Author: M. Noonan

Open Thread

M. Noonan18 Comments

So, the IG report came out – and after spending hundreds of pages revealing how many things were done wrong, it concluded with an essentially, “hey, sorry; my bad” statement. This is drivel – no one is that incompetent; what was done to engineer the spying on Trump was obviously criminal…and downright un-American. I hope that Barr and his crew will go after these people. Some statements made after the release of the report indicate he might. We’ll have to wait and see. As for me, I’m more convinced than ever that the FBI has to go. It simply can’t be trusted.

Rumor has it that the House will settle on two articles of impeachment: Obstructing Congress and Abuse of Power. Which is garbage. The Executive can’t obstruct Congress no more than Congress and obstruct the President. They are co-equal branches of government and neither has to bend the knee to the other. As for Abuse of Power…it sounds like something, but it isn’t. Note that colluding and bribery and so forth won’t make an appearance. Which means even after the Democrats rigged hearings to ensure something bad about Trump came out, they still came up with nothing.

Will they vote on them? Remains to be seen. Could be that they went with two very nebulous articles so that if a vote is held, the trial in the Senate is over quickly. Those two articles can be done in a day because there’s not much to say about them, on either side…and it is at least a chance that things like the Bidens won’t even be brought up in such a trial.

Its polls, but as our Experts still seem to live and die by them, this poll has to be giving them fits: it shows Trump surging in the battleground States. Make of it what you will – and even if we start to see lots of Trump-positive polls, don’t take them to heart. Work next year like we’re down by ten and only a miracle of effort will scrape Trump through.

Seems that Prince Andrew invited both Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein to his daughter’s 18th birthday party back in 2006. That grosses you out because of what you know, now…but what really nauseated me was the description of the party. A little girl’s 18th birthday – it cost 400,000 pounds. They were awash in champagne and food and had an orchestra. Who the heck are these people? Where did they come from? Why are we allowing them to keep living like that?

Who’s the Nazi?

M. Noonan9 Comments

Lately there has been much back and forth about just who is a Nazi. To be sure, all of us on the right have, at one time or another, been accused of being Nazis of one sort or another. But this latest game of Expose the Nazi is different in that plenty of people on the right are joining the left in the hunt.

I suppose this has been coming for a while – remember how we were all supposed to be in a panic about the Alt-Right in 2015/16? They were Nazis out to set up the Fourth Reich…to be run, as it turns out, by the flamboyantly gay Milo Yiannopoulos. Which didn’t – and doesn’t – make any sense, but the real purpose of the exercise was to un-person Yiannopoulos as having a gay spokesman for the right who was also wickedly funny just wrecked too many Progressive Narratives while also displeasing the Tru-Cons; who have no problem with gay, but do have a great deal of problem with anyone on the right who may actually advance a conservative notion or two.

The latest explosion was caused by a guy named Nick Fuentes. I honestly don’t know much about him. I knew zero about him – had never heard of him – before the explosion and even after looking him up, I can only find that a lot of people really, really dislike the guy. There doesn’t seem to be a political party run by Fuentes and he hasn’t created a political program…seems to me that he’s just this guy and his thing is to make outrageous statements for attention. Among the outrageous statements are anti-Semitic and anti-Immigrant statements. From what I can gather, this makes him out to be an a**hole…but I can’t discern a plan on Fuentes’ part to unify the nation under a Leader, eliminate all non-Aryans (with special attention to the Jews) and conquer increased Living Space for the Aryans. This would, of course, be the plan, if you were a Nazi. Fuentes being a Spanish name, I’m wondering if the guy even has any Kraut blood?

Part of the controversy resulted in Michelle Malkin being fired by YAF for coming to the defense of Fuentes. This is another jarring note in the concept that Fuentes is a Nazi because Malkin is of Philippine blood. It seems these days that “Nazi” is becoming a catch-all for “people I don’t like” and “people I have to get out of the public square because they might win an argument with me”. Good to keep in mind that while all Nazis are anti-Semites, not all anti-Semites are Nazis…unless you want to assert that Ilhan Omar is a Nazi. I somehow doubt that the likes of Fuentes and Malkin are planning a Nazi takeover of the United States.

Does this excuse any statements from either of them which I may consider wrong? Of course not. Either of them may have in the past – or may in the future – say things which I find outrageously wrong. But until they set up a National Socialist party and start trying to take over (while providing a logical explanation for why they’d want a system which would imprison and kill them as Untermensch) I’m not going to call them Nazis, or even think that they might have that goal in mind.

Are there any actual Nazis out there? Yep. I’ve even come across a few of them on social media – briefly, before I blocked them. There are in the world today genuine, dyed-in-the-wool Nazis who want to set up a Nazi system…the only slight variation on Hitler’s Nazism is that most of today’s Nazis consider anyone white to be Übermensch. This isn’t strictly in keeping with Nazi ideology which held that only Germans were the master race and while other white people could be superior in this way or that, none could compare to Germans. But, hey, when you’re running a con about Nazism in modern America, you have to cast a wide net for clicks and donations. I wouldn’t think that more than a few tens of thousands of Americans adhere to Nazi ideology.

There is, though, a larger group which, while not explicitly Nazi, do share a lot of Nazi notions. These people can more broadly be classified as “White Nationalists”. They generally support democratic self-governance. They are not advocating for wars of conquest. In economics, its a bit of a mish mash of welfare State and free market. Many of them don’t even argue that non-whites are inferior. But what they do argue is that whites should be separate from non-whites: that there should be places set aside where only white people live – and part of this desire is that the United States no longer allow immigration. What we have here, in my view, is an attempt to make out that since Malkin, Fuentes and many others on the right are anti-immigration, they are akin to White Nationalists who are, in turn, akin to Nazis…and so Malkin and Fuentes, and everyone who won’t condemn them, are Nazis.

That is an incredible level of nonsense – but it is in keeping with the times. What is really desired here is to make being anti-immigration socially unacceptable. That if you take a position that immigration should no longer happen – or even that it should be highly restricted – then you are acting entirely from base motives. That you are a racist Nazi. Crucial to such a program would be to un-person anyone non-white who is taking the position that immigration should be stopped…and so the non-white voices of Malkin and Fuentes have to go.

I’m not going to do that: I will not let my opponents define me. I still don’t really know who Fuentes is. If he’s making the anti-Semitic statements that he’s accused of, then he’s an idiot and wrong in those statements. But I refuse to go along with deplatforming and destroying him. I don’t care what he says. I have no connection with him and have no moral requirement to prove I’m not like him by adopting positions I think wrong. I’m especially not going to do it because it seems pretty clear to me that the heart attack being had over him is mere political garbage designed to destroy those the Establishment want destroyed. The Establishment wants not only continued immigration, but increased immigration. Their solution to illegal immigration is to make it so easy to immigrate that no one would bother with doing it illegally. I’m not going along with that.

Demonstrate to me that someone is an actual Nazi and I’ll condemn that person. So, too, if you can demonstrate that they are racist, anti-Semitic, in favor of tyranny…prove to me that someone wants wicked things, and I’ll condemn the wicked plans and work to ensure they aren’t carried out. But don’t dare try to call someone a Nazi because you simply want me to run away from a political position. I happen to think that it is time to call a halt to immigration, at least for a period of time. For refugees, I’d set up refugee camps which will have as their goal the return of the refugees to their homeland…a temporary, safe harbor where they can be safe from dying but which is no ways is a step towards becoming a resident of the United States. Rely on it: set that up and you’ll only get people who are in actual fear of their lives showing up…because “camp or death” means “camp” while “camp or just staying home which isn’t so bad” means “just staying home which isn’t so bad.”

I am Catholic. I am part Jewish in blood. I have non-white relatives by blood and marriage. I live and work among non-white people. I am not in any way, shape or form racist and I could never be Nazi – or Socialist or fascist or Communist or any other such evil twaddle fit only for criminals and idiots. I will advocate for what I think is right and I will not be scared off on it because someone out there might slander me. Nor will I take anyone’s uncorroborated word for it that someone is evil. It is time for us on our side to call an end to this game: this “insult to win” garbage the Left – and, truth be told, part of the Right – has engaged in because they can’t win an argument.

Open Thread

M. Noonan8 Comments

Never forget:

Impeach this, Democrats:

The jobs market turned in a stellar performance in November, with nonfarm payrolls surging by 266,000 and the unemployment rate falling to 3.5%, according to Labor Department numbers released Friday.

Those totals easily beat the Wall Street consensus. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for solid job growth of 187,000 and saw the unemployment rate holding steady from October’s 3.6%.

I’ve read stories that the Trump Administration has been turning the screws on those who hire illegal immigrants – in other words, taking away the incentive for the illegals to come across. But the follow-on of that would be that these companies have to hire someone…and if an American is all you got, I guess you gotta take him. And pay him an American wage; wage growth has also been red hot.

I had mentioned a little while back that President McKinley’s trade policy was “trade reciprocity”; boiled down, we’re only going to buy from countries which buy from us, unless a country really has something we absolutely can’t procure in the United States. Trump’s trade policies are in line with this concept; it is unfair for a country to get easy access to our markets when we have no real access or highly limited access to theirs. And for all the Tru-Cons out there, it seems to me that adhering to the tried and true practices of the Republican Party – rather than the so-called “free trade” nostrums of Progressives – is the more Conservative thing to do. The more we force people to play fair and the more we protect ourselves from foreign predators, the better we’re going to do. In my view, if we keep it up long enough, we won’t even have to worry about the supposed cheapness of foreign imports…American ingenuity will simply figure out ways to make it just as cheap at home, because there’s one thing that business wants to do: sell product. And if selling product requires making it faster and cheaper, they’ll eventually figure out how to do it.

The latest shooting in Florida was, without a doubt, and act of Islamist terrorism…so, everyone is doing what they can to pretend it wasn’t. Mark Steyn is trenchant as usual:

We know it’s a Saudi national gunning down Americans, but it’s “too early to know” if it’s terrorism. Could be just “mental health issues” or “workplace violence” or “pre-traumatic stress disorder” or “involuntary self-radicalization” or whatever. Nothing to worry about and always remember (to reprise another old line of mine) that “Allahu Akbar” is Arabic for “Nothing to see here”.

On “the day that everything changed” nothing changed – except the rate of Muslim immigration to the west, which doubled. A US immigration bureaucracy both cruel and stupid enough to ban a World War Two RAF pilot for life for staying with his wife until her death when she was stricken ill in the US and taken to a New Jersey hospital cannot stop itself admitting Saudi trainee pilots to kill Americans.

The only thing wrong with President Trump’s Muslim ban is that it was nothing of the kind. What we needed was strict controls on foreign nationals who hail from places where terrorists commonly come from. If you are coming to the USA from, say Saudi Arabia, then lets to a pretty intense background check on you and get you bonded and insured and so forth before you come in. Who in hell thought it would be a good idea to give Saudis flight training? Someone, somewhere…who probably got a pay raise and promotion for encouraging diversity…because we have a shortage of lunatic murderers in the United States. The real problem is money, as usual: the Saudis and other Muslim money bags have been flashing the cash at our Ruling Class for decades and really poured it on after 9/11…so many people are bought that we aren’t even allowed to have a real discussion of the issue…a discussion which would help the Muslim world as much as it would help us.

In a sign that Trump is changing the courts, the 9th Circuit – yes, that 9th circuit – just gave Trump a win on whether an immigrant can be a public charge (that means be on welfare, for you liberals out there).

How is impeachment going? Well, CNN which is mostly about impeachment (and complaining about how Fox is covering impeachment) has seen its ratings tank…very, very badly. The jig is really up for it, folks: I’m still not convinced they’ll actually hold a vote on articles of impeachment, but we’ll see. Main thing is, it is dead as a door nail. Only real question if they impeach is, does McConnell move to have it summarily dismissed, or does he drag out a trial through the early Democrat primaries?

Open Thread

M. Noonan25 Comments

An indicator of how it’s going: Swalwell wants to reserve judgement on impeachment. I’m sure in the end if articles are brought forward he’ll vote for them…but that he’s even semi-hedging shows the Democrats have not made their case. And likely won’t. I haven’t watched today’s legal professor hearing because why should I? Its just some people offering opinions…and their opinions are no more valid on this than any random person dragged in off the street. The flavor is shown by the fact that one of the lawyers testifying called for Trump’s impeachment before he took office. I did see on Twitter a little blurb from an MSMer that the Democrats are having a caucus meeting and Nancy is making sure that only lawmakers are in the room – no aids – and that no one has a phone with them. Something is up…don’t know what; but I wonder if its Trump-district Democrats in a panic about next year?

Robert Stacy McCain has an interesting article on how we must defend our own – when the Left gets out there to smear an effective member of our coalition, we have to stand up and be counted. But one thing in the article rather struck me – how a Conservative was destroyed in the early 80’s with the assistance of other mainstream Conservatives. Bet its been like that. We all know of how Buckley famously purged the Birchers from the movement…and, to be sure, a lot of Birch ideas were kook…the water fluoridation thing being most famed. But, on the other hand, does the Left ever purge their kooks? Remember, it was some years ago that the Left asserted that gender was a social construct. Can’t remember how far back I first heard that, but it wasn’t beyond 1995. That was insane kookery…but no one on the Left denounced it, and now the major Democrat candidates for President are adhering to that notion. And the core contention of the Birchers – that nearly everyone is in on the scam to take away the self-governing aspect of the American people – has proved true. My goodness, it is really brazen these days…they aren’t even hiding it any longer. Perhaps if we hadn’t been in the business of purging our own – you know, trying to make the Left like us by pointing out that we, too, hate the Right – we wouldn’t have got so far into this hole?

Boris Johnson seems set for a remarkable victory in the upcoming British elections. We’ll see: you know how polls can be…but it is astonishing that all polls, even the most Left friendly, show him crushing it. His margins are +6 to +15. So, let’s split it and say his Tories win it by 10. If so, he’d have a sizeable majority in Parliament and be able to get whatever Brexit deal he wants. My view: even a lot of people who voted Remain during the referendum are probably tired of this and want it resolved…Johnson promises to resolve it, both Labour and Liberal-Democrats are essentially promising to drag it out indefinitely. I think that if Johnson wins, he only wins a mandate to Exit…after that, the Brit people will look at how things are going and judge him on the other merits of his stewardship. Don’t think that a Johnson win means an era of Tory dominance is dawning.

Related: Hugh Grant is stumping for a Liberal-Democrat and calling out Labour’s anti-Semitism. Good for Hugh Grant – who is a pinko – but it won’t matter. Labour has made the calculation that there’s far more money and votes in anti-Semitism than there is in opposing anti-Semitism. The Democrats have made the same calculation.

What do we do post-Trump? Its an important question – even if he wins, he’s out after the 2024 election. What then? Angelo Codevilla starts writing the answer. My short answer: More Trump. Meaning, we can’t let Trump’s successor be GHWB to Reagan. Whomever we select in 2024, it must be someone we can rely on to right…and fight actually even harder than Trump has. I do detect the weakness in Trump: he appears to assume people are on the level. Not that he’s naive, but he takes people as they present themselves…and how many shivs has he got in his back from supposedly Conservative and GOP people? We need a merciless housecleaning of the old hacks and Deep State loyalists.

What are the Limits of Tolerance?

M. Noonan28 Comments

A couple things I saw recently struck me with some force. Once was some weird Church out there – used to be Christian, claims to remain so…but, they’re lying very badly – which put up a Garden of Eden picture with same sex couples. Other thing was this nitwit Never Trumper whom I used to respect yammering on about how True Conservatives don’t want Conservative judges because that might overturn Roe. This, plus a few other things, got me wondering: what are the limits of tolerance? That is, in an admittedly pluralist Republic, just how much difference can there be before the whole thing comes crashing down?

I think we’d all agree that, by and large, we don’t care what goes on in San Francisco. Our only real complaint, to this point, has been that San Franciscans seem to care very much what we do and want to force us to be like them. Our theory has been that we can beat them back and they can have their multi-gendered otherkin SJW San Francisco while we have, well, sanity; everyone is happy. But, would we really be? Would they?

I strongly doubt they would – Crusaders out to free the Holy Land would envy the zeal with which our SJW Left pursues it’s enemies. They can’t leave well enough alone – they seem to have a built-in need to harass, hector and bully everyone. When they can’t find out an outright enemy to pester, they simply turn upon one of their own. It is just the way they are – and only the power of God can possibly convert them. We can’t. And even someone officially not SJW Left – like the Never Trumper mentioned above – still revealed a desire to impose…for all his talk about small government, the last thing he wants is a small government out there looking after itself. That is, he doesn’t want you and me getting together to decide what we want in our little corner of the world. Nope: we all have to be the same.

How are we supposed to live with people like that? Also, would we be wise to even try? How smart am I if I commit to the absolute defense of some nutcase “Church” which puts up pictures deliberately to insult me? If I commit to defend people who are then free to undermine my ability to govern myself? We know, with certainty, that a free society will generally produce the best results because when people are able to dare and to dream, they will resolve problems which have bedeviled humanity for ages. So, we know we must have freedom – but does this include tolerating the freedom to destroy?

I’m really just asking the question here. I don’t know the answer. I am hopeful that a bit of debate about it might produce some point I’m missing or enlighten some dark patch in my mind. But as it stands right now, I’m really puzzled as to whether or not we can, as we are, survive as a nation…and whether or not we should.

Open Thread

M. Noonan59 Comments

There is talk of Michelle Obama entering the Presidential race. This is a sign of extreme desperation. The power people in the Democrat party are clearly dismayed at the current crop, are watching impeachment backfire and seeing President Trump starting to rise high, buoyed by an increasingly booming economy.

I doubt she’ll get in. I could be wrong, but I never saw in her a desire to enter electoral politics. If she did get in, the MSM would treat her as the Second Coming, of course…but I think that most people just don’t give a darn what the MSM is saying these days. It would be positive coverage in a void and I believe that most would see it for what it would be: a ploy to avoid defeat in 2020.

The British Labour Party is going so anti-Semitic that the chief Rabbi of the UK penned an op-ed about it in the Times of London – and was seconded by the Archbishop of Canterbury. I understand that polling indicates that 80% of British Jews will opt for some other party in the upcoming elections. The op-ed, of course, called upon Britain’s Labour Party to address the problem and correct it. The op-ed will fail in its intent: the British Left – followed now closely by the American Left – has made the calculation that there is vastly more money and votes in Islam than there is in Judaism. Offending Jews – especially as long as the MSM keeps covering up for you – is a nearly cost-free exercise…and if by so doing you can get Muslim votes and (really more important) Muslim oil money, then its all good. It must always be kept in mind that for the Left, power is everything – the only thing that matters. There’s a meme which goes around that if it was found that Mexicans were voting Republican, Democrats would build the wall 50 feet high at the border. And this is an exactly correct analysis. It is all about power.

But here’s the real problem: for Labourites, they see it as a calculation…for the anti-Semites they’ve invited in, it really is about massacring the Jews and destroying Israel.

I saw some polls which indicated an astonishingly high level of support for President Trump among African-Americans. Its good that I don’t trust polls – but I did enjoy the shrieks from the Left and Never Trump…they stoutly asserted it couldn’t be possible and only an idiot would believe it. They then went on to tout polls showing this or that Democrat will beat Trump. They do love to have it both ways, don’t they? If it wasn’t for double standards, they’d have none at all. As for me: I don’t know. I do know some black people who despise Trump. I can’t say that I know a single black person who is an ardent supporter of Trump. OTOH, most black people who do back the guy would probably keep it low key simply to maintain peace among family and friends. One observation I made is what, really, are Democrats offering black voters? Do black voters care deeply for trans rights? Open borders which depress wages? Do black voters want good schools? Better job opportunities? There is an opportunity here – and even a relatively small movement of African-Americans to the GOP would be devastating to the Democrats. Someone on Team Trump thinks so…and they’re doing a big ad buy in black radio and print media across some battleground States.

The World Socialist Web – which is as far left extremist as you imagine – did an interview regarding the “1619 Project” with historian James McPherson…which means the far left commie readers of WSW will be better informed than New York Times readers. Do read it: it is very good. WSW is also better at interviewing than the MSM.

Sick of This Schiff

M. Noonan23 Comments

The Schiff-show is over – and, meh: a smart guy I follow on Twitter took the latest batch of “the walls are closing in on Trump” articles and simply linked them up with the zillion other “the walls are closing in on Trump” articles which have been put out since the day after he became President. I heard not one person outside social media talking about the hearings – and the ratings for them were low; I suspect that most Americans were only vaguely aware they were going on. At the end of the day, the Democrats had no actual witnesses to anything which could be construed as a crime…and that’s why most likely don’t care.

Where from here? Well, from what I can gather reading reports, Trump and McConnell seem to be double-dog daring the Democrats to actually vote articles of impeachment. Truth be told, I suspect both men would rather not have to go through that…but they seem ready. Even Romney came to the White House for a meeting with Trump; so, even their most likely GOP vote in favor of conviction is probably back on the GOP ranch (how? Well, Romney’s polling started to look just terrible and, well, favors were probably asked and granted…politics, you know?).

One side note that has come up is a wonder just how so many traitors managed to be working in high levels of the Trump Administration. Lots of theories have been offered up. My two are:

1. I don’t think Trump suspected just how disloyal people would be. All the hearings really showed is that the permanent bureaucracy thinks of the American government being them with a small suggestion box for the people. It is really bad: and the only cure I can think of is to revive the spoils system…ie, make all Executive positions “at the pleasure of the President”. Let the bureaucrats know that if they don’t toe the line, the President can toss them out.

2. Even those who might be technically loyal to Trump are probably more loyal to their careers. They know that, come what may, Trump will be out by 2025…and then they’ll need to get jobs and promotions in a system which despises Trump. Its a matter of helping Trump today or helping themselves later…and them selves took precedence.

The other big news is the coming IG report and the on-going investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia hoax. I’m thinking the IG report will be weak sauce…the IG is one of them, after all, and won’t really go after what happened. But even with that in mind, we’re seeing a lot of pre-spin by people targeted in the report. As it turns out, if you are the subject of an IG report, you get to read those parts relating to you before they are released…so you can ask for corrections and clarifications. Lots of stuff about the IG report started leaking in the last 24 hours and it all looks good for Comey, et al…but, remember, the only people who could leak such things are Comey, et al. You don’t worry about pre-spinning something if it makes you look good.

More important is the investigation into Trump-Russia; and the latest word there is that FBI agents are under investigation for altering documents…and gigantic no-no. It only takes one thread to break lose for the whole thing to unravel. And if someone altered a document and there is proof they did so, that person is looking at some serious jail time, even if he or she goes in front of the most Deep State-friendly jury (ie, one in DC). You can’t get around plain facts…and, so, such a person would have massive incentive to tattle on whomever gave the orders for the documents to be altered.

The whole pile of Schiff makes clear to me that we can’t just be about Trump – that we have to go Trump on steroids going forward. Our government has been hijacked by a corrupt Ruling Class and they are determined to keep themselves on the gravy train. It all has to go – agencies dismantled; military officers cashiered; bureaucrats fired; secrets declassified. In short, we need what amounts to a revolution. And let’s hope we can do it via ballots.