Tag: Politics

Lottery Odds

Elections, Foreign Affairs, Politics

No, not the lottery;  the odds against this happening by pure coincidence:

Several candidates for the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) have died in the lead-up to this month’s local elections in the country’s most populous state.

According to the German paper of record Die Welt, at least seven AfD candidates have died ahead of the September 14th elections in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Germany’s Deutsche Presse-Agentur wire service noted that a total of 16 candidates have died before the upcoming vote. Yet, no other party besides the Eurosceptic right-wing party has suffered more than one death..

And then this:

Authorities have stressed that there is so far no evidence of foul play in any of the deaths.

Considering that there’s a non-zero chance that the “authorities” may have been behind at least some of these deaths… well, okay.

Let’s look at it more closely:

Police have already confirmed natural causes in four of the AfD candidate deaths and said there are so far no indications of foul play in the others.

So (counting on fingers) that leaves a dozen or so “non-natural” causes.

Then there’s the “it happens all the time” rationale:

A North Rhine-Westphalia election commission spokesman told the DPA that the number of deaths was “not significantly higher” than in past elections, with tens of thousands of people running for seats in the state.

Speaking as a one-time analyst of data, though, I’d love to see a per-thousand number of deaths by party affiliation.

I’m not by nature a conspiracy theorist, but when I’m confronted by a low-probability / massively-coincidental series of events, I do become suspicious.  The scale of untimely pre-election and party-specific deaths here is positively Clintonian.

Let me go out on a limb and suggest that the high mortality of AfD candidates is extremely suspicious.

Burning Question

Classic Beauty, Foreign Affairs

Okay, it’s probably just me, but…

Where the hell does Trump find all these beautiful and intelligent women to work for him?  (I know, the Left is all over this, whining that he only appoints these “bimbos” — their word, not mine — as though it’s utterly impossible to be clever and beautiful, the combination of which is conspicuous by its absence on their side of the aisle.)

I mean, probably the ugliest woman working in Trump’s administration is his AG, and Pam Bondi is not at all ugly — especially when compared to leftists like OMG Janet Reno, Rosa de Lauro and that screeching lesbianist on MSNBC/MS NOW(?) with the black glasses.

The latest one to catch my eye was when reading at American Thinker about Trump’s Deputy U.S. Envoy for the Middle East, Morgan Ortagus, whose first name made me think it was a guy.  But nope, Morgan is absolutely no guy:

Now young Morgan is not just a pretty face.  Here’s what the boffins at AmThink have to say about her:

Hezbollah, rattled by her bluntness, staged demonstrations against her remarks in February, when she declared that the group had been defeated militarily and that its role in government was no longer tolerable. Many in Beirut concluded she had been sidelined, replaced by Tom Barrack’s more measured style. By June, her name was shorthand for a missed opportunity—the hawk who had pressed too hard, too fast.

Now, though, President Trump has issued a directive ordering her back, a powerful signal that Washington has not abandoned the line of pressure and accountability she embodied, but is rebalancing it, pairing Tom Barrack’s optimism with her credibility.

In the meetings with President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and Speaker Berri, Ortagus sat quietly through most of the formal sessions, letting Barrack take the lead in public. Lebanon’s political class, however, understands that her silence was because she already knows the playbook. She has studied the system, understands the “political theatre” that governs decision-making in Beirut, and has seen how elites manipulate time and process to stall change.

That knowledge is why her return matters. Lebanese leaders thrive on ambiguity and exhausting new envoys with a maze of committees, statements, and staged “dialogue.” Ortagus, though, has already rattled the system once, and her reappearance signals she will do so again.

And I’ll bet her combination of brains and beauty confuses those Arab assholes beyond words, because they’re likely more accustomed to gargoyles like Obama’s one-time Secretary of State, who combined astounding ugliness and stupidity:

…quite the reverse of Mrs. Ortagus.

As I said, I don’t know where Trump is finding all these smart, attractive women to work for him, but let’s hope he keeps the trend going.

Oh, and by the way?  Morgan Ortagus has a twin sister named Megan.

Have mercy.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

From Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA, not the dead Massachusetts one):

“I’ve met James Comey.  I’ve met John Brennan.  And I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think either of them could follow more than six of the Ten Commandments on a good day.”

Me, I’ll take “four out of ten” for $400, Alex.

Warning Note

Politics

In this post from Stephen Green at Insty’s, we see the following:

President Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were the result of 15 years of intel work, the Pentagon said Thursday — but Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard curiously was missing from key moments before and after the raid.

The ex-Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii — an outspoken opponent of US military intervention in the Middle East — now faces the perception that she’s being shunted to the side by the commander-in-chief, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who previously held her job, taking on a larger profile.

Gabbard, 44, was missing from an intelligence briefing with Congress on Thursday, where Ratcliffe gave lawmakers classified details of the Saturday strike.

She also was excluded from a June 8 national security pow-wow at Camp David, where Trump began to shape his plans for Iran with Ratcliffe and other key leaders, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Two days after that meeting — to which administration officials told Fox News Gabbard was not invited — she released what one person close to the administration described as a “fear-mongering” video on the dangers of nuclear war, in what was seen as a swipe against a preemptive strike.

Uh huh.  And as I noted before (yes, that’s my meme wot I wrote):

My guess is that Trump and his buddies took note of her Middle East isolationist tendencies, and froze her out of Operation Midnight Hammer or whatever it was called.

Let’s see what happens from here.

And let me get ahead of this one, as well:

I don’t trust RFK Jr., for similar reasons.

Getting Tough?

Good Stuff, Immigration

Whoa.  How’s this for immigration reform?

Plans are to end migrants’ automatic right to apply for indefinite leave to remain and citizenship after five years as part of a new “controlled, selective and fair” immigration system.
Instead, they face a 10-year wait unless they are able show a “real and lasting contribution” to the economy and society.
Only migrants who show their contribution through their tax returns, work as doctors, nurses or hospital staff and other public services, or outstanding voluntary service will be entitled to apply for permanent residency before the 10-year deadline.
Indefinite leave to remain and citizenship bring with it the right to welfare benefits, free healthcare, full civic rights including voting and the ability to apply for a passport.
The changes are part of a series of measures to “substantially” reduce net migration.

Here are some details.

Language skills.
Skilled foreign workers will face tougher English language tests to get entry visas. Under the proposed rules, they will be required to have the equivalent of [12th-grade] English, where they can speak “fluently and spontaneously” and “flexibly and effectively” for social, academic and professional purposes.
They had previously only been required to be at the [8th-grade] level where migrants have to be able to understand the main issues “regularly encountered in work, school or leisure” and deal with situations “likely to arise while traveling.”
Known as B-2, [12th-grade] English will also be the standard expected of anyone seeking to apply for indefinite leave and then US citizenship, as well as for overseas students.
For the first time, spouses, children or parents of successful visa applicants who want to join them in the US will have to pass language tests which require a basic understanding of English. If the dependents want to extend their visa after two years, they will have to show improvements to pass higher-level tests.

Care workers.
Care homes will be barred from recruiting foreign staff from overseas from later this year and will instead be required to hire foreign workers who are already in the US.
Care homes would be able to recruit from a pool of around 40,000 foreign staff who came on care worker visas only for their visa sponsorship to be cancelled. As explained:
“They are here and care companies should be recruiting from that pool of people, rather than recruiting from abroad. We are closing recruitment from abroad.”

Deportation of criminals.
Under these plans, any offense committed by a foreign national will be reported to ICE rather than only those crimes where they have been jailed, as is presently the rule.
It raises the prospect that migrants could be removed for lower-level offenses. At present, only foreign criminals jailed for more than a year face automatic deportation while the removal of those imprisoned for under a year is discretionary.
The change could mirror moves already announced to class any foreign national placed on the sex offenders’ register, regardless of their sexual crime or sentence, as having committed a “serious crime” with no right to asylum protections.
The new measures would also cover any foreign national arriving on a visa who was subsequently found to have committed crimes abroad but failed to declare them, or who were found guilty of any offences in the US.

Sounds pretty good, dunnit?

Okay, I need to ‘fess up. These aren’t measures proposed by the Trump Administration… but by Britain’s Labour Party.  (I changed some of the words to mislead y’all, sorry.)

But I have to say that if it passes, there’ll be massive weeping and wailing. Hence I expect that lawyers will be powdering their wigs, even as we speak.

I’m normally reluctant to recommend that we copy the Brits, in just about any endeavor;  but I have to say there are some good ideas in there.

Update:  Of course, it could all be a pack of lies.

No Surprises There

Elections, Mocking Furriners

Well, the Strylians have re-elected their left-wing Labor Party by an even larger majority than last time, so clearly they’re happy with Comrade Albanese, his fellow-travelers and their Red & Green policies.

No doubt they’ll combine massive anti-Trumpism with pleas for the US to help them fend off Chinese imperialism in southeast Asia.

Plus ça change, etc.  Hell, even the Brits are showing signs of coming to their senses — but the Strylians?  Forget abaht it, it’s just head-in-the-sand time, pour another beer on the barby and whine about the Poms beating them at cricket.

Useless fucking wankers.

My Loyal Readers from Oz — and there are quite a few — probably feel even worse about the situation than I do.