Just as we predicted only late last year, Vox Day and his cult would fail in their attempts to co-opt the comics industry. As a sign of the impending decline, Vox announced with considerable arm-flapping that retailers are now selling his propaganda "at 24.5% less than the top 300 best-selling comics." He also promised---as he has with previous failures---that "the deluge is coming!" The deluge of bankruptcy attorneys and creditors, most likely.
What kinds of products do booksellers typical mark-down? Usually either publishers' overstocks or unpopular material that they can't otherwise sell. The reason that the top 300 comic books cost more is because customers will pay more for them and the lower-ranked stuff is cheap because it either sells at a loss or goes to the recycle-bin as a tax write-off.
The guy just doesn't understand market forces. Or much of anything else, for that matter. And it's a bit ironic anyway, considering that just a few months ago he told us that "Comic shops are going out of business left and right, so we see no need to pay any attention to them at all."
This is what happens when people on the Right try to use the tactics of the Left: it always backfires. Take for example an ABC television show called The Real O'Neills. The show was conceived by a Catholic-hating homosexual named Dan Savage. The first few episodes got high ratings because they were'edgy' and 'controversial'; but the rest ended up losing advertisers and had to be subsidized. Why? Because after the initial shock-value wore off, the only viewers interested in its message were other Catholic-hating homosexuals.
It's the same dynamic with 'Alt-Hero'. Vox miscalculated by thinking that the grovelling flatterers who fawn over him in the comments' sections of his blogs are representative of Mainstream America. Once the political incorrectness of 'Alt-Hero' stopped "triggering SJW's," nobody cared. Vox was actually half-right; in that consumers of contemporary comics are disgusted with its content; but that's because of bad writing and overt politicizing. Vox' mistake was throwing more bad writing and overt politicizing into the mix.
In case everyone has forgotten here: comic books are a literary form of escapist entertainment. People of all ages read them to relax and identify vicariously with heroes---not to be triggered and lectured by social engineers or political reactionaries. This is how the NFL sabotaged itself: with anthem-protests and other PC pandering at an audience trying to get away from that nonsense for a few hours on Sunday.
The comics industry overcame a similar problem during the early 1960's and solved it with some innovative, out-of-the-box thinking. That's what it's going to take to turn it around again.
One of the striking things about the Red Pills and their movement in general is their immaturity of judgment. This is particularly obvious when reading their discourses on sexual relations---which they've glossed up with terms like 'Game' and 'Pick-Up Artistry'. They sound like a bunch of Middle-School punks who've never had actual sex pontificating about things they don't understand to impress other boys who've never had actual sex.
Their politics and sociology isn't much different. Actually they're as bad as Antifa and other Bolsheviks who think that Government is an institution existing solely to serve and cater to their every need or wish. Government is not a baby-sitting service for adults. In a Representative Republic we elect people whose job it is to craft policies for the general welfare of the whole nation---as the US Constitution expressly says.
One of the Red Pill blockheads calling himself The Z Man has been stirring up the cauldron in the Manosphere lately; going on a week-long rampage over several posts distancing himself from President Trump. He writes as though this were some principled stand---even though the President has been distancing himself from the Alt-RINOs and their fascistic philosophies for well over a year now.
Z Man is angry because (according to him) Trump has 'caved in' on DACA and has expressed some sympathy for some very minimal gun-control laws.
Both of these are issues upon we'd intended some commentary. The first, on DACA: Trump can't get DACA repealed---just like the Obamacare repeal---because enough Liberals and RINOs in Congress want to keep those programs. So Trump does what a democratically-elected leader does under such circumstances: he fixes what parts he legally can while compromising to gain support for other programs. Trump didn't 'cave' on DACA any more than he did Obamacare.
This is an example of the Red Pills' political immaturity. They don't understand how things actually work in a democracy and ignore all of the Administration's accomplishments because of one issue that really isn't going to change things much. If DACA is reformed, it wouldn't be such a bad law, except to hard-core xenophobes like most Red Pills are.
As for the gun issue: Trump has expressed a willingness to ban 'bump-stocks', something that practically no gun owner--- including many NRA leaders---had ever heard of prior to the Las Vegas massacre committed last October by a drug-addict. Bump-Stocks are really questionable as to their safety. They're a variation of what used to be called a 'zip gun'---a home-built firearm that fired by recoil rather than a trigger-mechanism. Everything I've seen about bump-stocks indicate that they are unreliable and even dangerous. Many pro-2nd Amendment people support Trump on this issue. Either way, favoring a bump-stock ban is hardly a major piece of gun control. And let's not forget that the Administration recently lifted restrictions on certain automatic shotguns which had been in place since the 1970's.
Z Man shows his lack of sophistication by saying things like: "Everyone is vexed with me for bailing on Trump. This is understandable. Sensible White Americans have been conditioned to defend 'their man' against all attacks." No, Z Man. Sensible Americans---regardless of color---weigh the good against the bad in its proper context and every four years have the opportunity to make such evaluations. Z Man throws out this very typical Red Pill argument that anyone opposing their often extremist positions is simply a knee-jerk, go-with-the-flow type. It's no accident that they've chosen the Red Pill motif for their entire movement.
So far from being 'knee-jerk' we criticized Trump's Middle East policy less than a week ago. We've criticized other of his positions too, and have openly said that some of his advisers and cabinet picks were terrible choices. But Trump has done much more positive than negative things; and, at any rate, it's too early in his first term to conclude that he is either one of our greatest presidents or one of the worst.
These guys really need to grow up. Trump's compromises (so far) are nothing like the wholesale sellouts that we experienced under the Swamp-RINO, Bush; or the equally conniving GOP Congress under neocons Trent Lott and Dennis Hastert. The worst thing in our opinion that Trump has done were the military operations against the legitimate Syrian government. Even still, Trump showed enough maturity of his own to reverse his policy in Syria after meeting with the more sagacious President Putin and with Pope Francis.
America has always been a country for grown-ups. Let's follow our President's lead and not go running for a safe space at the drop of a hat.
It's about time, but it seems that mainstream Conservatives are finally waking up to the danger posed by a vocal contingent of extremists who barely agree with us on anything. The link above is to a good article in The National Review by Kevin Williamson calling out these fakes.
"Those of us who play roles in the public discourse have a special responsibility to be scrupulous with the facts, especially those touching our opponents and rivals." he writes, "When people get used to hearing prominent Conservatives lying about their opponents, it makes it easier for honest and fair-minded people to dismiss Conservative arguments out of hand."
Very true. One reason why the Corporate Media has lost so much credibility is because they have been exposed as liars so often. Why should we follow their example?
Williamson's article refers to the fake-news pouring shamelessly from the Alt-RINOS. Vox Day recently jumped on the 'Parkland is a hoax' bandwagon as have other Red Pills. It seems to be an issue---like Sandy Hook and Pizzagate---that they can't let go of.
There are basically two variant fake stories floating around right now. With certain modifications, they hold either that 1) Sheriff Scott Israel and his men carried out the massacre themselves and framed Nicholas Cruz as the scapegoat; or 2) that the entire episode was faked by the Media who employed actors.
As we've pointed out before, the FBI's own training manual points out that a large-scale conspiracy's weakest points are exponentially expanded the more people who are involved in it. A good example of a real conspiracy was Obama's domestic spying program. With all the powers of the national government propping it up, the whole scheme was unraveled by Edward Snowden---a low-level NSA technician. That's a working example of how easily a conspiracy can break down. Think of all the major scandals our government has gone through and every single time---for whatever reason---someone talked.
That's why every detective---whether police or private---always has a network of informants. The Ancient Romans used to have a saying about secrets being carried about by the spirits of the winds. That was a metaphor for how people involved in such things can't keep quiet about them. To believe either of the scenarios above would require that nobody talked about it.
While we don't necessarily agree with everything Williamson said---particularly his questioning Trump's integrity---he makes good points. I tend to believe that Trump, as a political novice, has been imposed upon from time to time by bad advisers. This doesn't make him a bad president: in fact, Harry Truman and General Eisenhower had the same problem. A President is not a Pope and there's no ex cathedra clause in the US Constitution.
But Williamson's conclusion is to the very point: "If the Conservative movement cannot prevail in the marketplace of ideas without lies, then it does not deserve to prevail at all." Either we have faith in our own beliefs or we haven't; and that faith implies that our ideals can stand on their own merits.
The Iraqi Media reported earlier today that a mass grave found on the western outskirts of Mosul contained the bodies of Christians who disappeared during the city's ISIS occupation. Some of the corpses were holding rosaries and crosses which a prelate of the Syrian Orthodox Church identified. The unidentified priest told Iraq News that all forty remains were of persons known to have been kidnapped by ISIS. Their whereabouts were unknown until today.
The grave was excavated by military engineers of the Peshmerga Militia. The Peshmerga and Hezbollah forces led the spearhead that broke through ISIS defenses in Northwestern Mosul.
Church sources also stated that several of the martyrs were children and their mothers, who were found buried in a separate section of the grave. Some were holding Crucifixes when they died.
This is fairly typical; ISIS was known in Syria to have segregated the mothers and children. The fiends would demand that the women convert to Wahhabism; and if the mothers refused, these incarnate devils would murder their children in front of their eyes. According to some accounts from Syria, mothers with several children were forced to watch their children killed one by one with a demand to convert after each murder. The mothers were finally killed too after all of their children were slain.
Lest we forget too---in the midst of all of the current anti-Trump hysteria---that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry helped make scenes like these possible. These three scumbags refused to grant refugee status to Iraqi and Syrian Christians; and pressured other Western governments to do the same. As we mentioned in several articles back then, this was part and parcel of a deliberate policy to stand down while ISIS savages ethnically-cleansed the region of its Christians.
Some might recall back then that the Obama Administration and its supporters were suing Christian businesses for not catering to homosexuals; or pharmacies for not providing abortifacients. They were also working to defund Christian schools and charities which opposed their anti-Christian policies; as well as looking the other way when violence and property damage was being done in churches. The Left sneered at suggestions that this was persecution.
Though these things were grave injustices, of course they weren't as serious as ISIS locking Christians inside of churches and burning the buildings down over their heads. But the same spirit was there. During American Occupation in Iraq, the US military wasn't allowed to intervene against radicals who attacked Christians. In fact, both Bush and Obama were quite antagonistic to Iraqi Christians and even approved discriminatory laws. Once the precedent of discrimination was set, the mass-graves of Mosul and Palmyra were the consequence. Both Syrian President Assad and Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi have since granted more freedoms to Christians in their respective countries. They've seen the outcome of religious discrimination first-hand.
When Hitler became German Chancellor in 1933, his government did start rounding up and executing Jews the next day. The Holocaust didn't really start until 1942. First, Jews lost rights to serve in government. Then there were laws against race-mixing. Then there were boycotts and expropriations of Jewish-owned businesses and properties. Then Jews were compelled to wear distinguishing insignia. Then they were put into camps. And then The Final Solution. By that time, the German people were psychologically prepared for it.
That's essentially what we Americans were being psychologically prepared for. If the 2016 Election had gone the other way, Christians could expect very little sympathy from Hillary Clinton. Trump has dismantled most of the anti-Christian policies from the Clinton Era forward.
We need to keep in our sights on the bigger picture. Whatever policies Trump makes that we may disagree with, the alternative would have been much, much worse.
UPDATE: Since this article was published, the Mayor of Nineveh, Iraq has disputed the Church's claim that the Christians in this particular grave were killed by ISIS. He claims that they were killed during the Iran-Iraq War during the 1980's. It may be so; but keep in mind that over 70 mass-graves containing Christians have been found in Iraq since the country liberated itself from ISIS last year.
The National Association of Religious Broadcasters, an organization composed primarily of Evangelical Protestant media figures, is holding its annual convention in Nashville this week. Dr. Ben Carson has been attending these conferences for several years now. This year, Vice-President Mike Pence also visited, and spoke at a luncheon hosted by The Life Issues Institute. Pence reassured the audience that President Trump is "the most pro-Life president in history" and that---unlike previous GOP administrations since 1974---is proactively working to end the hideous practice of legal abortion.
Pence listed some of the Administration's accomplishments to date; many of which were ignored by the Corporate Media:
1. During Trump's first week in office, he issued an Executive Order prohibiting Federal funds from being dispersed to private organizations which promote or perform abortion in foreign countries. Not only did this policy take a major bite out of George Soros' profit-margins; it eliminated a huge cause of anti-American sentiments abroad.
What isn't widely known is that, since the Clinton years, the US Government often made foreign aid conditional upon accepting Cultural Marxist programs like abortion-on-demand. This naturally caused resentment in many foreign countries where abortion is either illegal or not culturally acceptable.
2. Related to Point #1, the Trump Administration suspended all further payments to the United Nations Population Fund. This group paid for abortions globally. Actually, Trump's decision was a measure of 'Swamp Draining' too. Because it was primarily American Leftists in this fund who were imposing abortion on other countries.
3. The President signed into law H.R. 354---one in which Pence cast a tie-breaking Senate vote. This Bill allows states to block unilaterally Federal Title X funding to abortion mills like Planned Parenthood. Unfortunately because of a pair of RINOs---Senators Collins and Murkowski---the Senate failed to pass a subsequent Bill which would have banned abortion after 20 weeks.
Most importantly, however, is that Trump has been appointing consistently pro-Life judges with the ultimate aim of repealing the infamous Roe vs. Wade decision of 1973. That year, by 7-2 majority, the Court ruled that state laws restricting abortion violated the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause. The Court Majority that year was comprised of a number of Deep-State Swamp-RINOs, Left-Wing activists, and the legendary jurist William O. Douglas, who was in an advanced state of senility. Another legendary jurist---Byron White---dissented from the vote, noting the obvious objection that there were state laws against abortion long prior to the 14th Amendment's ratification. White also stated that:
"I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's decision. The Court has simply fashioned and announced a new Constitutional Right for pregnant women and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its actions, invests that Right with sufficient substance to override most State abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and legislators of all 50 States are Constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the foetus on the one hand, against a possible spectrum of impacts on the woman."
We quoted this passage from the late Justice White to show that, contrary to pro-abortion propagandists, opposition to Roe vs. Wade was not and never was, an argument based solely on religion, but based on established legal precedent. White further said, "As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court may have authority to do what it does today; but in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant abuse of the power of judicial review which the Constitution extends to this Court...while I might agree with the Court's values and priorities, I see no Constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities upon the people and legislatures of the States."
Also contrary to pro-abortion propagandists, Vice-President Pence also stated his belief that public attitudes are shifting against the abortionists, even---and especially---among the young. Given this Administration's record of successes, it's not wholly inconceivable that we could see the downfall of the Abortion Racket within a few years.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher has closed in Jerusalem to protest the Israeli Government's persecution of Christians. The Church is jointly administered by the Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian Church.
The Israeli Government is currently considering a proposal allowing the State to seize ecclesiastical properties; and to tax churches retroactively to the tune of an estimated $186 million. Cardinal O'Brien of the Jerusalem Diocese stated the crisis in no uncertain terms:
"Betraying international treaties and centuries of practice, all Christian properties, except churches themselves, are being taxed tens of billions of dollars. This includes hundreds of agencies including Christian schools, hospitals, homes for the needy, health-care centers, and pilgrimage centers such as the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem. Many church assets are being frozen, fines threatened, and hundreds of thousands of dollars seized from Christian churches in actions that will curtail freedom of worship."
His Eminence also requested prayer in this "unprecedented discrimination against Christians."
Most American Christians are under the mistaken impression that Israel is some oasis of religious freedom in an ocean of intolerance. That description actually fits Israel's neighbor Lebanon, more accurately. The Pew Research Center actually ranks Israeli religious freedom as lower than Cuba and Somalia. It's well-known that the Israeli authorities look the other way to desecration of Christian sites and other more aggressive acts against Christians.
An important question here is why the US Government not only continues to support countries like Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia but opposes governments tolerant of Christianity like Syria and Iraq. The Trump Administration even recently declared Hezbollah an 'Islamic terrorist group' in spite of the fact that Christians serve in Hezbollah and that they are fighting the aggression of the Wahhabi Cult. Who is giving Trump advice on the Middle East? Oh yes:
The former CEO of Exxon, who gave the Boy Scouts to the Gay Mafia; 'Rainbow Rex' Tillerson. Rainbow Rex is more loyal to the drug addicts and perverts in Wahhabi-run Saudi Arabia than he is to the U.S. He had not a peep of criticism for the recent Saudi purges; and in fact, today praised their humanitarian efforts in Yemen. Which includes ethnic cleansing of Yemeni Christians, incidentally.
Rainbow Rex also hasn't had a word to say about Israeli seizures of Christian properties, nor for that matter, about the ongoing church-seizures in Turkey. He has never said anything in praise of Russian humanitarian aid in Syria; nor about Syrian Christian churches reopening after the fall of ISIS. In fact, Tillerson gave Trump the false intelligence of a chemical-weapons attack leading the President to kill innocent people in a cruise missile attack on Syria last April.
Tillerson deserves to be impeached. He never should have been appointed to Secretary of State in the first place. And Israel doesn't deserve a free pass simply because it is a US ally. We need an Administration willing---like Russia---to stand up for Christians and do the right thing.
Among the Red Pill/Alt-RINO crowd, Michael King is actually considered a great journalist. Mostly because he proclaims at his website, Tomato Bubble (OK, we'll let the readers psychoanalyze that title for themselves) that he is countering the disinformation put out by The New York Times.
Granted, 'the Grey Lady' puts out lots of fake news. So what has King decided to attack? An article covering Ivanka Trump's visit to the Winter Olympics as Goodwill Ambassador.
The Red Pills have really outdone themselves this time. Actually making the New York Times sound credible on a Trump-related story is a monumental non-achievement. Here's a specimen of what King actually thinks is stellar reporting:
"Thankfully, if the 'inside baseball' coming out of the White House is to believed, this bratty little New York libtard and her goofy Jew husband have had their roles diminished to symbolism only."
"When your last name is Trump, you get plugged into Big Jewry through your husband...Spoiled Jewish princesses (even converted ones) never quit until they get their way. "
And what's worse, this is supposedly a Conservative critique, according to King.
All of this proves once again that the Alt-Right is not our friend. We Conservatives need to go back to William F. Buckley's policy of publicly disavowing these kinds of kooks. King's whole 'rebuttal' of the NYT article is more vile and vulgar than what the Whacko Left Wing usually says about Ivanka.
Just listen to this: "Baby girl Ivanka Trump arrived in Seoul for the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics. President Trump, noting her arrival, loving tweeted out about his dipsy baby girl, 'We cannot have a better, or smarter, person representing our country." Then King goes on to compare Trump's message to a father praising his kindergarten-age children's drawings.
In the world of reality, however, the President was correct in sending Ivanka to Seoul. What King and his bitter woman-hating confederates fail to understand is that Ivanka is very popular in Asia. Even the Chinese government's official news outlet has Ivanka ranked as one of the top foreign figures most admired in China. Ivanka also has fans in both Koreas, Japan, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
But King is no stranger to saying stupid things like these. He believes not only that the Holocaust was a hoax; but also that there was no such organization as ISIS. The video footage of ISIS atrocities, he claims, were staged by 'crisis actors'---sort of like Sandy Hook and Parkland on a more massive scale.
King sometimes pontificates on history and, among his other revisionism, argues that France actually started WW2, and that the US Civil War was instigated by Jewish bankers---whose schemes fortunately were foiled by Russian intervention. We don't remember anything about Russians in the Civil War; but that only shows how deep the conspiracy goes. He said the same about Charlottesville, claiming that James Fields---recently indicted for murder committed during the rally---was hired by the Jews to commit the crime.
"Adolf Hitler was great, because Adolf Hitler was good." King explained about the aspersions cast on the Nazi leader's memory, "He was a man for all ages and his noble philosophy is for all races. Hitler's legacy should serve to unite all the diverse peoples in the world in the common cause of liberation from the predatory gangsters who work ceaselessly to enslave and torture the people of this planet. His great name will be restored one day, but, like Jesus, only after many years of being dragged through the Marxist mud."
In the same article, King goes on to explain why Hitler was a deeply Christian man who was fighting for the Christian West. With sources like these, it's no wonder the Red Pill sites have turned into such havens for raving maniacs.
Frankly, I didn't follow much of the Winter Olympics. But the highlight for me was seeing the lovely Ivanka representing what American women should be. But if we want to stay on this positive course, we can't let crackpots like King define our movement.
