Peter Brimelow writes: It’s a measure of the lunatic times in which we live that Paul Gottfried’s entirely peaceful and cerebral H.L. Mencken Club, which I’ve regularly addressed (here and here etc.) had to hold its recent Eleventh Annual Meeting, on November 2-4, right before the Midterm Elections, on the theme “Is America Still A Nation?”, unadvertised and essentially in secret, with prominent speakers intimidated into withdrawing at the last moment and no photographs or recordings allowed. It nevertheless succeeded in assembling a significant audience—but what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had won?
Robert Weissberg: Okay, our final speaker is a man whom you know, a British-born financial journalist, founder of VDARE.com, which I read, and author of several books, including Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster, 1995, among the most widely-read books on immigration, and his examination of ethnic cleavages in Canada and the use of it as a political football, The Patriot Game, 1986, nearly as famous as his work on American immigration. I'm sure many of you have seen him before, he's always worth listening too, so I give you, Peter Brimelow.
Peter Brimelow: Thank you, Bob, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Paul, I'm going to record myself, so please don't throw me out! [Gottfried agrees]. Thanks very much. How long have I got?
RW: Twenty minutes.
PB: Right. So I want to thank Paul and Mary Gottfried for putting this conference on, it's more of an achievement than you may realize, but I'll come to that in a minute. And I also want to commiserate with my fellow panel members for not being able to go into the White House because they sat on a panel with me!
Some of you may not know the story that Paul was alluding to in his talk last night. A couple of years ago, there was a young academic called Darren Beattie who was on the platform here with me. And when it was discovered that he’d later gone to work in the White House, there was a one of these Two-Minute Hates that the Main Stream media specialize in, and he was fired because he was on the same platform as me.
Now my views on immigration have not changed—they've not changed in a long time—but they've been public since 1992, when I wrote a big cover story for National Review (incredibly!) called Time to Rethink Immigration?, which ultimately grew into my book Alien Nation.
But what's happened is that it's just become more difficult to express these ideas, they've become more “toxic,” as the Left says now—despite the fact, or in fact because of the fact, that Americans have elected an insurrectionary president in the form of Donald Trump, whose position paper [PDF] on immigration on August 15, 2015 was perfect. We regard it as perfect statement— it said all the things, including opposing Birthright Citizenship, which we've been saying for nearly 20 years.
Last week, the White House revoked the press pass of CNN's chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, and denied him access to the building.
CNN responded by filing suit in federal court against the president.
Acosta's First and Fifth Amendment rights had been violated, said CNN. The demand: Acosta's press pass must be returned immediately and his White House press privileges restored.
"If left unchallenged," CNN warned, "the actions of the White House would create a dangerous chilling effect for any journalist who covers our elected officials." A dozen news organizations, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, are filing amicus briefs on CNN's behalf.
On Thursday, the Trump administration raised the stakes.
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Peter Brimelow writes: It’s a measure of the lunatic times in which we live that Paul Gottfried’s entirely peaceful and cerebral H.L. Mencken Club, which I’ve regularly addressed (here and here etc.) had to hold its recent Eleventh Annual Meeting, on November 2-4, right before the Midterm Elections, on the theme “Is America Still A Nation?”, unadvertised and essentially in secret, with prominent speakers intimidated into withdrawing at the last moment and no photographs or recordings allowed. It nevertheless succeeded in assembling a significant audience—but what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had won?
Robert Weissberg: Okay, our final speaker is a man whom you know, a British-born financial journalist, founder of VDARE.com, which I read, and author of several books, including Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster, 1995, among the most widely-read books on immigration, and his examination of ethnic cleavages in Canada and the use of it as a political football, The Patriot Game, 1986, nearly as famous as his work on American immigration. I'm sure many of you have seen him before, he's always worth listening too, so I give you, Peter Brimelow.
Peter Brimelow: Thank you, Bob, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Paul, I'm going to record myself, so please don't throw me out! [Gottfried agrees]. Thanks very much. How long have I got?
RW: Twenty minutes.
PB: Right. So I want to thank Paul and Mary Gottfried for putting this conference on, it's more of an achievement than you may realize, but I'll come to that in a minute. And I also want to commiserate with my fellow panel members for not being able to go into the White House because they sat on a panel with me!
Some of you may not know the story that Paul was alluding to in his talk last night. A couple of years ago, there was a young academic called Darren Beattie who was on the platform here with me. And when it was discovered that he’d later gone to work in the White House, there was a one of these Two-Minute Hates that the Main Stream media specialize in, and he was fired because he was on the same platform as me.
Now my views on immigration have not changed—they've not changed in a long time—but they've been public since 1992, when I wrote a big cover story for National Review (incredibly!) called Time to Rethink Immigration?, which ultimately grew into my book Alien Nation.
But what's happened is that it's just become more difficult to express these ideas, they've become more “toxic,” as the Left says now—despite the fact, or in fact because of the fact, that Americans have elected an insurrectionary president in the form of Donald Trump, whose position paper [PDF] on immigration on August 15, 2015 was perfect. We regard it as perfect statement— it said all the things, including opposing Birthright Citizenship, which we've been saying for nearly 20 years.
Last week, the White House revoked the press pass of CNN's chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, and denied him access to the building.
CNN responded by filing suit in federal court against the president.
Acosta's First and Fifth Amendment rights had been violated, said CNN. The demand: Acosta's press pass must be returned immediately and his White House press privileges restored.
"If left unchallenged," CNN warned, "the actions of the White House would create a dangerous chilling effect for any journalist who covers our elected officials." A dozen news organizations, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, are filing amicus briefs on CNN's behalf.
On Thursday, the Trump administration raised the stakes.
Since 2013, Oklahoma’s congressional delegation has been entirely Republican. But on November 6th, in an upset victory, Democrat Kendra Horn defeated Rep. Steve Russell (OK-5). This district had been represented by Republicans uninterruptedly since 1975, when Rep. John Jarman changed his registration from Democrat to Republican. What happened?
I would attribute it to two factors–changing demographics and the fatal over-confidence of Representative Russell. This guy thought he had it in the bag.
The Fifth District, like many congressional districts, is a bizarre cobbled-together entity. It includes most of Oklahoma County (including much of the Oklahoma City metroplex) along with two rural counties: Pottawatomie County and Seminole County.
Back in 2014, when Russell first won a seat in Congress, The Oklahoman’s Chris Casteel wrote that long-term, things might not always be in the Republicans’ favor. Casteel quoted GOP Representative Tom Cole of the neighboring Fourth District, who also runs a GOP consulting firm:
U.S. Rep. Tom Cole…said Democratic candidates in Oklahoma City will benefit from the African-American and Hispanic populations, along with affluent, socially liberal voters in some of the neighborhoods in and near downtown. Also, he said, more young, single professionals who lean Democratic are moving into the downtown part of the district… “You can see an emerging opportunity,’’ Cole said, adding that the Democrats in the core area of Oklahoma City are “real Democrats, not the traditional conservative Democrats” of rural Oklahoma…. “You do have basic demographic building blocks” that will favor Democrats in the future, he [Cole] said.
Oklahoma City's changing demographics may test political status quo, November 2, 2014
Election recounts would be more plausible if Democrats occasionally let the Republican win. But they don't. Ballots miraculously discovered days and weeks after the election—in the back seat of a car, after helpful "corrections" to the ballots by election supervisors, etc.—invariably result in a surprise win for the Democrat.
Voters are just supposed to accept that, unless Republicans win an election by an insuperable margin, the Democrats will steal it.
And the thieving is cheered on by our media. Whenever President Trump has the effrontery to mention that GOP victories are being stolen by corrupt Democratic officials, the media snippily note that his claim is "UNSUBSTANTIATED."
Thus, for example, in the first 60 seconds of CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" on Monday, Burnett said:
Hey! I have an idea! Why doesn't CNN rustle up some reporters to go and investigate the biggest story of the year?
Undoing wrongful convictions takes a killer instinct.
Chicago-based exoneration specialist Kathleen Zellner's got it. Her record speaks for itself. Over the past two decades, she has righted more wrongful convictions than any private attorney in America. What's her secret? The Herculean task of untangling official lies, investigative bias, prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective counsel and forensic junk science to free 19 innocent men requires more than intellectual firepower (of which Zellner possesses a chess grandmaster's surplus).
The job demands iron will and unshakeable fortitude to beat a system rigged to preserve government errors and protect prosecutions. As the "Survivor" slogan goes: "Outwit, outplay, outlast."
"If someone's innocent," Tenacious Z says with trademark bluntness, "you find a way."
In case you've been living in a cave, Zellner [Tweet her] is the breakout star of Netflix's "Making a Murderer: Part 2," released last month as a follow-up to the original 2015 documentary on the plight of Wisconsin auto salvage worker Steven Avery. He served 18 years for an alleged sexual assault and attempted murder in 1985 that he did not commit. Two years after being exonerated and freed when DNA testing cleared him and identified the real culprit, Manitowoc County police and prosecutors faced Avery's $36 million civil suit against them.
But just as two of the key architects of the wrongful conviction—former sheriff Tom Kocourek and former prosecutor Denis Vogel—were scheduled to be deposed, murder charges were brought against Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey in the death of photographer Teresa Halbach. The case conveniently short-circuited the landmark civil suit and landed Avery and Dassey in prison, where they remain today.
As the voice of the Historic American Nation, VDARE.com is proud to announce the creation of a print journal featuring the best material from our webzine.
You can also sign up to receive multiple copies, which serve as an excellent gift for friends and family while also helping to build our community.
We count on your support!
Sign me up to keep America American
