Three of four

As I have repeatedly pointed out, the proportional states are not terribly significant except in that they are a harbinger of the very important winner-takes-all states:

MI: Trump 36.5, Cruz 24.9, Kasich 24.2
MS: Trump 47.3, Cruz 36.7
HI: Trump 45.5, Cruz 32.2
ID: Cruz 45.0, Trump 28.1

So, Trump significantly exceeded the 30 percent of the delegates he needed to take in all four states. And each state in which he outperforms that percentage reduces the percentage he needs in the other proportional states. More importantly, the feeble showing of Kasich in Michigan despite all the predictions of how he was rapidly closing in on Trump indicates that Trump is going to win both Ohio and Florida in six days.

And that should be enough to guarantee him the nomination. Especially if he picks up Missouri as well.

Meanwhile, Ted Cruz's campaign is at it again:

Marco Rubio’s campaign accused Ted Cruz’s camp of "dirty tricks" Tuesday, after Cruz supporters in Hawaii blasted out an email suggesting the Florida senator was about to drop out of the race. The email, sent by “Ted Cruz Hawaii,” cites a disputed CNN report claiming some Rubio advisers have told him to drop out of the 2016 race before Florida's primary next week, fearing he could be humiliated by a defeat in his home state.

At this point, it makes no difference if Rubio drops out or not. Trump is going to crush both him and Cruz in Florida.

Michigan tonight

This is your open thread to discuss the Michigan and other primaries today. As before, the best place to track the results as they come in is at Decision Desk.

Trump has won Michigan and Mississippi.

For the record

Trump has no chance in Ohio, will lose Florida though Cruz trying to help him. God willing, he is done on March 16th. Rubio-Kasich
- Louise Mensch

I no longer do political predictions, I content myself with more reliable things such as electoral math. But I do find it very strange to hear that Donald Trump "has no chance in Ohio" considering that he is still leading Kasich in the most recent polls there.

Today's votes in Hawaii, Idaho, and Michigan are largely irrelevant. As long as Trump gets at least 30 percent of the delegates, he's fine. The only relevance they have at this point is to the extent they indicate the results in Florida, Ohio, and Missouri, as Trump needs to take two of the three winner-takes-all states.

And just because it's funny:

Can confirm

"If you say "Vox Day" three times, he might appear in a malignant cloud of brimstone and a thundering bassline of techno."

All right, so it's more House than Techno, but this was always my favorite mix of "Silicon Jesus". Unless you've got the CD single or came across it in a club, it's unlikely you've heard it before. Called "House of Jesus", Paul did it, although he threw in the little keyboard riff that Dan borrowed from 2Unlimited.

The one thing marring it was the bizarre two-second"XXHHHRRRHH-XXXHHRRR-RRRHH" that somehow got added in the mastering process at 4:35. I still have no idea how that happened, but Wax Trax! was in too much of a rush to get the CD out to fix it. And granted, a two-second flaw deep into the 5th remix of their new band's first single just wasn't a major priority to them. The Duality mix was the studio mix that they were pushing on vinyl. Frankly, I thought it was too disjointed and that most of our mixes were better.

Anyhow, one thing I always thought we did very well was to do entirely different remixes, to the point that some of our fans genuinely thought that the "Welcome to My Mind" CD single was a new album.

The rhetoric of the cuckservative

This is an informative rant from one of the white knights riding nobly to the defense of the "born American in Portugal" school. What is so very telling is combination of false assumptions and pop psychological projections; this is what happens when a rhetoric-speaker tries to make sense of dialectic:

I think we’re well rid of the lot of them, including Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII. There’s an ethnographic term for someone who so badly wants to be one of the “in-group” conquerors that they ape everything they do. Colloquially, we refer to white boys that want to be black gang-bangers as “wiggers”. Mr. HWSNBNBWIAEII is an “English wigger”, because like the white suburban scion of the middle class trying to fit into the ghetto sub-culture, he’d never actually be accepted by the people whose group and culture he so badly wants to be an accepted part of.

Like I say elsewhere, transported to the era of their dominance, and from whence all this “wonder” he alludes to comes from, they’d laugh in his face, call him a dirty half-breed, and send him off to do their dirty work somewhere, making lying promises of future benefit and glory to he and his descendents. The historical record for that actually happening, for any of the race-traitors that they conned into doing their dirty work? Yeah… Ask around, and I’m sure you’ll find a bunch of people like my ancestors who will tell you it’s a mugs game. There is one historical truth you can take to the bank, anywhere and in any time period: Don’t trust the English.

Whether he likes it or not, he’ll never, ever be “one of them”, because he lacks the requisite pure blood, and they would consider what he does possess to be polluted. If it weren’t so laughably bizarre as a phenomenon, I’d feel empathy for him. As it is, I’m torn between laughing my ass off, and shedding tears for the poor guy. He really doesn’t grasp that he’d never, ever, not in a million f**king years, be considered one of them.

He’d be better off going to Japan, and trying the same thing. At least there, they’ll never lie to him by telling him he’s “one of them”, and then screw him and his descendents over at every opportunity, while simultaneously laughing at them behind their backs. The Japanese have the decency to at least be up front with their Burakumin, and admit to them that they never were human, and never can be…

It's rather remarkable rhetoric. I would think it is entirely obvious that I don't want to be a part of anything, and that I am not even remotely concerned with winning the social approval of the English. It appears we're dealing with a gamma male here, given the combination of a) late arrival, b) white-knighting and c) the inability to even imagine a mindset that is not driven by a desire for social approval. But my preferences notwithstanding, I don't make the rules and no man can survive online as an island, so I make my accommodations with reality and get by as best I can by being an honest observer, a loyal ally, and a ruthless Supreme Dark Lord.

As it happens, the Proposition Nation has been well rid of me, and my family, for nearly two decades. If they consider the trade of us for three times as many low-IQ, low time-preferenced Africans, Central Americans, and Arabs to have been beneficial, well, at least they are comfortable as they ride along their road to Hell.

You certainly can't say that I didn't see the chaos on the horizon.

What this noble champion of the Proposition Nation simply doesn't understand is that nothing I write on the subject is personal or concerns me directly. It simply is. Unlike the Proposition Nationals, my position is not driven by emotion, wishful thinking, or personal interest. It is the result of my readings in history, particularly military history, and my observations of how the USA has changed dramatically in my lifetime. I anticipate that events are going to prove me correct in the future, and prove the Propositionals totally and violently wrong, because I am simply observing what has happened and what is now happening, rather than clinging to an absurd and self-serving fiction designed to make 19th century immigrants feel good about themselves.

Look at how many white knights rushed to assure Sarah that, in their opinion, she is too a Real American, in fact, even more Real American than any descendant of American revolutionaries who dared to call her status into question. Their thinking is purely rhetorical and their responses are aimed at the emotions; they are literally unthinking.

A recent poll reported that 61 percent of Americans said that immigration jeopardizes the United States. They are correct. 19 percent are immigrants and I expect that the other 20 percent said: "but my parents/grandparents were immigrants!"

The invasion of the USA by Sarah and 61 million others is the largest invasion in the history of Man. It is a foreign swarm three times larger than the entire armed forces of Nazi Germany. And whether they realize it or not, the invaders have collectively enabled the utter destruction of that which at least some of them claim to have loved.

The reason this isn't obvious to them is because they never truly knew it.

New American reviews Cuckservative

The title of the magazine is a little ironic in light of the views expressed in Cuckservative, but it's a good, substantial, and relatively positive review of the book nevertheless:

Cuckservative is co-written by Vox Day and John Red Eagle. Vox Day is the pseu­donym of a video game designer who has amassed quite a following in the online world with his often-controversial views. Day’s high IQ and technical approach to problem solving is felt throughout Cuckservative. Much effort is given to making the book’s main argument that immigration is the most important issue of our day and that “cuckservatives” are on the wrong side. “Thanks to their cuckservative ideology, America’s self-styled conservatives have literally betrayed the entire purpose of the Constitution of the United States, and in doing so, they have put the very survival of the nation at risk,” the authors charge....

The chapter “Christianity and Cuckservatism” went into depth on the strange decline into far-left racial politics that we’ve witnessed in modern Christianity. As churches across the country lecture their members on the lessons of “white privilege” and “institutional racism,” Cuckservative points out the blatant hypocrisy: “It never seems to occur to these white guilt-trippers that holding today’s white Christians responsible for the sins of their 18th-century or 1960s counterparts is no different than blaming today’s Jews for crucifying Christ.” Christians, both Left and Right, who have bought into the egalitarian premises of the Left and support open-border policies are described as “Churchians” who have nothing in common with traditional Christianity. “The false fruit of Churchian multiculturalism can be recognized by what is happening to Christian churches everywhere from Europe to the American Midwest. So-called Christians are not only actively welcoming those who do not worship Jesus Christ to invade their nations, they are also watering down Christian theology and in some cases, literally tearing down the symbols of Christian worship.”

Overall, the book provides a sound explanation of what’s wrong with the conservative movement, as well as why open immigration policies will spell certain political doom for our side. As an eBook, it’s very affordable and well worth the price. It’s a good book for anyone not familiar with the type of issues regularly covered by The New American, especially for
younger readers who are looking for a primer on the main issues facing us today. Readers with a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) background should appreciate the book the most, owing to its technical and analytical dissection of the issue.

The Amazon reviews remain very positive too:

A Must-Read Book!

This book pulls back the covers from the greatest lie of modern politics, the imaginary "benefits" of mass immigration and multiculturalism. Using historical examples, economic evidence, and plain logic, the authors show that our current globalist outlook is nothing more or less than a recipe for conflict and decline throughout western civilization.

I very much enjoyed the section dealing with dishonest "christian" arguments regarding immigration. I am not personally religious, but I am a product of a largely Christian society, and not entirely biblically unlearned. It has been frustrating to me to see so many self-proclaimed "Christians" argue that we must betray our own society, our own children, and hand our entire civilization over to whoever demands it, in order to be good Christians. This section gives a biblical and common-sense answer to such feeble and self-righteous do-gooderism.

If I have any complaint, it is that the authors could have spent a little more time illustrating the economic effects of mass immigration, both the harm done to citizens, and the almost unimaginable greed it takes to sell out one's own people for cheap labor. Billions of dollars are being made by a tiny number of people, at the expense of an increasingly poor and insecure public. Those profiteering from globalist nation-wrecking are traitors in the strongest sense of the word, and deserve to be treated as such. Whether a globalist capitalist profiteer, a sincere leftist seeking an imaginary multicultural "utopia", or a false christian peddling white guilt to feel righteous, these deluded people are dangerous to civilization itself.

Interesting that even the non-Christians are capable of seeing the problem with societally destructive Churchianity. And the reviewer is right, the economics chapter is generally abstract and heavily technical, so the impact is perhaps less powerful than if we'd taken Red Eagle's more storytelling-oriented approach. Mea culpa.

Don't forget, Cuckservative is now out in audiobook as well.

They made him inevitable

Finally, a conservative who gets it. Does Donald Trump scare you? Good, he should. And if the GOPe manages to stop him, you're going to like who comes next even less.

This election is the Republican Altamont, where conservatives got knifed by the Hell’s Angels. It’s our own fault too – the GOP teased its base, looked down upon it, lied to it, and when it turned out it wasn’t playing games and pulled a blade the establishment wasn’t ready.

I spent the last few days at CPAC, surrounded by conservatives, and there was a clear preference for focusing on the symptom – Donald Trump and his myriad failings – rather than the disease. Our problem is not this digitally-challenged, bizarrely phallocentric clown; it’s our failure to represent the people left behind as we got ahead.

Donald Trump is the fault of the GOP elite, including movement conservatives, who failed to listen, who failed to follow through, who thought we were meant to lead the benighted past their narrow self-interests and unseemly prejudices to a wonderful new world reflecting our benevolent self-interests and elite prejudices. Funny how the conservative, globalized utopia we sought to impose always worked out really well for us. Except those left behind aren’t laughing.

Trumpism isn’t merely about unfocused anger – it would be super-convenient to write this off as a temper tantrum that will soon blow over and allow us to get back to the business as usual of ignoring the pleas (which are now demands) to stop the immigration disaster, to address the fallout of free trade, and to stop the useless sacrifice of our sons and daughters in wars we’re too damn gutless to win. But it isn’t. Again and again Republicans promised to solve these problems and yet every single time they’ve lied. Rubio got elected in Florida promising to oppose amnesty then not only fails to do so but stands up with the Democrats and did the exact opposite. And we’re surprised a candidate comes along and points that out?

These folks have been asking us for help, and what was our response? Shut up, stupid racists. Well, they finally found someone who is taking their side. His name is Donald Trump, and we made him possible. Hell, we made him inevitable.

Admitting the problem is the first step towards solving it. Of course, cuckservatives and neocons and conservatives being what they are, they'll probably just call him a racist Nazi Trumpkin and refuse to listen to anything he has to say.

"Five generations deep"

If only he'd been fortunate enough to be born American in Portugal, he'd have assimilated five generations ago.

Speaking outside a Donald Trump rally in Fort Worth, Texas on Friday, a Hispanic demonstrator warned the GOP candidate’s white supporters that there would be consequences if Trump manages to make it all the way to the White House.

“If these people get what they want, Trump in there, I guarantee you — you think the Mexicans are going to lay down that easily? We don’t ever say nothing,” Ronald Gonzales, of Dallas, said.

After explaining that he isn’t an advocate for open borders, he argued that many of the illegal immigrants living in the U.S. “already got families and kids that are here” — and they wouldn’t allow a Trump administration to break up their families.

“It ain’t gonna happen,” Gonzales said. “You really want the Mexicans to really, really stir, really get mad? Y’all don’t understand — we aren’t the minority anymore. We own Texas. Texas is Mexican-made. I’m five generations deep right here.”

And that, right there, is why Jerry Pournelle correctly predicted that "There Will Be War". And by war, I mean war on the North American continent of the sort that hasn't been seen in 150 years.

Once the flow of government money stops, and once there is nowhere else to run for the white people that every Mexican, South American, African, Asian, Arab, and Jew is chasing in order to improve his life, the ethnic wars will begin. Who, then, will be the real American?

Presumably the survivors. Homogeneous nations are born from heterogeneous countries.

It occurs to me that the American Indians are about the only people in American history who don't insist on living in white neighborhoods. Every other race and ethnic group vociferously protests how those racist whites discriminate against them and want to keep them at a distance and out of their country clubs, while we fought to keep them off our lands and out of our reservations.

That which goes unlinked

I found this guest poster's response, to a commenter on a blog which may or may not be this one, to be interesting in its dedication to a) detail and b) avoiding the central issue at hand:

This is an interesting mix of “truthiness” and bigotry. Sarah is American by belief and choice, accused of being a “traitor” by people who think their ancestry and presence on the landmass of the US since birth make them guardians of the US nation-state. Aside from the incoherence (how can she be a traitor if she is not a member of the tribe?), the commenter attempts to other her by lumping her in with the virtue-signalling SJWs.

This commenter is sadly unAmerican in his resort to racist and sexist issue framing, completely misapplied to Sarah Hoyt. It’s unfortunate that the loud outpourings of these people, few in number but egging each other on in the fever swamps of sites like this blog-which-shall-go-unlinked, can so easily be used by progressive scribblers elsewhere to tar all dissenters from the Progressive program of thought control as racists, misogynists, and neo-Nazis (or worse!)

Which brings up a valid point these people have made: if Americanism is a bundle of individualist beliefs and attitudes, what about those with deep roots in the US, born and raised for generations there, who don’t accept those beliefs? If tolerance of difference is a watchword, then should those who don’t tolerate differences be suppressed or removed?

Our answer starts with looking at how we got to this point, where government has expanded and encroached on the private sphere of business and social organizations to the point where private action is viewed with suspicion, and a significant percentage of the population believes democracy means subjecting every action of business to the political process and regulation.

Americans were formerly known for their commitment to private charity and self-help organizations; the America of Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835 teemed with churches and private social organizations and lacked the inherited privilege and concentrations of unearned wealth and power seen in Europe. But he worried that “… a despotism under a democracy could see ‘a multitude of men’, uniformly alike, equal, ‘constantly circling for petty pleasures’, unaware of fellow citizens, and subject to the will of a powerful state which exerted an ‘immense protective power’. Tocqueville compared a potentially despotic democratic government to a protective parent who wants to keep its citizens (children) as ‘perpetual children’, and which doesn’t break men’s wills but rather guides it, and presides over people in the same way as a shepherd looking after a ‘flock of timid animals’. He also wrote that “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

He was prescient. We have arrived at that state.

First, everyone would do well to settle down. Sarah Hoyt didn't threaten to punch anyone. One of her white knights threatened to punch me if he ever encountered me, presumably due to my crimethink. As we see, their dedication to the propositions they profess doesn't run terribly deep. But this is an intellectual dispute, and there is no need for anyone to get their panties in a bunch, or for fisticuffs.

Second, and more importantly, the post is mistitled. The situation is not "Sons of Liberty vs National Front" because in this particular case the Sons of Liberty are the National Front. Liberty and the Rights of Englishmen, are concepts that belong solely to the posterity of the American Founding Fathers, a posterity that excludes, among many, many other U.S. citizens, Sarah Hoyt.

Needless to say, they will try to redefine "posterity" just as they have redefined "American" and "democracy" and "liberal". But if your position requires historical falsehoods, retrofittings, and redefinitions, your position is inherently flawed.

But the post does serve to nicely illustrate the intrinsically dishonest, pernicious, and untenable nature of the concept of the proposition nation, which anyone can join "by belief and choice". Such a nation requires, absolutely requires, thought policing of the most stringent and ruthless variety, and is intrinsically totalitarian in a way that the most authoritarian "blood and soil" regime could never be.

It is no surprise that as a result of immigration and the necessary redefinition of what it is to be American, the country has become considerably less free despite the influx of these "belief and choice" citizens. The Know-Nothings were, more or less, correct. Indeed, the present situation is a direct consequence of the inability of 19th century immigrants to fully grasp the Rights of Englishmen, because they were never English and they will never be what might be described as Americans version 1.0. More recent arrivals are observably even less able to do so.

It's rather ironic to observe that just as my maternal ancestors were robbed of their land and their heritage by one wave of colonists, my paternal ancesters are now being robbed of their birthright, their heritage, and even their name by succeeding waves of invaders.

The astonishing thing is that these advocates of the absurdity known as "the proposition nation" believe, genuinely believe, that they are the good guys. But they have confused rhetoric for reality, which is why their arguments inevitably end in either incoherence or untruths.

A Swedish reader comments: "The only mystery is why Swedish politicians have got it in their heads that everyone who sets foot on Swedish soil will immediately embrace our values, our view of women and our traditions."

And so we see, the pernicious lie of the proposition nation spreads.

A few good apples

Even the police are sickened by what "law enforcement" has become. M-Zed shares an email he received recently from a policeman.

You've mentioned cops shooting dogs, and there are a lot of videos about it. My department's response team has specific instructions about that.

It is likely for a dog to be a threat, especially on a drug raid. They like keeping pit bulls and others, sometimes several of them, to use against cops as both attackers, alarms, and decoys.

If there's a dog on those raids, our guys will shoot it on sight, because it might be violent, and will probably get in the way.

Even if it's not a violent encounter, dogs don't comprehend what people are doing, or instructions, and get in the way or turn defensive.

The lead officer also said basically that dogs are legally property, and it's better to shoot a dog than a person. If you shoot the dog right off the bat, it makes it clear you're willing to use force, and will have to less often. You create a psychological position of strength.

I don't know what to suggest other than to not have a dog, and be very compliant in any encounter with law enforcement. As they said at the Academy, "If you want people to always be happy to see you, be a firefighter."

Most guys here like intimidation, and like the master/serf relationship.They joke about the women they make cry and the men who get very meek. Especially vets. If they can intimidate a guy with a USMC plate, it's like Christmas.

I haven't shot a dog and won't unless I have to because the dog attacks me and I can't beat it off with a baton.

I used to love this job. Now, I'm looking forward to retirement and doing something else.

The US police are increasingly made up of cowards and bullies who don't have the brains or the steel to succeed in the military. They love dressing up like soldiers and pretending they are soldiers, but they turn into the biggest cowards in the world the moment that a dog barks at them. There is a reason that historical wargames assign to police units the lowest level of morale.

They hide behind their badges and strut and swagger, but their true nature is revealed the moment that anyone dares to shoot back at them. Then, they're suddenly aware of the fact that they are completely outnumbered and their very existence depends upon the goodwill of the public they despise.

The thing is, most of them know they are inferior. That's why they get off on trying to humiliate and lord it over their betters. Self-appointed defense attorneys for the police always like to claim that police crimes are only committed by "a few bad apples", but it increasingly sounds as if the problem is now inherent to the occupation, and that there are fewer and fewer "good apples" these days.

As for dogs, police should never shoot them except in the case of extreme emergency. They cannot reasonably claim they are in fear for their lives. And if they are going to claim the license to shoot the public's dogs at will, the public should have the legal right to freely kill police dogs whenever they encounter them without penalty.

Just to create a psychological position of strength, you understand.

That's one way to shut him down

Apparently Marco Rubio didn't know when to quit, so the GOPe decided to call time on his campaign in order to clear the way for Ted Cruz in Florida:

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio has carried on at least two extramarital affairs since he entered politics.

GotNews.com can confirm through lobbyist sources in DC and Tallahassee that at least one DC-based lobbyist has had an extramarital affair with the first-term U.S. Senator. Still another Florida-based lobbyist has been IDed as carrying on an affair.

The first woman was Amber Stoner, a 36-year-old woman who worked for Rubio when he was head of the Florida Republican Party.... The second woman is Dana Hudson, a blonde lobbyist based in the Beltway.

If there are similar revelations about John Kasich, or if he quits the race before Friday, that should suffice to confirm that the GOPe has been doing the math and they know they have to stop Trump in Florida and Ohio or they're done.

Assuming this is indeed her, doesn't Miss Hudson look rather like the taller half of Garfunkel and Oates?

Let that be a lesson to all you young would-be politicians out there. When the elders of the party take you out for dinner, and suggest that maybe it is time for you to consider getting out of the race for the good of the party, that's just their way of being polite. What they really mean is that it is time to get out of the race... if you're smart enough know what is good for you.

Seriously, does no one watch The Godfather anymore?

Peyton Manning hangs it up

Peyton Manning is officially retired. The Broncos announced this morning that Manning has informed the team he’s calling it a career. A ceremony in Denver is scheduled for Monday.

He's making the right call by going out on top. I can't say I was a fan; I never liked him even a little bit. But you had to respect him. He was, without question, an excellent quarterback and one who will not be quickly forgotten. Was he the best quarterback of all time? No, I don't think so. But he was, almost certainly, the best-prepared quarterback of all time and one of the top ten to play the game.

I think he was, not-so-secretly, somewhat of a choker because he put so much pressure on himself and on his teammates. He was almost the exact opposite of Joe Montana; he never seemed to understand that in the moments of highest pressure, you need to let the game and the moment come to you, you cannot force them. Peyton Manning did not feel the force, he relied upon his talent and his extensive preparation instead.

But in some ways, that actually makes me respect him more, because unlike so many other talented chokers, he managed to surmount that weakness through persistence and the sheer force of will. And it did not escape my attention that after an entire career of being a prima donna with the weight of the team on his shoulders, he managed to step back, be a role player, and allow the team to carry him.

For me, the signature Peyton Manning moment will always be when he chewed out his running back, Donald Brown, for making a mistake while the play was still in progress. "Godammit, Donald!" That, for me, summed up both his strengths and his weaknesses in a nutshell. Then again, you have to appreciate a man who can laugh at himself.

A five-state race

All right, let's break down the Republican math, since the mainstream media appears determined to avoid analyzing the numbers in any manner that is even remotely relevant to future events. I'm using a corrected and updated version of the spreadsheet created by a reader here, Frank B. Luke. According to the latest reports on CNN, Trump has 385 delegates and Cruz has 298.

There are the following delegates up for grabs in the next 10 days. The next seven "states" are proportional:

23 PR
19 HI
32 ID
59 MI
40 MS
69 IL
19 DC

271 total

Let's be conservative and give both Trump and Cruz a minimum of 40 percent of the delegates apiece, or 108. (On Saturday, the day of his big "loss" to Cruz, Cruz took 57 percent and Trump took 44 percent). Now the score is: Trump 493 and Cruz 406. Next comes the big showdown on March 15, winner-takes-all for three states and one territory.

52 MO
99 FL
66 OH
09 (Northern Marianas)

If Trump takes all four, which is currently more likely than not, thhis minimum expected delegate count to 719. Trump will then only need 518 more, 193 of which he can expect to get in a worst-case proportional distribution. (Remember, he can reasonably anticipate more than 108 we assigned him from the 271 available proportional-state delegates; based on the polls, 162 would be a more reasonable estimate.) So, that means to clinch the nomination, he will need somewhere between 271 and 325 delegates from the 606 that remain in the winner-takes-all states, 172 of which are in California.

TL;DR: If Trump wins Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and California, plus one state from the following list (Arizona, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin), he wins the nomination. Period. Nothing else matters.

This is why Cruz should spend the week telling his supporters to vote for Rubio in Florida and Kasich in Ohio. But he won't, because his so-called strategists are far more concerned with what they call optics than they are about actual tactics.

It should be amusing to see how many pundits and analysts suddenly start talking about the significance of the difference between winner-takes-all and proportional states without ever mentioning the source. Because despite all of their endless opining, none of them have bothered to work any of this out.

Perception vs perspective

The anti-Trumpkins are strutting around the Internet and bellowing about how Ted Cruz blew away Donald Trump in the two states he won and narrowly lost to Trump in the two states Trump won. And that's true, if you're dumb enough to look only at the reported percentages rather than the actual numbers involved.

In Kansas and Maine, Cruz beat Trump by 18,145 and 2,480 votes, respectively. In Kentucky and Louisiana, Trump beat Cruz by 10,866 and 9,781 votes. So, Cruz actually lost to Trump on the overall vote count by a grand total of 22 votes, which is a) a dead heat and b) as irrelevant as who won what state.

On the delegate side, Cruz took 64 delegates to Trump's 49. This, too, changed nothing, because Trump's ability to reach the required number of delegates before the convention is going to be solely determined by the 391 delegates awarded by the winner-takes-all states so long as he can take 30 percent or more of the distribute-delegate states. Since he took 49 of the 112 delegates allocated yesterday, or 44 percent, Trump remains ahead of the game; the only real significance of Saturday was the implosion of Rubio.

Now, don't get me wrong, it was a great night for Cruz, but it was a great night because it showed he is the only alternative to Trump, not because it demonstrated that his popularity had exploded or that he could actually beat Trump. The key result for him on Saturday was Rubio's demise, who really should drop out of the race on Monday, and presumably, endorse Cruz before getting humiliated in his home state, virtually ensuring Trump's nomination, and becoming entirely irrelevant.

Since Florida (99) and Ohio (66) account for nearly half of the remaining winner-takes-all delegates, Cruz has to prevent Trump from winning at least one of those states on March 15th. If Trump wins both, it will be extremely difficult to prevent him from collecting the additional 694 delegates he needs even if Cruz wins all of the proportional-distribution states.

The dilemma for Cruz is that if Rubio and Kasich drop out, it increases his slim chance of beating Trump in one of the two critical states. But if they stay in, they will continue to reduce the amount of proportional delegates that Trump collects. Cruz already knows he isn't likely to get enough delegates himself, so his winning strategy is to try to stop Trump, not to try to win himself.

Game theory says that Cruz needs to get Rubio and Kasich out of the race and get their endorsements right now so they can campaign for him and help him poach either Florida or Ohio. Whether they are in or out, Trump is going to surpass the 30 percent threshold in the proportional states. Since Cruz was at 21 percent in Ohio and 12 percent in Florida, the key to the nomination is Kasich, not Rubio. And presumably, Kasich knows this, which is why he has stayed in the race up until now.

If I'm Trump, I'm making a deal with Kasich to get his endorsement and strike for the kill. Anything short of VP should be on the table. If I'm Kasich, I'm getting out of the race before Wednesday and cashing in at my peak value. And if I'm Cruz, I'm arranging for a quiet telephone call with Trump to see if what he's willing to offer in exchange for an endorsement. There is a three-way Prisoner's Dilemma here, as the first candidate to endorse Trump is the one who is the most valuable to him. Alternatively, Cruz should tell his supporters to vote Rubio in Florida and Kasich in Ohio.

On a side note, it's interesting how this campaign has been largely consistent with the socio-sexual interpretation of the candidates from the start. It's down to Sigma against Alpha, and the outcome will largely depend upon whom can do a better job of assembling popular support versus working the system. The situation appears to strongly favor the Alpha, but it is always dangerous to expect a Sigma to do the obvious or to count him out.

I am nagged by one serious doubt concerning what I've been told about Ted Cruz, and it's not related to the obvious one concerning the extent to which he is the Goldman Sachs-preferred, CFR-approved candidate. If, as we are told, the establishment hates him so much more than Trump, why has Cruz been overperforming so dramatically in the states where the GOPe has more influence in the process.

I expect that we will soon learn whether Cruz fans have been telling the truth about whether the Republican establishment prefers him to Trump or not. If Fox and various GOP figures immediately begin fawning all over Cruz once Rubio withdraws, we will know they were, at the very least, incorrect.

Combined Arms, Take Two, turn three

While the battle to the east is fast, brutal, and direct, with the big-gunned tanks blowing holes in each other at an alarming rate, the 1st Panzer Division has recovered from its initial setbacks and is beginning to make some headway by outflanking the Soviet's western defenses. This is the situation after the end of Turn 3. The second turn.

The most important action was the armor battle in the east (top). My Tiger first took out the T-34 at the crossroads it had already acquired, then, with a nearly 500-meter side shot, killed the Stalin that had traversed the big northeastern hill and took out my Panther guarding the northern road. Three kills in three turns for the crew, but in doing so, the Tiger left its much weaker side armor exposed to the AT gun in the village. Fortunately the 57L gun missed its first shot and although the second shot hit, it didn't penetrate the Tiger's armor.

The combination of the second Tiger, the Panther, and the infantry all pounding away at the Guards platoon defending the eastern approach to the village killed the leader and two of the three squads, but the Soviet commander somehow managed to extricate the surviving squad safely, thereby preventing me from rapidly exploiting my chosen schwerpunkt. That squad fell back and reclaimed the first building I'd taken, but soon found itself surrounded on three sides as the troops I'd sent around the southern side of the village moved in and took possession two of the buildings there. They kept the well-led Soviet platoon that was established in the village occupied while the German officer leading the assault headed north to try to take out the anti-tank gun before it could kill the Tiger with a third shot.

In the west, the key development was the immediate rallying of my surviving infantry platoon combined with the two Panthers taking out the T-34 on the north side of the building. Also, the assault engineers who rushed the building in the center were able to break the two Soviet squads that had been holding the nearby hill, catching them out in the open as they tried to fall back to the village. And to the southwest, lacking any infantry support, the one T-34 proved unable to stop the dispersed platoon that was seeking to link up with the panzergrenadiers attacking the village from the southeast.

All in all, it was a very favorable series of three half-turns for the attacking Germans, and although the battle isn't over, I feel quite confident that I'll be able to secure the necessary nine buildings well before Turn 7. I was able to crack the village in the east while simultaneously flanking his massed firepower in the west to the north and south, which was exactly what I intended.

Semi-super Saturday results

This is an open thread to discuss the results of the Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maine primaries. Decision Desk has the live results.

Looks like a split. Cruz takes Maine and Kansas, Trump takes Kentucky and Louisiana. Rubio didn't even make it to Florida.

One would think the GOPe would learn something from the repeated failure of their anointed ones. After Bush, Dole, Bush, Mcain, and Romney, they don't have much in the way of either support or respect any longer.

Compost Everything: the movie

The 2016 Home Grown Food Summit is coming up in just a few days. It features a bunch of presentations by expert gardeners, farmers, herbalists and homesteaders, including Castalia author David the Good, who decided to use the opportunity as a chance to directly demonstrate some of the crazy composting methods in Compost Everything by creating Compost Everything: The Movie.

No word on whether he actually demonstrates the use of human corpses to feed his zucchini or not. But if you want to find out, sign up and see the all the presentations for free.

Why he left the conservative movement

A lifelong conservative Republican informs the conservative media why he is no longer a conservative:

Let me say up front that I am a life-long Republican and conservative. I have never voted for a Democrat in my life and have voted in every presidential and midterm election since 1988. I have never in my life considered myself anything but a conservative. I am pained to admit that the conservative media and many conservatives’ reaction to Donald Trump has caused me to no longer consider myself part of the movement. I would suggest to you that if you have lost people like me, and I am not alone, you might want to reconsider your reaction to Donald Trump. Let me explain why.

First, I spent the last 20 years watching the conservative media in Washington endorse and urge me to vote for one candidate after another who made a mockery of conservative principles and values. Everyone talks about how thankful we are for the Citizens’ United decision but seems to have forgotten how we were urged to vote for the coauthor of the law that the decision overturned. In 2012, we were told to vote for Mitt Romney, a Massachusetts liberal who proudly signed an individual insurance mandate into law and refused to repudiate the decision. Before that, there was George W. Bush, the man who decided it was America’s duty to bring democracy to the Middle East (more about him later). And before that, there was Bob Dole, the man who gave us the Americans with Disabilities Act. I, of course, voted for those candidates and do not regret doing so. I, however, am self-aware enough to realize I voted for them because I will vote for virtually anyone to keep the Left out of power and not because I thought them to be the best or even really a conservative choice. Given this history, the conservative media’s claims that the Republican party must reject Donald Trump because he is not a “conservative” are pathetic and ridiculous to those of us who are old enough to remember the last 25 years.

Second, it doesn’t appear to me that conservatives calling on people to reject Trump have any idea what it actually means to be a “conservative.” The word seems to have become a brand that some people attach to a set of partisan policy preferences, rather than the set of underlying principles about government and society it once was. Conservatism has become a dog’s breakfast of Wilsonian internationalism brought over from the Democratic Party after the New Left took it over, coupled with fanatical libertarian economics and religiously-driven positions on various culture war issues. No one seems to have any idea or concern for how these positions are consistent or reflect anything other than a general hatred for Democrats and the Left.

TL;DR: He is an American nationalist who rejects cuckservatism.

For many years, people on both sides of the political spectrum have repeatedly tried to label me a conservative. If you look back to the very beginning, to my first column on WND after 9/11, I have steadfastly resisted that label because I have always known that I do not share an outlook with those who proudly wear it.

I am a nationalist, I am a traditionalist, I am a Christian, and I am right-wing, but I am most definitely not a conservative. I never was and I never will be.

The reason is this: conservatives are nothing more than progressives in slow motion.

The author, a veteran, proceeds to address the neoconning of conservatism, as reflected in conservatism's newfound enthusiasm for violently exporting what it deceptively calls "democracy" around the world:

Third, there is the issue of the war on Islamic extremism. Let me say upfront that, as a veteran of two foreign deployments in this war, I speak with some moral authority on it. So please do not lecture me on the need to sacrifice for one’s country or the nature of the threat that we face. I have gotten on that plane twice and have the medals and t-shirt to prove it. And, as a member of the one percent who have actually put my life on the line in these wars movement conservatives consider so vital, my question for you and every other conservatives is just when the hell did being conservative mean thinking the US has some kind of a duty to save foreign nations from themselves or bring our form of democratic republicanism to them by force? I fully understand the sad necessity to fight wars and I do not believe in “blow back” or any of the other nonsense that says the world will leave us alone if only we will do that same. At the same time, I cannot for the life of me understand how conservatives of all people convinced themselves that the solution to the 9-11 attacks was to forcibly create democracy in the Islamic world. I have even less explanations for how — 15 years and 10,000 plus lives later — conservatives refuse to examine their actions and expect the country to send more of its young to bleed and die over there to save the Iraqis who are clearly too slovenly and corrupt to save themselves.

The lowest moment of the election was when Trump said what everyone in the country knows: that invading Iraq was a mistake. Rather than engaging the question with honest self-reflection, all of the so called “conservatives” responded with the usual “How dare he?” Worse, they let Jeb Bush claim that Bush “kept us safe.” I can assure you that President Bush didn’t keep me safe. Do I and the other people in the military not count? Sure, we signed up to give our lives for our country and I will never regret doing so. But doesn’t our commitment require a corresponding responsibility on the part of the president to only expect us to do so when it is both necessary and in the national interest?

And since when is bringing democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan so much in the national interest that it is worth killing or maiming 50,000 Americans to try and achieve?

Devastating. Absolutely devastating.

Hey, parent, leave the kids offline

Some of you will recall that I have repeatedly urged everyone here to stop posting pictures of your children on social media. I consider it to be a reprehensible violation of their privacy and an abrogation of one's parental responsibilities in two ways: it robs them of the ability to make their own decisions and it risks exposing them to unwanted attention and potential danger. Worse, it does so for nothing more than to feed the short-term attention-seeking fix of narcissistic parents.

This is not a new subject. Back in 2009, I wrote:

Never, ever, put pictures of children up on the Internet. Not on Facebook, not on invitation-only Live Journals, and certainly not on public blogs. It's not only reprehensibly stupid, it is completely disrespectful of a child's right to make his own decisions about his public profile in the future. True, sometimes this is unavoidable, such as when a child happens to be in the news for one reason or another. But barring that, no responsible parent should ever upload a picture of a child to the Internet, no matter how proud one might happen to be.

I repeated that again three years ago:

Don't put pictures of your kids on Facebook or Instagram.  It's stupid.  It's obnoxious.  It's thoughtless and self-centered.  And it's their life, not yours, that you're putting on public display.

And, of course, there is absolutely no excuse for ever putting a picture of another family's child on social media, for any reason. So, you can't say you weren't warned, as it appears the law in some countries is finally beginning to catch up to the obvious privacy violations involved.

French parents are being warned to stop posting pictures of children on social networks in case their offspring later sue them for breaching their right to privacy or jeopardising their security.

Under France’s stringent privacy laws, parents could face penalties as severe as a year in prison and a fine of €45,000 (£35,000) if convicted of publicising intimate details of the private lives of others — including their children – without their consent.

Eric Delcroix, an expert on internet law and ethics, said: “In a few years, children could easily take their parents to court for publishing photos of them when they were younger.”

Grown-ups who sue their parents for breaching their right to privacy as children could obtain substantial compensation awards, according to French legal experts.

I won't have any sympathy for the parents who find themselves getting hoist by their own narcissistic petard in the future. They will whine and cry about their ungrateful children, who will rightly respond: "why should I harbor any concern for your financial interests when you demonstrably didn't give a damn about my legal and moral right to not be put on display to the world like a pet or a trophy?"

Ever seen Deliverance, Mr. Beck?

“I don’t know what I would have done if I was sitting in Cruz or Rubio’s shoes. I can’t say it that way. If I were on the stage, I would have said, ‘have you been listening to him tonight? Have you been listening to what I say about him? I believe these things. If I was close enough and had a knife, the stabbing just wouldn’t stop.”
- Glenn Beck


Dear Mr. Beck,

Have you ever seen Deliverance? Yeah, that's your fat piggy ass for the rest of your life if you try to stab Mr. Trump.

Sincerely,
America

The message and the harbinger

Trump is merely one harbinger of nationalism rising across the West in response to the traitorous globalist elite:

This side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump tends to be portrayed as something of a unique event. He’s broken every rule, slaughtered every sacred cow, and defied every political prediction: He’s stronger than ever. To explain him, many American commentators, particularly his critics, have suggested that the Republican presidential contender has latched onto some specific quirk in America’s national psyche, or identified an inherent weakness in the U.S. political system or failing on the part of its current political parties....

But from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the Donald Trump story looks very different. From the perspective of many anxious op-ed writers in Western Europe, Trump isn’t an anomaly. Instead, he’s part of a dramatic populist surge occurring across Western democracies at the moment, on both the political left and the right.

“From Spain to Sweden to Poland, populist protest parties are spreading,” wrote Josef Joffe last month in the German newspaper Die Zeit. All that differs is the terminology: “In America the ‘mainstream media’ is the enemy. Here it is [called] the ‘Lügenpresse [lying press].’ Here they rage against ‘those at the top,’ there against the ‘elites.’”

“In nearly every European country they are on the move now, the little Trumps,” declared Evelyn Roll in Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, warning against the dangers of nationalism.

“We have Marine Le Pen. They have Trump,” agreed Le Monde’s Alain Frachon. Le Pen, who heads France’s Front National, often draws these comparisons, given her similar nationalist and anti-immigration posture. But others point to Viktor Orban in Hungary or the politicians in Germany’s “Alternative for Germany” party, a group opposed to immigration and the European Union that is expected to gain ground in the next election.

Of course, not every European observer is anxious as a result of these developments. My concern is that they are too little, too late, and that the allied elites will be able to use the anti-democratic rules of representative democracy to stifle the nationalist rise.

Because, as I have repeatedly warned, if the nationalists can't succeed through the rules of representative democracy, the ultranationalists are going to succeed through force. Because open nationalist dictatorships in the interests of the nations will be vastly preferred by the various publics to hidden globalist dictatorship in the interests of the international elite.

And if the nationalists are stopped, that is the choice that will be presented to the nations of the West.

The death of conservatism

Mike Cernovich explains how the pro-American mask has been stripped away from the globalists formerly known as conservatives:

Nationalism v. Globalism: The Death of Conservatism.

Trump’s rise has been met with cries that he is not a “true conservative.” The once-prestigious National Review devoted an entire issue crying about Trump. Called Against Trump, the issue brought in attacks from pro-war neocons and even the mentally-unstable Glen Beck.

What attacks on Trump failed to do was define conservatism. No one has been able to explain why waging wars on foreign soils or increasing federal spending more than any president since Lyndon B. Johnson, as George w. Bush did, was conservative. No one has explained how socialized medicine, which Mitt Roney enacted as government of Massachusetts, is conservative.

Question begging aside, Trump is not a “true conservative,” and in fact conservatism in the U.S. is dead.

Trump is a nationalist, which is a loaded term worthy of definition.

Nationalism derives from the root nation. A nationalist puts the interests of his own country, and by extension countrymen, above the interests of other nations. A nationalist puts America first. Nationalists will work with other countries, but only when in the best interest of the United States.

You’d think that the President of the United States would by definition be a nationalist. Nation is in the title of the job description. Yet mainstream conservatives have drifted away from nationalism and towards globalism.

To a globalist, Americans are no different from a Nigerian. If someone in a foreign land is able to do a job much cheaper than an American worker, then those jobs should be offshored. Americans, according to globalists, do not deserve to exist as an identity.

Globalists thus favor open borders, even though increased immigration lowers the wages of native-born Americans while increasing crimes. Marco Rubio, the darling of conservative elites, even sought to open America’s borders.

As part of the Gang of 8 (so named because 8 United State senators joined forces to bring a new world order to the U.S.), Rubio also sought to increase the number of migrants from Syria by millions. That the migrants from Syrian tend to be overwhelmingly men of prime-fighting age means nothing to Rubio or other globalists. America has no right to exist as a nation under the globalist worldview.

Trump rejected globalism with a powerful statement: Build the Wall. By building a wall, Trump meant the U.S. must erect a border between the United States and Mexico, as illegal immigrants, including drug dealers and even Islamic terrorists, poured across in the tens-of-millions. Building a wall is a powerful representation of nationalism.

“A nation cannot exist without a border,” Trump declared. A nation is it borders because a nation is its people. When you allow people who hate American values like freedom of speech, free enterprise, and tolerance for religion, you change the nation for the worse.

Mainstream conservatives, again, are globalists. They believe Americans do not have a right to exist as a people, and that America does not have the right to exist as a nation. Some my call that statement extreme, but if you do not define your borders or control who comes to America, as they do in Israel, how can you claim to be pro-America?

There is more, considerably more, there. A fair amount of it will be familiar to you if you have read Cuckservative: How "Conservatives" Betrayed America, but Mike puts his uniquely energetic spin on the matter. Read the whole thing.

And then ask yourself, how can any American, real or propositional, claim to be conservative when he actively opposes the conservation of America?

Combined Arms, Take Two, turn two

Now that the second pincer of the German attack has entered the map, this is how the battlefield stood after the German Turn 2. The first turn.

The Soviet commander divided his tanks into two squadrons, sending four to deal with the Tigers from the 23rd Panzer Division shielding my assault on the village in the west (top) and three to bolster the infantry preparing to meet the company-sized assault from the east (bottom).

The Panther on the northern hill was destroyed right away; in retrospect this position was a foolish decision on my part. However, the Soviets lost the T-34 defending the approach to the village in an exchange of fire with one of the Tigers, and more crucially, a Stalin to a timely critical hit as it charged past a Panther in an attempt to get a shot at close range on the exposed side of the engaged Tiger. Despite being buttoned up and having to swivel its turret, the Panther managed to take out the heavier tank at a range of 120 meters.

However despite the assistance of the other Tiger delivering suppressive fire, the Panzergrenadiers were unable to dislodge the platoon of Soviet Guards from the building near the hills. And in the west, the T-34s and Stalins wreaked havoc on the 1st Panzer Division.

I'd set up a death star of a platoon with both medium machine guns under my best leader, a 9-2, and advanced them into the stone building at the bottom of the map, thinking to use them to suppress the Soviet infantry and permit the other two platoons to advance. A single shell from a Stalin's 122L killed most of them and broke the survivors. That allowed the Soviets to concentrate their fire on my second-best platoon, who also broke under the pressure.

My only success was rushing one squad of engineers armed with a demolition charge into position where they would be able to claim the first of the nine buildings the Germans require for victory. Also, a pair of squads managed to make their way towards the village on the south side of the map, although it will be another two turns before they are able to reach it.

At this point, I have to admit that it doesn't look good for the attacking Germans. I needed to break that Guards platoon to give me access to the village before the carnage in the west permits him to start falling back and reinforcing the troops he's got there. Also, I made a serious mistake in exposing the side of one Tiger to the anti-tank gun in the village, which is quite capable of punching through the monster's relatively light side armor. I am going to need some luck to stay in this one.

Correcting a misstep

Donald Trump obviously understood that his supporters did not like his reply to Megyn Kelly on highly-skilled immigration, which they took to be a flip-flop on the H-1B visa program. He immediately clarified his position after the debate:

March 04, 2016
Donald J. Trump Position on Visas

"Megyn Kelly asked about highly-skilled immigration. The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay. I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices such as those that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements. I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions."

That is about as clear as it gets. Whether you support Trump or not, the fact that he might have slipped up once when under attack from three sides is not indicative of his true position on immigration. Especially when there is sleight of hand involved in the question, substituting "H1-B visas" for "highly-skilled immigration".

Trump's general principle on immigrant labor remains clear: he does not support importing foreign workers to lower the wages of American jobs.

11th debate, 11th hour

It's all but over for the Republican campaigns:

Republicans gather for their eleventh debate on Thursday amid growing consternation from those in the GOP establishment that Donald Trump is unstoppable.

In the hours since Trump’s Super Tuesday romp, Republicans have intensified their push to defeat him, with GOP groups digging into their bank accounts for an air assault in Florida. Top operatives are laying groundwork for primaries on March 15, perhaps the last chance to defeat the billionaire mogul. And Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, under growing duress, are getting ready to deliver harsh attacks on the front-runner in Thursday’s primetime debate in Detroit.

The flurry of activity underscores what many concede is a central reality: The window for halting Trump may soon be closed for good.

“Trump is the presumptive nominee,” said Christian Ferry, who served as Lindsey Graham’s campaign manager. “I think anyone who cannot see that today needs to start working through the stages of grief.”

Operation Mitt was a bust today, so it should be interesting to see if an overstressed Rubiot implodes on stage. This is an open thread for live-commenting the debate, if you are so inclined.

Is Romney criticizing Trump or campaigning for him?

I don't know about you, but I suspect Trump's numbers are going to go up in reaction to Romney's much-ballyhooed attack on him:

"Here's what I know: Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud," Romney said. "His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He's playing members of the American public for suckers: He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat."
 
Romney lambasted Trump on foreign policy, casting him as "very, very not-smart" in his comments about allowing ISIS to take out Syria's leadership and for proposing the slaughter of the families of terrorists.

"Mr. Trump is directing our anger for less-than-noble purposes. He creates scapegoats in Muslims and Mexican immigrants. He calls for the use of torture. He calls for the killing of innocent children and family members of terrorists."

This strikes me as more than a little akin to throwing Brer Rabbit into the briar patch. What's he going to do next, accuse Trump of liking apple pie, marrying hot women, and wanting to keep America too American?

Mike Cernovich will no doubt note that by saying Trump "gets a free ride to the White House", Romney has made the mistake of assuming the sale.

Meanwhile the Mexicans are campaigning for Trump too, it seems:

In a televised interview late on Wednesday, Finance Minister Luis Videgaray categorically rejected the proposal.

"Under no circumstance will Mexico pay for the wall that Mr. Trump is proposing," he said. "Building a wall between Mexico and the United States is a terrible idea. It is an idea based on ignorance and has no foundation in the reality of North American integration."

Yes, I'm sure that will convince many Americans not to vote for Trump. If they keep this up, Trump is going to win in a landslide after promising to nuke Mexico City and deport all of the contributors to National Review. What are they going to do next, roll out George W. Bush to attack him?

The business of convergence

The Guardian is in the process of learning the hard way that employing SJWs and marketing to them is a very good way to lose considerable sums of money:

As much as any newspaper in the world, Britain’s Guardian has been single-minded and aggressive in its belief that conversion to digital distribution and a digital identity was its future and, for that matter, the only future for any newspaper.

The costs of that conviction are now clear: The paper lost almost $120 million last year.

The Guardian has been something of an ultimate experiment in the migration from paper to digital publishing. The enterprise is supported by a trust set up in the 1930s by the Guardian’s founders, the Scott family from Manchester, wholly dedicated to the survival of the paper. While the trust envisioned providing the paper freedom from commercial pressure to let it practice unfettered journalism, the transition to digital is, in the estimation of the Guardian’s managers, the only path to journalism’s future — and a necessary cost, whatever it amounts to.  (Disclosure: I’m a former contributor to the Guardian.)

In order to underwrite the costs of this transformation, most of the trust’s income-producing investments have been liquidated in recent years in order to keep cash on hand — more than a billion dollars.

Translation: they should be tapped out and done in about 15 years.

Peeling the onion

The big banks and the US government are fighting a desperate court battle to keep hidden the way in which they collude to permit the bank executives to freely break the law without risking any criminal penalties.

The reason both the Democratic and Republican establishments are in full on panic mode about the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is a deep seated fear that the plebs have finally woken up.

Democrats rail against big corporations, while Republicans rail against big government. This scheme has been used to successfully divide and conquer the public for decades while big government and big business successfully schemed to divert all wealth and power to an ever smaller minuscule segment of the population — themselves.

It took awhile, but the people are finally starting getting it and they are royally pissed off. One of the primary mechanisms for this historic elite theft has been the creation of a two-tiered justice system in which the rich, powerful and connected are never prosecuted for their criminality. Instead, the government actively protects them by pretending corporate entities commit crimes as opposed to individuals. Of course, this is impossible, but yet it’s how the government handles white collar crime. The Orwellian named “Justice Department” casually utilizes deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs), in which companies pay a little fine and the criminals themselves walk away with not just their freedom, but ill gotten monetary gains as well.

Nowhere is this most apparent than when it comes to the big banks. The individuals who work at these criminal cartels can literally do anything they want with total impunity. One of the most egregious examples of this was the $1.9 billion settlement arranged with HSBC for laundering Mexican drug cartel money and dealing with sanctioned countries. If you or I did this we’d be sitting in a concrete box eating porridge through a straw for the rest of our lives, but when “masters of the world” at big banks do it, the parent company just pays a slap on the wrist fine and life goes on. That’s how oligarch justice works.

Although the Department of Justice and HSBC thought the money laundering case was settled ancient history, a determined chemist from Pennsylvania is throwing a wrench into their plans and it could have major implications.

One of the surprising things I learned very early after expatriating was that not only were my suspicions about the USA being one gigantic fraud all true, but that many elite Europeans knew all about it.

The anti-American contempt they express tends to be less because they look down on Americans for being overweight, monolingual, and untraveled, but because Americans are so blind to the fact that their government is the largest criminal enterprise on the planet despite having been warned of it in 1961 by President Eisenhower.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961

It's not as if this machinery has become less influential or less pervasive in the last 50 years, although these days we wouldn't call it the military-industrial complex, but the financial corpocracy. The EU, just so you understand, is an attempt to lay the foundation for something similar across Europe. But it's doomed to failure, because Europe is too nationalistic, too heterogeneous, and too openly corrupt.

There have always been kingdoms and empires. One elite or another has almost always ruled over Man. This is nothing new and the current rulers of the USA are far from the worst that Man has ever known. But Americans don't understand that they are ruled and therefore mistakenly believe they are free. Europeans know they are not. 

Mailvox: Surviving SJW lies

An SJWAL reader explains that he never thought an SJW attack would happen to him, until it did:

I wanted to take a moment and thank you for your articles on dealing with SJWs and their nonsense. I bought a copy of SJWs Always Lie and have gotten about halfway through it before life kicked in the door.  I had a run-in recently with the very tactics you have written about.  Last Thursday our payroll person emailed me that the HR Manager needed to speak with me.  I called him and he informed me that he had some paperwork for me.  I asked him to fax it to a third party I was working with.  He declined because it contained personal information.  He then told me he would scan it and email it to me.

No scan on Thursday. I emailed him Friday about it.  No response.  On Monday, we exchanged instant messages.  He said he would stop by my desk.  That never happened.

Tuesday came and I had had enough.  I emailed him wanting to know where the scan was and why was it taking him so long to get it.  I included my third party on that email.  Well, that shook the tree good, and I finally got a response.

"I told you that you needed to come and see me," was the response.  Lie.

I sent him back a copy of his instant messenger exchange and reminded him that I a) needed the scan and b) he never stopped by my desk. No response. 

Finally, I had enough and looked up his boss. I sent her an email detailing all the events of the last few days. I also apologized for having to intrude on her time to intercede on my behalf. About thirty minutes later, I had a response from her saying that my scan would be arriving shortly.  Fifteen minutes later it arrived.

Lesson: keep records and use them against the other side when they stray from the straight and narrow.

That was very well done. But it's important for the reader to understand that even if he didn't have an enemy in HR before, he most certainly does now. So, I would recommend filing a formal complaint against the HR employee, because he will likely need it as evidence that the guy has it in for him, is known to be dishonest, and is prone to trying to cover his tracks, for when the guy sees an opportunity and decides to take a shot.

Because we can be confident that he's going to at the earliest opportunity, as per the 2nd Law of SJW: SJWs always double down.

This is why, if you haven't read SJWAL yet, you really should do so in the interest of career self-defense.