Author: Mark Noonan

False History

Mark Noonan70 Comments

Aside from the jokes, one of the things I like about X is its ability to bring random stuff together. First off: how about a picture?

Look closely at it. There is a rather glaring issue and, once you see it, you’ll know the veracity of the text.

What you will notice after a little bit of study is that there are no keyholes on the cuffs. Just a little lever which allows anyone, including the cuffed person, to open them. Not very useful, huh? I mean, not even for dragging away poor, little Native kids.

This is because these aren’t the handcuffs used to drag Native Kids away to school – they are antique toy cuffs. Used by kids back the day to play Cops and Robbers. But even if that aspect of it had been blurred out, another moment of thought would have revealed the lie: suppose you did want to drag poor, little Native kids off to school…why in heck would you cuff them? What is the fear? A six year old grabbing your gun? The whole concept is drivel.

But as was pointed out on X when this picture floated by, a whole rigamarole went into it – including having a Native medicine man exorcise (as it were) the cuffs to remove evil spirits…you know, all the evil of kids being cuffed and dragged away to school…which did not, in the event, happen. But think about that: senior people of Native tribes in modern times fell for the con. Why is that? Because there’s a big problem with Native history: nobody Native wrote it down until decades after the Native way of life ended. Essentially, what we know of, say, the ways of the Plains Indians is whatever some white guy wrote down as he interacted with them for good or ill.

It may or may not be totally accurate, but it is all there is: for the Natives, themselves, it was whatever great-grandpa told them long after the fact. Was it true? Maybe. Who knows? One thing we do know about peoples who don’t have writing is that the oral tradition is altered from time to time by the elders. You know: some dispute in the village and so they go ask the oldest people what was done in the past and the geezers get together and work up a story that solves the problem and solemnly announce this was the way it was done in olden times. Who could dispute it? All the oldsters agree and there’s no document to contradict them. This is the basis for most Native claims about how their old ways were – whatever someone said and there’s no way to check.

I’d have to look it up to be sure but I believe it was an ancient, Sumerian saying which went like this:

“What is the tongue?”

“That which whips the air.”

“What is writing?”

“The guardian of history.”

Which is true – as everyone with any sense knows, the only sure things we know about past events are things which were written down at the time, or shortly thereafter. Even then, of course, we’re at the mercy of the author; if the author missed a detail or misrepresented the facts, we’re rather doomed unless there is something else out there in the record to set it straight. But in all of the 100,000 years (or so) of human history, the only events we know about are those which are written down. I know that some may want to object that pre-writing we do know of some things that went on – yes; like when we find the dwelling of cavemen we can tell a lot about them…that they were humans, what sorts of animals they hunted, plants they ate and so forth…but we can’t tell anything about what their lives were like other than some very basic things. We know that by the time we were writing we already had domestic animals, beer and slaves: all of these things had to be developed over time but we have no idea how because they were all created pre-writing and the first writers took them as a given. Even the art left on cave walls is a mystery to us – gorgeous, vivid pictures obviously of great importance to those people…but we haven’t the foggiest notion as to why they left the drawings. We can guess all the live, long day but as the people who drew didn’t leave us a decipherable script, we’ll never know the story. In fact, whole populations of humans might have risen and fallen over the tens of thousands of years and we don’t know even one thing about them – not even that they existed – because they left nothing on stone for us to find. So, pretty important, that whole writing thing.

But what if someone writes a lie? You know: like calling a child’s toy an implement of White Supremacist Settler-Colonialist torture of Natives who never robbed, murdered or raped until Evil White Men (who weren’t gay) arrived. What do we do with that?

Because that was the other thing that came across the X time line at roughly the same moment: a question. “Just how much of our history is simply made up?”

The answer, of course, is “a heck of a lot more than before”. As I noted before, a book of history isn’t necessarily definitive. A contemporary document isn’t certain to be accurate. This is why the really good historians of the past have carefully sifted the data and were unafraid to acknowledge that different conclusions can be drawn. But even with the best of intentions and copious documentation, it still will never be perfect. It can’t be; humans can’t produce perfection. But allowing for the normal run of human error and bias, what we have today is an avalanche of flat out lies masquerading as history. Mostly, of course, lies designed to undermine the West in general and the USA in particular. Like that absurd 1619 Project which asserted that the original colonists came here simply so they could set up a racist, slave holding society. That has now entered the national mind: millions accept it as a proven fact when not a single historical document or event supports it.

But it isn’t just Progressive garbage like that. We also have other sorts of fake history being made up to suit Narratives. All of it does hook itself on some fact, never complete and always out of context. Like Candace Owens breathlessly relating to the world a little while back that we had been lied to: you see, after WWII, millions of Germans had been expelled from central and eastern Europe accompanied with great brutality! Now we know – and it was those damned Jews who orchestrated this and then suppressed it so we wouldn’t find out what rat bastards they are! Sure…except everyone who has more than cursory knowledge of WWII already knew that and it was done very deliberately by the Allied Powers. Sure, they put in the agreement that it was supposed to be done humanely but nobody gave a damn about that in 1945 because of what the Germans had just put the world through. But to someone as ignorant as Owens – and with our population increasingly uneducated – it seemed like something big and it caused a stir…and it goes on still with many people believing the false Narrative built up around it and using it as justification for not believing other things.

But even beyond wicked people pushing false Narratives, I think we also have a problem in the lack of thought of the modern world. People don’t think. They just accept. This is why in all the years since 1945 there has been no real assessment made of WWII; how it was conducted, why it was fought, how did the aftermath work out? We just accept that there’s a certain story line and never question it: to nutshell it, because the Allies were mean at Versailles Hitler was able to gain office and then Appeasers let him get powerful until the Great and Powerful Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt mobilized the world to defeat the monster after which, via the UN, we created a Rules-Based International Order which has kept the peace. There is a certain amount of truth to all of this – but not all truth. We really haven’t considered the whole matter and so we have not identified the true problem and thus our best course forward.

I’ve discussed some of these issues before: for instance, that far from being too mean to the Germans in 1919, the Allies were far too nice. Germany attacked France, Belgium and Luxembourg with absolutely no justification at all, forcing untold death and destruction on all three nations. Germany owed France for one million deaths which simply would not have happened if Germany hadn’t invaded. Think about that – the potential lost, alone, is incalculable. Who knows how many first rate doctors, scientists and artists perished in the mud of the trenches. How many French children were never born because their fathers mouldered into the ground around Verdun? How could Germany possibly repay that? What possible price extracted would be “too much”? A much harsher, truly punitive peace in 1919 and there simply would not have been a WWII because the Germans would never have been able to mount an attack.

But leave that aside, the primary cause of the First World War was unprovoked attack – and the fundamental reason for the Allies to fight – especially for Britain and the United States – was to enforce the principle that you can’t shoot your way into power and wealth. That no matter how much you disliked the state of the world, resort to arms to alter the position was forbidden. It was the primary cause and reason for World War Two as well. These days, in hindsight, it was all about stopping Nazis from being Nazis. And that, indeed, was a worthy object – but until we got into Germany in 1945 we really didn’t know the magnitude of the Nazi disease. Rumors were rife from 1942 on about the horrors the Nazis were perpetrating but they were just that – rumors. Not much solid, verified fact. It was when the Russians got into Auschwitz and we got into Buchenwald that the full truth came out and turned a just war into a holy crusade. But even with that horror, the real reason for fighting was the same as at the start, and the start of WWI: you can’t shoot your way into power. If the Nazis never harmed a Jew, they still would have been in the wrong because they attacked.

But nowhere in the writings about the war nor about how things were set up afterwards was this principle – the whole point of the fight – made central. Sure, the UN charter forbids aggression, but that was a dead letter the moment it was adopted. Almost immediately after the guns of WWII fell silent, people all around the world were resorting to arms to try to force a settlement in their favor – to grab things they could not win by peaceful means. It was as if the war had been fought for nothing except to create well paid sinecures for diplomats at the UN. Again and again since 1945 the nations of the world have used every means imaginable to justify or explain away someone’s aggression. Sure, the UN managed to plug the gap in Korea, but that is the exception which proves the rule…and even in that, the aggressors (North Korea and China) weren’t punished for their crimes. They remained in place after the war. They are still in place more than seven decades later…and because they were unpunished, they remain a standing threat to the peace of the world. Why shouldn’t they? Their own history books tell how they provoked a war costing millions of lives and nobody ever did a thing about it.

And this all stems, once again, from our fundamental failure to think about what happened and how it applies to current events. We’re stumbling around a world on fire today in 2024 because for nearly 80 years we’ve never really analyzed from a historic perspective the Second World War. We’ve talked endlessly but in circles about it. Never once breaking free from a pre-set Narrative designed, first and foremost, to excuse the Western Ruling Class institutions which failed to prevent it and then let it drag out years longer than it needed and then horribly screwed up the outcome. And now we’ve got people “discovering” that maybe the Nazis weren’t the bad guys – maybe it was the USA. And the Jews. Didn’t you hear what those mean, old Allies did to the Krauts of Silesia after the war?

This is why we have people in the USA blocking traffic for Hamas. These kids almost certainly couldn’t point Palestine out on a map if given three tries. They know nothing of the history of the area. They haven’t been taught to think – they just receive the word and act upon it. Not remotely a class of people who can be considered citizens in any real sense of the word. They were told the Israelis were bad and resistance to bad is always justified. Presto: we’ve got American college girls wearing the flag of people who would rape them to death in a minute when given the chance. Nothing thought out. Had it been thought out – and taught in schools – then everyone would be, “Hamas attacked unprovoked; regardless of their complaints about Israel – some of which may be fully justified – our principle is that you can’t start shooting about it: they are therefor in the wrong and must be stopped”. The fact that they raped and murdered just adds to the justification for wiping them out. Instead, pretty much the entire Western Ruling Class is trying to save Hamas – to keep alive an organization which attacks unprovoked, commits unspeakable brutalities and is pledged to the massacre of every Jew in Israel. Just amazing. But it is what comes from not thinking.

So, Mark, what is our way out? The only way out: punishing liars. I’ve mentioned this before as well. I can’t emphasize enough how utterly impossible it is to have a functioning, rational society if we allow liars to get away with it. We’ve allowed people to lie to us for so long on so many issues that I think most are infected with the disease of lies. Heck, even I am – though to a far less degree than most, or even than I was ten years ago. But the lies are so pervasive that even the strongest mind is influenced by them. The only way to stop it is via force – and the longer we wait, the more brutal the force we’ll have to apply.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan33 Comments

In the 6 hours after the verdict was read, the Trump Campaign – via the Team Red donor ap – was taking in money at $1,600 per second. In the 24 hours after verdict, nearly $54 million was taken in. We’ll see what the final numbers are but it wouldn’t surprise me if in the immediate aftermath (say, a week?) it is around $100 million. Thanks, Democrats, you completely erased the Democrats fundraising edge for 2024. Oh, and Miriam Adelson, widow of the late, great casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, is donating about $100 million for pro-Trump PACs. Then there there are the rumors – we’ll have to see money numbers over the next couple months – that some of Biden’s major money bags are switching to Trump. But more important than that is the Team Red money – massive numbers of first time, small donors ponying up. This is people doing something. With money. That matters

Bottom line, Team Trump and the GOP will have all the cash they need.

Oh, don’t want to forget that Team Trump is building a nationwide system to monitor the vote and object early and often to any irregularities. And I guarantee you with this much time – and, now, this much money – they’ll be able to venue shop a bit to make sure they get to judges who aren’t mere Democrat hacks. Team Pudding Brain will not be able to ballot box stuff like they did in 2020. Oh, sure, in deep Blue States like California they still can…but, who cares? It is in the purple States that they won’t be able to…certainly not to the degree they’d need to for a repeat of broken water pipes at 3 am.

There were a few polls right after verdict which claimed that Biden got a boost and/or Trump lost GOP support. These polls seem like drivel to me. I guess they could be real, but most of them claimed that the re-interviewed people interviewed previously…which means it isn’t random and not at all hard to pick your target to get the result you want. In this, whatever you see in polling: give it ten days. That’ll tell us if there’s any trend away from Trump. One thing certain: Trump’s conviction won’t make Biden more popular. Won’t make us forget what we’re paying for groceries. Won’t make us forget the border and rising crime. Won’t make us forget Biden’s attempt to mollify anti-Semites over Gaza. On and on like that – Biden and his people are still who they are. And they are monumentally unpopular. Whatever negatives Trump picked up via conviction will fade away…you can’t re-convict him (and the other trials are winding towards dismissal or being pushed into 2025…showing that only in Manhattan could you get an overall system anti-Trump enough to get a trial going…to be sure, they could get it in San Francisco or LA, but Trump doesn’t have offices in those places). If the judge tries to hit Trump with jail time as a first-time offender for Class E felonies, that will just make people mad. It fades. Biden is who he is.

How will the appeals go? Badly for Bragg. Basically every element of the trial was questionable. From bringing the charges to begin with (never in all of American history has anything like this been charged against anyone. Ever), to the obviously biased judge, tainted jury pool, unfair trial procedure, inadmissible evidence…on and on. How long it takes for this to get tossed is the only question. There is absolutely no doubt that at some appellate level, this conviction gets vacated.

Some are arguing Trump should apply to the Supreme Court. While rarely done – and even more rarely accepted by the Court – it does happen when there is a case of very large and immediate impact. One we’ll all remember was the 2000 Election case. It was still winding its way through the State and federal appellate process but it was determined by the Court that all legal challenges needed to be resolved lest the people of Florida lose their equal protection under the law – that is, if this wasn’t resolved by a date certain, Florida’s vote wouldn’t count. So, too, with the Trump case – it can be argued that having this hang over Trump’s head unresolved unfairly impacts Trump’s equal protection under the law. Trump’s claim is that the trial is false. Biden’s claim is that the trial is true. But it is unfair for Trump to labor under the trial if it was false, and so someone better step in and decide if it is good or bad. And Roberts might accept it.

Here’s the crucial aspect of this – and risk to our entire Republic – if we get into the habit of placing former President’s on trial our whole system of government hangs in the balance. If Trump is defeated as a result of a trial – especially one as bogus as this, and over a trivial issue (class E felony, guys: it is the sort of thing you charge a guy with when he paints graffiti on a wall) – then it would cause a catastrophic collapse in trust in the system…and lead to retaliatory lawfare from the other side. It is best we put this to bed. I know our Liberals won’t agree – but Caesar crossed the Rubicon because his political opponents proposed to jail him after his term as governor of Gaul expired. It was start a Civil War or be jailed on bogus, political charges. If we start jailing ex-Presidents then very quickly we will no longer have ex-Presidents.

Meanwhile, Biden’s people are refusing to release the audio of Biden’s special counsel interview. Their current claim? That if released someone will make a deep-fake of it so that Biden sounds like a senile twit. This means, of course, that Biden sounds like a senile twit on tape. They really don’t want that tape out – they can barely hold Biden together for 20-30 minute public events…a long interview and I guarantee the guy was completely lost.

Hunter Biden goes on trial – after Joe and company paid a visit to Beau’s widow…who is a witness in the case. Allegedly to mark Beau’s passing…but actually to make sure she knows that you never go against the Family. Ever. I figure it’ll still wind up with a sweetheart plea deal.

Trump is Guilty…of Being American

Mark Noonan71 Comments

Because that is the crux of why they hate him: bold, bigger than life, brash, rude (at times even crude) what Trump personifies is Americanism. That muscular aggressiveness that carved a nation out of a wilderness and turned it into the greatest power on Earth. He’s a patriot; loves this country. He’s a man; he likes people – especially his fellow Americans. He’s normal – sometimes a normal sinner, but in all things, normal.

It must be kept in mind that those on the Left who are getting all teary-eyed about “Our Democracy” despise this nation and anyone who is a patriot. Remember: they believe that America was founded so that racists could have slaves. That we maliciously committed genocide against the Natives. That we’re racist, sexist, homophobic, Nazi, fascist, greedy, stupid cretins who only have wealth and power because we stole it. They are wrapping themselves in a flag they wipe their asses with at every opportunity. What they want is for us to just sit quiet while they import a new population and plague us with crime and poverty until we agree to become serfs. Trump stands athwart that – he risks their position. He risks, worst of all, the chance that people who love America might rise to power in America.

He has to be stopped – and given that they are vile people, they didn’t let trivial things like the law get in the way. They got a fanatic Left DA to bring a case in front of a fanatic Left just who manipulated the court proceedings and jury until the only possible verdict was “guilty”. They violated a host of laws to get this – and they are high fiving themselves all over Blue America tonight. They think this does it. They believe that “convicted felon” on Trump’s name assures their power.

Hey, maybe they’re right. But I don’t think they are. Plenty of non-Trump people are expressing outrage over an obviously unjust verdict. Donations were flowing so fast to Team Trump that their server repeatedly crashed. One man I saw on X said he donated $300,000.00. But another who said he was flat broke donated $5.00…which is a heck of a lot of money when you’re broke. Perhaps “convicted felon” will save the Democrats bacon…but my bet is that they have awakened a sleeping giant.

A Coward’s World

Mark Noonan11 Comments

It is very bizarre how the world is viewing the Israel-Hamas War. You have to think about what was done and then realize that Western men and women are looking at it and considering it either not a problem, or not sufficiently bad to warrant a vigorous response.

Let us look at a different world. It is similar to ours, but very different. This is the world of 1876.

In that year, pressed by ages of Turkish brutality and corruption, the peasants of Bulgaria rose in rebellion against their overlords. They fought bravely but they were at last overmatched. After the rebellion was pretty much defeated, the Turkish government unleashed Bashi-bazouks upon the Bulgarian populace. These were part of the Turkish army but they were irregular and unpaid; their pay was what they could extract from a subject population. The Turks turned them loose into what became an orgy or rape, murder and looting. Nobody to this day knows how many died; probably tens of thousands. It was quite horrific and when word of it got out the whole of the West arose in anger. There were demands for punishment and reform; it touched off a war between Russia and Turkey and, in the end, lead to an independent Bulgaria because nobody in the West could allow a Turk to rule a Bulgar after that. You know: they had proved themselves inhuman savages.

This shows us that events like 10/7 are, sadly, not all that uncommon. Men, being what they are, can at times descend into the worst savagery. Nobody can really know what makes a man decide it is a good idea to rape, murder and pillage, but it does happen. The difference between then and now is the supine cowardice of the West in the face of it. What the Palestinians did on 10/7 was a horror beyond horror. If it had just been killing, that would have been bad enough – but it was torture, it was rape, it was humiliation (with some kids forced to watch while their mother was raped and/or their father murdered). The perpetrators of such acts are not covered under law – and this regardless of whatever paper says. They are to be killed by whatever means come to hand. Nothing is to be allowed to spare such beasts. Caught; killed. That’s it. That is how you treat such people – to teach them a lesson…and a lesson to the next batch that the hours of rape and pillage come with a price, so better think again.

This just illustrates how very messed up our world is right now. Solzhenitsyn pointed out that the problem of the 20th century was that it had forgot about God…well, we’re now a century into forgetting about God and we’ve now lost sight of the last shreds of human decency. We excuse. We explain away. We try to find something, anything that gets us off the hook from being human. And do keep in mind that the Israelis are not asking anyone to do it for them; they just want to get it done. There is no effort here. No sacrifice. Just let men do what men have to do.

But that, too, can’t be allowed. If the men of the IDF are allowed to chastise the wrongdoers of Hamas, that would be an indictment of every Western person – every person who allows unvetted savages into his country. Every person who turns a blind eye to the level of crime in some areas of the USA. Every abused child and dishonored woman would then rise up, in a sense, and damn us all for not acting. For not killing those who do that sort of thing. It isn’t that we care about the accused, it is that we’re afraid to do what is necessary. Getting our hands dirty, even if second hand.

I do not think that courage is dead in the USA or the larger West. I think it is hidden. I think it is almost ashamed to step forth. But it will step forth. It will have to. And it will have to kill when it does; in order to provide justice for the oppressed, it can do no other.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan62 Comments

The Democrats are trying desperately to pressure the Supreme Court to rule their way over the J6 and Presidential Immunity cases. Their method is to exert pressure directly on Alito and Thomas in the hopes that this will convince Roberts to do everything he can to ensure the Court decides in favor of the Dems. I doubt it will work – Roberts is a noodle but it seems that Barrett keeps him on an even keel. The bottom line for both cases is that the punishments inflicted for J6 amount to cruel and unusual while the President must have broad immunity for actions in office even if those actions are considered wrong, even illegal. It would be one thing if the President connived as embezzlement or some such crime…but if the President does something wrong in a political matter then the only solution must be via the political process (impeachment or voting the President out of office; also, of course, the Congress can deny funds until the President bends to Congressional will).

They’re also back on the “expand the Court” kick as additional pressure: rule the “wrong” way and next time we have a trifecta, the Court goes to 15 members. This is something that Congress and the President can do at any time – there’s no Constitutional number of Supreme Court Justices. We just settled at 9 early on and it has been kept out of habit. Personally, I’ve been in favor of expanding the Court for some time – like 25-30 years. The size of the country requires far more federal district courts and that implies a larger Supreme Court to ride herd on them. I figure 11 or 13 is the best number – and the next time the GOP has a trifecta, we should do it. Both for practical reasons noted but also to short circuit any Democrat attempt at a later time – if it was just done, expanding it some more would be seen as nakedly political and Democrats would pay a price at the polls for it.

The Democrats are also inciting violence – I’m not 100% sure it is intentional but the bottom line is that when you call Trump and his supporters an existential threat to all that is good and true, some people will take that literally and act upon it. They are priming their street muscle to act out – and that muscle will act out at some point in some way. We could be heading for a “Bleeding Kansas” if the far Left kooks decide that to “fight the Nazis” means doing things like blowing up churches and assassinating GOP office holders.

Trump’s trial has pretty much dropped off the map – because the Democrats are finding that it is massively backfiring. Trump did a rally in the Bronx. There is much dispute over crowd size (as usual) but the fact of the matter is that it was a fairly large crowd and given the Bronx, it was very much filled with black and brown people…including some rather prominent, political figures not normally associated with the GOP. Will Trump win the Bronx? Not a chance in heck. He’s going to get blown out there – but Trump lost it in 2020 by 67 points. My bet: he will do remarkably better this time. This still can mean, by the way, a 40 point loss. But I see what Trump is up to here – he’s got the inside track to 270. That may change, but at the moment if the election were held today, he’d probably win 312 Electoral Votes. What Trump probably wants in addition to the EC is the popular vote – it is both personal redemption and for raw, political power. Coming back into office more popular than Democrats and with a popular vote mandate means that for at least a year, presuming GOP control of at least one House (almost assured), Trump can get what he wants. Really remake Government – the people will have spoken; it will be what they wanted. So, campaign a bit in the Bronx. Why not? After all, Democrat lawfare has got you stuck in New York, anyway, might was well make the best of it.

Here in Nevada we’ll get to vote on a requirement for voter ID – this is good because if passed (can’t imagine it failing), it will dismantle the last of the Reid Machine…that curious device which always seems to get just enough votes out of Clark County to give Democrats State-wide wins. It is so weird; always in heavily union areas there’s some late arriving votes. I’m sure its a coincidence. Anyways, we’ll be able to vote on if we want people to actually prove they can vote.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan46 Comments

The Trump trial gets ever more ridiculous by the day. The judge is just being massively unfair to the defense and is doing everything he can to help the prosecution. But even with that, it is clear the prosecutor doesn’t have a case. I’m still thinking we might get a hung jury here – perhaps even a not guilty. I mean it: the thing is such an obvious show trial that even a New York jury might figure this is just a step too far. But even with a guilty verdict, this thing will be vacated in short order on appeal. It is just drivel.

Meanwhile, Biden hits the trail and nobody shows up – Trump shows up in Manhattan to large, friendly crowds. There’s a couple outlier polls showing Biden even or slightly ahead – but even in that scenario, he loses. But most polls show Trump ahead, some significantly. Trump, to the absolute shock of everyone, is becoming popular…while Biden is increasingly despised. Everyone knows he’s senile and physically one foot on a banana peel. It is actually kinda insulting that the Democrats are trying to force him on us for another four years.

The pyscho-killer who masqueraded as President of Iran was whacked in a helicopter crash so NATO and the USA expressed their condolences. Because of course. Just f’ing disgusts me the way the USA and the West gets on its knees for the mullahs. The more you hear about the guy the more psycho he was – not a nice guy. No redeeming qualities. A bloodthirsty murderer, mostly of his own people. The riddance level on his death: good.

Various Leftists groups are dredging up Michael Brown (hands up, don’t shoot lie) and George Floyd (I can’t breath lie). Then there was Biden’s vile, racist speech on Sunday. Pretty sure these idiots are looking for another summer of riots. There are those who disagree with me on this – figuring it would be insanely stupid of the Left to stir the pot. My rejoinder to that is the Left is insanely stupid. My thinking is they believe that if they can stir up the fear and hatred of 2020, it’ll somehow work to Biden’s advantage.

We built that pier to bring aid to the Palestinians and Hamas is stealing all the aid. This is because Hamas doesn’t give a damn about human life. None of the Islamists do. Heck, none of the various stripes of pedos, grifters, tyrants and freaks who run our world do. They’re all anti-human and only interesting in obtaining money and sex for themselves.

Red Lobster if filing for bankruptcy because that is what middle class, family-orientated businesses do when the economy is red hot like Pudding Brain says it is.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

Rumor is that Team Biden is working with the Israeli Left to oust Netanyahu so a new, Leftist Israeli government can agree to a ceasefire which will save Hamas. For the Israeli Left, this is how to get back into office – and without the tedious need for an election that Likud might well win. For Biden, it gets Gaza off the table before the Convention so the Democrats don’t have to deal with Hamas rioters in Chicago. The primary thing here is the illustration that for the Left it is always about power – Team Biden and the Israeli Left don’t care about those who have died, nor about those who will die if Hamas is allowed to survive. They have no human feelings at all – just appetite for power (and wealth, sex and the things that go with power).

Will it work? Don’t know. Depends, in the end, how firm the Israeli people are and how much courage Netanyahu’s coalition has. We’ll see about that. But I will lay a lot of blame on Netanyahu: as I’ve been saying from Day One: celerity is crucial. Israel could never afford to drag this thing out. Unless the goal was to let Hamas survive after some severe punishment – and Netanyahu said it was about destroying Hamas – then the only way to do that was a maximum application of Israeli firepower on a tightly besieged Gaza. No supplies or people in or out; systemic, block by block destruction of every person and building in Gaza until the people of Gaza surrender unconditionally. And make no mistake about it: they would have surrendered. Probably after no more than a few weeks of that. Nobody was ever braver than the Poles in World War Two – but both in the initial invasion and during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, the Poles eventually quit after being hammered quite mercilessly by the Germans. People can endure a lot. Courage can make up for a lot of things…but after a while all you’re doing is dying with no hope of success and it is time to call it quits.

The Great Debate: far too many rumors about why now – and why it is being set for June, prior to the Convention. The only things we know for certain is that Trump has accepted and Biden will be in a soft, cuddly cocoon of MSM when it happens. I think it is a high risk gamble by a Team Biden that knows its losing.

Russia launched a surprise offensive north of Kharkov – that is, a surprise to everyone but those who can read a map.

They keep saying the offensive north of Kharkov is a feint…but I gotta say it looks to me like the Russians are going for a pretty classic double-envelopment of Ukrainian forces east of the Kharkov-Donetsk line. We’ll get a better idea as time goes on. But the problem seems to be that the Ukrainians had very limited forces up north…and apparently have a severe manpower shortage in general. In other words, if this “feint” in the north is the real thing, the Russians might find they’re punching into an empty bag. The Ukrainian forces in the east would have to retreat, or be cut off and destroyed – and if Ukraine loses a significant portion of its army, that’s game-over…it would be abject surrender. This is probably the time for the Ukrainians to ask Putin his price for a peace treaty. If it mostly entails giving up what the Russians already have, take the deal. If it is a demand for Ukraine’s destruction, then fight on and probably with more help from the West.

Peru has apparently decreed that being non-binary and the rest of that drivel is a mental illness…mostly because it is.

As I’ve said all along: live your life! Let your freak flag fly if that is what gets you through the day. As in all things, I’ll diligently work to ensure that there is no unjust discrimination against anyone for what they are or what they do. But, a guy in a dress is still a guy. Nobody is born in the wrong body. There are no trans children. Gender is immutable and it is binary. I don’t care what you do – but don’t do it to kids and don’t demand that I participate, even a little bit, in your weird, little world.

The Declaration Test

Mark Noonan24 Comments

On July 4th, 1776 we said, among other things, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. In fact, we asserts this as a self evident truth. You know: like the sun in the sky. I don’t have to prove this is correct, it is what it is. If you reject it, you are a liar or insane, just as you would be if you said at noon at the sun wasn’t up in the sky. To be sure, people can dispute this dogma and the United States is the only nation in the world – and likely will always be the only nation in the world – to assert such a thing in its founding document. But being an American requires subscription to certain dogmas, much as being a Catholic or Evangelical, Muslim or Jew requires subscription to certain assertions. The only way America works is if, by and large, everyone accepts certain things as a given – in America’s case, the Declaration of Independence is bare minimum…if you don’t believe what’s in it, why in heck are you here?

I believe that the problems of America today – as a society – stem from the atrophy of belief in American dogma. That is, we have increasingly ignored the Declaration and gone about doing things which directly contravene what the Founders fought for. This is not some novel idea: all nations and religions eventually have the same problem: a collapse of belief. Some nations and religions recover, others don’t – but they only recover by harking back to first principles and rigidly enforcing them. This is what we must do to save America: we must make belief in America near-universal among Americans. All things we decide to do must pass what I call the Declaration Test: is the proposal in conformity with the Declaration of Independence? If it is, then let us do it. If it is not, then it is abhorrent and must be rejected.

Think about this for a moment: right now, China runs various psy-ops on us while also bribing our institutions to work against American interests. This is part of China’s asymmetric warfare model against us. China reviewed her options in the mid 1990’s after the Gulf War showed American military superiority and decided that any sort of direct military confrontation with the USA would be a high risk operation. At least, that is, until America was massively weakened. Using the lever of “free trade”, China entered the USA and set about the program of undermining us from within while continuing to build up traditional military and industrial might for themselves…so that if a war came, it would be the USA in the morally and physically weak category. And even if war didn’t come, then the erosion of American confidence would leave China the dominant power in east Asia, Africa and South America. There were many arguments made in the 1990’s about why we needed to engage in the China trade – we’d make money! We’ get a strategic partner! Wealth would moderate China’s political system! This was all drivel, as we can see in the results but what was wrong from the beginning is that the USA, as an institution, could not legitimately engage with China. Why? Because China’s government does not have the consent of the governed. The PRC is a standing insult the the ideals of our Founders. It is a rejection of American dogma from start to finish.

It must be understood that under American beliefs, the government of China has not the just authority to do anything. Sure, they have the physical power to do things, but that isn’t the same as having the just power. Never in Chinese history has there been a Chinese government which had the consent of the governed (with a Taiwan exception, of course). If we as Americans enter into agreements with China, who are we agreeing with? A treaty binding on America is a treaty negotiated by the elected President and then ratified by the elected Senate – with any further legislation needed to enforce the treaty created by Congress and signed by the President. In other words, on our side, a binding treaty is something done with the consent of the American people via the mechanisms those people have devised to determine popular consent. China’s government is a corrupt oligarchy which shot its way into power in 1949 and never let go. If we make a deal with China then it means we’ve just made a deal with what amounts to a Mafia. Deals with the mafia are never a good thing – sure, mobsters are noted for keeping their word at times, but you’re still dealing with mobsters. You know: liars and thieves who will twist the deal to suit themselves.

Think about how it would be if we had never dealt with China – certainly never dealt with China since 1949. China, herself, would still be an economic backwater and a distinctly third rate military power. We wouldn’t have Chinese money corrupting our politics and society. Our position in the western Pacific wold remain supreme…we wouldn’t have Taiwan, South Korea and Japan furiously building up their military forces, almost certain to eventually encompass carrier battle groups and nuclear weapons. If we had merely obeyed the dogmas of the USA – if we had put China to the Declaration Test, the USA and the whole world would be better off.

So, too, with one thing after another, in both foreign and domestic affairs. All of our problems stem from a rejection of the wisdom of the Declaration and the embrace of ideas contrary to it. Deep State? Where and when did the American people in Congress assembled really consent to domestic spying? When was it announced before hand that the government would collect masses of data on us and then, after reviewing that data without a warrant, launch criminal investigations of us? The Russians are kicking us out of our base in Niger…when was consent obtained from the American people for us to have a base in Niger? I’m pretty up on things…I don’t recall that debate and decision. When did we consent to sending billions of dollars to NGO’s to transport millions of illegals to the US border? Oh, sure, it was in a law enacted somewhere…but I don’t remember us having a debate about it like, say, we had an open and lengthy public debate about building the Panama Canal. All the time now our government and institutions are trying to slip things in on us – the whole trans thing came out of nowhere with no popular demand and no public debate. It was just decided one day that people can change gender and everyone just had to conform to that. On and on and on like that. Keep in mind, I’ve made no judgement on the merits of the issues I’ve listed – my complaint isn’t that we have a base in Niger or that a guy in a dress wants to be called “ma’am”. My complaint is that we did not obtain the consent of the governed on either issue. Do whatever you want – as long as there’s a debate and decision. As long as consent is obtained.

The Declaration Test must become our go-to thing. Anything that anyone wants – or any thing we discover going on – must be referred to that document and a determination must be made as to whether or not it conforms to it. This is not a Right/Left debate – it is an American/Un-American debate. If we are to be Americans – if we want to be Americans – then we’d better start being Americans.

Team Biden Implodes

Mark Noonan46 Comments

Biden’s intern put up a post on X where a picture of a smiling Biden has the caption, “On my watch, when we make promises, we keep them. And we leave no one behind.” This is after Afghanistan and was posted the day after Team Pudding Brain announced a suspension of military aid to Israel. Here’s the thing about it: as of this writing, it has 3.7 million views…and 11,000 “likes”. Of the people who have seen it, 0.29% have liked it. And keep in mind that on X a certain large percentage of likes are really just “I saw it”, not necessarily an indication of approval. For a bit of comparison, I checked Trump’s old X account – it has been restored but the only time Trump has used it since his suspension was to post his mugshot. He was routinely getting low end 50k likes, high end 300k.

Then there’s the comments! It is hard to find positive comments at all – and the post has been “ratioed”; that is, far more comments than reposts (and indicator that the best time to delete the post was before you sent it; second best time is right now). Most of the comments you’ll find could be shortened to two words beginning with “f” and “y”. This guy is getting scorched by a nation increasingly outraged by how bad things are going.

Meanwhile, Decision Desk (a normally very reliable source) figures that Trump leads in both head-to-head and wide-field matchups in the 7 crucial Swing States.

You can never tell when a shift will happen in politics. In hindsight you can always see it, but while it is happening it is easy to miss. We might not be at the point where it all changes. Heck, Biden could still win this thing. But it seems to me that people are just sick and tired of all this. The betrayal of Israel to curry favor with college anti-Semites might be the last straw – not that most Americans are deeply invested in the outcome in Gaza (they aren’t) but it is just a sleazy move. Everyone can see why Biden is pressuring Israel – and pressuring Israel by denying aid which he and his people rammed through Congress just a couple weeks ago on the assertion that it had to be sent right now. This might be straw/camel’s back stuff.

But it is also a rather large pile of bad – the war in Ukraine is clearly failing. We’re pumping money into Ukraine and while the number of Ukrainian millionaires is at an all-time high, the Ukrainian government has announced that they’ll be combing the prisons for men to draft into the army. Russia continues to advance slowly but seemingly inexorably and we’re just waiting to see if there’s a major Russian offensive this summer (June is the time when the ground is really hard and dry enough in Russia for major movements).

Inflation continues to bite – gas prices are high, food prices are getting ridiculous. Everyone but the rich are being priced out of single family homes. The American Dream is currently unobtainable by youth.

The border remains open – today the story broke of an illegal dragging an 11 year old girl into a van in broad daylight and raping her. Yep: Biden’s people had refused to deport this Dreamer who Just Wants a Better Life. Hey, we gotta have these illegals in order for wages to be crushed so guys who fly private jets to climate change conferences can make a higher rate of return. We’re talking maybe a whole percentage point more annually, guys. That ain’t chicken feed…and if your daughter has to be raped, that’s a price they are willing for you to pay.

And what is the Team Biden program here? Abortion! Our Democracy! Orange Man Bad!

That’s it. All they’ve got. Could it work? Yes. As I said, if it does, we never had a chance.

But I think it won’t work. In fact, I think Biden might already be toast.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

The Trump documents case has been put on hold indefinitely – from what I can understand, the judge is rather concerned about the whole premise of the case and will essentially engage in what amounts to a trial of the prosecutor. This is not a surprise – the case is ridiculous and any decent judge would see right through the scam.

On the other hand, today we saw in the hush money trial in New York the testimony of Stormy Daniels – a proved liar who’s whole monetary existence depends upon getting attention. Gee, no chance she’d be playing an angle here, right? Don’t get too upset about it – the case is also ridiculous but as its in New York, it will proceed to the jury, where conviction is 50/50. But the conviction will be thrown out – you can’t actually do what the judge is doing: that is, allow salacious, uncorroborated testimony designed only to provoke an emotional response from the jury. That Democrats are going ape over the delay in the documents trial is all we need to know about the New York trial: that dog won’t hunt. Convicting Trump in New York will just burnish Trump’s credentials as an outsider. Democrats know this. They wish they could just make it go away. It was all supposed to prevent Trump from getting the nomination. Now “backfire” doesn’t begin to cover it.

The Israelis are restarting their Gaza offensive. They are still taking way too long here. Absolute brutal use of force to finish this quickly is still what they need to do. The longer this drags out, the worse it gets for them. Naturally, the world is screaming bloody murder – the world wants Hamas to survive. They want it to survive because their Arab money bags have ordered them to secure Hamas’ survival. It is really no more than that – the kids out protesting in the colleges have no idea what is going on. They’re just doing what the organizers – who are not students – tell them to do. The whole thing is disgusting – but it all stems from an unwillingness on the part of the Israelis to drive the sword all the way in. I realize that Israel feels a need to stroke the American government – but there comes a time when you choose your nation over your benefactor.

Israel has time and time again had their Arab enemies on their knees, only to hold off from dealing the fatal blow. People forget that for all the early Arab success during the Yom Kippur War, less than three weeks after the Arabs started it, the Israelis were poised to force both the Egyptian and Syrian armies to surrender in the field. They could easily have taken Damascus and Cairo and dictated peace. We told them not to. They went along with it. They have to stop doing that. Kill them. Finish this. Dictate the terms of settlement.

Aside: Kirby was out there announcing that you can’t crush an idea with weapons. As if World War Two never happened. Guys: force works. In fact, it is ultimately the only thing that does work in human affairs. Being law-abiding is a learned habit. Sure, you can find saints. Lots of them, in fact, if you just poke around a bit, and sometimes in the oddest areas. But for most people, most of the time, what keeps them in line is the learned behavior of civilization. Learned so deeply that most people don’t even realize it isn’t something that comes naturally. And what taught the child to share wasn’t a reasoned argument; it was a rap on the knuckles. The adult doesn’t even remember being taught to share. To say “please”. It happened so young that our memories don’t stretch back to it. So, too, with societies – especially when they’ve gone terribly wrong. What burned the cancer of Nazism out of the Germans was 1,000 bombers unloading on their cities night after night. So it will have to be with the Palestinians. A lot of them will have to die so that the shell-shocked survivors understand that it was all a lie, and never fall for it again.

The Boy Scouts will now be Scouting America – for diversity. Bottom line: if you have a son, do not send him there. They will be groomed by perverts. The leadership of the scouts has absolutely no idea what the Boy Scouts are about – and after bankruptcy brought on by sex scandals, they are trying to DEI their way back into relevancy. What the Right has to do is create an entirely new organization – I favor calling it the Rangers, as that has a distinctly American ancestry going back to pre-Revolutionary times and brought forward into modern times by the Army Rangers in World War Two. I’m not particularly concerned with sex segregation; certainly not for members under 12. As long as proper segregation is maintained in the most crucial areas, there can be groups that have both boys and girls. But they can also be segregated. I’d allow local chapters to decide. The program would mostly be just scouting: that whole camping, hiking, doing good works in the community thing. Kids need that – kids today especially need something that will get them away from video screens. But I’d have it emphasize self reliance, hard work and honesty. They idea is to help parents craft their youngsters into sober, hard working citizens of the Republic. And I think it would experience rapid growth.