Author: Mark Noonan

It Ain’t Super Tuesday So We Don’t Have to Be All Depressed (Yet) Open Thread

Mark Noonan32 Comments

So this Swedish teenager – apparently starry-eyed for some boy – agrees to travel nearly 2,000 miles with him to Syria. The story says they took a bus to ISIS controlled territory! What in heck is going on in this world? First off – just what did anyone ever hear about ISIS which makes them say, “sounds good; sign me up?”. She’s not Muslim – she’s native Swedish…what brings such a child to such a place? And how in heck did she just waltz in there where our Special Forces troops risk life and limb to get in?

We live in very strange and amazingly stupid times.

Christie endorses Trump. See my above comment.

Glenn Reynolds analyses the Trump phenomena and notes that similar political rumblings are being seen in Britain. Boiled down – people are afraid to hold in public unpopular opinions until it is safe to so do. As more and more people “let it all hang out” people start to realize that their secret views are not really all that unpopular and a preference cascade erupts – in a flash, safe political calculations are upset. Trump’s vulgar demagoguery is allowing more and more people to, as it were, let it rip in the public square. This is allowing some people of decidedly fascist and/or racist views to poke their heads up a bit, as well – and that shouldn’t be ignored and should be smacked down as much as possible…but it is also allowing people to say true things which have been forbidden for a long time. We’re all going to get to see how this plays out – I don’t think anyone is going to be able to stop it from happening, even if Trump ends up losing. The cat is most definitively out of the bag.

Host of un-watched ultra-leftwing TV show is boycotting her show because it keeps getting pre-empted by things people would rather watch.

Yet another false accusation of racism. Racism does, indeed, exist in the United States. My “block” list on Twitter is probably half outright racists. But it doesn’t really keep a minority person down…and 7 years after we elected our first African-American President is is the height of absurdity to keep harping on racism as if this were still 1960 in the Jim Crow South. But, liberals want to keep harping on it – and if they just have to make stuff up, that is what they’ll do.

And also 7 years into Obama’s Administration, the Washington Post makes the shocking discovery that here is a lack of U.S. leadership in the world.

What’s coming for us…

On Behalf of Nevada, I Apologize Open Thread

Mark Noonan70 Comments

My goodness – about 75,000 people participated in the GOP Caucus yesterday. Doesn’t sound like much? Well, 31,500 participated in 2012…and Trump got more votes last night than there were 2012 participants.

I think we’re all a little stunned this morning – at least, I know I am. It is becoming real, now…Trump is almost sure to be the GOP nominee. And with Trump being able to gin up turnout numbers like that, I really, really doubt “expert” opinion which says that he’s a sure loser in November. Whenever Hillary and Bernie go at it hammer and tongs, the number of Democrats who show up has gone down, not up. Declining number of voters vs rising number of voters…who do you think is better able to win, in the end?

UPDATE: If I had to put my finger on it, I’d say that it was Jeb Bush’s candidacy which nailed it all down for Trump…here was the Establishment writ large immediately raising buckets of money and people started to feel, “damn; they’re going to force us to pick Bush and it will be Bush vs Hillary”. It appeared to me the Walker was sitting atop the polls until Trump got in…and provided the absolute anti-Establishment voice…he immediately crushed the life out of the Walker campaign (and what small amount of life there had been in the Jindal campaign) and left us with a collection of pure Establishmentarians or outsiders who, thus far, haven’t had what it takes to bring down Trump…but if Bush hadn’t got in, I think it would have gone very differently.

So, What Will You Do in November, Conservatives?

Mark Noonan60 Comments

Allahpundit has some interesting thoughts on how that might play out:

I’m not saying conservative revulsion at Trump isn’t real. It is, and I think when it all shakes out in November that Trump will have seen more Republicans stay home for him than stayed home for either Romney or McCain. But I don’t think there’ll be a third party and I also don’t think that some sliver of conservatives staying home will doom Trump’s candidacy. Given Hillary’s weakness and his own appeal to independents and Reagan Democrats, it’s possible that he’d find the votes he needs to win in the center. That would be the final indignity to the conservative movement after having its impotence laid bare for more than a year — staging a mass boycott of Trump on election day and discovering that Trump can win anyway…

I think he’s right – because Trump will pull into the GOP far more people than stay home or write in a candidate. He’s not just going to get the storied “Reagan Democrats”, he’s going to get the “Trump Democrats”…people who normally vote Democrat but will slide over to Trump because (a) Hillary is just horrible and (b) Trump’s brand of populist nationalism is deeply in tune with their overall worldview. Last night I engaged in a (very polite) argument with a conservative on Twitter over the prospects of Trump winning Pennsylvania. That State, like Michigan, is one of those States the GOP should win fairly easily – and yet, year after year, we keep losing them. Win PA and MI and the GOP could still lose FL and thread the Electoral College needle to victory. The conservative I argued with was certain – Trump will never, ever win PA…the Philly suburbs would reject him. Which is likely correct – but I’m thinking that Philly, itself, might generate more votes for Trump than anyone suspects. Meaning that what Trump might lose among upper class white voters in the ‘burbs could be more than made up for by winning the votes of working class white (and minority) voters in the cities.

Just a net switch over to Trump of 155,000 PA votes in 2016 annuls the 2012 result. 225,000 does it for Michigan. 50,000 does it for Ohio. 50,000 does it for Florida. 55,000 does it in Virginia. Flip those States from 2012 and Trump has 302 electoral votes. But even if Hillary hangs on in PA and MI, Trump is still at 266…think he can’t win any of NV, CO, NM, IA or WI? Any one of those States would hand the election to him. But it might get worse than that – Trump’s appeal to cross-over Democrat votes might find Hillary having to defend herself in odd places like New Jersey, Maine, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Oregon.

Of course, on the other hand, we can rely upon the good sense of the American people to reject a vulgar demagogue like Trump. Sure we can. The same nation that made the Kardashians rich and famous is sure to see right through the Trump scam…

Love and Peace South Carolina Primary Weekend Soft Fuzzy Bunnies Open Thread

Mark Noonan54 Comments

Been a lot of grief these last couple weeks – so, my thread title should fix that right up. Right?

Oh, well – as least I tried.

Anyways…

Yet more on the Hillary scandal(s) – as I said, she won’t get indicted. Obama just won’t allow that…but the more of this that comes out, the more likely Hillary won’t get elected…and may not even get the nomination. If you think a GOP brokered convention would be a clusterfark, you ain’t seen nothing…if the Dems have one, it will be downright insane. Just imagine all the varied and conflicting Dem interest groups demanding a seat at the table…

Allahpundit does a bit more Romney ’16 trolling – in a confused and broken world, it’s good to have some things we can rely on.

Jeb is going to lose very badly in South Carolina tomorrow – and his donors are getting ready to bail out. Over to Rubio? Time will tell…

Liberals coming up with more excuses to dump Hillary.

Foreign policy: it’s bad. It needs to be fixed. Unless we get a 9/11 style attack on the USA between now and November, I don’t think it’ll play a role in the election.

College – a place where you rack up 30k in debt and come out knowing less than a 12 year old did 40 years ago.

Remember when America had talent?

Trump vs Pope

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Just wanted to get this out there – the Pope did not say we can’t build a wall…he just said, correctly, that if all you’re about is building a wall, you’re doing it wrong.

It must be kept in mind that the Catholic Church is neither left nor right – it can’t be. The Church, being universal, contains all…a deep concern with the poor as well as a deep concern that people be allowed to hold their own property. And it goes on and on like that on the issues.

Trump, however, decided to lash out – stupidly. Oh, I’m sure it will delight that element of the American population which retains an anti-Catholic animus, but the bottom line is that the Pope did nothing to Trump…just pointed out that if all Trump is about is building a wall (and for a lot of his supporters, that is all Trump is about), then Trump is flat wrong…and I’ve held that position for nearly 9 years now. Border security is a must – but there must also be accommodation for those who are here and for those who wish to come here. People can disagree endlessly about this, but getting in a fight with the Pope for being Catholic is absurd.

The Trump Plan

Mark Noonan27 Comments

No, not his plan to Make America Great Again – there’s no real details on that. Deliberately – it is an excellent and effective advertising slogan into which everyone can pour whatever mental content they like. What I’m talking about is Trump’s plan to win.

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is click on the TV – which is set to the local news because right around wake-up time is the time they do the weather forecast, thus allowing me to plan, weather-wise, my day. After watching that, I click over to the national news to make certain the world didn’t blow up in the night…usually, this is about 30 seconds because (a) if the world blew up it would be right there and (b) I can’t take more than 30 seconds of national news mindlessness at a time. But this morning the news was showing Trump at some sort of town hall event – I watched through two questions.

The first question was about the life issue – apparently originating from a couple Catholic guys, one of whom is a priest: once and for all, are you pro-life or pro-choice? Boom, goes Donald – “I’m pro-life”; then a bit of attacks on Cruz for questioning Trump’s pro-life credentials.

The second question was about Social Security – what will you do to save it? Trump’s answer – I’m going to make the economy so strong that we can fund it forever; I’ll never cut it or raise the retirement age; every other candidate will cut it; remember Paul Ryan? They had him pushing granny off a cliff in a wheelchair, they won’t be able to do that to me.

Trump didn’t provide any details, at all – but he said precisely what a winning electoral coalition wants to hear.

Make no mistake about it, the GOP has a disadvantage on Social Security – relentless Democrat lies have convinced a large number of people that in some way, the GOP wants to cut benefits to current Social Security recipients. Don’t doubt this – I personally know such people. That Social Security is a hideously bad program which doesn’t provide near what a privatized retirement plan could provide is neither here nor there: for tens of millions of people, it is all they have for retirement and even the slightest hint of risk to the program gives them a sinking feeling in their gut…and makes them, in the end, vote Democrat just to be sure. Donald Trump just laid down an immovable marker – he won’t cut it in any way, shape or form. Hillary tries to attack him with that, he’ll be able to smack down such talk and be convincing about it. Elderly voters already trend GOP…Romney won 56% of their votes in 2012…but Trump, by being absolutely firm on this, could increase the GOP share of the elderly a significant amount.

Trump is now officially pro-life, but he’s no Holy Joe and he’s never been involved in the fight over abortion, and thus hasn’t built up any “hate factor” on either side. The United States is becoming a more pro-life nation all the time, so being pro-life, aside from being crucial in the GOP primary, is in tune with the broad majority of the American people…who, though, still in their majority don’t want an actual end to abortion, at least in the early part of a pregnancy. Given the nature of Trump, a “War on Women” campaign against him would probably roll off…and do keep in mind that 21% of professed Pro-Life people voted for Obama in 2012, which is an absurdity…Trump could pull even more Pro-Life people into the GOP voting booth.

What this all boils down to me is that Trump, by keeping it vague but firmly on the side of the vast majority of the American people (gotta protect SS; you know, it is just better to be Pro-Life, etc), his plan is to win the GOP nomination and the Presidency by sheer out-appealing everyone else. Trump is not looking for wedge issues to divide the electorate and pick up just enough of it to secure victory (a long-standing Democrat tactic which the GOP has never been effective at) – Trump is looking to convince a gigantic majority that he’s for them.

Whether or not he can do it remains to be seen – just as it remains to be seen what, precisely, he’d do as President. But if he can do it, then he’s not only going to be the GOP nominee, but he’s going to utterly crush the Democrats in November.

I’m still hopeful that Cruz or Rubio can somehow stop him – but time is rapidly running out and I’ve yet to see them hit Trump where it would actually hurt…in the fact that he’s a rich man. Trump is rich, Hillary is rich – attack the rich. Go full-blast after corporations, rich people, the use of money by the Establishment to twist things. Still might not work, but hitting Trump on the fact that he used to be pro-choice or that he’s not a true conservative won’t get you anywhere…people don’t care about that. They are disgusted with business as usual and are searching – in both Democrat and GOP ranks – for whomever seems most likely to be a political hand grenade in DC. Just as in 2008 the whole exercise was to find the politician who was least like George Bush, so 2016 is all about finding the politician who is least like a politician. Hence, Trump.

I will never be a Trump supporter – because Trump, bottom line, is just another Progressive…a more patriotic variety of Progressive than we’ve seen for some decades. There used to be a lot of them, you know? Teddy Roosevelt was one, for instance. If he becomes President, I’ll support anything he does which actually works towards Conservatism, oppose anything he does which doesn’t. But if we in the GOP don’t want to have a Progressive, Patriotic Trump as President, then we’d better get our act together very fast…and that really means Cruz and Rubio getting their acts together.

Understanding the Left/Right Divide: Truth and Lies

Mark Noonan18 Comments

This is actually one of the easier things to get hold of. The divide here is between Progressives who don’t believe in objective truth, and Conservatives who do.

Donald Trump caused a bit of a ruckus during the recent GOP debate when he opined that former President Bush lied to get us into Iraq. This, of course, was a standard talking-point of the left – “Bush lied, people died”. A host of reasons were put forth for just why President Bush lied, but the absolute assertion, regardless of reason, is that he lied. A lie, of course, is this: a deliberate misstatement of fact, or a withholding of vital information about your plans. If you believe that Fred is at the store, but Fred is actually at the bar, then you making a statement that Fred is at the store isn’t a lie. If, however, you know that Fred is at the bar and you tell someone he’s at the store, then you have lied. The difference is not in the information related but in the intent on your part – are you trying to deceive someone? If you are, then you are lying. If you aren’t, then you aren’t lying even if the facts you relate are 100% incorrect. If you say you want to borrow $100 and imply that the $100 will be to feed the kids, but you blow $50 of it at the track, then you have also lied – you failed to tell your lender just what your full plans were; and revelation of a trip to the track might well have convinced your lender not to lend you the money.

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Out and About on a Weekend

Mark Noonan6 Comments

Various part of the GOP are starting to do opposition research on Bernie Sanders. As I always say, don’t pay attention to what people say, watch what they do. People would not expend the time and money to do this unless some serious political number-crunchers have found out that Bernie has a path to the nomination.

Related: far left coming up with excuses for ditching Hillary.

What to do in an active shooter situation:

I have watched training videos on what to do in the event of an active shooter situation, and they all focus on the Run/Hide/Fight principle. Run if you can, hide if running isn’t an option, and fight if options A and B fail. What you should not do is simply lay down and die, or hope that the attacker dies of a stroke, or sit passively and get murdered. And in every one of these training videos, if you get to the Fight stage, the video producer recognizes something very basic, very simple, and yet so important – arm yourself. Grab a chair, grab a stapler, grab a binder or a coffee pot. Grab whatever you can to inflict the maximum amount of damage on your attacker, because something is better than nothing. But you know what is better than something? The right tool for the job, that’s what. You can attack an active shooter with a coffee pot, if that’s all you have, but wouldn’t you rather have a rifle at that moment, as well as the training to use it properly? Of course, because it’s the right tool for the job.

There’s a surfer gang that keeps others away from surfing. Who knew?

Lunatic lefty politician and corrupt, political hack get into a fight. It is Grayson vs Reid: Pass the popcorn.

Democrats must be more worried about 2016 than we thought – the Maryland legislature has over-rode a veto and will ensure that about 44,000 felons are able to vote in Maryland this year.

So, About New Hampshire

Mark Noonan24 Comments

Biggest thing for me about it is that 42,000 fewer people participated in the Democrat primary than in 2008; the returns aren’t 100% yet, but my calculation is that about 245,000 people voted in the Democrat primary last night, in 2008 it was 287,000. That is a 15% decline – rather large. What is shows that the Democrats are not enthused about 2016 – and the Democrats need at least most of 2008’s enthusiasm to carry their nominee – still almost certain to be Hillary – over the finish line. Meanwhile, over on the GOP side, a bit more than 280,000 people participated, while in 2012 it was 248,000 – showing GOP enthusiasm is up. If this sort of turnout prevails over the primaries (and I suspect it will), then it will demonstrate that the Democrats are in deep trouble.

From what I’ve seen, Sanders didn’t just beat Hillary, he crushed her. But, will it matter? Next up is South Carolina where the Democrat electorate is heavily African-American and African-Americans have been Clinton loyalists since 1992 – with the exception of 2008. But was 2008 merely a reflection of running against Obama, or an indication that African-American loyalty to the Clinton’s isn’t as deep as people think? We’ll find out in South Carolina – if Sanders can peel away even 35% of the African-American primary vote from Hillary, then we might not have Hillary as the Democrat nominee. And that, actually, worries me a bit. I know that the official line is that Hillary is impervious but I’m starting to suspect she’s a loser – against any GOPer. Sanders, the Socialist, is allegedly the George McGovern of 2016…but with his populist, anti-Establishment credibility, he might actually be harder to beat, especially if the GOP nominates someone like Jeb or Kasich.

On the GOP side, the only remarkable thing for me was Cruz coming in strong third – he spent little time or resources in New Hampshire and did very well. Meanwhile, Jeb poured in resources and came in fourth. It is time for Jeb to pack it in – though I suspect he’ll hang around until Florida. Rubio had a bad night – fifth place behind Jeb, of all things. Some say it was the debate and maybe that did it; I don’t really know. Maybe 2016 just isn’t Rubio’s year. Right now, I think it shapes up as a battle between Cruz and Trump, with a slight chance that Rubio rebounds as the Great Establishment Hope.

Get ready for a strange political year…