Posts Tagged ‘LARP Nazis’

BidenWatch for August 31, 2020

Monday, August 31st, 2020

Biden’s phony-baloney polls are running behind Hillary’s phony-baloney polls of four years ago, more China policy weakness, more anti-police rhetoric, and Slow Joe comes in many days and dollars short denouncing the antifa/#BlackLivesMatter riots. It’s this week’s BidenWatch!

  • “Biden Is Under-Performing Hillary Clinton in Battleground States She Lost.”

    On election day, Hillary Clinton polled 6.5 points ahead of Trump in Wisconsin in the Real Clear Politics average (an aggregate of polls). Trump ended up winning the state by 0.7 points. Biden currently leads by 3.5 points in Wisconsin in the RCP.

    The story is the same in North Carolina and Michigan. In North Carolina Trump lead Hillary by only 0.8 points on election day but ended up winning by 3.6. Biden is tied with Trump currently in the polls. In Michigan, Clinton lead by 3.6 points on election day, but Trump won by 0.3. Biden currently leads by 2.6 points.

    Or more accurately, “supposedly leads.”

    If we measure Hillary’s polling averages as of August 26th instead of election day, as the National Review’s David Harysanyi notes: Biden is +5.5 in Pennsylvania today [the 26th]. Hillary was +9.2 the same day in 2016. Florida is the only battleground state where Biden (+3.7) is outperforming Clinton (+2.7).

  • More on the same theme:

  • This Is How Biden Loses:

    In mid-August, a Pew Research Center poll found that the issue of violent crime ranks fifth in importance to registered voters—behind the economy, health care, the Supreme Court, and the pandemic, but ahead of foreign policy, guns, race, immigration, and climate change. The poll found a large partisan gap on the issue: three-quarters of Trump voters rated violent crime “very important,” second behind only the economy. Nonetheless, nearly half of Biden voters also rated it “very important.” Other polls show that, over the summer, Biden has lost some of the support he gained among older white Americans in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic.

    With some exceptions, the media have been reluctant to shine a bright light on the summer’s violence—both the riots and the concurrent spike in violence. The New York Times ignored or downplayed the subject for weeks. One of its first major articles appeared in mid-August, under the headline “In the Wake of Covid-19 Lockdowns, a Troubling Surge in Homicides.” The piece argued that the crime surge had to do with the end of the lockdown that coincided with the beginning of summer, citing the skepticism of criminologists that “the increase is tied to any pullback by the police in response to criticism or defunding efforts,” and pointing to economic disruption and the spread of despair. But it also offered a different explanation, contradicting the thesis: “Police officials in several cities have said the protests have diverted officers from crime-fighting duty or emboldened criminals.”

    After the 2016 election, the Times admitted that it had somehow missed the story, and it earnestly set about at self-correction. Like many other outlets, the paper sent reporters to talk to Americans who had put Trump in the White House. It was a new beat, almost a foreign bureau—heartland reporting—but that focus soon faded as the president’s daily depredations consumed the media’s attention. This election year, news organizations grown more activist might miss the story again, this time on principle—as they avoid stories that don’t support their preferred narrative. Trump supporters are hoping for it.

    I think I speak for all Trump supporters when I say hat we want a news media that honestly and fairly reports the news. But that ship sailed a long, long time ago. (What was the last Republican President who got unbiased reporting in the media? Eisenhower?) But I do agree that the MSM’s unsuccessful attempts to enforce preference falsification turns out to be a major advantage for Republicans.

    (Hat tip: Chuck DeVore.)

  • Speaking of Chuck DeVore, he has a piece on how well President Trump is doing when it comes to foreign policy, how bad Biden’s foreign policy record has been, and how weak Biden is on China:

    Biden’s lifetime of foreign policy miscues include:

    • Opposing Ronald Reagan’s military buildup and the Strategic Defense Initiative
    • Voting to invade Iraq in 2002, saying in 2003, “I voted to go into Iraq, and I’d vote to do it again.”
    • Early support for the 1999 bombing of Serbia which pushed Serbs to back the authoritarian leader there while stifling the nascent pro-democracy movement.
    • Criticism of President Trump’s authorization to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the man responsible for paying bounties to the Taliban for the killing of American troops in Afghanistan.
    • Advising President Obama to wait for more information before approving the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011—advice, that if acted upon, might have led to bin Laden’s escape.

    Reviewing Biden’s campaign statements and materials for clues on his foreign policy proposals suggests a Biden administration would major on the minors. In a sprawling 4,444-word essay entitled, “Why America Must Lead Again,” Biden sets out his vision. He mentions China 13 times:

    • Suggesting U.S. tech giants shouldn’t be aiding China’s repression.
    • Claiming his foreign policy will help the middle class “…win the competition for the future against China or anyone else… (author’s italics).”
    • Saying “There is no reason we should be falling behind China or anyone else (author’s italics) when it comes to clean energy, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, 5G, high-speed rail, or the race to end cancer as we know it.”
    • That, “The United States, not China, should be leading…” with new trade deals.
    • Admitting that “The United States does need to get tough with China…” or else China will “…keep robbing the United States and American companies of their technology and intellectual property,” with the best way to address the challenge being to “…build a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China’s abusive behaviors and human rights violations, even as we seek to cooperate with Beijing on issues where our interests converge, such as climate change, nonproliferation, and global health security.”
    • Working with “…China, to advance our shared objective of a denuclearized North Korea…”
    • Ensuring that “the rules of the digital age (aren’t) written by China and Russia.”
    • And working with China on climate change.

    Absent is any mention by Biden of China’s massive military build up of modern missiles, ships, aircraft, and space systems and its growing willingness to use that military power against virtually all neighboring nations. It’s as if, by closing one’s eyes to the threat, one can wish the dragon away.

    So while the People’s Republic of China under the Chinese Communist Party is methodically preparing for a military conquest of the free island of Taiwan, to slice off more Himalayan territory from India, to take islands from Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia (all while holding the U.S. military at bay with an increasing array of long range missiles), Biden stresses the importance of climate change and getting the Chinese to use less coal.

    President Trump is paying attention to the true nature of the existential threat from communist China, while Joe Biden focuses on lesser irritants from an earlier era.

  • More on the same theme:

    The Democratic Party’s presidential nominee Joe Biden is “dangerous” when it comes to offshoring American jobs and because of his past relationship issues with China, and the United States needs a tough president like Donald Trump to stand up against the country’s bullying behavior, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Friday.

    “The problem with Joe Biden is he has a record, 44-year record,” Navarro said on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.” “In 2001, he voted to allow China into the World Trade Organization. That created a tsunami of offshoring, where we lost over 70,000 factories and 5 million manufacturing jobs. This also happened on his watch when he was vice president.”

    Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party is trying to “bully this country into submission through threats on Huawei and medical supplies,” Navarro said.

    “What we learned from this pandemic is we need to bring home our supply chains and manufacturing, not just for our essential medicines or medical supplies like masks or medical equipment like ventilators but for everything,” Navarro said. “China is bullying Australia right now for daring to question how that virus was created. Australia wants to do an investigation of China about where the virus came from. The next thing you know China is punishing Australia and New Zealand. It is a bully.”

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • No post-convention bump for Biden. “Getting no boost after a convention has happened only a few times in modern Democrat Party history. By John Kerry in 2004 and George McGovern in 1972. Kerry ended up losing to George W. Bush and McGovern got thrashed by Nixon in an historic landslide beaten only in scale by Presidents FDR and Ronald Reagan.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “C-SPAN Had So Many Democrats Calling In Support For Trump That They Had To Change Their Protocol“:

    C-SPAN changed their open phone line labels after an overwhelming number of Democratic viewers called on Wednesday night proclaiming their support for President Donald Trump in the upcoming election.

    “I’m a longtime Democrat, born and raised … After watching tonight … I have made up my mind. I am definitely gonna vote for Donald Trump,” said one of the many voters who dialed in.

    Before the Republican National Convention, C-SPAN’s open phone lines were labeled as open for “Democrats,” “Republicans,” and “Other” viewers to call into and share their opinions on-air. After Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, however, C-SPAN received an influx of callers who identified as Democrat but said they would be voting for Trump in November.

    Due to the increasing nature of these calls, the network adjusted the phone lines to encompass those who “Support Trump,” “Support Biden,” and “Support Others.”

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • The RNC destroyed Biden’s basement campaign. Also: conservatives dominate Facebook’s top ten links list? I had no idea. But look at this:

    Ben Shapiro is doing the work of thousands!

  • Is Joe Biden for or against defunding the police? Yes:

    We should begin with Joe Biden who said he would redirect budgeted police money to non-police areas. That’s right. Biden made that statement on July 8, when he replied, “Yes, absolutely” to an interviewer who asked him, “But do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding?”

    But this defunding of the police, or “redirecting” as Biden spins it, contradicts a June 8 statement by his campaign claiming that Biden “does not believe that police should be defunded.”

    When that contradiction and doublespeak raised eyebrows, Biden then reversed on both prior positions, claiming he would give more money to the police to handle the “god-awful problems” they face in the line of duty. Talk about a pandering, wishy-washy politician who will say anything to get elected. Can anyone believe Biden now?

  • “Police group leader calls Biden-Harris ‘most radical anti-police ticket in history.'”

    The president of the top lobbying group representing police and law enforcement officers tore into Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, calling them the “most radical anti-police ticket in history.”

    Michael McHale, the president of the National Association of Police Organizations, decried what he described as a rash of violence against police officers in recent months and railed against “failed” elected officials in cities such as Minneapolis, New York and Chicago who he said had made “the conscious decision not to support law enforcement.”

    Biden, he said, would follow their lead.

    “Joe Biden has turned his candidacy over to the far-left, anti-law enforcement radicals,” he said. “And as a senator, Kamala Harris pushed to further restrict police, cut their training, and make our American communities and streets even more dangerous than they are.”

  • Nor are they attempting to lower the rhetoric:

  • Biden finally denounces all the antifa/#BlackLivesMatter violence and rioting, many days and dollars too late:

  • Biden and Harris want to monkey with your 401Ks. I don’t know a single person who contributes to a 401K who goes “You know what the problem is? I’m just saving too much in taxes!”
  • Now Nancy Pelosi is saying Biden shouldn’t debate Trump.
  • Speaking of Slow Joe, here he confuses Jacob Blake with Kyle Rittenhouse:

    Plus he doubled-down on the “very fine people” hoax yet again.

  • Know all that “Trump won’t conceded if he loses” rhetoric from the left? Still more projection: “Hillary Clinton: Biden should not concede under any circumstances.”
  • Nothing says you’ll fight for black people quite like being endorsed by white supremacist Richard Spencer. Hey, the MSM insisted on linking this loon to the Republican Party for four years, so it’s only fair Republicans return the favor.
  • Who watches the watchmen? “‘Factcheckers’ Keep Lying about Biden’s Abortion Position.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.”)
  • Slow Joe update:

  • Heh:

  • Noted for the record: “Joe Biden to visit Southwestern Pennsylvania Monday; location, details not announced.” My experience has been that most presidential campaigns announce a time and place for a candidate’s appearance well more than a day in advance.
  • Good question:

  • The new pieties:

  • Lyin Joe:

    

  • Michael Moore thinks President Trump is going to win again. He was right about this in 2016 as well. “The Biden campaign just announced he’ll be visiting a number of states— but not Michigan. Sound familiar?”
  • Speaking of Michigan: Trump 47, Biden 45. It’s almost like the working class is never returning to the Democrat Party. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Epic comeback:

    

  • Boom:

  • Heh:

  • Heh 3:

  • “Biden: ‘My Doc Says I Don’t Have Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Or Alzheimer’s.'”

    • Also, I note for the record that no notable Kamala Harris links made their way across my desktop this week. I wasn’t trying to exclude them, but after the DNC was over, it seemed like the media universe at large just sort of lost interest in her. She generates a palpable lack of excitement.

    Like BidenWatch? Consider hitting the tip jar:





    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Democrats, Elections, video | No Comments »

    CNN Slapped By Their Own Panel: “I don’t trust anything the news media says anymore.”

    Thursday, August 24th, 2017

    CNN convened a focus group of Trump supporters on Charlottesville, evidently expecting that President Trump’s statement that “both sides were to blame” would cause them to abandon him and repent of their apostasy from the MSM Narrative.

    Despite leading, badgering questions from Alisyn Camerota, CNN got a face full of exactly what they weren’t expecting: Continued articulate support for Trump and pushback against the “Saintly Antifa takes on Devilish Neo-Nazis” narrative they’ve been peddling.

    A few choice quotes:

  • “I think it’s ridiculous to have me choose between Hitler and Stalin which is what I consider both groups are.”
  • “I don’t trust anything the news media says anymore.”
  • “I think it was a setup. There were busses coming in, with lots of young people. Protestors coming of the same bus, some wearing Black Lives Matter, some wearing KKK shirts.”
  • CNN: “And you trust Facebook more than news organizations?” Panelist: “Oh yeah! Live video from people who shot it? Yeah.”

    • You might want to watch this before CNN realizes just how bad it makes them look and takes it down…

    (Hat tip: Zero Hedge.)

    Tags:, , , , , ,
    Posted in Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, video | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for August 18, 2017

    Friday, August 18th, 2017

    The House IT scandal, another UK Islamic rape ring, jihad terror attacks, Charlottesville, Google: Another packed week of news, all big stories that deserve more time than I have to fully untangle. I especially don’t want to get dragged into the endless Charlottesville debate/recrimination/squirrel! morass, since that’s exactly where the leftwing activists and the MSM (but I repeat myself) want us to focus our attention, rather than the economy or Islamic terrorism.

    Plus two Disney links, just because that’s the way the week shook out.

  • “Newcastle has joined a list of British cities where grooming gangs, made up of predominantly Pakistani Muslim men, systematically rape and abuse vulnerable, white girls. A nationwide pattern emerged after the first prosecutions in Rotherham, and then Rochdale, where a ‘culture of silence’ and political correctness led to inaction by authorities who feared being called ‘racist’.”
  • Barcelona jihad terror attacks kill 13.
  • But news reports go out of their way to avoid mentioning “Islam” or “Jihad.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • On the same subject:

  • Jihad stabbing attack in Finland? Obviously Finland needs stricter knife control…
  • “Imran Awan, a former IT aide for Democratic Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was indicted Thursday on four counts including bank fraud and making false statements.”
  • The Feds also indicted Awan’s wife, Hina Alvi. “In addition to lying on multiple mortgage disclosures, as an affidavit alleged at the time of Imran’s arrest, the indictment claims Hina lied by claiming medical hardship in order to withdraw hundreds of thousands of dollars from a retirement program.”
  • “Feds Accuse Former Texas Police Chief of Working with Mexican Cartel.”

    McALLEN, Texas — Federal authorities arrested a former chief and current police sergeant for his role in allegedly helping Mexico’s Gulf Cartel move cocaine and marijuana through his jurisdiction. The Texas cop claimed that he needed money to pay for his upcoming bid for county constable after a failed attempt for the Hidalgo County Sheriff position.

    Current Progreso Police Sergeant Geovani Hernandez went before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Ormsby who formally charged him with one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and one count of aiding and abetting the distribution of cocaine.

    The case against Hernandez began earlier this year when agents with U.S. Homeland Security Investigations received information from a confidential informant indicating that Sgt. Geovani Hernandez was working for the Gulf Cartel, court records obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed. According to the documents, Hernandez bragged to an informant that he was a friend of former Gulf Cartel leader Juan Manuel “El Toro” Loza Salina and was able to travel to Reynosa without heat. The Texas cop told the informant that he needed money for his upcoming race for Hidalgo County Constable.

    Hernandez, like the majority of candidates running for office in the Rio Grande Valley, is a Democrat. The person he lost to in the 2012 Democratic, Guadalupe “Lupe” Trevino, is in prison for money-laundering. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Participant at Charlottesville rally claims police actively pushed attendees into the arms of antifa to be attacked. Which would seem to be a misuse of police power even if the people being abused are white nationalist scumbag LARP Nazis.
  • Agreeing with the above version of events: Those well-known Nazi sympathizers, the ACLU:

    “I was there and brought concerns directly to the secretary of public safety and the head of the Virginia State Police about the way that the barricades in the park limiting access by the arriving demonstrators and the lack of any physical separation of the protesters and counter-protesters on the street were contributing to the potential of violence,” said Gastanaga. “They did not respond. In fact, law enforcement was standing passively by, seeming to be waiting for violence to take place, so that they would have grounds to declare an emergency, declare an ‘unlawful assembly’ and clear the area.”

  • “The ridiculous campaign by virtually every media outlet, every Democrat and far too many squishy Republicans to label Trump some kind of racist and Nazi sympathizer is beginning to have the stink of an orchestrated smear. The conflagration in Charlottesville is beginning to feel like a set-up, perhaps weeks or months in the planning.” Also this tidbit I’ve seen elsewhere: “The ‘founder’ of Unite The Right, Jason Kessler, was an activist with Occupy Wall Street and Obama supporter.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “Charlottesville Deputy Mayor’s Troubling Twitter Feed: ‘I Hate Seeing White People.'”
  • “As for Antifa, it’s a minuscule fringe of the Left, just as its predecessors were,” Noam Chomsky told the Washington Examiner. “It’s a major gift to the Right, including the militant Right, who are exuberant.” Noam Chomsky and I agreeing on something. And the moon became as blood… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Why Was This ‘Crowd Hire’ Company Recruiting $25 An Hour ‘Political Activists’ In Charlotte Last Week?”
  • Scott Adams: “How To Know You’re In a Mass Hysteria Bubble”:

    A mass hysteria happens when the public gets a wrong idea about something that has strong emotional content and it triggers cognitive dissonance that is often supported by confirmation bias. In other words, people spontaneously hallucinate a whole new (and usually crazy-sounding) reality and believe they see plenty of evidence for it. The Salem Witch Trials are the best-known example of mass hysteria. The McMartin Pre-School case and the Tulip Bulb hysteria are others. The dotcom bubble probably qualifies.

    Snip.

    One sign of a good mass hysteria is that it sounds bonkers to anyone who is not experiencing it. Imagine your neighbor telling you he thinks the other neighbor is a witch. Or imagine someone saying the local daycare provider is a satanic temple in disguise. Or imagine someone telling you tulip bulbs are more valuable than gold. Crazy stuff.

    Compare that to the idea that our president is a Russian puppet. Or that the country accidentally elected a racist who thinks the KKK and Nazis are “fine people.” Crazy stuff.

  • German town of Bad Nenndorf discovers best way to defeat both Neo-Nazis and Antifa: Have a big party! (Hat tip: Will Shetterly.)
  • “7 Things You Need to Know About Antifa,” including the fact that 92% still live with their parents.
  • On this Althouse thread I joked that SJWs would soon start digging up the graves of Confederate soldiers to put their bones on trial for war crimes. Guess what?
  • Next up on the statue destruction spree: Well-known Confederate sympathizer Abraham Lincoln, whose statues have been the target of multiple incidents of vandalism.
  • The hard left is drawing up big plans for November 4. “It’s very likely nothing will come of this, that it’s just another left-wing wish-fulfillment pantomime of a type carried out by leftists every year – if not every six months – since the 60s.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Where this is all leading:

  • Google engineer James Damore explains why he was fired:

    I was fired by Google this past Monday for a document that I wrote and circulated internally raising questions about cultural taboos and how they cloud our thinking about gender diversity at the company and in the wider tech sector. I suggested that at least some of the male-female disparity in tech could be attributed to biological differences (and, yes, I said that bias against women was a factor too). Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai declared that portions of my statement violated the company’s code of conduct and “cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.”

    My 10-page document set out what I considered a reasoned, well-researched, good-faith argument, but as I wrote, the viewpoint I was putting forward is generally suppressed at Google because of the company’s “ideological echo chamber.” My firing neatly confirms that point.

  • “James Damore was just fired for being insufficiently Googly.”

    He rejected Google’s internal mythology, and worse, he did so with basic math, in a company where mathiness is supposed to be part of the culture.

    He also rejected a piece of the general mythology so firmly that what he said was actively misreported — so blatantly that one has to conclude the reporters either can’t read the hard parts of the memo, didn’t bother to read the memo, or somehow managed to see things that weren’t there. (That last is my guess, based on the examples of Trump Trance we’ve seen over the last six months.)

  • “I’m An Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader And I’m Sick Of Our Approach To Diversity!”

    In the copious hiring I did at Google, 97% of the people I hired were men. I wrote reams of appeals to the hiring committee to make cases for cross-functional candidates who would be great assets to Google, even though a (typically) male dominated software engineering interview crew did not find these candidates up to snuff. I had a 90+% success rate changing the hiring decision for these candidates. Almost every one of these hires made an amazing difference to the company. 98+% of these candidates were men.

    It’s not like I wasn’t trying to hire women. But I was working with a candidate pool composed of 90% men. Try software engineers with experience in sensors, wireless and hardware stacks before angrily correcting my stats there. There was no way I was going to come out of that with a larger percentage of women hires than I did.

  • Slashdot commenter nails them for their endless social justice warrioring:

    Yes, there are some unproductive people in major corporations and the media who wish to push their left-leaning political agendas on the public at large.

    But we want no part of it.

    And you know what? It’s no different here at Slashdot.

    We come here to learn about new technologies, about new scientific and mathematical discoveries, and to discuss computing.

    We don’t want to waste our days arguing about genitalia, sexual preference, racism, and transgenderism.

    We just want this bullshit to end.

    We want those on the political left to stop trying to divide society into small groups based on arbitrary traits.

    Or at the very least, we want everybody else to ignore the divisions that the political left are trying to create.

  • Is a war between China and India brewing in the Himalayas? That would seem to be a bigger story than some century-old statues. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Liberals: “There should be fewer regulations on cool things I like!” Everyone else: “What about regulations on things other people like?” Liberals: “Fuck them!”
  • Madness is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
  • “Jury orders blogger to pay $8.4 million to ex-Army colonel she accused of rape.”
  • College girl gets her picture taken with the Vice President. Lunatics freak out.
  • If any Republican wrote that Adolf Hitler was “had in him the stuff of which legends are made,” the way John F. Kennedy wrote in his diary in 1945, his career would be over.
  • Ted Nugent believes he would be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame if he weren’t such an outspoken supporter of gun rights. He’s probably right: How do you think is a bigger “Rock and Roll Legend”: Ted Nugent, or ABBA?
  • In case you’re wondering how big a joke that Southern Poverty Law Center “hate list” is, Bosch Fawstin, a critic of Islam who drew Mohammed and was targeted for assassination in Garland, is evidently a “hate group” all on his own:

  • “He tried to kill them with a forklift!” Alice in Wonderland, that is. Who is a man. And then it gets weird…
  • The rise and fall of Disney’s River Country, a small water park near Disney World in Orlando that’s been closed and allowed to decay for 15 years.
  • “10 Disney Princesses Re-imagined as Electoral Maps.”

    • Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »

    Meet the New Westboro Baptist Church

    Monday, August 14th, 2017

    Remember the Westboro Baptist Church?

    They were a tiny band of idiots who traveled the country protesting gay rights at military funerals for some damn reason. The mainstream media reported constantly on their stupid antics as a means to smear, by implication, any Republican opposition to any liberal culture war issue.

    White nationalist Richard B. Spencer and his tiny band of neo-Nazis are the new Westboro Baptist Church.

    In case you were off in a sensory deprivation tank, “hundreds” of neo-Nazis/Klansmen/white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend, where they clashed with left-wing counter-protestors, leaving one person dead of apparent vehicular homicide. (Two state troopers died in a helicopter crash in the vicinity, but at this point there’s no evidence of foul play in the crash.)

    As for why violence was allowed to escalate, police appear to have mishandled the situation:

    Law enforcement in Charlottesville have received widespread criticism from counterprotesters, bystanders, and participants of the white nationalist “Unite The Right” rally. Many called the police’s handling of the event hands-off, often appearing outnumbered and waiting too long to break up skirmishes between protesters and counter-protesters.

    Former police officials in New York and Philadelphia made similar criticisms that, despite a large mobilization of law enforcement personnel — Charlottesville’s mayor put the number at 1,000 — police failed to separate the clashing factions at the beginning of the event, allowing the violence to quickly grow out of hand.

    There’s been some debate over what to call Spencer’s band of neo-Nazis/white supremacists/whatevers. But since they were literally marching down the street with cardboard shields chanting “Blood and soil!”…

    …I suggest we call them “LARP Nazis.”

    (Really, chanting “Blood and soil”? Real nationalists tends to chant about specific historical grievances and causes, not just “blood and soil,” which is an abstraction of an abstraction…)

    Some of the nomenclature confusion stems from vague use (intentional or otherwise) of the phrase “alt-Right”:

    Actually, there are a lot more than two “alt-Rights”, depending on how you count. When the MSM uses the term, they’re frequently lumping in several of the following:

  • Actual neo-Nazis/Klansmen/white supremacists, as seen in Charlottesville, plus some garden variety anti-Semites.
  • People pretending to be neo-Nazis/Klansmen/white supremacists, just to piss other people off. (Seen much more online than In Real Life.)
  • People who take leftwing victimhood identity politics framing to its logical conclusion and see “whiteness” as a victimized group identity.
  • Right/libertarian conspiracy theorists (Alex Jones, etc.)
  • Militia groups
  • Patriotic bikers
  • “Paleoconservatives” (Patrick Buchanan, some of the old Southern Agrarian conservatives, etc.)
  • 4Chan /pol members and other online pro-Trump communities
  • Critics of Social Justice Warriors and feminism (Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Hoff Sommers, etc.)
  • Libertarians
  • Anyone who reads Breitbart
  • Reagan Democrats
  • Free trade skeptics
  • Tea Party groups
  • Anyone who leans right but has been critical of Trump-hostile conservative media outlets (National Review, The Weekly Standard, etc.)
  • Anyone who leans right but has been critical of the national Republican Party establishment
  • Gun owners
  • Anyone who voted for Trump in the Republican primary
  • Anyone who ever posted a Pepe meme
  • Anyone who believes in limiting Muslim immigration
  • Anyone who believes in enforcing immigration laws
  • Anyone who believes in traditional male/female marriage
  • Republicans
  • Anyone who voted for Trump in the general election
  • Anyone from a state that voted for Trump in the general election
  • Christians

    • This lets the left perform their own dishonest mental shorthand: “If you support Trump you’re supporting Hitler!” Alt-Right is as meaningless a term as “fascist,” having come to mean “someone holding beliefs the speaker dislikes.”

    And if you think I’m exaggerating about liberals doing that:

    Though the LARP Nazis were the ones rallying, they weren’t the only ones committing violence, with antifa getting into the act assaulting people and hurling rocks and bottles.

    People immediately called on President Trump to denounce the hate groups. Guess what?

    Naturally President Trump’s denunciation wasn’t enough, Because Trump, and because it clashed with the liberal elites’ religious belief that Trump’s entire rise has been due to him sending “dog whistles” of “secret support” to white supremacists.

    Also condemning the hate groups were Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio (among many, many others), which lead to even more MSM stupidity:

    So just who paid for the LARP Nazi cardboard shields? Logical or not, the first thought that occurred to me on seeing those was “George Soros.” I was not the only one.

    (We have to be careful not to yell “Soros!” every time something bad happens. (Remember when the left yelled “Koch Brothers!” at every political setback? Good times, good times…) But mass-organizer agitators and agent-provocateurs have been his trademark for many years now, so we should probably at least explore the possibility he was funding both sides fighting in Charlottesville…)

    Nationalism is a poor substitute for real patriotism, and white nationalism is a collectivist mockery of the American ethos of colorblind individualism and judging people based on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Don’t let the MSM’s hyping of a small crowd of idiots distract you from the fact that it’s a minuscule fringe movement with no power or influence in the Republican Party, the conservative movement, the Trump Administration, or America itself. And, like the Westboro Baptist Church, they’ll disappear from public’s consciousness when deprived of the oxygen of unwarranted media attention.

    Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Crime, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors | No Comments »