Author: Mark Noonan

Kim Jong Un-Dead Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

As of this moment, no real word on whether the man is dead, or not. But the fact that he hasn’t appeared in public to scotch the rumors indicates that he might have assumed room temperature. We can’t be sure of anything – not if he’s alive or dead and, if dead, what caused the demise. Official rumor is he went in for surgery and either died on the table or went into a coma…but maybe his sister and putative successor got tired of waiting for the throne? Who knows? We’ll just have to wait and see.

As for lockdowns: I’m starting to think we made a mistake. A completely understandable mistake, but one nonetheless. Next time, I think we should just go with masks, social distancing and the closure of events and venues where people crowd close together…and even then, if it can be managed with social distancing, it should be allowed; you know, a bar which has a capacity for 80 persons would be reduced to 20 persons during a pandemic, that sort of thing. A spirit of rebellion is growing – but slowly: people are worried and so still willing to put up with it. But try to extend this past, say, May 15th, and you might spark a revolution.

Joe “Fingers” Biden is in more trouble that most suspect – “most” being Democrats and Never Trump. I just don’t get how they think then can sell this guy to the public. He’s never been ragingly popular. He has no particular achievements to his name. He’s a life-long politician in a nation rather tired of such. He’s got all sorts of corruption issues and, lets face it, he likes to get handsy with the ladies, to say the least. As to whether or not he’s guilty of the alleged assault – we’ll never know for certain: it is alleged to have happened 27 years ago. On the other hand, there is more corroborating evidence – by far – of the accusation against Biden than there ever was against Kavanaugh. But here are our Democrats and Never Trumpers – backed up by the MSM stenographers – trying to downplay this. Do they not realize that Trump already has $240 million in the bank for the Fall campaign and he has absolutely no qualms about hitting his opponent with everything he’s got? Rely on it: Trump will bring all this stuff up – in ads and at the debates.

Speaking of which, there is now a bit of an effort – in the name of Coronavirus – to cancel the conventions. Just trying to keep us safe, ya dig? The reality: the Democrats are terrified of the prospect of Biden trying to make it through an hour-long, prime time speech.

The Experts are still assuring us that Biden has it in the bag: but even as they write their pieces, you can feel the fear in them: they know they are whistling past the graveyard. Everyone knows that any poll which has more Democrats than GOPers in the mix is pie-in-the-sky nonsense…and the only polls showing Biden ahead are polls with very much more Democrats than GOPers. I think they are just hoping that something will turn up – something which will doom Trump or some change in the Democrat ticket which will make their dreams come true. I discount rumors that Democrats are seeking to replace Biden – any attempt to do so would open up a can of worms Democrats would prefer to keep shut: every power broker in the insane Democrat coalition would insist upon their views being accepted before they’d sign off on a Biden replacement.

Is the office as we know it going for good? Its an interesting thought. As for me, I’d bribe my boss to be able to continue work-from-home. There is zero upside for me in going to sit in a cubicle every day when I can do my work better and faster at my desk at home. Now, some people feel they can’t be fully productive without the structure of the office – I know a guy who as fired as work-from-home because he was consistently late getting to work – but I ain’t one of them. We’ll see how it comes out – but telecommuting is the thing for me. Let me do that, and I might not retire unless and until I lose my marbles.

Open Thread Futures at -$1.79

Mark Noonan65 Comments

We were supposed to be hoarding oil, I guess.

I supported the lockdowns when they were announced – but I’m starting to think that we might have made a mistake. Perhaps we should have made it a matter of personal choice? Do as much social distancing as possible. Wear masks and gloves. Work from home if possible – but let everyone assess the risk for themselves? As we see Democrats trying to force us into a Great Depression over this, it is clear that we didn’t think this all the way through at the start. At all events, it is time to start easing up. We do have to get back to work.

President Trump is going to suspend immigration – which makes sense. Until we’re back to full employment, we simply don’t need more people here. Liberal heads will explode over this – they will step on this rake. They have to. Orange Man Bad, right? So they’ll be out there telling us to stay in our homes but we must welcome new immigrants.

The Experts are still telling us that Biden has it in the bag – which sounds familiar. Almost like I heard this four years ago, or something. But, be that as it may, Steven Hayward has a contrarian view – mostly because Trump isn’t afraid to hit back and the Democrats are a targe-rich environment.

North Korea’s dictator is said to be in bad health.

What I expected to find: Russia didn’t want to help Trump in 2016. Of all the absurdities these past few years, this is the most egregious: that Russia wanted Trump. Its stupid – they owned Hillary. And even if they didn’t own her, they knew her policies were tailor-made to let Russia do whatever it damned well pleased in the world. Russia always wants to sow confusion because that’s just the way Russia is…but to think they’d want to roll the dice on Trump when they had a sure thing in Hillary is ridiculous.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan35 Comments

Taking into consideration what Democrats are saying and doing in the aftermath of Trump’s re-open plan, I can only conclude that the Democrats have war-gamed this out and figure that the more pain there is, the better for them. They seem determined to shut down as much of the economy as they can and keep it shut down for months. They know – they must know – this will be catastrophic. Not just in economic losses, but in lives lost…people who have nothing to do and are fearful are subject to all sorts of maladies; and as things stay entirely concentrated on Coronavirus, other health care needs are kept to the side, which will also cause death. Democrats want all that – they want everyone perfectly miserable so that they, the Democrats, can ride to their rescue in November.

Would it work? Meaning – if they got their way, would it ensure Trump’s defeat? I’d have to suspect as much…we’re miserable enough as it is, but if we lacked all hope then lots of people probably would turn on Trump. But Trump is not a fool – and so he’s offering hope. I think people will grasp it.

Watching Biden interviews – and they’re all done in extremely friendly circumstances – is getting painful. You start to feel sorry for the old man – he’s clearly not mentally or physically up to the task and was only propelled to the nomination because the Powers That Be felt that Warren or Bernie would have been a certain disaster. The real question: how is this guy going to compete with Trump? The Energizer Bunny of Presidents? And as for the Tara Reade accusations – the MSM is doing Biden no favors by suppressing it…it just means that for a lot of middle of the road voters, they won’t hear about it until Trump tells them. At length. In debates and on TV commercials. Trump will make Biden’s handsiness an issue – with reams of video to back up the claims that Biden is a weirdo.

Beef processors are having some trouble – and it is bad news as we rely on beef. Buuuuut…they are largely having a trouble because they are dependent upon illegal labor. Make things better and I’ll bet they could attract high quality labor…sure, I’d pay an extra buck a pound for my steak, but I’m ok with that. And it would only be until someone really got into the nitty gritty of it all and found a faster, cheaper way of getting it done. Competition isn’t a panacea – what sometimes has to happen is a rap on the knuckles to concentrate the mind.

RSM – maybe this bug isn’t as deadly as we thought?

Open Thread

Mark Noonan59 Comments

China has a debt problem:

China’s consumer loans are shrinking at an unprecedented pace after a decade of breakneck expansion, a blow to the government’s strategy of relying on spending as a growth engine amid the worst public health crisis
in a generation.

The net balance of consumer loans – made up of short-term and credit card loans from banks and online lenders – plunged by a quarter in the first two months of this year to 7.4 trillion yuan (US$1 trillion), according to data published by the People’s Bank of China. Some microlenders are staring at 20 cents on a dollar in bad loans.

China is fundamentally weak because China’s government does not have the consent of the governed – it is really as simple as that. Governments like that of China can, for a while, make things seem to work – but only seem. China is a honeycomb of bad debts, corrupt deals, crime and poverty masked by showpiece cities. Not only did China’s economy take a massive hit from the virus, it is going to keep on taking hits as foreign nations move their supply chains out of China. People are at last awake to how dangerous it is to have their supplies come out of China because of the sort of government China has. We’ll see how China weathers the storm…but it will be a very difficult time for them.

Related: Bloomberg killed a story about the corruption of China’s ruling class. One of the most astonishing things about Coronavirus is how it revealed the extent of China’s corruption of American institutions. They’re all bought, to one degree or another. Our supposed Expert Elite betters seem to have one thing in common – they’ll sell their country out for a few bucks.

Obama finally got around to endorsing Biden.

Don Surber’s plan to reopen America.

Ace rips into the New York Times over their stealth-editing of a Biden story at the behest of the Biden campaign. The story, of course, was about the sexual assault allegations launched against Biden. The bottom line is the accusation is far more credible than that made against Kavanaugh – but the MSM is determined to cover up for Ol’ Joe…because he’s a Democrat, and there’s an end on it.

Rumor mill has it that AG Barr is still rolling steadily along on the investigations with Brennan said to be a large target. We’ll see.

Happy Easter!

Mark Noonan40 Comments

On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead. John 20:1-9

Destroying the Global Order

Mark Noonan27 Comments

Some Never Trump “Conservative” wrote a whine about how Trump is destroying the global order which was founded by FDR and sustained by all President’s through Obama. To which I responded: good. The global order established in the wake of WWII was grossly immoral and essentially made the United States the whipping boy of the world – we were to pour out our blood and treasure to please everyone but ourselves.

I used to sign on to that, though when I did I didn’t put it that way. Now, I don’t sign on to it…because I’ve looked at the results and I’ve changed my views.

Think about what this global order has done:

1. Didn’t force Russia to disgorge central Europe after WWII. We could have. We had nukes, they didn’t. But even absent that, we had the vastly more powerful military force.

2. Allowed the beastly Communists to win in China. How’s that worked out for us, long term?

3. Refused to fight for victory in Korea.

5. Forced the European powers to give up their global role – and then we whined for decades about how they weren’t taking on a global role.

6. Sided with savages against Civilization in Suez.

7. Stood aside while one Third World brute after another seized his nation, looted his treasury and massacred his population.

8. Made it official policy that we wouldn’t fight the USSR unless it was a gigantic nuclear massacre of both our populations.

9. Vietnam.

10. De-industrialization of the United States.

11. Importing, lauding and often funding amoral nincompoops who were at war with the moral values that made America the greatest nation in human history.

12. Placing our own poor on welfare while we shipped out their jobs to even cheaper labor overseas.

13. Staying in a UN which is a mockery of human decency.

14. Allowed our Universities to be captured by bigoted Communist zealots.

On and on I can go. You can’t name one thing good this global order has accomplished. Its all been a disgusting descent into a nightmare world of high-tech barbarism. I want nothing more to do with it. I want us to get rid of it by the quickest means available. Thank God for President Trump – intentionally or not, he’s ripped the lid off the nauseating stew and now we can see it for what it is.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan37 Comments

Either the doomsayer models were wrong – or President Trump has had a great victory over the virus. The MSM will say that NY Governor Cuomo saved the day…as part of the DNC backup plan to dump Biden (which can only happen, I think, after Bernie quits…which is why he may not quit).

We’re all wondering how in heck an agent of the Chinese government – disguised as a reporter – gets admitted to the White House press briefing. Mostly because it is redundant given how slavishly the American MSM parrots Chinese propaganda. Make no mistake about it, with a wave of Xi’s hand a gigantic amount of American media company wealth could disappear. How loyal are the corporate bosses to America vs Their Money? I think you know the answer.

With Corbyn out, it is now thought that Labour will pull back from the evils Corbyn introduced – especially the ever more explicit anti-Semitism. Mark my words: they’ll try to downplay it and the British MSM will cover it up, but the anti-Semitism is a requirement to be a full-on Labourite these days. The calculation was made: there’s a huge future, electorally and financially (especially financially) in playing up to Islamists…and the price demanded is anti-Semitism. Anyone thinking that things will change with Labour – except for the worse – is whistling past the graveyard.

Don Surber points out the MSM’s kamikaze run against hydroxychloroquine. Never has TDS been more stark – simply because Trump suggested it, the MSM went all-in against it. It does look like it works – at least to some extent, and especially for people with severe cases. What I learned the last couple days if that you go on a ventilator, your outlook is pretty bleak…trust me on this, if I catch the bloody thing and I get bad and go on a ventilator, I want them to throw everything they’ve got at it. And I think that is how most people view the matter. I was pondering how Trump might have hit upon this drug – and then it hit me: we’ve got lots of people who study plagues as part of our national defense strategy. I suspect Trump just asked them, in effect, “what do we have on the shelf that might work on this?”. When they came back with the answer, “hydroxychloroquine”, he said “go for it”.

We were told our hospitals would be overwhelmed and we’d be stacking bodies like cordwood. Well, it hasn’t quite been like that – as is seen by the lack of video on the MSM showing overwhelmed hospitals and stacked up bodies. But, never one to despair, CBS looked around and found a video of a person who says she was a nurse who had to quit because there was no proper equipment at the hospital. The CBS tweet got 23 thousand retweets and 8 million views. You know how this ends, right? Of course you do: its all bullsh**. Turns out she barely works as a nurse and seems to spend a great deal of time doing some sort of modelling on Instagram. She was provided the proper equipment but, on her first day on the job, insisted she be allowed to break protocol…and when told she couldn’t, she walked out…right to her video camera to make something which was almost certain to go viral and provide massive fame to someone who clearly wants to be famous. CBS News did not check out the background of the lady…but did add dramatic music to her tearful video. Yes, the MSM is the Enemy of the People.

Coronavirus is the Real World, and It Came Knocking

Mark Noonan39 Comments

New York City has turned in a disaster area for Coronavirus. It is overwhelmed with cases and hospitalizations – and it is overwhelmed because it simply wasn’t prepared. Let us pause for a moment and review some salient facts:

The 2020 fiscal year budget for New York City is $92.5 billion. That’s about $11,500.00 in government spending for each person in the city. That is quite a lot of money, don’t you think?

Prior to the crisis, an N95 mask could cost less than one dollar. One dollar. So, for 8 million dollars out of the 2020 budget, NYC could have provided a mask for every man, woman and child in the city. After spending that 8 million dollars, NYC would still have $92,492,000,000.00 left over. If you want to have your eyes glaze over, you can read the entire NYC budget – I went through it a bit and found millions of dollars being allocated for such crucial things as replacing the skylights in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and providing illegal immigrants funds to defend themselves against deportation.

In addition to that, the directory of New York City is handy for you to see what the city is up to – among many, many other things, they have:

NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate Policy and Programs
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs
Four different listings for housing departments
New York City Commission on Human Rights
New York City Loft Board
New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission

And on and on like that – and, rely on it, these things are staffed to the gills with people who make high salaries and get excellent health and retirement benefits. None of these things, though, provide a mask for a nurse working a Coronavirus ward. What is a city government supposed to do? Easy:

Water supply.
Police protection.
Fire protection.
Waste disposal.
Maintain public thoroughfares.
Non-Police/Fire Emergency services.

That’s pretty much it. Anything beyond that isn’t necessary for the city to function. That you might want to have it do other things is all well and good, but the purpose of the city is those six things – and only after those six things are completely done do you have anything left over for additional wants. New York City – like most governments – has got this all backwards. They act as if their primary function is to provide economic opportunity, to end bigotry, to make art – to do just about anything but what the government is supposed to do. The city has been living in a world of make-believe – a world in which the bad things simply won’t happen and so the crucial things can be slighted in favor of fashionable vanities.

Coronavirus has changed that. The real world does, indeed, exist and it is very insistent that we deal with it.

I’m not here just to knock New York City – as worthwhile as that exercise is – but the whole attitude of a world which has been whistling past the graveyard. It isn’t, after all, New York City’s fault that it can’t just make masks in the city. New York used to be a manufacturing powerhouse…but various taxes, regulations and trade policies over the years moved that capacity out of New York. And out of the United States, of course.

What Coronavirus is teaching us is that we have to act like adults and do the important things – and only after the important things are done can we spare any thought or effort to other desires. We have to build back our manufacturing capacity. We must stockpile the necessary equipment for emergencies. We have to make sure our transportation system is durable. That our water supplies are secure. That, at need, we can live for an extended period of time without one thing coming in from outside the United States. In other words, we have to start being adults, again. Cruel as that might seem.

One of the crucial parts of getting back to reality is to directly ask the people in charge just what the heck did they think they were doing? DeBlasio can be raked over the coals – and should be – but he’s not the only one out there spending money trying to keep immigration laws from being enforced. He and a host of others – including many Republicans – have prioritized all sorts of useless garbage over the necessities of American survival. To put it as bluntly as I can: because our leaders have had us spending on trivialities, Americans are dead of the Coronavirus. It is that one for one here, guys: because if we had been as prepared as possible for this – and had acted like adults at the first sign of trouble – many people now dead would still be alive. And many who are going to die wouldn’t. The vanity project of having a green new deal in your home town might have produced a glowing editorial, but it also produced a corpse. Or dozen.

And we had better get serious about this soon – because Coronavirus, by all historical standards, is mild. This is the alarm in the middle of the night waking us up to the threat…and if we don’t take it seriously, then we will pay a very high price in blood.

Day 15 of Lockdown

Mark Noonan72 Comments

Plague. Earthquakes. And, now, a comet. Whomever is opening up the seals of the apocalypse really needs to cut it out.

OTOH, if it isn’t the End, that comet might be quite the light show in the sky – no danger to Earth as its closest approach will be 72 million miles…but if high estimates prove correct, you’re going to see it very bright in the night sky with the naked eye.

The Kennedy Center – basically, a welfare program for the rich – got $25 million from the Stimulus and then canned the workers. Rep Scalise wants to rescind the grant. That’s fine, but we really aren’t getting anywhere unless the directors of the Center are flogged.

More talk of Democrats dumping Joe for Cuomo. Can’t see it as other than a disaster for the Democrats – the only alternative to Joe is Sanders. Cuomo hasn’t even entered the race…the DNC works some crooked deal to put Cuomo on the ticket and the Bernie Bros will revolt. I doubt it would happen, anyway – and not because Biden would be opposed. He likely doesn’t even know where he is most of the time: but his handlers are licking their chops at the amount of patronage they’ll be able to dispense in Biden’s name and they won’t want Cuomo to barge in and mess up the program.

New York City is being hammered while Las Vegas, so far, is getting off lightly…perhaps gambling and whoring isn’t as much an affront to God as being largely in favor of infanticide, as New Yokers – by their votes – seem to be? Just a thought.

The Great Facemask Debate goes on. As for me: from what I’ve learned, most transmission is via being in close contact with the infected for a significant period of time or literally touching the virus (on a person or surface) and then touching your face. This is why hand washing and social distancing are so important: from what I can gather, if you do the washing and distancing, your chances of catching the disease fall remarkably. But, for anyone who does have to go around people…wearing a mask seems to be an effective way of not touching your face, which would help.

China simply rebroadcast MSMers and American Democrats as part of their propaganda effort. Seriously, that’s all they did: the MSM and the Democrat Party are broadcasting Chinese Communist propaganda. I only hope they got paid for it – I don’t want to think some of my fellow Americans are stupid enough to do that for free. We woke up one fine morning to discover that a pandemic exposed how much of America China has purchased.

Related: backlash against China grows. China really screwed the pooch on this one – I’m with those who theorize that China knew what sort of problem they had back in December and made the conscious choice to ensure the whole world got the same problem.