53percenter's Blog

On an episode of The Candace Owens Show that aired this past May, Owens had as her guest Dennis Prager.  While I agreed with most of the points made by both Ms. Owens and Mr. Prager, one item struck me as an example of superficial analysis.  They declared that the primary objective of the Left is “chaos.”  In an immediate sense, this seems true; the so-called “progressive left” does appear to be deliberately sowing chaos in America today.

However, I submit that the Left’s “chaos” is an intermediate objective, the means to an end.  They have a well defined endgame.  The Communist Bloc countries were a lot of things, but they were generally not chaotic.  They were highly regimented societies, and while they did not have the material standard of living or political freedoms enjoyed in the West, there were some agreeable aspects, as related by the wife of one Carlo Alcos in an online feature story on the Matador Network about her early childhood experiences growing up in East Germany:

It wasn’t all trying, though.  Everyone had a job, school lunches were free, after-school care was free, people were generally happy, necessities were extremely cheap, and there was more community spirit than there is nowadays.  In those times, there were no Joneses to keep up with.

Rigidly communist East Germany hardly sounded like “chaos.”  So what is the progressive left’s game in the Era of Trump? 

First, at present, leftists want to create a state of political cultural chaos in the U.S. for a specific reason.  They need chaos as a smokescreen to defend their current leaders — that is to say, Obama, Hillary & Co. — from prosecution.  Make no mistake: Obama, Hillary, and their cohorts committed some  serious crimes of an unprecedented nature for people at their level.  We executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for far less. Their degree of culpability is suggested in an October 2016 email from Hilary Clinton to then DNC Chair Donna Brazile, revealed by WikiLeaks, in which Hillary shrieked to the effect that ”if that f‑‑‑‑‑‑ b‑‑‑‑‑‑ wins, we’re all going to hang from nooses.  You better fix this s‑‑‑!”

Consider the metaphor of a dogfight between two fighter planes.  One is firmly camped on the six o’clock of the other, ready to deliver the deathblow.  The other, facing imminent destruction, engages in all manner of crazy maneuvers in order to prevent his adversary from achieving a firing solution.  That is what the Left is doing with all this “chaos.”  For if Trump gets enough political breathing space to lock on for the kill and hold them accountable, they are through.  Their whole program is derailed, and many principals will indeed wind up in jail.  

What is the agenda of the Left, if it is not simply chaos?

Leftists rationalize what they are doing as being in the service of what will ultimately be a Star Trek–like “United Earth,” a one-world community ruled by the bureaucrats of the U.N., where there will be no more war, all resources will be shared, all conflicts will be “managed,” and the “masses” will be doled out whatever the elites decree the latter “needs” in return for World Peace Forevermore.  In real day-to-day terms, this enables an unaccountable, parasitic globalist elite class to decide what is best for everybody.  Ultimately, the progressive left elites of the West are busy selling out their own countries in order to appease the other major actors on the world stage, especially China and political Islam, to get the latter to cooperate in this globalist fantasy.

In reality, China; political Islam; and the other major independent political actor, Russia, will merely pocket the concessions of the West and continue to pursue their particular interests, in traditional great power fashion, at the West’s expense.  The corrupt Western elites who have sold their souls for this paradigm don’t really care, as they fundamentally do not believe that what the West represents is worth fighting for.  In short, what these corrupt globalist Western elites are engaged in is a highly rationalized form of treason.  

There are many collateral policies to this overall goal.  Three prominent issues include:

Israel: In order to get political Islam on board the globalist train, the price the Islamists ask is to get rid of Israel.  This really won’t make the Islamists any more peaceful or cooperative; it will instead embolden them.  But traditionally anti-Semitic segments of Western elites are happy to rationalize the need to force Israel into a suicidal “peace deal” — or worse, if Israel balks, to satisfy the bloodlust of her immediate adversaries…in the service of “World Peace,” of course.

Gun control: Imagine the Yellow Vest movement in France with American-level private gun ownership.  Civilian gun-owners can’t hope to defeat a modern military intent on simply destroying them, but if the objective is control and enslavement, that complicates matters (just ask the governor of Oregon).  A bunch of corpses can’t create wealth for the parasite globalist elite class to feed on.  That is why the Left wants our guns so, so badly.

Abortion/LGBT: The Left offers unlimited sexual freedom as a substitute for political freedom.  

The Left holds out traditional sexual roles and mores as a form of “bondage,” of “restriction.”  Why was it called the “sexual revolution”?  When people are encouraged to indulge in much of this nonsense in the context of making a “political statement,” this is intended to make whoever is doing this to feel “free”…but the price of this “freedom” is to uncritically accept all of the other political positions of the Left.  That is why, for example, it is not acknowledged by the Left when President Trump appoints an openly gay ambassador to Germany; that concession to “sexual freedom” doesn’t “count” if someone on the wrong side of the political fence does it.  Sexual freedom, in what passes for public discourse in the mass media and academia today, is the monopoly of the Left.

Writ large, what the self-styled “progressive left” is selling amounts to a modern version of feudalism, in which a self-appointed elite, whose status is maintained by the promotion of a self-serving “progressive,” neo-Marxist dogma, is anointed to tell the rest of us peasants how we must live our lives, not unlike the Divine Right of Kings.  The Rest of Us will be compelled to create wealth for them, as they enjoy an opulent existence without earning it; the likes of Obama, Hillary, Macron, Merkel, etc., couldn’t produce something genuinely useful if their lives depended on it.  In their world, over-educated uselessness becomes a virtue, as they are simply “above” having to produce anything.  It certainly beats actual work.  

That is what the Left wants.  It isn’t chaos.  It is integration into global feudalism.  In the end, if they are “successful,” American society will be saddled with a permanent belligerent parasite immigrant class (brought about by “open borders”), a greatly reduced standard of living for most citizens, our Constitution made an irrelevant relic, Islamism unbound, and subservience to a China-dominated world.

On an episode of The Candace Owens Show that aired this past May, Owens had as her guest Dennis Prager.  While I agreed with most of the points made by both Ms. Owens and Mr. Prager, one item struck me as an example of superficial analysis.  They declared that the primary objective of the Left is “chaos.”  In an immediate sense, this seems true; the so-called “progressive left” does appear to be deliberately sowing chaos in America today.

However, I submit that the Left’s “chaos” is an intermediate objective, the means to an end.  They have a well defined endgame.  The Communist Bloc countries were a lot of things, but they were generally not chaotic.  They were highly regimented societies, and while they did not have the material standard of living or political freedoms enjoyed in the West, there were some agreeable aspects, as related by the wife of one Carlo Alcos in an online feature story on the Matador Network about her early childhood experiences growing up in East Germany:

It wasn’t all trying, though.  Everyone had a job, school lunches were free, after-school care was free, people were generally happy, necessities were extremely cheap, and there was more community spirit than there is nowadays.  In those times, there were no Joneses to keep up with.

Rigidly communist East Germany hardly sounded like “chaos.”  So what is the progressive left’s game in the Era of Trump? 

First, at present, leftists want to create a state of political cultural chaos in the U.S. for a specific reason.  They need chaos as a smokescreen to defend their current leaders — that is to say, Obama, Hillary & Co. — from prosecution.  Make no mistake: Obama, Hillary, and their cohorts committed some  serious crimes of an unprecedented nature for people at their level.  We executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for far less. Their degree of culpability is suggested in an October 2016 email from Hilary Clinton to then DNC Chair Donna Brazile, revealed by WikiLeaks, in which Hillary shrieked to the effect that ”if that f‑‑‑‑‑‑ b‑‑‑‑‑‑ wins, we’re all going to hang from nooses.  You better fix this s‑‑‑!”

Consider the metaphor of a dogfight between two fighter planes.  One is firmly camped on the six o’clock of the other, ready to deliver the deathblow.  The other, facing imminent destruction, engages in all manner of crazy maneuvers in order to prevent his adversary from achieving a firing solution.  That is what the Left is doing with all this “chaos.”  For if Trump gets enough political breathing space to lock on for the kill and hold them accountable, they are through.  Their whole program is derailed, and many principals will indeed wind up in jail.  

What is the agenda of the Left, if it is not simply chaos?

Leftists rationalize what they are doing as being in the service of what will ultimately be a Star Trek–like “United Earth,” a one-world community ruled by the bureaucrats of the U.N., where there will be no more war, all resources will be shared, all conflicts will be “managed,” and the “masses” will be doled out whatever the elites decree the latter “needs” in return for World Peace Forevermore.  In real day-to-day terms, this enables an unaccountable, parasitic globalist elite class to decide what is best for everybody.  Ultimately, the progressive left elites of the West are busy selling out their own countries in order to appease the other major actors on the world stage, especially China and political Islam, to get the latter to cooperate in this globalist fantasy.

In reality, China; political Islam; and the other major independent political actor, Russia, will merely pocket the concessions of the West and continue to pursue their particular interests, in traditional great power fashion, at the West’s expense.  The corrupt Western elites who have sold their souls for this paradigm don’t really care, as they fundamentally do not believe that what the West represents is worth fighting for.  In short, what these corrupt globalist Western elites are engaged in is a highly rationalized form of treason.  

There are many collateral policies to this overall goal.  Three prominent issues include:

Israel: In order to get political Islam on board the globalist train, the price the Islamists ask is to get rid of Israel.  This really won’t make the Islamists any more peaceful or cooperative; it will instead embolden them.  But traditionally anti-Semitic segments of Western elites are happy to rationalize the need to force Israel into a suicidal “peace deal” — or worse, if Israel balks, to satisfy the bloodlust of her immediate adversaries…in the service of “World Peace,” of course.

Gun control: Imagine the Yellow Vest movement in France with American-level private gun ownership.  Civilian gun-owners can’t hope to defeat a modern military intent on simply destroying them, but if the objective is control and enslavement, that complicates matters (just ask the governor of Oregon).  A bunch of corpses can’t create wealth for the parasite globalist elite class to feed on.  That is why the Left wants our guns so, so badly.

Abortion/LGBT: The Left offers unlimited sexual freedom as a substitute for political freedom.  

The Left holds out traditional sexual roles and mores as a form of “bondage,” of “restriction.”  Why was it called the “sexual revolution”?  When people are encouraged to indulge in much of this nonsense in the context of making a “political statement,” this is intended to make whoever is doing this to feel “free”…but the price of this “freedom” is to uncritically accept all of the other political positions of the Left.  That is why, for example, it is not acknowledged by the Left when President Trump appoints an openly gay ambassador to Germany; that concession to “sexual freedom” doesn’t “count” if someone on the wrong side of the political fence does it.  Sexual freedom, in what passes for public discourse in the mass media and academia today, is the monopoly of the Left.

Writ large, what the self-styled “progressive left” is selling amounts to a modern version of feudalism, in which a self-appointed elite, whose status is maintained by the promotion of a self-serving “progressive,” neo-Marxist dogma, is anointed to tell the rest of us peasants how we must live our lives, not unlike the Divine Right of Kings.  The Rest of Us will be compelled to create wealth for them, as they enjoy an opulent existence without earning it; the likes of Obama, Hillary, Macron, Merkel, etc., couldn’t produce something genuinely useful if their lives depended on it.  In their world, over-educated uselessness becomes a virtue, as they are simply “above” having to produce anything.  It certainly beats actual work.  

That is what the Left wants.  It isn’t chaos.  It is integration into global feudalism.  In the end, if they are “successful,” American society will be saddled with a permanent belligerent parasite immigrant class (brought about by “open borders”), a greatly reduced standard of living for most citizens, our Constitution made an irrelevant relic, Islamism unbound, and subservience to a China-dominated world.

After former San Francisco quarterback and Nike endorser Colin Kaepernick complained about an American-themed Betsy Ross flag adorning a new Nike shoe, reportedly saying he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag was an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery, Nike capitulated, pulling the shoe from production. The Wall Street Journal reported, “After images of the shoe were posted online, Mr. Kaepernick, a Nike endorser, reached out to company officials saying that he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag is an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery …”

On Wednesday, social media pointed out something to Nike that they either ignored or were unwilling to acknowledge: the famed flag, which featured 13 white stars in a circle to represent the thirteen original American colonies, was flown at former President Barack Obama’s 2^nd inaugural.

That precipitated a host of comments from conservatives:

Donald Trump Jr.: “Weird that no one had a problem with The Betsy Ross Flag when it flew over Obama’s inauguration. Now it’s not patriotic… ok got it.”

Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner: “Attention Nike: The flag Colin Kaepernick told you was unacceptable on your shoes was displayed rather prominently at Barack Obama’s inauguration.”

Guy Benson from Fox News: “It ‘fell out of fashion’ with a small group of loud, disproportionately influential Woke Olympians. I suspect it’ll be back in fashion among many Americans as an anti-PC totem.”

Steve Deace from Blaze TV: “Truly amaze-balls to learn America’s first black President not only had a racist VP for eight years, but now he proudly flew the flag of white supremacists.”

In September 2016, a student waved a flag supporting Donald Trump as he joined other students waving a Betsy Ross 13-star flag at a Grand Rapids, Michigan, high school football game, chanting “USA.” That prompted one parent to claim the flag had been appropriated by white supremacy groups, adding the flag waving “left a lot of members of my community unsettled … Your team, your coaches, your families were our guests, yet it seems many of your students are unaware of the negative impact these actions would have on members of our community in our home field,” according to MLive.

Although it has long been debated whether or not Betsy Ross actually created the “Betsy Ross flag,” the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation notes, “Congress recognized that the new nation needed a flag. On June 14, 1777, it passed the country’s first flag law. As legislation goes, it was refreshingly brief: ‘Resolved. That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.’”

The Foundation adds:

We probably will never know who made the first flag. We do, however, have a good idea about who originated its design. Credit for that achievement may go to Francis Hopkinson, a New Jersey representative to the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Hopkinson was a talented man with a strong interest in designing symbols. He played a role in creating the Great Seal of the United States, the Continental Board of Admiralty seal, treasury seal, and American currency. Documents also show that he worked on the first official United States flag.

The more we learn about the origins of the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, the more Russian connections link back to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

During an interview with The Hill’s John Solomon, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska acknowledged that he paid Christopher Steele (who was hired through an intermediary by the Clinton campaign to compile the infamous and discredited “Steele Dossier” alleging Team Trump colluded with Russia in 2016) for a research project.

“It was a research project to support one of the cases against me against me in London,” Deripaska told Solomon. “But my understanding was that lawyers trust him for some reason and he was for quite a time on retainer.”

Steele was hired initially by Deripaska in 2012, but the oligarch was unaware he had been working for the FBI. It should be noted that the Trump administration levied sanctions against Deripaska and he is engaged in a legal battle with the State Department over them and his inability to get a visa to come to the U.S.

The suggestion that Deripaska had paid Steele has been around for more than a year. In February 2018, Lee Smith published an article at Tablet Magazine that included a letter from then Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) asking questions regarding Steele’s own connections to Russian officials.

In his follow-up article to the interview, Solomon wrote that Deripaska also confirmed a story he had heard a year earlier from law enforcement sources – that the FBI reached out to him in September 2016 for a “fishing” expedition to get dirt on the Trump campaign. Deripaska was sought because he had previously worked with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. From Solomon:

“I told them straightforward, ‘Look, I am not a friend with him [Manafort]. Apparently not, because I started a court case [against him] six or nine months before … . But since I’m Russian I would be very surprised that anyone from Russia would try to approach him for any reason, and wouldn’t come and ask me my opinion,’ ” he said, recounting exactly what he says he told the FBI agents that day.

“I told them straightforward, I just don’t believe that he would represent any Russian interest. And knowing what he’s doing on Ukraine for the last, what, seven or eight years.”

Solomon noted that Deripaska’s FBI interview was reportedly never given to Manafort’s attorneys. Manafort’s defense attorney, Kevin Downing, said the interview, which would be exculpatory evidence, was not handed over.

“Recent revelations by The Hill prove that the Office of Special Counsel’s (OSC) claim that they had a legitimate basis to include Paul Manafort in an investigation of potential collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government is false,” Downing told Solomon. “The failure to disclose this information to Manafort, the courts, or the public reaffirms that the OSC did not have a legitimate basis to investigate Manafort, and may prove that the OSC had no legitimate basis to investigate potential collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government.”

With President Donald Trump talking and acting tougher than ever on Iran, it’s a common reflex in progressive and mainstream media circles to label the commander-in-chief as “reckless.” But let’s consider that one man’s bellicosity is another man’s common sense.

President Trump pulled America out of a nuclear deal that handed the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism over $100 billion in sanctions relief. He’s leading a sterner approach to a nation known for its frequent “Death to America” chants. What’s the problem here?

Simultaneously, President Trump is acknowledging that America has nothing to gain from his predecessor’s rapprochement with a failed state. Renewed U.S. sanctions have crippled the Iranian economy, with the rial’s value plummeting about 60 percent during the past year.

A similar approach is reflected in U.S. relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA). By signing into law and then enforcing the Taylor Force Act, President Trump signaled that the U.S. is no longer squandering taxpayer dollars on a “pay-to-slay” scheme that funnels hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists and their families rather than prioritizing the well-being of the Palestinian people at-large. Although the disputed territories don’t comprise a “state,” the PA’s pay-to-slay policy and infamous kleptocracy are certainly hallmarks of a failed state.

Further, by pulling out of the Syrian Civil War, President Trump affirmed that the U.S. has no business continuously investing in attempts to resolve a foreign conflict that has no end in sight.

America’s failed state wars appear over, for now. But that doesn’t mean the U.S. has exhausted all its options for a leaner, wiser foreign budget.

In the interest of leaving no stone unturned, the Trump administration can take a closer look at policy toward Armenia, which possesses a number of characteristics that meet the profile of a failed state. Armenia has a declining population — and that population displays the greatest prevalence of anger in the world, according to Gallup’s Global Emotions 2019 poll.

Armenians’ anger is partially explained by a bleak economic outlook. One of Armenia’s own politicians has acknowledged that the country is “bypassed by all regional and international routes — transport, railway, oil, gas, any others … we simply do not exist in the Caucasus, and this situation has not changed in last 20 years.” By contrast, Armenia’s neighbor Azerbaijan is leading the $41.5 billion Southern Gas Corridor project, whose three linked gas pipelines will span nearly 2,200 miles across seven countries while permanently transforming Europe’s energy map.

In turn, one of the roots of Armenia’s economic malaise is another failed state attribute: The failure and refusal to negotiate peace. Armenia’s occupation of the internationally recognized Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh is the source of a decades-long conflict — and any population mired in a seemingly endless conflict is susceptible to being consumed by it. Upon his election in 2018, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan swiftly exhibited the typical doublespeak of failed state leaders. Pashinyan stated his readiness “to continue peaceful talks” with Azerbaijan, yet simultaneously urged “self-determination” for Nagorno-Karabakh, which the State Department doesn’t recognize as independent. Concurrently, on U.S. soil, the Armenian lobby’s rejection of the Madrid Principles eerily resembles the notorious history of Palestinian rejectionism in the peace process with Israel.

The “Velvet Revolution” led by Pashinyan before his election has failed to deliver on the sweeping changes it promised the Armenian people. Broken promises breed anger, and an angry population lashes out at its minorities — in Armenia’s case, Jews. A Pew survey found last year that 32% of Armenians would refuse to accept Jews as fellow citizens.

Failed states don’t operate in isolation. They act in unison. Armenia maintains close economic ties with Iran and is entangled in the Syrian conflict — drawing the ire of the U.S., which earlier this year rebuked Armenia for its engagement with Syrian military forces under the guise of a “purely humanitarian” mission.

If ceasing to invest in failed states is indeed becoming a Trumpian staple, the administration would be well served to more carefully examine aid to Armenia, as the $6.75 million in requested foreign assistance to Yerevan for the fiscal year 2020 is more than double the $2.7 million request for Azerbaijan. And given its welcome crackdown on aid to the terror-sponsoring PA, it would be consistent policy for the administration to vocally oppose ideas like 35 lawmakers’ proposal of an inexplicably bloated $100 million package for Armenia and the unrecognized territory under its occupation, Nagorno-Karabakh.

Like Wall Street, American foreign policy is too big to fail. That means the U.S. should continue to distance itself from failed states and territories. It’s anything but “reckless.” It’s pure common sense.

Paul Miller is president and executive director of the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center. Follow him on Twitter at @pauliespoint.

Descending to new levels of gut-wrenching darkness, pop singer Miley Cyrus released a new music video for her single “Mother’s Daughter” that features her in a BDSM-style red latex suit while making all sorts of sexually suggestive poses as she sings about feminist platitudes.

“For the video, Miley flashes a number of empowering written messages to fans while repeatedly singing, ‘Don’t f**k with my freedom,'” according to Teen Vogue. “Wearing a red latex suit, Miley dances throughout the clip, as images of her powerful guest stars, including Aaron Philip and Little Miss Flint, are interspersed with phrases like ‘Feminist AF,’ ‘Virginity is a social construct,’ and ‘Not an object.'”

One particular galling moment in the video is when Miley’s mother, Tish Cyrus, makes a cameo as her daughter sings about her emotional support amid interspersed clips of Miley writhing her crotch into the camera. Later, Miley allows herself to shed some tears while singing, ” “I came up to get me some/I’m nasty, I’m evil/Must be something in the water or that I’m my mother’s daughter.”

Miley Cyrus has been campaigning hard for the pro-abortion cause following the passage of the fetal heartbeat bill in Georgia and Alabama’s near-universal ban on the practice as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. Her recent line of hoodies in association with Marc Jacobs donated proceeds to Planned Parenthood and featured such wholesome messages like “Don’t f**k with my freedom.” One particular photo of the singer licking a cake with the words “abortion is healthcare” earned scores of mockery online from pro-lifers.

In a Twitter post announcing the video, Miley Cyrus wrote, “Music makes Movements! We got the power!”

Also on hand for cameos, the video features Aaron Phillip, a black trans person in a wheelchair, and dancer Amazon Ashley.

“As a black girl in a wheelchair who happens to be trans – I just want to have a good life and do good in whatever my endeavors consist of, regardless of what that might mean in the face of oppression,” Philip said in an Instagram post on Miley’s page. “I do not identify or label myself as an activist, but that’s just because I care- and I think everyone should, activist or not. I fight for my freedom by being myself.”

Amazon Ashley said in another post on the page, “Sometimes I feel so helpless and discouraged because there is so much injustice discrimination and hatred in the world we live in…and now in particular under our current administration this dilemma is magnified tenfold! However I still believe there is hope!! We’re living in dark times but “this too shall pass”!! I pray that goodness will win and darkness won’t prevail!!”