Author: Mark Noonan

The Case for Diplomatic Can-Kicking

Mark Noonan14 Comments

In light of the cease-fire that Trump has negotiated in Syria, Ace has some interesting comments. Do read the whole thing, but this is what I’m thinking about:

Is everything fixed, then?

Let me answer that with a question: Is anything ever fixed?

When I was younger and less experienced — and had seen less war — I was a big believer in the Rumsfeld Doctrine, “if the problem seems unsolvable, enlarge it,” that is, don’t chew about the edges if chewing about the edges doesn’t solve things, but go for the whole sandwich if need be.

I also believed the empty Neocon slogans about appeasement and Hitler and Clinton “just kicking the can down the road” in Iraq.

The empty sloganeering went like this: If we don’t permanently solve our diplomatic/military crises once and for ever, then we’re just “kicking the can down the road” and deferring problems until later.

It is very difficult to permanently solve problem – by war or diplomacy. But if you can get the shooting to stop for a significant period of time and allow people to get on with their lives, you’ve done well. We don’t know what will come out of the Syria deal – the problem is most emphatically not solved because most Kurds live in Turkey and Iran and while this is so, at least a portion of the Kurd population will pine for unity with their brothers. But, maybe this deal with allow the Iraqi and Syrian Kurds to start building a life and, just perhaps, rising stability and wealth will make the Kurds outside Turkey less willing to tangle with the Turks? Who knows; and maybe in 5 or 10 years there will be another crisis…and if there is, our job will be to assess our interests and only if we feel there is something crucial concerning us should we offer more than our good offices.

Kicking the can down the road is also not entirely a bad thing. In 1878, the Great Powers of Europe were at loggerheads over what to do with Turkish territory conquered by the Russians in a recent war. Russia, the victor in the war, naturally wanted to have everything her own way. But Austria and Britain weren’t keen on Russian domination in the Balkans. The Germans were at cross purposes because they were trying to keep on good terms with both Russia and Austria. Turkey, naturally, wanted to recover the lost territories. In the end, the British Prime Minister Disreali brokered a settlement which gave Russia some of what she wanted but not total domination of the Balkans.

What is interesting at the time was that the Austrian government was a bit divided on what to do – some arguing for peace even if Russia got advantage, others wanting war to the knife to push the Russians back. The “war to the knife” side saw that whatever deal was made, if it didn’t totally push Russia out, it would just be kicking the can down the road. That the basic problem would remain and would eventually flare up again. And, they were right. The 1914 war was started in roughly the same area and over roughly the same issue: who was to dominate the Balkans? An argument could have been made that the issue should have been fought to a finish in 1878 rather than 1914 – but, had it happened in 1878 then it doesn’t mean that peace and reason would then become triumphant. The aftermath of the actual war to the knife is now known and it isn’t pretty. But by making peace in 1878, the peoples of Europe were spared a major war for 36 years. That is quite a long time, actually. It was a pity that when 1914 came there were no Statesmen of the stature of Disreali (nor any generals who could win the war quickly), but who could foresee that? But even if someone had negotiated an 11th hour agreement in 1914 (as they did the year before in 1913 after the Balkan nations had fought Turkey), it still wouldn’t have solved the problem. Until Russia surrendered her desire for domination of the Balkans, war was always a prospect in the area.

As Ace also points out, World War Two is a bit unique. We were clearly attacked out of the blue and without just cause. Our enemy in Hitler was a purely evil man who had to be destroyed. And we unleashed unlimited power against the enemy – the destruction we wrought was only limited by our capacity to deliver it to the enemy. Had the war in Europe gone on past August of 1945, then Berlin would have been nuked rather than Hiroshima. The level of violence was really astonishing – especially after the allied armies broke into Germany. It is fairly well known how the Russians behaved – and orgy of rape, murder and pillage – but less well known is what the Anglo-American and French forces did. There wasn’t the mass rape and murder that accompanied the Russian invasion (though the French – via their Algerian troops – did permit a great deal of rape as revenge for German rapes in France) but the slightest resistance was met with overwhelming firepower; a great deal of looting went on; Germans were kicked out of their houses to provide billets for allied soldiers. It was a crushing, overwhelming defeat – a defeat so complete that the militarist Germans simply gave up on the concept. But, such a thing is unlikely to repeat itself: both in having such a purely evil enemy and having a political situation where ruthless application of power is possible.

So, can kicking isn’t a completely wrong thing to do. In fact, it is probably the best we can accomplish in most circumstances. With the hope that if its kicked far enough, it will be replaced by some other problem down the road. Because until the End, there will always be problems. There will always be people who feel they have been cheated and/or who think they have a right to someone else’s belongings. Because of this, war will always be in prospect and will, at times, break out. Our job is to permanently have a military ready to fight and then first try our hardest to broker a settlement and, failing that, give the enemy such a lesson about American power that they’ll shy away from trying it a second time. Other than that, we can only wait and see what happens and then deal with it as it arises.

In light of this, permanent alliances and international bodies are a blind ally: they commit us to certain actions even though future events might make a mockery of our commitment. Think about Turkey: suppose we had decided to fight them? Well, as they are NATO allies, that would technically require Spain to go to war against us in defense of their NATO ally Turkey. We hope for friendship – or at least tolerable relations – with all nations; but we can never tell what the future will bring. And, so, we can’t tie our hands in advance – we have to be free to decide as situations arise how we will deal with them.

They say we had to get into NATO and the UN because the world was changing and this is what we needed – but precisely because the world is changing (and always has and always will) it was wrong to get into them. It is time for us to disentangle ourselves and just move forward on the path which seems best to us at the time. It is time, that is, to start kicking the can down the road rather than rushing to war.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan24 Comments

We went from the Deep State being a paranoid, right-wing conspiracy to it being the Defender of Democracy very fast:

The deep state is alive and well, composed of patriotic public servants. Their aim is not to bring down President Trump out of personal or political animus but to rescue the Republic from his excesses…

How it works out as a good thing that those with zero power should thwart those vested with Constitutional authority is beyond me – save as more proof of my They Are All Insane Liars theory. Still, this is a major admission – via the New York Times, the mouthpiece of the Ruling Class – that they are, indeed, attempting to subvert the Presidency. That they are cloaking it as selfless dedication merely indicates they are psychopaths…but the revelation, itself, means they know the jig is up: that Trump and team are about to spill the beans on just what the Deep State has been up to. This is pre-spin to get the Democrat base to think the upcoming revelations are good for Democrats and bad for Trump.

As for the Impeachment thing, itself: if you listen to the Experts, its all moving along smoothly and Trump is doomed…though all predictions of doom are given an asterisk and if you dig deep you find that even in the massively rigged polls, they aren’t finding a majority solidly in favor of removing the President. Maybe we on our side are the blind idiots who are missing crucial facts…anything is possible; but when the pack of insane liars which is the MSM are all reading from the same script my default position – based on decades of experience – is that they are merely pushing an insane lie. We’ll find out soon enough which is which.

And if you think Romney is winning any friends for standing athwart Trump – well, maybe not:

The survey by Utah Policy and Y2 Analytics shows that only 46 percent of respondents in Utah approve of his performance, while 51 percent do not approve of his performance.

Romney was elected in 2018 with 62 percent of the vote.

Mormons, by and large, were never going to warm to Trump. The over-the-top glitz; the brashness; the womanizing…these are not the Mormons favorite things. But, also, Mormons ain’t stupid, people: they know that if they want to be Mormons practicing their faith without let or hindrance from the Left, then Trump is their go-to guy right now…and undermining him from within is unwise. And there’s also this: people don’t like a back-stabber. Trump endorsed Romney in 2012 and in 2018: where is the return on that? It looks really lousy for Mitt to jump on Trump.

In a bit of Deus Vulte news, a group of Catholics tossed a pagan idol into the Tiber the other day. The idol, itself (a hideously ugly thing to look at, as are most pagan idols), supposedly represents the indigenous peoples of the Amazon…but, whatever: it was a pagan idol and the Pope shouldn’t have allowed it in a Catholic Church. I’m not one of those who subscribes to the Commie Pope thing as some of my more Trad fellow Catholics do…but it is clear to me that Pope Francis is allowing a lot of foxes into the hen house.

Leftists claimed that polar bears were dying out because of climate change. Scientist investigated the matter and determined that polar bears are thriving. Scientist has now been forced out of her position. The Left is at war with Science, guys; for all their supposed adherence to it, they are ignorant pagans who are in the act of destroying all science. One hundred years from now, if we don’t stop them, we’ll be living in another Dark Age.

A Texas jury has awarded sole custody to a mother so she may begin the chemical castration of her seven year old son. I’ve been unable to find out precisely why the father lost custody – other than a generic “bitter divorce fight” sort of thing. Was dad abusive? Drunk? Don’t know – going back a bit, haven’t found anything that clarifies that aspect of the case. But the bottom line is that it is insane to have a 7 year old transition to anything. This is especially the case when we’re talking about chemical alteration of the boy’s body, which may cause irreversible damage. That a judge even for a moment entertained the assertion that the boy should be allowed to transition shows how far down the road to complete lunacy we’ve gone. And right now, there are really no laws regarding this – but we’re going to have to make laws prohibiting transition prior to 18 (at least: I would prefer we make it 21). The trans issue is the last, bright red line: we allow the Left to push us past this and we’ll all be forced to deny self-evident truth and become liars.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan40 Comments

Been working on the sequel to Mirrors, to be called Secrets. As you’ve all read Mirrors by now (right?) you know that our great heroes, Bryce and Fred, are up to any challenge…but I’ve got Fred in quite the pickle in Secrets and I’m puzzled about how I get him out of it. I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I hope – really, honestly – to have Secrets out early in 2020.

Hillary accused Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein (the lady who helped Hillary create the Trump-Russia Narrative, as you might recall) of being Russian agents. And everyone called her insane, right? Nope. I mean, lots of people did – but on the Democrat/Never Trump side its all been silence or, “hey, they are kinda Russian Agent-y”. These people are completely out of control.

As for why Hillary is suddenly worried about our Precious Bodily Fluids, the fact that her illegal server was, well, illegal and a huge security risk might play a role here.

Rasmussen finds that 49% of the American people haven’t been paying attention while 51% believe that the efforts to get Trump are a scam.

Trump’s lawyers go after CNN. Will anything come of it? Unlikely – but it is enormously funny.

Some US Senators – including Marco Rubio – have issued as statement to Activision Blizzard over it’s corporate kowtowing to China. It is an important issue and I’m glad it is being brought up (and under anyone but Trump, it never would have come up). China, of course, threatens dire punishment to any corporation which crosses China. Our job is to punish corporations even more if they kowtow. Enough of this – if you want to be corporate slaves to China, move your operations there.

There’s this group of ladies who dress up like 1940’s pinup girls and they go visit wounded veterans – except the VA says they don’t want them there because, I guess, there’s an a**hole out there who is offended (I can’t imagine any real veteran – even gay or female – being offended by this). We really need to bring a stop to this nonsense.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan68 Comments

The Impeachment Drama continues, but behind closed doors and then selective leaks to the MSM…which means they’ve got nothing but are trying to make it appear they have. I think it is still just with the hope that, somehow, Trump’s support will drop…but, absent that, I don’t see the Democrats actually impeaching Trump…they’ll probably drop the matter some time between Christmas and the first primaries. Though they might drag it out until March or April if the Democrat primary turns out to be too much of a clown show.

As for Trump’s support – he went down to Louisiana the day before their State and local elections and the GOP scored a tremendous victory the next day. Sure, Louisiana is a very red State, but it was really a phenomenal victory all up and down the ballot (you’re not hearing about it in the MSM because, per humorist David Burge, the job of the MSM is to “cover stories. With a pillow. Until they stop moving”). As a party, the Louisiana Democrats are barely clinging to the governorship (with a better than even chance they lose that in the November run-off) and, once that is gone, they’ll have no power at all in the State. Trump is also raising buckets of money and can whistle up a huge crowd on short notice. Polling also seems to indicate that his support hasn’t been dented but, you know: polling.

As if you didn’t already know – CNN really does have a vendetta against Trump, and it comes from the top.

Hunter Biden gave an interview to the very friendly MSM and still managed to step in it, if early reviews are correct (I didn’t watch it, myself). As Don Surber notes:

The ABC interview actually incriminated Hunter Biden as he had to concede that he has mooched off his old man’s position as senator and vice president.

The son said, “In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part. Is that I think that it was poor judgment because I don’t believe now, when I look back on it — I know that there was — did nothing wrong at all,” said Biden. However, was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is…a swamp in — in — in many ways? Yeah.”

He also said, “I gave a hook to some very unethical people to act in illegal ways to try to do some harm to my father. That’s where I made the mistake. So I take full responsibility for that. Did I do anything improper? No, not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever.”

He takes no responsibility. He takes cash instead. He got his gigs because his name is Biden, which is all one needs to know about his lack of ethics.

This won’t work as well for Team Biden as I guess they thought it would. And given the Washington Post has a slobbering puff piece out about Warren, I’m guessing Joe’s days on the campaign trail are numbered.

The NBA has decided that sweet, sweet Chinese cash is the price of their soul. I stopped watching the NBA years ago as the players became increasingly garbage people who still dared to lecture Americans on morality…but there is something extra nauseating here. Remember, the NBA went ballistic when an American State tried to make a law about bathroom use…now they’re telling everyone to shut up about Hong Kong, because the ChiComs told them to.

Turns out that Trump’s economic policies are mostly benefiting….the middle class. Be fun to see how that works out in votes next year. I mean, fun for you and me: for Democrats, might be a bit less fun.

A Century-Long Mistake

Mark Noonan49 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how things are and how we got here – and I think I’ve identified the date when we went off course: September 14th, 1901. The day William McKinley died, a few days after being shot.

Take a look at this last address, made shortly before he was shot – do read the whole thing, but the bit that stands out for me is how he talks at length about the growing inter-dependence of the world while also asserting that our fair trade relations must never be done at the expense of our home production. Get it? We must trade, but we must never harm ourselves in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. This is the sort of speech we got when the President and Congress were trying to serve the interests of the American people – and they were doing what they did out in the open, debating it in public, and working strictly within the Constitutional confines of our government.

People don’t think much of McKinley and even someone as versed in history as I am only have a slight bit of knowledge about him – from a prosperous Ohio family; Civil War service, law, politics and the rise to the top. He is portrayed as unimaginative; plodding. He is entirely overshadowed by the man who succeeded him, Theodore Roosevelt, who is always cast in heroic terms…taking over and reinvigorating the American government. But I think we can see now, at long remove, that having a vigorous American government isn’t an unalloyed benefit. With a slight hiccup under Coolidge in the 1920’s, since McKinley we’ve seen the atrophy of Congressional power; an increasingly Imperial Presidency and the massive expansion of government control – and, over the long term, the imposition of policies which are overtly destructive of the United States.

Theodore Roosevelt came in and had his famous assertion that if the law doesn’t specifically prohibit a President from doing a thing, then the thing can be done. It was a gigantic shift: it started the process of having our system being that of a government with strictly enumerated powers to having a government doing whatever it can get away with. Wilson and FDR just put that attitude on steroids – so much so that even a limited government man like Reagan still blithely exercised powers that Presidents up to McKinley would never dreamed of exercising. But a government without limits is a government which not only can do anything, it will do anything – and as it will still be a government run by human beings, it will almost certainly end up doing whatever those with the most influence demand. And therein lies our problem.

Realize that today – right now – there are people, right and left, who are demanding that Trump essentially go to war with Turkey because they think it wrong that the Turks are going after the Kurds. Maybe the Turks are wrong; but if the Turks are wrong, then it isn’t for the President to decide if we fight them…or, at least, it isn’t supposed to be the President who decides if we fight: it is supposed to be Congress, which will debate a declaration of war and then vote on it…and if approved, we go to war. But, we’re so far down this road that most don’t even see that – they are so used, that is, to the government just doing things that they are demanding it just do something in Syria. And do something about climate change. And trans people. And illegal immigrants. And so on and on and on.

And think about what we’ve got: a gigantic system of treaties, alliances, agreements, laws, regulations and such which authorize this, that or the other thing and none of it is fully known, hardly any of it was really debated…and it is all in the service of doing something, nobody really knows what…but if we don’t keep things just as they are, disaster will result. Or, so we’re told.

I asserted some while back that President Trump is the most law-abiding President we’ve had since Coolidge: and I’m sure I’m right about that. I do not say the most morally excellent President – first off, I can’t peer into souls and so I’m unable to judge the status of President Trump’s; secondly, because it is irrelevant to whether or not the President obeys the law. And Trump obeys the law. The proof of that is that after years of relentlessly being investigated (often by entirely illegal means) they still haven’t found a crime they can hang around his neck. Hardly anyone could survive that scrutiny…but, Trump has. And if you look at what he says and does, he’s always acting within the law and asking Congress to codify things into law. He isn’t President Pen and Phone. I don’t know if this lawfulness is the result of deep thought on the part of the President or mere instinct – but regardless, Trump has hit upon the first requirement of liberty: adherence to law. That we can only do, via government, what the law says we can do – no more, no less and if you don’t like it, change the law via lawful means.

It is my view that a Republic must strictly enforce its laws – and because of this, the laws must be few and easy to understand; and the government must not attempt to manage the lives of the people because doing so requires a multiplicity of laws, each of which will merely increase government power along with the ability to abuse that power. We cannot, willy nilly, go back to 1901 – but we must go back to it as much as we can, and the first step is to start enforcing all the laws. The laws against illegal entry. The laws against government malfeasance. So on and so forth: it doesn’t matter if they are good or bad laws: if they are on the books, they must be strictly enforced. And it is the strict enforcement of bad laws which will ensure their repeal or modification – keeping in mind that a host of laws are on the books which routinely trip up regular folks and they are kept because they aren’t allowed to trip up the Ruling Class…start having people like Hillary going to jail like a poor swabby who took a wrong picture and all of a sudden our Rulers will be less interested in keeping laws like that on the books.

The next part of a restoration should be, in my view, a disentangling of the United States from the world. We can be an Empire or a Republic: we can’t be both. NATO has to go. The UN has to go. Free Trade has to go – I am going to write up about what McKinley was talking up: Trade Reciprocity, which I think that Trump is on about. I want us to trade with the world – but only in ways that are mutually beneficial. Bring our boys and girls back home. Maintain a second-to-none military force in being. Advise the world that an attack upon the United States is a suicidal act – and then destroy the first nation which tests us on it. If we have alliances, they are to be temporary and serving a particular national goal. No more CIA. No more NSA. No more FBI. Relations with tyrannical States to be kept to a minimum (tyranny and liberty cannot really coexist).

It is time – past time – that we gave up the goals of those who don’t have our interests at heart. This is our country – it is made by us and for us. It is not a world police, nor a dumping ground for the world’s refuse. It is a place where free people debate among themselves and decide via law what course to follow. It is time, that is, for America to be America.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan61 Comments

Trump pulls our tiny number of troops out of part of northern Syria and all of a sudden, all of Trump’s opponents are pro-war. Ain’t fallin’ for it, guys.

As I said back when Obama was President, I’ve become quite the peace-nik – mostly because of complete lack of trust. I do trust President Trump’s basic instincts here, but overall I don’t trust our government, our military brass or the Democrats when it comes to war. The lives of our troops are too important for them to be thrown away on unclear, endless missions where we surrender all our military advantages and then haul up our troops on charges of war crimes when they make what some REMF thinks is a mistake. I’ll agree to send our troops to war on the following conditions:

1. It is declared.
2. It is fought with brutal and unlimited use of our military force.
3. This is very important to me – we inform all and sundry that when dealing with captured irregulars and hostile “civilian” populations, we’re going to use Rule .303.

The Trump impeachment circus goes on – from what I can tell, Schiff all but wrote the “whistleblower” complaint and as that is falling apart, the Democrats are cooking up a second “whistleblower” to shore up their collapsing case. Meanwhile, various DOJ investigators seem to be closing in on the whole start of the scandal – you know, back in 2016 when the O Admin authorized spying on Trump – and this is getting more and more people into a panic. None of can say where this goes, but I’m feeling confident that Trump (and McConnell) have a very firm grip on this and they are planning on using impeachment – if the Democrats do go for it – as a hammer in 2020.

Dick’s got woke and went broke – but don’t think that will deter them. The only thing an American corporation fears these days is offending the Chinese government. Dick’s made its anti-gun SJW move because it was, socially, cost-free for them. We have to make it economically expensive for corporations to indulge in this sort of thing – only then will they cool it.

Ellen DeGeneres was in the box at a football game with W and the left went ballistic. Ellen made a statement about how its ok for people to disagree and still be kind to each other. That isn’t sitting at all well with the left:

“Avengers” star Mark Ruffalo certainly agreed, saying kindness was out of the question until Bush was brought to justice.

Got that? Brought to justice…for the crime of being a moderately conservative Republican. And this is what Ellen – conventional American liberal – and W – conventional American conservative – don’t get: the left hates. It is what it does, first and foremost and above all else. For every Ellen there are a dozen liberals who’s fondest hope is to see people like us suffer. We could get along with – and often split the difference – with liberals who don’t hate, but such are not remotely in control of the left. We have to defeat these people – drive them from power and take away their subsidies. And we won’t be able to do that if we’re all pretending – as conventional conservatism has – that the left is run by sane people.

The brownouts in California afford us, I think, an opportunity to start rebuilding Republican strength in California. California is horribly misgoverned and this power outage thing just highlights how bad it is there. Trump has commented on it – to the fury of California Democrats – but I’m hoping that someone on Team Trump is really looking at the State to for any election prospects. Certainly it is worth it simply to run up the GOP vote total and thus help Trump win the popular vote (not that it matters, but that it’ll be a fitting and final insult to the Democrats) – but, long term, we can’t rely on Texas forever…and Californians are our fellow Americans (well, most of them, anyway) and we should be working to free them from liberal tyranny and malfeasance.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan98 Comments

In the Romney vs Trump battle, I can only say that it is the last straw for me: I am done, forever, with people like Romney. I can understand why someone might not like Trump but if you’re a Republican, your job is to advance the fortunes of the Republican Party – to propose Republican things. To make Republicans look as good as you can. To battle back against the Democrats. There was so much Romney could have done…and among all the things he could choose from, he decides to go after Trump…which no Republican was asking for him to do (Trump’s approval rating among GOPers is in the 95% range). So, what is Romney up to? In my view, its one of two things or it could be both: his own family is deep into garbage like the Bidens are and Trump refused Romney as SecState. I regret deeply voting for Romney in 2012 and I’m glad he lost.

If you listen to the Left and Never Trump (BIRM), Trump is already finished…its only a matter of a short time before he’s forced out (Romney’s thing was scripted into this, I’m sure). They believe this because, seriously, they only talk to themselves. Lots of things may happen to Trump – but being forced out over a clear hit job by the Democrats isn’t one of them.

Related: McConnell is doing anti-impeachment ads. This tells you what the fate of impeachment will be in Cocaine Mitch’s Senate should Nancy be forced to call a vote (she does not want to).

AOC says Trump’s attacks on Schiff are anti-Semitic. The most common response to this accusation from Trump supporters (myself included): he’s Jewish? Didn’t know that.

Related: anti-Semitic hate crimes are rising fast in Progressive NYC. Why? Because Progressives welcome anti-Semites. It is really that simple.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan117 Comments

The Experts are still talking up how Trump is doomed…but:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) continues to bring in lots of money thanks to the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

The RNC’s fundraising platform has brought in over $30 million in three months since it launched in June. Officials credit the impeachment inquiry.

That’s a lot of scratch…and while we can’t say for certain what it means, the fact that its happening does say that Trump and the GOP are popular somewhere in the country. Trump is already teeing up general election ads and its more than 13 months from election day…and Democrats won’t get started on a general election campaign for at least five months. You ask anyone who really does politics and if he gets to pick which situation he’s in, he’s going to pick Trump’s.

Meanwhile, our Matt takes note other another aspect of it:

Democrat Senators from red states have expressed concern that the impeachment process started by Nancy Pelosi “may spin out of control and destroy any chance their party might have of winning back the majority next year,” according to a report from The Hill. These Democrats believe that if their party doesn’t act quickly, Trump could “turn the tables on them.”

Would Manchin or, especially, Jones (who is up for re-election next year in a Trump +30 State) really vote to convict?

In case you were wondering how our liberals are dealing with things:

Recently, I went to dinner at the home of Rebecca Kee, a preschool principal in San Francisco who turned to Maddow in her depression and confusion over the 2016 election. I brought a bottle of rosé, and she poured it into glasses decorated with charms that featured Russia-investigation figures on one side and characters from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” on the other. I sipped from the Hope Hicks/Beverly Crusher glass, and we watched Maddow’s show over veggie enchiladas. “I think of her as a news doula: You know the news is going to be painful no matter what, so we might as well have someone who helps us survive it,” Kee told me. Last year, Kee had a Maddow-themed birthday party, at which her friends and her two young sons put on big black glasses and slicked their hair to the side. Also in attendance was a life-size cardboard cutout of Maddow, which is now in storage so as not to startle guests.

These people have lost it. If we don’t win next year, then we deserve every bit of what’s coming to us.

Report indicates that red meat isn’t all that bad for you – which is another “of course”. The campaign against red meat – like previous campaigns against eggs or coffee – were ridiculous efforts by various puritan scolds who got fixated on a thing and then tried to force us all to go along. The key to human diet is moderation – eat the red meat; have the cake; drink the beer…but don’t eat ten pounds of red meat a day; don’t have the whole cake; after two or three beers, ease off. We’re built – by God or Nature, take your pick – to eat pretty much everything there is. My view is that we must have a varied diet to be healthy. To tell anyone to entirely eliminate a food or heavily concentrate on only one thing seems to me rather insane.

A Clean Break

Mark Noonan47 Comments

As the last few weeks have played out in politics, it has forced me to do a complete re-assessment of how I’ve looked at the world for my entire adult life. To be sure, this reconsideration has been ongoing for about a decade, or maybe a little more, but it has really crystalized out recently. It is time for a complete, clean break with what went before and to chart a new path forward.

What Hunter Biden did is nothing new; it isn’t in the least remarkable. He was merely the recipient of what people in his position routinely receive: a special deal which allows him to be very rich for little or no effort. This way his life can be devoted to what really matters: hanging around with other rich people, attending conferences and galas and generally having a swell time. And if he decided to follow in Daddy’s political footsteps, the way would be cleared for him in some safe seat. If you start looking into it – as Matt and I did in our 2007 book, Caucus of Corruption – you just see that it is everywhere. In that book, for political reasons, we concentrated on the Democrat side of the aisle (given that our goal was to show the absurdity of the Democrats 2006 campaign against a so-called “GOP culture of corruption”), but we could easily have written it about politics, in general.

What it really shows is that people who go into politics – with a few very rare exceptions – are in it for themselves. They want power and money and attention and fame and praise and so they go into politics – and almost invariably, if they are even modestly successful at winning office, wind up richer than they did when they started. And it has been going on for a long time, folks; throughout the Western democracies. Just a small quote from Chesterton about 1910 will suffice to show it:

There are, I believe, some who still deny that England is governed by an oligarchy. It is quite enough for me to know that a man might have gone to sleep some thirty years ago over the day’s newspaper and woke up last week over the later newspaper, and fancied he was reading about the same people. In one paper he would have found a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, an Acland. In the other paper he would find a Lord Robert Cecil, a Mr. Gladstone, a Mr. Lyttleton, a Churchill, a Chamberlain, a Trevelyan, an Acland. If this is not being governed by families I cannot imagine what it is. I suppose it is being governed by extraordinary democratic coincidences.

Funny, huh? How people from the same family can keep winding up on top. Either they are families of geniuses, or someone is making things happen. What are the odds that the son of an American Senator would be just the person an oil company needs to pay $50,000.00 a month to? That the daughter of a President would be just right for that $600,000.00 news gig? Or that another daughter of a different President would prove to be perfect to host the fourth hour of the Today show?

You know that is all bullsh**. I know it is, too. They know it as well. But, it just keeps happening and happening because, well, that’s just the way it is. And it wouldn’t be so bad if they were at least any good at being an oligarchy! Back in Chesterton’s day, there was the cold, hard reality that Winston Churchill was at least as talented as his father, Randolph. There was something there – there was, that is, a justification for Winston getting a leg up (and he did) to enter politics based on his father’s previous efforts. These days, you get to benefit even if the previous person in line was a complete, rotten failure. And rotten failure is all we’ve gotten – and I’m getting very ecumenical in that, by the way. I’m not excusing anyone on partisan grounds any longer.

To be sure, the Republicans I voted for in the past were at least better than the Democrats I voted against (with the exception of McCain: knowing that I’m the co-author of Worst President, please understand that I believe McCain would have been even worse than Obama proved to be). But they were only better in degree, not in kind. I mean, let’s face some cold, hard facts here: President Bush the Younger was re-elected with 51% of the vote in 2004 and came into his second term with high approval ratings and a Republican Congress. With all this, he couldn’t even manage to de-fund Planned Parenthood or NPR! It could have been done, easily, in a budget reconciliation between House and Senate and there would have been nothing the Democrats could have done about it. This was “better” than a President Kerry who probably would have increased PP funding, but not really better in that the taxes of pro-life Americans were still going to fund something they consider abhorrent…and which Bush and the entire GOP campaigned on getting rid of.

I know some will say that this is just our GOPe screwing it’s base and that the Democrats don’t do that. But, they do. Obama was elected in 2008 with 53% of the vote and came into office with a Democrat Congress and a filibuster-proof Senate majority…and he couldn’t even get the single payer health system Democrats say they want. It would have been easy. The GOP could have done nothing to stop it. Enact a 10% payroll tax to fund it and just start passing out the cash to people who need health care. That you and I know it would have been a disaster is neither here nor there – our side had lost the election and the Democrats won all the power they could possibly need to make all Democrat dreams come true…and they couldn’t do something like that. They instead wound up with the abomination known as Obamacare which even if it had worked as planned would still have left millions out in the cold and cost like the devil – but they couldn’t even write something that worked! Meanwhile, not only did Obama not end the wars they campaigned against in 2008, he started new one’s…droning the living sh** out of every poor, brown skinned person they could target (well, those they weren’t letting in as unvetted refugees, that is). A public works bonanza that didn’t create any public works. A slew of new spending which improved nothing. This is what the Democrat voters get for investing their time and effort? Yep – in other words, nothing: but lots and lots for whomever is the crony. Democrat cronies made out like bandits. But your average purple-haired Democrat wanting more safe spaces? Not much.

And as far as the social disintegration we’ve seen over the past 60 years – we’ve been blinded by the Democrats pushing the disintegration that we haven’t noticed the Republicans letting them do it. And when they have power to roll it back, doing nothing of the sort. And now we see in the Epstein case the reason why it might have all been allowed to happen: Lord only knows how many of the high and mighty are caught in that web…but what better way to get out from under that rock than by making the rock legal? By making you, a normal person, the bad guy if you point out some of the disgusting actions?

Illegal immigration to provide votes for Democrats and cheap labor for Republicans. Wars which don’t end in victory or defeat. Enforcing immorality against popular wishes. Providing government sinecures to anyone who will toe the line – and who won’t be got rid of no matter how corrupt or stupid they prove. Accepting money from foreign entities who want the United States destroyed. Both sides, all the time – and on top of being this stupidly destructive, raking it in for themselves, their families and their friends. It is time to bring an end to all that. By peaceful means if possible but, ultimately, by any means necessary. Our peaceful means are President Trump.

Trump isn’t part of the system, you see. Dimwits look at his billions and go, “he must be one of them”. But, the bottom line is that he’s not. He’ll hang out with them. Be friends with them. But he never was of them. He made his own way and got his pile of money…and then looked around and saw, from the 1980’s, what was happening to his country and started to wonder why, and if there were anything he could do about it? He essentially first let Bill Clinton have his chance. Then Bush the Younger. Then even Obama. But he found out something – it didn’t matter who was in charge, they were all in on it, together. That is, regardless of stated political philosophy, the primary goal of nearly everyone in politics was personal enrichment and making sure no outsider pushed his or her way in. Trump decided to push his way in.

And now he’s there – and outside of a precious few (Cruz, Paul…and, oddly, McConnell), he’s nearly alone fighting for one thing: us. The United States of America. We, the people. And everyone inside is furious and terrified and so are lashing back as much as they can hoping that something, anything will turn up to get rid of Trump. And, make no mistake about it, they are already planning on punishing us for electing Trump. They don’t propose to allow this sort of thing to happen again.

I’ve mostly stopped arguing with liberals these days – first off, it is pointless but, secondly, I’m starting to pity them; nearly as much as I pity that shrinking number on the right who still stand aloof from Trump: they simply can’t shake free from the line they’ve been fed. And none of us can get high and mighty about that: to one degree or another, all of us were suckered at one time or another. All of us believed in some aspect of the con being used to keep us confused, frightened and divided while the Ruling Class stays fat and happy. But for those of us who have awakened from the con, it is time for a clean break – a refusal to accept that anything over the past 60 years was any good…a desire, that is, to move forward in an entirely new way, unshackled to whatever we might have said or done in the past. We can see what happened; we can see what needs to be done – we can’t trip ourselves up (nor allow our opponents to slow us down) by fussing over what views we might have expressed previously. Our desire is a Constitutional Republic of free people – our means of getting there must be “whatever works”, not adherence to a dogma which might, upon review, only have been a means whereby the con artists kept us in line in the past. I, for one, will only defend what I find defensible and will attack whatever I see as wrong.

We still have a magnificent window to win this thing and fix our nation – naturally, the first requirement is protecting President Trump. But the next step is just as important: a complete review of everything and asking the question, “Is this good?”. We’ve already learned that so-called “Free Trade” wasn’t what many of us thought it was – take that as your template and ask yourself, “is this thing I’ve adhered to really in the interests of a free people? Or is it something which only serves the well-connected?”. As Lincoln once said, it is time to think anew and act anew: not to create something different (nothing can be more magnificent than the United States, as far as human effort allows), but to recreate what we had, but even better than before. And if that mission requires us to knock a few off their pedestals, then that’s just what will have to happen.

Trump Impeachment, Continued

Mark Noonan41 Comments

There are wonders if Pelosi really had 218 votes for impeachment – my guess is that she does; but that would probably entail about a dozen House Democrats walking the plank; ie, almost ensuring their defeat for re-election next year.

This whole thing is a set up, of course. Seems that someone in the Deep State altered the whistleblower rules about a month back to allow hearsay to be reported – used to be you had to have some direct knowledge of the event. If I were Trump, I’d order that no rule changes are valid unless he, personally, signs off on them. That aside, this is a crafted plan…but, to do what? I mean, of course the Democrats would love it if Trump’s support collapses and the GOP committed suicide by voting to remove him. But, so far there has been no drop in Trump’s support (even Nate Silver is saying that Trump is as popular as Obama at this point in his Presidency – and this, keep in mind, with relentlessly negative coverage rather than the daily MSM tongue bath that Obama got). The GOP is raking in money off the impeachment issue (last I checked, $15 million in the 72 hours after Pelosi’s announcement). Mitt is being Mitt, of course, and a few other wets in the GOP are making their high-minded statements, but there doesn’t appear to be any real crack in the ranks…so, what does this accomplish? Not sure.

And that’s before we get to some really cold, hard facts. From what I’ve read, I guess that a very large portion of Democrat voters – perhaps a majority – believe that if the House impeaches, Trump is removed. They are unaware of the whole Senate trial aspect of it. But that is what has to keep Democrat leaders up at night – a trial in the Senate means a trial conducted under whatever rules McConnell decides upon (and the Senate could just vote to dismiss the charges without a trial, guys). Anything that Trump and McConnell would like to be revealed would be – sure, the Chief Justice presides and, in theory (no one really knows), could make rulings from the bench on what is admissible…but the Senate can override the Justice by simple majority vote. In short, an actual trial would be a nightmare for the Democrats and while operating under McConnell’s rules, they’ll have the task of talking 23 Republican Senators into removing Trump – and that’s if all the Democrats stay on board (Manchin would be a likely “no”, absent rock-solid evidence, I think). It’s an insurmountable obstacle – and only real criminal activity and Trump dropping to an average of 30% in the polls would make it possible.

It could be, of course, that they are just toying with this – willing to move if things go their way, but mostly just placating their base while hoping that something turns up to separate Trump from his supporters (that is what all of this has been about since Day One, by the way: the Democrats know that to win in 2020, they have to convince three or four million of Trump’s 2016 voters to abandon him…doesn’t matter how much they run up the score in CA and NY, if they can’t get back PA and MI, they’re toast…and they know it).

As for our side: don’t know about you guys, but I coldly furious about the whole thing. It is, now, only incidentally about Trump: this is a very large portion of people – including many in leadership – who are saying that I’m not allowed to participate in my own governance: that I’m not allowed to vote for someone disapproved of by the Ruling Class. I’ve come across some rather ardently anti-Trump people over the past three days who are now determined to vote Trump just on that principle: that we get to decide and what we decide is what will happen until we decide differently.