Bullhornymous

When I first heard that Trump was going to watch a sumo tournament and hand out a trophy, I was a bit surprised, knowing how full of tradition sumo is, and like a religion to many Japanese. And a real religion, not some hypocritical evangelical crap. The sumo ring is a sacred space, where the same set of rules and rituals has applied to its inhabitants for centuries.  But always willing to do my share to further world peace, I called Kellyanne with some suggestions. First of all, I said that Trump should ditch his baggy-pants suit and long red tie, and enter the stadium wearing the traditional sumo loin cloth, the mawashi. He could even arrange his orange hair into a sumo topknot, the chonmage. Just imagine the reception he would have got. Instead of the usual idiot the Japanese were expecting to see, Trump would enter like a true Sumo devotee, and the roar of appreciation would even be heard in North Korea. And Trump, with his huge build and paunch would be quite suited to a sumo loo

Here a bit of what I wrote last on the subject. In the table, I have added the provisional results. Remember, the groups are listed from Left to Right. Looking at the latest opinion polls (taken before the Austrian scandal), I sometimes wonder whether the rise of the far right is being hyped to something far bigger than it is.                                 Seats 214       Proj. 2019             Result GUE-NGL                        52                    46                    38 Greens-EFA                    51                     56                    70     S&D                                189                   149.                 150 ALDE                                68                     97                  107 EPP                                  217                   167                 179 ECR                                   74                     57                   58 EFDD                                 45                    57                   56

Looking at the latest opinion polls (taken before the Austrian scandal), I sometimes wonder whether the rise of the far right is being hyped to something far bigger than it is. Here, from the FT, is the result based on current polls, with the groupings listed from far left to far right (my opinion), like in the earlier chart I sent. The “centre left/right” parties are shown separate in the middle. There are 751 seats, so you need 376 for a majority.                                 Seats 214       Proj. 2019        GUE-NGL                        52                    46  Greens-EFA                    51                     56                      S&D                                189                   149 ALDE                                68                     97 EPP                                  217                   167 ECR                                   74                     57 EFDD                                 45                    57 ENF                          

So this morning, as we pick up the pieces, plenty of open questions remain. Who was behind the sting? It was very professional, not something done with a telephone camera.  Somebody had to rent out the villa and equip it with a number of hidden cameras. The “attractive Russian hostess” is only heard, never seen. That is why many presume it was the work of an intelligence agency. While Austria is not part of NATO, there has always been cooperation with western intelligence services. But with the FPÖ’s Kickl in charge of security services, and the FPO’s close ties to Russia, including their cooperation agreement with Putin’s United Russia, other countries were already wary of sharing information. Their fears have been proved right. Why was it released now, although the tape was made more than 1 1/2 years ago? The most obvious answer would be to influence the EU elections. In the next days, mainstream politicians in every country will point to it and imply that the FPÖ is not the only fa

So Heinz-Christian Strache, neo-Nazi, Austrians First (no immigrants) fan, friend of Orban, Salvini and Putin, bites the dust after a secretly filmed video. The far right FPÖ, always campaigning against the corruption of the “old parties”, the Socialist SPÖ and the Conservative ÖVP (with whom they form a coalition govt), has now shown itself to be the most corrupt of all. Like the Trump campaign, trying to get Russian help in the election. In the video taped secretly, they tell the “Oligarch’s niece” how to make payments to bypass Austrian campaign laws, naming 4 rich people and 1 company who have done that for them. All those 5 immediately issued denials, but who knows? They will certainly be investigated, and more criminal activity could come to light. Orban’s silence is deafening. He met Strache 12 days ago. They praised each other to the skies (or scratched each other’s backs, to put it more crudely).  2 crooks. Now Individual-2 wants to have nothing to do with Individual-1.

Its going to be a busy and interesting rest of May on the political front, with the results announced of the Indian elections, the EU Parliament elections, as well as elections in Australia and a couple of smaller places. The EU elections are a complete black box, except to political nerds, and even for this group, they can be confusing as hell. You could probably write several theses and earn a few PhDs following the gyrations of EU-level politics. The EU elections have normally had miserable turnout (around 40% in many countries) because of the mistaken belief that what happens in Brussels is not so important as what happens nationally. Usually they are also a way to bash local ruling parties, but hoping not to do too much local damage. That last point is why there is so much fear that the far right, and to a lesser extent, the far left will gain considerably at this year’s elections. That in turn could significantly affect the day to day functioning of the EU, as well as have

So the effort to fill the federal courts with racists and bigots, the only thing Mitch seems able to achieve, proceeded yesterday with Michael Truncale being confirmed to a Texas Court. Truncale had called Obama an “un-American impostor” during Dotard’s birther days, something that of course made him a hero to Dotard. Romney was the only GOP senator who had the ba..., er, spine to vote No. All the other lambs dutifully put 1 more racist in charge of Justice for the rest of his life. As I have written often enough, while Dotard has made America Hate Again, and made most of the rest of the world (except Russia and Israel) hate America, his worst legacy is going to be the complete corruption of American justice. All those Dred Scott judges must be celebrating in their graves, knowing their awful decision may ultimately soon be surpassed as the worst in US history. Racing back to the 50s or earlier, Alabama banned all abortions, including those resulting from rape and incest. After all, i

Today the racist and bigot in the White House is going to welcome another racist and bigot from Europe - Hungary’s Orban. Orban has already managed to destroy democracy in his country, and maybe Trump hopes to learn from him how he did that. Orban knows how to play the hypocrites running other countries. Despite winning his “elections” on an open anti-Semitic platform, he was welcomed by Netanyahu with a hug. Now, despite playing footsie with Putin as a NATO member, he gets the red carpet at the White House, or is it the white carpet at the Red (light) House? Orban’s “success” was built on destroying an independent Judiciary, completely muzzling the free press, and demonizing immigrants and minorities. One can see why Trump might feel brotherly love for him and hope to learn from him. Plus, Trump has yet to get an Eastern European wife from Hungary, and maybe Orban can help him get one. And who knows, maybe even a Trump Tower Budapest to finally have something taller than the

I have written several times about how it was basically the Americans who elected Waldheim President in Austria. Jeremy Corbyn got a big boost in his quest to become British PM, when Pompous Pompeo, in a teleconference in London, called Corbyn disgusting, doubtless sending his popularity up several points. Pompeo also praised Brexit and how it would energize the “special relationship”, all but making sure that if there is a second referendum, the Remainers will probably win. Pompeo arrived in London together with the royal baby, and some dreamers had thought that the baby of mixed parentage would help the relationship. But, as Ishaan Tharoor put it,  if there is a baby who sums up the current state of the special relationship, it isn’t Archie. It is the big, fat, orange, diaper-wearing blimp that is expected to rise, once again, to  greet Trump as he arrives  in London  on June 3. Right now, like the blimp, the special relationship is at risk of floating away, adrift. Howev

As you may know, Chris Wallace, one of 2 real journalists at Fox News, interviewed Iran Foreign Minister Javed Zarif last week. This dialogue ensued. “Chris, the people of Iran admire your very, very handsome President. Very tough, very high IQ. He truly has made America great again.” “Mr.Zarif, do you really expect anyone to believe this loathsome flattery.” “Oh, yes.” So, do you believe that this happened? Think about it before reading on. Well, when exactly that was tweeted out by David Frum (a speechwriter for W Bush, but now a GOP critic), within an hour thousands of people replied on Twitter and a large number of them seemed to believe it. These days its difficult to distinguish between truth and parody. When tweeted out like that by a respected writer, without any other comment from him, it was difficult to be sure.  While I thought he was joking, even I went to Youtube and actually watched the full interview to be sure that was the case. And only a further hour later, when Fru