Month: May 2018

I’ve Been Busy Open Thread

Mark Noonan37 Comments

Sorry about not much posting of late – but I’ve got a lot on my plate! Got the 2nd draft of the novel done and off to be reviewed by a publisher. We’ll see how that goes. Have I mentioned the title? Mirrors, it will be. I’m writing up the outline of Book II…prospectively to be titled Secrets. I’ve also started some research on another political book, and came up with a smashing idea for a science fiction book series. In addition, lots of other things going on in the personal life: all good, but taking a lot of time.

So, what have you guys been up to?

The American economy is now the most competitive in the world, according to the IMD World Competitiveness Center. The bottom line is that tax and regulatory reform is freeing up our economy after 8 years of Obama shackles. I think we’re about to have a boom like that of the early 80’s, and maybe a lot better.

I got on Gab back in November, but really didn’t do too much with it until recently. Just be prepared to mute one heck of a lot of Nazis…but once you’ve got that done, you’ve got a platform like Twitter was before the SJW’s took over. You can find me listed under @Mark_Noonan. I’ve also joined the Ace of Spades Moron Horde…which is already beating most Twitter for fun, and looks to become ever better. You can actually speak your mind there without worrying about some snowflake taking offense and getting all huffy.

Don Surber points out that the Republicans just might not blow it. Of course, give them time! But, seriously, things are flowing the GOP’s way, mostly because of Trump. The anti-Trump element in the GOP is still there, but I think if the GOP comes out on top this November, that will pretty much end it. The GOP will learn that Conservatism tinged with full-throated patriotism, disdain for Political Correctness and making a few bows to Populism is the way to go.

Byron York neatly encapsulates the entire Mueller Probe.

Have you heard of Tommy Robinson? I have – though I don’t know too much about him. Fundamentally, I don’t care about him, as a person. Lots of people – everyone on the left, but with some hand-wringing Fredocons as well – hate him; but that isn’t important. What is important is that he’s in a British jail, apparently for the crime of reporting about a trial the British government would rather keep quiet. There’s not much we can do about Britain – the so-called “Conservative” government there just congratulated Ireland for voting in favor of abortion – but the object lesson should sink in: what is going on in Britain is precisely what the Left wants to do here.

As regards that Irish vote – seems that only about 1/3 of the Irish remain Christian. The whole program of Irish independence has been shown to be a waste of time. Why be independent from Britain when you’re just going to go on and do what they do? The problem with Europe is that they seem to want to die.

Coverage of President Trump’s Memorial Day speech. He’s really starting to get this whole Presidenting thing.

Trump Demands

Mark Noonan67 Comments

Back around August of 2016, I was talking over the election with the Mrs and, at that time, was figuring that Trump had a real chance of winning. But I was also thinking that the Establishment would pull out all the stops to prevent this. Not, by the way, because of the policies Trump proposed, nor even because of their false claims that he was a racist or any such thing. No, they were afraid of him winning simply because he would be the first President we’ve ever had who owed nothing to the Establishment. That is the key to understanding the amazing level of hatred directed Trump’s way. He doesn’t care what happens to the Establishment.

And the Establishment is corrupt to the bone – and gets away with it simply because no one does anything about it. They can’t – either they are personally compromised, or fearful that their closest allies will be caught up in an anti-corruption sweep. So, everyone just pretends its all good…with only the odd, egregious violator sent up the river, and even then only if such an action won’t harm the Masters of the Establishment, the Democrats. Trump comes rolling in and, being on the right side of the law, himself, sees no reason to worry about investigations…regardless of where they lead.

I don’t know why, exactly, Trump has allowed the Mueller fiasco to continue as long as it has – I can only assume he’s got his own plan, on his own timeline, and has made the calculation that it isn’t the right time to shut Mueller down. But his demand over the weekend that the DOJ look into Obama Administration spying is clearly a shot across the bow. We don’t know what Trump knows – what he has been able to obtain on his authority as President detailing just what happened. We can count on it that many bureaucrats would do all they can to thwart Trump in getting information…but at least some percentage of them still hold to the old, non-partisan ethic of the bureaucracy and so will obey Presidential orders. Trump likely knows a lot about who was doing what and under who’s orders.

But he can’t act precipitously on such information. It is going to be a lot harder to get convictions than most suspect. First off, Justice is riddled with people who will do all they can to blow cases. Secondly, any trials in the DC area would have a juries packed full of anti-Trump people who could easily be lead to saying “not guilty” no matter what. Also, when it all comes out, it has to come in a way very easy for the broad mass of the American people to understand. The MSM will just flat lie about it, of course…but if it is very obvious, even the most blatant lies won’t keep people from understanding the truth.

Big things are about to happen, I think – and what I think they’ll amount to is a full attack on a corrupt Ruling Class. Stay tuned.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan38 Comments

We officially opened up our embassy in Jerusalem – naturally, the Palestinian leadership decided that it was time for some Palestinians to die, and so sent a bunch of them to the border to cause enough ruckus to force the IDF to open fire. This is par for the course – but I don’t think it matters much, except to the poor people forced to die for Hamas. For the larger issue, it shows that Trump really does keep his promises.

Trump has shut down a NASA program to track greenhouse gasses. This is great – if Gore, et al really believe in it, let them pony up the money to prove it. As for me, I want NASA working on space exploration…manned and unmanned missions in deep space (I figure the private companies can take the load on communications launches and low Earth orbit stuff). We should be working, in my view, for a manned mission to Mars no later than 2024. Let’s go!

Millions of dollars are being shipped out of our country – and a lot of it appears to be the proceeds of welfare fraud. It has long been my belief that our slackness in all areas of government social spending has produced massive fraud. My guess – I don’t know – is that one in three dollars (at least) is fraud. This has to be stopped.

Mueller’s absurd Russian indictment – could it be his undoing?

We’re getting more and more of these reports which indicate Comey was not exactly forthcoming about the Flynn case. My thinking has always been that Flynn plead guilty to a minor process crime in order to spare himself a horrible ordeal with bankruptcy tacked on to the end of it. This, as an aside, means we simply must reform our criminal justice system – it isn’t fair that the whole power of government can be brought to bear and even if you’re innocent, you lose. But outside of that, I’m pretty confident that everything out of the FBI and the SC regarding Trump and his people is likely false.

The Middle East is Changing

Mark Noonan24 Comments

So, Iranian forces in Syria attacked Israeli targets and Israel, naturally, responded – a big thing and important in itself, but this struck me:

Bahrain has backed Israel’s right to “defend itself”, following dozens of Israeli airstrikes on Iranian military targets in Syria overnight.

Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid al-Khalifa said on Thursday that it backed Tel Aviv’s military response to attempted Iranian missile strikes on an Israeli army base, early Thursday morning, in the occupied Golan Heights.

“As long as Iran has breached the status quo in the region and invaded countries with its forces and missiles, so any state in the region, including Israel, is entitled to defend itself by destroying sources of danger,” the minister, whose country is a close ally of Saudi Arabia, said on his official Twitter account…

Bahrain is a tiny country and is allied with Saudi Arabia mostly for protection against Iran. So, no surprise that Bahrain would be pleased to see Iran harmed, but it is massively surprising that an official of the Bahrain government would publicly declare Israel – which, officially in most Muslim countries, doesn’t even exist – has a right to self-defense. This is a sea-change in Arab attitudes.

What I think has really broken the log-jam here is the fact that Trump pretty much dropped the Palestinian issue like a bad habit. As long as our actions in the Middle East were always tied to a theory that we had to remain somewhat neutral in the Arab-Israeli conflict – and thus had to pretend that the Palestinian leadership was a key element – we were tied to a false idea, and thus couldn’t really move. Trump moved; now, everyone is moving. Its been a couple decades since anyone in the Arab world really gave a darn about the Palestinians and while no one would object to a permanent peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians, everyone with any sense at all knows the Palestinian leadership has staked out an impossible position (return to the 1967 border, return of “refugees” to Israel and, of course, still rhetoric about marching on Tel Aviv one day), and so there’s no chance of it right now. So, let’s move on until the Palestinian leadership changes.

And as people are able to move on – as people no longer have to pretend that a few fanatics in Gaza have to be appeased in order to do anything – the political realities which have existed at least since the Iranian revolution are rising to the surface…and are being dealt with. I’m not saying they are being dealt with properly – there’s a lot of confusion and an outsider like me really can’t judge all that well – but they are being dealt with. Saudi Arabia is determined to check Iran (wise move, Saudi Arabia) and in that effort, ignoring a powerful Israel which is also determined to check Iran would be foolish. I think we’re still a ways away from an Israeli Embassy in Riyadh…but I don’t think that far away. The times, they are a-changing…and it is Trump, the Agent of Change on Steroids, who is making it happen.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

There have been reports floating about that Saudi Arabia and the Vatican have agreed to build churches for Christians in Saudi Arabia. These reports are currently being denied by the Vatican:

The Vatican has denied making a deal with Saudi Arabia to build churches for Christian worshippers in the Arab country.

Reports in Middle Eastern media claimed a historic agreement had been made between Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Mohammed bin Abdel Karim Al-Issa of the Muslim World League.

But a spokesperson for the Vatican said the report was ‘false’…

But the fact that even rumors of such a thing exist indicate the sea-change which is currently taking place in Saudi Arabia under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. We can’t say for sure where all this is going, but it seems pretty clear to me that bin Salman wants to reform his Kingdom. Don’t expect pluralist democracy and casinos in Riyadh any time soon, folks. The Saudi people, themselves, are very conservative in outlook. But I think we will see ever more relaxation of the extremist Islamist activity which has ruled to social and political roost in Saudi Arabia for some decades now. It appears that once upon a time the Saudi monarchy cut a deal with the Islamists (ie, don’t try to overthrow the monarchy, we’ll let you be as Islamist as you like)…now, it seems that this deal is being undone.

There are quite a large number of Christians in Saudi Arabia. I once knew a priest who had actually said Mass for them. All very, very quiet – the Christians keep their heads down and as long as nothing is out in the open, the authorities look the other way. Most Christians there are foreign or children of foreigners…Saudi Arabia having quite a lot of immigrants who do the more difficult and dirty work of living. But, I also understand that even some Saudi natives have converted – which is something almost unheard of in history. Any attempt to actually open a Church in Saudi Arabia will be done with great care on both sides, to prevent an overt reaction. I’ve long said that the cure of Islamism is to have a Church in Saudi Arabia (a Synagogue, too…but let’s take it one step at a time). Once that happens, then there can be real peace between Islam and the West. I hope this all works. I think it will work; but, we’ll just have to see.

Rosie O’Donnell is alleged to have done the same sort of campaign finance violations that got Dinesh D’Souza arrested. We’ll see if there’s equal justice under law.

You know me and polls – but some recent polling indicates that Trump and the GOP are starting to rise against the Democrats. My view remains that the number of GOPers now exceeds the number of Democrats in the United States for the first time since the 1920’s. If I’m right, then the pundit class will be shocked in November. If I’m wrong…so, what? I don’t make my living by punditry.

You might have missed Judge Ellis ripping Mueller’s team a new one:

A federal judge on Friday sharply criticized Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s criminal case in Virginia against President Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and openly questioned whether Mueller exceeded his prosecutorial powers by bringing it.

“I don’t see what relationship this indictment has with anything the special counsel is authorized to investigate,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in the Eastern District of Virginia said.

There’s nothing to investigate so, yes, Mueller is exceeding his authority – which was to investigate the paranoid delusion of Trump-Russia. So, anything he’s done is going to be outside the scope of that. Nice to see some judicial push back against Mueller’s flailing investigation.

Baghdad isn’t doing so badly these days. We did have a hand in this…and it shows what the Middle East still might become.

UPDATE: NY’s Attorney General has resigned over allegations of sexual misconduct. If you don’t have a Twitter account, you’re really missing out…we’ve got Tweets from Trump from years ago slamming the guy, we’ve got the AG’s Tweets about how he fights for women’s rights…and everyone is having a ball with it. More importantly, this is one of the guys who was supposed to get Trump. Seems to me that everyone who goes after Trump ends up losing.