The Impact Of Brexit And The Signed Stimulus Package

MSN is reporting the following today:

Global shares rose and U.S. bond yields ticked higher on Monday after President Donald Trump signed a $2.3 trillion spending package and as investors continued to celebrate a last-minute trade deal clinched between Britain and the European Union.

By backing down from his earlier threat to block the bipartisan bill, Trump allowed millions of Americans to continue receiving unemployment benefits and averted a federal government shutdown.

“As the coronavirus pandemic has shown little sign of abating, the emergency aid was needed to avoid a sharp slowdown in the economy during the first quarter,” said Nobuhiko Kuramochi, market strategist at Mizuho Securities.

“It would have been unsettling if we hadn’t had it by the end of year,” he added.

…Germany’s export-oriented DAX surged to a fresh record high, reflecting relief over the Brexit deal, while the British market was closed for the Boxing Day holiday.

“We can finally move on from the Brexit drama,” said Win Thin, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman.

“After the last-minute deal was struck last week, the UK parliament will vote on the deal Wednesday. With (opposition party) Labour promising its support, it should pass handily,” he added.

Earlier Japan’s Nikkei advanced 0.7% and China stocks also rose, helped by strong industrial profit data. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.1%.

The rollouts of COVID-19 vaccines were also bolstering hopes of more economic normalisation next year, with Europe launching a mass vaccination drive on Sunday.

There is some downward pressure on the financial markets as a result of the new strain of the coronavirus. However, I wonder if we have reached the point of reliving ‘the boy who cried wolf.’ The coronavirus is serious, and it does represent a major health threat. However, it is time to replace fear with logical thinking–protect the vulnerable and let the rest of us go on with our lives.

Good News For Britain

Breitbart is reporting today:

The government’s bill implementing the withdrawal deal has passed through both Houses of Parliament, meaning the UK will finally be leaving the EU on January 31st, 2020.

On Wednesday evening, MPs in the House of Commons rejected the amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill proposed by the House of Lords.

…In a brief comment after the bill passed, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “Parliament has passed the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, meaning we will leave the EU on 31 January and move forwards as one United Kingdom.

“At times it felt like we would never cross the Brexit finish line, but we’ve done it.

“Now we can put the rancour and division of the past three years behind us and focus on delivering a bright, exciting future — with better hospitals and schools, safer streets and opportunity spread to every corner of our country.”

It has been 1,309 days since Britons voted to leave the European Union.

The article concludes:

Leaked plans for the narrative on Brexit Day seen by the Dail Mail reveal that Cabinet ministers will tell Britons that the nation can finally come together, saying: “We will mobilise the full breadth of our new freedoms – from encouraging technology and innovation, to signing new free trade deals around the world.

“As we maximise all the freedoms the British people voted to grasp, we must also work to heal divisions… and reunite our communities.”

Brexit Day will mark “the start of a new chapter in the history of our country, in which we come together and move forward united, unleashing the enormous potential of the British people”, the document said.

So what will this mean for Britain? I don’t claim to understand the British economy or be able to predict the future. However, a few things are obvious. The farther removed a government is from the people government, the less free the people are. Britain is regaining its national sovereignty and its economic freedom. I suspect there will be a rough patch for a bit, but I see the economy of Britain growing because of this move. One of the first things I believe will happen will be a trade deal with America that is designed to help both countries. Stay tuned.

The 2020 Davos Economic Conference

The 2020 Davos Economic Conference will convene this month. The Conservative Treehouse posted an article yesterday announcing that President Trump has announced the Presidential Delegation that will attend the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, from January 20 to January 24, 2020.

The article notes some interesting aspects of this conference:

As a result of the recent U.K. election, pending Brexit, a favorable $7.5 billion WTO ruling and USTR Lighthizer’s new $2.4 billion EU targeted tariff program, the administration has significant advantages going into a trade discussion with the EU in 2020.

Team USA has the world’s strongest economy, the largest market, legally bolstered tariff authority and a quiver full of powerful economic arrows.

Meanwhile Team EU has: (1) the UK leaving; (2) severe drops in German industrial manufacturing; (3) a shrinking French economy; (4) yellow-vests in the streets; and (5) demands for greater economic autonomy from many key member states.

Overlay Germany, France and Italy large economy challenges such as: their promise to meet NATO obligations – and their attachment to the strangling Paris Climate Treaty, and the EU’s collective economic position is precarious at best.

The article includes the list of delegates:

The Honorable Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury, will lead the delegation.

Members of the Presidential Delegation:

1. The Honorable Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury (Lead)
2. The Honorable Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce
3. The Honorable Eugene Scalia, Secretary of Labor
4. The Honorable Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation
5. The Honorable Robert Lighthizer, United States Trade Representative
6. The Honorable Keith Krach, Under Secretary for Growth, Energy and the Environment, Department of State
7. The Honorable Ivanka Trump, Assistant to the President and Advisor to the President
8. The Honorable Jared Kushner, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to the President
9. The Honorable Christopher Liddell, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Coordination.

The pictures included in the article are an indication of things to come:

Stay tuned.

In Britain, The People Are Winning

Fox News is reporting today that British lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to approve Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new Brexit deal Friday. The deal means that Britain will leave the European Union by January 31st.

The article reports:

Before Friday’s vote, Johnson painted it as a moment of closure for Britons, saying, “Brexit will be done, it will be over.”

“This is a time when we move on and discard the old labels of ‘leave’ and ‘remain’,’ he added. “Now is the time to act together as one reinvigorated nation.”

He said passing the bill would end the “acrimony and anguish” that has consumed the country for the last three years.

…The bill commits Britain to leaving the EU on Jan. 31 and to concluding trade talks with the bloc by the end of 2020. Trade experts and EU officials say striking a free trade deal within 11 months will be a struggle, but Johnson insists he won’t agree to any more delays, The Brexit bill has been amended to bar ministers from agreeing to extend the transition period with the EU.

The new divorce bill needs to be ratified by the European Parliament, whose vice president, Pedro Silva Pereira said officials expect to happen by Jan. 29.

It took a referendum and another election, but the wishes of the people in Britain are finally being honored. The political elites who fought Brexit have now been defeated–at least temporarily.

The Search For Significance

This article has two sources–a New York Sun editorial posted today and an article by Scott Johnson posted at Power Line Blog today. Both articles deal with the ‘surprise’ overwhelming victory of Boris Johnson in the British election yesterday.

The New York Sun notes:

It’s hard to overstate how wonderful is the news that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has won a mandate to, after all these years of struggle, lead a restoration of British sovereignty and independence. We may have been in that fight from the early days, but we don’t mind saying that we’ve had moments of doubt, particularly during the past year, that Britain would prevail. All the sweeter the results being tallied this evening.

This is only partly in respect of Brexit. It was, certainly, the overriding issue in the election. It is the very reason why the election was called when it was. Once again, the polls got it wrong. On the eve of the vote, the gods of polling were predicting that the race had become too close to call. A hung parliament couldn’t be ruled out. Some hazarded that Labor’s Jeremy Corbyn might end up at 10 Downing Street.

In the event, the British people delivered a resounding “no” to all that Mr. Corbyn stood for — the resentment of Jews and Israel, the embrace of socialism, and another Brexit referendum. The result is that Labor’s drubbing stands as its worst since 1935. No less than Jonathan Chait rushed out a column to mark that American leftists thought Corbyn’s inevitable victory would be their model against Trumpism.

Which is one way to mark a phenomenon that has been glimpsed throughout this battle since 2016. The phenomenon can be put this way: “As goes Brexit, so goes Trump.” In a way, the Brexit referendum turned out to be a predictor, or even a precursor, of Mr. Trump’s triumph in the election. The victory by Mr. Johnson and the Conservative Party today could well be a precursor of Mr. Trump in 2020. On verra.

Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog notes:

The election has already produced a ruling cliche to describe the results: Labour’s “red wall” crumbled. (In the UK, the colors are reversed: blue represents the Tories, red Labour.) Among the many seats in its “red wall” that has now crumbled, for example, is Tony Blair’s Sedgefield constituency. The Tories picked up a shocking number of seats that historically belonged to Labour in the industrial and rural north. It overstates the results to observe that Labour is contracting to a metropolitan party, but the tendency seems to be implicit in the outcome.

From a distance, at least, Boris proved himself an ebullient and optimistic campaigner, and not just by contrast with the dour and deceitful Corbyn. Boris staked the election campaign on the theme of getting Brexit done. His performance made me think of Steve Hayward’s observation in Churchill on Leadership: “[F]rom time to time, and especially in a crisis, the genuine leader must simply exert his personal force and summon up his willfulness.” Boris seems to me to have met the moment with some part of this quality in leading his party to its remarkable victory yesterday.

The British people voted for Brexit years ago. The ruling elite chose to ignore that vote. The people removed the blockage. I suspect we are going to see similar things in America next year–those who have blocked the immigration and economic policies of President Trump might find themselves on the unemployment line.

The Deep State Doesn’t Go Down Easily–In Any Country

The American Thinker posted an article today about Boris Johnson and his efforts to follow the will of the British voters and exit the European Union. Although I don’t fully understand the procedures involved in the British Parliament, I can see that there is a massive effort to block the exit the people of Britain voted for.

The article reports:

Yes, if thing stand as they do now, delays will go on into eternity, each deadline pushed back, and an exit from the European Union impossible.  The E.U. will notice this and just keep throwing up a wall of resistance to a deal to ensure that Britain stays, like it or not, or else keep moving the goalposts — into eternity.  When delays are endless, what an opportunity.  These useless satraps have nothing better to do, after all.  They like the pounds flowing in.  And such a coincidence: the parliamentary betrayal happened on the 80th anniversary of France and Germany declaring war on Britain.  Plus ça change…

What happened Tuesday certainly involves complicated parliamentary maneuvers, and the people writing of such disappointment do understand how these stakes work.

That said, it seems that the worst that can happen is that the country will be forced into a general election — very soon.  Johnson says that’s what he wants.  There’s actually reason to think Labor may just try to stop him.  But it’s likely he’ll succeed.

Advantage Boris.

After all, how was it that Johnson, instead of the eminently more reasonable-seeming Theresa May, ended up in his position?  He’s only there at all, and not too long ago, because of a powerful groundswell of public support for respecting the will of the majority on leaving the European Union.  Three years of dithering and delays by the inept May kowtowing to the wishes of the European Union and its endless delays is precisely why the Tories decided to take a chance on Boris, someone they rejected earlier as too wild and crazy.

The article concludes:

Johnson, meanwhile, is weathering the storm like a sea captain, tweeting his stance copiously, and coming up with excellent summations of what’s at stake. 

…He’s showing courage.  He’s not losing his nerve.  Voters will take note.  And while nothing is certain, it seems more than a little likely that with his gutsiness and steady hand, he will win this election, sweeping out the weaklings in his party, and then steam full speed ahead toward Brexit, which is what the British really voted for, deal or no deal.  The E.U. in such conditions, unlike now, is going to really, really, really want a deal.

I love the fact that he is using Twitter to bypass the media and speak directly to the people. That reminds me of another world leader. Please follow the link and read the entire article. Even though this is occurring in Britain, it matters to America. Boris Johnson is a leader with the courage to take on the deep state. We need more of that sort of leadership around the world.

This May Not Be A Smoking Gun, But It Is Close

On Thursday, The Gateway Pundit posted part of an on-air conversation between Sean Hannity and Former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani.

The article reports the conversation regarding the Russian collusion scandal:

Rudy then went on to describe the international expanse of this illegal operation.

Rudy Giuliani: The whole thing was made up from the very beginning and they sold it to 90% of our media! It’s a tragedy… The dimensions of it you still don’t realize. There’s plenty of evidence of what happened in Ukraine. Plenty of evidence of what happened in UK. In Italy. This was a massive conspiracy!

Sean Hannity: Do you believe, sir. It appears (investigator) John Durham is spending an awful lot of time in Europe.

Rudy Giuliani: I know why he’s spending an awful lot of time in Europe… He’s spending a lot of time investigating Ukraine, Italy, UK and Australia.

Sean Hannity: Was there outsourcing of techniques that are illegal. In other words, did our top intelligence officials, did they outsource spying on American citizens for the purpose of hurting President Donald Trump or candidate Trump or transition to be President Trump? Did they outsource intelligence gathering methods to spy on Americans to circumvent US law and outsource it to even allied countries. Did that happen, sir?

Rudy Giuliani: There is plenty of evidence that it happened, Sean. Plenty of evidence. Some of it documentary, some of it already recorded. And for a year people in Europe have been trying to get this to our FBI. And they have been thwarted and ignored and pushed aside. It was a deliberate effort to cover this up. It didn’t just happen. Even during the Trump administration there was a deliberate effort to cover this up to protect the prior wrongdoing. That’s really sick.

A video of the conversation is included in the article at The Gateway Pundit. What we are learning is that the ‘deep state’ is an international phenomena. Those who support One World Government were very unhappy with the election of President Trump and the British vote on Brexit. We can expect to hear more about efforts to undo both in the very near future.

I Guess They Did Take Him Seriously

In June 2015, real estate mogul Donald Trump announced that he was running for President. I must admit I wasn’t impressed. There was nothing in his record to indicate he believed in anything I believed in, and he was a totally inexperienced candidate. What I didn’t realize was that experience comes in many different forms–successfully doing business in a city known for corruption, creating a television show that ordinary people enjoyed, and navigating the social waters of the elite–attending Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, etc. (I guess the political left didn’t hate him until he was a Republican and ran for President.) I really didn’t take him seriously. I suspect a lot of other people shared that opinion. The White House was supposed to go to Hillary Clinton–that was her reward for stepping out of the 2008 Democrat primary election, so it really didn’t matter who the Republicans ran. However, the economy was stuttering, unemployment was high, and Americans didn’t seem to have a lot of spending money in their pockets.

Well, around the summer of 2016 the Democrats began to take Donald Trump seriously as a candidate. So seriously in fact that they decided to use the power of government (on an international scale) to keep him from being elected and to prevent him from doing anything if he was elected.

The Guardian posted an article on July 30 about those efforts.

The article reports:

Two of the most senior intelligence officials in the US and UK privately shared concerns about “our strange situation” as the FBI launched its 2016 investigation into whether Donald Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia, the Guardian has learned.

Text messages between Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI at the time, and Jeremy Fleming, his then counterpart at MI5, now the head of GCHQ, also reveal their mutual surprise at the result of the EU referendum, which some US officials regarded as a “wake-up call”, according to a person familiar with the matter.

While Russia had previously been viewed as a country that would seek to interfere in western elections, the Brexit vote was viewed by some within the FBI as a sign that Russian activities had possibly been successful, the person said.

Their exchanges offer new insights into the start of the FBI’s Russia investigation, and how British intelligence appears to have played a key role in the early stages.

In one exchange in August 2016, Fleming noted that members of the FBI and MI5 had “met on our strange situation”, a veiled reference to discussions about Russian activities, according to the source.

…The exchanges underscore a sensitive issue in the US – namely the role foreign intelligence services played in the FBI’s decision to initiate an investigation into the Trump campaign.

On 31 July 2016, the FBI opened a covert counterintelligence investigation codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane” into the then presidential candidate’s possible collusion with Russia.

The investigation was eventually taken over by the special counsel Robert Mueller, who has said there were “multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election” by Russia.

Mueller’s 448-page report did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but it did identify incidents in which Trump attempted to obstruct justice in the investigation, and did not clear the president of wrongdoing.

US and UK intelligence agencies frequently share information, but the exchanges between McCabe and Fleming appear to reflect a desire for a direct line of communication given what was seen as a developing problem on both sides of the Atlantic.

This is the key paragraph:

In his text message about the August 2016 meeting, Fleming appeared to be making a reference to Peter Strzok, a senior FBI official who travelled to London that month to meet the Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. Downer had agreed to speak with the FBI about a Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, who had told him that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in the race. The meeting was first reported by the New York Times.

This is the context of these activities–the British ‘deep state’ wanted Brexit to fail, and the American ‘deep state’ wanted Donald Trump not to be elected. The FBI was using overseas sources to do spying on political candidates that would have been illegal if it had been done domestically. The Russians did not interfere in the 2016 election other than placing ads and fake comments on Facebook. The real interference came from the American intelligence community–something that is totally illegal. Those involved need to be held accountable.

This Could Get Very Interesting

The U.K. Telegraph reported on Wednesday that MI6 chiefs are secretly battling Donald Trump to stop him publishing classified information linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. 

The article reports:

The UK is warning that the US president would undermine intelligence gathering if he releases pages of an FBI application to wiretap one of his former campaign advisers.

However Trump allies are fighting back, demanding transparency and asking why Britain would oppose the move unless it had something to hide.

It forces the spotlight on whether the UK played a role in the FBI’s investigation launched before the 2016 presidential election into Trump campaign ties to the Kremlin.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article on Wednesday that reminds us of some of the possible reasons for the problem:

In 2016 candidate Trump supported Brexit; the professional political class in the U.K. were vehemently against it. Additionally, candidate Trump was openly challenging the structure of NATO and demanding changes to the alliance. This was antithetical to the interests of the U.K. government and likely sent shockwaves through their collectivist system when candidate Trump won the GOP nomination. The Brits had a strong motive to see Trump destroyed and aligned with weaponized U.S. intelligence toward that end.

As President, Mr. Trump, has held true to his campaign promises and forced the British -and the EU writ large- to be more responsible for their own military security. President Trump has challenged the post-WW2 NATO structures and forced the EU to pay more for their defense. Many member nations are vocally unhappy with this shifted landscape because it means less money for liberal/socialist causes. [Note: Including Canada]

Lastly, the U.K. and E.U. (mostly German anxiety) are facing a much tougher trade objective as outlined by President Trump. The trade conflict is costing them billions in addition to their increased need to spend on their own defense via NATO to keep Trump off their back. He might be just one man, but President Trump has them surrounded.

President Trump is not allowing the same one-way benefits within the U.S. trade relationship with the EU; and as he highlighted with the use of tariffs, he is not hesitant to smash the EU economy (mostly Germany) with crippling auto-tariffs if needed.

Trump is leveraging access to the U.S. markets as pressure on the Europeans to comply with U.S. demands. The Europeans, including the British, are not used to this level of confrontation from the U.S. Their economic frames of reference surround acquiescence from prior American presidents. They are increasingly unnerved and the horrible President Trump simply doesn’t care.

And then there’s the newly emphasized Iran sanctions… the economic MOAB that threatens any/all European interests who might dare to get caught doing business with the Iranian regime. President Trump has shown he is not the least bit hesitant to pull the trigger on Treasury penalties against any nation or multinational interest who would defy the sanctions.

Simply put, the Brits did not like the idea of an American President who put America first. The question remains as to what they actually did about it.

You Have To Fight For What You Believe–Even After The Vote

The U.K. Express posted an article today about Britain’s exit from the European Union. To put it mildly, the European Union is dragging its feet in allowing the exit of Britain.

The article reports:

The independent member of the European Parliament (MEP) lashed top EU officials for trying to “deny” Brexit with a vote claiming “no progress” had been made during the negotiations between the UK and Brussels.

During a debate in Strasbourg, Mr Woolfe said: “Abraham Lincoln once famously said ‘You can fool some of the people all of the time. You can fool all of the people some of the time. But you can never fool all of the people all of the time.’ Well, the British people are no longer fooled that the EU wants to negotiate a fair Brexit agreement or even negotiate at all. 

“From Verhofstadt to Juncker, to Barnier and to Tusk, the message is clear: the EU will delay, damage and deny Brexit. 

“When President Tusk says the UK can’t have its cake and eat it, what he actually means is the EU wants its cake, our cake, the morning croissant, afternoon tea and finishing it with taking a pound of Britain’s economic flesh washed down with a glass of subsidised EU Chianti.”

Mr Woolfe comments came as the European Parliament prepared to vote on whether Brexit negotiations could move forward to discuss the future trade relationship between Britain and the EU27.

The “no progress” motion passed by 557 votes to 92, with 29 MEPs abstaining from the vote.

The former Ukip politician continued: “It’s clear the EU will not change its tune so it’s time for the Uk to walk away and end this charade.”

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Globalists are not used to losing, and they have had a very bad year. Unfortunately, even though America elected a non-globalist President, he has not been totally sensitive to the cry of other countries wanting to be independent. President Trump has not supported Kurdish independence, saying it would bring instability to the region. Frankly, I think it would bring stability and encourage freedom. At any rate, there is something stirring in the world. Many people are tired of being ruled by a group of elites who want nothing more than to protect their own wealth and power. I wish Britain luck in exiting the European Union, but I don’t think it will be a simple process.

Immigration In Britain

Breitbart is reporting today on the impact immigration policies have had on the population of Britain.

The article reports:

A report by think tank Civitas says that the population of the United Kingdom is growing at a rate of more than 500,000 a year – the equivalent of a new town of about 10,000 people being created every week.

The article further notes that one in three babies born in Britain and Wales had at least one foreign parent.

So what caused this?

The article explains:

Blair (former prime minister Tony Blair) has been accused of presiding over a “silent conspiracy” to flood the UK with migrants whilst he was prime minster, ordering his ministers to not discuss the subject in public, with his government working to force the country to “see the benefit of a multicultural society”.

The Civitas report identifies EU enlargement, “with the admission of the countries of Eastern Europe”, as the second reason for population growth trends to change so rapidly.

Again, the arch-europhile’s New Labour government decided not to implement transitional immigration controls like the majority of other EU countries, with Blair admitting in 2017 that he had no idea how many people would migrate to Britain when the bloc expanded to include former Communist nations such as Poland.

Government policies have consequences. Britain is clearly in danger of losing its identity as a nation.

The Global Establishment Will Not Go Gently Into The Night

Breitbart posted an article today about a new wrinkle in Britain‘s attempt to leave the European Union.

The article reports:

The government must consult parliament before invoking Article 50, the High Court has ruled.

The court ruled that Prime Minister Theresa May does not have the authority to use the Royal Prerogative to invoke the EU divorce process.

It is noteworthy that the people of Britain voted to leave the European Union. Has the High Court decided that the vote of the British citizens does not mean anything?

The article further reports:

However, the government has said it will appeal the decision.

A spokesman said: “The Government is disappointed by the decision.

“The country voted to leave the European Union in a referendum approved by Act of Parliament. And the Government is determined to respect the result of the referendum.”

The Supreme Court will likely hear the case on 7 December.

UKIP’s interim leader Nigel Farage said:

“I worry that a betrayal may be near at hand. Last night at the Spectator Parliamentary Awards I had a distinct feeling that our political class, who were out in force, do not accept the 23rd of June Referendum result.

“I now fear that every attempt will be made to block or delay the triggering of Article 50. If this is so, they have no idea of the level of public anger they will provoke.”

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, he added that he feared Britain was heading for a “half Brexit”, and warned he would return to frontline politics if Britain had not left the EU by 2019.

“We are heading for a half Brexit….  I’m becoming increasingly worried.

“I see MPs from all parties saying, oh well, actually we should stay part of the single market, we should continue with our daily financial contributions.

“I think we could be at the beginning, with this ruling, of a process where there is  deliberate, wilful attempt by our political class to betray 17.4 million voters.”

The political elite is entrenched worldwide. They have become a class of people dedicated to increasing their own wealth. In Britain, they have tied their fortunes to staying in the European Union; in America, they have tied their fortunes to the election of Hillary Clinton. The names are different, but the actions and goals are the same. Brexit was one of the few opportunities to put the brakes on their plans, and the British are going to have to fight to have their voices heard. In America, November 8 will determine whether Americans are ready to toss out the political elite.

I wish the Brits (and the Americans) luck.

Why None Of The Normal Rules Apply To The Current Election Cycle

Yesterday Nigel Farage posted an article at the U.K. Telegraph containing his observations on the current American election.

Mr. Farage shares his story and observations:

When I arrived at the Republican Party convention in Cleveland, Ohio, back in July, I was amazed at the reaction to me over the Brexit result. Normally we follow trends in America, not the other way round, but it was clear that many of the delegates saw Brexit as an aspiration for what they see as the Trump “revolution” against the Establishment. I met many others who were not delegates or political anoraks, who were also keen to talk about Brexit. A group of retired US Navy veterans told me we should have done it years ago. Others were less impressed and shouted at me in the streets. Indeed, this weekend while I was in St Louis, I received some proper abuse on the Washington University campus. 

…Like him or loathe him, Trump is not a part of the political elite and he most certainly is not constrained by political correctness. When I spoke at one of his rallies in Jackson, Mississippi, I saw a fanatical gathering of his fans who want to give the Establishment a good hiding. “We want our country back” works as a slogan here, too. The first signs of a political rebellion took the form of the Tea Party. The satirist Ian Hislop once described it as rather like Ukip – but with God and guns. They not only railed against the Washington elites, but made the link between big business, Wall Street banks and Washington politics. The same story is behind the growth of new parties across the whole of the European Union and was an important feature in voters’ minds in the UK this June.

Not only did JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs help to fund the Remain campaign but they increasingly give the appearance of owning a whole section of our political class. When Berlusconi was forced to resign as the Italian prime minister, he was replaced by the unelected Mario Monti, a Goldman Sachs man. 

…I met many people at the rally in Jackson, Mississippi, who had never voted in their lives. They may produce an upset similar to Brexit. It does not matter what the opinion polls, bookmakers or markets say, because these new voters are hard to measure. 

I do not see the Brexit result in isolation. Instead, I believe we are witnessing a popular uprising against failed politics on a global scale. People want to vote for candidates with personality, faults and all. It is the same in the UK, America and much of the rest of Europe. The little people have had enough. They want change.

This is going to be an interesting election. If voter fraud is kept under control, Donald Trump will be our next President. If not, I can’t even imaging the darkness this country will go through–we will no longer be equal under the law–some will permanently be more equal than others. It is not a pretty picture.

 

Sometimes You Don’t Have To Wait Too Long For The Truth To Come Out

Over the weekend, I  read a couple of news stories about a petition to hold a second vote on Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU). I was somewhat concerned, because I understand that there are some globalists who will do pretty much anything to hold on to their power. I did see a comment on one story from someone who admitted that he had signed the petition illegally, so I wondered. Well, today I have my answer.

Yesterday Townhall posted a story about the petition to hold another Brexit vote. Evidently the person whose comment I read was not the only person who voted illegally.

The story reports:

LONDON, United Kingdom – Pro-European spammers have fooled the British establishment into believing a million people a day have signed a petition to hold a second referendum on Brexit. The petition demands the referendum rules are retrospectively changed forcing a second vote on Britain’s membership of the EU.

But doubts were raised about the authenticity of those signing after evidence that a code was being used emerged.

It shows how the petition website was tricked into registering millions of ‘signatures’ from people who do not exist.

Further questions were raised over the petition after analysis showed that just 353k of the nearly 3 million signatures were from the UK. A total of 3000 were reported to be from Vatican City, a country with a population of just 800.

Most UK national newspapers reported on the petition today, seemingly unaware of the fraud. Both the Sunday Telegraph and Mirror put the story on the frontpage.

The Independent has run multiple stories on the subject, at one stage crowing that the website kept crashing.

Let’s watch and see how long it takes for the British (and American) media to report this.

The Consequences

The Wall Street Journal posted an article today about Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. As many Americans are looking at their losses in the stock market today and wondering what is coming next, we all need to step back and take a deep breath.

The article reports:

The United Kingdom has always had Europe’s most robust democracy, and with Thursday’s vote to leave the European Union it has given its Continental peers a powerful example of the meaning of popular rule. Now we’ll see if the British have the wisdom to make the best use of their historic choice.

The article reminds us that Britain is the second largest and most dynamic economy in the European Union. The exit of Britain will probably cause more problems for the European Union than it does for Britain.

The article reminds us of some of the mistakes made by the European Union:

If the EU wants to prevent other countries from catching the Brexit bug, our advice is to avoid the temptation to punish the U.K. with an arduous renegotiation of terms for its re-entry into the common market. The perception of EU high-handedness is what alienates public opinion across the Continent. Brexit ought to be the wake-up call the EU needs to return to serving as a common market that encourages growth and competition, and not—as it has become since the late 1980s—an innovation-killing superstate obsessed with regulatory harmonization, tax hikes, green-energy dogma and anticompetitive antitrust enforcement.

People don’t vote to leave organizations that are well run and respect their freedom. The Brexit vote is the result of the actions of the European Union. It will be interesting to see if the European Union learns the lessons they need to learn before more countries exit.

Britain And The European Union

On June 23, Britain will vote on whether or not to remain in the European Union. Argument can be made for both sides of the issue, but I would like to cite a few in favor of leaving.

A New York Times article on June 2 stated the following:

Jackie O’Neill, a 54-year-old administrative assistant, was explaining the other day why Britain should vote to divorce itself from the European Union in this month’s referendum. As she enumerated her many grievances, I couldn’t help thinking of the scene in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” in which a bunch of disaffected Judeans sit around, complaining about the Romans.

“They’ve bled us white, the bastards,” says their leader, Reg, played by John Cleese. “And what have they ever given us in return?” His colleagues mention a few things, by way of example.

O.K., Reg says. “But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the freshwater system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

Today Clarice Feldman posted an article at The American Thinker explaining why she thinks Britain should leave the European Union.

Here are some of the highlights from The American Thinker article:

Here and in Britain voters are torn as to whether or not to jump off the globalization, open borders bandwagon and government by unelected bureaucrats or voting to retake sovereignty and re-establish free markets. The polls show the sentiments for retaining the status quo or starting over (Brexit) seem too close to call, I predict Britain will leave. I hope we, too, will choose to return to less intrusive more accountable government, sovereignty and freedom by rejecting  Hillary Clinton ourselves.

Europeans seem to be overly attracted to the notion of government by wiseman elites. British love of independence and freedom is deeper and stronger, although government regulation and control took root during the World War I and that increased even more during World War II — power the government didn’t relinquish when the war was over. This softened their resolve when the notion of the EU was hatched.

The article concludes with a very good description of what is at stake in the Brexit vote:

One thing is clear — both the EU officialdom and ours are wiser than voters only in their ability to feather their own nests, not in making us safer, richer, or happier. Many predict that if the UK exists Brexit, other European countries will follow, Maybe one of the attractions of Trump is that the distaste for the regulatory state run by elites is spreading across the Atlantic.

The British will decide this month whether or not they want to be an independent country. Americans will have a chance in November to decide whether they want more of the government they have now or to vote for someone who at least has a possibility of shrinking government and government regulations. A rich man has no reason to try to use the government as his own blank check–lavish vacations, bending laws to his advantage, government subsidies for business of friends, etc. Unfortunately we have seen in the history of the Clinton family a willingness to do anything to increase their own personal wealth. November will be the time for Americans to choose between these two personal histories.