It’s a rare occasion when the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro can say something nice about Donald Trump. But in response to Trump’s recent explanation of how he would force Mexico pay for the Trump Wall (by using the remittance weapon, like Israel), the fiercely anti-Trump pundit offered praise as well as the usual insults:

This idea is actually decent. If you wish to halt illegal immigration, preventing those who come illegally from sending money back home accomplishes this purpose. If you wish to pressure the Mexican government, preventing people from sending money back to Mexico accomplishes this purpose.

[ Trump Trots Out His Plan To Force Mexico To Build A Wall. Surprise! It’s Not Bad , Daily Wire, April 5, 2016]

Of course, VDARE.com proposed this idea twelve years ago and has been monitoring the remittance issue ever since.

As Shapiro acknowledges, Trump’s  is actually a fairly moderate plan, Read more >>

In the race for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump would seem to be in the catbird seat. He has won the most states, the most delegates and the most votes--by nearly two million.

He has brought out the largest crowds and is poised Read more >>

[Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, now available free on VDARE.com.]

What accounts for Trump's relatively poor showing in Wisconsin? There were of course plenty of explanations on offer.

Lion of the Blogosphere gave us the most succinct one: There just aren't enough blacks in Wisconsin, he said. The theory is, where you have a lot of blacks, whites go tribal. Here I get to quote one of my favorite statistics from the 2012 general: Whites in Mississippi went 89 percent for Romney, while the figure for whites in Vermont was 33 percent.

It's a neat theory, and those Mississippi-Vermont numbers suggest it's not an empty one. It's hard to make it work for last week's Wisconsin vote, though. If you look at the county-by-county voting map, the bigger urban areas, where most of the blacks are — the Mississippis, as it were — all went for Cruz. The more rustic areas with few blacks — the Vermonts — went for Trump.



Milwaukee County is 27 percent black against a state average of six percent: Ted Cruz took it, 54 percent to Trump's 26. Contrariwise, Douglas County is 93 percent white, one percent black — practically a little Vermont. Trump took that county by 55 percent to Cruz's 31.

If it's not simply a race thing, though, what is it? Trump's looking strong to win New York April 19th; why couldn't he win Wisconsin? New York Republicans Read more >>

The Mexican government has its own response to immigration from its southern neighbors: it detains, tortures, and deports Central Americans who come into the country. And occasionally it even goes after its own citizens of indigenous origin.

Recently, three Mexican Indian siblings from the southern state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala, were reportedly abducted and tortured by Mexican immigration officials. Amy (24), Alberto (18) and Esther (15) were on a bus to do seasonal agricultural work in northern Mexico:

…about half-way there, [Mexican] immigration agents boarded the bus, and after checking all the passengers’ papers, ordered the three siblings to get off. The officials accused them of carrying false documents and lying about their nationality. Then they told the youngsters that they would be deported to Guatemala, a country none would have been able to place on a map. The baffled youngsters—who speak the Mayan language Tzeltal but very little Spanish—were transferred to an immigration holding centre in Queretero city [ sic—should be spelled Queretaro].

[ Mexico tortures migrants—and citizens—in effort to slow Central American surge, by Nina Lakhani, The Guardian, April 4, 2016]

Blatant racial profiling! The immigration officials assumed the siblings were Guatemalan Indians, not Mexican Indians. The language barrier didn’t help.

Of course, profiling has its place if it’s done properly. Read more >>

UK journalist and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos(above) recently undertook the heroic task last of defending the Alt Right against the onslaught from Conservatism Inc. (and Libertarianism Inc.) hacks. Not only did Milo reject the usual charges of racism, anti-Semitism etc.—he pushed back against the far more damaging charge the Alt Right is composed of “losers.” Unlike most Alt Right critics, Milo has actually interviewed its leaders (to the extent that the movement has leaders), noting they have no problem inviting “Jewish gays [himself] and mixed-race [his co-author Allum Bokhari] Breitbart reporters to their secret dinner parties.” Based on his interactions, “one thing stands out above all else: intelligence.” [ An Establishment Conservative's Guide to the Alt-Right, by Allum Bokhari & Milo Yiannopoulos, Breitbart, March 29, 2016]

Theoretically, “intelligence” shouldn’t matter. The ideas the Alt Right promotes are either correct or not, regardless of whether their progenitors are, in Milo’s words, “formidably smart and very funny” or, as GOP consultant Rick Wilson claims, “childless single men who masturbate to anime”. [ MSNBC Guest: Trump's 'Alt-Right' Fans 'Childless Single Men Who Masturbate to Anime' , by Josh Feldman, Mediaite, January 19, 2016]

But politics isn’t about critical thinking. Movements don’t succeed because they avoid logical fallacies or because their ideas are logically consistent. Insofar as the Alt Right has succeeded recently, it’s been because it appears as a young and dynamic movement rather than a collection of boring old men.

Indeed, the triumph of the Left over American Read more >>