Author: Mark Noonan

Open Thread

Mark Noonan65 Comments

Marcy Miller, a Twitter friend of mine, keeps up on Arizona history:

By five a.m. on a cold November 2, 1889, Gila County Sheriff Glenn Reynolds and his deputy, William A. Holmes, had barely begun the second day of their long trek from Globe to the Yuma Territorial Prison with nine prisoners. Eight of the convicts were Apaches – one of them the infamous Apache Kid, another Pash-Tan-Tah – and the remaining prisoner a Mexican man named Jesus Avott. The prisoners rode in a stagecoach driven by its owner, Eugene Middleton. Next to Middleton sat Deputy Holmes, riding shotgun, while Sheriff Reynolds accompanied them on horseback…

Read the whole thing. Interesting slice of old west history.

So, they voted to Release The Memo – we’ll see if Trump approves it. I bet he will – but even if he doesn’t, I understand the House can still release it. At any rate, things are rapidly heating up on this front. From what I’ve read, it seems pretty clear to me that the Obama Administration cooked up a reason to spy on the Trump Campaign in order to aid Hillary’s quest for the White House and when Trump wound up winning, they switched it over to a story about Trump colluding with Russia to win the election. We’re all used to Democrats getting away with stuff like this – but this is really big. Like, Watergate was nothing compared to it big. We’ll see how it comes out.

Google has a new camera that will neatly keep track of your every move. I really don’t understand why anyone buys these things. Look, I like being connected, too…but we’re already in enough databases: why give people permission to essentially spy on you 24/7? Want to know what really set me off on how bad things are getting? Some months back the Mrs and I were walking through a store and I mentioned that we needed to buy more treats for the dog…almost instantly, an ad for dog treats at that store popped up in my Facebook timeline. The fricking thing was listening to me and matched what I said to where I was! I don’t like that, at all. I’ve taken to occasionally entirely shutting off my phone so that there is at least some blocks of time no one knows where I am. But, you just watch: eventually not having your phone on and with you will be seen as evidence against you. 1984 turned out to be an instruction manual.

A possibly intoxicated Gam Gam was last seen reading passages from a pack of lies at the Grammy’s. For some odd reason, this resulted in very low TV ratings for the Grammy Awards. Go figure.

MSMer, in the spirit of 1984, throws the actual news coverage of the 2016 into the Memory Hole and announces that the MSM was too tough on Hillary.

Allahpundit, who really has been allowing his disdain for Trump to get the better of him, wants Trump to jettison the televised State of the Union. I don’t see any reason for this – other than a fierce desire on the part of some to deny Trump a widely-watched, national platform. Heck with that – just having him up there giving the speech will bug our Progressive friends…and that is always a worthy object.

Donald Surber points out that some people coming to ardently support the Wall are illegal immigrants…specifically those who would benefit from the codification of DACA. When you think about it, it makes sense: Democrats might want the DACA people stuck in legal limbo in order to wring whatever political advantage they can out of it…but the actual, flesh and blood human beings involved probably just want to get themselves to legal status so they don’t have to worry about it any more. This is a very illustrative thing: Democrats don’t actually give a darn about anyone. It is perfectly ok, in their minds, if people suffer if they think that suffering can get them power and wealth. The thing for the GOP to do is to figure out a way to explain this – not just to DACA types, but all the various social groups the Democrats keep poor and hopeless. We want them to rise and live their lives in independent dignity…Democrats just want them poor and hopeless because that way they may be suckered into voting Democrat.

Thinking About Art

Mark Noonan30 Comments

So, I’m still writing the novel. Just past 57,000 words, now. I figure I’ve got about 20-25,000 left to go. Very importantly, I figured out how it ends. Meaning, I knew in general how it ended all along, but now I know how to get there. I’ve re-read what I’ve written from time to time…make a few changes here and there, but the main thing is the story is compelling. At least, to me it is. I do hope other people like it. To me, it’s a real page-turner…and I already know what’s on the next page, being the author of it, and all. There will be a lot to do in the re-write after the first draft is done…increasing the descriptions, diving a bit more deeply into character development, making the overall Narrative flow better. I’m having a lot of fun writing it. Though it will take longer than I first thought – originally hoped to have it out in May, but now that will slip by several months. Partly because I got dragooned into working on another project which will absorb some writing time over the next month or so.

The other day the news did what Chesterton pointed out is the primary purpose of the news: telling people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive that Lord Jones is dead. In this case, Lord Jones was Ursula Le Guin. I had never heard of her until I found out she was dead. In case your ignorance matches mine regarding this lady, she was a famed sci-fi/fantasy author…writing lots of books and winning all manner of awards. Someone quoted a passage from one of her books and said this was the most beautiful opening paragraph he had ever read:

Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of the ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, and the dark enters it. Borne, flung, tugged from anywhere to anywhere for in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower, the jellyfish hangs and sways; pulses move slight and quick within it, as the vast diurnal pulses beat in the moon-driven sea. Hanging, swaying, pulsing, the most vulnerable and insubstantial creature, it has for its defense the violence and power of the whole ocean, to which it has entrusted its being, its going, and its will.

If you like that, then I’m afraid my novel is going to be a terrible disappointment to you. It is just a bunch of words strung together, in my view. I initially thought the guy who posted that on Twitter was joking – and maybe he was (it is hard to tell), but the comments from people about it indicates that some people actually think this is meaningful stuff. Deep. Thoughtful.

Its about a freaking jellyfish drifting with the tide! Its drivel!

It got me thinking about the whole concept of creative arts – and thinking that it is in a very bad way. Ms. Le Guin wrote that on purpose and people read it and gave it awards. I am flabbergasted. I’d be embarrassed if I wrote anything like that. I’m hoping that she wrote it as a joke – that the rest of her writing was better and that she merely put that out once securely rich and famous as part of an “I wonder if they’ll really just buy anything I write?” experiment.

Then I read a bit from Andrew Klavan about how he was viewing the upcoming Oscar awards:

The Oscars as a glamorous, televised, fun event are a relic of the days when film was the central American art form, the way America told stories to itself. When an art form is at its peak — which usually comes pretty early in its life cycle — the greatest works and the most popular works are usually one and the same. The movies, for instance, peaked around 1939 when the nominees included Gone With The Wind, Dark Victory, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, and The Wizard of Oz. All are still rightly considered classics and all were in the top ten at the box office.

I’ll have to agree with that. My Mrs gently chides me for my preference for old movies, but I really find most modern movies unwatchable. There have been a few recent offerings I liked. In sci-fi, for instance, I liked Interstellar. It got panned, but I thought it the most interesting sci-fi movie since, say, Planet of the Apes in 1968. But, mostly I just keep watching old movies. They are just better, in my view. For instance, for most of my life I had ignored Citizen Kane: mostly because I figure a movie that praised couldn’t be as good as people were saying. Then I watched it all the way through. And then watched it again. It is the best movie ever made in my view. I’ve watched Lord only knows how many movies, but I’ve never seen anything as interesting as that – something so crisply done, such great dialogue, such phenomenal acting and cinematography. Klaven has hit upon something – the movies are worn out. So is fiction writing. So, too, is writing in general (Matt and I were most pleased with those who opined Worst was well-written; we really appreciated that…but, I can’t argue against the people saying it…most books written these days are simply badly written…I mean, just terrible, and they are written by people who supposedly went to school and learned how to write. I just started writing in 2003 and slowly got better at it).

It occurred to me that part of the reason I’m writing my novel is the same reason that C S Lewis wrote the Narnia series: he took one look at what people were reading, was appalled and set about trying to write something worth reading. So am I. I don’t know if anyone will read it; I hope they do. But my purpose is clear: to write a story which will be interesting and fun to read.

And I think that is where the modern arts have gone wrong: they aren’t trying for interesting and fun. They are trying for something else…a message, or a moral, or simply to be as weird as they can, because that is where the awards and book contracts are. I’m writing a fairy tale – and that means I’ve taken some average folks and put them in strange, dangerous situations where they can only rely on their courage and each other to triumph over evil. You know – it is a story which you can imagine yourself landing in, and then imagine how you might react. There is no sex in my book; though there is love. There is violence, but not gross violence. No one is depressed. They are, at turns, afraid and unsure…but they aren’t wallowing in self-pity and trying to get to some cosmic truth because they have it hard. Having it hard is just part of life, and you take it with as much grit and good humor as you can.

We need to recapture the sense of wonder and hope which art is supposed to provide us. We’ve had quite enough of weirdos and psychopaths. Maybe my book flops. Doesn’t matter. I’m writing it because it is fun to write…and I’m going to keep on writing it. I just hope that other people will join in – we’ve learned that our experts in most areas are rather dumb. The experts in the arts are no less so. If you’ve got a song in your heart, a story in your mind, a painting that is waiting to be done…do it. After all, the really great art wells up from the people…and perhaps it is time for we, the people, to take back the arts, too.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan46 Comments

Apple is bringing back $250 billion in foreign cash – thanks to Trump’s tax reform. This is just tip of the iceberg, folks.

Turns out, allowing collective bargaining for police and teachers isn’t such a good idea.

Senator Cory Booker went on a rant against DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The left is loudly applauding this…but had a Republican man used the exact same words to a Democrat woman, Cory Booker would have been first in front of a camera to denounce GOP sexism…

Ace nails down what Trump is doing on the culture warfare front:

Trump’s manner of engaging with The Blob of left-wing virtue-signalling and status-conferring is to attempt to degrade the left wing cultural Borg of its own social status, thereby reducing its ability to set tastes, serve as “gatekeepers” of what the right-minded people agree are proper attitudes and beliefs, and demonize dissenters.

This is often ugly — but that’s how the sausage gets made. It does not matter if you produce a well-researched and well-cited bit of argument as to your position if the cultural princelings of the left can simply say “You’re a Nazi and you hate women” and thereby, with seven stupid words, raze not only your argument but your entire claim to basic human dignity.

The only way to rob them of that ability is to reduce their own social status to a low level. You cannot confer or reduce social status unless you yourself have a great deal of it.

Raise your hands if in past years you held back from saying things because you feared being socially ostracized by the Elite. Ok. Now raise your hands if you are now entirely uninterested in what the Elite thinks about you. I see all your hands raised. Good. Had a little Facebook discussion today where, for the zillionth time, I was called a racist. Why? Because I didn’t agree that racism is whatever someone says it is – I insisted upon a hard and fast definition, and if an action didn’t fit that definition, it wasn’t racist. The affect of being called racist was zero…but, more importantly, the other people in the discussion weren’t afraid to point out that I was merely making a rational demand that we at least agree on our terms if we are to debate. Trump is winning the culture war. This might be the most crucial thing he does as President.

V the K over at Gay Patriot has another take on the same subject, well worth reading.

A Tweet from Razor – well worth following, if you have a Twitter account:

You know a Republican is in the White House when Apple announces a commitment to the economy of $350B and 20,000 new jobs, North and South Korea are talking, the Dow closes above 26,000 for the first time… and the news media is focused like a laser on the President’s weight.

Matt Margolis: The Banning

Mark Noonan69 Comments

So, our Matt is busily writing a new book, The Scandalous Presidency of Barack Obama. I sat this one out – all credit to Matt for being willing to dive into that sewer a second time around. Anyways, the book is to be released on April 3rd and so, naturally, Matt starts to push the book on social media. Turns out, some people at Facebook didn’t like what Matt did:

Bestselling conservative author Matt Margolis has a new book coming out that is already banned on Facebook. Margolis’s first book, The Worst President in History, which detailed the failures of the Obama administration, was an instant hit last fall. Margolis used social media to market his presidential biography to #1 on Amazon. When he tried to market his latest, The Scandalous Presidency of Barack Obama, he was banned from Facebook groups for six days with no explanation.

Slight correction, of course: Worst was Matt’s second book. But, no matter. Matt has received no explanation from Facebook for the banning – my thinking was that some blue-haired, nose-pierced little SJW fascist just decided to be a jerk. But here’s the kicker: the banning made pre-orders of Matt’s book shoot through the roof, while sales of our Worst also skyrocketed for a day.

So, Facebook Fascists, Matt and I would like to offer our thanks for fattening our bank accounts.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan38 Comments

So, Trump set social media afire – apparently making comments about sh**hole countries. Vulgar – but my take is that he’s merely pointing out that there isn’t much wisdom in just willy-nilly taking in everyone. A judicious selection has to be taken. We don’t actually need any immigrants…so, if we’re going to take some in, might as well take the best of the best. Progressives and NeverTrump are up in arms about it…but, no one really cares what they think.

Twitter “shadow bans” Conservative voices – this is where they just don’t allow a Conservative’s comments to be easily noticed. I’ve seen it going on for a while…and what trends on Twitter isn’t what is trending, but what Twitter chooses to have trend…invariably whatever it is that Progressives are yammering on about.

Chrysler is building a new factory in Michigan, it would seem. This is just proving my point that manufacturing is entirely viable in the United States and it has mostly been tax and regulatory policy keeping it down. There isn’t that much of a plus in cheap labor, which is all any foreign nation can offer us. When you relieve the tax and regulatory burden and combine that with our superior infrastructure and rule of law, we just can’t be beat.

The crime lab – useful; but like all things government these days, it seems that our crime labs are often just making it up…and sending innocent people to jail. We’ve discussed this many times before – those who are charged with enforcing our laws are often not doing their jobs and we need to find a mechanism to force them to do so, and punish them when they don’t.

Senator Feinstein leaked some Fusion GPS transcripts and has now come up with several, equally absurd excuses as to why she did it. I go with the obvious: she released them as a cheat sheet for everyone who will be called to testify about it in the future: “make sure your lies square with these!”. The Trump/Russia Collusion scandal is rapidly morphing into the biggest political scandal in American history…and its all about Democrats.

The Obama/Trump Contrast

Mark Noonan70 Comments

Victor Davis Hanson, as usual, has something interesting to say regarding the stark contrast between Barack Obama and Donald Trump:

…The nation did not suddenly become liberal in 2008 or conservative in 2016. Rather, in both years it rejected blasé centrism — first trying out a left-wing deviation from establishmentarianism, then in frustration turning to a right-wing antidote to both the failed medicine and the original diseased status quo.

Antidote One, of unapologetic progressivism under Obama, did not lead to an economically robust and growing America, one safer abroad in a more secure world, and more cohesive, united, and stable at home — at least if that truly was the leftist agenda rather than the more hushed opposite goal of more equal but poorer Americans, America as just another nation among many, and a cultural revolution aimed at accentuating rather than assimilating race, class, and gender identities.

We shall see if the subsequent Antidote Two, of unregretful conservatism under Trump, will provide what conservatism has always promised: greater prosperity, security, and unity…

We shall see, indeed.

I don’t really know what to make of President Trump. Like most of you, I backed someone (anyone!) else in the GOP primaries. I resigned myself – after flirting with Never Trump – to voting for Trump as the only viable alternative to the absolute horror-show that a second Clinton Administration would be. I expected, in the unlikely event of his victory, that he’d do a few Conservative things, but also do a few liberal things…all in the name of a bi-partisan effort to “Make America Great Again”. And I expected the Conservative things to mostly be about cutting taxes and building up the military…I expected a slew of squishes to be appointed to the Courts and some flings with liberal social issues. I never expected Donald Trump – Donald Freaking Trump, Manhattan billionaire and one-time Playboy – to adhere to such a strictly Conservative line on all issues. Even in his expressed opinions on dope and same sex marriage, it really comes down to a defensibly Conservative principle of deferring to States’ Rights on such matters. For a Conservative, there is nothing in Trump’s first year to be upset with – second year does seem to promise some sort of infrastructure bill…but even there, I’m getting the distinct impression that if we’re going to flash the cash at such, Trump will make sure its used for things that will be useful to the nation…unlike Obama’s stimulus bill, we might get a bridge, a dam and a Moon shot out of Trump’s deficit spending. Not Conservative, but at least not something as stupid as bike paths or “cash for clunkers”, right?

Is Donald Trump a Conservative? He might be. Remember, his wife’s Catholic…and maybe, third time’s the charm, he’s actually learned the lesson all wise men eventually learn: do what your wife tells you to do. Sure, Melania Trump has a bit of a past…but anyone who knows Catholics (or any real Christians of any sort) knows that this is no hang up: all saints have a past, all sinners have a future. Maybe she’s moving him towards the right on social issues while his natural, businessman inclinations, are towards the right on economic matters? Who can know? All I do know is that I’m getting more Conservatism than I’ve had since January 20th, 1989. I like it.

And as Hanson points out, we’re getting a fair test: after eight years of Obama, we’re going to get four to eight years of Trump…and if we Conservatives are even half right in our ideals, then the Trump years will blow the Obama years out of the water. It’ll be undeniable, if it works (of course it will) that the proper way to go is low tax, low regulation, States Rights, individual liberty…we won’t have to struggle against a false, Progressive Narrative anymore because everyone will know that what we say is the way to go. And I think, deep down, this is what the Progressives and the overall Establishment fear the most…that it will be shown that we do better with less intrusive government and free markets. That we don’t need an Obama to lecture us on “who we are”. And that will simply kill them…they’ll hate living in a world where we don’t need them, or even so much as care what they think.

Hey, It’s January: How About Another Open Thread?

Mark Noonan59 Comments

We’ll have a lot of Presidents going forward, but I don’t think we’ll ever have such a Grand Master Troll on Twitter like Trump, again:

I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 o’clock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned!

What is most amusing is that his opponents take such jokes seriously. They light their hair on fire every time he makes a joke like this…they have intense discussions of What It All Means and how We’re Doomed Because of This Tweet. It is a glorious thing to behold. I highly recommend getting on Twitter just to watch.

William Jacobson Legal Insurrection goes over the Iranian crisis. Do read it. For me, I’ve been watching Elite Opinion cover itself in filth over the whole thing – trying to some how twist this yearning for freedom on the part of Iranians into a bad thing. They are just so desperate to preserve Obama’s legacy in the Iran Deal. I can only imagine its because they get paid – no one would be that stupid except for money.

Don Surber points out that the purveyors of Fake News just never seem to learn their lesson.

Further to that point, CNN’s Pentagon Correspondent wonders why the Secretary of the Navy would wear a sidearm in Afghanistan…I don’t know, maybe it’s because there’s a war going on, or something? Just my best guess, of course…

Deep State agent complains about Trump bringing attention to the Deep State.

That Grand Jury Mueller is using to railroad Trump people? There’s a bit of a perception of bias according to people in the know. Quite honestly, given the overwhelmingly Democrat make-up of the jury pool in the DC area, federal grand juries and trials should be held outside of the DC area…randomly select a city with a federal court for each case.

The Ghost of John Calhoun has settled in California.

Happy New Year Open Thread

Mark Noonan66 Comments

Polls are worthless, of course, but I understand the Rasmussen poll shows Trump at 46/53 approve/disapprove…which, oddly enough, is precisely what Obama’s rating was in the Rasmussen poll on 12/28/09. Honestly, I suspect that Trump’s actual approval rating is in the 53-55% range. The MSM/Social Media bubble is very distorting…one has to pull away from it and look at things from time to time. I have just not heard in real life any strong expressions of disapproval of Trump. Meanwhile, more and more people – like me – are going from qualified, I-Just-Didn’t-Want-Hillary resignation towards enthusiastic support. We’ll see how it all comes out, but I suspect that the Experts will be just as wrong in the future as they have been in the past.

This is disturbing: Don Surber picks up on a Sharyl Attkisson report that the sort of domestic spying Obama engaged in started under President Bush…and before 9/11. Do read the whole thing. This is just wrong. I don’t know, of course, if President Bush was precisely aware of what was going on (we’ve seen recently how the Deep State tends to go on its own). As you guys know, I’ve long had grave doubts about our intelligence services – both as to their effectiveness and their risk of corruption/tyranny. The bottom line, for me, is that they don’t very often pick up on the bad guy’s plans in time to stop them and that they engage in domestic spying is just flat wrong. We need a massive overhaul of our intelligence services…make them smaller, and strictly targeted at gaining intelligence in foreign lands.

NFL won’t be going with Sunday Night Football on the 31st…it would probably be a ratings disaster, if they did. New Years Eve, but also a season-long decline in viewership. The rule is: go Social Justice Warrior, go broke. Lots of reasons are given for the NFL’s mistake, but it is really quite simple: Goodell is a big, ol’ liberal and he simply couldn’t face his liberal buddies if he didn’t inject massive liberalism into the NFL. They wouldn’t have forgiven him…and that the owners ok’d a renewal of his contract shows that most of the NFL owners are more interested in Elite opinion than in what their customers want.

Liberals have taken to flinging poop to express their views…much like monkeys in the zoo. This surprises none of you.

When not flinging poop, they’ve taken to shouting at the animatronic Trump at Disneyworld. We’re not dealing with sane people.

Trump did an epic troll on Global Warming:

In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!

Some people persist in saying that Trump’s tweets are just wrong. Sorry, Trump’s tweets are things of epic beauty.

Schlichter strikes gold, again:

Trump owns his foes. They are mere satellites orbiting around him, and his gravity is all that keeps them from spinning off into space. They have willingly submitted to the reality of a Trumpocentric political universe. It’s hilarious.

Their impeachment fever dreams are fading, so they look at popularity polls and take solace at the numbers. They took solace in them on November 8, 2016, too. It’s a bit over 10 months to the midterms, and there is a growing, gnawing fear in their guts not that tax reform will be a disaster but that it will succeed. They look at their swelling 401(k)s and mourn their prosperity. They take cold comfort in the fact that with a zillion dollars they managed to beat by less than two points an accused strange-o whose campaign strategy was to ride around on his horse. But they fear that the Republicans won’t oblige them again by nominating more weirdos.

Why you’ll get more Trump:

Two professors from San Diego State University claim in a new book that farmers’ markets in urban areas are weed-like “white spaces” responsible for oppression.

Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J Bosco are part of an anthology released this month titled “Just Green Enough.” The work, published by Routledge, claims there is a correlation between the “whiteness of farmers’ markets” and gentrification.

“Farmers’ markets are often white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized,” the SDSU professors write, the education watchdog Campus Reform reported Wednesday.

So, after Pence finishes his eight years in office, who is next? What up-and-comer is there in the Trump team who will roll into office in 2032 based upon the fact that the Democrats are still insane and waiting for the Marshall of the Supreme Court to arrest Trump?

Merry Christmas!

Mark Noonan59 Comments

I’ll be driving most of tomorrow and then with family for Christmas Day, so I first off wish all of you a Merry Christmas! Even if you don’t celebrate – Merry Christmas, anyway!

Thing to remember about Christmas – it is either about nothing at all, or the most important thing which ever happened. Personally, I couldn’t see the point in celebrating it unless I believed (as I do) that it celebrates the most important thing which ever happened.

Israel gets a surge in Christian pilgrims this Christmas season. Israel: the only place in the Middle East where a Christian has some assurance of safety and liberty.

Jerry Brown is busily pardoning people who face deportation – this is just bizarre. And I think this sort of thing will prove devastatingly bad for Democrats as time goes on.

Trump taxes Harvard. We all laugh.

Have a great and safe holiday, my friends!

Open Thread

Mark Noonan88 Comments

Seems that Mueller’s people obtained a lot of documents and computers relating to Trump’s transition – trouble is, getting that stuff might have been illegal. Once again: shut it down. Whole thing stinks of corruption.

Don Surber goes over just how rotten this whole thing is – really, we’re talking about an Obama Administration attempt to undermine an incoming American President. That’s the subject which needs to be investigated.

Hollywood sucks. We all know that – but Michael Walsh goes into some details about why it sucks. Greed and stupidity, mostly. They simply don’t make movies – they make comic books on film for money, and then some nauseating, Progressive tripe for the Oscars. Of course, good movies could be made – if anyone wanted to make them. They wouldn’t be global blockbusters (or, at least, they probably wouldn’t – but you never know what might catch on), but they would make money, I bet. All it would take is some talent. I’ve even got some subjects that I think could be great movies:

Soapy Smith: this guy was like the ultimate con-man of all time. You could do it for laughs, or you could do it serious. Either way, its a compelling story which would be interesting to see.

Ernest E. Evans: posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions as skipper of the USS Johnston in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The man had Native American blood, so you can play that angle. His ship was commissioned on October 27th, 1943 and sunk on October 25th, 1944: the crew was mostly recent-civilians but, my goodness, they fought and fought and fought until their ship was shot out from under them. You could research to find the stories of the men who served and have this fantastic combination of interesting characters and stunning battle scenes.

Ann and Josie Bassett: old west ranchers and associates of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They were being pressured by cattle barons to sell out, and the outlaws helped them fight off the pressure. You can make all kinds of good stories out of that.

But, Hollywood won’t make the movies…because Hollywood sucks.

Governor Walker forges ahead with the complete reform of Wisconsin government – now tackling welfare reform. We’ll see what comes after Trump, and Pence is building up a lot of good will for a future White House bid. But we could do a lot worse than getting Walker as our President one of these days.

Trump wants to repeal the misbegotten Johnson Amendment – that law which supposedly prohibits all religious groups from engaging in politics, but which actually prohibits Conservative religious groups from engaging in politics. It was in the tax bill, but now has been taken out. Once again, Trump is seen as pushing for the more Conservative reform, while the supposedly True Conservative Congress is undermining his efforts. Some how or another, we’ve got to get 6 or 7 more GOP Senators next year so we can just overwhelm the Fredo-Cons.