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

A striking feature of last weekend's AmRen conference—other than its youthfulness, I mean—was its international flavor.

There were ten speakers. Subtracting out Jared Taylor's address and Sam Dickson's traditional benediction, the other eight broke out by nationality as: a Mexican, a South African, an Estonian, two Belgians, and three Americans. (I’m counting VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow as an American).(Videos of James Edwards, Peter Brimelow, Fernando Cortés, Filip Dewinter, and Jared Taylor are now available at Amren.com)



That’s appropriate, because there have been some National Question developments particularly in Europe that are worth noting.

• Austria

There's an Austrian presidential election every six years, on a straight popular vote.

They just had that election. [ Austria far right thwarted, Van der Bellen elected president, BBC, May 23, 2016] The winner was a chap named Alexander Van der Bellen, who ran as an independent. That was surprising enough in itself, as political power in Austria tends to belong to one or other of the two biggest parties, one center-right and one center-left.

In this presidential election, both of those parties were eliminated in the first round of voting a month ago. The center-left placed fourth, the center-right placed fifth. The two leading candidates went to a run-off election, and that's the one we had last week.

The winner, and so the new president, ran as an independent. Read more >>

This is what I saw on the Drudge Report:

Vandals Deface Vietnam War Memorial...

Covered in graffiti...

MAN DRIVES THROUGH KENTUCKY MEMORIAL CROSS DISPLAY...

CRIME SCENE DECLARED AFTER LOOTING AT VIRGINIA BATTLEFIELD...

Drudge Report, May 29, 2016

The vandals in Venice Beach who did the graffiti on a Vietnam War memorial wall, "tagging" the names of the fallen with illegible gang-type symbols appear to be the usual suspects who tag normal buildings--local Hispanic gang members.

People on this street said the memorial was tagged a few days ago. They said the graffiti matches some of the other ones in the neighborhood.

The Los Angeles Police Department said it is not investigating the case.

Vandals Deface Vietnam War Memorial In Venice, CBS, Los Angeles, May 27, 2016

I suppose an inquisitive newsman could have come up with a specific gang that posted these, and a specific group (Mexican, Salvadoran, Sureno or whatever) but inquisitive newsmen seem to be rare.

In the case of the "Man" who ran over a group of crosses representing dead servicemen in Kentucky, I tweeted about it Read more >>

The New York Times thinks that deporting the estimated 11 million illegals will be financially impossible, and they have interviews with defeatists like Michael Chertoff (who managed to deport some illegals as head of Homeland Security under George W. Bush) and former Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar to prove it. (A 2004 Border Patrol Hispanic Heritage Month presentation said Chief Aguilar was considered a “trusted spokesperson within the Hispanic community, communicating border-crossing policies that have a profound impact on Hispanic communities along the border.” No doubt the “Hispanic community” still feels that.)  The NYT insists that

“Mr. Trump has suggested he will flesh out his ideas in a forthcoming speech. But experts across many fields who have analyzed his plans so far warn that they would come at astronomical costs — whoever paid — and would in many ways defy the logic of science, engineering and law.”

What Would It Take for Donald Trump to Deport 11 Million and Build a Wall? By Julia Preston, Alan Rappeport and Matt Richtel, NYT, May 19, 2016

Where do they get these ideas? From bought and paid for think tanks.

One group   questioning Read more >>

Donald Trump is “how fascism comes to America,” says Robert Kagan. The New Yorker warns fascism “can happen here” [ Going There With Donald Trump , by Adam Gopnik, May 11, 2016]. Martin O’ Malley complains about Trump’s “fascist appeal” [ O’Malley talks Trump’s ‘fascist appeal’ and Baltimore crime in television interview , by Erica Green, Baltimore Sun, May 14, 2016]. And Salon enlists a “historian of fascism” to claim Trump is a fascist like Mussolini [ Trump’s not Hitler, he’s Mussolini: How GOP anti-intellectualism created a modern fascist movement in America , by Fedja Buric, Salon, March 11, 2016].

With the meteoric rise of Donald Trump, the only other word we hear more than “fascism” is “racism.”

But what exactly is “fascism?”

Paul Gottfried attempts to answer that question with an exhaustively researched study, Fascism: The Career of a Concept. It’s an antidote to the clumsy polemics surrounding the topic. Gottfried alludes to Jonah Goldberg’s 2008 Conservatism, Inc bestseller  Liberal Fascism as an illustration of how serious scholarship has been subordinated to crass partisan political purposes.

Gottfried says of Goldberg’s efforts:

“After hundreds of pages of…often strained comparisons between fascist and Democratic orators, it is hard to miss the point: if Democratic partisans in Hollywood have gone after Republicans as fascists, then the other party should be allowed to play the same game.”

Goldberg’s charging his political opponents with the “f” word is just “intermural politics.” And this “game” of two parties casting aspersions back and forth is hard to take seriously.

As Gottfried writes: Read more >>

Well, here we go again. Univision’s English language outlet Fusion says Donald Trump will be crushed by the Latino vote. But a close examination shows the same old mistaken premises and faulty assumptions about immigration and politics that the MSM and Hispanic campaign consultants (where distinguishable) have been making for years.

Enrique Acevedo argues the Republican Party has suffered because of how it handled the immigration issue. He credits Democratic triumphs in 1996 and 2012 as well as Democratic control of California to Latino voters reacting against Republican support for restrictions on immigration . [ Trump can’t get to the White House without the Latino vote , by April 26, 2016] Once again, we hear about the supposedly dire effects of Proposition 187 in California and how it doomed Republicans forever.

But this ignores history. Proposition 187 passed overwhelmingly and led to the victory of Governor Pete Wilson. It’s the California GOP’s inability to win enough of the white vote in the state that’s killing it. Acevedo blames Mitt Romney’s line about “self-deportation” for his defeat, but Romney’s lack of fighting spirit had more to do with his defeat than his (rather wobbly) immigration Read more >>

"Something startling is happening to middle-aged white Americans. Unlike every other age group, unlike every other racial and ethnic group ... death rates in this group have been rising, not falling."

The big new killers of middle-aged white folks? Alcoholic liver disease, overdoses of heroin and opioids, and suicides. So Read more >>