Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

A few questions which should have been answered before tonight’s missile strikes. 

Politics makes for strange bedfellows. 

In deed, if nothing else. The Telegraph is covering the airstrikes against the Assad regime and their aftermath live. For an inkling of how complex this conflict is, I would suggest looking over this map of the Syrian Civil War, which illustrates the murky waters we are delving into as a nation. For what it’s worth, we have been militarily involved in Syria for over two and a half years, most recently attempting to separate Kurdish militias from the Turkish military. Turkey, it should be noted, is the nation asserting that the Syrian regime used sarin gas in the gruesome chemical attack which took place in Idlib province on April 4th.

Where this will lead is anyone’s guess.

Update: Matt Bruenig explains what happened this weekend. 

Michael Tracey raises an interesting question. 

Keith Ellison’s loss is noteworthy for a number of reasons, many of them unrelated to the fact that his victorious opponent will be the first self-identifying Hispanic to preside over the Democratic National Committee. Yes, ethnicity/race did play a pivotal role in this intra-party election, but not in the way that the mainstream media and Democratic shills would have you believe. Perez’s victory is not so much a case of Democrats implicitly rebuking President Trump and his purportedly anti-latino immigration policies as Barack Obama’s man on the inside once again stepping on the Bernie Bros.

The party hatchet-man who did so much to pave the way for Hillary Clinton’s disastrous candidacy, crafting the message which social justice warriors and feminists gleefully vomited at Bernie Sanders and his backers in the Democratic primary, is now in a position to run the Democratic Party. The former President who has done so much to divide his own party, which continues to be riven by the parallel political institutions he created, now has his own Machiavelli steering the course of the DNC.

This is not only a ratification of the open borders, corporatist, elitist vision which animated the Hillary Clinton campaign-progressives be damned-it is yet another slap in the face of African-Americans, i.e. the foundation of the contemporary Democratic Party. How do woke individuals continue to reconcile their support for Barack Obama with the concrete policies and decisions made by a man who, beyond empty gestural politics, has done absolutely nothing for the black community? To the contrary, the legacy of the 44th President is one of neglect and indifference towards the people most responsible for helping him make history.

We have just witnessed an elite cross-section of Democrats from around the country reject someone who is literally a black Muslim in favor of a Brown alum who’s whiter than Steve Bannon, and whose campaign manager would fit in perfectly at a Huffington Post editorial meeting. Don’t expect national Democrats to curtail their moral preening and sanctimony as we enter the Perez  Era. Just as we’re forced to endure lectures attacking this country from a smarmy talking head for The Reconquista whose fame and fortune were given to him by Americans, we will now experience four years of privileged leftists telling us why white people need to check their privilege. Apparently, the new head of the Dems seems to agree that white people are entitled to fewer rights based upon their skin color.

I can’t wait until 2020.

President Obama’s last week in office has brought with it a flood of breaking news. The biggest story, of course, is his commutation of Chelsea Manning’s 35 year prison sentence. My own impression is that his decision is designed as a cynical bit of legacy-building, with the added benefit of perhaps inducing Julian Assange to leave the Ecuadorian embassy. Although that prospect appears increasingly remote, it very well might have factored into his judgement. Overlooked in news coverage of the Manning commutation is the grant of clemency to Oscar Lopez Rivera, a leader of the Marxist-Leninist Puerto Rican terror group FALN. Like Bill Clinton’s pardon of previously released FALN terrorists, which was intertwined with his wife’s Senate bid in New York, this decision was politically-based. In this case, as a parting gift to violent socialists who still comprise a significant portion of the Democratic base and will populate future revolutions.

Another early Christmas present for the hard left  comes in the form of the President’s revocation of the federal government’s Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy. It should be recalled that the policy itself was implemented prior to a pivotal election year, when former President Clinton was attempting to empty Guantanamo Bay of Cuban refugees. In order to prevent a repeat of Mariel-which sunk a young Bill Clinton’s chances of being reelected governor of Arkansas-he struck a deal with Fidel Castro which limited the number of Cubans who would be allowed to enter the United States. As Humberto Fontova astutely points out, one of the unreported effects of this adjustment will be an increase in the number of dependents flowing into the United States with a commensurate decrease in the amount of skilled professionals immigrating.

Even as the Obama administration’s days draw to a close, it continues to imperil the health and safety of ordinary American citizens, as ICE and CBP effectively serve as a shuttle service for unidentified illegal aliens under the pretext of being reunited with family. How many innocent people will meet the same fate of Sarah Root because of this willful indifference to the lives of Americans? Even  as people living throughout the United States are placed in imminent danger through the reckless ideology of the outgoing administration, the tide of refugees from Asia, Africa, and broken nations like Haiti shows no signs of ebbing. The conditions Barack Obama and his lawless bureaucracy have established bear all the hallmarks of the disaster we’ve seen unfold across Europe over the past 2 years.

Unfortunately, there are also ominous hints being dropped by President-Elect Donald Trump, who has responded favorably to proposals to salvage his predecessor’s patently unconstitutional administrative amnesty. In addition to going back on one of the central planks of the platform upon which he was elected-and deflating any enthusiasm felt by his staunchest supporters-this maneuver would significantly enhance the prestige and power of the very worst people, e.g. Paul Ryan, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham. The idea that one of the first domestic policy decisions will be to embrace the instincts of open borders fetishists and neoconservatives is unconscionable. If Trump had campaigned on a promise to continue the disastrous immigration policies of the current administration, he never would have made it past New Hampshire. This is an idea which needs to be categorically rejected by any right-thinking immigration patriot.

In order not to black pill the majority of our audience, we should leave you with a bit of good news from abroad. It seems that Norway has finally shown some of the Scandinavian backbone which Sweden surrendered several centuries ago. While the Norwegians haven’t ejected every jihadist apologist and Muslim fifth columnist from their nation, 2016 did see a record number of deportations. Although too many of these deportees were Europeans, it’s significant that there is a growing movement within that country to assert its sovereignty in the face of a Muslim population that has grown to nearly 150,000.

Perhaps it’s not too late to save Europe.

To the surprise of no one, the reporters, editors and publishers whose revolting fealty to Hillary Clinton, exposed in excruciating detail through Wikileaks, resulted in an historic loss for the Democratic Party have learned nothing from Tuesday’s Trumpslide. Instead of reflecting upon how media institutions rigging the primary process against Bernie Sanders, then conducting an embarrassing, 9 month-long editorial jihad against Donald Trump, might have led voters to reject the chosen one, they have spent the past 2 days regurgitating stories about fake SJW-created hate crimes.

Sadly, even the seeming exit of Hillary and Bill Clinton from public life has not prevented Clinton cronies from exacting their revenge upon the few courageous dissenters within the mainstream press. The most recent infuriating example being VICE’s termination of Michael Tracey, a genuine journalist, who was fired for daring to question Lena Dunham and acknowledging the electorate’s universal distaste for Hillary Clinton as a public figure.

You can read the forbidden piece in its entirety here, but more importantly, you can support Michael and his ongoing efforts to bring us factual reporting by contributing to his Gofundme page.The effort by our deeply crooked media institutions to suppress truthful, vital journalism, as well as continued attempts by the Clintons and their cronies to exact revenge upon their enemies, will not end with the conclusion of the 2016 presidential election. We need to ensure reporters like Michael Tracey have the resources necessary to bring us the information our paternalistic media wants to drop into the memory hole.

Even CNBC is impressed by the President-elect’s magnanimous victory speech. We’ll have more thoughts on this historic election in the days ahead. For the time being, we’d like to congratulate the people who made this day possible, including the immigration patriots who’ve been directly victimized by our federal government’s indifference to illegal immigration. Jamie Shaw Sr. and Sabine Durden are merely 2 among the scores of families throughout the country who’ve lost loved ones to criminal aliens. The fact that we finally have a President who will speak up in defense of the rights of American citizens is something they, along with the rest of the country, should be proud of.

After over a year of campaigning, countless campaign ads, and several groan-inducing paeans to Hillary Clinton by post-punk rock bands, we’ve arrived at the moment of truth. The day when all of the bickering over polling averages will be rendered moot and we will see who America, in its infinite wisdom, has selected to lead her for the next 4 years. Although we’ve highlighted the perspective of conscientious non-voters in the past, we’re well aware that anywhere from 57 to 64% of eligible voters will participate in Election Day 2016, to say nothing of the millions of voters who might have already decided who wins. If current polling is to be trusted, then it will have proven this City Lab article from earlier this year exploring the Democrats demographic advantages correct. Even if it’s not, the problems facing the Republican Party in the future won’t decrease in the years ahead. 

Although predicting the future is a notoriously tricky business, it’s hard to imagine an ethical Clinton administration. Perhaps because the last one left so much to be desired in the way of scrupulous adherence to the law. It’s worth noting that the late Janet Reno-whose chief accomplishment as head of the Department of Justice was the deliberate incineration of over 70 American citizens-attained her position as Attorney General at the behest of Hillary Clinton, whose brother was a colleague while working for the Dade County Public Defender’s office. Something to ponder as you head off to cast your ballot later today.

Spoiler Alert: Walter Block won this debate, i.e. convinced a larger percentage of the audience to vote in his favor than Nick Gillespie. For what it’s worth, I found it to be an interesting parallel to the Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump debates. Gillespie did his best Hillary impersonation-radiating contempt for his audience and reveling in his own smugness/anemic stabs at humor-while Block resembled a more sophisticated Trump, i.e. meandering, combative, at times losing the plot, but nonetheless making a number of persuasive arguments.

You can sign up for future Soho Forum events here.

One of my favorite spectator sports is live debating. Although not all debates are as riveting as the Nick Gillespie-Walter Block confrontation which occurred last night, this election cycle has taught us all the entertainment value of a good one. Hopefully, the showdown between my friends Todd Seavey and Anders Mikkelsen and the Harry Carson and Mark Horowitz-from the anti-capitalist, conspiracy movement known as Zeitgeist-will prove as fruitful as illuminating as the Trump-Clinton debates.

You can find all of the details on the event’s Facebook page and RSVP at the Meetup page. I hope to see you there!

Update: For those who can’t watch the entire speech, CNBC has provided a surprisingly good summary of Thiel’s remarks. 

The event begins 3 minutes into the video and Thiel begins speaking roughly 5:30 minutes in.

A world without borders would be impossible to govern democratically. It would need to be run by a strong central authority that would quickly morph into an iron fist dictatorship. It’s much more likely to end up as a global Soviet Union than a global Switzerland or global United States. 

I couldn’t have said it better myself. On a similar note, Derek Hunter-an ambivalent Never Trumper-has penned an article for Town Hall explaining why he’s casting his vote for The Donald, in spite of misgivings.