UPDATED: Wilders Wins Big

Democracy, Elections, EU, Glenn Beck, IMMIGRATION, Islam

The malfunctioning media is compounding its always objective reporting with breathless adjectives—“huge,” “stunning,” “shocking” and “peroxide-haired politician”—all to express “subtle” dismay at the election victory of Dutch populist Geert Wilders. My mother, a loyal Wilders supporter, alerted me to this “huge” good-news story:

Wilders yesterday stunned the Netherlands by coming third in general elections – a historic vote that could see him enter a coalition government.

Best known for his strident attacks on Islam, Mr Wilders’ electoral triumph sent shock waves through the country’s large immigrant communities and sounded the death knell for the image of the Netherlands as a bastion of tolerance.

The shock-factor was all the greater as the peroxide-haired politician had appeared sidelined during the election campaign, as the mainstream parties focused on how to deal with the nation’s economic woes and immigration slipped down the political agenda.

Yet Mr Wilders made the strongest gains in Wednesday’s election, doubling the number of seats for his Freedom Party to 24. The pro-business VDD party – which Mr Wilders left to set up on his own – won 31 of the 150 seats up for grabs, pipping the Labour Party of former Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen by a single seat in the narrowest ever electoral victory.

Cohen’s platform, I believe, is in the tradition of the Judenräte.

Let’s hope Glenn Beck doesn’t repeat his affront to this Dutch patriot.

UPDATE: “How can the pitchfork folks who elected this man be so stupid as to imagine Islam poses any threat to the tolerant Dutch way of life?” Preposterous. That’s me paraphrasing the PBS’s apoplectic correspondent in the Netherlands.

The far-right Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, grew from nine to 24 seats in the 150-seat parliament following Wednesday’s vote. Wilders wants to ban Muslim face veils and the building of new mosques in the country of 16.6 million with a Muslim population of 1 million.

Paul Ames, GlobalPost’s Belgium-based regional correspondent, said Wilders built on people’s fears about the influence of Islam on the Netherlands.

Hey, Big Spender

Barack Obama, Capitalism, Debt, Economy, Inflation

Remember when, “right after signing his $857 billion economic stimulus program into law last year, Obama convened the now-forgotten White House Fiscal Responsibility Summit,” the one “where [he] promised to cut the annual federal deficit by half by the end of his term”? As the Washington Examiner reports, he’s done it again: made a symbolic, deceptive gesture.

BHO’s “Budget Director Peter Orzag announced with great fanfare Tuesday that President Obama wants all nonsecurity agencies to cut spending by 5 percent.”

That’s proof that he’s serious about cutting spending, right? At least that’s how the Washington Post sees things:

This is “the latest in a series of initiatives, legislative proposals and veto threats in recent weeks aimed at demonstrating that Obama is minding every penny.”

Readers of this blog don’t “take seriously any of these White House PR campaigns to make Obama look responsible on the spending issue.”

After all, in less than two years in the Oval Office, Obama had added more than $4 trillion to scheduled federal spending, driven the annual budget deficit from $467 billion in 2008 to nearly $1.6 trillion in 2010, and pushed the national debt from $10.6 trillion to more than $13 trillion. All of these marks are mileposts on the road to fiscal calamity.

So, Obamarxists needn’t lose heart—and can with confidence, renew their vows to The Chosen One. BHO is here to hammer the final nail in the coffin of American capitalism.

Flotilla Choir Presents: 'We Con The World'

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Jihad, Media, Music

The thing I miss most about Israelis (I grew up in Israel) is their unique, acerbic humor. That wit is on display in “We Con the World.” Observe how the Flotilla Choir, among whom is the keffiyeh-clad Caroline Glick, lampoon not only the histrionics over Israel’s naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza as being the “worst human rights violation in the world today,” but the parodying of the original sanctimonious line-up of “We are The World” (down to the dog-barking that is Bob Dylan’s singing).

I have observed that for the first time we are seeing a prouder, more determined, more PR savvy Israel. Larry Auster, one of the most interesting bloggers around, concurs. (Read his comments about this “brilliant, spirited, and quintessentially Western satire.”) He also provides the lyrics:

WE CON THE WORLD

There comes a time
When we need to make a show
For the world, the Web and CNN

There’s no people dying,
so the best that we can do
Is create the greatest bluff of all

We must go on
Pretending day by day
That in Gaza, there’s crisis, hunger and plague
‘Cause the billion bucks in aid
Won’t buy their basic needs
Like some cheese and missiles for the kids

We’ll make the world
Abandon reason
We’ll make them all believe that the Hamas
Is Momma Theresa

We are peaceful travelers
With guns and our own knives
The truth will never find its way
To your TV

Ooooh, we’ll stab them at heart
They are soldiers, no one cares
We are small, and we took some pictures with doves

As Allah showed us,
For facts there’s no demand
So we will always gain the upper hand

We’ll make the world
Abandon reason
We’ll make them all believe that the Hamas
Is Momma Theresa

We are peaceful travelers
We’re waving our own knives
The truth will never find its way
To your TV

If Islam and terror
Brighten up your mood
But you worry
That it may not look so good
Well well well well don’t you realize
You just gotta call yourself
An activist for peace and human aid

We’ll make the world
Abandon reason
We’ll make them all believe that the Hamas
Is Momma Theresa

We are peaceful travelers
We’re waving our own knives
The truth will never find its way
To your TV

We con the world
We con the people
We’ll make them all believe the IDF
Is Jack the Ripper

We are peaceful travelers
We’re waving our own knives
The truth will never find its way
To your TV

We con the world
We con the people
We’ll make them all believe the IDF
is Jack the Ripper

We are peaceful travelers
We’re waving our own knives
The truth will never find its way
To your TV.

Related: Reuters does its bit to help with the ruse.

Fox News reports:

“In one photo, an Israeli commando is shown lying on the deck of the ship, surrounded by activists. The uncut photo released by IHH shows the hand of an unidentified activist holding a knife. But in the Reuters photo, the hand is visible but the knife has been edited out.”

The blog ‘Little Green Footballs’ challenged Reuters’ editing of the photo.

‘That’s a very interesting way to crop the photo. Most people would consider that knife an important part of the context. There was a huge controversy over whether the activists were armed. Cropping out a knife, in a picture showing a soldier who’s apparently been stabbed, seems like a very odd editorial decision. Unless someone was trying to hide it,’ the blog stated.”