FBI and Hillary: Banana Trees All the Way to the Horizon?

A shoe dropped. Well, one of many shoes that have and maybe still will drop in the ongoing Hillary Clinton email scandal.

FBI Director James Comey, one of the most respected persons in Washington, gave a barely 15-minute press conference, July 5, laying out the FBI's perspective on the investigation of that scandal. He, of course, has recommended no prosecution. The Clinton Crime Family (CCF) and their legions of lawyers, captains, soldiers, and assorted hit men must have breathed a sigh of relief. It would certainly seem that the CCF continues its nearly unbroken string of victories over the forces of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Once again, one of the CCF principals has apparently managed to jump a tall hurdle in a single bound, and, again, escape the Keystone Cops who have dogged CCF for the past few decades. Stay tuned for our next installment in the never-ending saga of the Clinton Crime Family!

The Comey presser was odd and even perplexing. He opened (more on that) saying that nobody else in the government knew what he was about to say. He then laid out what apparently was a powerful bill of indictment. He described the facts which clearly contradicted everything Hillary has said about this affair for the past 16 months. In his bureaucratic, matter-of-fact way, Comey called Hillary Clinton a liar, and a careless, clueless wreck of a leader and a manager.

The Director described a chaotic situation in which Secretary Clinton used not one but many private servers, and not one but many handheld devices--directly contradicting Clinton's claims on both scores. He, furthermore, described the handling of classified information by Clinton and her aides as "extremely careless," and that under her, the State Department proved lax in its protection of classified information. He noted that, indeed, again contradicting Clinton, classified information, both labeled and unlabeled, appeared on Clinton's servers, including material classified at the highest levels, and which no "responsible person" would have discussed on an unclassified server. He pointed out that Hillary had discussed this material while on the territory of sophisticated foreign actors, and that most likely the information had been "hacked." There was lots more; you can find it here.

The shocker came at the end when he announced,

In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here. 

To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now. As a result, although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.

The Mother of all non-sequiturs?

When Comey announced that he did not think any "reasonable prosecutor" (weird term) would seek an indictment of Hillary based on the evidence, "Banana Republic" was all I could think. I have spent many years in Banana Republics and know the sound, feel, and smell of them. I could see, feel, and smell acres and acres of trees sagging under the burden of nice ripe, sweet bananas all the way to the horizon and beyond. For starters, clearly what Comey said about nobody knowing the content of his address was incorrect. At a minimum, AG Lynch knew; she probably passed that info to President Obama and to Hillary's husband, and both of them passed it to Hillary. Note that Obama scheduled his campaign stop today with Hillary in tow, well before Comey's press event. He would have done that only if he knew that Comey would recommend no prosecution. All this is in the bananas portion of this evening's entertainment.

Why would Comey do what he did? Lots of theories out there. My number two son made a cogent argument to me today that this is yet another example of the establishment elite closing ranks to protect one of their own. Perhaps there is some truth to that. Others have said that the CCF have something on Comey or have "made him an offer he can't refuse." Perhaps, I don't know.

The more I think about it, however, the more complex it becomes. If we assume that Comey is basically a good guy--I don't know him at all--he might have been horrified by the scope of the thing, the enormous consequences of pursuing Hillary in the courts. Presumably, the DOJ would have had to go after the large number of persons, either as suspects or witnesses, who knew about the private server, and used it to communicate with Hillary, including sending her classified information and receiving it. President Obama, of course, was one of those persons. Perhaps he worried that all this would produce a President Joe Biden? Maybe, this sort of concern led Comey to "rewrite" the law with a lot of mumbo-jumbo about "intent" as a justification for not recommending prosecution? I leave the "intent" argument to the lawyers--I am not a lawyer and do not play one on the internet.

Whatever his own "intent," however, Comey has slipped Hillary a poison political pill mixed in with the heady "no prosecution" bourbon. In the first 12 or 13 minutes of his presser, Comey described a factual situation and a pattern of behavior by Clinton far, far worse than most of us had imagined. Everything, absolutely everything, Hillary said about this matter is a demonstrable lie. Comey called her on it. He provided a picture of a senior official totally unqualified for the serious position she held, and surrounded by equally as unqualified and incompetent staff. Comey, I repeat, powerfully made the case that she is not qualified for high office. Perhaps this was Comey's Machiavellian maneuver: avoid the legal process but cripple Hillary politically? Maybe he was like a mad Solomon, to wit, actually splitting the baby?

Is this giving Comey too much credit? You tell me.

It will now be up to Donald Trump to exploit the opening left, intentionally or otherwise, by Comey's presentation. He will need to be like a laser cutting into Hillary's protective fabric of deception and corruption. It will also be up to the American public and to the "Never Trump" bunch of conservative poseurs to resolve that Hillary Clinton is the worst thing that could happen to our already beleagured Republic and its tattered institutions, and help ensure that the CCF is run out of DC.

Amok and Amuck: Heading into the Fourth

As we head into the celebrations of our 240 years of existence as an independent country, I find it harder and harder to celebrate. We are a nation gone amok and run amuck.

Years of progressive delusions have left us weaker and more vulnerable than we have been since 1812. Our foreign policy, based on self-abasement, apology, accommodation, and appeasement, has destroyed decades of efforts against nuclear weapon proliferation. Our anti-terror policy is a shambles, with a President and an administration unable even to utter the words "radical Islam," much less "Islam," as labels to place on the enemy we face--an enemy which has shown the will and the ability to attack us at home and abroad. The enemy kill us and the cry goes up for us to disarm ourselves. Instead of building and strengthening our defense and intelligence capabilities, and fortifying our alliances, we have done the opposite. We now have rampant political correctness throughout our security and defense establishments, with the Pentagon more concerned with allowing transgender troops into the ranks than with developing a war-time strategy of victory. Countries many orders of magnitude weaker than we, e.g., Russia, China, Iran, ridicule and defy us, and increasingly threaten our interests throughout the world. We even have a leadership intent of helping insane Iran get a nuclear weapon capability.

Our leaders, such as they are, seem more interested in appeasing a decrepit dying dictatorship in Cuba, a foul thuggish and dying regime in Venezuela, and not appearing to offend Mexico and its deliberate policy of flooding us with illegal aliens, than about asserting our traditional rights and duties in the hemisphere. We won't even defend our border.

We have a State Department completely adrift after nearly eight years of incompetent and corrupt leadership, including four by Hillary Clinton, a political hack and fraud with a long history of corruption and deception, who might well be our next President.

Our economy is stagnant. Record millions of Americans have dropped out of the labor force. Poverty is on the rise. Absurd trade, tax, environmental, wage and other regulatory policies have driven huge chunks of our economy out of the country. Meanwhile, as noted above, our borders are wide open; we refuse to deport criminal alien felons, much less just "regular" illegal aliens, and the crime stats show it. We have no idea who enters our country, and for what purpose, and our leaders don't want to know. We are not allowed to ask for identification of those voting in our elections, must provide lavish public benefits to these invaders, and not "stigmatize" them when they commit horrid crimes. Our progressive overlords see this massive invasion and transformation of our culture as our comeuppance for being the world's most successful country.

Our citizens have lost faith in our political institutions. We, for example, see an absurdly long and manipulated "investigation" of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" of Hillary Clinton, drag on and on and on. We all know what she did; no barrage of typical Clintonian lies, and stall tactics can hide how she broke the laws and the rules the rest of us must obey--and got filthy rich doing it. Her husband, Don Corleone style, has an "innocent, by chance" private meeting with the Attorney General "investigating" her, and there is no particular outrage from the media; they seem to accept the absurd explanation that this was just a social call. Our Congress investigates the horrid affair known as "Benghazi-gate," and produces a long meandering report which does not go for the jugular of the obviously guilty Hillary Clinton and her stooges at State and the NSC. The IRS, the EPA, BLM, various state attorneys etc, engage in blatantly politically driven operations aimed at political dissent and opponents; the media and the Congress yawn and "move on."

Our vastly overfunded institutions of "higher learning" produce a steady stream of, well, idiots, who not only know next-to-nothing, and have no discernible skills, but who are proud of their ignorance. They wave their worthless paper credentials in our faces, demanding that we pay for their "education," and that we listen to and obey their dictates on sexual identity, the evils of the white man, the horrors of the patriarchy, and the hatefulness of Western civilization. We must accept that, for no rational reason, black lives matter more than those of anybody else: this despite the fact that, in the USA, more black people die at the hands of other black people than at the hands of any other racial configuration. We see demands, as mentioned before, that the citizenry disarm; the media-generated image of the typical gunman always seems to have a white face, and a "Trump for President" bumper sticker on his pick-up truck--this despite the fact, of course, that murder, including by gun, is overwhelmingly committed by non-white Democrat party constituencies in Democrat-run cities. Regardless of your race or sexual identity, you are much, much safer in "gun-infested" Republican Utah, than in "gun-free" Democratic Chicago. But one cannot mention that for fear of being labelled a racist: the end result, of course, is that poor people pay the price of progressive delusions.

Let's recognize two facts: we would all be much safer if Democrats were disarmed, and we are becoming a third world country.

But . . . but, yes, let's wave the flag. Let's proudly tell those who hate and denigrate us, that we know our history and our values, and that, yes, we know that the values of Western civilization are better than those of any other--the direction of immigration flows shows that. Let's recommit ourselves to the Anglosphere, as one sage called it, and to its values. Let's be grateful that like a small handful of other genuinely great countries, we owe our existence to the English and not to the jihadis.

Perhaps, perhaps, not all is lost and we can reclaim our country. It will not be easy, and it's not just the matter of an election or two.

Despite what I stated at the opening, I will try to celebrate.

Happy Fourth of July.

Yet Again, Yet Again: Islam Shows Its True Colors

I waited a couple of days before commenting on the Istanbul airport atrocity to see if this time our putative "leaders" reacted in a way that would give hope for Western civilization. The answer was no. Nothing. We see again the same old cycle of Muslim atrocity; rote, emotionless expressions of condolence and prayers; and tired platitudes about "standing with the people of (fill in the blank) in this time of national tragedy."

Frankly, however, our dimwitted "leaders" are partly right. This latest attack is a tragedy in the classic sense: events take place as foretold, yet the main characters march towards their downfall seemingly powerless to alter course.

With that, one more time, let's review the basics.

The people who did this crime in Istanbul were not lunatics, any more than were, say, the pilots who flew Kamikaze missions. They are believers, true believers, but not in a fringe, perverted, radical, twisted, sick, hijacked, extreme form of Islam. They believe in Islam, plain ol' vanilla Islam without any modifiers. As I have noted on many occasions (here for example),

As practiced in every country of the world, Islam is a totalitarian ideology that openly advocates intolerance, death for non-believers, and relegates women to the status of cattle. As we have seen repeatedly over the past few decades, this isn't just talk. Islam, at least as now practiced, is a violent and intolerant totalitarian ideology, and an enemy of freedom. Those of us who have served in Muslim states know that when we go to those countries we must respect their culture -- OK, fine. It, however, turns out that when foreign Muslims come to our country, we also have to respect their culture -- or at least the Disney version they peddle.

The problem is Islam.

There is no delicate way around that. Islam is not like other religions. It, in fact, is not a religion as we understand religion. Islam is more akin to Communism or Fascism: as previously noted, it offers a complete totalitarian political, economic, and cultural system demanding iron-clad obedience. Islam, in addition, promises sensual rewards in the afterlife for those who die defending or spreading it violently. As with Communism and Fascism, it preys on and takes over the minds and the emotions of the world's losers, of the aggrieved, of those who blame others for their own failings.

Please forgive my citing previous posts, but it proves hard to say anything new about dealing with the Islamic threat,

How to deal with Islam? Take it at its word. When Islam says it wants to conquer, enslave, and kill us, believe it. Islam claims to be a warrior creed, accept that. Peace marches, candlelight vigils, piles of teddy bears, bathing buildings in colorful lights, and word salad speeches about "not letting the terrorists win by changing our ways" just won't cut it. I would bet that many of those killed in New York, Boston, London, Paris, and Brussels were progressive liberal sorts who "welcomed" the arrival of Muslims, and would have proven horrified at the thought of our portraying Islam as a murderous dogma. Delusions can and will get you killed.

The case of Turkey and Islam is a complex one. Suffice to say, that by putting Islam back into national politics, Turkey's current rulers deviated from Ataturk's post-Ottoman policy of suppressing Islam, and removing it from the nation's political and military spheres. Ataturk saw Islam as the major reason Turkey was backward, "the sick man of Europe." The current leaders of Turkey have played games with ISIS and other terrorists, thinking they could outsmart them and use them against the pro-Russian Syrian regime and the persistent Kurdish demands for a homeland. How did that work out? You cannot ally with or befriend ISIS or, for that matter, Islam. It will backfire. Why? Because Islam's objective is your submission, or failing that, your death. Look at our relations with the Saudis. If anybody owes the United States, the Saudi royals do. Yet, we see them funding terror and even turning a blind eye to direct attacks on the United States homeland and our people around the world.

As I have said too many times already, delusions can get you killed.

I, of course, should not, but, nevertheless, was appalled by the reaction of Kerry and Obama to the Istanbul massacre. Kerry was participating in the Aspen Ideas Festival--yes, that's a real thing. You can go here and read a fawning account of his idiotic statements there about the "challenges" in the world. Kerry got a chance to sound even more idiotic at a press conference when he dealt with the airport attack,

Crediting coalition efforts, Kerry said it’s been over a year since the group launched a “full-scale military offensive.”

"Now, yes, you can bomb an airport, you can blow yourself up. That's the tragedy. Daesh and others like it know that we have to get it right 24/7/365. They have to get it right for ten minutes or one hour. So it's a very different scale,” Kerry said. "And if you're desperate and if you know you’re losing, and you know you want to give up your life, then obviously you can do some harm.”

That's it? An emotionless recitation of platitudes? That's how he characterizes hundreds of innocent people injured or blown to pieces, as "some harm"? Mr. Secretary, excuse me, but no "full-scale military offensive" by the Islamists? What planet are you on? They have outflanked us! They attack in Istanbul, Djakarta, Nairobi, Orlando, Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino, Boston, London, Ottawa, Sydney, etc. I favor bombing Raqqa into the dirt, and killing these ISIS creeps by the bushel in Iraq and Syria, but it's too late for only that. A desultory bombing campaign against ISIS is not a strategy in what is a global assault against us. Thanks to progressive delusions, laws, and policies, the enemy have boots on the ground in Europe, America, Asia, Australia, and throughout Africa. Their field of operation is not restricted to dusty corners of Syria and Iraq. They have gone global by going local. Thousands of mosques all over the world, including in America, Australia, and Europe, serve as logistical and recruitment centers with social media serving as coordination and communication mechanisms--and all the while our societies' obsession with political correctness provides them protection.

Secretary Kerry, you are a bloodless, clueless, delusional reptile with zero understanding of the enemy.

One more time: It is not ISIS, Al Qaeda, or some other brand of lunatic "radical Islam" we must face. No. We must confront Islam's 1400-year war on the West, a war which has gained new strength and urgency because of the weakness of the West and its crop of, yes, delusional leaders. Muslims use our technology, our money, and our laws against us. They use our compassion and our tolerance against us. As stated, above, the people who want to conquer us believe not in "radical Islam," but in Islam. They see us, no matter how kind and welcoming we prove, as problems to solve, targets to hit, obstacles to remove in pursuit of a worldwide Islamic caliphate.

And Obama? He barely could be bothered to mention the Istanbul attack. He was meeting in Canada with the PM of Canada and the President of Mexico, all three absorbed in saving the planet from global climate change and, of course, from the threat of overly restrictive immigration laws. When Obama spoke about Istanbul, he did so in his classic, inarticulate, choppy, low-key, oh-so-bored-with-it-all manner (watch the video),

Obama did not name the Islamic State specifically, but did not dispel any notion that the terrorist group was most likely to be behind the attack. "We’re still learning all of the facts, but we know this is part of our broader, shared fight against terrorist networks," he said in a three-way news conference with the North American leaders.

Is this how a war leader talks? Is this how to inspire a nation to greater efforts on the path to victory?

The spilled blood in Istanbul was still warm as Obama and Trudeau prattled on about climate change, and Peña Nieto gave a bizarre, rambling discourse on the need to fight forces that could create a new Mussolini or Hitler--which, I guess, was aimed at Trump. Absurd. Completely absurd. Yes, delusional. There's that word, again, delusional.

Meanwhile, the Islamists regroup, reload, and ready their next atrocity, their next tragedy--with or without Raqqa, with or without ISIS.

Thank You Second Amendment!

I am busily writing a couple of posts, one on free trade and one on the atrocity in Istanbul, but as we approach July 4, I wanted to put up a little "Thank You" to the Founding Fathers for the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

I have the good fortune to live in a suburban/rural part of the country. It's in Blue California, but this corner of it is more akin to Texas, to wit, lots of pick-up trucks with American flags, lots of veterans, and, surprising for California these days, several excellent gun stores. For the last few days I had suffered from an itch that could only be scratched with the purchase of a quality firearm.

I had been looking for either an AR-15 or an MP-15. Sold out.

I switched my search to a revolver and was debating between the Ruger GP100 .357 and the Smith & Wesson 686 .357. That also proved tough--as one gunstore salesman told me, "Every time Obama talks about guns, we sell out." But the gods of firepower finally deigned to smile on me, and I got a tip that a store in Temecula had a lightly used 686 at a good price. I tore over there in the ol' Mustang GT, and, indeed, there sat a stainless 686 on the shelf! I wasted no time letting the very amiable salesman know that I wanted it. He then proceeded to fill me in on how to purchase a handgun in California.

The process is not very onerous, but it is irritating because you know that not one life will be saved by it.

I had to prove that I lived in California--driver's license and car registration did the trick--and fill out an absurd questionnaire mostly having to do with any convictions or restraining orders for domestic abuse. It even asked me if I were in the country illegally. After I answered all that nonsense, the salesman told me I had to take a 30 question test. I could go home and look up the booklet online on which the test was based, and study it, or I could take my chances right there. I decided to go for it. Went off to a little classroom in the store, sat down, and took the test. The 30 questions ranged from the idiotic to the obvious by way of a couple of trick ones meant to trip up people who read too quickly. I got 29 right; I missed the one about whether a sibling can transfer a gun to another sibling--that is not allowed in California, only a parent may transfer a gun to a son or a  daughter. Each of these steps, by the way, had a price tag, so the State of California gets not only the sales tax but fees for the background check and the test. I then had to sit through a 30-second safety presentation by a licensed trainer, sign that I had sat through it, and then, and only then, was I allowed to plop down my money. I was also required to buy a lock, which the salesman threw in for one cent.

Now this ain't Florida, so I wasn't going to walk out the door with my possession. I have to wait ten days; I can pick up the 686 on July 9 after 11:20 am. Assuming I am not on some mysterious list, I should be able to add this toy to my collection shortly after Independence Day.

After all this, I engaged the store folks in a little chat. Gunstore owners are some of the nicest people on earth. They told me that last Thursday they sold their entire stock of 18 AR-15s and 3 MP-15s. They were almost completely out of Glocks, I had just purchased their last S&W, and Ruger had a huge waiting list. They had a few Charter Arms semiautomatics, one Kimber .45, and some assorted H&K pieces here and there. Lots of shotguns, however. The factories are way behind in meeting the demand. The store had a steady flow of customers, many of them leaving disappointed that their desired weapon was sold out.

Restores your faith in America.

Brexit: The Counterattack Begins

Literally within hours of the "Leave" victory in the Brexit referendum, the elite counterattack began. First, lots of stories in British and other media that, well, there is no rush to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty that would start the clock on the British exit from the EU, that Scotland--of course-- doesn't accept leaving the EU and would rather leave the United Kingdom (and tie itself to the mast of the sinking EU ship), and, of course, the ol' lefty/elite standby, my favorite, the people are too stupid to know what they want. Yeah, yeah . . .

Let's focus on that last argument.

We've seen lots of stories about a petition launched immediately after the Brexit victory calling for a second referendum on the basis, I guess, that the people who voted for Britain to "Leave the EU," didn't understand that "Leave the EU" meant "Leave the EU." All sorts of breathless accounts of how this petition drew signatures from thousands, tens-of-thousands, hundreds-of-thousands, millions even of Britons who felt defrauded and had not understood for what they had voted. Look, I am no expert on things computerish and internetish but, I have serious doubts about that petition. In this age of hacktivists, spambots, and web pranksters, can we really take such a petition seriously? Nothing suspicious at all over how quickly the list of signatories grew? Just saying . . . (UPDATE: An astute reader of this blog, we have no other kind, of course, has brought to my attention a posting in the always excellent Legal Insurrection that would seem to confirm my suspicions over the re-do petition.)

In a similar vein, we saw a story in the Washington Post that claimed, "The British are frantically Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it." Those poor, poor dumb Brits. After having run about half the world, founding the greatest countries on earth, creating modern democracy, saving the world from the Nazis, fighting the Communists and other assorted evil-mongers, and, by the way, having spent over four decades in the EU, the great unwashed British masses didn't know what the EU is when they voted on whether to leave it! Tsk! Tsk! Shame! Shame! The problem, of course, is, as is the case with so much progressive narrative these days, that story is false. You can read about that here.

And, of course, we can always rely on a German politician to put it all in perspective. Germany's president says the problem that caused Brexit was not the elites of Europe but the people. But, naturally! There can be no other explanation.

For me, however, the best most robust and thorough example of the sort of elitist thinking that has produced Brexit and Trump comes, once again, from the Washington Post. In an incredibly tone deaf, snobbish, and just plain wrong piece, a previously unknown guest columnist by the name of Emily Badger, tells us that, "Brexit is a reminder that some things just shouldn’t be decided by referendum." She goes on to say that,

The proposition at hand also raised the kinds of thorny debates we elect government officials to hash out: Do the benefits of the E.U. justify those payments? Will the costs of leaving cripple the British economy? Will "independence" bring new forms of instability that voters haven't even been encouraged to foresee?

The gist of her argument is that it all should have been left in the hands of politicians and technocrats. She engages in a stupid swipe at California's 1978 Proposition 13 which put a cap (sort of) on real estate taxes by the state and counties in that state. She bemoans that,

Back in 1978, California voters generously decided in a ballot measure to cap their own property taxes in a way — amending the state constitution — that has hobbled ever since California's ability to generate revenue and create reasonable housing policy.

Her attitude towards Prop 13 (I voted for it) gives away her whole game, and that of the "elites" and their enablers opposed to Brexit. Her comments on Prop 13 show that she sees the state as having the right to the people's wealth, and to dictating their lives--notice the snark about "generously decided." See also her statement that Prop 13 "hobbled ever since California's ability to generate revenue and create reasonable housing policy." The State has to create a "reasonable housing policy"? Prop 13 is one of the very few positive things California's beleaguered middle class, especially elderly people, have going. Before Prop 13, property taxes rose precipitously every year, making home ownership more and more difficult. The tax money went, as expected, to all the things the progs in CA love so much.

As with Prop 13, Brexit is a vote by the people who pay for the decisions by the elites. With Brexit, the British people have taken the first step--and it's only a first step--to getting back their country. Clearly, it is a first step they will have to defend. Onward!

Brexit: Liberty Wins!

Wow! Brexit has won. Once again, the Diplomad general rule on polling holds true, "when 'polls are too close to call' the progressives are going to lose."

So many thoughts on Brexit and what it means, it will be hard to keep this post short and sweet.

First, the BBC. What was that all about? The sort of idiots who believed everything Ben Rhodes said about the Iran deal, or what Obama said about Obamacare, or Hillary said about anything and everything, must have cousins who run the BBC. That once venerable institution, once the world's reporting gold standard, is but a hack leftist/establishment/in-house organ with horrifically biased anti-"Leave" reporting and commentary. I, of course, knew "Leave" would win when the BBC kept saying the issue was "too close to call." If the Brexit vote has internal consequences, I hope one is the complete gutting of the BBC.

Last April, I wrote a few thoughts on Brexit. The gist of those was that the "Remain" side was making a mistake with the heavy use of (often bogus) economic stats. I saw the economic argument as basically a wash, and that,

the force driving the pro-Brexit movement is not solely or even mostly about economics, or finance, or currency exchange rates. It is about something much, much more important. It is about reclaiming the soul of Britain; preserving and restoring that which made Britain, notably England, one of the world's greatest countries, a nation of stunning consequence. It is about deciding whether the great British traditions and innovations that have made our modern world are worth saving or should be discarded. <...> The same people who so strongly support Britain's membership in the EU seem the same who oppose halting the foreign invasion. Now we see the Muslim hordes gathering just across the channel, champing at the bit to get over and enjoy the land of "the white dudes," before they destroy it, to do what Hitler could never. <...> [W]hat's driving the anti-EU movement in Britain is the need to save the country, or what's left of it. Perhaps without the EU and its courts and mandates, British common sense can prevail, and the UK be saved, or at least England--and if the Scots want to stay in the EU, they should have another referendum and swap London's "rule" for that of Brussels, that'll teach 'em.

I think that analysis stands.

If you look at how the vote was spread across the UK, you can see that in England and Wales  working and middle class areas most strongly favored "Leave." London, with its hordes of immigrants, low information students, "intellectual elites," and Euro-trash bankers, voted "Remain." Scotland, well, Scotland was Scotland; still not over Charles II, Scottish voters went with Continental Europe rather than with England. England and Wales carried the day for Brexit. We will see renewed calls for Scottish independence, and maybe for some sort of new arrangement between pro-EU Northern Ireland and pro-EU Ireland. All possible. None of it negates the blow struck for freedom and common sense by English and Welsh voters. If Scotland wants to go join a dying EU, let 'em. Let's see how they like Sharia law.

Back in May 2013, when discussing the right of national defense, I noted re Britain,

It seems that perhaps, perhaps, perhaps you can only push the English tribe so far. We perhaps are seeing the stirrings of a "backlash," in others words, of a demand that those who live in England, and enjoy its freedoms and benefits, comply with English law and tradition, or get voted and booted off the island. <...> [I]t appears, it seems, just maybe--the British, and the English, in particular, have begun to reach their limit. We see, for example, the rise of the UKIP--somewhat similar to the Tea Party movement here in the US--calling foul on the EU and its socialist/totalitarian pretensions and challenging the increasingly ossified Tory party to stand up for Britain.

I think that analysis also still holds. I would note that PM Cameron, the ossified leader of the ossified Tories, has announced his resignation in the wake of the defeat of the "Remain" campaign which he so ineptly championed with that mixture of arrogance and condescension one expects from an establishment politician. Good riddance.

As we see here in the USA, our political and intellectual betters do not want to deal with the real issues. They cannot bring themselves to see value in our culture and beliefs, and the need to defend them. Last May, I wrote,

Western civilization also has the right of "national defense," at least as much as does a tribe in the Amazon or on Papua. Just as the Japanese have the right to exclude whomever they wish from Japan--try immigrating there--so do the citizens of Australia, the UK, Canada, Israel, the US, etc. As I have said so many times that I am becoming a boring old hack, believing in the values of Western civilization does not mean that we have to write a suicide note for that civilization. We, for example, do not have to acquiesce to the jihadist invasion now underway in Europe solely because we believe in such human rights as religious tolerance. I repeat, the Magna Carta and the Constitution are not suicide pacts.

That holds, too.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Nigel Farage, who more than anybody else (even you, Boris) waged the battle against the EU. He fought incredible odds, underwent an unrelenting savaging by the establishment, and stuck to his guns even in the darkest days. He and others now need to watch out for the classic tricks of the progressive establishment to try to nullify the voters' will with legal battles and endless negotiations.

The international consequences?

We will see some turmoil in markets; investors don't like change, but that will sort itself out. Brexit should send a shiver down the spines of entrenched bureaucrats everywhere. Here in the States it will prove a plus for the Trump campaign--he, after all, endorsed Brexit, and understood what drove it. That, of course, in marked contrast to Obama and Clinton. 

The rest of the EU? Third strike and you're out: Greece, Islamic invasion, and Brexit.

We could and will see other countries begin to look for the exit path--e.g., Netherlands--and that will be bad news for the euro and so much else that has been built up around the monstrous "European Project" over the past few decades. Eastern Europe must be casting an even more nervous eye towards Russia, and the Germans and the French must question the role their leaders have played in the EU disaster. Lots of parts in motion right now. NATO? Potentially more important than ever. 

Brexit is a good thing.

More thoughts, more organized, a bit later.

On Hillary: One Question to Ask Her Over and Over

The Brits are keeping me up late. 

Make up your minds on Brexit, dammit! I have a life to live.

As of this writing, it seems England and Wales are going strongly "Leave"; Scotland is voting overwhelmingly "Remain"; and Northern Ireland is edging towards "Remain."

It will be a major victory for liberty and sanity for the entire West if the UK goes Brexit. Fingers crossed. If, however, Brexit wins, will the lefties and the EUbots respect it? Here in the States they would go to the courts to try to nullify the vote.

While I await the results of that titanic struggle across the sea, I am reading and rereading the "attack" speeches by Trump and Clinton. I am biased, of course, but I think Trump won that round hands down. His speech serves as the outline for much of the rest of the campaign.

As I have noted before, Hillary Clinton's greatest vulnerability is her disastrous record, which is

one of almost unbroken calamity from when she was laundering bribes for her Governor husband in Arkansas, to her time as FLOTUS and her "control of the bimbo eruptions" mandate, her time as an inconsequential Senator, and as a horrific and corrupt Secretary of State. 

Not that he needs it, but my advice to Trump would be to ignore what Clinton says and just keep referring to her record.

Whenever Hillary Clinton comes up with a proposed course of action, all Trump needs to do is to  say to her, "Yes, Mrs. Clinton, but when you had the power what did you do about that?"

She's got nothing.

OK, back to my Brexit watch . . .