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I don't understand why the US media constantly talk about how Hillary Clinton has such an advantage with minority voters. Surely, the policies of Bernie Sanders must be better from the perspective of most black voters, for example? A quick search reveals that the African-American vote might be swinging towards Sanders quickly.

Hillary Clinton has said that she never, ever changed her opinions due to being massively funded by Wall Street interests. Well, that is quickly debunked. And to think that there are people who do not consider this particularly serious. There are huge and powerful organizations funding politicians, organizations who have the power to turn over the economy, and whose interests come at the expense of the taxpayers in the form of bailouts and tax loopholes. What interest do they have in funding candidates other than swaying these politicians to their side, or paying for the rise to power of one who is already their shill? If you don't think that there is a serious risk for a deficit in democracy here, then you deserve a corrupt society. There's a reason why the financial crisis in the US was handled in a way unlike any other country. In Iceland, the bankers who were behind senseless speculation are behind bars, and their politician enablers are voted out of power. In the US, the public pays out of the taxpayer's pocket for the bailouts, and the politicians behind this are still slithering through the corridors of power. In Sweden, during the financial crisis in the early nineties, banks were nationalized and then re-privatized without any loss to the taxpayer. Why can't the US do better than any of these countries? Why do Americans keep voting for the same people who brought them carte blanche-socialism for big companies, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and so on?

More horror stories from the Republican side of the fence. Somebody said that Rubio was a moderate? He's much, much further out on the fringe. Kasich is probably the only moderate in the Republican primary, by the way. You know something is ****ed up when you realize you prefer Bush III above the current "establishment choice" (Rubio), and that the leading establishment candidate's strategy is worse than Cruz' vague statements that he would "carpet bomb" ISIS "until the desert glows green".

I don't typically have vivid dreams, but yesterday I woke up very suddenly at about 2100 from one. The first thing I remember is that I see a mountainous landscape next to a large body of water and distantly, two figures moving closer. There are no beaches next to the water, but the mountain and the water meet each other directly (like this). In this mountainous landscape stands a huge, huge cross. The cross casts a black shadow over the landscape. Then, as the two figures walk past the cross and move into this mountainous region a bell (not a church bell, rather a middle-sized brass bell, something more like one of the bigger bells in this clip) tolls once, after which day instantly turns to night, and the cross instead casts a shadow made from light. Then, I see the two figures journeying into this mountainous landscape clearer, and it is one male and one female figure. These are not any specific people, but rather amorphous figures. The female figure is leading the way. Increasingly, it is clear that the mountainous landscapes is a bizarre mass grave, where corpses are fused into the rock. At first, you can just barely see bodies and faces through the smooth and even, slightly transparent surface of the rock, but as the two figures travel further and further, the corpses are fused closer and closer to the surface, eventually with petrified arms protruding, grasping into the air. The two figures follow an increasingly labyrinthine path through this landscape which becomes harder and harder to traverse, until they reach a point where the mountain flattens out into the water. At this point, it becomes clear that the male figure has somehow betrayed the female figure, and as revenge the female figure has led the male figure to this location with the intent that he should die here - the male figure is in fact blind and cannot possibly find his way home alone. The female figure then tries to run away, but is chased by the male figure, who follows her by the sound of her footsteps. He catches her and they are then locked in a fight, both grasping with their hands a staff carried by the female figure on their way there, pushing against each other. Suddenly, the staff breaks, not at the middle point, but in such a way that the male figure is left holding a much longer segment. The male figure then proceeds to bludgeon the female figure to death with several blows. It is at this point that I become aware that I have been in this dream all along, and that I have seen all of this from my (first-person) perspective. The male figure turns to face me, and then slowly and intently walks straight towards me (which is very, very uncanny since he is completely blind) while I am frozen in place. Without saying a word, he strikes me several times with the staff fragment, and my vision darkens. Here, I awake very suddenly with a high pulse and very vivid memories of the entire (?) dream. The mood from the dream wouldn't leave me, it felt like suddenly being snatched out of another world. Just wanted to share this for posteriority in case I'm about to go insane

Trump may be a narcissist, but at least he foresaw with the rest of us how the Iraq War would end up. Bush II, Rubio and Bush III are both cut from the exact same cloth as far as foreign policy goes. Rubio even named his entire campaign "A New American Century"... For the good of the world, I'd rather the US elected a narcissist, or a deranged madman who thought Putin was a country and the pyramids were used to store grain, or a Tea Party taliban, than any of these neocons again. I don't want to see this three months from now: Please?

So it seems that the Curse of Iowa struck once again. Cruz can now be added to the crowd of Huckabee and Santorum, unviable candidates who have surprisingly won Iowa through a surge of religious voters. Anyways, in other regards everything went as expected. As I see things there are both pros and cons with these results. Con: Cruz won. Not a nightmare scenario, but still. Pro: Proportional allotment of delegates, so he doesn't get all of them. Pro: Bush and Christie got really low results. Con: The people who could have voted for them have coalesced around Rubio instead. This went faster than expected, I would have hoped that all of them would be stuck in internal conflict for much longer. Bush + Rubio is still a scary amount of voters. Pro: Carson got below 10%. Con: Because of proportional allocation of delegates, he does not walk away empty-handed. Pro: Rand Paul got some votes, and even a delegate. Con: He might have stolen votes from other interesting candidates, such as Trump, who are more viable in the long run. Pro: Hillary got stumped on any great victory and had to settle for a tie. Con: Even though Bernie takes half the delegates and a symbolic victory against the odds, Hillary has still got so many superdelegates it's laughable. Con: Martin O'Malley has withdrawn from the race. The rest of the Democratic primary will be boring to follow, with only two candidates. Pro: He will probably endorse Bernie now. Disclaimer: I only ever read about foreign policy part of politics, so that is where my preferences are grounded. Rubio is pretty much the nightmare candidate as far as I'm concerned, anything which keeps him down is good.

Finland, obviously.

Yeah, that's a very good analysis. There's also this which basically mirrors the same sentiments from the Democratic side. Bernie Sanders is left-wing disillusionment incarnate, similar to Trump on the other side. Compared to European left-wing parties, the Democrats have offered unlimited corporate welfare in the form of generous and arbitrary bailouts, but can barely scrap together anything at all for the individual person. Bill Clinton throwing the Glass–Steagall law into the trash now looks more like an act of intentional corruption and less like incompetence. Even if Hillary should win this nomination, the Democrats can't entice their voters with false promises of putting people before big business forever if they don't make good on their promises. If Sanders does not win this nomination, I really wonder what will happen in 2020.

More on the Trump and Sanders phenomena here. Okay guys, let's make predictions for the Iowa caucus. I think Trump will end up winning at around 25%, but with a smaller margin than many polls have predicted to Cruz. Cruz and Rubio will be nipping at his heels, both above 20%, with Rubio having the most momentum from previous polls, which will be the most noteworthy result. Carson at slightly below 10%, with Paul immediately below him. The rest pick up the scraps at the bottom.

Well, there's a difference between reporting of "facts" and analysis of facts. If a right-wing newspaper reports the "facts" that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian and Obama is secretly a Muslim and a Communist, I would be sceptical. If we are trying to establish what is factually true in such conflicts, it might be useless to consult Breitbart or Russia Today as an authority. But nobody is disputing Trump's popularity. I would say a majority of American news sources lean carefully to the left of the American political spectrum, but then again, I only ever read articles on either elections or foreign policy and only articles filtered through Google News or the Microsoft News app, so I have no idea of what is going on in printed papers. To be honest, left-wing media have other vices, like being more inclined to not report on the things they do not like, rather than inventing "facts". For a full picture of reality, I would read news from all sources, with scepticism towards the worldview espoused in the more partisan papers on either side.

What does that matter? The analyst could be a Nazi for all I care. I agree with his analysis, not his worldview nor his solutions. Would you disregard all theories behind why people are attracted to communism from socialist authors? Opinions do not factor in when making a factual analysis of the situation. ... aaaand for the opposite perspective here we have the neo-con Krauthammer trying to explain Trump: Predictably, he seems to have no idea about how big the immigration issue is, and the grievances of people who have failed or don't want to adapt to globalization. He always goes back to talking about how he thinks people are the most angry with that the US is supposedly seen as "weak", presumably because Obama has been reluctant to commit troops to pointless adventurism. As if the lack of more Iraq Wars is at the top of most people's agenda. Meanwhile, Trump has been served well by his opposition to the Iraq war. It's very, very clear that Trump voters want a strong defense, but without the pointless, inane attempts at nation-building seen in response to 9/11. Krauthammer is in for a reality check - his analysis of the situation in itself explains how large parts of the current right-wing establishment are out of touch with what the majority of people think.

Yeah, that seems to mirror my analysis exactly.

I have really enjoyed reading the various hit pieces on Trump by the good old retards in the neo-con posse, and the reactions (here and here). Trump has correctly called the Iraq war out for the stupid project it was, and now a lot of the proponents of useless wars in the Middle East have reached a remarkable level of butthurt. Here and here are some more pieces by Pat Buchanan on Trump's rise. I wouldn't want Trump as my leader myself, but I must say that now in hindsight it seems stupid to not have realized his potential, and predicted his rise. I would even say that this election might be the formative event of the century for the GOP. Trump's opponents are already doing their best to emulate him, I can only imagine that other party functionaries will follow.

Indeed, that was my point (but the ads are hilarious in themselves too, the guy doing them can't be paid enough). And more on electability.

So, because of the American political system, right-wing organizations are currently paying for Hillary attack ads, to funnel Democratic primary voters to Bernie, who they believe is less electable. Absolutely HILLARY-ous. An ad which was probably paid for with Wall Street money, by the way. Also, this:

The day Turkey gets kicked the **** out of NATO can't come soon enough, really. TBH I think the recent actions of Erdogan against PKK are purely for the purpose of stealing votes from anti-Kurdish nationalists.

So? That doesn't have anything to do with my statement.

Newsflash: the US is now paying it's debts to Iran. I'll take Iran over Saudi Arabia any day of the week. LOL. Do you even have the faintest idea about the causes behind that conflict? Oh, i do not mean that the Shias will get more weapons or man-power, i mean that the Saudis will increase their presence there and other places where they and their allies on one side, and Iran and their allies on the other; as in more Proxy wars. Meanwhile the militray industrial complex and their bankers are counting their coppers on the whole thing. It's interesting on what will happen now when even more oil will be available on the market. Perhaps the petrodollar will lose more influence? I'm just tired of hearing people who have no clue about what is going on in Yemen regurgitating the notion that the peace-loving Yemenis are under threat from foreign Iranian intervention, having only the brave Saudi Arabia to shield them. It's more similar to a slaughterhouse where Saudi Arabia is exterminating the Shia population in alliance with Al Qaeda. Of course Iran is on the side of the Shia, but they had nothing to do with starting the conflict (which is rooted in a power struggle after Saleh's ouster).

LOL. Do you even have the faintest idea about the causes behind that conflict?

But Turkey supports ISIS if not actively, then passively. And Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is one of the main reasons why the Muslim nations have developed an anti-Western attitude to begin with, the last colonial project forever poisoning the well of Middle Eastern politics. IMO the US should tell both Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia to go f--k themselves (OK, that sounds too harsh, but you get the point...). Turkey and Israel are allies of convenience at best, I strongly doubt any Turks or Israelis would sacrifice their lives if the US needed assistance. This stands in contrast to countries such as the UK which can be regarded as genuine allies of the US.

Yeah, I looked at that article as well when I wrote the above post. But I guess it is primarily a matter of what the executive orders are about. I know Bush got flak for that from the left-wing, right now the right-wing are swarming all over Obama for the same reasons. The funny thing is that precedents are set for an increasingly authoritarian presidential role - but this is all due to how the system is constructed. If everyone is to follow what their voters want, that is the only logical conclusion, apart from reforming the entire system.

Club of 69.

This seems to describe Jeb and Hillary well enough, yes. Of course they were forced to pass the Omnibus Spending Bill, the alternative would be a government shutdown. History has shown that Republicans fare worse if they use that tool. The truth is that the American political system is absurd and requires some level of civil understanding between the congressional majorities and the President in order for things to work at all. Absent this, you will get anarchy. And I can imagine only very few actually want that, and most of those who do want it live in Russia and China. I would really like to see President Cruz facing constant government shutdowns. That would be absolutely hilarious and highlight the hypocrisy of the politicians and absurdity of the system. The fact that Obama has taken rule by executive order one step further than Bush is already very funny, of course. But it seems to me a bit bigoted to call out Obama specifically here. An ideologue is a person who makes political decisions from a formulated and coherent ideology, as opposed to ad-hoc decisions made from sentiment or reasons of popularity. So what are you and Ron Paul if not ideologues of the Libertarian variant? How would you have acted if you were president? IMO all politicians should be ideologues and nothing else. It would be so much easier to vote then.