December 21, 2015 WP: Donald Trump scores with Miss Universe disaster Luke Ford No sacred cows.

WP: Donald Trump scores with Miss Universe disaster

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Luke Ford

It was the moment that could have broken Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions: In June, he likened immigrants to rapists, prompting Univision to ditch his beauty pageants and NBC to cut ties with him.

“At Univision we see first-hand the work ethic, love for family, strong religious values and the important role Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans have had and will continue to have in building the future of our country,” the company said in a statement posted on its website. “We will not be airing the Miss USA pageant on July 12th or working on any other projects tied to the Trump Organization.”

Trump, of course, survived what at first seemed like a campaign-ending gaffe — and has gone on to survive many more. “Mexican gov doesn’t want me talking about terrible border situation & horrible trade deals,” he said in a defiant tweet. “Forcing Univision to get me to stop — no way!”

But rhetoric is one thing. Could Trump successfully spin the loss of a business deal valued at up to $25 million into political and financial victory in a campaign that, at the time, seemed merely whimsical?

It appears so. With the disastrous Miss Universe 2015 that just unfolded in Las Vegas, Trump won without even being onstage. Even a beauty pageant, it seemed, just couldn’t run smoothly without him around.

Hours before Miss Universe, Trump was cheering it on from the sidelines. After being banished by Univision and exiled from NBC over his anti-immigrant comments, Trump bought the rights to the pageant back from NBC — then flipped it in September to the entertainment company WME-IMG in a matter of days….

Then came the perfect gaffe for Trump supporters to tweet and retweet ad infinitum. Co-host Steve Harvey — a usually unflappable comedian, talk-show host and author — anointed the wrong woman Miss Universe, crowning Miss Colombia instead of the judges’ intended, Miss Philippines.

“Still a great night,” Harvey said — though Miss Colombia might not have agreed as she was almost instantly dethroned. “Please don’t hold it against the ladies. Please don’t. We feel so badly. But it’s still a great night.”

[Was Steve Harvey’s Miss Universe mix-up a publicity stunt? Conspiracy theories begin.]

Steve Harvey announces wrong Miss Universe winner
Play Video0:49

Host Steve Harvey mistakenly first announced that Miss Colombia had won the Miss Universe pageant before the true winner, Miss Philippines Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach, was crowned. (Reuters)
It appears so. With the disastrous Miss Universe 2015 that just unfolded in Las Vegas, Trump won without even being onstage. Even a beauty pageant, it seemed, just couldn’t run smoothly without him around.

“My friend, @AriEmanuel of @IMG, bought the Miss Universe pageants from me and they are on tonight on #Fox!” he wrote. “Tune in!”

[Steve Harvey crowns wrong Miss Universe]

Meanwhile, outside on the Strip, a more serious tragedy was unfolding. In an incident not yet explained by authorities, a driver may have intentionally driven her car on to a sidewalk outside Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino, where Miss Universe was held, killing one person and injuring dozens more. Terrorism, though eventually ruled out, was initially a possible motive in what police called a “mass casualty incident.”

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I wonder why Islam is so attractive to thugs?

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Luke Ford

Washington Post:

The Islamic State creates a new type of jihadist: Part terrorist, part gangster
BRUSSELS — The recent terrorist attacks in Paris have brought into sharper focus the rise of a new breed of jihadists, one that blurs the line between organized crime and Islamist extremism, using skills honed in lawbreaking in the service of violent radicalism.
The Islamic State is constructing an army of loyalists from Europe that includes an increasing number of street toughs and ex-cons as the nature of radicalization evolves in the era of its self-proclaimed caliphate. Rather than leave behind lives of crime, some adherents are using their illicit talents to finance recruiting rings and travel costs for foreign fighters even as their backgrounds give them potentially easier access to cash and weapons, posing a new kind of challenge to European authorities.

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I can’t wait to see the rocket scientists developing out of this system!

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Luke Ford

Washington Post:

This superintendent has figured out how to make school work for poor kids
shelters for their students. Nor do they often run food banks or have a system in place to provide whatever clothes kids need. Few offer regular access to pediatricians and mental health counselors, or make washers and dryers available to families desperate to get clean.
But the Jennings School District — serving about 3,000 students in a low-income, predominantly African American jurisdiction just north of St. Louis — does all of these things and more. When Superintendent Tiffany Anderson arrived here 3 1/2 years ago, she was determined to clear the barriers that so often keep poor kids from learning. And her approach has helped fuel a dramatic turnaround in Jennings, which has long been among the lowest-performing school districts in Missouri.
“Schools can do so much to really impact poverty,” Anderson said. “Some people think if you do all this other stuff, it takes away from focusing on instruction, when really it ensures that you can take kids further academically.”

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WP: ‘Don’t be fooled. Iran is still not safe.’

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Luke Ford

Daniel Levinson writes in the Washington Post:

American and European companies are drafting plans to begin doing business in Iran with the lifting of sanctions as part of this summer’s nuclear-weapons agreement, and Westerners are planning visits to the country. My family and I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous traveling to Iran remains.
It is widely known that my father, Robert Levinson, was detained on Iran’s Kish Island on March 9, 2007. Iranian state media even reported as much at the time, though Tehran now denies knowledge of his whereabouts. Iran is holding four other U.S. citizens, including Post reporter Jason Rezaian. It temporarily detained 15 members of the British navy two weeks after my father’s detention and several U.S. and European citizens in the years since. Any foreign national considering a trip to Iranian-controlled territory risks arbitrary detention, potentially without access to any basic human rights or their loved ones for years to come. This is what happened to my father.

No sane person thinks that Iran is safe for westerners. Americans and Europeans and company deal with Iran and visit Iran to pursue their own interests. They calculate and they decide it is worth the risk. The interests of Westerners and the interests of the Iranian regime have major conflicts. Russia and China are not safe. Jews are not safe and gentiles are not safe. Blacks are not safe. Muslims are not safe. Every group is in conflict with other groups for scarce resources. Much of the time, life is kill or be killed. When Jews rise in the West, for instance, other groups are disadvantaged and they strike back. When Jews are oppressed, Jews strike back.

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Making A Murderer

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Luke Ford

Over the weekend, I watched all ten episodes of the Netflix true-crime series Making A Murderer. On Saturday night, I couldn’t stop watching until I had finished the series and it was light out.

I was furious at what appeared to be a giant miscarriage of justice.

My bias in general with law enforcement is pro police and pro prosecutors. This time, not so much.

[8-26-22 update. I just read the book, How to Solve a Cold Case: And Everything Else You Wanted To Know About Catching Killers. I now think Steven Avery did it.]

Here is the main prosecutor in the Steven Avery case:

By CRIMESIDER STAFF AP June 6, 2014, 2:09 PM
Ex-DA Ken Kratz’s law license suspended in sexting scandal
A former state prosecutor and victims’ rights advocate who tried to spark a sexual relationship with a domestic abuse victim and made sexual remarks to social workers cannot practice law for four months, the Wisconsin Supreme Court announced Friday.
As well as suspending Ken Kratz’s law license, the court called his actions “appalling” and ordered him to pay $23,904 to cover the costs of the disciplinary proceedings.
“This was exploitative behavior, harassing behavior, and a crass placement of his personal interests above those of his client, the State of Wisconsin,” the court wrote in a collective decision that wasn’t signed by any single justice.
Kratz now works as a defense attorney. He didn’t immediately return a message left at his office Friday morning. He had argued in court filings he didn’t deserve a suspension, saying he has suffered enough.
Kratz’s 18-year stint as Calumet County district attorney came to an end in 2010 after The Associated Press reported that he sent a barrage of racy text messages to a 25-year-old woman a year earlier while he was prosecuting her ex-boyfriend for abusing her. Kratz, then 50, called the woman a “hot nymph” and advertised himself as “the prize” with a $350,000 house and a six-figure salary. He told her he wanted her to be “so hot” and “treat me so well that you’d be THE woman. R U that good?”
The woman went to police, who referred the case to the state Department of Justice. That agency found Kratz hadn’t committed any crimes but told Kratz he should step aside from the domestic abuse prosecution and self-report his conduct to the state Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR).
Kratz removed himself from the case, reported his behavior to the OLR and agreed to resign as chairman of the state Crime Victims’ Rights Board. OLR decided he acted inappropriately but didn’t commit any ethical violations and quietly closed his case in March 2010.
An AP story on the case that September set off a firestorm of outrage. Kratz resigned in October 2010 as then-Gov. Jim Doyle began a little-used process to remove him from office. More women came forward and accused him of making sexual remarks to them; one social worker said he made a comment about oral sex to her before she testified in court and later told her he wanted the case to end so he could go to Las Vegas and have “big-boobed” women serve him drinks. Another social worker said he told her that he thought a court reporter had big breasts.
The OLR reopened its case against him. Kratz ultimately filed a no-contest plea to six misconduct charges. The agency recommended the Supreme Court suspend his license for six months. A referee found a four-month suspension would be more appropriate, noting Kratz has never tried to justify his behavior, he was abusing prescription drugs and was seeking treatment for a sex addiction.

By CBSNEWS AP September 16, 2010, 10:41 AM
Prosecutor Sexted Choking Victim, Won’t Resign
A police report shows he repeatedly sent Stephanie Van Groll text messages in October 2009 trying to spark an affair.
“Are you the kind of girl that likes secret contact with an older married elected DA … the riskier the better?” Kratz, 50, wrote in one message. In another, he wrote: “I would not expect you to be the other woman. I would want you to be so hot and treat me so well that you’d be THE woman! R U that good?”
Kratz was prosecuting Van Groll’s ex-boyfriend on charges he nearly choked her to death last year. Kratz also was veteran chair of the Wisconsin Crime Victims’ Rights Board, a quasi-judicial agency that can reprimand judges, prosecutors and police officers who mistreat crime victims…
Van Groll said Kratz sent the first text minutes after she left his office, where he had interviewed her about the case.
He said it was nice talking and “you have such potential,” signing the message “KEN (your favorite DA).” Twenty minutes later, he added, “I wish you weren’t one of this office’s clients. You’d be a cool person to know!” But he quickly tried to start a relationship and told her to keep quiet about the texts.
Van Groll at first was polite, saying Kratz was “a nice person” and thanking him for praise. By the second day, she responded with answers such as “dono” or “no.” Kratz questioned whether her “low self-esteem” was to blame for the lack of interest.
“I’m serious! I’m the atty. I have the $350,000 house. I have the 6-figure career. You may be the tall, young, hot nymph, but I am the prize!” he texted.
Kratz told her the relationship would unfold slow enough for “Shannon’s case to get done.” “Remember it would have to be special enough to risk all,” he wrote.
Van Groll said she went to police after the messages started becoming “kind of vulgar.” She provided copies of 30 messages and her responses, which the department released in response to an AP request.
The department referred the complaint to the state Division of Criminal Investigation. Van Groll, a college student and part-time preschool teacher who has moved to Merrill, said she has been told Kratz won’t be charged because “they didn’t think he did anything criminally wrong.”

New York Times Dec. 20, 2015:

In 2003, Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man who had served 18 years in prison for sexual assault, was exonerated through DNA evidence. The victim in the original crime apologized to Mr. Avery and a state bill devised to minimize such wrongful convictions took his name. The high-profile case became a calling card for the Wisconsin Innocence Project, a local version of the national nonprofit devoted to helping those wrongly accused.

New York Times Dec. 20, 2015:

…almost Dickensian account of the tragedy of the Averys. The uniformly stoic family members shift allegiances over the years, while Mr. Avery’s parents, as movingly bewildered and terrified as any fictional creations, steadfastly believe in their son’s innocence, even as their long battle takes down their business and any sense they may have had of belonging to a community.
Mr. Avery, heard mostly in prison phone calls and exhibiting a blank affect that leaves you uncertain about how to read him, becomes a secondary character as the series goes along. In his place, other people — his parents, a teenage nephew who becomes ensnared in the second case, the nephew’s mother — take center stage in a story whose astonishing twists and turns are balanced by acute anguish.
Mr. Avery’s nephew Brendan Dassey, goaded into a confession by highly questionable tactics (which we see on tape), tells his mother that he was “guessing” what the interrogators wanted.
“That’s what I do with my homework, too,” he adds.
In heartbreaking moments like those, questions of guilt and innocence, though they’re the heart of the series, begin to seem remote.

Here’s a review of episode four:

First was the indefensible interview with the learning-disabled 16-year-old, who was essentially force-fed details about the crime until he regurgitated them back. It reminded me of the West Memphis 3 case, in which Jessie Misskelley was clearly also coached. When one of the investigators, after ages trying to get Dassey to say something about shooting the victim, Teresa Hallbach, finally cracks and feeds him the information that she actually had been shot… Awful. Brutal. It’s hard to believe that after watching that footage anyone would consider Dassey’s statement a legitimate confession.
But his own comically awful defense attorney did, and so did that attorney’s morals-free investigator, who coached Dassey into signing another confession by insisting multiple times that Dassey participated in Hallbach’s murder, even after Dassey’s multiple denials. The kid has no idea what the consequences of his actions might be, and not only does the system not care, it actively asks him to implicate himself. He thinks he’s heading to sixth period to turn in a project, and later he just wants to watch WrestleMania. His heartbroken mother knows, and listening to their phone conversations is gutting.
Access to all of that information makes Making A Murderer unlike any other documentary I’ve ever seen, save perhaps The Staircase, which I’ll be obliged to mention in every one of these reviews. We see Dassey being interviewed by the police, interacting with his lawyer, and speaking to his mom. How a judge could view some of that material and not allow Dassey to obtain new lawyers is shocking—another blatant, awful look at systematic injustice. (His lawyer was eventually replaced.)
Even if you believe that Dassey played some part in the killing, there is no part of what happened to him that seems even remotely just. Like his uncle 20 years before, he seems to be guilty until proven guilty, with no knowledgeable person available to present him with any type of defense. It’s repellent.
Concentrating on Dassey meant that these two episodes didn’t focus too much on Steven Avery, the “star” of this circus. In the beginning, we hear him threatening suicide, and later he clearly feels despondent after his fiancée is bullied into breaking up with him. Her facts aren’t entirely clear, though what is clear is that the filmmakers want to present her as evidence of a continuing campaign of police bias against Avery.
And then, of course, there’s the bombshell evidence found by Avery’s defense team at the end of episode four. Somebody—and likely nobody with good intentions—pretty clearly tampered with some old blood of Avery’s, which was still in evidence from the 1985 case. There are only two explanations here that make any sense to me: Either Avery killed Hallbach and the dirty-ass cops that put him away the first time around wanted to make sure he was convicted, or those same dirty-ass cops actually murdered an innocent woman and built a whole frame-up around Avery. The former seems much more likely: One of the cops even opines that it would’ve just been easier to murder Avery themselves than to build this elaborate frame up against him.

The Atlantic:

The first of its 10 episodes introduces Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man released from prison 18 years after DNA evidence proved he didn’t commit a brutal attack. And it’s soon clear that Avery’s unbelievable story—one apparently involving gross misconduct by law enforcement—isn’t just going to end with him relishing in his newfound freedom, or fighting to make sure it never happens to anyone else again.
Because it does happen again—to Steven Avery. That’s what the writers and directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos set out to prove with Making a Murderer, which was released in its entirety Friday. Two years after being released from prison, Avery was bringing a $36 million lawsuit against Manitowoc County, and the former district attorney and sheriff who helped put him away, when he became the prime suspect in a gruesome new murder investigation. The series, which explores the possibility that Avery was framed, mimics HBO’s The Jinx and the first season of the podcast Serial with its gripping, real-life case that so often feels like fiction. But Making a Murderer, which took 10 years to to make, could very well eclipse those works, for the sheer density of reportage and the scale of the horrifying story it tells—one of rural class politics, bureaucratic opacity, and a seemingly coordinated institutional effort to destroy an innocent man.

TV GUIDE:

Making a Murderer paints the Averys as a family whose members were always outsiders in the community, due to poverty and a lack of education. And, to be sure, these are not a made-for-TV bunch. A throwaway line in one episode references the fact that Avery doesn’t own a single pair of underwear. These are salt-of-the-earth folks from rural Wisconsin, with thick accents and a dubious grasp of the English language (a phone conversation between Brendan and his mother reveals that neither knows what “inconsistent” means). But all that information only drives home the point that Avery was an easy target for police.

VULTURE:

Like its high-end true-crime brethren, Netflix’s new ten-episode Making a Murderer is gripping, a little salacious, and about more than its central legal saga — in this case, rural poverty and entrenched power structures. The show fits right in with The Jinx and “Serial,” and it’s at least as good as both, and maybe better in some areas. But The Jinx is much more of a spectacle, and “Serial” is much more of a mystery series. Making a Murderer is an anthem of hopelessness. It’s as engrossing as they come, impactful and devastating, and it left me with a hollowed-out despondence generally treatable only with alcohol and ranting.
Making a Murderer centers on Steven Avery, of Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. He was wrongfully convicted of sexual assault in 1985 and spent 18 years in prison before a DNA test finally exonerated him. Two years later, Avery was arrested again — this time for the murder of Teresa Halbach, a photographer and business acquaintance. Avery’s defense attorneys make a compelling case that Avery’s the target of a police conspiracy, and the prosecution relies heavily on the confession of one of Avery’s nephews, then 16 years old. That confession, which was videotaped, is one of the most haunting segments I’ve ever seen, and not because of how disturbing the material within it is, although it is disturbing. Mostly it’s upsetting because of how staggeringly, appallingly coerced it seems. Something horrible clearly happened — a woman was killed, her body dismembered and burned. But justice that comes from coercion and corruption isn’t justice.
… I don’t believe the prosecution’s theory of the crime, and I don’t know if that obligates me to do more than simply carry that knowledge. I already knew wrongful convictions existed. I already knew that confessions could be coerced. Simply bearing witness to the story feels like a cop-out, but the show isn’t (and shouldn’t be) a specific call to action. I don’t know what happens after documentary like this, the kind of social response we should aspire to. Making captures and engenders the tension between wanting to run into the streets and scream — who could hear these wails and do nothing? — and knowing that louder people already did and their cries went unheard, or worse, were heard and ignored.
There were a few moments in Making a Murderer that sent me reeling, but perhaps none more than one of the prosecutors telling the jury, “Reasonable doubt is for innocent people.” That’s a common thread in the show, a feeling of, wait, that can’t be right … can it?, an overall sense of frustration. Filmmakers Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi superbly combine the legal system’s uniquely high stakes with its ordinary tedium and boring bureaucracies. Frustrating ineptitudes and prejudices reign within our criminal-justice processes, just as they do everywhere else on our planet. Let’s note here that Steven Avery is white, Teresa Halbach was white, Avery’s nephew Brendan Dassey is white, all the police officers and judges and lawyers are white. Many, many stories about the American justice system are stories about race. This one is a story about class, unambiguously. It’s about other things, too, but this show doesn’t exist without profound, pernicious in-group/out-group class conflict, one that posits that the Avery clan can never be fully innocent because they’re already guilty of the greatest crime in America: being poor.
I didn’t enjoy Making a Murderer — enjoy makes it sound more pleasant than it really was — I was engulfed, and also crushed, by it. I lied about plans so I could rush home and watch more episodes, though mainlining a show this distressing is not a great way to live. I encourage you to resist the urge just to Google everything about the case until you’ve watched the whole series. Bring friends with you on this voyage, too. It’s a harrowing but worthy trip.

Reddit:

* Anyone else in a state of rage while watching this? How could any person watching the tapes not see that a young boy with intellectual disabilities was being coerced into telling a story that is totally made up by the police? How??? How could any person in legal authority not see exactly what has happened and give Brendan a fair trial with effective legal representation? WTF is wrong with these people?? How do they let these evil scumbags, who used this young boy for their own agenda, get away with this shit?!
I keep needing to step away from the show every few episodes to bring my rage level down. But as soon as I start watching another episode, it shoots right back up. Goddamn the legal system can be so infuriating when evil triumphs and the innocent get hurt.
* I’m raging with you! This whole situation is a miscarriage of justice especially for Brenden. The basis of his confession is completely created by the detectives who questioned him. He obviously has a learning disability and appeared confused by all their questions. When he said he “guessed” at what they were looking for, my heart broke. Personally I’d like to start a campaign to get the innocence project of Wisconsin to take on Brendon’s case.
By the way, look up Calumet County Prosecutor, Ken Kratz. He was dismissed from the prosecutor’s office in 2014 because of sexting charges…

Variety:

Writer-directors Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi have invested a decade in chronicling the case of the wrongly accused Steven Avery, and the hard work shows, in a story that feels as if it’s equal parts “Rectify” and “Fargo.” A Wisconsin man with a history of petty crimes, Avery spent 18 years in prison for a sexual assault, before being exonerated by DNA evidence in 2003.
As the filmmakers painstakingly document, Avery’s conviction seemed to require willful misconduct on the part of police and local prosecutors, ignoring alibi witnesses and evidence pointing to another suspect. With the case singled out as a miscarriage of justice, Avery appeared destined to cash in via a civil suit — at least some compensation for an ordeal that, among other things, cost him his wife and children.
Yet as that moment drew near, Avery suddenly found himself charged with another heinous crime, inviting speculation about whether local authorities were seeking to undermine his claims. Adding a discomfiting twist, much of the testimony hinged on a 16-year-old cousin of the accused who possessed limited mental faculties and was extensively questioned (and yes, there’s tape of all this) without a parent or attorney present.
Given how tedious actual legal proceedings can appear to an audience weaned on the whiz-bang-pow cross-examinations of “Law & Order,” Demos and Ricciardi have done an astonishing job of cutting to the heart of the story with clips from depositions and courtrooms. As constructed, the series also plays like an indictment of the media, from the blather of local news anchors to a “Dateline” producer shown discussing how enticing salacious true-crime tales are, both to her show and its competitors…
Still, any skepticism will evaporate long before completing the first few episodes, and viewers will be hard-pressed not to come away with a gnawing sense that a terrible miscarriage of justice occurred, over a span of decades. Because once reeled into the twisted web that is “Making a Murderer,” the temptation will be to binge on it until the bitter end.

Posted in Abuse, Crime, Law | Comments Off

The Real Purpose Of Section 8 Housing

Posted on December 19, 2015 by Luke Ford

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* Raj Chetty and his handlers may be perfectly aware that while moving section 8 dwellers into prosperous counties will do nothing to increase the rate of movement upwards for the dysfunctional, it will certainly bring down all of the indices of communal good health for the host populations.

And that may be the real purpose of the exercise. By destroying the prosperity of these too-white counties the wrecking crew will have accomplished two things: they shall have brought everyone down to the same level and in the process destroyed any evidence that a state of meritocratic inequality ever had existed and/or ever could have existed.

* Does the equality of this county mean that they have a much more narrow standard deviation (IQ) than 15?! Small SD = Equality. The places with the most inequality have the greatest IQ disparity. If Sioux county is the most equal one, then it has to be the one with the least IQ disparity.

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The Rise Of Islam

Posted on December 19, 2015 by Luke Ford

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* The Middle East has become notably less “diverse” since 1900 among its citizen populations. The Levant was once 1/4th to 1/3rd Christian, and Lebanon had a Christian majority. More ethnic groups, like the Turks, Armenians and Sephardi Jews. Nearly all gone from the Arab world.

What has changed in the other direction is the oil-fueled migrant worker boom. It brought exclusive gated towns for the Western oil workers, South Asians held as near-slave labor, and Slavs for a time in Saddam’s Iraq.

During the 19th century, and up to 1956, the Western powers had clear technological advantages over the Arabs and before that the Ottomans. Islamism, or properly the Wahabbis began around this time but it took oil and the AK-47 to give it legitimacy. There have been tensions between Egyptian Islamists, of Al-Azhar, and what they consider to be the nomadic Wahabbi degenerate Saudi princes.

The particular rise of Islamism today has more to due with the simultaneous discrediting of liberalism, Pan-Arabism and Communism. The Brotherhood, and now ISIS, are the only political forces with vitality. Their defeat only prolongs the secular dictatorships which have yet to prove they can make a Singapore.

Of course, common understanding of the teachings of the Koran and Hadiths do imply a commitment to expansionist violence and third-class status for “People of the Book”. If the Muslim world somehow regained technological superiority, not likely for the cousin-marrying, the march of conquest will no longer be actively supported by a mere minority.

* As Kevin MacDonald has pointed out the peoples of the ME tend towards hyper ethnocentricism which explains the chronic instability. Segmentary societies always on the brink of communal violence, not unlike the conflicts noted by Enoch Powell as existant in India between different tribes and religions that still occur.

* I subscribed to the Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir’s magazine a few years ago. Their ‘political’ dogma was pretty simple. They didn’t have one! There was no need for it since Islam provided all the laws that were necessary the sole purpose of the ‘state’ was to enforce Islamic law. This made it unnecessary and even blasphemous to ‘vote’ for candidates in an election since, if Allah had already made all the laws, a legislature was redundant at best and evil if it passed laws that contradicted the Koran.

As already noted, the Ummah supersedes the idea of nation so to be an American or Egyptian is to negate the very essence of Islam.

* Most people in African American discussion boards that I have browsed through believe White police officers are a more dangerous threat to society than Islamic terrorists. They say poor Michael Brown was not murdered by an ISIS Jihadist, he was murdered by a White supremacist with a badge. They say ISIS ain’t committing genocide against our Black babies like them racist White pigs are.

* Of course world Jewry, with its millennia long history was raised in that crucible which is near-eastern low-trust hyper-competitive tribal ethnies.

After the Roman caused diaspora, Jews established themselves in Europe, taking with them the deeply ingrained tribalistic traits engendered with them in that cockpit/rat’s nest which is the Levant.
Relative Jewish success in the 18th/19th centuries lead to an Ashkenazi population explosion in Europe, which lead to a fierce battle for resources with gentiles. Ethnocentric tribalistic traits and tendencies gave Jews the edge in that Malthusian resource battle.

* I DO like Israelis like Netanyahu, they FIGHT! Instead of wimping out and rolling over to expose their belly. Like Pajama Boys or Paleos. Sadly most elite Israelis are as Pajama Boy as they come. But come on, Netanyahu was a paratrooper, and Ehud Barak a Mossad agent who helped kill the Red Prince terrorist of the PLO and made in his own words, the world’s ugliest Arab woman during that operation. What’s not to like? You want Boy Rubio? Aging Hillary! and the cankles and pantsuits and vodka and falls?
———————-
As for Pinker, he’s desperate to try and salvage his obviously wrong idea that the world has gotten more peaceful. He sees an absence of WWI/WWII style industrial wars in Europe and figures like that famous New Yorker cartoon (the world is NYC, with Paris and Texas all crowded together) that’s the world.

1. The AK-47 lowers the entry cost into brutal warfare. No longer is a German sized industrial economy needed, cheap and reliable AK-47s can support brutal African or Columbian insurgencies for decades.

2. Drugs, illegal ivory, endangered species, logging, etc. can support an insurgency for decades, fueling violence that does not rise to the level of the Somme or Bastogne but is very high indeed. The FARC, Shining Path, etc. predate ISIS by decades and in the case of the FARC remain in operation. The violence is a way for young men who are NOT smart but able to kill to make decent money, at the expense of massive misery for everyone else.

3. Rise of globally networked criminal gangs like the Knights Templar, Gulf, Zeta cartels in Mexico controlling everything from mining, to ports, to agriculture pushes out the state and produces a Big Man feudalistic social structure in conflict with other Big men. Lacking the notion of Kingship and Divine Right, there is always a fight, with many casualties, even higher than Medieval Europe and there is no strong State to reduce personal violence between ordinary people and various free-range thugs looking for the next gang.

4. Muslim states have ALWAYS been more violent in this way, as the State has always, always been week. You can read any Bernard Lewis book, and his description of Ottoman Tax farmers mirrors that of ISIS, and how Saddam and Assad and Ghadaffi raised money. Tax collectors get a cut, instead of being part of a strong, centralized state run by an efficient, modern bureaucracy like say, the Kaiser’s Germany or the Meji Restoration government.

From Mohammed’s death, the Muslim world has been the scene of violent battles for power and succession, rivaling or exceeding late Roman Republic, and Imperial battles. Only outside forces: the Turks, Mongols, and Persians have ever put a temporary lid on this dynamic.

5. Only Egypt and the Saudi princes have found solutions to Muslim violence and the example of Mohammed — go camp out in the desert, raise followers, raid the cities and become the new Caliph. The Egyptians have been ruled by the Army since the overthrow of the monarch, and the Army has kept the lights on, been less corrupt than other neighboring armies, given some improvement in daily life, and brutally suppressed by ultra-violence the Muslim Brotherhood to keep some semblance of nationalism and military power versus other nations, not limited to Israel but including the Sudan and other threats to the Upper Nile.

Saudi Arabia has been more Wahabbi than Mohammed, and spent a lot of money in the balance on clerics and external jihad. Money alone has not bought peace, they have had to be as rigidly Islamic as the Taliban and support Jihad where it has been a backfiring problem — creating cadres of experienced fighters thinking they not the ruling Princes should rule the Kingdom.

Every place else has been a disaster jump started by the AK-47.

Even in Latin America, you have the FARC, and other types of criminal/guerrilla movements that produce a great deal of misery, and places like Thailand are gripped in violent repressions of the countryside by urban elites.

* There’s a video online of Boko Haram shooting hundreds of Black African Christians in the head on a bridge and tossing the bodies into the river.

The media would show that (pixelated) if it was Serbs.

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Millionaire Gupta Family Seen as Symbol of Zuma’s Failing Rule

Posted on December 19, 2015 by Luke Ford

“Interesting intersection of HBD, IQ, Africans, Asians, Ethnic tensions, etc. It was close but it appears there’s no white people to blame here.”

From Bloomberg:

As South Africans endure their deepest economic crisis since 2009, it’s not just President Jacob Zuma they blame. There’s a family whose name is increasingly the target of protest: the Guptas.

As tens of thousands marched in October in South Africa’s biggest wave of nationwide anti-government protests since the African National Congress came to power, one poster, broadcast on the nation’s television channels, captured the public anger: “SA: Gupta Farm.”

Since Atul Gupta arrived in South Africa from Uttar Pradesh, India, in 1993, a year before the election of Nelson Mandela marked the end of apartheid, he and his brothers Rajesh and Ajay have built on a computer business to amass stakes in uranium, gold and coal mines, a luxury game lodge, an engineering company, a newspaper and a 24-hour news TV station. This month they agreed to take control of two coal mines From Glencore Plc.
Having employed or been in business with at least three of President Zuma’s immediate family, including his son Duduzane, the family drew increased scrutiny in September as opposition parties and local newspapers raised the question that they may have influenced the appointment of a minister to manage the embattled and important mining industry.

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Progressive PR firm FitzGibbon shuts after sexual harassment allegations

Posted on December 19, 2015 by Luke Ford

The Guardian: The public relations firm behind some of the world’s most progressive organizations has dramatically closed after its founder and figurehead received what one staffer described as “an avalanche” of complaints about sexual harassment and assault by his employees.

Trevor FitzGibbon, a major figure in the communications industry, who counts among his clients Amnesty International, MoveOn, the American Civil Liberties Union and WikiLeaks, confirmed in an emailed statement that the company bearing his name was closing after complaints about him.

“The allegations against me are a distraction to the mission at hand,” FitzGibbon said. The public relations expert, who has been on leave of absence since complaints first emerged, added: “it is abundantly clear that an irreconcilable difference has arisen between the FitzGibbon team and me”.

Employees at FitzGibbon Media, which is based in Washington DC and has offices in New York, San Francisco and London, were informed of its closure during a company-wide call at 4pm on Thursday.

Suddenly out of work, staff spent the evening drafting a collective statement, saying they were “incredibly sad and disappointed” to confirm the allegations against FitzGibbon were “for sexual assault and harassment of multiple female staffers”.

“Staffers reported over a half dozen incidents of sexual harassment and at least two involving sexual assault committed by Trevor FitzGibbon against his own employees,” it added.

The Guardian, which is among a handful of media outlets listed as clients of FitzGibbon Media, has spoken to five employees at the firm, all of whom were involved in drafting the statement and confirmed its authenticity. Andy Stepanian, the company’s senior director of media relations, said the statement was drafted online and signed off by 24 of the firm’s 29 employees.

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Steve Sailer: Farooked: Some People Just Aren’t Cut Out for a Life of International Intrigue

Posted on December 19, 2015 by Luke Ford

Steve Sailer writes:

He’s been confessing to the FBI pretty much nonstop ever since the Farooks went off, and now the Bureau has posted the criminal complaint against him.

Reading it, it’s evident that some people just aren’t cut out for a life of international intrigue. For example, Marquez seems to have had a thing for his hot Russian blonde fake wife. In a new report, the FBI summarized one texting session with the fake wife “M.C.:”

M.C. states that she is at “home” and MARQUEZ asks if he can come over. MARQUEZ states that he is “just a little anxious and want to talk more about the Interview.” M.C. responds, “Omg!! Enrique I’m the one freaking out here!!! Relax I’ll see u Monday and we’ll talk.” The conversation continues and M.C. states that he should “relax” and states “[i]f they decline me its my problem not yours.” MARQUEZ states that he had a list of questions he thought might be asked at the interview and continues, “[t]he only reason why we’re anxious is because we haven’t hung out that much.”

The fake couple appear to have had differing opinions on whether not hanging out much was a feature or a bug of their nonrelationship.

… MARQUEZ also communicates with another person about the interview, and states that if they don not pass, M.C. will get deported and he will face “fines and imprisonment for fraud.”

Poor Enrique not only had premonitions that all the madness would end badly for him, but he couldn’t even get his Facebook friends to realize he wasn’t speaking metaphorically, with them responding to his confessions with condescending “In a way, aren’t we all …” platitudes. A month before Mr. and Mrs. Farook went all jihad in San Bernardino, Marquez got into a Facebook discussion:

[MARQUEZ]: No one really know knows me. I lead multiple lives and I’m wondering when its all going to collapse on M[e]
[Facebook User]: incidentally
[MARQUEZ]: Yeah. My life turned ridiculous
[Facebook User]: I think everyone leads multiple lives
[MARQUEZ]: Involved in terrorist plots, drugs, antisocial behavior, marriage, might go to prison for fraud, etc.

I like the response, “I think everyone leads multiple lives.” What movie or TV show did that “In a way, don’t we all …” trope come from where the main character can’t get anybody to realize he’s telling the ridiculous truth? It’s like an anti-Being There. It’s kind of an El Guapo Speech, but a little different.

COMMENTS:

* Marquez being sent up the river is expected. What I’m waiting to see is what the Feds do with the Russian “wife” and if they’ll go so far as to indict her sister for conspiracy to commit immigration fraud and deport her too.

If that hand plays out it’ll result in the odd outcome of an Islamic terrorist attack resulting in the imprisonment of a Mexican and two Russian women.

Now that I think about it, the Feds could probably indict Farook’s family for knowing about the marriage scam or possibly facilitating it, and maybe even round up the Mexican boyfriend of the fake wife.

Immigration law could be the way to put the whole family away, just like tax law put away Al Capone.

* This guy converted but remained a sap who, with just a little pressure, spilled the beans to the feds and renounced his Islamic omerta.

Incidentally, I was just watching an episode of Lockup this weekend that had an Hispanic inmate who converted to Islam for a few months, but then wanted to chuck it because all the washing and praying 5 times a day was too annoying for him and gave him no peace.

And we can’t forget that, despite 700 years of Muslim rule over the Iberian peninsula, Spain and Portugal really didn’t take to Islam and forcibly kicked it out—and Spain became the most Catholic nation in Europe, complete with controlling many popes.

So I’m going to say something pretty racist: it seems as if Hispanic and Portuguese cultures really don’t mix with Islam all that well.

So, if Trump doesn’t close the border and deport the illegals, we can at least bet on the Latin Americans invading to have no problems themselves dealing with Islamists by making it extremely unwelcome in their neighborhoods—and not converting to Islam at all.

It would be a consolation prize, I guess: gang violence beats terrorism.

* This Mexican guy wanted a Russian mail order bride because he couldn’t get a Mexican girlfriend in The Inland Empire. Which makes sense because Enrique Marquez looks like a total square nerd/geek and the vast majority of Mexican women prefer the bad boy Vato Cholo look that you see in Mexican gangsta films like Blood In Blood Out, Sicario, and End Of Watch. Mexican women are like African American women in that very few of them are open to dating guys who look as geeky nerdy as Mr. Marquez and Rick Moranis for example from Honey I Shrunk The Kids. Where Russian women associate the square geek male nerd look with being a good financial provider. Hence why it is not unusual for some Russian women to marry an extremely nerdy looking Jap or Chinaman that they meet online.

* I’m continually surprised by how these Muslim terrorists chose their targets, just ordinary people, so all they accomplish is instilling fear of random violence. Anders Breivik though had strategic vision and his terrorist attack struck at the heart of his enemies.

Imagine how terrorists could influence society if they targeted the high and mighty? In this regard, these terrorists are like black rioters who riot in their own black neighborhoods, destroying the shops that they and their family use on a daily basis instead of taking a bus to Beverly Hills and destroying that neighborhood.

* Re: Four Lions

Your review of that film in Taki’s Magazine was, as ever, absolutely spot on, Steve: Chris Morris, despite his reputation in Britain as a taboo-breaking satirist, proved that he was just as PC and left wing as all the other comedians in this country.

In addition, it’s interesting to note that Four Lions was:

a) made before the Pakistani grooming gangs were really known about.

and

b) filmed in Sheffield, which neighbours the forever-tainted town of Rotherham.

I doubt, then, that Morris will be heading off to South Yorkshire again to put the Pakistani “community” back on the big screen.

* Including the two Russian sisters in the marriage=visa=permanent residency scams. Including all the legal/illegal immigrants who believe that paying taxes is for suckers (an iSteve line I believe) meaning native born Americans. All immigrants are fiddling and diddling until proven otherwise. Partly because that grand prosperous (for average middle classes) America they saw in movies in Guatemala and Pakistan does not exist anymore. With easy to make money. With easy to score white women with big tits. Gone! At least for you, Jose and Achmed.
So they resort to scam ways of making a living, cash businesses, and paying nothing in taxes or as little as you can can get away without the law/IRS getting after you.

* This whole situation has the feel of a Coen Brothers movie. It has that memorable juxtaposition of absurd characters and mass murder.

* Even though I want him to go to prison for a long time, there’s still a part of me that feels sorry for Enrique. He was probably so thrilled to have a dangerous and daring friend (or any friend at all) that he was willing to do anything to maintain that friendship.

* This sordid story is about as anti-American as a story can be.

But while reading about it, a tune plays in my head.

Because as anti-American as this plot and terror were, the whole cast of characters and the event is wrapped in all the happy-go-lucky themes of neo-Americanism.

Ah, the immigration experience, not from one nation but from three or four. Mexico, Russia, Pakistan, etc. The diversity! The melting pot (or the vibrant pressure cooker).

The interracial marriage(even if farcical and fraudulent, but hey, symbolism is what counts.)

The culture of ‘inclusion’. Give us your huddled, wretched, enraged, bitter, resentful, hateful, fanatical, demented, criminal, pregnant(esp if Chinese), etc.

Multi-culti friendship. New Opportunities. Don’t just shop at Walmart; work at Walmart. What is good for Walmart is good for America. (Why not call it’ tear-down-this-wall-mart’?)

It has all the neo-American themes that could be set to Diamond’s schlocky anthem, yet all these themes that are thought to be so ‘American’ were in the service of something most anti-American. And the horror happened at a X-mas party of all things. (But then, I guess this is just a hardcore war on X-mas. A softcore version has been going on from corporatism that totally commercialized it and by PC that tells us ‘happy holidays’ is good, ‘merry christmas’ is bad.)

(yellow principal bans ‘christmas’ in the name of neo-Americanism which is to americanism what neoconservatism is to conservatism).

This disaster sort of reminds me of ERASERHEAD, BLUE VELVET, and MULHOLLAND DR.

ERASERHEAD has themes of family movie. BLUE VELVET of American suburbia with green lawns and happy families. MUL DRI of the American Dream of fame and success.
But, those themes seen them through the glass darkly. Dream becomes nightmare.

This recent terror shows that for multi-culti to work, we must all seek deracination, mindless consumerism, and hedonism and NOTHING ELSE.

Suppose Farook gave up Islam and became just another Walmartian. Just another Black Friday nut running riot for video games. And suppose Marquez were the same way. Both would be alive and their victims would be alive. They would all be consumers and getting along cuz they have only one thing in common: consume, consume, consume. No identity or loyalty beyond that.

But Farook had a loyalty higher and deeper(and more darker)than that.

America says it is open to ALL cultures, but if every ethnic group really practiced their cultural values and loyalties, US would blow up. Multi-culturalism only works if various people give up their own cultural values and loyalties.

Cultures are different and at odds. They cannot live side by side as equals. A dominant majority culture can tolerate a weaker minority culture, but when everyone is told that his culture should have equal representation and power in a nation, there will be resentment if that isn’t the case.

So far, multi-cultaralism has worked politically for the ‘left’ cuz of the KKKrazy Glue. Different groups with very different values have been pulled together in common hatred of whitey. And white Libs have joined this coalition as ‘good whites’ at war with ‘bad whites’.

But as whites get weaker/smaller and with Obama as two-term president, the idea of all-powerful white ‘racist’ as bogeyman is no longer compelling. Already, the colored folks are turning against Jews who seem so powerful in elite colleges.

Multi-cultism works if various groups are made to favor consumerism and pop culture hedonism over all else. Above Allah, above race, above nation, and etc. And if they kowtow to PC that says all ‘victim groups’ must support ‘gay marriage’ in solidarity against the ‘right’.

This is a harder sell to Muslims, and this makes Muslims both more dangerous and, in some ways, admirable.
Muslims do have a higher calling than ‘gay marriage’ and consumerism. They have Allah.

In contrast, most Latinos and Asians don’t. They may gripe about their ‘victim’ status, but they really just wanna be a part of the ‘cool culture’ of America. Their identities become superficial as their highest value becomes listening to Jay-Z and living the sex and city lifestyle.

They have no higher value than what they see on TV and get from globo-professors.

So, they assimilate better to neo-Americanism. And as white Americans have been deracinated and de-cultured, they too easily become Black Friday zombies brainwashed by PC as the highest religion.

But Muslims will never give up their faith for neo-Americanism even as they take advantage of it.

Of course, white Americans must not become as crazy and barbaric as Muslims.
But they have something to learn from Muslims, namely that they need to believe in something higher, deeper, and more powerful than PC, Oprah, consumerism, hedonism, fashion, and MTV.

White Americans must submit to the needs of their own race, culture, and history, not submit to globalism.

PS. Most Americans, even Libs, will admit that Farook’s action was anti-American. But what is ‘American’ in our world? Far more dangerous and depressing than Farook’s blatant anti-Americanism is the fact that a soft form of anti-Americanism is now the official Americanism of America.

Barack is the prez. He’s for open borders, ‘gay marriage’, anti-white policy, blowing up other nations, PC, praising Bruce Jenner as a woman, instigating black urban violence, and etc.
How are those things ‘American’? Yet, such things now have the official stamp of approval.

As for Trump saying we need to strengthen borders and take tough measures to ensure no more terror? The entire spectrum of the ‘American’ Establishment says that is ‘un-American’ or ‘anti-American’.

Institutional Terror against True America is the new Americanism. Farook is small potatoes.

Globo-elite terrorists with briefcases filled with legal paper did more damage to American than terrorists with bombs in suitcases.
The Rahm Emanuels and Paul Ryans of the world are worse terrorists against America than the likes of Farook and his minion Marquez.

* Notably the plan which was abandoned was to throw pipe bombs on the 91 Freeway where there were no exits, to block traffic, and then go down the freeway killing everyone, police first, then firefighters, lastly civilians. Abandoned after unrelated terrorism arrests of other Muslims in the Inland Empire.

Muslim Jihadis don’t want to attack elites — elites already agree with them. They want to kill ordinary people so they will surrender and submit. That’s the whole point. That is how Muslims have operated since the beginning. Elites surrender immediately and the ordinary people are terrorized into submission.

* Muslim terrorists living in The U.S never commit terrorist attacks at locations mostly frequented by Liberals like Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, Black Lives Matter Rallies, and Gay Pride Parades for example. Is this just a mere coincidence? The conspiracy theorist in me says it is not. Jihadists are afraid the pro-open borders invite the world elites will turn against Islam, if Muslims start terrorizing places that are considered sacred to Liberals. So far Jihadists have not done anything to piss off people who plan to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

* SoCal federal prosecutors spend about 40% of their time deporting alien criminals. The modal deportee is a 50 yesr old Mexican who has been deported before and has drug and alcohol issues.

It does happen, in large numbers, and they often get long prison sentences before their deportation. the problem is one of numbers and funding, we are set up for about 100,000 real deportations a year, and the annual number of illegals is much higher.

We also do a lot of “agree to leave immediately so we don’t have to formally deport you, and that way you avoid jail and are not banned from the USA for life.”

* Everyone was convinced because that is what Charles Moose, the inept head of the task force, told everyone. D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey concurred, “We were looking for a white van with white people.” They were very disappointed when it turned out to be two black guys, but they responded by downplaying any connection John Allen Muhammad had to the Religion of Peace. My home state of Virginia did have the cojones to execute Muhammad after his conviction. His youthful sidekick was tried in Maryland and is a ward of the taxpayers for life.

* The San Bernardino situation, if comic at all, is the blackest of comedies. This doofus reminds me of William H. Macy’s character from Fargo. He got in way over his head and was too stupid to realize it until it was too late.

* Like all armies, including the U.S. Army, Islam doesn’t send its Best & Brightest into the self-selected ranks of its expendable infantry for small unit action.

Islam gulls or incites its least brainy, least capable to commit the small unit action jihad attacks. For its showpiece big impact jihad attacks Islam sends its Best & Brightest – as with Mohammed Atta in the 9-11 attacks. All the rest of the small unit action jihadis are nothing but expendable infantry doing their koranic job to “strike terror” into the kuffar/kufr/kaffir.

Be not misled by Islam’s least competent – yet no less lethal – ordinary self-selected small unit action jihadis, because they, like all the rest of Islam’s multiple jihad prongs, serve Islam’s purpose. Even the dumbest jihadis serve Islam’s stick-prong of Islam’s carrot-&-stick multi-pronged jihad. You saw the effect of these small unit jihadi attacks this earlier this week, as that one San Bernardino jihad slaughter prompted the L.A. United School District to waste millions of dollars to shut down classes for a single day – and this, too, serves Islam’s jihad purpose and ultimate goal.

Moreover, by compelling its non-organized (i.e. , not connected to major Islamic jihad divisions such as Al Qaida or ISIS) expendable self-selected small unit infantry to commit jihad attacks, Islam takes advantage of its self-selected small units’ ability to get through Western security. Even when the small jihad units are caught in pre-attack or jihad-support by Western security, they too serve the purpose of spreading Western security thin and driving up the cost to the kuffar of kuffar security; and Moslem inmates the purpose of pursuing dawa (proselytizing) in prisons while forcing the kuffar to pay for the imprisoned Moslems’ shelter, clothing and food (and Moslem inmates demand and get halal chow, at extra expense to us kuffar). Plus, from each successful and unsuccessful small jihadi operation, jihadis of every sort learn more about how to outfox Western security and defenses.

* Liberals can blame Walmart and it’s low wages for why Enrique Marquez decided to become a gun runner for Jihad. Yes poverty was the root cause for the San Bernardino terrorist attack. Not a liberal immigration policy that lets in any 3rd world person with a working pulse. This is entirely the fault of the Walton family. Poverty breeds Jihad. That is why poor White trash people in Appalachia are converting to radical Islam in alarming numbers. The only way Enrique could pay the bills was to become a gangsta for Jihad.

* Think of Mishima and the young man who committed ritual suicide with him. The young lad was some naive farm boy who felt so flattered to be chosen by the great writer that he just blindly went along… But deep down inside, he was just a wuss. When the time came for the Big Act, he totally botched it and he barely scratched his belly before his head was cut off.

But then, are GOP cucks all that different? They are such sappy toadies to the oligarchs who fund them and order them about.

When under the will of someone stronger, approval from the master trumps all else.

We see this in DOWNFALL. The German officers are so much under the spell of Hitler that they follow him to the end. If such capable and intelligent men do that, it’s hardly surprising for someone like Marquez.

“You’re my amigo? Really?”

Mexican saps are willing to serve anyone who has more will and power.
It could be something good or something bad.
But morality and ideology are not the main issue. It is personality and will.

But then, same goes for white cucks. They will serve the power that is pushiest and meaniest. So, GOP serves pushy Neocons, and white college deans all cave to the demands of BLM. Jews are pushy, and blacks are fisty.

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