China's pledge to maintain Hong Kong's freedoms and institutions is as worthless as Xi Zedong's promise not to militarize the South China Sea

Bloomberg reports the threat of a crackdown on June 4 vigil participants, here.

Xi Jinping broke his promise in the South China Sea, and will break the one to Hong Kong as well. It's just a matter of time.

The money line of the day comes from Niall Ferguson

Here in The Boston Globe:

A state that requires dictatorship to be stable is not as strong as it looks — just as one based on individual liberty is not as weak as it looks.

Reuters/Yahoo News can't bring itself to say China's Xi Jinping is a dictator who's enemy is freedom of speech

Tut tut, looks like enemy propaganda.

Here in "China's Xi says internet control key to stability":

Chinese regulators have been driving a sweeping crackdown on media content, which has been gaining force since last year, spreading a chill among content makers and distributors.

No shit, Sherlock.

CNBC story on conservative anger with Trump deliberately omits the centrality of differences over illegal immigration policy

That's what Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter are all about, after all, but CNBC just dances around this as if it didn't really exist.

Ann Coulter only tweets almost every day a "border wall lack-of-progress" update.

Conservatives are outraged also that Trump would trade a wall for DACA-type amnesty. DACA is illegal. Obama's executive order was unconstitutional. Trump acts like it's no big deal, just like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin becoming dictators for life is no big deal to him, either.

It's a propaganda technique: Pretend something doesn't exist, and it doesn't. It's called marginalization. The communist Alinsky made it one of his rules for radicals. To talk about what your enemy wants to talk about is to assist your enemy by publicizing his issues, so don't do it.

See for yourself here.

Like Obama before him, Trump congratulating Putin for his fraudulent win simply normalizes the acceptability of Putin's dictatorship

Like the French, we just shrug.

So-called National People's Congress of China votes 2,959-2 to remove term limits for Xi Jinping, with 3 abstentions

The story is here.

So, our two main rivals in the world are now each ruled by perpetual dictators, as they were in the past.

And to think from 1992 some in the West foolishly accepted the idea of the end of history, "that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and free market capitalism of the West and its lifestyle may signal the end point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and become the final form of human government."

Not even Francis Fukuyama believed it for more than three years.

Unfortunately the George W. Bush administration, in its ignorant hubris, did.

But here we now are, having squandered the intervening years, and Trump is just fine with the new dictatorships. He admires them no less than Obama did. They are grandiose, like he is, like Obama is. He wishes he could be one of them, too.

When was the last time you heard a statesman from the West call on these rival powers to throw off their chains and embrace freedom?

I can't remember, either.

Freedom as we have known it in the world is in great peril, and we hardly care.

Therefore we will lose it, sooner rather than later.

Trump doubles down on autocratic rule in China, says "I think it's great"

If you're not offended by Trump's casual flaunting of the seriousness of his role as "leader of the free world" by now, then you are as un-American as he is and deserve to be ruled by a dictator.

Watch for Rush Limbaugh to dismiss this as just yet one more instance of Trump trolling his mostly liberal opposition in order to dominate the news cycle.

The news cycle.

That remark by the press during the 2016 campaign that Trump could shoot someone in the street and still get elected has drilled itself down into Trump's brain and has become a veritable axiom and exemplar to Trump about his invulnerability, which explains the freedom with which he has so many times gone off the reservation of his own supposedly strongly held beliefs: "They say I have the most loyal people -- did you ever see that? -- where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters".

Obviously, he doesn't have any strongly held beliefs, except the belief in his own greatness which his twisted sense of self has from the beginning latched on to in the flimsiest of quarters, the news cycle.  

From the story here:

"He's now president for life, president for life. And he's great," Trump said, according to audio of excerpts of Trump's remarks at a closed-door fundraiser in Florida aired by CNN. "And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday," Trump said to cheers and applause from supporters.

It is not clear if Trump, 71, was making the comment about extending presidential service in jest. The White House did not respond to a request for comment late Saturday.

U.S. Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat, said on Twitter that "whether this was a joke or not, talking about being President for life like Xi Jinping is the most unAmerican sentiment expressed by an American President. George Washington would roll over in his grave."

Rand Paul slams John McCain, says he would have bankrupted the country by now with perpetual war

McCain's in Munich slamming Trump as a dictator. McCain's proving everyday what a horrible president he would have made.

Senator Rand Paul, putting the embarrassing man in his place, here:

“He would bankrupt the nation. We’re very lucky John McCain’s not in charge, because I think we’d be in perpetual war,” Paul added.

NATO member Turkey on the brink of an elected dictatorship under Erdogan

Crazy. Ataturk set the country on a course of secularization. Erdogan is doing the reverse, in the style and guise of Ataturk.

From the story here:

Bulent Turan, a whip from the Islamist-rooted AK Party, which Erdogan co-founded, rejected opposition claims that the amendments would create an elected dictatorship, saying they sought to allow for greater government oversight and to speed up decision making. ... Turkey’s parliament was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1920 as part of a secular and Western-oriented revolution that replaced the theocratic Ottoman Empire. Should Erdogan succeed, Turkey is set to a have a president who will basically concentrate as much power as Ataturk.

Joe Biden wants to plunge Europe into war if dictator Erdogan's TURKEY is attacked

The dangerous illogic of NATO overreach is completely lost on Joe Biden, here:

At a time when Trump and his advisors are talking about shaking up NATO, Biden said, we must "support our NATO allies. An attack on one is an attack on all, that can never be placed in question." ... "We need to tap into the big heartedness [and raise taxes on the 1%]," Biden said. "This is a moment to lead boldly."

Then why didn't you run, Joe?

Some leader.

Liberal progressives. All talk. No action.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams uncovers the bloodthirst causing Hillary Clinton's chronic cough

Here:

This past week we saw Clinton pair the idea of President Trump with nuclear disaster, racism, Hitler, the Holocaust, and whatever else makes you tremble in fear. ... [O]nce you define Trump as Hitler, you also give citizens moral permission to kill him. And obviously it would be okay to kill anyone who actively supports a genocidal dictator, including anyone who wrote about his persuasion skills in positive terms. (I’m called an “apologist” on Twitter, or sometimes just Joseph Goebbels). 

Erick Erickson's Israel-firster pal Steve Berman thinks everyone who supports Trump should be shunned

Here, where the cultist projects his own cultism onto the real estate magnate:

"Every Trump supporter should be ostracized–especially those in politics, the media, and leadership. Failing to stop the cult of personality is as bad as swearing allegiance to it. Those who play for influence, cater to the Trumpkin crowd to acknowledge their anger, or otherwise make nice with the budding despot must be shunned and called for what they are: cult-enablers. Those who support Trump must be treated as cultists."

Here is an example of the fever from which Steve Berman suffers:

"As Christians, we have a calling to support Israel because it’s God’s desire. As Americans, we have an obligation to support Israel because they represent a free society in a part of the world dominated by oppressive dictatorships. Most importantly, we must support Israel because doing so is walking in the light.  We must walk in the light because we are in Christ."

Senator Ben Sasse, race-baiting, lying liberal suck-up who believes in amnesty for illegal aliens

Interviewed here:

CHUCK TODD: I believe you are the only Republican [senator] right now who was said you will not vote for Donald Trump under any circumstances...

SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): . . . This guy believes in abortion on demand, this guy says that he hates the concept of guns, this guy's been for single-payer health care, he's for a $6 trillion tax increase. ... [W]hen you listen to Donald Trump, all you really hear is more Donald Trump, more tear it down, and a lot of praise of foreign dictators. ... [Y]ou did a great service to people by talking about the history of the Whigs and the Republicans. This is, in some ways, an 1860 moment. ... [I]f this becomes the Donald Trump/David Duke party, there are a lot of us who are out.

Mark Levin's Conservative Review gives Ben Sasse an "A" rating:

Sasse also supports legal status for illegal immigrants. 

Endorsements matter: Communist dictator Hugo Chavez endorsed Obama in 2012

Obama's middle class economics at work: Middle class adults outnumbered by upper and lower classes for the first time in 2015

Pew reports here:

80.0 million middle income vs. 51.6 million lower and upper income in 1971, but 120.8 million middle income vs. 121.3 million lower and upper income in 2015.

The middle still outnumbered the lower and the upper by 3 million in 2011, but not anymore. This is what Obama meant by "Forward!" in 2012. Reducing the size of the middle class is the long-stated objective of the communists.

"[T]he lower middle-class masses are the most dangerous enemies of the dictatorship of the proletariat. ... Their special interests are absolutely incompatible with the economic disturbances which are the inevitable accompaniment of transitional periods."

-- Bela Kun

WaPo rips papal visit to Cuba's Castro, concluding "it takes more fortitude to challenge a dictatorship than a democracy"

The editorial is here, which I was able to see without a paywall.

When WaPo rips the church for hypocrisy, it makes sure you know it.

Libertarian Ben Domenech, like every sick liberal does, descends into the politics of personal destruction

Libertarian Ben Domenech, here, sensing his own marginality, states quite seriously that deporting law-breakers and enforcing the constitutional concept of jurisdictional citizenship is nothing short of racism and despotism:

"The idea that America is going to endure the blood and moral outrage over the deportation of 11 million people, including young children of illegals born here who are constitutionally American citizens, is absurd. Even one of the most prominent immigration hawks, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, dismissed this mass deportation as impossible on my radio show this week. But Donald Trump has proposed this, and loudly insisted he will do it. And the faction of the country that believes not in freedom but identity politics for white people adores it."

Sprinkled throughout he calls Trump supporters a bunch of narrow-minded, disaffected, angry street thugs who are motivated by an unprincipled and frankly anti-constitutional emotionalism to support a dangerous man who is only too willing to rule in a dictatorial and autocratic manner in the style of Obama but for the "right" reasons. Why, they'll even abolish the US Senate!

It's that simple you see. You knuckle-dragging conservatives have an insufficient concept of freedom. How dare you have a border and stop other people from exercising their right to be free by crossing it! How dare you successfully deport over a million illegal aliens in 1954 with just 750 agents!

The outrage! The horror!

Russia's Sergey Lavrov: Obama is failing because he hates Assad more than terrorism

Quoted here:

"If people continue to acquiesce with what is going on, and continue to acquiesce with those who categorically refuse to start the political process until Bashar Assad disappears then I am not very optimistic for the future of this region," he said.

"Because these people put the fate of one person whom they hate on top of the fight against terrorism," Lavrov said.

"We have been through this repeatedly. Saddam Hussein was the one person after whom the United States went and they ruined the country."

"Gaddafi is the same," he said, referring to Libya's fallen dictator.

MSNBC dingbat tries to tell the world Animal Farm wasn't aimed at the Soviet Union

Her name? Krystal Ball.

(With a name like that shouldn't she be doing the weather somewhere, or maybe the traffic? No, I know! Market futures!)

Here she is in all her dimness, trying to frame George Orwell's fairy story as a screed against capitalism:

Animal Farm, hmm. Isn't that Orwell's political parable of farm animals where a bunch of pigs hog up all the economic resources, tell the animals they need the food because they're the makers and then scare up a prospect of a phony boogie man every time their greed is challenged?

Sorry, no. The original capitalist pigs were the communists, which is why the communists like "Krystal Ball" work so hard to make you think the opposite:

One publisher during the war, who had initially accepted Animal Farm, subsequently turned it down after an official at the British Ministry of Information warned him off. The publisher then wrote to Orwell, saying: "If the fable were addressed generally to dictators and dictatorships at large then publication would be all right, but the fable does follow, as I see now, so completely the progress of the Russian Soviets and their two dictators [Lenin and Stalin], that it can apply only to Russia, to the exclusion of the other dictatorships. "Another thing: it would be less offensive if the predominant caste in the fable were not pigs. I think the choice of pigs as the ruling caste will no doubt give offence to many people, and particularly to anyone who is a bit touchy, as undoubtedly the Russians are."

In Orwell's London Letter for Partisan Review dated 17 April 1944 he stated how it was "next door to impossible to get anything overtly anti-Russian printed" because of the US, UK, Soviet alliance.

What's next from old Krystal? The OSS (formed in 1941) murdered Trotsky?

Contempt For The Middle Class Was Standard Communist Fare In The 1920s, But Noemie Emery Never Mentions It

Here, in "Obama's polls fall as middle class gets his number":

Fred Siegel of the Manhattan Institute, whose latest book, The Revolt Against The Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class, explains all you wanted to know about Obama, and much else. ... Siegel points to an alternative point of dissension: a contempt for the middle class, for commerce, and thus for most of the American culture, that predated the New Deal by more than a decade, and poisons our waters today. From this angle, the road to perdition (and/or Obama) was paved around 1920, when the best and the brightest, depressed by the Great War and the funk that came after, decided all was not well in the world and the nation, and the great middle class was to blame.

The progressives of the 1920s drank deeply from the well of Marxist disdain for the middle class and drew inspiration from it, for example from the likes of Bela Kun writing in Pravda, May 4, 1918, here, in "Marx and the Middle Classes":

“The internal enemy” of the proletarian Russian Revolution is constituted first and foremost by the lower middle classes. ... [T]hough the representatives of various shades of lower middle-class Socialism are constantly referring to Marx, in reality there is no greater sacrilege than this. ... The lower middle-class is not fit to wield power, and a long government by it is unthinkable. ... [T]he lower middle-class masses are the most dangerous enemies of the dictatorship of the proletariat. ... [T]he lower middle class attitude — attachment to the idea of private property, more or less open striving to uphold credit, terror of every fundamental social disturbance — is in practice the greatest internal enemy of the proletariat and the proletarian revolution.

Given Obama's early and deep appreciation of Marxism through the influence of people like Frank Marshall Davis, the pussy-footing around of people like Noemie Emery has gotten more than a little annoying at this late stage of the game. Obama is nothing more than a Trojan Horse trying to bring this communist vision into the present disguised as helping the middle class when what he really wants to do is wipe it out. He's off to a good start.

The black Florida Republican recently investigated by the Secret Service for suggesting Obama should be arrested, tried and hung as a traitor may be more right than he knows.