Author: Mark Noonan

Open Thread

Mark Noonan64 Comments

They’re burning candles for light and shutting down trains in Europe because they lack sufficient power supplies…last I read was some places were experiencing a 500% increase in power bills: this is unofficial rationing as most power companies in Europe are either government owned or functionally government controlled. And it is just amazing. Europe sits on vast coal supplies – British coal, especially, is high quality. They’ve got overflowing buckets of the stuff…now just sitting in the ground (read an article about how a French coal town, its mines long shut down, was building a coal mining museum…which was just pathetic). They also have nuclear capability – with French nuclear plant designs arguably the best and cleanest in the world, but they’re all shutting down their nuke plants. They’re now sitting in the dark because to be “green” they had to outsource their energy supplies to Russia…and then they decided to fight a proxy war with Russia, who has now said, “hey, turns out the gas pipeline doesn’t work. Don’t call us, we’ll call you when we’ve got it up and running again”.

Europe, by the way, is cold in winter. About half of Europe is north of the 49th parallel…which is our northern border (absent Alaska). We think of Juneau of being way the heck up there by the North Pole…for Europeans, that is just Stockholm and St Petersburg. The glorious weather of September is going to lead into the cold, dark and wet times of October to March. Unless Europe rapidly gets a grip on this, people are going to freeze to death this winter all over Europe.

This is the future the Ruling Class wants for us – remember, we’re the carbon they want to reduce.

A couple former Department of Homeland Security employees developed a way to use our cell phones to track our movements…and they then sell the resultant data to law enforcement. You can rely on it that if you’re trying to track a murder suspect, this is great…but it is also surveillance without a warrant, with law enforcement (so far) getting away with it by saying, “hey, we just bought the data”. This is totalitarian – this is a step towards applying China’s social credit system here in the USA. This practice, and anything like it, needs to be legislatively banned. The United States government must not be able to collect data on us without a warrant.

Gonna need some common sense knife control in Canada, I guess.

The Irish Times doesn’t like The Rings of Power, the Lord of the Rings spinoff on Amazon. Their complaint; the proto-hobbits are made out like low-rent Irish peasants. To me, as the descendant of low-rent Irish peasants, that is the least complaint. My gripe is that it is boring. I get that they had to make a lot of strong female characters because Girrlllll Power of modern times. I have no complaints about Middle Earth now becoming multi-ethnic (totes cool with black Hobbits and dwarves). But what I don’t get is how they couldn’t write an exciting story based on Tolkien’s works.

For those of you not fully versed in Tolkien, I’ll nutshell:

First Age: mostly revolved around the war between the Elves and Morgoth, who is a Satan-like fallen angel who wishes to rule the created world. He is finally defeated by other, non-fallen angels after centuries of war and defeat and the instrument of his defeat is a man who makes the perilous journey to seek aid against Morgoth.

Second Age: The men who aided the Elves are given a home removed from Middle Earth; they are granted long life and great power and over time build themselves up a magnificent civilization only slightly lower than that of the Elves. Meanwhile, in Middle Earth, Elves, men and dwarves live a much more perilous existence and over time come under attack from Sauron, the lieutenant of Morgoth who eventually forges the Ring of Power to exert control over all of Middle Earth. Over long years, Sauron is finally defeated but not destroyed.

Third Age: that is the bit with the Hobbits and finally getting rid of the Ring.

So, if you want to make some new stuff, you’re going to go with First or Second Age – Rings of Power goes with Second Age but it appears to take almost nothing from Tolkien save some character and place names. It is, as I said, dull – the action sequences are too dependent upon CGI, the acting is two dimensional and the writing just terrible. I’m going to give it a couple more episodes to see if there is an improvement – the Elrond character seems ok so far and the mysterious man Galadriel meets has some promise. So, we’ll see.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan154 Comments

So, Sarah Palin lost in the Alaska at-large special election. More importantly, the GOP lost – even though the GOP scored 60% of the total vote. This is because they use ranked-choice voting…a system designed to provide confusion and allow well organized minorities to dominate. It was put in place by the machinations of Alaska’s allegedly GOP Ruling Class because they didn’t want any more Palins. The election in November, however, even with ranked-choice voting will almost certainly produce a Republican House member.

The city of Jackson, MS is out of water: they have no water to drink. You might be surprised to hear such a thing. I mean, the city sits on the Pearl River and it isn’t like it has needed to increase water capacity as, bucking the trend in the South, it has been steadily losing population since 1980. But, out of water. It is also a majority black city, and this means that, also bucking the trend in the South, the government has been increasingly leftist over the past couple decades. So, who’s at fault for the lack of water?

You are, of course! You: white Republicans! You forced the liberal Democrat (and largely black) government of Jackson to neglect the water system! If you hadn’t been such racists, you’d have been looking closely at Jackson, MS and the minute you saw the water system starting to deteriorate, you would have parachuted the billion dollars they need to fix it. But you didn’t. Because you’re a bunch of white, racist, MAGA meanies.

Apparently at least from some power companies you can get what amounts to a smart thermostat…and they offer you some rebates if you’ll install one. Fine print: when they need to reduce power consumption, they take control of your thermostat. To me, the whole thing is kinda funny – it seems clear in the article that the victims of this are good, little liberals who wanted to do their part…until it got hot outside. One of the reasons I keep my 2004 Saturn in good repair is because it is a car which has absolutely no connection to the grid…you buy an EV, and I guarantee you outside parties can get into it and shut it off any time they want.

Reminder: the Left wants us to live in an impoverished future. The wealthy, American lifestyle is “unsustainable”, in their view. Now, I don’t think that the bosses really believe in climate change…but it is a useful tool of control, isn’t it? Sorry, guys, but we really gotta save the planet…so, no AC for you! No meat, either. Nope, you can’t have a car. Here’s your Life Pod. Eat the bug paste and shut up…

USCD has backed off plans to host a freshman orientation which excluded white people. They got some push back on it – but we are seeing more and more of this and it is happening not simply because of increased Leftism, but an increased sense that at least Pudding Brain’s DOJ won’t do anything about it. Rely on it, guys: any attempt to exclude anyone based on race – especially in any institution which receives taxpayer funds – is a massive violation of multiple federal laws. Huge criminal and civil penalties await anyone who would do such a thing…if anyone will enforce the law. Big if.

We don’t live under law any longer – haven’t, really, since Bill Clinton was allowed to skate on perjury simply because he’s a Democrat. What we live under is whatever the law-enforcers decide is the law…and if a written law doesn’t work to their favor, it is a dead letter. And if there isn’t a law you violated, they’ll make one up if they need to take you out. If we get back in 2024, we really have to send some people to jail – lots and lots of people – if we want even a chance of restoring the Rule of Law in the United States. Every officer of the law and the courts who refused their duty should be fired…and jailed if they violated even the least law while in office.

Democrats Delenda Est

Mark Noonan98 Comments

They had Joe Biden go up and, for the 20 minutes he’s capable of semi-coherent speech, say that MAGA Republicans are “semi-fascist”. The MSM and the social media bots – following orders as usual – picked up on this and are out there stoutly asserting either the truth of the accusation, or complaining that Pudding Brain is being too nice about it – that we GOPers are out-and-out fascists.

To be sure, your basic Democrat doesn’t even know what “fascist” means. It is shorthand for “bad guy” and they can’t even tell you what makes a fascist bad, except to claim they want to take away your rights…and pardon us while we impose this vaccine mandate on you and set 87,000 IRS agents to examine your finances. For them, fascists are bad and as they are anti-fascist, anyone who isn’t on their side is fascist, and so bad. It is a very kindergarten view of the world suitable for the most ignorant among us – college educated people in government, education and corporations who make up the backbone of the Democrat party these days.

But we cannot merely note the idiocy of these people and move on – by proclaiming us to be fascists they are asserting that we are the enemies of all that is decent. And just what do you do with such people? You kill, imprison or exile them. There is no limiting principle in stopping fascism. There can’t be. If fascists are allowed to live then they may take charge and they will destroy everyone who is not fascist. Any action taken to stop them is legitimate. What Pudding Brain said – immediately endorsed by the entire Democrat Establishment – is that 74 million Americans are fascists. They have declared war on us and announced that we are fair game for any effort which might destroy us. They are retroactively legitimizing both election fraud and the weaponization of government against us because, after all, to stop fascism, you must do whatever you can.

And, so, now what? That is: what do we do? How do we respond?

Pretend they didn’t say it? Pretend that it is merely political boilerplate designed to fire up the Democrat base? Dismiss it as mere rhetoric which will never result in government action?

Yeah, after the raid on Trump’s home and everything else they’ve done outside the law to get after him and us, I’m going to have to say that it is not mere rhetoric. That they view MAGA as an existential threat and will do everything they can to prevent it’s victory.

And in a certain sense, they are right to feel like this: our victory is their doom. Not, of course, a fascist doom. We’re not fascists. We’re committed to freedom under a Constitutional order. In practical terms, they’re the fascists (“All within the State, nothing outside the State” is vastly more descriptive of the modern Left than anything on the MAGA side). But, regardless of the truth of the matter here, if we win, they’re done for. Not in the sense of being killed or imprisoned but very much in the sense of no longer being in charge, nor being able to rake off vast wealth from the productive economy. Their worst nightmare will come true if we win: they’ll have a get a job where the boss demands results.

On the other hand, if we don’t win, then we’re done for. Our rights and our property will be stripped away from us. We’ll be variously imprisoned or locked up in asylums for our dissent. Massive pressure will be brought on us – including brute force – to compel us to proclaim their lies are truth. There will be nothing for the believer in God and the believer in freedom if the Left wins – we will either have to knuckle under and become Left, or get destroyed. But even if we knuckle under, we still get nothing…a life pod in a gigantic city where the services only sometimes work as the Ruling Class lives behind walls guarded by mercenaries with automatic weapons. It isn’t like they promise us a good life if we go along with them – they promise us poverty and bug paste.

If we lose, we lose all. And they have said, and demonstrated, that they will use whatever tactic comes to hand to defeat us – the law doesn’t matter. The truth doesn’t matter. Basic human decency doesn’t matter. After all, they are fighting fascists and you don’t fuss over the law when you’re doing that. And this means our only response can be tit for tat. We have to take off our restraints, as well.

Now, given that most of us are believers and those who aren’t are still decent people, this doesn’t mean we can – or should – be as dishonest and cruel as they are. In fact, we shouldn’t lie at all. Not even on the smallest matter. But unconstrained by any notion that the law is evenly enforced and discarding all elements of what can be called the norms and traditions of American political life, we must go after them.

I’ve said this before here and elsewhere, but now you’ve got no place to hide. You can’t ignore the fact that the person installed in the White House just called you a fascist – and then that assertion was affirmed and echoed within hours all around the American Establishment. They just told you what they think of you and they have shown you what they will do to you if they have the power to do so. It is time, way past time, to admit that I am right: the Democrats – the Establishment in all its manifestations – must be destroyed. Democrats deleda est.

It all has to go – because it is all one thing. There’s no part of it you can separate out and say, “this part is good, keep it.” Zuckerberg admitted the other day that when the FBI told him to suppress to Hunter Biden story, he didn’t ask why, he just asked “how high?”. And this FBI was run by a Trump appointee while Trump was President and with Trump’s man at the helm of the Department of Justice. Think about that – the people of the United States government, supposedly neutral defenders of America, used the power of government to help the Democrat candidate for President. And corporate America went right along with it. And all the MSM. And even a great deal of the GOP leadership helped suppress the story or did nothing to help get it out. What part of this morass of Establishment filth are you thinking is ok? That should be able to retain any of its ability to affect American policy? I’m genuinely curious – you tell me which billionaire, MSMer, bureaucrat or corporate boss you trust with power and why?

It all has to go. Democrats delenda est. Corporations delenda est. Bureaucracy delenda est. Billionaires delenda est. GOPe delenda est. Establishment delenda est.

They all must be removed from power and the means of obtaining power taken away from them. This means kicking them out of their official and corporate positions…but it also means taking away their money. You leave these people with any lever of power and they will rebuild whatever you took from them. It must be a complete wipe out. An overturning of the order. A revolution. We take what they have and give it to ourselves. We will control all the levers of power – we’ll decide what the rules are. How the law is to be applied. We have to because if we don’t, they’ll do so and their primary decree will be that we are evil and to be destroyed.

And, in the end, if we steel ourselves to this and win, then once we have taken away their power, we’ll find that hardly anyone is in favor of them. That they get by on stealing money from the productive and bribing people to go along with their rake offs. Nobody really wants what the Left wants. We don’t want open borders. Windmills. Puberty blockers for 12 year olds. Bug paste. It is all a scam – a con job by the Ruling Class to keep themselves in power and forever increasing their wealth. Once they are no longer there to defend their castle – and no longer have an MSM magaphone to make it seem like something other than greed – the castle will vanish like mist in the sun. People are normal and sane and only become otherwise when insanity is rewarded.

We can get our Republic back. We can have a future: our grandchildren and remoter descendants can live in the America our grandparents lived in…if we just take it all. Take everything our enemies have. Leave them with nothing. Force them to go out into the world and do something useful for a living. And then it is all over. The Marxist nightmare comes to an end.

I Forgive Your Debts Open Thread (All Praise to Our Magic Wand!)

Mark Noonan94 Comments

How well is Pudding Brain’s student loan scam going over? Well, three endangered Democrat Senators have already come out against it – including Cortez-Masto here in Nevada, who is already being roasted by GOP candidate Adam Laxalt about it.

I really can’t think of a more maladroit move in recent years – 10k is a pittance, most of it is going to go to the rich, the action is probably not legal and so may be reversed in court after a bunch of people think they’ve skated on debt. Nobody really likes this other than Social Media bot accounts paid to praise whatever it is that Democrats are doing (they’ve all gone silent on praising the raid on Trump’s home, if you want to know how that went over with the public). You might think that they should have gone through Congress but that 3 Democrat Senators have already condemned it shows how that would fare – especially as House Democrats likely wouldn’t vote for anything less than 100% cancellation. It is also so clearly and easily seen as a cynical, political ploy with the mid-terms in mind.

But, also, pay attention to what Cortez-Masto and other Democrats are doing. Remember – and you’ve heard some liberal commenters here say it – the Narrative is that Joe “Shades” Biden has masterfully turned things around. Pivoting from the GOP’s disastrous end of Roe, he’s now got “big legislative wins” which are building towards a remarkably strong Democrat showing in November. And NY-19 proved it! Don’t know if you followed the Social Media meltdown on that one last night…but it was where a Democrat district shifted 9 points to the GOP but the Democrat still won, so this means the GOP is doomed – DOOMED, I TELL YA!!!! – in November. But, meanwhile, there’s not a Democrat out there who wants Pudding Brain on the campaign trail with them (though in Florida the Democrats are in full Kamikaze Mode and may invite him down to seal the deal of a 15 point plus GOP win)…and out here in Nevada’s 4th District, the Democrat is running working class hero ads where he doesn’t mention that he’s a Democrat and, funny, isn’t touting Biden’s “big legislative wins” nor making any promise to restore Roe.

Two rules about politics in 2022:

  1. Whatever is in the MSM is a lie.
  2. Never look at what people say: watch what they do.

Meanwhile: actual harbinger – the GOP flipped school boards all over Florida yesterday. A lot of school boards. This is where the pushback actually starts. We’re winning school boards and county commissions. No longer will we allow hard Leftists to rule these incredibly powerful institutions under the guise of being “non-partisan”. They are partisan – and we’re taking them back.

California will ban new sales of gasoline powered cars by 2035. This is supposed to set the trend for the end of the internal combustion engine…but as California’s population is collapsing (some estimates are that they screwed with the Census numbers pretty badly and that CA should have lost 3 rather than 1 House seat) and this will merely accelerate that trend, I don’t think this will be a trendsetter. The bottom line is that the internal combustion engine works. It is vastly more efficient and durable than it has ever been and we can get even more miles for even less gasoline out of it. Until electric cars cost no more than 5% more than non-electric, can go 350 miles on a charge costing no more than a tank of gas and take no more than ten minutes to recharge, they simply can’t replace internal combustion and all efforts to force the pace will end in disaster.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan57 Comments

Note to self: when its 100 degrees in Vegas and 40% humidity, best not to trim the hedge out front.

We’ve had the wettest monsoon season in years here in Vegas…been muggy with lots of rain. Some very cool thunderstorms, which is always nice. But, also, a lot cooler than usual. We did have about a two week period in July where it was blazing at 110+, but we’ve had a lot of daytime highs in the 90s over the past two months and I’ve never seen that in my 25 years here. Wonder if we’re in for a cold, wet winter? Be nice – the drought in the southwest has gone on more than a decade and it is time for it to end.

From what I’ve been able to glean from votes, it looks like we might have a 10 point swing to the GOP in November from the 2020 result. This would be a rather catastrophic loss for the Democrats. Just take a look at all the House districts Democrats won by less than 10 and you can see their vulnerability. Of course, it won’t be uniform across the nation. Some Democrats will buck the trend but any Democrat who isn’t running 10 points ahead right now is in trouble.

This is why you’re seeing polls showing Democrats doing well in Red and Purple States. They have a two-fold purpose:

  1. Convince Democrat donors to pony up. Hard to get Blue money into Ohio if its a coming loss, right? No amount of money will actually cure what ails the Democrats but their calculation is that it will be less-bad. Meaning that if a lot of money is poured into Ohio it will shore up marginal Ohio Democrats and trigger GOP spending which could be spent elsewhere.
  2. To get GOPers depressed, worried and pouring resources into places that are in the bag. Like Ohio. Every dollar spent there is a dollar not spent on races which the GOP could win if a full court press was made. A GOP challenger in a D+6 State or district usually doesn’t see a red cent of RNC money because it is normally a waste of money…but in 2022, the payoff might be magnificent. The polls are designed to head fake the GOP away from such efforts. Naturally, the GOPe is falling for it. But some outside groups aren’t. We’ll see how it plays out.

I’ve been thinking about McConnell and the coming GOP Senate majority – and it seems to me that McConnell’s heart isn’t in it. To McConnell’s credit, when Trump was elected, he worked with Trump, especially on judges. But he didn’t really work a lot with Trump, now did he? A lot more could have been done in 2017 with the GOP trifecta had McConnell really pressed the issue. He didn’t. And McConnell likely didn’t because he didn’t like Trump. And when fraud clearly altered the 2020 result, McConnell (like the rest of the GOP leadership), dropped Trump like a bad habit. They did this because they thought that Trump and what he represented was done. That we, the base, would just roll over and accept the fraud and then nominate a Jeb! for 2024. I think that as McConnell sees the GOP becoming increasingly Trumpist, he just doesn’t like it. He also doesn’t know what to do about it. It is time, I believe, for a change – we might not be able to force McConnell out in 2023, but we should be able to get some of ours into senior leadership so that when McConnell rides into the sunset, a MAGA Senator is in charge.

Now, Devil’s advocate: can we end up losing? At least in the sense of not scoring as many victories are we should win in this environment? Of course we can – politics is screwy. All signs (other than polls) show a big GOP win coming, but you can never tell until the actual votes come in. But I see no reason to fret about it – we’re either going to score big or we’re not. And if we don’t score big, then our problem isn’t candidate selection or policy or what have you…failure to win big in 2022 simply means the USA is much further Left than we think. This is a whole different problem: it would mean we’d have to start all over again and figure out how to craft any sort of Right message which can win in a Left world.

Meanwhile, Democrats have got their finger on the pulse – today, in Miami, the Democrats showed up for their rally waving Communist flags. No, I’m not kidding: they really did. They’re waving the hammer and sickle in front of an electorate which fled precisely that. I don’t think this is going to work the way Democrats hope.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan139 Comments

Liz Cheney wasn’t defeated last night, she was humiliated. If it hadn’t been for Democrats crossing over to vote for her, I bet she wouldn’t have cracked 15%. As it was, with their votes, she inched up to 28%. This is a rejection not just of the Old Guard, but of the sort of Republican who will spend time attacking fellow GOPers based on the Democrat Narrative. That is important – there are reasons for intra-party battles. You can, under certain circumstances, speak ill of your fellow GOPer. But it has to be on our terms, not Democrat terms. The J6 Narrative that Cheney signed on for is based, ultimately, on the Steele Dossier…in other words, they’re still going with the underlying assumption that Trump is a Russian agent set upon the American people to turn us into a fascist dictatorship (how this helps Russia is left unexplained). The raid on Trump’s home was in furtherance of this (though I did read someone thinking that the raid was to recover Hillary documents that Trump had declassified: this rings a bit true). Brian Kemp in Georgia firmly rejected Trump’s contention that fraud caused the loss – I believe Kemp is wrong in this (and his actions in strengthening voter security indicate that even Kemp thinks he was a little wrong on this), but Kemp managed to do this while keeping the GOP base largely on his side. You can thread this needle – you can, that is, go against Trump (or any other competing GOPer) and still come out roses on the other end. But no longer can you do this if you betray the GOP Base.

And that is just the thing: we GOP voters were tired of being betrayed. We put up with Bushes and McCains and Romneys on the promise that while they’d trim their sails to the Left from time to time to retain electoral viability, when push came to shove they’d get done what we most cared about – and all these people ever did was betray us on what we think most crucial. So, we’re done with them – and, yes, we have now made Trump a litmus test. Some are very upset about this, but is has to be. We need a quick shorthand for whether or not someone will betray us – and joining Democrats to attack Trump is the bright red, flashing light that you’re a RINO Establishment creep.

There are tens of millions of people in the USA who don’t work – and I mean, like ever: they are permanently or semi-permanently on welfare. We also have a host of people who have office jobs which produce no value…HR people, diversity coordinators, extra layers of Administrative staff. Combined, I’ll bet these total about 50 million of our population. We can’t sustain this: these people will have to get real jobs. Any system we craft to replace the fiat money/debt/welfare/billionaire system we have now will have to address the economically useless – and make them useful. When we build a new economy (and we’ll have to as our old economy is completely wiped out: in many ways, we’ll be starting all over again from scratch), we must ensure that everyone physically capable of work does something useful. Nobody is allowed to skate – whether that skating be via welfare or working out a powerpoint on DEI. To bluntly speak it: we’ll have to compel them (at first) to work…and that might mean work projects like CCC from the Depression…at least get these people on to a job site and have them put some hours in. It is the best means of breaking the twin cycles of welfare dependency and bureaucratic empire building. I chipped paint in the Navy, guys. Did I like it? No. But I did it. Also washed dishes and cleaned bathrooms (bathrooms used by 30 men to get ready for the day, ya know?). It wasn’t humiliating: it was work. I did it and I did it well (those fricking sinks glowed when I was done with them). It taught me how to do physical work and to take pride in a job well done – any job well done. Everyone needs this as the basis of their work life no matter what else they do later.

They’re going after kids as young as two to start transition. This is frightening. The only two year old who is trans is the two y ear old with insane parents. I do believe that this push to transition kids, especially prepubescent kids, will one day be viewed with the same horror we view the Tuskegee Experiments and Eugenics.

Britain is still north of 80% white – and the RAF is pausing the hiring of white men in order to increase diversity. And think about this – allegedly, a Conservative party is in power in the UK right now. This is what is wrong with the world: it has gone full Marxist/Globalist/Moneybags and they all, regardless of stated beliefs, go one way on policy. This is why Trump is hated – it is also why Orban in Hungary is hated. Unpopular observation: it is why Putin is hated (they don’t hate Xi, even though for China he’s as much a patriot as any of these…but Xi provides a lot of money to the global elite, so he’s off limits). Don’t get me wrong: Putin is a bastard in his own right…but he’s also for Russia. As Orban is for Hungary and Trump is for the USA. We should never fear someone who is looking after their own people and trying to get them the most advantage…we just need leaders who will do that for us.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan28 Comments

Euthanasia is the 6th leading cause of death in Canada – and, as you and I knew would happen, people are being pressured to off themselves when they get seriously ill and/or old. As I’ve said for ages, the fundamental problem with nationalized health care is that there is no incentive to care for sick people. All that does is cost money and take time. For someone working in a nationalize health system, the whole incentive is to provide as little care as possible because you don’t get more money for providing more care…all you get for providing more care is more work. And the success of the “death with dignity” ghouls has played right into this…why spend the time and money taking care of the 80 year old with a chronic illness when you can guilt trip them into killing themselves?

Been watching the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico and it is quite good – minimal woke drivel (though there is some, of course) and a gripping story of how the Mexican drug cartels rose. Being familiar with a lot of the events I can easily tell when the story is adhering to fact and when it is altering it for dramatic and time purposes. As I’ve watched and went down memory lane on the War on Drugs, I find that I’m viewing it all through a bit of a different prism these days. The show, itself, does a very clever job of showing the flaws of the DEA and law enforcement in general while also highlighting just how cruel and wicked the drug lords are while still not making them entire monsters – leaving them just a shred of their humanity to make their (usually violent) ends pathetic. But it also got me thinking. One of the things presented in the first episode is a claim that half a million people have died in the drug war in Mexico. A shocking figure which at first glance is simply unbelievable.

But, then you think about it and check – between 2015 and 2021 211,000 people were murdered in Mexico. Officially. The real number is probably higher given the very large number of people who simply disappear. Nobody really knows how many of these people died as a result of the drug trade (who is going to really investigate that?): estimates range from just under half to more than two thirds. I think it the latter number – and in reality probably ninety percent are direct or indirect from the drug trade. Gun ownership is pretty much illegal in Mexico and that means only the police and the cartels have guns, after all. So, anyways, 211,000 in a seven year span is 30,000 per year. Call it half are drug and you get 15,000 (and probably a lot higher) and then you take that back to DEA Agent Camarena‘s murder (which is when we got serious about it) in 1985…and, yeah, low end you get half a million Mexicans dead in the drug war. Probably half of US murders are directly or indirectly related to the drug war, as well. Then you’ve got to add in Central and South America…and we’re probably into a couple million dead. Over cocaine. Just amazing. And its not like we’ve made a dent in it.

Nobody knows how big the global trade in drugs is, but its hundreds of billions of impossible to trace, tax-free, cash transactions (when you get away with it, of course!). And we’ve been told it can’t be stopped. I’m not buying that. I don’t think anyone wants it stopped. I mean, we know that the Mexican government via bribery and threats is pretty much owned by the cartels…but how much of ours is? How many Americans are on the payroll? Is this the real reason for resistance to border security? And its not like the US is a mere destination for cocaine – the price of cocaine doubles from New York City to Antwerp…and whoever is moving it from the Big Apple to Europe is taking their cut. And then you think of crack which is a way to make pricey cocaine available to people who are, lets face it, largely on welfare both in the USA and Europe; as if someone figured out how to get the taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction. As for laundering the money…you think China would refuse to launder drug lord money which provides a product which weakens their western adversaries? I believe it is time to rethink our views here – and understand that what is happening isn’t just something that happens. Some very powerful people are making sure it happens.

Interesting thing on education:

As a teacher in Oakland, Calif., Kareem Weaver helped struggling fourth- and fifth-grade kids learn to read by using a very structured, phonics-based reading curriculum called Open Court. It worked for the students, but not so much for the teachers. “For seven years in a row, Oakland was the fastest-gaining urban district in California for reading,” recalls Weaver. “And we hated it.”

The teachers felt like curriculum robots—and pushed back. “This seems dehumanizing, this is colonizing, this is the man telling us what to do,” says Weaver, describing their response to the approach. “So we fought tooth and nail as a teacher group to throw that out.” It was replaced in 2015 by a curriculum that emphasized rich literary experiences. “Those who wanted to fight for social justice, they figured that this new progressive way of teaching reading was the way,” he says.

Now Weaver is heading up a campaign to get his old school district to reinstate many of the methods that teachers resisted so strongly: specifically, systematic and consistent instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics. “In Oakland, when you have 19% of Black kids reading—that can’t be maintained in the society,” says Weaver…

Good for Weaver to see the light and I wish all success – but think about Weaver’s initial reaction to it: hated it. And now he has to fight to get it back in. And who will he be fighting? The teachers. Guarantee you the parents are probably on board. But this is how our Ruling Class views things: through Marxist ideology on race and class. That is how far it has penetrated into our society – that people will fight to defend a system which leaves 80 percent of black kids illiterate on the theory that at least they aren’t literate under Capitalism and White Supremacy.

Spot on about Trump and his opponents:

Trump isn’t just a MacGuffin, but he is a symbol, and more. Sarah Palin was a similar symbol before him, but because she never was elected VP that sort of faded. Trump would have faded from their ire, too, if he had lost the 2016 election. His winning was the outrage. They could not believe it, and he MUST BE STOPPED from ever winning again. Not just him, though; any Republican who isn’t part of the genteel NeverTrumper club. Any Republican who might really be serious about stopping them and especially about draining the so-called swamp. It is a deadly serious game and they are determined to win.

Trump himself said it, and he was correct: “They’re not after me, they’re after you – I’m just in the way.”

We’re living in a world where those who have the juice are living ever better while for everyone else it just gets worse. This is not sustainable but the Ruling Class is determined to sustain it anyway. Trump placed their game at risk.

The Turning Point

Mark Noonan69 Comments

I didn’t write about the raid yesterday because I was so furious I probably would have written something intemperate. I am much more calm now. But no less determined.

The “warrant” was signed off by an Obama-donating attorney who helped some of Epstein’s people skate – and tells you all you need to know: he just did what he was told. Apparently, he’s some sort of federal magistrate who normally handles routine federal matters…not signing off on warrants for an unprecedented raid on a former President.

The story is that they say that Trump violated some provision of the records laws. This is bull and you know it: we have learned from experience that Trump keeps his legal affairs in order. If he does have any documents from his Administration, then he has them perfectly legally. What they were really doing was a fishing expedition…trying to find in some of Trump’s most personal and private information something – anything – they can hang an insurrection charge on relating to January 6th. This tells you that in all their investigations so far, they’ve found nothing like that. If they had, they would have already indicted Trump for it and brought him in front of a DC jury which would know their job was to convict, facts be damned. But they have to have something – because if they tried to indict over nothing, Trump’s lawyers would get the indictment tossed at the federal appellate level. A secondary effort here would be to simply intimidate Trump’s people…to scare them into cooperating (ie, lying) in exchange for immunity. I doubt they’ll get that: the people around Trump at this late a date are the loyal of the loyal.

The whole thing is simply infuriating – Hunter Biden is on record violating a host of federal laws and he’s walking free, making money and laughing it up with the Big Guy. The Big Guy, himself, is hip deep in Hunter’s corruption. The Clinton’s were never raided even though we know – for absolute fact – that they illegally mishandled official documents. Epstein is dead and Maxwell is convicted but not a single client of theirs has been indicted (which tells you that the bulk of their clients were on the Left – the Democrats would sacrifice a large number of their own if they could get a dozen or so GOPers in jail over Epstein). We live in a two-tiered justice system…those who are favored by the Ruling Class skate, while ours are raked over on trumped up charges.

Over and over again in the past 24 hours I’ve seen people come to Trump’s defense – with large numbers of people getting determined – as I am – to see him back into the White House in 2024. And we’re taking names on the GOP side – Senator Scott made a typical RINO statement on an MSM show, got roasted for it and came out hours later with a strong condemnation of the raid. The litmus test for being involved in GOP politics going forward is condemnation of the raid…and if (when) we take back Congress, it’ll be how much pain we put Democrats through over it. We are all in a mind to punish – to make them, for once, feel the heat they’ve joyfully directed at us for decades.

In the primary elections on Tuesday, there seems to have been quite a surge in GOP voting and, more particularly, GOP voting for Trump-endorsed candidates. People are furious and ready to take action.

I hope this is the turning point – the final pebble that starts the avalanche. It isn’t time to just talk, it is time for action. I still prefer the abolition of the FBI, but if we can’t get that, then we certainly need a massive housecleaning. There are no good apples – if there were, they would have immediately resigned when news of the raid got out. From top to bottom, the bureaucracy is run by and for the DNC…that has to end, even if we literally have to fire every last one of them and start all over.

Because Revolution is our only way out of this – fortunately, we still retain the means the Founders gave us to make Revolution at the ballot box. I do believe they went a step too far here. In their desperation to remove Trump from the political field (they know he’ll beat them in 2024), all they’ve done is shown their fear and united their opponents.

2022 Election (and Some Other Stuff, so Kinda an Open Thread)

Mark Noonan31 Comments

In the 2010 midterms, the overall House popular vote was 52% Republican, 45% Democrat. That election netted the GOP 63 House seats. Of course, we were coming back from a pretty low number after our 2008 wipe out. But the main thing is that it was an R+7 year which, certainly since WWII, was unprecedented for the GOP.

So, what is happening in 2022? Well, if you listen to the MSM and the Experts (though Lord only knows why you’d do that), Joe Biden’s firm and decisive leadership has turned things around and the Senate is almost sure-Democrat while the House is a tossup. And, man, do they have poll after poll showing this…someone even released a poll showing the Democrat up by 3 in Ohio. We’re doomed!

Well, maybe not.

Someone actually took the time to find out what people are doing – as opposed to what someone else is saying about what they’re doing – and he found that as of this past Tuesday, the GOP portion of the primary vote has been running 6 points head of Democrat voting…so, R+6. Not quite at 2010 levels, but pretty darn close.

As I keep trying to explain to the hand-wringers and bed-wetters on social media, for there to be actual improvement for the Democrats something has to get better. And, sorry, but a drop in gas prices from stratospheric to way too high doesn’t cut the mustard. The bottom line is that as soon as Pudding Brain got installed into the White House, 2022 became a GOP year. What this means is that the House goes GOP (given the Democrats only have a half dozen seat advantage) and the Senate probably goes GOP (Democrats having a little better chance there because of the map). That was if things sort of cruised along with nothing bad happening. Remember what Biden was supposed to be about: shutting down the virus and returning to normalcy. This didn’t happen. Afghanistan happened. Ukraine happened (and I perceive the Ruling Class is getting ready to ditch Ukraine). Shortages happened. Inflation happened. A flood of illegal immigrants happened. All the while Joe Biden getting increasingly senile and unable to perform the basic tasks of the office. Not only did nothing get better, everything got worse – and Biden coming down with Covid just puts a pathetic exclamation point on the fail.

Can the Democrats overcome all that? If they can, then we’re doomed. It would mean that we’ve gone so far mindlessly Left that even abject Leftist failure doesn’t shake the people out of complacency. But I don’t think that is the case. Among many other things, I’m encouraged by Lake’s win of the GOP nomination in Arizona – every part of the Establishment was against her…and she went on to win every county in Arizona. Sure, its just on the GOP side, but we’ve been Expertly informed that Trump and Trumpist candidates are fading and that Roe has triggered a surge of moderate GOP voters who are determined to change the party’s course. Their evidence is Kansas where a badly crafted pro-life initiative was soundly defeated…and, yes, some of these Expert nimrods are asserting it means Kansas votes Democrat in November.

What I’m saying is: don’t worry. We’ll either win (cool) or lose (unlikely) but in neither case is there much any individual can do about it. Either America is sane enough to properly punish the Democrats (I think we are) or America is not. We find out in November.

The Other McCain notes that what is said cannot happen – gay pedophilia – does, indeed, happen. Rather twisted case: gay couple adopts child and then sexually abuses child. Does this mean that all gay people are molesters? Of course not – but as RSM points out, we’re not even allowed to talk about such things because the Ruling Class has decreed that gay people can’t be abusers. Gay people have been granted a plenary dispensation from ordinary human sin, you see? What is really crucial here is that because we allow ideology to blind us, we’re not able to make the distinctions necessary to ensure the best outcome. Rely on it, if a hetero couple seeks to adopt, they’ll be checked six ways to Sunday to make sure they aren’t abusers…but I am certain that if a gay couple is even looked at in that area, it is perfunctory…because nobody wants to be the official who vetoed a gay adoption. The kid winding up abused doesn’t risk a career, after all.

New study shows that being in space has a bad effect on bones. I guess it ends up being that a few weeks in space can age your bones by the equivalent of about a decade. This is entirely unsurprising to me: whether you believe we were created by God in a second or evolved over millions of years, the plain fact is that our bodies are designed to live on the surface of the Earth. We can’t even successfully go too deep into water or high into the sky without special equipment. And at least when we’re flying at 80,000 feet or diving to the bottom of the Marianas Trench we’re still within Earth’s gravity and magnetic field (which is our primary shield against solar radiation). Until we learn how to deal with low or no gravity and how to shield ourselves from solar radiation, the primary means of deep space exploration will have to be via unmanned vehicles…and for all the dreams of colonizing Mars, it is currently a suicide mission until these problems are solved.

A NYC bodega owner who was assaulted (and the DA initially wanted to charge him for defending himself) is moving back to the Dominican Republic because he no longer feels safe in the USA. This is Joe Biden’s America – and this is the result of deliberate and quite malicious policies on the part of the Democrats who want crime to be high in order to stress the system and convince us to go far Left as our escape from it.

How is religion in America doing? To the Ruling Class, it is dying and deservedly so. But, others say it is still doing ok. I take a slightly different view: Religion isn’t dying, but actual belief in Christianity is in rapid decline as even many professed Christians haven’t been taught who Christ is and what it means to be Christian. And this cuts across all denominations…mainline Protestant, Catholic and Evangelical. The Mainline Protestants seem to view Jesus as a swell guy who wanted everyone to be nice to each other. Catholics seem to think that it was all symbolic and you can pick and choose what parts to believe. Evangelicals seem to think Jesus is some sort of magic talisman against suffering and/or to bring personal wealth.

To be sure, among all types, there are those who deeply believe and understand what they believe…but my bet is that a majority of Christians if questioned right now wouldn’t even be able to assert that Jesus is God. And it is because they haven’t been taught. Christianity is not a religion for sissies – it is the only religion in the world hated for its beliefs (Jews are hated for cultural reasons: nobody really disputes Jewish theology); it asks a great deal of believers. And it requires an informed and active consent on a daily basis. It is a tough religion…and so, naturally, it has been watered down in the past century. But the hard nub is still there…and I do believe a springtime will come.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

Getting massive gloom and doom punditry from the right these days about our November chances…all fueled by polls. There is a great deal of “as per usual” in this, but I think this year there is an extra twist on it – the underlying contention is that the GOP was heading for a massive win this year until Trump endorsed a bunch of crazies! I do detect a GOPe desire to dampen GOP prospects as a way to cut against Trump for 2024. There are plenty of Establishment types who would love a Democrat victory if it meant that they could stop worrying about Trump coming back.

Will it work? I don’t think so. As I’ve said for years, never pay attention to what people say, but what people do. And all through 2022 the voters have been turning to the GOP. The key markers for me right now is primary turnout and voter registration trends and both of these show a remarkable surge for the GOP.

The Nuclear Option on keeping Trump out in 2024 is, of course, to indict him – and if he’s indicted, rely on it they’ll craft a jury which will find him guilty. Doesn’t matter if he’ll win on appeal, they feel that such a move would prevent him running. I don’t think so. It would be such an obvious political indictment that it might actually work to Trump’s favor. Will they do it? Depends on how desperate they get.

For 2022, it is the Recession, stupid. Naturally, the palace guard MSM swung into action to tell us that a recession isn’t a recession when a Democrat is in charge…but the problem they have is that people are living in the recession and no amount of spin changes that.

I’m sure you’ve heard the joke that when seconds count, the police are minutes away – well, in New Orleans, they are two and a half hours away. That is the average response time, and it means that New Orleans effectively has no police, at all. This is not sustainable – eventually, vigilantes will appear.

I don’t know how many of you are J K Rowling fans, but she got herself into trouble over transgenderism…keep in mind that Rowling is a big Lefty in everything else, but she did make the reasonable statement that a woman is a woman and this set off the trans rights people. Fundamentally, they can’t hurt Rowling because she’s already made buckets of money off her Harry Potter books…but the attacks on her are relentless. Now, imagine this turned on a regular person who didn’t have all that money? That’s the problem we have to address…the online bullying that we do have to stop.