Javier Milei was elected President of Argentina yesterday and the global Left is having a conniption fit, as per usual when someone not Left-approved gets in. There is much positive to be said about Milei as his proposals work out to a wholesale rejection of the Social Democratic order imposed around the world since WWII. He is saying everything a populist Right politician should say. And it will be a great thing if he’s able to carry out his reforms. The big question: will he?
Last year Italy surprisingly elected Georgia Meloni Prime Minister and the global Left also had a fit about her…but in her tenure illegal immigration to Italy has massively increased. This was the issue that brought her to power – it is what the people of Italy elected her to do: stop illegal immigration. It has increased. In other words, had Italy elected a Left-approved government, it would have been no different on this issue. The latest step she’s taken is to come to an agreement with Albania (which is not an EU member) to take in the migrants as they are processed. This is being slammed on the populist Right as a betrayal…mostly because it is. It is a concession that the people flooding from Africa to Europe have a right to do so and the only thing Europe can do is play around the edges and maybe stop some small number of them on one pretext or another and only after some sort of judicial review.
My bet is that after her election those people in the West who fund and organize the migrations (I have no proof of this: but penniless Third Worlders cannot cross thousands of miles without massive support…someone is backing the movement) put it into overdrive to put Meloni on the spot. This has worked. Her plan to send them to Albania won’t do a thing to stop the migrations, it just adds another step to the process.
Italy does have a Navy – a pretty modern one, too. Plenty of patrol craft can ply the waters between Libya and Italy to intercept the slow moving migrant ships and simply send them back to Libya. Just a few weeks of aggressive patrolling will put a lid on it. Nobody is going to make an effort to cross when the almost invariable result will be interception by the Italian Navy and return to Libya. They’ll find some other country to go to or go back to wherever in Africa they hail from. If there is a concern that some of them are genuine asylum seekers, then Italy could open up a consulate in, say, Benghazi protected by the Italian military just for processing asylum requests…with the asylum-seekers remaining in Libya under Italian protection until their case is heard. The Prime Minister of Italy controls the military; she could just order the Navy to do this. She didn’t. She just worked out a bogus plan to make it seem like the migrant crisis is being solved but which will do nothing to stop the migration.
Why did she opt for bamboozlement rather than a solution? Almost certainly because Italy wants EU cash. From what I’ve read, Italy is trying to get 90 billion Euros in aid…and EU aid always comes with strings attached. What we have here is the Ruling Class paying the piper and Meloni dancing to their tune. Such it always is, right? He who has the gold makes the rules. To be sure, Italy could cut itself off from the EU, engage in deep economic reforms – suffer a massive recession and then take about five years for the economy to recover. This would be the wise and patriotic thing to do and by telling the EU to get stuffed, Italy could also solve the migration crisis as the people of Italy demand. But there’s a catch: do that and all of the sudden the people will switch from wanting the migrants kicked out to wanting their EU-funded welfare checks. In other words, Meloni’s party would likely be wiped out at the next election if she did what was right for Italy. She should still do it…and if she were a true patriot, she would. But she’s in office and once someone gets in office their primary concern almost invariably becomes staying in office (especially with all the perks being in office provides these days – seriously, guys; look it up – those who get into office are coddled in luxuries that even kings of olden days couldn’t dream of).
And, so, now we’ll see how Milei does. Like a lot of populists he’s talked a great game. He has first rate proposals. But like all populists the global Ruling Class hates him and will do everything it can to undermine him. Right now, Argentina is pretty much an economic basket case – a century of Progressive policies have turned what was once a First World nation into a joke. It will take massive reforms at all levels to get Argentina out of its plight. If Milei is a true Argentinian patriot (as Nayib Bukele is a true El Salvadoran patriot) he’ll damn all the critics and just get the job done for his country. In other words, he won’t be worried about staying in office, but about saving his country. He’ll have a smile on his face as he contemplates near-certain defeat at the polls as he goes about saving his country. He’ll know that even if his people hate him for what he’s doing, he’s doing what is right and one day the people will understand that. Audacity is the key for any real reformer; to just press ahead…to move so fast and on so many levels that the critics are left in confusion…shouting in impotent rage about the last thing done while you’re already on to the next. I wish Milei well and I hope for a new Argentina.
But make no mistake about it, the chances that Milei will win are low. He’s now going to be in office and from the first minute he’ll be submerged in all those temptations. The global Left will be working behind the scenes to make economic life even harder for Argentina. Just about forget any foreign loans unless you’re willing to torpedo your own reforms. Make no mistake about it: this can be done. Argentina is a nation slopping over with wealth – large territory, huge natural resources, educated population. In just a few years the whole thing can be turned around and real prosperity set in. It is getting through those few years that are the trouble…that usually cause populist reformers to fail.
For reference, see what was done to Trump. Pretty much ever lever of power around the world was turned against him – including and especially those Constitutionally under Trump’s control. Rely on it that the bureaucracy of Argentina – sitting fat on the government – will do everything they can to save their own bacon. But on the plus side, Milei is saying his priority is to get rid of the bureaucracies. That might be the key – if you get rid of those within your own government who are against you then your reforms can proceed unimpeded. If Milei is able to pull it off, it will only be because he got rid of his fiercest enemies: his own government. If so then the lesson for us should we in in 2024 is that job one is simply to fire everyone. To get rid of them; they can whine and complain about it all they want, but they won’t have any levers of power to use against us.
We’ll see, won’t we?
Blogs For Victory 
Like you, I’m kind of skeptical that true reform can be achieved. The global Left has proved with the non-stop persecution of Trump that it will stop at nothing to remain in power. I say “global Left” because Trump’s opposition is not limited to just our Lefties. So far they haven’t resorted to assassination, but I have no doubt that that arrow is in their quiver. It’s going to take exceptional individuals backed by equally exceptional and loyal aides, and even then, as you note, such a large percentage of people are so used to free stuff that the pushback from the grass roots on up is going to be enormous and relentless. Sooner or later economic and or societal collapse is very likely to play a major part. As a Christian I know how the story eventually ends, but it’s going to get ugly before we get to the good part.
I have been using the term “International Left” for many years now. The International Left is tightly focused and patient, unlike the impatient and undisciplined American Left, which keeps telegraphing its agenda and making stupid blunders.
I do think there is a growing number of Americans catching on to the scam of Leftism, as they see their own situations undermined and their futures uncertain. I do think that one election cycle, if definitive enough, can change the arc of American government, but it will take a victory decisive enough to give us Congress and a Republican President.
Great comments from Milei … Socialism is a cancer that must be killed, not just defeated.
That the most concise and elegant presentation of what is happening/has happened to our country I have ever seen or heard. A transcript of this should be required reading in every school and read out loud in front of each house of Congress right after the opening prayer.
Agree
Perhaps we could recruit Milei to come here and teach our Conservatives how to articulate conservative ideas.
I think he’s getting enough press to get his messages across, and one of them is that people like him CAN win elections if they can convey their messages to the people. Going on Tucker’s show was genius.
I am very very far from fluent in Spanish, but I understand enough to realize that when he spoke he was concise and never wasted a word. He might be flamboyant and he might need a good barber but the man is a force to be reckoned with, and I hope an inspiration to conservatives here in the United States.
He also won the youth vote – and Argentinian colleges are just as miserably woke as ours…to be sure, I’ve seen some video of him and he can go on profanity filled rants and maybe that got the kiddies to pay attention…because even in the rants there is a theme of truth and reform.
Wow. Turns out, Hunter Biden was a government official …
Hunter Biden once admonished a Mexican business magnate for ignoring him after he set up multiple meetings with Joe Biden during his vice presidency.
And this is why they have to imprison Trump. The amount of corruption is just too hard to hide anymore.
“I’ve looked at what your family has done and want to follow in that tradition and you always say you will help but I haven’t heard from you since I got you a mtg for Carlos and your Dad. We have been talking about business deals and partnerships for 7 years. And I really appreciate you letting me stay at your resort villa…but I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F’ing WHite House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration and then you go completely silent,” Hunter Biden added.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/11/20/hunter-biden-lashed-out-mexican-business-magnate-ignoring-meetings/
Hunter is a pissy little thing, isn’t he? There are several instances where he has had a little hissy fit over someone not responding to him fast enough or the way he wanted. I’m sure he was a joy to work with. He’s coming across as guy who would demand all the green M&Ms be taken out of the bowl and screeching about using wire hangers.
Here’s Mr. and Mrs. Brezinski obsessing about Trump again … so just another day
https://x.com/tomselliott/status/1726964182531407906?s=20
In a 2nd term, “[Trump] will imprison, he will execute whoever he is allowed to imprison, execute, drive from the country. Just look at his past.
Well, I did look at his past, and never did find anyone he imprisoned, or executed, or drove from the country (though we did have our hopes up when a clutter of self-important “celebrities” declared that his victory was driving them out of the country, only to be disappointed to see them clinging on, like ticks).
I suppose that somewhere some feeble-minded TV addict will parrot the theme that Trump has a history of authoritarianism so extreme that he has a history of killing people, or chasing them out of the country, or throwing them in prison. The odd/sad thing is that they will also vote for the man/party that has brought a whole new era of authoritarianism to this country, denying medical care to those who refuse to bend the knee to pseudo-science and imprisoning those who exercise their First Amendment rights to petition the government for redress of wrongs.
I am absolutely convinced that neither Joey nor the Bimbo believe a word of this claptrap because, as misguided as they are, they are not clinically stupid. Rather, they are both dedicated to advancing the Leftist cause no matter how much they have to beclown themselves to do so and callously protecting their own tiny patch of the media by obediently parroting even the most insane scripts provided to them.
Dr. Milei is basically an intellectual academic who became a truth warrior in response to the damage he saw being done to his country by a parasitic administrative state. In other words, he is yet another intellectual critic who is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
He graduated with a degree in economics from the University of Belgrano, and continued on to obtain a masters degree and doctorate in economics from the Instituto de Desarrollo Economico y Social and Torcuato di Tella University. For over twenty years he taught University-level courses in macroeconomics, economic growth, microeconomics, and mathematics for economists, and authored several books in economics and politics. His signature presidential campaign rallying cry has been “Long live freedom, damn it!”, coupled with criticism of the “thieving and corrupt political class” of Argentina. Austrian school logic formulated as populism for the masses. Labeling Dr. Milei as Trump-like is clearly a gross oversimplification.
……………………………………
No wonder the US Deep State and it’s (sic) Mockingbird media are out to draw blood from this charismatic populist economist. One who dares to combine alternative social media presence with attacks on a parasitic and useless political caste. The elite members of the Atlantic Council and the Council on Foreign Relations must be wetting themselves. Time to let slip the dogs of the censorship-industrial complex, and to watch the Wikipedia and Google ranking manipulation begin. Don’t forget the popcorn.
The truth is that they should be running for their stockpile of Depends. For Austrian school economist Milei self-identifies as an anarcho-capitalist. Not as a “Trump-like”, “alt right”, “far right”, fascist, libertarian, neo-Nazi radical. As such, Milei happens to be at the leading edge of a growing contrarian intellectual movement which directly challenges the legitimacy of the administrative state. One which has now grown to the point where it can no longer be dismissed as “a small minority opinion”, and has been catapulted onto the world stage by an independent Latin American nation with nothing to lose and everything to gain.
We don’t really need more examples of the reasons the FBI and CDC need to be completely reformed if not just scraped off the soles of our shoes and replaced with agencies that are relevant and competent. But even so, the evidence just keeps piling up.
What Most Media Outlets Missed From the Congressional Report About the Illegal CA Biolab
The FBI ran interference for this illegal Chinese biolab and the CDC refused to even test the samples labeled with the names of dangerous pathogens including Ebola. So why should we even fund these parasitical agencies? This is the same FBI getting millions of dollars to build a huge new headquarters and the same CDC promoting mask wearing in our homes on Thanksgiving after enriching some drug companies.
Happy Thanksgiving y’all. It’s just me and the Mrs. this year so we are headed to San Diego for a turkey dinner with friends followed by a beach bonfire !! A little unconventional this year but it will be fun. I hope you all enjoy the day with family and friends because that it was life is really all about.
My youngest daughter and her husband are coming down from Michigan, and we’re all getting together at my granddaughter’s on the north side of Fort Wayne for Thanksgiving dinner. Fall chores are almost done; a few more leaves to clean up and cover the patio furniture, then it’s time to curl up with my dog, my cat, and a good book in front of the wood stove and watch the first snow of winter transform my woods into a winter wonderland.
Sometimes unconventional is good. My husband and I used to have a huge Thanksgiving dinner for all our friends who couldn’t go home for the holiday or didn’t have family, but one year I said I just didn’t feel up to it. So we went to Santa Fe for Thanksgiving. My best friend had lost her chance to get a good flight to her brother’s because she expected to eat with us in Denver, so she went with us. And it was a great Thanksgiving. La Fonda had a wonderful Thanksgiving buffet, and the next night we bailed out early for drinks and were on a balcony overlooking the Plaza when everything started to get really busy. It turned out this was a very big deal, when they lit the lights on the Plaza, and we had the best seats in town.
This year I stayed till Thanksgiving instead of going to Florida at the end of October as I had planned, and am hosting a fairly big dinner for my adopted family. I have tons of help so I don’t have to do any real cooking, being in charge of the bar, and then when travel has settled down Lily Cat and I will fly down south for the winter.
I have so much to be thankful for, as I am sure we all do. This is my favorite holiday of the year, because it isn’t ruined by over-commercialization, and its purpose is to remind us to be aware of and grateful for our many blessings. So Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, who are also an extended family for me (as you often see with my big-sister ragging on Cluster).
I think of you all as extended family as well. Happy Thanksgiving!
LOL. Have a great time and say hi to Lily Cat. And Spook, if you like reading history, pick up Killing the Witches by Bill O’Reilly. Just an amazing account of that time period.
Lily Cat is a good traveler with more than a dozen plane trips so far. She is rolled through airports in a screened wheeled carrier, up and down escalators and over all sorts of floors that make different noises, and just watches the world go by and accepts admiring comments from strangers. On the plane her carrier tucks under the seat and she just naps the whole trip. A couple of times I took her wheels off and carried her like a backpack and she thought that was very cool.
If you hadn’t noticed, the cult word is being thrown around a lot these days when describing the GOP. This is odd of course to rational people, especially in light of how Democrats are operating these days. Below is just another example of the purity tests Democrats insist on ….
RACHEL MADDOW: More than 70 groups, including some of the biggest Latino advocacy organizations in the country, have delivered a letter to Univision describing the Trump interview as a betrayal of trust. Prominent actor and comedian John Leguizamo has called on Latino activists and artists and politicians to boycott Univision. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has reportedly drafted a letter asking Univision’s CEO to please meet with Members of Congress to talk, among other things, disinformation targeting the Latino community. But it’s not just the Trump interview that’s causing such agita. If a big rightward pro-Trump shift is- has been organized at America’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster, that could have huge implications for the 2024 election. I mean, Univision is the 7th biggest network audience in all of TV. It is the most watched Spanish language network in the United States.
And once again we see the Authoritarian Left trying to control what we can see on TV, which of course is just a precursor to controlling what we can say and then what we can think (remember, in Orwell’s prophetic book his totalitarian government implemented the Thought Police, so even personal thoughts could be punished) and, of course, what we can do.
Here we have Identity Politics being imposed on Latinos. If you let Trump speak, you ain’t Latino seems to be what they are thinking.
Do ya think maybe Argentina’s election of a rather Trumpian rebel against the Establishment and corruption in government has these panties all twisted up? If momentum continues to build in that direction, no wonder the Lefties are panicking.
At the end of a segment about record amounts being spent on diversity, equity and inclusion in our military, Jeff Childers ended with this gem. (I’m still laughing)
Well, I can park an extended cab F-350 long bed while checking my makeup, but then I am not burdened by a clutter of various identities I have to defend and it took a lot of experience driving big pickups to be able to do this.
(I used to have a medium duty 2.5 ton truck with an extended chassis so I had an 8′ camper behind the front seats and an 8′ flat bed behind that. I still remember people watching me slot this into a parking spot along the curb in one try. That was fun.)
But back to your point. There are times and places where it might not be a problem to choose people based on their gender(s) or skin color, but none of these are in the military.
And let’s be fair—-a lot of male pilots have overshot runways. Let’s just be grateful they weren’t trying to land on an aircraft carrier.
LOL – as soon as I clicked “reply” I thought, I’ll bet Amazona could park an extended cab F250 while checking her makeup.
Sometimes (rarely) Leftist inadvertently tell the truth. This from a Politico article prior to the recent election in Argentina:
This is the third nudge for me to look into our laws regarding election day statutes. I have twice seen a claim that the general election date is set either by the Constitution or by statute. When I tried looking this up I kept getting linked to 12th Amendment stuff, which is about electors. I did find a couple of things of interest, though.
(1) Election Day in the United States is the annual day for general elections of federal public officials. It is statutorily set by the U.S. government as “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November”,i.e. the Tuesday that occurs within November 2 to November 8.
[Congress chose the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November to harmonize current electoral practice with the existing 34-day window in federal law, as the span between Election Day and the first Wednesday in December is always 29 days. The effect is to constrain Election Day to the week between November 2 and 8 inclusive. Beginning with Presidential elections, states gradually brought most elections into conformity with this date.]
(2) Most states allow early voting, letting voters cast their ballots before Election Day. Early voting periods vary from 4 to 50 days prior to Election Day. Unconditional early voting in person is allowed in 32 states and in D.C. In the 2008 presidential election, 30% of votes were early votes.
(3 The Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November, in every even numbered year, is established as the day for the election, in each of the States and Territories of the United States, of Representatives and Delegates to the Congress commencing on the 3d day of January next thereafter.
I haven’t been able to find the specific statute “statutorily set by the U.S. government as “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November” specifying that this also applies to the presidential election so I also haven’t been able to find a reference to its being overturned or changed by Congress. So why do we allow (2)? From a practical and historical perspective, the general election (for president) has always been on the same day as the election for Congress, which would tie it in with US Code 7. Which leads me to question the legality of states spreading the election over a period of many days or even weeks.
I would like to see our presidential elections returned to one day, in-person voting with exemptions for necessary absentee voting. We can establish as many satellite voting stations as needed, we can allow people to vote outside their own precincts, we can fund transportation to get people to the polls, we can do whatever is possible to make voting accessible to everyone who is legally entitled to vote. Voting requiring a government-issued photo ID, of course.
There should be a massive media campaign telling people if they accepted an offer to register to vote in spite of non-citizen status and then they vote this is a felony punishable by a prison sentence. We should also require re-registration to vote. That is, send out letters which cannot be forwarded but must be returned if not deliverable to the address on the registration form. To remain registered, the voter would have to return a simple form, stating under oath and under penalty of perjury that he or she is a citizen (providing naturalization date and reference number if applicable) and is not registered to vote in any other precinct or state. If Nanny State hysterics flip out, which is pretty predictable, the states could send out different letters which could be forwarded alerting people that if they have moved and not updated their voter registration information they will be removed from the registration rolls if they do not correct this.
I know the Left would find it radical to have voter registration rolls consist only of citizens who are not dead, who live in their stated voting precincts, and who only vote once. I’m OK with Liberal Tears. Personally, I would like to see an election that accurately reflects the preferences of properly registered citizens.
Finally someone asks the question many of us have been wondering about.
Happy Thanksgiving to all. In spite of the world’s turmoil, we have a great many things to be thankful for. Mostly, I’m thankful for our true loving God who diligently watches over us.
Sad, but true.
That’s funny – and sadly true.
Citing Christmas as an ‘obvious example,’ the Canadian Human Rights Commission characterized celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ as ‘discrimination’ rooted ‘in Canada’s history of colonialism.’
As state by one of the commentors; For Global Communism to succeed, they must destroy all religious convictions, all spirituality, all freedoms and liberties, and all opposition speech.
And the family structure.
For Global Communism to succeed, they must destroy all religious convictions, all spirituality, all freedoms and liberties, and all opposition speech.
Well, yeah! That’s always been true. What we need to do is connect the dots, from what is happening here in our own country to that agenda of Communist control
These people are infuriating … slowly but surely, the Pentagon is admitting that the Ukraine conflict, was a war of choice …
RICHARD HAASS: The White House is managing two wars, but in both of them, I would say we’re increasingly at odds with our allies and partners. We just talked the previous hour about differences with Israel about how the war is being fought and about what comes after. In Ukraine, I think we’ve got a real problem where there’s simply an enormous gap between what the goals are of the policy and what the realities are. The idea that Ukraine is going to militarily liberate all the land that Russia occupies, approximately 20% of their territory, it’s laudable. I support it. It’s just not going to happen.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: And, Richard, the White House, I mean, the Pentagon a year ago, in February, was saying pretty much the same thing. I mean, we heard about a spring offensive. They were very, very concerned in February, in February of this year, that these lines were going to be frozen in place, much like world war lines throughout Europe. The question is, with wars on two fronts, how long do we, how long do our allies in Europe, who have all done, I think, together, NATO has done an extraordinary job, how much longer do we continue pushing I think, what many people in the Pentagon would think is the unrealistic goal of Ukraine driving every last Russian out of their country?
RICHARD HAASS: That’s exactly the right question, Joe. What concerns me is when people get disillusioned and increasingly come to the — where you and I are, that as desirable as it is, it’s simply not feasible. They’re going to increasingly say, and we’re hearing it in the House, we’re hearing it in parts of Europe, why should we keep doing this? We’re alrady stressed. We’re trying to support Israel. We’re worried about Taiwan. Even if we give everything we need to give or want to give to Ukraine, it still won’t lead to success.
What I argue, therefore, is the United States needs to have some very direct conversations with Ukraine, with President Zelensky. Talk about reducing their emphasis on liberating land and put emphasis onto holding what they’ve got. In the long run, diplomatically through sanctions, yes, we can try to see the rest of their territory returned.
For right now, let’s have 80% of this country saved, 80% of this country rebuilt. I would actually propose a cease-fire as an interim arrangement to expose the Russians for what they are, so we can rebuild support for Ukraine in this country.
so we can rebuild support for Ukraine in this country.
Talk about an unrealistic goal.
So, for Thanksgiving Dinner I was saying a freeform prayer before dinner and flubbed up a little. One of my wiseass kids responded; “Who invited Biden”?
😂😂