failing influence.
Viktor Orbán said: today the registration centers and camps lack of military support outside of the EU and that is why Hungary supports a unified EU Army. Multiple countries supported the notion to coordinate better between the armies of the state members.
Photo: MTVA – Media Service-support and Trust Fund
He thinks Hungary is one of the most compassionate countries because if it would not defend the external borders of the EU, that would cause serious problems in other countries. Hungary accepts the extra costs of that, as we defend not only ourselves, but all other nations in Europe.
The PM emphasized: For many in Brussels are not clear on the issue that the case of the migrants are not simply a humanitarian question, but there is a serious consequence about the identity of the destination countries and that applies for the ones just transit states too. Hungary wants to keep its identity!Viktor Orbán, answering a question, explained that in the summit Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel stated his government has a different opinion than Jean Asselborn, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg, and he is not representing the official point of view of his country. Asselborn on Tuesday made a statement to the media, suggesting Hungary temporally or permanently should be excluded from the European Union because this is the only way to keep the values of the European community.
Also in an answer another question, he said that conservative political thinking means the return to our roots, the old European values we left behind and this distance is what causing our failures.
The Hajj – Czech Style
September 12, 2016 — xanthippaHumour is the best medicine. It is also the best weapon against bullies, totalitarians, or anyone who takes themselves too seriously. Perhaps that is why humour is one of the first things curtailed when freedom of speech is threatened.
We have seen various comedians in the US lament how Political Correctness is preventing them from performing on college campuses.
We have seen Canadian comedians fined thousands of dollars for telling a politically incorrect joke.
We have seen German comedians charged and threatened with extradition to Turkey for authoring a humorous poem about Recep Erdoğan.
We know we are not far from the days when Socialist Regimes on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain would routinely jail people for telling jokes…
Well, some of us know…
Perhaps those who lived behind the Iron Curtain remember it better than most of us. Perhaps that is why they cherish their Freedom of Speech and why they use humour to ensure it does not become as eroded as it has become in much of The West.
And Czechs do love their humour. It is therefore not surprising that Dr. Martin Konvicka, a brave patriot who is fighting to preserve his cultural heritage – and his freedom of speech – and his organization IMK (Iniciativa Martina Konvicky) have turned to humour to deliver their message.
And deliver it they did!
On August 21st, Czechs mark the anniversary of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union of and the rest of their Warsaw Pact ‘allies’. This invasion had ended the liberalization of Czechoslovakia, called Prague Spring (after which the Arab Spring freedom movement was named), and was opposed by the vast majority of the population. Yet, when it became clear that the invaders were going to succeed in rolling back the progress towards liberalism and that hard socialism would indeed be imposed, many people had started licking the heels of their oppressors in order to improve their social status.
Now, Europe is experiencing a very different type of an invasion: millions of young, strong, able-bodied Muslims are flooding in, falsely claiming to be fleeing war, and imposing Sharia restrictions on the Freedom of Speech through threats of violence and massacres should the local governments refuse to impose them. And there is absolute proof that these people are not poor refugees fleeing war: some of the ones who had already been granted asylum in Europe – and living off of government subsidies – are also holidaying in their countries of origin.
Dr. Konvicka and IMK took the opportunity to draw parallels between the two invasions: the invasion of Czechoslovakia by their socialist brothers on the one hand and the Muslim invasion on the other. And the anniversary of the Warsaw Pact occupation was the perfect occasion!
As you can see from the videos above, it was a fun skit, people were enjoying it, except for the few who disagreed with the message – and who were not afraid to say so…which they would presumably be if they had thought this really was ISIS. Despite all of this evidence, Czech and International media corporations have universally reported panic, injuries and havoc…
And that is why you have to go to the blogosphere to see what had actually happened.
Following this street theatre, Dr. Konvicka was kind enough to grant this interview:
As you can see, humour is an effective tool to use against totalitarians of all stripes (or stars).
After the skit, many ‘Progressive’ politicians demanded an investigation into how Dr. Konvicka had managed to get a permit to stage this skit, calling for the bureaucrat who had granted it to be fired and Mr. Konvicka to be charged with something. Anything! Spreading false news, perhaps? (Would this not apply even more to the mainstream media?)
Well, there is still some sanity in Czech and the investigation had concluded just last week and found that everything was fine, and nobody has to get fired or charged with anything. Even more sanity: a judge has just dismissed all charges against the protesters who had carried gallows during last year’s anti-migrant demonstrations.
And Dr. Konvicka is far from being done. To mark the 15th anniversary of the Islamic attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11, he held a demonstration in front of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Prague:
The event took place on the 11th of September, 2016, in front of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Prague, from 2 pm until it had been disbanded about 30 minutes later.
The large sign behind Dr. Konvicka, hanging on the Saudi Embassy fence, has a delightful little rhyme:
HE WHO LIVES
WITH A LITTLE GIRL
IN MY BOOK, HE IS A
PEDOPHILE
Dr. Konvicka was not the only one to speak at this demonstration. Beata Radosa, a former Muslima who explained that she used to believe that a hijab would keep her modesty and protect her from sexual harassment. When wearing the hijab did not protect her from harassment by Muslim men, she began to loose her faith and eventually left Islam. Now, she is an activist and a blogger. Her site (in Czech) is called Women Against Islam.
In her above-linked post, she points out that the Magister’s office warned them against using the port-a-potty to represent the Ka’aba…even though this was not specified in the permit application. This can only bring us to one conclusion: in the minds of the Magister’s office bureaucrats, the Ka’aba and a port-a-potty are closely related.
And, she writes, the Port-a-Ka’aba was such a danger to public safety that a whole squad of police in riot gear had to come and monitor the situation.
Martin Vitek was the third speaker and he pointed out some negative aspects of Islam and how they are connected to Saudi Arabia.
Then came the street theatre, until, that is, uniformed police officers pulled the plug on it and heavily armoured police officers arrived to let everyone know they are willing to use force on unarmed citizens if they don’t obey the order fast enough. Photos of the armoured police dispersing the citizens are at this Czech language site.
The lesson of the day? ‘Piss Christ’ is art, ‘Dung Madonna’ is art, but ‘Port-a-Ka’aba’ is hate speech. And the Czech Republic, despite being one of the most enlightened societies, is perfectly willing to use physical force to curb speech it does not like.
Czechs are, however a tenacious peoples. (Is it still allowed to say that or is that now racist?) Dr. Konvicka and IMK are planning more activities: on September 17, 2016, and on November 17, 2016.
Stay tuned, dear readers, for what is coming next!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 