Tag: politics

Iran, the Midterms, and the Myth of Government by the People

With the Israeli election this week and America’s midterms next Tuesday, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have reportedly spent weeks debating not whether to restart their war with Iran, but when they should do it.

Netanyahu reportedly wanted to renew the bombing before Israeli or American voters went to the polls. He has officially denied that, but it fits his well-documented strategy of using an ongoing war to shield himself from political and legal accountability.

Trump, meanwhile, has publicly ruled out another US attack until after November 3. But, according to several recent reports, the two governments are genuinely preparing for another major round of strikes once the American election is over.

Already, this episode has made the narrative put forward by both leaders even more ridiculous. After all, if renewed attacks on Iran are as necessary to protect the American people, as both have claimed, why would that necessity depend on whether those people have already voted?

The truth is, as I laid out here earlier this year, that the war on Iran is not a drastic but necessary measure to thwart an imminent threat from a rogue regime. It’s just another military action, on top of all the others our government is carrying out, that is beneficial for a coalition of unique, well-connected interest groups—from the Israeli politicians who want to direct American power towards weakening their main regional rival to the domestic weapons companies getting paid to restock America’s dwindling munitions stockpiles.

The narrative that Iran is months or even weeks away from starting a nuclear war with two far more heavily-armed nuclear powers; that they are not just willing but are actively trying as hard as they can to sacrifice their entire country to take out a few Israeli and American cities; and that this will be carried out with weapons and weapons-delivery technology that they do not possess and are not close to getting is obviously not the truth. But it is the most effective way the pro-war coalition has discovered so far for getting a sufficient portion of the public to at least passively accept a war they all want for reasons they’re not as willing to publicize.

That effectiveness, however, has clearly waned in recent months. Today, around two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump’s Iran policy, with widespread concerns growing about the impact on energy prices and all the terrible consequences that brings. This is a deeply unpopular war. And yet, it is set not only to continue but to escalate in the coming weeks.

This also highlights another, even more important aspect of this story that is getting far less attention than the war’s unpopularity: the sheer inadequacy of democratic elections as constraints on political power.

According to the standard narrative that most of us are taught growing up, for most of human history people have suffered under kings, oligarchs, and rulers of all kinds who used political power selfishly. Wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of a small sliver of society, while everyone else was forced to live in either literal servitude or material conditions no better than servitude. However, this was supposed to have changed with the invention of democracy.

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Germany’s Political Justice? AfD Lawmaker Convicted Over Innocent Family Protection Poster

Imagine running for office on a promise to protect families — and ending up with a criminal record because of a photograph of parents shielding their children.

That is what happened to Wilko Möller, a lawmaker from Germany’s right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

His alleged offense? Distributing a campaign poster featuring a mother and father forming a protective roof with their arms over three children.

The slogan read: “We Protect Your Children.”

German prosecutors argued that the father’s raised right arm looked like a Nazi salute.

Now, Germany’s highest criminal court has upheld Möller’s conviction.

The price: €11,600 and a criminal record.

A Family Photo Becomes a Criminal Offense

The controversy began during the 2024 state election campaign in Brandenburg, eastern Germany.

Möller’s campaign used a commercially available stock photograph showing two adults protecting three children beneath their raised arms.

The image was digitally mirrored by the advertising agency preparing the poster.

That detail became central to the prosecution.

In the original photograph, the man raised his left arm. After the image was reversed, he appeared to raise his right arm.

Under German law, the Nazi salute is prohibited. The ban also covers gestures deemed confusingly similar to it.

Prosecutors argued that the mirrored photograph crossed that legal boundary.

The Regional Court in Frankfurt (Oder) agreed.

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Writer Walter Kirn: ‘Everything That Happens Before the Election is a Psyop’

You may know Walter Kirn from his appearances on the Greg Gutfeld show, but he is also a pretty well known author. Kirn wrote the 2001 novel ‘Up in the Air’ which was made into a major Hollywood movie in 2009.

During a recent podcast appearance, Kirn suggested that everything that is happening before the midterm election is a psyop (psychological operation).

It is almost impossible to argue against his point. We see it everywhere, in the media, in polling, in speeches from Democrats and their supporters. It is a war for your mind. The left wants you to believe that a Democrat victory is inevitable.

Transcript via Jay Plemons:

Walter Kirn: Everything that happens before the election is a PSYOP.

KIRN: “Everything that happens, the polling, the rumors, the word of mouth, the social media posts, the trends, the little anecdotes that get repeated and go viral. Everything is subordinate to that election. And none of it is true in and of itself. It’s all instrumental.”

“Not only don’t I trust the polls, I do trust the polls. I trust them to be nudging people in all the ways that polls can for all the people who can pay for polls.”

“The news now is all about behavior modification. It’s not about truth.”

For the next week, every poll or viral story you see, don’t ask if it’s true. Ask what it’s trying to get you to do.

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Alaska Governor Orders CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION Into Mary Peltola Campaign Over Alleged Democrat Scheme to DECEIVE VOTERS With Fake Dan Sullivan Candidate

Alaska Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy has ordered a state investigation into Democrat Mary Peltola’s U.S. Senate campaign following explosive new reporting that aides and national Democrat operatives worked to recruit a candidate sharing the name of incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in an apparent bid to siphon votes and confuse Alaskans.

In a statement posted early Thursday, Dunleavy cited the New York Times report published Wednesday, writing that it “reveals disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates, including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator, to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes.”

He noted that the Alaska Division of Elections had already examined related concerns in June and that the new reporting “substantially supports the Division’s findings.”

Dunleavy directed the Department of Public Safety to investigate whether the alleged scheme violated state laws and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted.

Dunleavy wrote on X:

“Today’s New York Times reporting reveals disturbing new evidence of an organized effort to manipulate Alaska’s elections by recruiting candidates—including one with the same name as an incumbent U.S. Senator—to deliberately confuse voters and misdirect their votes. The Alaska Division of Elections investigated these very concerns in June of this year. The new reporting substantially supports the Division’s findings.

I am therefore directing the Department of Public Safety to investigate whether this scheme violated Alaska’s laws and whether criminal charges or civil action are warranted. The evidence will determine what happens next.

Alaskans have a fundamental right to vote for the candidate they actually intend to support. Deliberately tricking voters into casting their ballots for someone else strikes at the integrity of our elections.

Anyone or any organization found to have broken the law must be held accountable.”

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‘[Bleep] all of you!’ Watch school-board candidate have graphic meltdown, seeking apparent death of Trump supporters

A woman running for school board in Monroe, Michigan, is getting fresh attention for a graphic meltdown she had in which she called for all MAGA supporters of President Donald Trump to “burn down to the ground” because they “do not deserve to breathe.”

The ferocious rhetoric from candidate Mary Renwick came in the immediate aftermath of the death of Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis in January when Good purportedly tried to run him over with her car, though the circumstances remain in dispute.

“Every single one of you that voted for Trump, who supports what he’s continuing to do, f*** you!” Renwick exclaimed in a video she made of herself.

“You are responsible for what happened in Minnesota today. That woman being unalive, point f***ing blank.

“She was not a threat. She was trying to get away from the threat. ICE is the f***ing threat here. ICE is the terrorists.”

Renwick continued: “F***ing MAGA, all of you cultists are out of your f***ing minds. This not America!”

“I pray to God I live long enough to see every single one of you motherf***ers either burn down to the ground or find your day in court and get locked up because you guys do not deserve to breathe the same f***ing air as the rest of us who have a conscience. F*** all of you!”

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College Student Files Official ETHICS COMPLAINT Against Senator Elissa Slotkin for Her Threats to Young People Thinking of Working for Trump

Democrat Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan was in the news two weeks ago because she said that she wants to go after Trump’s inner circle in order to scare young people who might be thinking of going to work for the Trump administration.

It was clearly a threat. Go to work for Trump and you might find yourself in a world of trouble.

Now a student from the University of Chicago has filed an official ethics complaint against Slotkin. She deserves this.

The College Fix reports:

University of Chicago student files ethics complaint against Sen. Slotkin

A University of Chicago student has filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Elissa Slotkin for her recent suggestion that college graduates who work for the Trump administration might be prosecuted.

“Senator Slotkin, if you thought this was over, you’re wrong,” said student Michael Bicksel in a video he posted on X on Oct. 22 as he held up a copy of an ethics complaint he filed with the U.S. Senate.

“The complaint was submitted to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics and argues that Slotkin proposed using congressional investigations and potential prosecutions to frighten young people away from serving in a Republican administration,” Fox News reported.

“The complaint asks the committee to determine whether Slotkin’s comments amounted to ‘improper conduct which may reflect upon the Senate,’ a standard described in the Senate Ethics Manual as applying to conduct that may be unethical even if it does not violate a specific law or Senate rule,” the outlet reported.

Speaking Oct. 13 at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, the Michigan Democrat said potential legal problems should be a deterrent against working for Trump…

The comments drew widespread criticism as a threat to young conservative graduates looking to work in government, as well as complaints the sentiments were akin to “Bolshevik tactics.”

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Ukrainian Geography: A Short History of Czars, Commissars, and Crooks

The most egregious lie underlying the UniParty’s proxy war in Ukraine is the claim that the latter is just another innocent sovereign nation suffering unprovoked invasion and despoilment at the hands of the world latest land-grabbing tyrant.

In fact, however, no nation or state by the name of “Ukraine” ever existed on the maps of the world from the middle ages until the 20th century. Only 100 years ago did modern history’s real tyrants—Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev – arbitrarily draw its borders on the region north of the Black Sea. But the territories impressed into these borders did not serve the cause of nationhood – only the administrative convenience of their own totalitarian rule and similar map-making caprice across the entire 6,000 mile expanse of the Soviet Union.

Moreover, the current Washington narrative holding that Vladimir Putin’s Russian government in Moscow is laying siege to the freedom loving Ukrainian nation centered in Kiev embodies no small irony. That’s because Russia’s actual origin story starts in Kiev more than 1,000 years ago, when the like named “Vladimir the Great” declared the Kievan Rus for Christianity in 988 AD. The great Russian Orthodox extension of Christendom was thereby extended into central Eurasia and eventually became Czarist Russia.

As it happened, Kievan Rus had been the first major East Slavic polity, which took shape in the late 9th and 10th centuries. Viking warrior-traders known as the Rus’ established control over trade routes linking the Baltic to the Black Sea and Byzantium. By the early 10th century, under Prince Oleg and his successors, Kiev on the middle Dnieper River had become the dominant center of the incipient Russian nation.

But the Kievan Rus’ was never a tightly centralized state; rather, it was a loose federation of small principalities whose ruling elite belonged to one of history’s long forgotten dynasties called the Rurikid.

The populations they ruled was predominantly East Slavic, with Finnic, Baltic, and steppe nomadic elements on the periphery. The latter included primitive trading settlements to the northeast in the forested Volga region, which later became the center of Muscovy.

Over subsequent centuries the common language and culture of these East Slavs evolved into the distinct Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian branches which populated the yellow areas of the map below. Kiev itself remained the symbolic and ecclesiastical heart of Rus’ through the 11th and early 12th centuries, the period of its greatest prosperity and cultural flowering under Yaroslav the Wise.

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MASSIVE DEMOCRAT SCANDAL! Second Witness Confirms Illicit $250K Payment in Wisconsin Democratic Gubernatorial Race

The cover-up is always worse than the crime.

A Democrat insider signed a sworn affidavit at a second publication that the David Crowley pay-not-to-play scandal is true and was orchestrated by Lt. Gov Rodriguez with David Crowley’s full knowledge, understanding, and cooperation.

Oh, what a web we weave when telling the truth would have been so much better.

As previously reported…

Wisconsin media is reporting on a MAJOR Democrat Party scandal just days before the November 3rd midterm elections.

This involves the Wisconsin race for governor.

Democrat primary candidate and Milwaukee County Executive, David Crowley announced on Wednesday, July 8th, that he was suspending his campaign.

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Cautionary Tale: Pittsburgh Is What the Country Will Look Like Under DSA Rule

The City of Pittsburgh and the county in which it is located are fast becoming a major hub for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). On October 20, Allegheny County became the first county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to adopt paid parental leave for employees.

The controversial policy forces employers to foot the bill for both parents of newborn babies to receive three months of paid time off. In Allegheny County, not only must employers pay the wages of non-working personnel for up to 12 weeks, but they must also pay for temporary, part-time, or full-time personnel to cover for employees on leave.

In other states that have such policies, they did not place the entire burden on the employer. In California, employees fund the policy 100% through employee payroll tax contributions, managed through the State Disability Insurance program. In Colorado, employers and employees split the funding 50/50. Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Minnesota have similar arrangements. In New Jersey, employees cover 100% of the funding through Family Leave Insurance. And in New York, the policy is 100% employee-funded through payroll deduction, along with insurance coverage that employers buy.

But in Pittsburgh, county leaders joyfully defied public outcry over the proposed totally employer-funded program, as they stuck it to large and small organizations, not just private industry.

Card-carrying members of the DSA infest county government, starting at the top with County Executive Sara Innamorato, who has an ally in Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), a junior varsity member of “The Squad” in Congress.

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Netanyahu Claims ‘Decisive Majority,’ Vows ‘National Right-Wing Government’ — ‘Historic’ Chance to End Iran Threat

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed a “clear, decisive majority” among Jewish and Zionist voters early Wednesday, calling for a strong right-wing government as revised election night projections shifted in his favor and declaring a “historic” opportunity alongside President Donald Trump to eliminate the Iranian threat.

Addressing cheering Likud supporters in Jerusalem following Israel’s first parliamentary election since the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, Netanyahu asserted a mandate to govern even as exit polls showed neither his bloc nor the opposition securing the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-member Knesset.

Netanyahu pointed to what he called a “clear, decisive majority” for the right-wing bloc among Jewish and Zionist voters, arguing that the result demonstrated broad support for a government committed to preserving Israel as a Jewish state.

“We must establish a strong national right-wing government,” he said. “That is what needs to be done.”

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