The case for Leave the EU, part III

Recall how, previously in this series arguing in favor of leaving the European Union, I reported how the Remain camp was reluctant to release immigration figures until pressured into so doing by Eurosceptics? Ben Riley-Smith's article in The Daily Telegraph on April 3, "True scale of EU migrants to be revealed", lays the statistics bare.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who advises those who find Turkey's upcoming inclusion in the EU distressing to "not think about it," has blamed the media for setting ministers against each other rather than establishing facts. Facts, like there will be a World War III if Britain leaves the EU.
The salient data to establish the claims that workers from EU countries arrive in the U.K. for temporary employment and end up staying for good is the number of National Insurance numbers issued. 
According to Riley-Smith's piece: "For years, discrepancies between the numbers of foreigners counted into British airports—the method for official statistics—and those given national insurance numbers have led to fears the scale of migration is far higher than stated. In the last five years 904,000 EU nationals moved to Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics, yet 2.25 million NI numbers were issued—a difference of 1.3 million. In December, civil servants at HM Revenue and Customs controversially refused to reveal how many of the NI numbers—which are needed to pay tax or claim benefits—were active by arguing it could undermine the Prime Minister's EU membership renegotiation."
A difference of 1.3 million, the Prime Minister and his cronies would no doubt argue, is just an anecdote. Mistakes happen. Let's build that bridge from Ankara to Brussels and don't ask any questions. It's all the fault of reporters for spending "too much time looking at each other's newspapers".
Predictably, the Remain campaign is not content enough to rely on distortion of facts nor the attempt to hide data that runs counter to any of their assertions. If you tend toward a Leave vote, you're a bore, a wet blanket, a philistine and, of course, a racist. In her Daily Telegraph column, "Why am I considered a bigot or an idiot for wanting Britain to leave the EU?" from March 5, Janet Daley writes:

What kind of community threatens people who want to leave it? What exactly is this thing that we joined all those years ago—a cult? The argument that we were persuaded into membership of the European Union under false pretenses becomes almost irresistibly credible. The Common Market as it was then [in 1973] seems to have transmogrified into the Moonies. 

I don't know about you, but I find myself wondering what sort of people we are in league with here. Are they prepared to say absolutely anything—however hysterical or unfounded—to get the result they want? The spirit of "communitaire"—of social solidarity—was supposed to be about mutual support between states and the institutionalizing of decency and fairness across the populations of Europe who had fought each other to a bloody standstill twice in the last century. How is that to be reconciled with the unforgiving vengeance handed out to any member's resistance to central diktats—let alone conscientious doubts about whether a country's membership is in its own best interests?

Daley's just getting warmed up. After detailing the veiled threats against Leave delivered by French economy minister Emmanuel Macron and Cameron's business secretary Sajid Javid, Daley concludes:

The best way to avoid losing an argument is not to engage in it at all: just threaten and alarm those who might be inclined to listen to the other side. Could this be why the Remain campaign has become so vicious and personal, with so little apparent provocation from its opponents? Might it be relentlessly negative because it has so little to offer that is actually positive? Its more moderate spokesmen do not tell ugly horror stories about hordes of migrants arriving in Kent but even they murmur fearfully of "uncertainty" and the amorphous danger of economic instability. 

Certainly nobody wants to face an immediate future of insecurity, but how does remaining in the EU address that worry: by permitting the importation of infinite cheap labour with all the pressures on housing, schools and NHS resources that that involves? By supporting the interests of big corporations to the detriment of small entrepreneurial businesses that actually create more local jobs? If there is a reasonable, substantial case to be made for Remain, then I would, seriously, like to hear it. In the meantime, I will continue to be enraged by people who think that I must be a bigot or an idiot to want to vote for Leave.

Why do the Remainiacs have to lie, cheat and intimidate if their message is one of peace, prosperity and harmony? Why allow a referendum on the issue if the side who assented to it seeks to destroy the opposition instead of engaging intelligently with it? What have they got to hide—or to lose? We already know that crony capitalists and globalist corporatists are behind it. The Government will have to re-jig its alliances in the event of Brexit. Furthermore, we know they attempted to protect themselves against ONS figures that have presented the true story of migration into Britain and how the country's infrastructure and society are fraying as a result.
In the Daily Mail from April 4, energy minister Andrea Leadsom establishes what leaving the EU would actually entail:

Leaving the EU is a process laid out in treaty. Once the UK decides to begin that formal process, probably following a number of months of informal negotiations, there will be two years during which new legally binding agreements over trade and other issues are negotiated. 

The trade deals we secure will reflect not just the fact that we are one of the world's most powerful economies. We are also the EU's biggest trading partner, the key financial services centre in Europe and we also, of course, have a shared history through which our terms of trade in goods and services have become closely aligned over 43 years of EU membership. There will be enormous interest on both sides in ensuring the negotiations are successful and trade continues - after all, the EU exports more to us than we do to them. Nor would foreign investment into the UK be harmed.

Urging British voters to opt out of the EU for their children's sake, Leadsom states:

[W]hat of young people in the UK today? It is they above all who have the right to look beyond the dreary issues of process and bureaucratic negotiation and ask themselves what sort of country they want in ten, 20 or 30 years' time. They will not have another chance. It is 40 years since we last held this vote. 

For young people the choice is clear. They can remain in the EU, tied to the Eurozone, unable to control migration, at the mercy of one of the greatest centralizing forces we have seen in European history—and continue to suffer from a democratic deficit that has already created civil unrest in mainland Europe. Or they can seize this momentous opportunity, and embrace the four-fifths of the world that is outside the EU.

Many City of London-based financial institutions, those high-flyers in the FTSE 100, have backed Remain. What necktied corporate robot is going to express individuality and sovereignty by embracing Leave? As a recent letter-to-the-editor in The Independent said of these financiers: "It was these 'experts' who failed to foresee the economic disaster of 2008. So, how much value should we put on their opinion? It is understandable that financiers should focus on the economy; but for many, other things are more important—such as the freedom to determine one's own destiny."
Some of these big business types that have stepped up to bat on behalf of Remain are hypocrites. Take Stuart Rose, the former chief executive of department store Marks and Spencer. As Andrew Pierce of The Daily Express reports, Lord Rose champions Europe because he lived there, worked there, and hired and fired people there. Despite admitting the truth of a rise in wages and a fall in migration in the event of Brexit, Rose claims to "know Europe pretty well." Yet, as Pierce writes, Rose "loved the Continent so much that when he was boss of Marks and Spencer, he closed all 38 of its stores in Europe."
Jonathan Arnott, the UKIP MEP, has asserted that the aim of the Leave campaign is the reconfiguration of Britain on the socio-political world map as "a prosperous self-governing nation." Arnott writes:

There's an incredible degree of togetherness and camaraderie across party political divides. It's about so much more than 'UKIP wants to leave the European Union'. The RMT and Aslef trade unions, over 140 Conservative MPs, a Green Party peer, a number of Labour MPs, the old Liberal Party, the DUP and TUV in Northern Ireland, a former Lib Dem MP, the Director-General of the British Chamber of Commerce suspended for daring to back Brexit, the founder of the SDP, entrepreneurs like James Dyson, businesses like Tate and Lyle, JCB, Legal and General and the manager of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. There's top economists, Nobel prize-winning scientists, founders/co-founders of Superdrug, Littlewoods, Moonpig, Wetherspoons, the boss of Lloyds, the CEO of Next and many more.

The former Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, came out for the Leave campaign in February, and argues in a recent interview published by The Daily Telegraph that the EU is attempting to reëstablish a long lost glory as determined by the Roman Empire and that such a distorted view of the modern world is doomed to fail. Boris says:

The truth is that the history of the last couple of thousand years has been broadly repeated attempts by various people or institutions—in a Freudian way—to rediscover the lost childhood of Europe, this golden age of peace and prosperity under the Romans, by trying to unify it. Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. 

The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods. But fundamentally what it is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe. There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void. 

This is a chance for the British people to be the heroes of Europe and to act as a voice of moderation and common sense, and to stop something getting in my view out of control.

Gosh, isn't it funny how the Britain Stronger in Europe team didn't mention BoJo along with Le Pen, Farage, Trump and Galloway in their propogandist e-mail. Could it be that Johnson is popular and would have easily won a third term as London Mayor if he'd wanted to? Instead, Johnson is pinning his hopes on a successful Leave vote and, in such an event, setting himself up as the successor to the featherweight currently in charge of the Conservative party, re: Dodgy Dave. No, you can't pass that off as legit, can you, Stronger In? Best to ignore that point along with so many others, as is your wont.
Johnson's comparison to the Roman Empire is a valid one, though I would say the European Union has become an attempt to restore the Soviet Union, only without the strong military, the nuclear weapons and the sense of purpose. Or it could be that the EU is a United States of Europe, using Obama's presidency as the blueprint: undemocratic, bureaucratic and thoroughly corrupt.
There is a silver lining that the Leave camp can depend on, as The Financial Times reports. The Remainiacs are in part relying on the easily pliable minds of young people to prop up their campaign. Give them a lollipop, pat them on the heads, tell them they're good, tolerant people and send the little warriors on their way with their posters and leaflets.
Well, as it turns out, not only are most of these millennial messiahs unaware of when the vote takes place—and that being the case, I certainly will not confirm in the event that any of the genuises are reading this—but 56 percent of the student population that has been mobilized in favor of Remain won't be at the addresses that they originally registered come voting time. Oops!
Chief executive of Universities UK Nicola Dandridge opined that "it is of real concern that so many are unaware of the referendum date and of the fact that they may have to re-register to vote at another address."
Yeah, Nicola, what a bummer. Guess we'll have to leave this vote up to those with mature brains.

The case for Leave the EU, part II

The other day, one of the usual fluff "news" offerings on Yahoo! informed those who read it what the top 25 cities for the highest quality of life on Earth currently are. Four Canadian, three Swiss and five antipodean (Australian/New Zealand) cities made the list. Little Luxembourg also cracked the top 25. Those make sense; those I can believe.
However, the list of twenty-five includes some truly outlandish choices. Brussels, for instance. The Islamofascist terror capital of Europe, where 32 innocent people were slaughtered when bombs exploded at its international airport and a downtown subway station as recently as March. We also find Stockholm on the list. The Swedish capital is the rape centre of Europe, and it's not the native descendants of the Vikings committing the crimes.
As if those inclusions were not brash enough on account of the dopes who compiled the list, here's where it gets really good. No less than seven German cities appear on it. That's right, Germany rocks a .280 batting average on this compilation. That's 28 percent for those of you who do not understand baseball statistics. Over one-quarter of twenty-five offerings are in Germany. I stress this point because I want you, dear reader, to understand what this means. It means "propaganda," on a big-time, grade-A, major-league scale.
By including Stuttgart, Nurnberg, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Munich and even the capital Berlin on the list, Mercer, an investment firm and compiler of this risible list, is telling the average person, "Hey, you. Don't you wish you lived in Germany? Look at all the cities there that cracked our top twenty-five for quality of life. Why, life would be such a treat for you and your kids, because German schools are the place to be for pupils who want peaceful school days and who can study diversity from a safe distance. You can party hardy in city center plazas all night long and Germany is so lawful and so structured that nothing bad will ever happen. All hail Chancellor Merkel for making Germany such a paragon of virtue and civility!"
If you believe this hogwash for even a tenth of a microsecond, I feel very sorry for you. I would bet good money on the average German bursting out laughing upon seeing this list. Alas, Mercer lets us know, in no uncertain terms, that no American cities made the top twenty-five. Oh, really? Why is that, pray tell? Because even they can't deny the threat of being caught up in a Black Lives Matter (Only When White People Are Involved) "protest"? That you can attend a ballgame and not be able to leave the park once it's over because the city around the ballpark has become a war zone, with Soros's satanic children running riot? Because loonies are not kept in insane asylums where they belong and are free to go on stabbing or shooting sprees in offices and shopping malls across the fruited plain? Because America has an unpatrolled and porous, open southern border so that its cities are full of criminal aliens who are deemed untouchable as soon as they arrive? No surprise there, genuises. But I digress ...
Surely Mercer does not have an agenda when it comes to whether to stay in or leave the European Union? Think again. Informing us that pensions uncertainty could ensue in the event of Brexit, they suggest that "trustees monitor the position closely."
"Currently, the EU has a significant influence on the UK's pension legislation and a growing role on regulatory issues," Mercer states. Yes, and that's exactly the problem, idiots. Can Britain not look after its own pensions structure? I know the Government doesn't want to deal with that, because they're predictably lazy, it's far easier for them to plop it all in the hands of faceless bureaucrats in Brussels, assuming they don't get blown up on the way into their gloomy offices. But they will bloody well be forced to deal with it if the Leave side wins, won't they?
The Remainiacs will say anything and get you to believe that it's the end of the world if you don't comply with them. Prime Minister David Cameron has spoken of the possibility of (yet another) war in Europe if Britain leaves. This assumes that Britain's presence in the EU solidly prevents such a scenario from occurring. Perhaps one European leader could enlighten us as to how the U.K. is stopping the coming armageddon, because this Government certainly isn't clarifying. So leaving the EU according to Dodgy Dave is apparently akin to leaving NATO. That's right. If Brexit succeeds, just lock yourselves away in your basements, folks, we're in for one hell of a rough ride.
I do apologize, but I'm not inclined to vote in favor of continuing to be metaphorically ass-raped by the unelected boobs of the EU, especially when they are so hypocritical. Diversity is fine if it's of a different skin color, creed, religion, what have you, as long as it's not classically European—re: white—in focus or structure. Diversity, however, within the established order of Europe is verboten.
Fans of the soccer team in Barcelona have been subjected to full body searches in order to remove any Catalan independence flags so they will not be waved about in the stands to cause any dissension. Because the Catalan independence movement is just so blood-thirsty and violent, y'know? Every other day, there's yet another atrocity being committed by some terrorist cell in Barcelona. It's a real problem. Yep, yep. So Spain sends goons on behalf of its government to the stadium to strip fans of any esteladas that they may be hiding and telling Barça fans, "no, no, naughty, naughty. You have flag, you miss game."
When the phone don't ring, you know it's EU president Jean-Claude Juncker on the line, saying that this crackdown on freedom of speech and expression cannot be tolerated. These are the same continental cretins who claim "human rights" have prevented it from smashing the terrorist cells in Molenbeek, the jihadist center of Brussels.
"Refugees" and "migrants" are actively turning Europe into Eurabia, and yet European leaders, including in Germany, fret over neo-Nazis and other far-Right groups instead, because they all have IQs of seven, which means they have no understanding of cause and effect. Masked anti-refugee vigilantes are becoming a regular part of life in Stockholm and other parts of Sweden, but The Guardian and the moonbats who read it worry a lot more about them than the crisis that gave rise to them in the first place.
With public services being stretched to breaking point in Britain, and with the Muslim presence already long since determined to be a threat, Cameron has told us "not to think about" Turkey's looming membership in the EU and that he is passionate about "paving a road from Ankara to Brussels". For those of you unfamiliar with the way they settle things in Ankara, have a look at the following: 
This happens all the time. The Turks are pretty passionate themselves. Turkish parliamentary debates should be prime-time and pay-per-view; it would give the UFC a run for its money. This is the government that David Cameron wants to work with as a member of the European Union. How jolly.
President Obama and his goof of a slavish lapdog, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have said they want Britain to remain in the EU. So has Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Does that not say it all?
In fact, even though the polls naturally fluctuate, in the days after Barry O.'s visit to tell the Brits that they'd be last in the queue for a trade deal if they voted to leave, support for Brexit shot up. There was an "Obama effect," but it backfired.
Entrepreneur and Dragons' Den star Theo Paphitis, when asked about the campaign to remain in the EU and the American carnival barker-in-charge's visit to intercede on behalf of it, opined thusly:

Obama, what was he thinking? This is Great Britain, not a third world country run by a tinpot dictator. It was: 'Do as the Americans tell you to do because it's in the best interests of America and you must give up your democracy and sovereignty.' I think whoever was advising him must be an idiot. There's no doubt that in the medium to long term, leaving will make no [negative] difference to trade. Whoever tells you otherwise is mad, because it defies every piece of logic and trade in the history of man. It is rubbish.

So another successful businessman has criticized the Remain camp. Oh dear. Better let the world know that a Dragon has joined the ranks of Trump, Le Pen, Galloway and Farage!
Jonathan Arnott, a member both of UKIP and of the European Parliament, notes the asininity of Obama's intervention: "I wonder if he'd accept a pan-American union where the USA had to subsidize smaller nations, where the USA didn't have the power to write its own laws, where 'gas' prices more than doubled overnight, where they had to accept unlimited immigration from Mexico and where they had to ask other countries' permission to set their own foreign policy." Mr. Arnott, you obviously don't know this imposter very well, because it is obvious to everyone who has had to live under his executive tyranny that Obama would object to none of that, and is in fact actively seeking it. However, your point is taken.
A Scottish audience member on the show Question Time, in which various politicians discuss issues of the day and answer queries from those in the auditorium, went even further. Complaining about how Barack Obama threatened the U.K. with a low trade priority while also pushing the TTIP "free trade" agreement, and how the whole European system seems to be run from America, the audience member concluded, when asked by moderator David Dimbleby what he would like done about it, that he'd blow the U.S. up once Brexit had succeeded. As a watcher of the programme declared later on Twitter, "Welcome to Aberdeen!"
All joking aside, these are issues of sovereignty that cannot be taken lightly. Mr. Arnott, as a European Parliament member, knows only too well. He informs us that, "the phrase 'diktats from Brussels' relate to the fact that, almost every time, the driving force behind new legislation is the unelected Commission. Elected MEPs end up being little more than a rubber-stamping chamber. There is no 'government' and 'opposition' in the European Parliament."
The hysteria of the Remain camp grows day by day, playing on the politics of fear. One wonders why David Cameron even allowed a referendum on the EU when he allies himself so firmly with those who shamelessly fib about what Brexit would mean. We would lose access to the Single Market? Why, then, can Norway, Iceland, the Channel Islands, Liechtenstein and Switzerland all partake in it when none of them are part of the EU? Our business climate would suffer? If Brexit succeeds, British businesses, by and large, will be free of the EU's onerous regulations. We would lose loads of jobs? The jobs that Remain says are at risk depend largely on trade, not EU membership. As Matthew Snape's piece on Backbench states, "with a seat at the WTO, we will no doubt organize better trade deals for Britain instead of being tied to the failed Common Commercial Policy of the EU."
Why is Remain so desperate if their arguments in favor of staying part of the EU so sound? An acquaintance of mine was considering voting to stay. He had pretty much determined that was the right thing to do. Then he got one of Remain's infamous leaflets delivered through his mail-slot and became incensed at the hyperbole inside that he was expected to digest. Well done, Remainiacs—you've just created a Leave voter.
Apparently, Remain can't find enough globalist, Paul Ryan clones to try to sell its snake oil. C'est dommage! Such a pity.

The case for Leave the EU, part I

The other day, Squirrel witnessed somebody handing out pro-European Union leaflets on behalf of the Remain campaign at the local train station. Strewn all over the ground by the station, along the road leading from the station and even on the concourses were these paper leaflets. What was one of the talking points in said leaflets? That environmental concerns are better addressed by staying in the EU. Wonderful ... or should I say, wunderbar.
Not to be outdone in terms of inanity, the bozos at the Britain Stronger in Europe movement are under the impression that I'll be intimidated by the following. Addressing me by name in a previous e-mail, these witless crusaders beseech me to consider that "Donald Trump backs Brexit. Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's racist National Front, backs Brexit. Nigel Farage and George Galloway back Brexit."
Ummm ... OK? And they all happen to be right, including George Galloway. A broken clock is correct twice a day. I'm supposed to be put off the Leave campaign because one loose screw on the far-Left backs it? I'm not. Good for you, "Gorgeous George".
"These are people who campaign on fear and division—and we've got to fight them every step of the way," says Stronger In, who incidentally themselves comprise of swank Lefties who've never had one word to say about Galloway's other antics, too numerous to mention—but you can read about that here.
I'm no fan of Le Pen either, or any hard-Right nutter—authoritarians are bad news, be they Left- or Right-wing—but she would not exist were it not for the increasingly Stalinist-Leninist direction of the European Union with all its diktats and declarations, constantly telling us what appliances and medicines we can have, forever bleating on about the human rights of dangerous criminals, and the defenseless state to which this power-hungry, anti-democratic federalist entity subjects us because it needs its precious migrants.
Dear reader, you can say that the European Union has become the new Soviet Union and that would have some validity. However, at least the U.S.S.R. was very strong militarily and had some sense of purpose. The Soviets knew what they believed and they were prepared to defend it. Limp-wristed Europe won't strengthen its borders against invaders and if you ask any of the wooden Indians who make up its bureaucracy what it means to be European, they will no doubt scratch their heads and say they'll get back to you on that. 
Alison Pearson, writing in The Daily Telegraph, notes that the population equivalent of six cities the size of Newcastle have flooded into Britain between 2010 and 2015, and says, "[T]he Government truly, madly, deeply wishes that we would stop asking awkward questions about immigration and do something else, like laying in beer, bratwurst and I HEART Merkel! T-shirts for our Eurovision party at the weekend." (Eurovision is a song contest that has been held since 1956 and, if you've ever seen it, offers the best reason for leaving the EU on general principle alone.)

The Office of National Statistics has made a habit of assuming that workers from across Europe, especially Eastern European ones, will come to Britain to fill a role, earn the money they need and head back home. Just ask Americans how effective such a program is, given all their problems with overstays on student and HB1 visas. The ONS recently revealed, however, that the number of National Insurance numbers have inexorably risen, with no indicators of the expected drop-off in active numbers that could be predicted if these migrants left. Instead, these people have brought their families over and settled down. The ONS previously told us that within the last five years just under one million immigrants settled in the UK. Their most recent report reveals an actual figure of 2.4 million. The Remain campaign is so open about the facts that they attempted to block access to this data by ignoring the Freedom of Information Act until it was no longer feasible.

Pearson writes of this population surge, "It's a stupefying figure, which helps to explain the growing crisis in the NHS, with one migrant registering per minute with a GP in England and Wales. (Yes, madam, it's why there isn't a single free paediatric bed in Greater London for your little boy with a bursting appendix.)"
Remainiacs, perhaps you'd care to explain how we can possibly miss these people when they won't go away?
More from Pearson: "The pattern of this referendum campaign so far is the Establishment telling the men and women of this country we are too stupid to understand what's good for us. Trust in the elites, folks, and vote Remain. If yesterday's figures say anything, however, it's that the elites are not to be trusted. When it comes to uncontrolled immigration, they have played the biggest con-trick in living memory. I am sure there are many eloquent words to describe this situation, but the three I find myself reaching for are absolute, bloody and disgrace."
Yet, the folks at Stronger In expect me to believe that the good men and women of the Leave camp "don't care about your job, your rights at work, or lower prices for you and your family—they have their own agenda." Really? I see. So it's Leave that wants Brits to lose out to massive influxes of cheap labor? Talk about a non-sequitur. And, yeah, agendas—pfft, sure, the Remainiacs ain't got them, they're as pure as the driven snow. You can trust them, they're not like all the others.
If the Remain campaign is so noble, then why did new Mayor of London Sadiq Khan not reveal himself as a supporter until after he won the May 5 election? Is Sadiq a political coward? I don't think so. It's obvious that Remain, the true invertebrates in this tale of woe, told him that the mayoral election was too important to risk by taking a side beforehand. In stark contrast, his opponent, Zac Goldsmith, had already let his position in favor of Leave be known. And that is not the reason why Goldsmith lost, in case the Remainiacs wish to gloat about that. Mr. Khan's win represents the typical win-loss cycle of an electoral system dominated by two parties. The London mayoral office was under a Conservative administration for the last eight years. Voters—the 45.3 percent of them who actually turned out—decided it was Labour's turn again.
We could stand on our own just fine if only this pathetic so-called Conservative government took steps to strengthen its own native population, you know, citizens, instead of looking after every Tomasz, Dietrich and Henri who stand at border control, announcing, "I love Britain, God bless the Queen, give me job!"
The Remain campaign is run by corporatists who fund the government and campaigned on behalf of by young people too ignorant to know they're being duped. Europe is trendy, don't you know, and why do we want to be insular and ... and ... isolationist (dark word alert, dunh, dunh, dunh!) by leaving its protective bosom? Oh dear, oh golly, oh gee willikers!
Remain doesn't care about the cruelty inherent in allowing big business to get their cheap labor while the formerly proud working class in the country continues to get destroyed by indolence and the alcoholism and drug-taking that usually accompanies it. Just throw benefits at the bums and shut them up. We need more migrants.
I can demonstrate. Tata Steel Limited's British operation has been decimated by cheap Chinese steel imports which the EU allows for, thanks in large part to the U.K.'s intervention on behalf of the lesser duty rule that prevents tariffs to discourage dumping. Prime Minister David Cameron then sends Business Secretary Sajid Javid to talk with furious workers at the steel firm's Port Talbot plant. China, meanwhile, posted a 46 percent tariff on goods from that very plant. It doesn't matter though, because our high-tech industries are booming, whose bottom tiers, from customer service, data entry and various run-of-the-mill duties, are filled with workers from within and outside of the EU. Of course, once those outside the EU enter the EU, Europe accepts them and they eventually get shunted to Britain.
Oh, but it gets better. The vote over whether we should stay or go comes at a time when the EU is pondering the swelling of its ranks by adding Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and Turkey. The United Kingdom, under its current corrupt leadership, is only too happy to provide the millions worth of funding to make this possible. That's OK, though, because apparently, the ones in charge care about my job and are free of any agendas. Yep.
Is there anyone other than the average Remainiac goon who thinks that adding 78 million Muslims to the European Union is a good idea? I hate to be ... gee, prejudicial, but I just don't see the benefit to this. More people will rush into the U.K. to take advantage of not just available work, but the new National Living Wage. Workers from Eastern Europe previously extolled the higher wages available here than in their native countries and the Government, through sheer brilliance, just brightened the beacon leading them here by forcing a higher national minimum wage on employers.
"We can't let Trump, Farage and Galloway win. Let's fight them together. Donate £3 or whatever you can afford today and help fund the leaflets, street stalls, and posters that will help us reach the voters that will decide this referendum. Will you stand up to them today, Mark?" the Stronger In Team asks me, no doubt all doe-eyed with fluttering eyelashes.
Sorry, but no. In fact, I think I'll fight you propagandists instead.

I think I passed the "feel like a foreigner everywhere" test

6:23 a.m. at King's College Hospital, south London. An early Monday morning. I've been up about 14 hours at this point, having come straight from work. I walk into the dim blood test waiting room. A man of 80 is standing there already. He says to me, before I can press the button for a number, that the machine is not yet working.
"That figures," I say. "Well, it's early. Maybe it'll start working around 7?"
"Could do," he replies. "Where are you from?"
"Boston, sir."
"Ah, so you're a Yank," he exclaims, pronouncing the last word as if it tasted of chocolate cake. I have the perhaps too-proud pleasure of informing him that, yes, that's true, but that I'm a British citizen and passport holder.
He tells me about himself. He's a Korean War veteran who also spent time in jail for stealing cars during his youth. He also reminisces about his time in Arizona where he went because property during the '50s was cheap and it was open to Green Card holders. He never got his American citizenship, however, so he eventually moved back to London.
"An' when I got back," he says, giving me a steely, but sincere look, "it was like starting over. Hard to describe. I felt a piece of me missing, knowing I left it 'ere, but I couldn't find it."
I'd be lying if I said I could not relate.
Actress Kate Beckinsale recently commented on the ex-pat phenomenon. She said, "I remember someone saying to me that if you've lived for five years away from where you came from you're never completely at home anywhere and I do feel a bit like that. I'm very familiar now with Los Angeles and America but I still feel one hundred percent a foreigner here, and then I go back to London and I don't feel completely un-foreign there."
It's the same for me, but in reverse. I haven't been to Boston since 2011, though even then, I had to get accustomed to a different pay system for the public transportation system. A lot has changed in the years since, and I know I'll be slow to re-acquaint myself with it all.
When I go back, after years away, the uncomfortable truth is this: I'm a tourist in my own city.
As great as it is to have been blessed with another citizenship, to have a different country enshrine me as one of its own, what I cannot escape is my upbringing. I wasn't born here nor did I grow up and get schooled here. That's an experience I will never know. Therefore, like Beckensale, I cannot claim to feel totally British, even though the law states that I am.
Yet there exists a very good chance that if I'm in a sports bar in the North End, sipping an espresso at South Station or hanging out anywhere on my old stomping ground, people will ask me, as the 80-year-old, former Jack the Lad did, where I'm from. And it will sting.
Will I ever attain a sense of belonging? Or will this state of limbo in my mind last the rest of my life? I'm not afraid of it. But it would be nice to know all the same.

The issues—brought to you by 'Jonathan Miller'

Well, I'm depressed.
According to The Washington Post, who broke the story the other day, Donald Trump once called up a female magazine reporter, Sue Carswell of People, and pretended to be his own publicist, going by the name Jonathan Miller. Tapes of the ensuing conversation were leaked, with Marla Maples having confirmed Miller's voice as Trump's.
He's doomed. Doomed, I tell you.
So all you "Never Trump" types, fret ye not. The Washington Post just made it impossible for the Donald to win the White House.
Mind you, the Post is part of the same media that tells us that it's issues that count. With Hillary in mind, the bow-tied bum-kissers (to borrow a phrase from Howie Carr) implore us, we mere peons, to not bring this up and not to bring that up. It's about the issues affecting our great, wonderful country. Got that?
Don't mention Benghazi. Don't mention the disastrous Arab Spring policy that set the Middle East alight. Don't mention policy in Libya or Syria nor the private server nor the cash-for-Clintons scheme. All irrelevant. Forgive and forget, this is about our future. Think of the children.
Yet apparently there's a break in the time-space continuum in which it is possible to concentrate on non-issues if the candidate is a nationalist who's bitch-slapping the milquetoast Republican establishment out the door and into obsolescence.
The New Yorker had to get in on the action too, with John Cassidy positing that this troubling episode reveals the question of character. After all, just think, what if everyone across the country decided to pass themselves off as other people over the phone? The consequences could be irreparable. This is America. That is not who we are.
Stellar reporting by The Washington Post as always. Simply outstanding.
Here's the thing. The voters agree that this election is all about the issues. Which is why this story, mark my words, will go nowhere. It will generate a lot of hot air from all the talking heads on all the waste-of-a-sane-man's-time programs on all the know-it-all networks: CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, et al.
The Donald himself will stand at the podium during future rallies, telling the audience, "Yeah, I released that Jonathan Miller tape myself. At the time, I wanted the world to know that I was banging Marla Maples. What d'ya' think of that?" The crowd will roar. Both the babies on the Left and the petulant, jealous fools of the Bushite GOP hierarchy will shake their heads sadly and wonder why this did not even cause a micro-dent in Trump's popularity.
Don't even get me started on the whole Rowanne Brewer-Lane stuff, as reported Sunday in The New York Times, another journalistic feat par excellence, no doubt. So much so that Brewer-Lane herself has refuted the whole story, calling Mr. Trump a gentleman and saying that she was never made to feel uncomfortable during the evening pool party at the Mar-a-Lago complex in Palm Beach in 1990. Alas, you see, this further exemplifies heterosexual micro-aggression on Trump's part. We can't have that, now can we? Paul Ryan would never have "debased" a woman like that. But this is hardly Gennifer Flowers redux, despite the best attempts of the self-appointed profiles in courage to make it such. 
In the end, it will be all about the issues. Cutting off the flow of illegal aliens and "refugees," getting out of damaging bureaucratic trade deals, good jobs for American citizens, a tax plan that will embolden the middle class and empower the poor, America First foreign policies, ensuring that men and women in the United States continue to be addressed as "mister" and "miss/missus", not "señor" or "señorita". The sorts of things conservatives should have given us but, with the sole exception of good jobs for Americans thirty years ago that disappeared almost as soon as Reagan left office, never have.
These are the issues "Jonathan Miller" wants us to be concerned about. They've struck a chord, from what I've been led to understand.
By the way, notice the uncanny, split-second similarity between "Bushite" and "bullshit".  Just sayin'.

Levin calls out the 'despicable' Wall Street Journal

As much as I've been getting on Mark Levin's case lately, because his defense of Ted Cruz so often stretched to ridiculous lengths, his presentation, on his May 4 show, against the "circle-nerd" globalists of The Wall Street journal and its perennially recycled editorial in favor of open borders was pure joy to hear.
Levin reports on how The Wall Street Journal crafted their previous editorial, written 15 years ago, calling for a Constitutional amendment that would allow open borders to one that vilified Ted Cruz and Donald Trump for their respective positions that challenged open borders and the status quo mess that is our poor excuse for policies concerning immigration.

One of the most pathetic editorial pages in the country, up there with The New York 'Slimes' and The Washington 'Compost' and so many of these Left-wing newspapers, is The Wall Street Journal. It's a propagandist machine ... The Wall Street Journal editorial page is basically Mitch McConnell's press secretary. They were also very flattered to have John Boehner as Speaker of the House. They have defended virtually every major spending bill, every major debt, every major budget, every major screw-up—the bail-outs, TARP—all of it. The Wall Street Journal editorial page is basically in the back pocket of The U.S. Chamber of 'Crony Capitalism'. Which is why most of you can't stand them ... They write like Left-wing, Marxist kooks. 

This despicable, deplorable editorial page made clear several decades ago, 'thou shalt have open borders'. That's what they wanted as a Constitutional amendment ... The Wall Street Journal editorial board is un-American, when it comes to immigration. Absolutely un-American, and dangerously so. 

In the second paragraph [of the open borders editorial]: 'During the immigration debate of 1984, we suggested an ultimate goal to guide passing policies,' that is, on immigration. A Constitutional amendment, quote, 'There shall be open borders'. And do you know what happened? A little over two months later, we were attacked. In some cases, by people who overstayed their visas. It's called 9/11. Terrorists come into a country, criminals come into a country. Yes, yes, yes. As John McCain would say, 'Hey, who's gonna pick the lettuce?' 

We were hit on 9/11. Maybe The Wall Street Journal editorial page has some responsibility for it. Pressing, pressing, pressing the most extreme and radical agenda when it comes to immigration, ever. Not even our imperial President believes there shall be open borders. No, effectively there are, but he would never say that. The Wall Street Journal proudly says, 'there shall be open borders'. [But] they don't propose that amendment anymore. The circle-nerds over there at The Wall Street Journal editorial page, they don't propose this editorial anymore. Do you, boys? Do you, kids? No, you don't. Instead, you trash the candidates who want to make sure America is secure and safe, who will take on the enemy. 

But for you, cheap labor—cheap foreign labor, cheap third-world foreign labor—is more important than America's security, even after 9/11. You punks are a disgrace. You are frauds and you're fakes. And the same for your boss, Rupert Murdoch, another open-border guy, an immigrant into the United States. Open borders, open borders, open borders. They've learned nothing. Even after 9/11, they've learned nothing. Some days it's hard to tell the difference between The New York 'Slimes' editorial page and The Wall Street Journal editorial page. 

So what do these people stand for on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal? They stand for autocracy. They do not stand for limited, Constitutional government. They do not stand for free-market capitalism. They stand for autocracy, they stand for crony capitalism, and they stand for crony, centralized big government. Because many of their favorite subscribers rely on corrupt, phony, crony capitalism, in bed with the federal government, in bed with the Re-pube-licans, in bed with the Democrat party, to make their millions and their billions ... This is their mouthpiece, The Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Bravo, Mark, bravo. I do like to give credit where it's due, and this little deliverance of a major home truth on the air deserves space on this blog.

Cruz: Out, but not down

Did you hear those desperate cries of "no!" from the audience when Ted Cruz announced the suspension of his campaign after the Indiana results? Oh my, I don't think I've laughed so hard in weeks.
I guess we won't be having a war with Russia, y'know, for the sake of the country. Aw, shucks!
I'm not surprised that John Kasich also hung his completely pointless campaign up. I'm just impressed that he had enough mental wherewithal to recognize the right thing to do. Either that, or some restaurant promised him an eight-course meal if he would drop out.
So now—now?! —can we get to work on trying to defeat the real monster, the real psychopath, the real threat to this country and the people within it? Can we show some sense and replace Trump's name with Hillary's in the "Anybody But ..." hashtag?
Not if the callers on Mark Levin's May 3rd show are any indication. One young dork told Levin that he would vote for Hillary. Even though Levin advised him against it, it's telling that his reaction was not one of horror, but just a matter-of-factly delivered "really?" That's how much you hate Trump, Mr. Levin?
"We're hearing a lot of anger," Levin noted at one point after several calls from Cruz-bots who are still on the "Never Trump" bandwagon. You're hearing anger, Mark. I'm hearing a lot of idiocy.
Now, the Donald has engaged in some very untoward behavior with regard to Mr. Cruz and it wasn't right. The tweets about his wife Heidi, addressing him as "Lyin' Ted," and the latest row over his father's anecdotal association with Lee Harvey Oswald ... yes, Donald has not exactly been the definition of noble.
A day before ending his campaign, Cruz unleashed on Trump:

I'm going to do something I haven't done for the entire campaign for those of y'all who've traveled with me, all across the country. I'm gonna tell you what I really think of Donald Trump. This man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies, he lies [with] practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And, in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying. He accuses everybody on that debate stage of lying, and it's simply a mindless yell. Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing. 

The man cannot tell the truth but he combines it with being a narcissist. A narcisist at a level [that] I don't think this country's ever seen. Donald Trump is such a narcissist that Barack Obama looks at him and goes, 'Dude, what's your problem?' 

Everything in Donald's world is about Donald, and he combines being a pathological liar—and I say 'pathological' because I actually think [that] Donald, if you hooked him up to a lie-detector test, he could say one thing in the morning, one thing at noon and one thing in the evening, all contradictory, and he'd pass the lie-detector test each time. Whatever lie he's telling, at that minute, he believes it. But the man is utterly amoral.

Donald Trump should not have run with a National Enquirer story, passing it off as a rock-solid truth, that Teddy Boy's father, Raphael, was with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the assassination of JFK. That was the very definition of inane and it's this kind of BS that has made many otherwise great conservatives think twice about the Donald. I acknowledge that.
But—by God—I have had it with these Beltway psuedo-conservatives like George Will, William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer telling us that Hillary would be better because we can somewhat stymie her with a Republican Congress and in four years we'll fight again. Fight again, with whom? Another phony weakling straight out of the school of soft knocks like Bob Dole, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Jeb Bush or Paul Ryan? Or any other spineless little Establishment-approved turdball in Congress squeaking, "It's my turn. I wanna be President! Me, me!" Because I'll tell you right now, no-one is going to want to revisit 2016, especially Ted Cruz himself. That ship has sailed, friends.
Donald Trump is pulling in the independents and the blue-collar conservative Democrats. Even many Bernie-supporters have said that if Hillary is the Democrat candidate, they will likely vote for Trump. Would Cruz have reeled in those "feeling the Bern"? I highly doubt it.
Dear reader, Trump got 49 percent of the vote in the Republican primary in Massachusetts. How did that happen in a state known more colloquially as "Tax-a-chusetts," whose governor is about as RINO as they come? Registered Democrats, 20,000 of them, switched party affiliations to vote for the Donald. Like, hello?!
Trump is so successful because this country has been devastated by big, bureaucratic trade deals, the type Ted Cruz liked the look of. Was his horror at the funding of the Import-Export Bank being part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership genuine? Who knows. I can tell you that Cruz did not, and obviously could not, appeal to those who've lost good-paying factory or other labor jobs in New Hampshire, Indiana, Ohio, nationwide. Sure, free trade is not the sole issue; onerous tax structures for businesses is a major player as well. But who is going to cheer the availability of cheap DVDs for Central Americans, those left who haven't tried breaking into the U.S. yet, when working-class families cannot put food on the table? Perhaps I missed something, but I don't recall Teddy Boy even once discussing this at length.
Trump captured people's sentiments straightaway: Build that wall, send illegals back, and protect jobs by renegotiating trade deals in America's favor. The Donald snared the essence of what it means to have pride in America again. In this sense, he, whether one likes it or not, is the new Reagan. Cruz exemplified a boutique base of support, but it was never going to be enough.
Trump knows how to take on the evil of the Democratic political machine. His instincts are sound, and he will destroy Hillary. It's time to support him in this regard. You do not have to like him, just have faith that he's the best thing right now. What other choice do you have? Even Republican National Committee chairman Reince Preibus has issued the order to back the Trumpster going forward.
Cruz-supporters, I'm sorry. Teddy Boy is a great man, at least if he can stop elbowing his wife in the face, and he still has a future. I was rash in writing that his career was over. If Cruz—once he's licked his wounds and has had a rest and a think—does not appeal to Trump as a running mate, then an offer for Scalia's seat on SCOTUS is still very much on the cards. It's not over for him, not by a long shot. We will be hearing from Cruz again soon and I'm positive that it will be to everyone's delight, purist or nationalist.

Mayor of London election 2016: Nightdragon's first-ever British vote

Dear reader, although I alluded to it a couple of entries ago, it's important that you realize something about me. On April 5 of this year, I became a British citizen.
This blog, to those who are familiar with it, is a mixture of musings on both American and British politico-social events or news, as I have a foot in both countries (I have retained my American citizenship). Until a month ago, my nitpickings were from the perspective of a British resident who had the right to live and work in the U.K. It's called Leave to Remain and takes the form of a permanent visa, similar to the U.S. Green Card. Voting, of course, as with some other things such as a British passport, were off-limits to me, as you would expect.
Naturally, that has now changed. I will be voting for the first time in a U.K. election, after sixteen years of having made this country my home, tomorrow evening. It will be for the new Mayor of London. Boris Johnson had two good terms, but now he's stepping down and focusing on succeeding David Cameron as the leader of the Conservative party—or so I'm led to believe from the British political punditry.
Zac Goldsmith is the Conservative candidate. He is pretty much a Cameronite: fiscally conservative and socially moderate. He wants 50,000 new homes built per year until 2020 and to encourage the use of "greener" vehicles. However, he also wants to strengthen neighborhood police units and put more police on night-time public transport. He wants to ensure that London finally gets night-time service on the Underground and kill off any lingering proposals for a third runway at Heathrow when the need for a second one at Gatwick is much greater. I have my issues with the Conservatives as they exist under David Cameron's tenure, but it is important to keep them in power in London as it is strategic, especially given Johnson's rising ambitions.
Initially, I liked the idea of Britain First's Paul Golding as a second choice, but have had cause to rethink it, as I am uncomfortable with the fact that Britain First was established by former British National Party members. Sure, they will crack down on Muslim extremism, but at what price? We cannot turn to potential fascists to solve this problem.
Therefore, I am happy to choose Peter Whittle of The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) as my second preference. It's disappointing that he buys into the need for more housing. Housing, housing, housing ..., it's an incessant drumbeat in British political discourse these days and I'm bored with it. However, UKIP wants to slash immigration, introduce an Australian-style points system for immigrants and, obviously, supports the campaign to leave the EU.
Candidates for the London Assembly will also be chosen in tomorrow's election. It is explained in full here (click on the purple word), if you're interested. It is a 25-member body that serves as a check on the Mayor. Fourteen members are chosen from each constituency in London while the other eleven members are chosen to represent London as a whole. Therefore, I'll have one vote for my particular Constituency and one London-wide vote.
For my Constituency vote, I will give it to Frank Thomas Gould of UKIP. Gareth Andrew Bacon is a current member of Boris Johnson's administration, but he has been in government for many years. I believe we could use a fresh face, a Eurosceptic one at that, on the Assembly, especially in the instance of Labour's Sadiq Khan winning the mayoral role.
For the London-wide Assembly vote, I will give that to the Animal Welfare Party. I am a political conservative, but I also believe that it is important to have members of the Assembly who will ensure that policies regarding animals will take compassion and concern for their well-being into account. Most governments, liberal or conservative, simply do not pay enough attention to animal welfare issues, so I am keen on having the five representatives from the AWP on the Assembly.
Coming up next will be the vote on June 23 on whether or not to leave the European Union. I can tell you right now that I'll be voting Leave without hesitation, but that is another discussion for another entry. Stay tuned.

Here's hoping I don't have to play the blame game

I feel very bad for Ted Cruz. I honestly do, dear reader. Not only did he have an awful day in Indiana, not only is his campaign imploding, but the poor bugger doesn't seem aware of how futile his attempt to remain alive in this Republican contest is.
Cruz should never have allied himself with John Kasich, that pathetic, cop-bashing, greedy pig of a RINO—and it was an alliance that essentially broke up before it began. Cruz agreed to let Kasich have Oregon and New Mexico if Kasich stood down in Indiana to cede it to Cruz. But Cruz, contemptuous chess-player that he is, immediately told the voters of Oregon and New Mexico not to vote for Kasich. It's pretty clear that I have no love or respect for the Ohio governor, but really, Teddy Boy? You seal an agreement with someone and that is what you do to him? Talk about a backfire. Kasich easily came in second place in four out of the five Acela primaries.
Cruz's betrayal of Kasich does, cependent, seem in line with the comfortability factor he has with regard to letting delegates—not voters—decide the contest, as with Colorado and Wyoming. Some liberty-embracing, Reaganite conservative purist.
Teddy Boy then trots out failed businesswoman and war hawk Carly Fiorina as his partner. Fiorina was picked to appeal to the female electorate and she is solid in her attacks on Madame Hillary. It makes some sense, but there are many other questions to be answered. Chief among them is her own grudge against Donald Trump. Does Cruz really believe in Fiorina to deliver for him or is it just a way to bolster the "Anyone But Trump" agenda?
Teddy and Carly see eye-to-eye with the neo-con agenda which wants to keep arming the "rebels" in Syria against Bashar al-Assad—a man who wants ISIS destroyed, a man who years ago directed his forces to kill the radicals involved in a plot to bomb the American embassy in Damascus before it was carried through—while portraying Russia, which wiped ISIS out in Palmyra, as the enemy.
I have had it with the neoconservatives and their rancorous, Trotskyist platform and the cynical embrace of the money, through contracts, that it provides them with. William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, John McCain, et al.: Put these people on Mars and let them start a war there. That's it, boys and girls, bring "freedom and democracy" to burgeoning hydrocarbons on Mars and maybe then we can get stuff accomplished here on Earth without your poisonous interventionism.
As a little aside here, dear reader ... I can't wait for the knife that will slash through the Clinton, Bush and Obama doctrines, with all the military conflicts they entailed, if Trump gets the job. I know I was a staunch defender of Dubya, his administration and his policies a decade ago. That was because, when it came to Iraq, I did believe in the destabilizing threat inherent if not in Saddam Hussein or his Ba'athist party, then his more psychotic sons Qusay and Uday. Furthermore, if the Left hadn't been so childish and unpatriotic in their opposition to the War in Iraq, calling it the "War on Iraq," sending out stupid memes like the one that used all the oil/gas company logos and calling members of the administration "Wolfie" and "Rummy" and the president himself "the Shrub," and perhaps if Stop the War had not been the poster child of the anti-war perspective, I would have seen the sense in opposing the whole agenda.
Just maybe if most liberals had calmly and clearly argued that the President had no plan for how to replace what he wanted to topple in both Afghanistan and Iraq, we could have been spared the ra-ra patriotism that served as the natural, automatic and understandable response to the progressives' puerile protests and which defended the war hawks. Yes, Lefties, it is all your fault.
Back to Cruz: If he had just stepped down after the New Hampshire or South Carolina primary, had a talk with the Donald and dropped out, Trump very likely would have reserved the late Antonin Scalia's seat on the Supreme Court for him. Now, he can forget it. Trump is likely to keep humiliating Cruz after he's won the nomination and the Presidency, and Cruz will have no-one to blame but himself. Like Marco Rubio, this dude is finished. How either of those men can revive their fortunes, never mind their good standing among the public, is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Actually, Rubio has a small chance at being considered as Trump's VP. Not likely, but he has been mentioned. Cruz? No chance. Teddy Boy would rather keep deluding himself that Trump can be stopped from getting the necessary 1,237 delegates, thinking he'll take Indiana and California, and stand a chance with a second ... a third ... a fourth ballot at the convention in July.
Ted Cruz is an ill man, in addition to a charlatan, because as I've already written in past entries, I'm hardly convinced that he has not worked with Senator Leader Mitch McConnell to portray himself as his adversary and, therefore, an "outsider". I know former House Speaker John "Bonehead" Boehner, as useless a degenerate drunk as you will ever come across, recently referred to Cruz as "Lucifer in the flesh," right up there among the best of ironic political machinations.
I can just hear it now, in some darkly lit Washington backroom: "C'mon, John, your turn. Step up to the plate, John. It can't be on Mitch all the time, and you know that. Come on, your margarita will still be waiting for you, just put it down for one moment and make an announcement bashing Ted Cruz. We need to make Ted appear as anti-Establishment as possible."
See where I'm going with this? Cruz is one of them, but he's been careless. He's been revealing just a little too much of that lately, with his embrace of voter-free delegate counts and proudly citing the endorsements of Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham as if they were actually worth a damn. So, time to drag the Orange Man from his barstool and prop him up in front of the podium and the lights for him to announce, "Goddamnit—hic!—but I sure hate Ted Cruz!"
Yep, that's believable. Golly, the GOP is so clever!
"But hey," I hear you Cruz-bots telling me, "We know Cruz is the real deal because Glenn Beck is fasting and praying on his behalf."
Ah yes, Glenn Beck, the phony evangelical, with his mansion and his private jet, who douses his face in crushed-up Cheetos in a bizarre protest against Trump, radio's most prolific weeper, who fired a load of people who've been loyal to him because his media empire is sinking fast. That Glenn Beck? Oh, you purists are a scream, I'll tell you what.
What's infuriating about the whole thing is that the Cruz people and Trump people are supposed to be allies in the fight against the socialist takeover of America. We could both make this country truly great again, together. But the Cruz crowd won't vote for Trump because they listen to schmendricks like Mark Levin who makes every excuse, no matter how feeble, for Cruz and his tactics. If the pardon just can't be delivered in a modern sense, Levin will start discussing some esoteric anecdote from the 19th century to justify it. Right, Mark, Lincoln got elected through a contested convention. I get that. That was a different era. There were no such thing as voter primaries in 1860.
Trump, for all his faults, has told us what he will do and he's been very clear about it. Sure, he's unrefined, he's made errors in judgment and he's taken some head-scratching positions on some subjects like the North Carolina bathroom law. Yet he also recently delivered a foreign policy speech that true patriots have been waiting forty years to hear. Nevertheless, I'm expected by all "real" conservatives to embrace a man who handed soccer balls out to border-jumpers alongside the snack product-bathing headcase I mentioned earlier.
If this country goes to hell in a handbasket for good because Mrs. "Hot Sauce in my Handbag" Pantsuit gets elected, because of the deleterious trade deals that'll be signed, illegal wars fought, businesses killed through the continuance of Obama-nomics*, and Stalinists put on SCOTUS as a result of her presidency, I already know who I'll be blaming.

* I credit my wife Squirrel for coming up with that phrase.