Author: Mark Noonan

The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Well, Matt and I finally managed to get it done – the massively revised Worst President book comes out on July 2nd. You can pre-order an electronic version for only $0.99 – so, just get on over there and do it.

I’d like to say that this was some sort of labor of love and that we enjoyed doing it, but that is simply not the case. At the end of it all, when the whole mess that is the Obama Administration was set out in print and we had gone over it multiple times, the emotions are a mixture of anger and sadness. Anger at the way President Obama has relentlessly done the wrong thing over and over again and sadness at how much damage he has done to the greatest nation in history.

worst_kdpI do urge everyone to read it; it is important. All through the Obama Administration, the President’s media lackeys have ruthlessly covered up the truth and a great deal of what has gone wrong hasn’t even made a ripple in the public mind. You may think you have a good deal of information about Obama, but mostly what you’ve got is those failures so large (such as Benghazi and Obamacare) that even MSM efforts failed to keep them out of your mind. Most things Obama has done were only briefly reported on, and thus slipped out of public view before an impression was made. But the reality is that in every single facet of Obama’s official life what has been done has been wrong, or turned into an abject failure, or a combination of the two. And Obama has been doing quite a lot – he did promise to fundamentally transform the United States, and he has done that. Until you read Worst President, you simply don’t know the whole story of what has been done to the United States over President Obama’s term in office.

We are certain that our Progressive friends will have no kind words for the book – we are equally certain that our Progressive friends will refuse to read the book. I promise to do a post here each time I can determine that a criticism of the book is based upon something which is in the book. I suspect there won’t be many such entries. There are no secrets in the book. We make no revelations of things which have not been in the public square. Every claim of fact is backed up. Our sources range from the conventional MSM, to the right, to the left and every manner of credible information available. Indeed, we often use Obama Administration documents to back up our case. And while our Progressive friends won’t have much use for the book, some people have looked it over and found some things to say:

“I’ve been following the writing of Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan for years and their takedown of Barack Obama is their best work yet. If you want to know why the history books will have a dim view of Barack Obama, this is the book to read.”

–John Hawkins, Right Wing News and Townhall.com

“Barack Obama’s legacy of failure isn’t going anywhere. Margolis and Noonan’s careful history and analysis will therefore prove an important touchstone for discussions on his Presidency in the decades to come. A must-read.”

–Nick Adams, best-selling author of Retaking America: Crushing Political Correctness

“The legacy of Barack Obama will be increasingly obvious. With every terror attack, every Obamacare failure, and every economic drop, we will witness the pain he has inflicted. Margolis and Noonan can be pardoned for giving us a peek at how bad it will be.”

–Dick Morris, author of Power Grab: Obama’s Dangerous Plan for a One-Party Nation and Armageddon: How Trump Can Beat Hillary

We will be a long time repairing the damage President Obama has done – and an important part of repairing that damage is to know and remember just what he has done. Matt and I believe that this book is an important contribution to keeping the record straight. President Obama and his minions will spend the next decades trying to cover up, obfuscate and re-write the history of the Obama Administration, but The Worst President: The Legacy of Barack Obama will force everyone to deal with what President Obama has done while in office.

How to Cure Illiberalism

Mark Noonan3 Comments

This is a very good article about the modern rise of illiberalism we’ve seen over the past few years. It has some great analysis of why it has happened, but this bit really caught my eye:

…Liberal civilization has in the past proved resilient when threatened by anti-liberal forces, and its institutions retain a remarkable capacity to adapt. (Again, I am not speaking of “liberalism” as shorthand for positions aligned with the Democratic Party, but in the broader philosophical sense.) As a set of legal norms and economic principles—and, more important, as a cultural force—liberalism remains overwhelmingly dominant. Classically liberal ideas about the limited power of the state and the inherent rights of citizens have expanded into nearly every corner of the globe since 1776. Liberalism has vanquished every significant rival that has stood against it since then, and a succession of liberal powers has presided over world order…

Indeed, it has presided over the world – and has given us this newest version of illiberalism. Just as it gave us, in turns, Napoleon (the 1st and 3rd of that name), Bismarck, Imperialism, World War One, Communism, Nazism, World War Two and the Cold War – not to mention things like the break up of the family, the destruction of the working poor, the rise of the super-rich and governments which are so absurd that they propose to tell us how much salt to put on our food. I hate to break it to Sohrab Ahmari – the author of the piece – but if Liberalism triumphs again over it’s Illiberal opponents, it will simply go on to new and more spectacular disasters. Built in to the very concept of Liberalism is all the harmful things seen today, and witnessed over the disastrous 20th and 19th centuries.

Now, someone can answer back at me that the United States is a liberal democratic republic – and that is, indeed, correct. But the United States is different – or, more accurately, was different. I still stand in awe at what the Founders did – and wonder, at times, if Divinity moved them as they worked out how to govern the United States. You see, the United States worked as a Liberal entity because built in to our Constitution were various mechanisms which, for quite a long time, prevented Liberalism from being broadly imposed upon the American people in their day to day lives. From 1787 to 1913, with the temporary exception of the Civil War, most Americans never interacted with Federal power except via the Post Office. There was no one in DC who could tell a local community how to educate their children, how to build and maintain their roads, how to manage economic activity – let alone how to decide what is to be on the school lunch menu, or what bathrooms people are to use. Grasp that – we went from a people who only got involved with the Federal government when we purchased a stamp to a people who have to ask the Federal government for leave to turn around.

And that is why Trump has risen – because when government is that overwhelmingly powerful, people feel powerless…and people who feel powerless get fearful and angry and lash out. Some times in irrational ways – but underneath even the most irrational examples of anti-government/anti-establishment feeling is the rational understanding that the people are being cheated by a government which proposes to do all, but can really do no more than payoff those who have bribed the government, and oppress those who haven’t got the scratch to offer a bribe.

The problem with Liberalism is Liberalism. That is, it is fundamentally flawed. It proposes that we can create a great society if we just put smart people in charge to manage things. It doesn’t acknowledge tradition; it rejects the concept of Original Sin; it doesn’t understand that people just want to be left alone – and what I mean here is that people want to be left alone to manage their own affairs. Even if some liberal sage in a faraway city can prove with mathematical certainty that the yokels in Nowheresville are just a bunch of ignorant, hate-filled, bigoted morons…those morons still insist upon living how they want to live. And if someone comes along and proposes to tell them how to live, they are going to get mighty upset about it. And when they get upset, they will cast about for something to fight against what they perceive as unjust interference in their lives. And, all too often (as we can see), they’ll fall for someone who is actually just an outgrowth of Liberalism…someone who takes some particular point of Liberalism and carries it out to its logical (though rather insane) conclusion. They fall for this because at least there is an acknowledgement of righteous anger – an understanding that all is not well. But we can’t cure iliberalism with a more hearty dose of the Liberalism which caused illiberalism to rise up.

The cure for what ails Liberalism is Conservatism. Conservatism is not about just hankering for the past – it is about refurbishing what has decayed. It is reform in its truest sense: a restoration, and thus a revolution. To put it in a nutshell – until a day comes when an American citizen does not risk a federal government fine for collecting rain water in a barrel, Liberalism will continue to create illiberalism. The key to a safe, rational and just society is in people being able to decide for themselves, on the local level, what is to be done. Yes, I understand that the Constitution does provide for some rather intense federal interference in local matters – but properly understood, this interference is only to be used in making sure that individuals, small groups and local communities are free to choose their own way of living. It is most emphatically not an instrument which will usurp the ability of local communities to work out their own destiny.

We become Conservative and restore what we’ve lost, or we fall under tyranny – Liberal or illiberal is immaterial…what benefit to any free person that Target Group A is punished under Liberalism while it is Target Group B which gets it in the shorts under illiberalism? A Conservative society is one where no one is targeted unless their individual actions merit such a thing. Take your pick of what you want – but if you pick is to defend Liberalism (as the author noted, not in the sense of Democrat Party dogma, but the broad, underlying dogma of Liberalism), then all you’ll get is one form of disaster, or another.

Weekend Open Thread

Mark Noonan1 Comment

Still enjoying the aftermath of Brexit – just such a nice feeling to see the pinheaded leaders get wrecked by the action of the people.

Reuters poll shows Hillary with a massive lead. Could be correct – but, then again, Brexit polling showed “remain” comfortably in the lead. It all depends on who you poll and how you manage the data…clearly, in a lot of polling recently (remember, the GOP was supposed to lose in Kansas in 2014 and ended up crushing the Democrat handily) has been way off. I suspect that in 2016 it will be more off than usual.

Related: Team Hillary has instructed the MSM to make no connection between Brexit and Trump.

When we built the Panama Canal we kept corruption nearly completely away from it – and we finished the job ahead of schedule. The expansion of the Panama Canal isn’t quite working out that well. It is astonishing to me – and a testament to the amount of corruption everywhere in the world – that we could build locks which have lasted more than 100 years without a hitch while the current contractor can’t seem to manage concrete that will last a month.

Don’t think I’d want to attend the Olympics in Brazil.

Hillary doesn’t seem to want you to know about the fat cats she entertains.

Brexit Triumphs!

Mark Noonan6 Comments

I just want to say how delighted I am – I didn’t think the Brits could pull it off. I was flat wrong – patriotism and a desire for liberty still live in the United Kingdom. I can only imagine how patriots in Britain feel today.

Make no mistake about it, this is a revolt of the people against a tired, worn out, corrupt, globalist Ruling Class which doesn’t give a darn about the people. Progressives will have a lot of hard words to say about those who voted to leave – but that is just Progressives, as usual, missing the point. The entirety of this is a simple desire of people to run their own lives – that if they must have rulers, at all, they want rulers who are responsible to them…and can be punished by them if they screw up. The European Union, in spite of a few fig leaves of democratic trappings, was nothing more than un-elected, self-appointed bureaucrats deciding how everyone else gets to live…and, of course, raking off a swell lifestyle for themselves. The British have decided that whatever happens to Britain, it will be the British people who will decide.

California is the Progressive Model

Mark Noonan23 Comments

Here’s what California’s leadership is up to these days while drought, degrading infrastructure and economic malaise proceed apace – from Joel Kotkin:

In a state ruled by a former Jesuit, perhaps we should not be shocked to find ourselves in the grip of an incipient state religion. Of course, this religion is not actually Christianity, or even anything close to the dogma of Catholicism, but something that increasingly resembles the former Soviet Union, or present-day Iran and Saudi Arabia, than the supposed world center of free, untrammeled expression.

Two pieces of legislation introduced in the Legislature last session, but not yet enacted, show the power of the new religion. One is Senate Bill 1146, which seeks to limit the historically broad exemptions the state and federal governments have provided religious schools to, well, be religious.

Under the rubric of official “tolerance,” the bill would only allow religiously focused schools to deviate from the secular orthodoxy required at nonreligious schools, including support for transgender bathrooms or limitations on expressions of faith by students and even Christian university presidents, in a much narrower range of educational activity than ever before. Many schools believe the bill would needlessly risk their mission and funding to “solve” gender and social equity problems on their campuses that currently don’t exist.

The second piece of legislation, thankfully temporarily tabled, Senate Bill 1161, the Orwellian-named “California Climate Science Truth and Accountability Act of 2016,” would have dramatically extended the period of time that state officials could prosecute anyone who dared challenge the climate orthodoxy, including statements made decades ago…

You might think that the people of California would revolt against this – but, they won’t. This November, California’s voters will retain the massive, Democrat majority in their State legislature, will award their Electoral Votes to Hillary Clinton and in 2018 will elect another far-left kook to replace Jerry Brown as Governor. California will get more laws and regulations designed to make it ever harder for poor and middle class people to work and thrive. Infrastructure will continue to get worse (don’t even think about building new power plants or water reservoirs!), education will continue to get worse, it will get ever more expensive to buy a house, gasoline prices will continue to get higher…and the people will just take it and take it and take it. Why?

Because after all this time of Progressive control of government, a permanent, Progressive majority has been created. You see, the very rich can afford the freight. It doesn’t matter to people living in San Francisco and Santa Monica if gas prices are high, or electric rates are high, or that new houses can’t be built. They’ve got the money to afford all that – and by voting for Progressives who talk of Social Justice, they get to feel good about themselves. Meanwhile, the poor are bribed with welfare – scraps from the table, to be sure, but so far no one has been able to convince them (or even try to convince them), that they’d be better off under a system which pays them less welfare but allows them to gain property. A combination of poor and rich ensures a permanent Progressive majority in California. And this is precisely what Progressives want for all of the United States…because it best ensures control for themselves.

Can this really continue for an indefinite amount of time? That remains to be seen – but it might well continue long enough until anti-Progressive forces are so atrophied that there is no alternative available. Britain is about to have a vote on Brexit and my bet is that they will vote to remain. I hope I’m wrong – but Britain has been down the Progressive route even longer than California…there is even more fear among the rich of being out of step with Progressive ideology than even in California; the poor are even more awash in welfare there than America’s poor. To step out of the EU is the act of a free and independent people who know that they want to work very hard to advance themselves and their community. I don’t see much prospect of that being the case; I think Britain is too far gone to reclaim self-rule. In the minds of most, I think, is this idea that without Progressive rulers to take care of them, things will get bad (never mind that they are bad because Progressive rulers…at least the welfare check comes each month, right?).

Of course, a vote to leave would be a grand and great thing. And I do believe the Progressive stranglehold can be broken, even in California. But that will take us on the right explaining to people we don’t want to talk to (ie, poor people), just how they are being shafted…how they are living on scraps while the Progressive dispensers of the scraps are living swell lives. It will take an all out attack on the basic ideas of the Progressive State…which will take courage, a thing notably lacking on the right since Reagan left office.

War Clouds

Mark Noonan

Did you know that when Hitler launched his invasion of Poland in 1939 he never had a chance at victory? Not even the slightest – the whole deck was stacked against him…and by bringing Russia and then the United States in against him, he just made it worse. But even before Russia and the United States joined in, Britain had enough economic and military power to ensure that victory was impossible, no matter how long the war went on. Britain, alone, might not ever have got to Berlin but Britain, alone, was sufficient to stymie Hitler…and eventually new combinations against Hitler were bound to happen. And when Hitler launched his war, he immediately ranged against himself Poland, France and Britain – which together had a far larger population and industrial capacity. It was suicidal.

So, why did he do it? Because he felt he had to. All along he had been telling his generals that a general war wouldn’t happen until about 1944 – which is about how long it would have taken Germany, working flat out, to build a military instrument which had even an outside chance of matching the nations he’d fight. The trouble was that his armament program had finally spurred everyone else to re-arm and while these programs were still just in the starting stages in 1939, they were rapidly increasing and would swiftly outpace whatever Germany could produce. In addition, the military build up of Germany had rendered Germany, in early 1939, functionally bankrupt. The bankers were already telling him he had to ease up on re-armament and curb his ambitions as Germany needed a period of financial retrenchment or economic catastrophe would ensue.

In the end, Hitler struck because he couldn’t keep up the financial end unless he could steal resources from others and because his build up had given him a slight qualitative edge – and, most importantly, he had come to view all his opponents with contempt. Striking in 1939 and hoping for a quick victory (or, that Britain and France would, in the end, refuse to fight) was the plan. It didn’t work out that way, of course – but he still started the war.

Now, fast forward to 2016 and what do we have in Russia? A general contempt for the Western leaders who have pathetically weak military forces at their immediate disposal…and Russia is also in great financial difficulty and can’t keep things going much longer. Just as in 1939, some nations in Europe are also starting to re-arm (most notably Poland and the Baltic States), but their plans for re-armament envision 2020 as the year they’ll be ready. There’s a four year gap when they are not ready.

This is the sort of situation with which wars are made. And it doesn’t have to be Russia – it can also be China, which has a similar level of contempt for opponents, a similarly over-strained economy and a gap between now and when re-armament among their opponents will be complete. Whether or not either nation will decide to strike while the iron is hot remains to be seen, but what this does illustrate is the need to keep a massive military force in being at all times.

For the most part, the nations of the West are spending 2% or less of their GDP on defense. The United States is a bit higher, but still we have a much smaller military force than we had 10 years ago – not only smaller, but less ready as money for maintenance and procurement has been reduced. We’ve been basking in the long peace (in spite of regular military actions, there has been no major war involving a Western power since Vietnam) and have let things slide – forgetting that when you need an army, you need it right away…not some years down the road. And, in fact, not having an army ready to hand just encourages aggressors to think that they can get away with a quick victory. And if they do strike, your unpreparedness will allow an enemy to score some spectacular victories which will then have a very high cost in blood and treasure to reduce…blood and treasure which would not have been spent if a bit of foresight had been used.

People don’t really like to think of defense – war is a horrible thing and people tend to banish it from their thoughts. But as worn out as the old saw is, it is none the less true: if you wish to have peace, prepare for war. We have not prepared for war, and so it is all the more likely that we’ll get one, and get one soon.

Weekend Open Thread

Mark Noonan22 Comments

Found out a new tooth will cost about $1,200.00. Personally, I blame Big Candy for oppressing me when I was young.

About 234 women have been diagnosed with Zika because we all thought a hallmark of the 21st century would be insect-borne disease. Thanks, environmentalists!

86% of Americans are totes cool with dispensing with due process of law, as long as such action will make them feel like they’ve done something in response to massacres.

There have been some actual signs of a possible delegate revolt at the GOP Convention. I personally doubt that such will happen – mostly because the GOP leadership is spineless.

Pope Francis the Surprising has shocked the world, again:

Because most people today do not understand that sacramental marriage really is a bond that binds them to each other for life, many marriages today can be considered invalid, Pope Francis said.

Raising a point he has raised before, and one also raised by now-retired Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis insisted June 16 that the validity of a marriage implies that a couple understands that sacramental marriage is a bond that truly binds them to another for their entire lives…

This is upsetting a lot of people – hasn’t upset me in the least. Most marriages probably are invalid once you fully understand what is meant in Christian terms by the word “marriage”. A civilization of valid marriage would not have, for instance, “no fault” divorce. A valid marriage cannot be one where there’s even the slightest thought of “I can get out of this”. Methinks that a lot of the outrage is from people who do, in the back of their minds, have that “out” clause in there. If you are serious about keeping your promise all the days of your life, then what the Pope said should not worry you, at all.

Related: just keep in mind when reading MSM reports about Christianity, they simply don’t know what they’re talking about.

Brits will vote on Brexit next week – the entire global Ruling Class is in a tizzy because recent polling shows Brexit in the lead. I don’t buy that for a moment – in the end, the majority of British voters will be too frightened to leave the Super Nanny State. I hope I turn out wrong, but I just don’t see much patriotic spirit anywhere in Europe outside Poland these days. And even if the Brits do vote to leave, just watch Tories, Labour and Liberal-Democrats pledge themselves to adhere to the EU in spite of the vote.

I Tip My Hat to the New Constitution

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Been pondering this for a while – what would I have, if I could do a re-write of the Constitution, taking into consideration some of the gaps people have used since it was written to wreck it? Below the fold is what I’d propose – it is pretty much the same Constitution you’re familiar with, though the Bill of Rights is included in the body of the document.

But it is also changed a bit – term limits for federal office are built in. Specific definition of “natural born citizen” is provided. If we are to have welfare and Social Security, provision is made for it…and the federal government is effectively prohibited from using such programs to advance federal government power. Contentious social issues are taken out of the purview of the federal government.

I’m not saying this is how it all must be, but it is how I think it should be – or something very much like it, if we want to restore rule of law and liberty in the United States. Read it and tell me what you think.

Continue reading →

Orlando and Coming to America

Mark Noonan25 Comments

I tried to write about it last night but just couldn’t. I’m guessing the disgust was just too much. Fortunately, Victor Davis Hanson had something worthwhile to say:

Still more monotonous themes: as in the case of Major Hasan (the Fort Hood jihadist), the Tsarnaev clan (Boston Marathon), and Syed Rizwan Farook (San Bernardino), there is something deeply wrong with American immigration policy and the attitude of us, the lax host, to newcomers. In too many deadly cases, a generation of Muslims goes to great lengths to reach the United States only to raise an American-born or naturalized ungracious and unappreciative generation that apparently grows to hate the bounty and freedom of America to such a degree as to blow up, shoot, and maim innocent Americans. Immigration to the U.S., and citizenship itself, should be seen, again, as a privilege, not a right—and assimilation and integration, not multicultural separatism and ethnic and religious chauvinism, should be the goal of the host. We need not single out Muslims in terms of restricting immigration, but we should take a six-month timeout on all would-be immigrants from countries in the Middle East deemed war zones—Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen—not only for our own immediate security but also to send a general message that entrance into the U.S. is a rare and prized opportunity, not simply a cheap and pro forma entitlement.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan27 Comments

Susan Collins (R-ME) can’t quite bring herself to back Trump – but also can’t quite bring herself to back Hillary. Normally this would be regular RINO stuff…but a lot of people are feeling that way, so we let it slide.

9th Circuit rules that carrying a concealed weapon is not covered by the 2nd Amendment. This actually strikes me as legitimate – I can’t see how a right to bear arms means a right to bear hidden arms. Of course, such a ruling brought to a new, Hillary-created 6-3 liberal majority Supreme Court is tailor made to allow said Justices to rule that the right to bear arms is collective rather than individual. So, stay tuned.

A study showing that Conservatives were bad and liberals were good turned out to be flat wrong. And by “flat wrong” I mean that the data in the study actually proved the opposite of what was initially asserted. Pro tip: there’s no such thing as “settled science”.

The absurd thing here is not merely that a school kid is being punished for insulting a vegetarian but that it had to go up to the State level for decision.