Baffled European

Category: Tyranny

  • Live by the gun

    I’d never heard of Charlie Kirk until last week. His last words before he was murdered were a racial slur as he worked himself up to some transphobia.

    He lived as he died. He had clear views on the possibility of being shot by a gunman:

    “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

    It’s pretty clear he intends other people to take the bullets for him, but he can’t complain too much if he turns out to be one of the expendable ones.

    His trade was a mish-mash of racism, sexism, homophobia and especially transphobia. Mainly, he was loyal to his president. A president who, raging at his death, promised revenge on the left for what they had done.

    The left. All of them.

    Meanwhile, the FBI was trying to find out who did it. The agency has been gutted, with many sacked for being “woke” to the extent that nothing works. So the FBI looked busy while doing nothing, but basically waited until the parents of the shooter handed him in to police.

    Another right-wing gun nut, as it turns out. Like the one who shot the Republican candidate last year.

    Doesn’t matter. Full purge of “the left” anyway. And extra, they are trying to connect the murder to transes. They’ve gone insane, all of them.

  • I guess we’re not in Arkansas anymore

    Here’s a heartwarming story. Voting makes a difference. It’s nice to see democracy in action.

    Over 64% of Arkansawyers voted Republican in the last election, with only 33% for Harris. State elections show a similar pattern. I think it is fair to say that a clear majority of voters are happy with these results and no doubt enthusiastically support the policies of the party they elected.

    So let’s have a look at how this is turning out. It seems the tariff policies have really hit Arkansas farmers. More than a third are expected to declare bankruptcy this year. This has a knock-on in other areas of the local economy, with crop-dusting, machinery dealers and maintenance, and even rural banks taking a hammering from loss of business. The agriculture sector is describing the situation as a disaster.

    There is only one course of action available for these proud, independent frontiersmen: to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and go to DC to beg for government money. Some people might call them welfare queens. Others say that this is basically communism. But they are wrong, because it’s different in this case.

    Unfortunately, they are dealing with a man who has extensive experience in bankruptcy and he considers it normal practice. Somebody will make money picking up all these businesses for buttons, and that’s what matters.

    I assume Arkansawyers will vote Republican next time as well. If they get the chance.

  • Chaos

    I try to avoid looking at news from the USA as much as possible. It always seems to make me cross in some way. After writing a post yesterday for the first time in ages, I take a look through the madness that is going on and see how worse it has got in the last two weeks.

    So I make the mistake of looking at things again today and, schwupps, he’s gone and sacked the governor of the Fed. That’s the thing the Supreme Court told him specifically not to do.

    I could have gone on to fill a post about that, but then I see that Japan and most of Europe have suspended parcel deliveries to the USA. Tarif regulations are coming into effect. Doesn’t anybody think this is just totally crazy?

    Maybe more will notice. Those tariff agreements he made a couple of weeks ago? He’s going to break them. Now he wants the digital taxes revoked. He takes what he can get, then comes back for more. Just the standard gangster routine.

    Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security is amusing itself by referring to Abrego Garcia as “Uganda Man”, a threat to what they plan to do with him next. We’re not dealing with responsible adults anymore. Judge Xinis had this to say: “Your clients [of the DOJ] are absolutely forbidden from removing Mr. Abrego from the continental United States.”

    The country seems to be collapsing.

  • Bolt the door

    Bismarck created the German state in the late 19th century. His Realpolitik, his ability to accrue power by playing various actors off against each other, this won him a lot of admirers – even among his enemies. It was all about 19th century great power games. Unfortunately, the system he built was unstable, ephemeral and inefficient, leading to its total collapse in November 1918.

    That should have been the end of it. Instead Kissinger resurrected Realpolitik in the 1970s. He got a lot of admirers, this being the cold war. For some reason, none of Kissinger’s advocates thought to question the ultimate disaster of Bismarck’s system, thereby ushering in fifty years of solid failure in US foreign policy.

    Even after Kissinger (sort of) retired, he had disciples to continue his good work, such as John Bolton.

    Bolton is currently experiencing the displeasure of a dictator. They kicked his door in last week and ransacked his house. Whether this is due to his criticisms of the current madness, or part of the ongoing purge of the State Department and intelligence service is not clear. It hardly matters.

    Sure, I think of the Niemöller poem when I see the machine chewing up the next target on its list. On the other hand, Bolton has dedicated his entire career to sitting behind a desk, blithely ruining people’s lives. It’s really hard to watch what is happening to this thoroughly horrible man and not think he deserves everything he’s getting.

  • Nonsense summary

    There’s been an outbreak of e-coli in Florida caused by people drinking raw milk. More cancellations of vaccine and other medical research as well.

    Nebraska is suffering a deep recession, with a 6% contraction in the economy this year so far.

    The Ford Motor Company posted a loss in Q2 of this year. They blame the tariffs, which are expected to cost the company $2billion this year.

    The price of everything is going up, except for eggs. These tariffs are biting.

    Bad weather and people are losing their homes and livelihoods because of storm damage. FEMA shrugs and ignores this. People need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Small government is the future.

    Except when it comes to racism. The immigration mania continues, there’s no way to stop it now.

    Amazingly, the Epstein stuff is still going on. Epstein’s greatest friend has not been able to shake away the story and people are asking questions.

    I’ve been away from this blog for the last month. I simply haven’t had the patience or enthusiasm to follow the experiment going on over in the USA. It’s not that it takes that much time, just that it is greater than zero and therefore more than I’m prepared to waste on watching a convicted fraudster steal hundreds of millions from his adoring followers. It’s all variations on illegal and inhumane stuff. They are inventive, but it gets to be too much.

  • Department of Criminality

    A bit of truth is coming out about the Abrego Garcia case. He is currently being held on criminal charges of people smuggling. The original DoJ lawyer who represented the government in the case was fired for “failure to zealously advocate” the government’s position. This lawyer, Erez Reuveni, has now filed a whistleblower complaint against his former employers. The most telling point of his complaint is that his boss, Emil Bove, said they should tell the courts “fuck you” rather than comply with their orders.

    It turns out the entire case against Garcia was manufactured. Without evidence, they declared him to be a member of the “MS-13” gang and thought that would suffice. After being called out on this, they have been desperately trying to find some grounds for this claim. Best of all, they have released a serial criminal from prison in order to get him to testify against Garcia.

    The most baroque of their evasions when trying to avoid bringing Garcia back to the USA was to state “We do not believe he is in immediate danger.” In other words, he was in a torture prison in El Salvador and they didn’t expect that to change.

    This case has been a scandal from the very first day. They were so desperate to make an example of somebody, they ignored all evidence and justice in order to get their man. But never apologise, never show weakness is their motto. This is where that leads.

  • Freedom and liberty

    “What’s your message to communist Zohdan?”

    A question at Tuesday’s press conference.

    How things have changed since January. The new administration banned AP from press conferences because they were insufficiently positive towards the president. They sued against the decision and won. The regime blocked them anyway.

    By now, all recognised press organisations have been banned from official press conferences. What remains are a set of influencers from Twitter and Youtube who agree with the project and will flatter the president appropriately. It’s no wonder he hated the NATO presser so much last week. That was the first time he has faced real questions for ages.

    “We’ll have to arrest him,” came the reply. “We don’t need a communist.” He went on to threaten a number of other political opponents with deportation, some of whom were born in the USA.

    Bondi is on the case, trying to find ways to suppress opposition.

    That’s where we are, less than six months in. The president talks about arresting and deporting his enemies to a tame press and that’s the way things are.

    Then there’s also the reports from Abrego Garcia’s trial, where he describes the harrowing torture the regime put him through. No wonder they tried so hard to stop him coming back. This is another one of the changes we have seen.

    I’m taking a break from this for a week or so. I’ve had enough of these monsters.

  • Police ICE

    There is a law enforcement problem in the USA. Last week in Pasadena, a man left his car and pointed a gun at pedestrians. After a short time, he got back in his car and drove away. The police are trying to find out if he was a federal agent of some sort, or a criminal. Nobody can tell the difference.

    A man who claimed to be an ICE agent harassed workers at a car repair garage and stole $1000. Again, nobody knows who is real and who is not.

    The police have started alerting ICE to people who call them out, for instance in cases of domestic violence. As such, people are afraid to call the real police.

    If anybody was in any doubt, this is the reason why police and other government agents are supposed to identify themselves. It is worse when the behaviour of agents is exactly the same as that of criminals.

    As a response, somebody has set up a website that will identify any police officer. You upload a photo and it will tell you their name and number. This is legal because of the useless data protection laws in the US. I can’t imagine the police are too happy about such tools, but it exists for a reason.

    This situation did not exist a few months ago. The new regime has created a serious problem out of thin air. It seems their only response is to escalate further.

  • Great victory

    It sounds like Iran and Israel have announced a ceasefire for the time being. If anything, this will strengthen the position of the warmongers in the USA. A rash and pointless bombing mission, then “peace”. They will paint it as a stroke of genius by the master strategist in charge.

    Newspaper gossip suggests he decided to get involved because he saw the pictures of Israel shooting missiles and wanted to get in on the action. Maybe. It’s plausible.

    Rather more concerning is that he is now openly wondering if he is imagining things. Specifically things about nuclear weapons. Even he seems to recognise his mind is failing.

    What excuse do his supporters have? All those politicians who make excuses for his behaviour? The press sanitises all of his rubbish and then discusses this version as if it is desirable or even coherent.

    There are a lot of very serious people who have been taken in by a conman, a conman who is quite clearly demented. They indulge his every whim, allow him to start wars, kidnap and torture people, personally enrich himself, while destroying the government and its institutions.

    Have they invested so much into this man that they can no longer admit that he is a senile criminal, because they themselves would look extremely foolish? What is the hold he has on them? The whole country is on a complete flight from reality and everybody is cheering along. There’s no sign of them stopping.

  • I always fill my ballroom

    The success of stopping ICE from hassling agricultural and hotel workers only lasted a couple of days before being reversed. Also by presidential decree. The strong and decisive leader just keeps being pushed around by everybody around him. Maybe he doesn’t even remember what he ordered yesterday anymore.

    It’s total chaos. There’s not even any pretence at order or consistency. These orders are backed up with threats of violence for anybody who doesn’t comply with whatever the regime is demanding at this precise second.

    But there are happier matters to report. When he’s not off playing golf, the president is tweeting deranged nonsense about the lovely new flagpoles he’s had installed in the White House garden.

    That’s just the first step in his improvements. He’s getting rid of Jackie Kennedy’s rose garden and having it paved over to form a patio. Apparently, the grass causes a problem for women wearing high heels. It’s almost as if he’s a feminist, aside from that rape he did.

    Next up is a magnificent, beautiful new ballroom to be built in the grounds of the White House. Somehow this is going to cost a staggering $100million. I’m guessing that for once in his life, he’s not using cheap non-unionised labour, sub-standard building materials and flouting safety regulations at every step.

    Luckily, he can get away with this in a period of peace and stability, like what we have now.