"He wants to use his presidency not only to slash the country’s budget but to wage an ideological war and rewire the country’s mentality."

"He wants to dismantle what he calls the 'aberrant' concepts of social justice and economic equality and make the nation’s core principles capitalism, the free market, a limited state and individualism. 'We are at war,' Mr. Milei said at a right-wing festival last year, and added: 'We are fighting a cultural struggle, an ideological battle, a war for the survival of our freedom.' At political rallies and international summits, in public policies and a deluge of social media posts, Mr. Milei has relentlessly sought to infuse Argentina with his libertarian ideals. And turn it into a model for the world. A nation where people are loath to eat alone or drink a cup of mate, the national infusion, without sharing with the person next to them is embracing a leader whose fundamental message is that people should fend for themselves. 'He is trying to break our DNA,' Juan Grabois, an opposition lawmaker, said of Mr. Milei. 'To destroy the communal identity of our people.'... Laziness to Mr. Milei is a vice stemming from years of left-leaning governments that turned society to indolence by giving citizens generous benefits...."

From "Javier Milei Wants to Rewire the Argentine Mind/Argentina’s right-wing president has tamed the country’s runaway inflation. Now he wants to transform its values" (NYT)(gift link, because there's a lot going on over there).

And here he is in his superhero costume:

"Argentinian President Javier Milei has ordered the release of documents related to Nazis who fled to Argentina after World War II."

"These documents have sparked discussions and claims on social media that Adolf Hitler escaped to Argentina and lived there until the mid-1960s. The claims suggest that Hitler may have been aided by the United States and its allies, and that he fathered two children during his time in Argentina. However, these assertions remain speculative and are subject to ongoing debate and scrutiny regarding their historical accuracy."

Says the summary of a trending topic — "Milei Releases Documents on Nazis in Argentina" — on X.

"[Javier] Milei has pledged to slash spending and taxes, close Argentina’s central bank and replace the nation’s currency with the U.S. dollar."

"He has also proposed banning abortion, loosening regulations on guns and considering only countries that want to 'fight against socialism' as Argentina’s allies, often naming the United States and Israel as examples. In his victory speech, he attacked the political 'caste' that he says has enriched themselves at the expense of average Argentines, saying 'today is the end to Argentine decadence.'...

From "Argentina Elects Javier Milei in Victory for Far Right/Argentina’s next president is a libertarian economist whose brash style and embrace of conspiracy theories has parallels with those of Donald J. Trump" (NYT).

Is he like Trump? We're told "his strong adherence to a libertarian ideology... has led him to support, in theory, policies like open immigration and drug decriminalization." The similarities? "He harshly attacks his critics and the news media, he calls the scientific consensus on climate change a socialist plot, he argues that a shadowy cabal controls the country and he even has an unruly hairdo that has become an online meme."

An example of his rhetoric: "The state is a pedophile in a kindergarten... with the children chained up and bathed in Vaseline."

Key fact: Inflation in Argentina is over 140%.

"In 2020, Mr. Milei, a self-identifying Catholic, called Pope Francis an 'imbecile' and 'the representative of the Evil One on earth' because he defends 'social justice.'"

"Last year, Mr. Milei said the pope 'always stands on the side of evil' because he supports taxes. And last month, in an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Mr. Milei said the pope 'has an affinity for murderous communists' and is violating the Ten Commandments. Those are bold words for a man trying to become president in Argentina...."

From "He Called the Pope a 'Filthy Leftist.' Now He Wants to Be President. Javier Milei is leading the race to be Argentina’s next president. But he is dogged by his past broadsides against a fellow countryman: Pope Francis" (NYT).

"The search for the Argentine submarine ARA San Juan reached a 'critical' point on Wednesday amid fears the 44 crew members..."

"... could be on their last day of oxygen, as the country’s navy said they had found “no trace” of the missing vessel.

“We are continuing with this phase of search and rescue. We are in the critical part, it has reached the seventh day in terms of oxygen, supposing that for seven days it has not had the capacity to go the surface and renew the oxygen. But we are not dismissing the other options, that it could be on the surface.”

More than 4,000 personnel from 12 countries are now scouring the South Atlantic search zone, braving stormy conditions with high winds and waves up to seven metres high....

The British contingent has drawn insults from far-Left figures in the country where the dispute over the Falklands remains contentious. Leaders of the Workers’ Party and of radical Left wing group Quebracho branded British forces “pirates” and occupiers on Twitter, but were widely condemned by Argentine users.

"I don’t like the 666," wrote the pope, rejecting a 16,666,000 pesos contribution from Argentinian president Mauricio Macri.

"Francis, who has long supported progressive causes in Argentina, and the centre-right president Macri have often found themselves on opposite sides of political debate. But the pope is reported to have been particularly irritated when the Argentinian media presented the president’s donation as a sign that relations between the two leaders were improving. The Argentinian chapter of [the pope's the Scholas Occurentes educational foundation] returned the donation saying that 'there are those who are trying to misrepresent this institutional gesture ... with the purpose of generating confusion and division among Argentines.'"

Reports The Guardian.

In Argentina, the state dinner is not a staid dinner. As Barack Obama does the tango with a woman who is not his wife...

.... fortunately, Michelle Obama is doing the tango with a man who is not her husband...



ADDED: Should Obama be dancing the tango after the terrorist attacks in Brussels? Yes. Don't encourage the terrorists. Don't reward them. Don't let them think they can make the President of the United States cancel his plans. Do you want terrorist attacks in response to every presidential plan? Support the President in this, whether you like his politics or not.

Remember:

[T]hey wanted to create an atmosphere of fear. And one of the great goals of this nation's war is to restore public confidence... Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Go down to Disney World in Florida, take your families and enjoy life the way we want it to be enjoyed.

"According to a fresh findings announced over the weekend... the Nazis made it deeper into the Argentine jungle in search of refuge than anyone imagined."

"Hundreds of miles north, along the border with Paraguay, rises the Parque Teyú Cuare. A path winds into the nature preserve, opening to a trove of 'mysterious buildings' that are 'battered by time... What were these buildings? Who built them? For what?'"

"On Gay Unions, a Pragmatist Before He Was a Pope."

NYT headline. You may think this sounds absurd, just a figment of the imagination of American liberals who somehow suddenly see this once-unknown issue as the centerpiece of civil rights, but:

Argentina was on the verge of approving gay marriage, and the Roman Catholic Church was desperate to stop that from happening. It would lead tens of thousands of its followers in protest on the streets of Buenos Aires and publicly condemn the proposed law, a direct threat to church teaching, as the work of the devil.

But behind the scenes, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who led the public charge against the measure, spoke out in a heated meeting of bishops in 2010 and advocated a highly unorthodox solution: that the church in Argentina support the idea of civil unions for gay couples....

Bergoglio revealed himself as "a deal maker willing to compromise and court opposing sides in the debate, detractors included." Where opposition wasn't going to stop gay marriage, the compromise of civil unions might. That was the thinking. Bergoglio "acted as both the public face of the opposition to the law and as a bridge-builder."

“He didn’t want the church to take a position of condemning people but rather of respect for their rights like any vulnerable person,” said [Roxana Alfieri, a social worker in the communications department of the bishops’ central office here] who sat in on the bishops’ 2010 meeting.

Let's begin with Hipólito Yrigoyen.

The Radical:



The Radicals took over in 1916, after years of conservative power, in the first election after the beginning of universal male suffrage in...

"Barack Obama made an uncharacteristic error, more akin to those of his predecessor George W Bush, by referring to the Falkland Islands as the Maldives."

Now, there's a pathetic subheadline.

They don't even say it seems more akin... which it does because the media pounced on anything that was a Bush misstep. Obama, by contrast, has been portrayed as a mastermind. He, the great genius, made a gaffe?!

I'll let somebody else compile a list of Obama's 30 dumbest gaffes, put it next to an equivalent list for Bush. Here's a start: 57 states.

I'll bet the 2 lists are damned... akin.

Are you annoyed at the way the death of Michael Jackson has overshadowed the protests in Iran?

This may help.

IN THE COMMENTS: Titus says:

I am annoyed the way Michael Jackson's death overshadowed Mark Sanford.

I want more Mark Sanford.

I want more previous video clips of Mark Sanford moralizing and passing judgment on others. I want 24 hour Mark Sanford and I want it now....

I want to hear Mark Sanford bitching about not taking stimulus money but than using tax payer money to fuck in Argentina... with someone other than his wife.

"I have been unfaithful to my wife. I developed a relationship with what started as a dear dear friend from Argentina."

"It began very innocently, as I suspect these things do, in just a casual e-mail back and forth. But here, recently, over this last year, developed into something much more than that. And as a consequence, I hurt her. I hurt you all, I hurt my wife. I hurt my boys. I hurt friends like Tom Davis. I hurt a lot of different folks."

So says Gov. Sanford, who says he spent the last "five days of my life crying in Argentina."

I must say I'm thoroughly bored with these politicians and their sexual affairs, but at least Sanford was a bit weird — disappearing, getting the staff to lie, absconding to another hemisphere, crying....

Mr. Sanford is the third sitting governor to become the central figure in a major scandal in recent years. Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer, Democrat of New York, resigned a few days after his involvement with prostitutes was revealed in March 2008. Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, Democrat of Illinois, clung to office for weeks after being accused by prosecutors of influence-peddling, including trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama; he was impeached and removed from office by the state legislature on Jan. 29.

Scandal? What scandal? An extra-marital affair is not a scandal, not in the political sense anyway.

UPDATE: Gah! Emails:

I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details ...

Wouldn't want to go into sexual details. Imagine them published in the newspaper.

And John Kerry shoots off his moronic mouth:

"Too bad, if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin."

I love the way he thinks we might not be quick enough to pick up who the Governor of Alaska is. What an idiot!

IN THE COMMENTS: Pogo said:

Well, at least we can add "He went hiking on the Appalachian Trail" to the list of infidelity metaphors.

And crying in Argentina.

Randy said:

"Don't cry for me Appalachia! The truth is I never hiked you..."

-@burckart on Twitter
(via Freeman Hunt's twitter feed)

AND NOW: A word from the wife:

I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will, and for a marriage to be successful, that commitment must be reciprocal. I believe Mark has earned a chance to resurrect our marriage.

Psalm 127 states that sons are a gift from the Lord and children a reward from Him. I will continue to pour my energy into raising our sons to be honorable young men. I remain willing to forgive Mark completely for his indiscretions and to welcome him back, in time, if he continues to work toward reconciliation with a true spirit of humility and repentance.

"K style."

Argentina's president, Néstor Kirchner, has a style of his own, which used to seem refreshingly eccentric, but isn't so cute anymore.