53percenter's Blog

Two years ago, we heard that Fidel Castro died of whatever.  

Two years later, the dissidents are complaining that they didn’t get the political reform memo.  This is from Briebart:    

Speaking to Breitbart News, leaders of the Cuban counter-revolution – which, contrary to the Aspen Institute analysis, does exist — lament that any opportunity to ease the repression of dissident voices in the country appears to have passed without incident. 

Both Fidel Castro’s death and the substitution of Raúl Castro as the Revolution’s international envoy with loyalist Miguel Díaz-Canel in April have done little for political freedom in the country, they agree.

“The situation in Cuba for dissidents remains very similar to that which we had during Fidel Castro’s life, and in some ways is even worse,” José Daniel Ferrer, the General Coordinator of one of Cuba’s largest dissident groups, the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU),” told Breitbart News. 

“The current dictator, Miguel Díaz-Canel … takes orders directly from Raúl Castro [and] leaves clear who truly wields power.”

So let me translate: the old boss dies, his brother appoints a successor and nothing changes in Cuba.  Cue the Four Tops: ”It’s the same old song.”

The good news for dissidents, and those of us outside who want real reforms, is that the Cuban economy is on an unsustainable path.

In other words, there is no USSR out there to bail out the regime or European banks lending money to the regime.  On the contrary, more and more countries are treating Cuba like a nation that can’t pay its debts, i.e. no cash no laundry!

Back in July, President Diaz-Canel lamented that the island’s economy is slowing down and the country faces a liquidity crisis.  The economy grew 1.1% in 2018 after 1.6% the year before.  

Castro is still dead but repression is alive and well.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

Two years ago, we heard that Fidel Castro died of whatever.  

Two years later, the dissidents are complaining that they didn’t get the political reform memo.  This is from Briebart:    

Speaking to Breitbart News, leaders of the Cuban counter-revolution – which, contrary to the Aspen Institute analysis, does exist — lament that any opportunity to ease the repression of dissident voices in the country appears to have passed without incident. 

Both Fidel Castro’s death and the substitution of Raúl Castro as the Revolution’s international envoy with loyalist Miguel Díaz-Canel in April have done little for political freedom in the country, they agree.

“The situation in Cuba for dissidents remains very similar to that which we had during Fidel Castro’s life, and in some ways is even worse,” José Daniel Ferrer, the General Coordinator of one of Cuba’s largest dissident groups, the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU),” told Breitbart News. 

“The current dictator, Miguel Díaz-Canel … takes orders directly from Raúl Castro [and] leaves clear who truly wields power.”

So let me translate: the old boss dies, his brother appoints a successor and nothing changes in Cuba.  Cue the Four Tops: ”It’s the same old song.”

The good news for dissidents, and those of us outside who want real reforms, is that the Cuban economy is on an unsustainable path.

In other words, there is no USSR out there to bail out the regime or European banks lending money to the regime.  On the contrary, more and more countries are treating Cuba like a nation that can’t pay its debts, i.e. no cash no laundry!

Back in July, President Diaz-Canel lamented that the island’s economy is slowing down and the country faces a liquidity crisis.  The economy grew 1.1% in 2018 after 1.6% the year before.  

Castro is still dead but repression is alive and well.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

The use of non-lethal tear gas against caravan members storming our border and throwing rocks at our guardians already has evoked a response from a sitting senator so shamefully hysterical that the tweet was deleted. Getting excited over the use of this unpleasant but relatively benign tool of crowd control requires both ignorance and chutzpah, but these qualities are in abundant supply on the left.

Ignorance is essential to the hysteria we will be treated to all day because, as my friend Mark J. Fitzgibbons reminds us in tweet:

 

Exoneration by Obama DOJ of lethal force by border patrol against rock-thrower probably won’t be covered by media over next few days, but here it is:

Federal Officials Close Investigation into the Death of Sergio Hernandez-Guereca https://t.co/4KVj9YeG2a

— MarkFitzgibbons (@MarkFitzgibbons) November 26, 2018

 

Laughter is the appropriate response to any Democrat who paints the Trump administration as brutal or heartless by defending our border with nonlethal force.

 

The use of non-lethal tear gas against caravan members storming our border and throwing rocks at our guardians already has evoked a response from a sitting senator so shamefully hysterical that the tweet was deleted. Getting excited over the use of this unpleasant but relatively benign tool of crowd control requires both ignorance and chutzpah, but these qualities are in abundant supply on the left.

Ignorance is essential to the hysteria we will be treated to all day because, as my friend Mark J. Fitzgibbons reminds us in tweet:

 

Exoneration by Obama DOJ of lethal force by border patrol against rock-thrower probably won’t be covered by media over next few days, but here it is:

Federal Officials Close Investigation into the Death of Sergio Hernandez-Guereca https://t.co/4KVj9YeG2a

— MarkFitzgibbons (@MarkFitzgibbons) November 26, 2018

 

Laughter is the appropriate response to any Democrat who paints the Trump administration as brutal or heartless by defending our border with nonlethal force.

 

A UK primary school threatened with legal action over an LGBT pride parade for young children has been accused of intimidation after a concerned mother was met by a member of staff wearing a T-shirt which “belittled” Christian views.

When Izzy Montague met with the head of Heavers Farm Primary School to discuss concerns that teachers’ promoting of LGBT lifestyles conflicted with Christian beliefs, she was confronted by a member of staff wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: “Why be racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic when you could just be quiet?”

“Given the nature of my complaints it was obviously a deliberate act to wear the T-shirt. I believe it was intended to belittle my views and intimidate me into silence,” she told the British Mail on Sunday tabloid.

Mrs Montague made the appointment with headteacher Susan Papas in September to discuss the school’s refusal to excuse her five-year-old son from its ‘Proud to be Me’ parade during so-called gay pride month in June, which a number of Christian parents of children at Heaver Farm have complained was set up to promote LGBT lifestyles.

“I thought this was completely unreasonable … Our children were being indoctrinated with values that they do not need to be taught at such a young age,” she said, telling the newspaper other parents had spoken of teachers reading children storybooks about homosexual penguins and that “no one consulted us about this”.

Six-Year-Old School Children Instructed to Write Gay Love Letters to Make Them ‘Accepting of Diversity’ https://t.co/HrnwmEvwuN

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 1, 2018

“Schools are supposed to be tolerant of different faiths as well as different sexualities,” stressed Mrs Montague, who has now pulled her son out of the Croydon primary school.

“Within our faith we teach that a man and a woman together is what makes a family, but in my eyes the school were promoting a different type of lifestyle to the pupils.”

Mrs Montague has now launched an official complaint about the T-shirt, which was worn by Attie Copeman-Papas — the school’s ‘deputy safeguarding manager’ and the head teacher’s daughter — who sat in during the meeting.

“It was highly unprofessional and surely does not adhere to the school policy dress code for staff,” she wrote in the letter, which accuses Copeman-Papas of failing to respect her Christian beliefs.

Ms Papas said the “threat of legal action” meant she was unable to comment on Mrs Montague’s case, but stated that the T-shirt worn by her daughter — a graduate student of ‘sports sociology and feminist theory’ whose papers include “A Feminist Psychoanalytic Approach to the Roles of the Penis, the Phallus and Hegemonic Gender Norms in ‘Feminist Porn’” — was not in breach of the school’s code of conduct.

Proactive Transgender agenda established in British schools by government https://t.co/um01J2URgi

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 14, 2017

It was reported last week that Heavers Farm has been threatened with legal action, with 14 Christian parents complaining that the school is “forcing a very aggressive LGBT agenda on to young children in a manner which abuses parental rights and victimises parents”.

Claiming “most of the feedback” to June’s parade “was really positive”, Ms Papas insisted that the school would not “shy away from issues that are important for children to learn about”.

She added: “With pride in British values we have a thread of work – on black history, disability awareness, 100 years since women got the vote – but generally talking to the children about matters of inclusion and diversity.

“Last year we did something for Pride month and focused on what children were proud of.

“Alongside that we were doing work on anti-bullying, anti-transphobic and anti-homophobic language. The older children were looking at the history of LGBT rights.”

While denying anyone had been directly forced to participate in the event, the headteacher did say “[Heavers Farm] would expect children to go to any assembly, class or event put on by the school”.

Kids Being ‘Groomed’ into Copycat Sex Swaps, Warns Whistleblower at School with 17 ‘Trans Pupils’ https://t.co/76ywRrEzVF

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 19, 2018

It is by now abundantly clear that the youngest person ever elected to Congress is an ingenue ignoramus, serenely unaware of the depths of her obliviousness.  For someone who grew up in New York City – oops, make that Westchester County (but it’s a suburb, so kinda counts) — to compare fleeing systematic extermination in the Holocaust to people seeking more lucrative employment and better welfare benefits in this country is obscene. It trivializes the Holocaust, period.

Yet, glamour girl Ocasio-Corte did exactly that in  a tweet yesterday:

I don’t recall Jews fleeing Hitler announcing they would violate our borders if not accorded entry on demand. And I certainly don’t recall  Jews storming the border, throwing rocks at our Border Patrol.

But these differences, as important as they are, pale beside the comparison of the Holocaust to economic deprivation.

The Anti-Defamation League, before it became a shill for Democrats, used to criticize those who compared the Holocaust to lesser perils.  So far, there is nothing on the ADL website concerning Ocasio-Cortez’s trivialization of it.

It is by now abundantly clear that the youngest person ever elected to Congress is an ingenue ignoramus, serenely unaware of the depths of her obliviousness.  For someone who grew up in New York City – oops, make that Westchester County (but it’s a suburb, so kinda counts) — to compare fleeing systematic extermination in the Holocaust to people seeking more lucrative employment and better welfare benefits in this country is obscene. It trivializes the Holocaust, period.

Yet, glamour girl Ocasio-Corte did exactly that in  a tweet yesterday:

I don’t recall Jews fleeing Hitler announcing they would violate our borders if not accorded entry on demand. And I certainly don’t recall  Jews storming the border, throwing rocks at our Border Patrol.

But these differences, as important as they are, pale beside the comparison of the Holocaust to economic deprivation.

The Anti-Defamation League, before it became a shill for Democrats, used to criticize those who compared the Holocaust to lesser perils.  So far, there is nothing on the ADL website concerning Ocasio-Cortez’s trivialization of it.

Conservative writer, radio host, and combat veteran Jesse Kelly was banned from Twitter on Sunday. According to the explanation and screenshot provided by Kelly to The Daily Wire, Twitter violated their own policy by not informing him of the content that apparently earned him the permanent suspension.

Kelly claims the only communication he had with Twitter regarding the ban was the following message: “Your account was permanently suspended due to multiple or repeat violations of the Twitter rules. The account will not restored. Please do not respond to this email as replies and new appeals for this account will not be monitored.”

Kelly told The Daily Wire that aside from the screenshot provided, there was “no explanation” provided by Twitter.

The combat vet confirmed that he sent the following sarcastic statement, which he called “hilarious,” to podcast host and former Playboy writer Bridget Phetasy: “Throughout history, the powers that be have always feared greatness. Nelson Mandela and I aren’t the first to be persecuted. We won’t [be] the last. I’m just happy my memory will be passed down from generation to generation,” he said.

Conservatives have been worried about the seemingly targeted censorship of conservatives on social media platforms like Twitter for some time, now. As noted by Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro in July, Twitter essentially copped to so-called “shadowbanning” conservatives accounts: “Twitter’s argument is that they aren’t preventing you from seeing the tweets of people you follow — they’re just requiring you to visit their Twitter pages directly. Which is shadowbanning,” he wrote.

The ban on Kelly, who says he doesn’t even cuss on his account, coupled with the new Orwellian Twitter guidelines regarding transgenderism, only adds legitimacy to the growing concerns from the Right.

Moreover, Twitter isn’t even upholding their own restrictive policies. As highlighted by conservative writer Jeryl Bier, Twitter violated their own policy when they banned Kelly without informing him of the content it deemed to be in violation (h/t Reason.com).

Under “permanent suspension,” Twitter.com says they will inform users “which content was in violation” (emphasis added):

This is our most severe enforcement action. Permanently suspending an account will remove it from global view, and the violator will not be allowed to create new accounts. When we permanently suspend an account, we notify people that they have been suspended for abuse violations, and explain which policy or policies they have violated and which content was in violation.

“Twitter should not be regulated as a utility, but they’re going to end up being regulated if they continue to attack only people on the Right with little or no explanation,” Kelly told The Daily Wire.

In August, Kelly warned conservatives in a piece at The Federalist that tech companies and the Left more broadly would “not stop at Alex Jones” when it comes to censorship.

Thanks to the expected midterm correction, Republicans only have a one-month lease on full control of Congress — but still have several spending bills to use as leverage. Donald Trump wants to use those, and the dramatic events taking place on the border, to get a showdown over funding for his long-promised security wall. With Nancy Pelosi getting ready to take charge of the House, the next few weeks will likely be Trump’s last best chance to get it — although he’ll have to throw Homeland Security under the bus to succeed:

Congress is returning to Washington with a tight deadline to pass seven spending bills and avert a partial government shutdown over President Trump’s demand that lawmakers fund his wall on the Mexican border.

The partial shutdown will take place on Dec. 7 if Congress does not pass legislation, creating the last chance for Trump to win wall funding before Democrats take over the House majority in January.

Trump has threatened to veto a spending bill that does not include funding for the wall. If he follows through, the partial shutdown would hit the Homeland Security, Justice and State departments, among other government entities.

This isn’t the most promising ground on which to fight. Homeland Security includes the Border Patrol as well as agencies responsible for counter-terrorism operations. It might be a tough sell to argue that one has to shut down those operations in order to get a border wall that will enhance them to an arguable extent. The same goes for the Justice Department, which prosecutes immigration violations and already has a long backlog of work in that regard. Trump has repeatedly excoriated both departments for not moving swiftly and forcefully enough to crack down on illegal immigration, sometimes very publicly. How will a shutdown make that better?

Besides which, the long and inglorious history of government shutdowns shows them to be political losers for the parties that initiate them. Just as Chuck Schumer, Ted Cruz, and even Newt Gingrich how well they worked out in the past. A poll last week from Morning Consult reminded everyone of the political futility of these ultimata:

In the Nov. 15-18 survey, 55 percent of registered voters said increased wall funding would not be important enough to warrant a shutdown of the federal government, compared with 31 percent who said it would be.

That included majorities of Democrats and independents, while Republicans were somewhat more divided. While nearly half (49 percent) of GOP voters supported the idea, 34 percent did not.

One has to wonder whether some Republicans are looking at the midterm results with this question in mind. Trump made border security a top priority during the campaign, tweeting nearly daily about the migrant caravans and the need to fortify the southern border. The GOP lost the House anyway, perhaps losing as many as 40 seats in the process, as Democratic enthusiasm outpaced GOP turnout in the cities and the suburbs.

Nevertheless, Trump is persisting:

Republicans and Democrats MUST come together, finally, with a major Border Security package, which will include funding for the Wall. After 40 years of talk, it is finally time for action. Fix the Border, for once and for all, NOW!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 23, 2018

Meanwhile, Democrats are attaching a condition of their own:

Congressional Democrats heading into the critical stretch of the lame-duck session increasingly say they will tie their support for a high-priority spending bill to a measure protecting special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian electoral interference. …

If Congress and the White House cannot agree on a spending bill by Dec. 8, many agencies—including such high-profile entities as the Department of Homeland Security—will shut down. Democrats’ demand to protect the special counsel is just one piece of a complex fight over the spending package; Mr. Trump, for example, has said it must include $5 billion more for construction of a wall along the border with Mexico.

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was “not going to rule out any option” if the spending bill doesn’t include language to shield Mr. Mueller.

“I feel very strongly about protecting Bob Mueller, “ Mr. Wyden said in an interview. ”I think that I will look at any and all vehicles in order to do that. That goes to the question as to whether the president is above the law.”

The proposed measure would protect a special counsel from removal except for “good cause.” That is generally interpreted as meaning malfeasance or some other grave problem, rather than a general dissatisfaction with the direction of an investigation.

Rick Moran calls this “a recipe for a shutdown that could last well into January,” but why not take a glass-half-full perspective? It’s also a recipe for a grand bargain. Trump could agree to swap protections for Mueller in exchange for significant border-wall funding, perhaps shorn of his other immigration demands or perhaps including all four of his “pillars.” Democrats get Mueller protected, Trump gets the border protection he wants. If Trump really isn’t going to interfere with Mueller — and it seems really far too late for him to intervene at this point — he’s not giving anything away of value anyway.

The main problem here, of course, that Mueller’s not really the main issue here for Democrats or Republicans. Immigration has been far too useful as a demagogic wedge for both parties, at least until this cycle. Maybe the midterm results changed that calculus for the GOP. Offer Mueller protections and see whether Democrats have a new calculus.