Donald Trump

The Weakest Link

Mark Noonan13 Comments

There’s a video out there of Governor Pritzker (D-IL) where he says Republicans “cannot know a moment of peace” and asserting that all our pictures will eventually be in a museum of tyranny. What Pritzker is doing, between gasps for breath as he tries to keep his morbidly obese body alive, is trying to work up another Butler. He knows we’re not evil – in fact, Democrats know better than we how good we are and how bad Democrats are – but he’s going with this because he needs someone to try to stop us, mostly by stopping Trump. Democrats know full well that Trump is the key man – not just because he’s President, but because he’s got the will to win. We think Vance might have it but we don’t know unless and until he’s in office…for the moment, only Trump has a proven track record of getting it done. And it is terrifying Democrats.

It got a bit of notice but with so much going on, not a lot of notice: Team Trump is looking into ActBlue. This is the primary fundraising arm of the Democrat party. And as I’ve been saying about it for many years: it is dirty. It was so easy to figure it out: donation after donation in odd amounts. You know, like $27.35…Americans don’t donate like that. We give a twenty or a hundred but not odd amounts. That sort of donation is clearly a foreign currency donation laundered through some American cut-out and converted into dollars (and my bet is that a lot of the money originates as USAID grants to foreign NGOs). I am quite confident that any investigation of ActBlue will reveal not just a few bad actors, but that the whole thing was set up from the get-go to get around campaign finance laws…and because actual Democrat donors were getting rarer and rarer. Reminder: Dems love to say that X number of their donors are small amounts via ActBlue…giving the idea that there’s just millions of Little People out there supporting Democrats. There ain’t. Its all a fraud. And Trump might uncover it. And just consider for a moment the fate of the Democrats if ActBlue money dries up?

And that is just one of many fronts Team Trump is working on…some GOPers are already worried about 2026. Naturally, the MSM has worked up a series of recent polls showing Trump’s support cratering. I’ll only note here that GOP registration gains are continuing…if there is a drop in support for Trump it isn’t showing up in the real world. Only in MSM polls…which we know are bogus (these days I’m seriously starting to think they just make up the numbers – that they don’t even do an actual poll). I’m not worried – sure, the nature of things still says we have to be prepared for an uphill climb in 2026 but with Democrats picking the 20 in the 80/20 issues of immigration, girls sports and government spending…I think we’ve got a good shot at doing well. And then you add in things like arresting activist judges and cutting at the heart of Democrat finances via terminating USAID and investigating ActBlue…Democrats might go into 2026 with…feeble ability to campaign.

And that is why Pritzker said what he said – and Democrat after Democrat is out there saying Trump is a dictator-in-making and must be stopped by any means necessary. They want some lunatic to kill him. They failed in Butler by what can only be the grace of God…they failed at Mar a Lago by sheer happenstance. They know that in both instances they came very close to ending their problem. So, keep saying the words and see what happens. After all, in their minds they will have done nothing wrong…and if it gets them the result they want, all is well. They know it is now a little more tricky because they don’t have Team Biden making sure Trump’s security detail is less than 100% effective…but get enough shots headed downrange and one of them is bound to work, right?

There is a passage in The Lord of the Rings where Aragorn says words to the effect of: there’s a fat man in Bree who would be killed if it wasn’t for me and the Rangers, but I’m happy to do it because if I can protect the simple people, and leave them free to be simple, then I’ve done my duty. What Tolkien was doing there was showing what true nobility is. Aragorn is descended from the noblest of humanity…the blood of scores of kings runs in his veins. Yet he is scorned by those he protects because he looks rough on the outside…but he’s entirely ok with that, because the noble man does what is right no matter what anyone thinks. The huge problem of the modern world is that there is nobody around trying to protect the simple – allowing them to be freely simple. And I don’t mean simple as in stupid…but simple as in taking care of the day to day in peace (raising families, working their businesses…keeping up civilization). And, in fact, not only are the simple not protected, they are being maliciously twisted by the clever into doing evil…like when Pritzker (who knows precisely what he’s doing) tries to sucker some fool into taking a shot at Trump.

To be sure, most people are immune…that is, most people no matter how hard you try simply won’t turn to insane violence. But in any population there will be a percentage who will fall for it. And this could be from a host of reasons – mental defect, anger over some perceived slight, etc. The main thing is with 340 million people in America, if even one hundredth of one percent can be swayed to violence by Leftist rhetoric about Trump then there are 34,000 people out there just waiting for their chance to strike. And, guys, it is more than one hundredth of one percent. Reminder: we’ve already had two for certain and probably more (serious threats are dealt with by the Secret Service and they don’t always tell us about all of them in any serious way). Every society has it’s weakest links….people who for whatever reason are most apt to go very wrong. Democrats are hoping that the weakest link breaks the whole Trump chain.

We’re on a tightrope, my friends! The Democrats will not go quietly. They just failed to turn the USA into another Canada or UK…where immigrant votes plus voter fraud ensure Ruling Class dominance forever. Another four years of Team Biden and they likely would have done it. Democrats know that if Trump is able to succeed – and even worse, if Vance follows Trump – then they’re cooked. I’m not saying there won’t be a Left or a Democrat Party…what I’m saying is that those in charge will lose their money and power. That is what scares them…and all of their hangers-on (which includes journalists, college administrators, entertainment industry leaders…its the whole class which has been sustained by government money doled out by Democrat politicians)…they are terrified of losing mastery. There isn’t a stone they won’t leave unturned to get at Trump.

Buckle up for a wild ride!

Trump’s True Grit

Mark Noonan9 Comments

Many years ago on this blog I pointed out there are two types of courage: physical and moral. Physical is obvious: a person is willing to place themselves in harms way to obtain some end. Moral is a little bit different and is actually the more sublime: it is doing the right thing regardless of the personal cost. We are all amazed by physical courage and we rightly honor the soldier who charges at the enemy or the firefighter who charges into the burning building…and, indeed, the world would not survive if we didn’t have that sort of courage. But vastly more important to civilization is moral courage.

Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? Actually, it is very hard. Remember what Solzhenitsyn was saying – you can’t partake in the lie. Doesn’t say anything about lying, of itself. You don’t have to utter the lie to partake in it. All you have to do is go along with it. The bravest person is one who won’t partake in the lie.

Trump’s biggest sin right now, in the eyes of the Establishment, is his refusal to partake in the lie. It is especially infuriating to his opponents who are allegedly on the Right. On the matter of immigration, we’re all supposed to partake in the lie that immigrants – legal and otherwise – are almost entirely honest people who just want to help build the American Dream. And, given this, to boot them out is something that should be done rarely and only for the very worst actors. As JD Vance pointed out on X, however, this is an absurdity: it is telling us that one President could facilitate 20 million arriving in a short time without any vetting and once they’re in, the next President has to provide a trial for each of those people before deporting them. As Trump has pointed out, it would take more than a century to hold hearings on all the illegals in our country. It simply can’t be done if they are to be deported…and that is the lie we’re contending with here: the Establishment doesn’t want them deported, at all. Not one single illegal.

The Establishment wants us tied up in knots over is so that by the time Trump leaves office, only some trivial numbers have been deported and then we can get back to normal where they’re just flooding in, never to leave. They’ll lie and say all sorts of things, but their actions reveal their lie. And in the past, the GOP partook in the lie…also pretending to want to fix immigration but actually just wanting it to remain an endless flood of illegals who are never deported. Trump will not partake in the lie. He’s calling what it is – and the American people by and large support him in it. And it is infuriating the Establishment.

There is no doubt that Trump has physical courage after Butler, PA. I hope never to be shot at but if I ever am, I hope I show a tenth of the aplomb Trump showed that day. The man has a yard of guts. But in his refusal to partake in the lie is his real courage. And it isn’t just on immigration. All up and down the line – the cutting of USAID, the demand that Ukraine negotiate for peace, the taking the gloves off on the Houthis, his defiance of China’s paid “free trade” lobbyists…on and on it goes and on issue after issue, Trump will not partake. He’s calling it all what it is and demanding that we stop lying…stop doing stupid things because liars will profit off it. This, alone, secures President Trump’s place among the great ones of politics. If he can actually accomplish even a fourth of what he’s set out to do, then the list will be Washington, Lincoln, Trump…and, don’t forget, both Washington and Lincoln also had that moral courage which is so rare to see.

The real question now is, do we have courage? Will we take that simple step and not partake? So far, MAGA is standing firm…and seems to be gaining in support, especially among the young (don’t doubt the joy people feel simply at seeing a politician actually do what he said he’d do). But every day and all day the Establishment is whispering in our ears…”just this one lie, partake in it. Just one! It won’t hurt. You want to be able to say you don’t support Trump all the time, don’t you? Come on…just one, little lie!”. We have to stand firm. We have to show some guts, ourselves. To show that we have the moral courage of a New York billionaire former-playboy Real Estate tycoon.

This shouldn’t be hard. But it will be. Because once someone starts telling the truth, lots of people get mad and start to do really horrid things to the truth-tellers…and the truth-teller’s friends. Brace yourself! And stay strong.

An Urban Homestead Act

Mark Noonan12 Comments

We do have to think long-term a bit. Our immediate need is to gain control of the government, de-fund the Left and set the stage where freedom and logic have a shot at winning. But the bottom line is that political success in a democratic Republic requires that the people feel like they’re getting advantage out of you being in power. This mostly translates into how are they doing economically.

Trump economic policy, carried through, will go a long way on this – we might be in for a rough year but the cessation of inflationary spending, the tax cuts and the regulatory easements will lead to rapid economic expansion. That’s good and if it comes soon enough it might even allow us to win – or at least hold our own – in the 2026 midterms. But we have to be cognizant of the fact that last November 75 million people voted for a talentless, ignorant person of zero accomplishments. A good number of those voters are just hate-filled, Democrat bigots – not reachable by us no matter what we do. But the fear is that a flip of just 1.5 million Trump voters means we lose. Think of the catastrophe we’d be stuck in right now if Harris was in office. We dodged a bullet – and we need to think of ways to ensure we dodge it going forward.

And the seeds of what we need to do are right there in the election results – Trump did better than any GOPer ever among traditionally Democrat constituencies. These people voted for hope: a hope that Trump would revive the economy and give them a shot. If we don’t deliver on that hope we’re doomed – but if we can deliver even better than expected, those voters might start to come over to us in droves, leaving the Democrats in the position of the GOP 1932-1952. Think of all the Democrats accomplished in that 20 year period we were out: total transformation of the USA. We can do that, too; if we have the power.

Lots of people will have lots of ideas on this and here is mine: an Urban Homestead Act.

All through the big cities we see swaths of totally abandoned residential and commercial land. You’ve seen the videos – just totally blighted buildings (when they’re still standing). Testament to a different America 60+ years ago when our urban cores were places of work and hope, not death and despair. I know what you’re thinking: not another urban redevelopment plan! It isn’t! Promise! Those old liberal urban plans were merely giveaways to cronies…if anything concrete was accomplished it was either useless or merely catered to upper class urban liberals (you know – building an arts center…places to display garbage liberal art and it is all staffed by well-paid liberal foot soldiers). I have something else in mind: to turn decayed neighborhoods back into thriving communities. Turning abandoned factories and stores back into thriving businesses. Here’s the nutshell of it:

The federal government does a survey in a city (let’s say min population has to be 100,000) and if they determine a certain percentage is blighted (I’d go with something like a figure equal to 25% of the blighted land in Detroit), it is seized under eminent domain and becomes federal land (not exactly what was intended with this provision but after Kelo totally reasonable, and what we’re doing is actually good). We don’t overly interfere with local zoning ordinances (except in such cases where they are just liberal NIMBY urban planning trash) – if it is zoned residential, it remains that. So, too, with commercial and industrial zoning. The government clears away the completely useless buildings, cleans up those buildings which are still usable (even if they need work). The resultant properties go into a pool and at fixed times and places, American citizens (only citizens, and never corporations) can stake a claim to the properties…just like the old Homestead Act, if you stay on it for five years and develop it (you know, build or repair the house; open a factory up in that industrial property, etc) then title is transferred to you.

First thing: this will cost. Probably a lot. Not in obtaining the property – under eminent domain the full market value has to be paid but we’re talking here about de-facto abandoned property. We’d have to draw up some rules on that but a rule of thumb would be if the city hasn’t collected property taxes on it for, say, five years before it is seized in eminent domain, then that is abandoned property – it has no legal owner. Sure, there would be lawsuits on it…we’d win them. But the real expense comes in clearing/cleaning the property. But that, my friends, is the first step in giving benefit to the people…this would open up a huge number of low skilled jobs in areas of highest economic blight. Anyone can haul away trash. We just created some jobs – sure, government funded, but still private sector (various contractors would obviously be employed here) and just in cleaning up the mess, that will start to improve the areas we’re working in.

Second thing: making sure we’re not screwing ourselves. One thing is to make sure that the corrupt city governments don’t get their greedy little fingers in here. That’s part of the reason to federalize the property…but it can’t stay federal forever and I don’t want, say, the mayor of Chicago licking his chops at how much property taxes he’s going to be able to collect in five years. So, such property after transfer of title remains federal land for twenty years – federal land, no local or State taxes on it. The provision against corporations getting the land is because I don’t want corrupt political machines in the cities setting up fake corporations to stake a claim and then in five years just selling it off at whatever price after Uncle Sam picked up the tab for cleaning the land. This act is for people, not for governments or corporations. After the title is transferred then what will happen will happen…but the connected are not taking this thing over.

Some incentives:

Aside from being property-tax free for a total of twenty five years, I would also make the labor and material costs of fixing/building on the properties tax deductible. Full ride on it – whatever you spent to get that house or factory into working order, write it off your taxes…and you can allocate those costs over a twenty year period (you don’t have to take the write off in one year…you spent, say, $100,000 on it, go ahead and spread that tax deduction over five, ten or twenty years as seems best to you.

For contractors actually doing the work (as most of it will be) profits from such work are taxed at half whatever federal rate you pay on profits. Massive incentive for contractors to get into this…and pass at least part of the savings on to the customer. So, too, with materials sold to people building on the Homestead properties – you sell lumber then the lumber you sell for this is taxed less. The key here is to kickstart the thing – to make everyone want to jump in. And, of course, the goal was two-fold from the start: to revive these blighted areas, and to provide an increased market for goods and services. Because then the final step here: all materials used in these properties must be American made. We’re not doing this so China can sell us more drywall (some care will have to be taken here – if there is some aspect of this that is genuinely not available in the USA or not available in sufficient amount then we can grant some easements on this requirement…but just think about what is needed to build any structure and you know that 90%+ of it is easily obtainable in the USA). Think of the ripple effects in the economy as more lumber, nails, drywall, ducting, glass, wiring and on and on and on have to be made in the USA to rebuild America.

Anyways, that is the basics of my idea. Sure it would actually need refinement and there would be lots of nuance based on local conditions but the basic concept is to get Americans to rebuild America using American materials for the benefit of Americans. And I’m sure other people will come up with other ideas or improvements to this one. But we need the ideas. We need to talk about them. Send them along to those in charge or who have influence. Even if its just a tiny bit…that is how things are supposed to be done in the USA. Bottom up – the people are the prime movers, the government just clears the decks. And if we do this – and a hundred other good ideas as well – we’ll leave the Left out in the cold. They can’t come up with positive, helpful ideas – because they hate the USA and Americans. They don’t want us doing well – they want us punished for our sins, real and imagined. But as long as they can talk a game about helping, their message will resonate…if, however, we show the people that we’re helping, all the talk in the world won’t change the result.

Trump Triumphus

Mark Noonan26 Comments

I mean, he might as well have been leading the Democrats in chains behind his chariot.

I didn’t write about it last night because I wanted some time to ponder it all. As a man old enough to remember Reagan’s greatest speeches, I have to say that Trump’s speech before Congress last night was the best I’ve ever heard. Sure, it was Trump all over the place – that is the Trump style. Sure it slowed in the middle but all Trump speeches slow in the middle. Sure, it could have been fifteen minutes shorter, but if you do that then the peroration wouldn’t work as well as it did.

It was inspiring, hilarious, moving and patriotic. The Democrats played the role assigned to them by Trump – pointing out early that nothing he would say would get them to cheer just set the stage and even when DJ was introduced, Democrats did exactly what Trump needed them to do…sit on their hands. The Democrats, in political parlance, are the “out” party but last night they became the exiled party. They have no connection to the United States…just rude, old, ugly representatives of a ignorant, corrupt and stupid Ruling Class that had its day. Trump placed a vision before us of a united, free, prosperous America reaching for the stars…and Democrats shouted out they didn’t like this…and held up their pathetic, little signs.

We’re moving on, Democrats. The past is past. The future beckons. You can still join us. But you won’t.

Meanwhile, for the sane part of the country – well, as was pointed out in the previous thread: 76% of the American people gave the speech a thumbs up. That is remarkable. We’re supposed to be far more polarized than that. But, perhaps we’re not any longer? Perhaps outside of the Leftwing fever swamps, people are wanting a united America? Sure, not everyone is going to agree with everything Trump does. You can’t even get 10 people to agree on where to get something to eat so getting 340 million people to agree on things is a tough task. But this isn’t about Trump. It is about America. We Americans want our country to work again…not be tied up in boutique Leftist issues that require all of us to bend a knee. Sure, go be a blue haired vegan who rides a bike to Save The Planet. Knock yourself out. But that is you. Your life. Not everyone…and we’re not about to go back to a place where the Left puts one chain after another on us to Save The Planet.

Lefties, we don’t need a Savior. We have one and He’s coming back one day…long before my barbecue kills all the polar bears. Chill.

Most of all it was fun watching Trump last night. Democrats tried to manufacture joy for Harris last year but Trump brings the real thing. And fun will always beat Debbie Downer. We have a lot of hard work ahead. There will be pain as we MAGA, but we’re going to have fun and we’re going to Make America Great Again.

The Russo-Ukraine War

Mark Noonan9 Comments

The War of the Spanish Succession lasted from 1701 to 1714. It was, in a sense, the first world war in that it involved fights in Europe, Asia and the Americas as a coalition led by Great Britain fought to curb the ambition of France under Louis XIV. In the much-smaller population of the time, it still carried off via war and disease about 2 million people.

Thing is, the war actually ended in August of 1704. That was when an Anglo-Dutch force captured Gibraltar and secured British control over the Mediterranean Sea. After that, it was just a lot of fighting with no major strategic shifts until a peace of exhaustion was secured in 1714…with Britain retaining control of the one prize of the war: Gibraltar (still under British rule to this day).

It is often like that: wars going on after the issue has been decided. This is invariably because the side that lost doesn’t want to admit it and so keep smashing their skull against the stronger, victorious side.

World War Two? It ended in June of 1942 with the Japanese defeat at Midway. It is understandable once you realize that the only path to Axis victory was keeping the American military out of Europe. For all FDR’s commitment to the “Europe first” strategy, he wouldn’t have been able to carry it out if Midway had been lost, Hawaii conquered and the west coast under attack from Japanese carrier battle groups. Without full commitment by the USA to Europe, the Anglo-Russian alliance would have been insufficient to overcome Germany (side note: if we had been defeated at Midway that wouldn’t 100% mean we lost the war – we could build ships faster than the Japanese and so we might have retrieved the situation…but for Japan, and thus for the Axis, Midway was do or die; Japan lacked the resources to replace the equipment and men lost when 4 fleet carriers went down during that battle). Midway won, FDR could keep his promise…and an American army landed in North Africa just five months after Midway. In a sane world, Germany and Japan would have sued for peace no later than January of 1943.

So, too, other wars. The Civil War was over when Vicksburg surrendered in 1863. World War One was over for Germany when they lost the Battle of the Marne in 1914…doubly over when their gamble at Verdun in 1916 was drowned in blood. So, why bring this up? Because the issue in Ukraine is not who is right or wrong, braver, more noble…the issue is this: is this war already over?

In my view, it is. Ended before it even started. After Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 and clearly indicated that he considered Ukraine to be Russian, it was time for Ukraine to pursue one of two courses of action:

  1. Appeasement of Russia.
  2. Building a military force so potent that it could immediately respond to Russian aggression in an absolutely devastating manner.

Ukraine pursued neither of these options. They lived on in a sort of dream world where a corrupt and incompetent Ruling Class passed out bribes to foreign influencers and hoped that the mere thought that Ukraine would become part of NATO would deter Russian aggression. This obviously was a very bad idea – it is clear now that building up a military force was the best option as the war has revealed Russia’s astonishing military incompetence. This really shouldn’t have surprised us…we should have figured that 70 years of Communist rule had pretty much wiped out all decent and courageous elements in Russia and the dregs of Stalin’s GULAG weren’t going to be very good (side note: they weren’t very good in WWII, either: Russia’s victory was gifted to them by Hitler’s incompetence…and even then the Russians lost a couple million more than necessary simply because the Russian leadership used blood rather than thought to get at the Germans).

But all of that is past. Can’t change it. But what we also can’t change is the battle lines. For example:

And then:

Notice that the lines have not moved in any significant way in two years. Nobody really knows how many have died in the war as both sides lie quite egregiously about it. Best estimates are about 2 million total casualties and this would indicate given normal killed to wounded ratio that about 700,000 are dead and 1.3 million wounded, some significant number of those wounded permanently crippled. All credit to the Ukrainian military for at least stopping the Russians from taking over the whole country…but there’s no further point in fighting. It is just going to get more people killed and likely not change anything…with the understanding that if this becomes a genuine war of attrition, Russia will win due to superior numbers and eventually conquer the whole country. It is highly unlikely that Putin wants to draft enough Russians to do that…so, once again, back to nothing ever changing.

Peace now based on current lines of control is the best option. And I’m talking full peace. No ceasefire: an actual treaty between Russia and Ukraine ratified by both sides which cedes Russian-controlled territory to Russia but also commits Russia to no further territorial claims against Ukraine. Such a thing won’t actually stop Russia but it puts to bed Putin’s theory that Ukraine is Russian and should be part of Russia. It would be an admission by a Russian government that it really doesn’t have title to Ukraine. And then Ukraine can start to build that first-rate army they should have built after the 2015 ceasefire. Of course, I don’t know if Ukraine has any better military material in their population than Russia does – they, too, are the dregs of Stalin’s GULAG. But they can at least try – and very likely a force even a little bit better than Russia’s will whack the Russians pillar to post if it comes to it. The idea here is for Ukraine to have a force in being – instantly ready to go – which can both defeat an oncoming Russian invasion and rapidly move the conflict onto Russian territory…so when the battle lines stabilize it is Ukraine holding the whip hand. This is just Weaker Country Strategy 101, guys. I’m not suggesting something new. It is how the IDF trounced the combined forces of the Arab world in four different wars.

I’m naturally bringing this up because of the meeting today between Trump and Zelenskyy. Yes, a lot of NeoCons are very upset about it. I’m not. Zelenskyy has been playing a role and getting the aid and its all been quite useless…and then he had the idiotic idea of campaigning for Harris in Pennsylvania. This will go down as one of the most bone-headed moves in diplomatic history…the foreigner seeking aid always strokes both sides of the political divide. The Israelis know to keep lines open to both Republicans and Democrats and never overtly engage in partisan American politics. When the life or death of your country is at stake, you swallow your pride and do what’s best for your country…not what’s best for a partisan photo-op. So, today Trump and Vance raked Zelenskyy over the coals. Fully deserved and the best way to get to a peace deal…the Ukrainians had to learn that they’re not talking their butts out of this one…more aid may be forthcoming, but peace is the objective here, not another four years of war.

And this is yet another example of us getting back into the real world. The pretend world is Slava Ukraini! with the brave and heroic Zelenskyy in his fatigues fighting the Russians in the trenches. The real world is that Zelenskyy is an entertainer promoted way above his pay grade, his fatigues are a costume and the trenches are running red with blood. Maybe the Ukrainians really do want to fight on – we don’t know as Zelenskyy cancelled the elections so there’s no way to assess Ukrainian opinion on the matter. But whatever on that – it is their country and their blood. If they want to keep fighting then God bless…do your best. But without our money and weapons. I don’t want to risk a hot war with Russia in the center of Europe over the Donbas…not when we’re $37 trillion in debt, our armed forces are very weak, our manufacturing capacity anemic and China is building a blue water navy.

Defending Law

Mark Noonan34 Comments

This is going to cause some controversy:

The quote is attributed to Napoleon and it is very much in line with his thinking. True enough even if he never uttered the exact phrase. But, what does it mean? That a leader should go off and be lawless and claim as justification that he’s saving the country? Well, we get that on the regular right now. The world has always been filled with such de-facto assertions. But Napoleon wasn’t asserting a national policy for his government – he of the Code Napoleon knew that law was crucial – but simply making an observation. Keeping in mind that he had turned out the Directory in a coup…to the immense joy of most French as they were, by 1799, sick to death of endless Revolution. I believe that this is the sense in which Trump is working.

The law, from the Constitution on down to the lowest county ordinance isn’t a suicide pact. We cannot, of course, have a civilized society if we don’t have laws. But the law can become destructive of its own ends – like, for instance, when we have people asserting that the 14th Amendment secured a right for foreigners to illegally enter our country and give birth to citizens. If the law explicitly said that, then only an insane person would abide by it – and everyone who violated it would be saving the country, and thus violating no law.

Another example – the law clearly states that Hunter Biden is pardoned for all violations of federal law from January 1st, 2014 until December 31st, 2024. And that, by law, ends that. But it isn’t at all just. It isn’t what the law is for – the power of pardon isn’t intended to get your drug-addicted son off from his serial violations of laws. And, so, while it would be a technical violation of the law to now rake over every action of Hunter’s starting on January 1st, 2025 (he will break the law again; there is no doubt about that) and then throwing the book at him, it would be just. You see how this works?

Personally, I think what Trump has done here is fire a shot across the bow of those in the country who are willing to go along with Democrat efforts to hamstring the Executive. We know what the Democrats are doing and why – and that is fine. But nobody else should be helping them at all. If, for instance, the Supreme Court decides not to intervene in these ridiculous lawfare cases against Trump’s Executive actions (or just delays action based on some absurd adherence to established judicial procedure), then Trump will wait a while…but then act. The laws we have on the books that are supposed to protect us from unjust government actions are not there to allow well-funded Leftwing activists to stymie via lawsuits actions by the duly elected Executive. You are not being oppressed if your federal meal ticket is taken away and no host of Leftwing judges can make it so.

And, in the end, if Trump does act against a court order after giving fair time for it to be worked out, then he will be saving Law. Keep in mind that if the Lawfare actually worked – if it actually prevented Trump from doing the legal things he was elected to do – then it would go into the public mind that the law is useless. Even downright evil. If working within the system and winning fair and square by the book gets you nothing, then you will seek other means of getting what you want. Trump won the election. The Republican Party won the election. The MAGA voters won. And when you win you get what you want. That is the rule. And they’d better darn well get it – or things will start to happen that nobody likes.

Think. Change.

Mark Noonan16 Comments

Elon Musk, the other day, opined that our Navy is living in the past and wasting money on weapons systems which will not be effective in the next war. He’s right.

I’m not of the school that holds the aircraft carrier to be obsolete in the face of modern anti-ship missiles but I am of the opinion that the Carrier Battle Group as the primary expression of naval power is not what it needs to be. Today it is, of course, the carrier and escorts – the carrier to be the strike force, the escorts there just to protect the carrier. I favor a more balanced approach – and I said some years ago that we need to revive the battleship concept (or at least the battle cruiser). In my view, the carrier might remain the primary strike force but we’d be foolish to rely only on piloted planes when we can fill the sky with missiles and drones. My revived battleship would fulfill that role.

The Burke class destroyer is 9,700 tons and it carries 96 Vertical Launch System cells. Imagine what a 50,000 ton ship could carry. Plus, that new battleship could be heavily armored (no modern ship carries anything like the Iowa’s 307mm thick armor – do keep in mind that the Nevada was missed by an atomic bomb by 1,600 yards and survived the blast – and she was built in 1916). It could initially carry a pair of 8 inch guns for shore bombardment and thus have space for the Rail Gun if that is ever worked out. With nuclear power it can cruise along at the carrier’s speed. With automation its crew would probably be about 300. It would incorporate all the modern stealth tech we can think of. And between missiles and drones it could put an overwhelming amount of ordnance in the air – and be a big enough ship that we might fit two or three reloads inside her.

It is important to always be thinking about things. We’re seeing on the battlefields of Ukraine that the tank is no longer Queen of the Battlefield. She can still do a lot of things, but she must be careful and stay hidden most of the time. Modern aerial tech means at least for now we won’t see anything the Operation Barbarossa with this 6,000 armored vehicles flooding across the open country. Not until tank tech takes a step forward as well (which we should also be looking into). If we sit tight with our Cold War-era military ideas, we’re going to get beaten.

But it isn’t enough to just change the material – the people must change, as well. I’ve often brought up Jacky Fisher as the exemplar of the Change Agent. Came into command of the Royal Navy and pretty much presented the United Kingdom with an entirely new Navy in about 5 years. And it was the Navy the Brits needed – fast battleships with big guns, no messing about with ships that, in Fisher’s words, “could neither run nor fight”. But even he had a little fail in this: he didn’t really change the people. Oh, he had people he favored and advanced – but they were favored because they agreed with his ideas on material changes. He neglected to look into whether or not they were changing their minds while changing their clothes.

Fisher presented his admirals with a fleet of battleships which were faster and better armed than the German ships they’d face. The whole concept was to move faster than the enemy, keeping just out of range of his smaller guns and then proceed to blow him to pieces. Unfortunately, his admirals just charged ahead into range of the Germans and got the bad end of the German concept of ships…slower, lesser-armed ships which could take immense punishment. At Jutland this resulted in the Brits losing 3 battle cruisers to the German’s 1…and the Brits, must less armored, were literally blown to pieces. So, a bit of attention to the detail: ask your people just what they plan to do with the fancy, new stuff you’re providing to them.

But change is the constant – and as Conservatives, it is our job to embrace change after we’ve done our “parable of the fence” review of the problem. That is, once we have actually identified the problem which will prevent our Conservation of something we love, have at it – even if it means revolutionary change. We hope that Trump and Team will continue to get the ball rolling. First in gutting the Deep State, then starting the process of reform. But our job is to not only sustain this, but to demand it go the right way. We can’t just latch on to anyone who puts “MAGA” in his bio…we need people who will actually do what needs to be done…and that is going to take us putting on pressure, getting involved in local politics and that sort of thing. And then, of course, defending the innovators. The whole Global Elite is going after Musk now – and I’ve always said that Musk is not my cup of tea. But I have to defend him…he’s on the side of the angels right now and if I let them get Musk’s scalp, it just moves me up the line.

It is Like the Sun After the Storm

Mark Noonan33 Comments

Things are changing so fast we can’t keep up with them all. On the matter of South Africa, my go-to has been an account on X, @ConCaracal. He’s a South African who has been grinding away trying to reform the increasingly racist South African government. Over the past few years, especially, the South African government has become increasingly strident in its hatred of whites. There are now more race-based laws on the books than under Apartheid. This shows that the primary complaint the ANC really had with Apartheid is that they didn’t have that power for themselves. It has been a fairly bleak battle for white South Africans and, indeed, South Africa recently enacted an entirely unconstitutional law to confiscate white-owned farms without compensation. This is the path Zimbabwe went down and so we all knew where it was going. And then, Trump.

Did you ever imagine you’d see the day that the American Secretary of State would call out Third World racism? We’re not supposed to mention this, guys. Remember, we’re the bad guys and we have to allow tin pot Third World tyrants do whatever they want. This was a gigantic earthquake in foreign affairs…and while it has caused little notice in the USA, it has been noticed in South Africa – as Conscious Caracal said:

The key take away here is the same for everything – we didn’t have to do what we were doing. All this time we’ve been bending the knee to Third World tyrant-thieves and we could have just called them out on it. Now, this doesn’t solve South Africa’s problem – the country is in horrid shape and the ANC does need it’s enemy (white people) to justify continued power. Its not like they can stop stealing from the Treasury, right? Keep in mind that the whole farm confiscation thing is absurd – the government of South Africa is the largest landowner in South Africa…if they want to pass out land to black farmers, they’ve got millions of acres to spare. But that doesn’t generate race-hatred. But pressure from the Trump Administration will be crucial in the fight to turn South Africa into a rule of law nation.

And on and on and on like that. We’ve been essentially destroying ourselves for decades, internally and externally, in service of some mythic belief that the US is the bad guy. That white people are the bad guy. That Christians (and, recently, Jews) are the bad guy. That the very creation of our nation is an unforgivable sin. And now it just stops…because we’ve got a President who doesn’t want to play that game. And it is glorious.

Our Government is Bad. Like Really, Really Bad

Mark Noonan62 Comments

So I guess the FBI employs 13,000 agents – which seems like a heck of a lot – and 5,000 of them were employed going after J6 people. Little back of the envelope math and that means 38% of the FBI was concentrating on that.

In 2022 (the last year complete stats are available) 73,654 Americans died of fentanyl overdose.

You’d think the FBI would have concentrated on that problem.

Even if J6 had been an actual insurrection that caused the death of cops, you’d still think that 73,000 people dying from a drug overdose would draw a little more attention than J6. You know, given that if J6 was an insurrection then not only did it fail, it didn’t even appreciably slow things down.

Why did the FBI do this?

  1. It is easy. Fighting the drug cartels takes a lot of very hard work, often in very bad locations, at great personal risk. Going after J6ers involved finding a law-abiding patriot who was somewhere in proximity to the Capitol and then dragging his/her unresisting a** through the judicial wringer.
  2. It is what the political bosses wanted. The pay and promotions were going to be handed out based on who did the most to nail the J6ers.
  3. Regardless of how things came out long term, the FBI agents were sure that the GOP would never do anything to them and would keep referring to them as “our brave and dedicated FBI”.

Guessed wrong on that last one, guys! But more importantly, what this reveals is the utter rottenness of the FBI – and, indeed, all agencies of government. Even if one wants to put the worst possible reading on J6, hardly anyone involved committed an act of actual violence. Most of the people brought to court had just been in the area or had peacefully entered the Capitol for a few minutes (this also tells us that the actually violent were probably agents – even if free-lance – of the FBI). No decent, moral human being would do more than pass out fines to these people…maybe in one or two more egregious cases give them six months in jail. What the FBI did to the J6ers was simply horrific – they did this to Americans. To us. It was nightmare stuff out of some dystopian novel where the Nazis won WWII.

The other day I watched a documentary called American Nightmare. It is one of those true crime docuseries and when I turned it on, I had never even heard of the case – though as it went on, it was clear that it caused at least a bit of a media sensation when it was happening (I haven’t watched much TV news over the past many years – though, full disclosure, since Trump was elected I have watched more than usual to get my gloating in). The basics of the story is that a lunatic broke into a home in the middle of the night, tied up the guy after drugging him and then kidnapped the girl. When the guy woke up from the drugs – and sat in fear doing nothing for a while because the kidnapper had threatened him if he went to the police – he called the cops who then immediately suspected him of murdering his girlfriend. It got worse when the girl was let go (after being held for two days and raped twice); the cops then decided this was all some scam worked up by the girl based on a recent movie plot. The cops were getting ready to charge the couple with felonies over making a “false” police report when, lo and behold, a totally unrelated cop – just doing her job, no special intelligence or ability needed – found the clues that indicated the story was real…and then they got the guy.

Who had also done this sort of thing before. But nobody believed the accusers. Now, to be fair, the MO of the perp was absolutely bizarre. If someone came up to me and told me that story, I’d be doubting it heavily. But the cop’s job is to check things out. You know: investigate. Had the cops done some investigating they would have found sufficient in the earlier cases to nab the guy before the poor girl featured in the story had been kidnapped and raped. But, that’s hard, you see? Much easier to just aggressively interrogate the victim(s) and hope you can catch them in a lie that you can prosecute.

The bad guy was caught almost by accident. A good cop just doing her job put two and two together. But there were probably scores of cops involved over a period of years when the creep was operating who never did put two and two together. And I’m not saying they just missed something – they didn’t look. And in questioning the victims, the cops routinely lied to them. About what they were after as a police force. When the victims were given their police files after it was all over, it was clear that the cops never did anything but first try to nail the guy for murder, then tried to nail the girl for false report when she turned up alive. After I finished watching, I turned to the Mrs and said, “are criminals only caught because they’re dumber than cops?”

Guys, I think it is really bad: that we’re living entirely on luck right now. Or had been until 1/20, at least. I wouldn’t trust an employee of any government agency with a burned out match right now. When not overtly corrupt, they’re lazy and stupid. Maybe one in a hundred is actually trying to do a useful job in the day to day. Now we better understand why US Naval warships are rusted, why planes on routine flight paths crash, why a train wreck with chemical spills is just left to sort itself out, why fire hydrants in LA don’t have water…the people running the show haven’t a clue what to do. Right now the Left is filled with whines about the uncertain economic futures of the people on the DOGE chopping block and I’m like, “what would you say you do around here?”

In response to us playing The Bobs here, multiple FBI agents have filed suit against President Trump…claiming it is a violation of their rights if he gets a list of FBI agents who worked on J6. The Democrats will find some federal judge to issue an injunction. I hope Trump just ignores it – of course the President – who is the chief law enforcement officer of the USA – gets to know what the cops were working on. It is all so very stupid – but, hey, its what they’re going with.

I had estimated some years back that about 1 in 3 federal dollars was wasted – just uselessly spent when not outright stolen. I massively underestimated it. And now we get to find out just what its all been wasted on…and how many people have had their rights violated by the thieves.

I really hope the security people for Trump, Vance, Rubio..heck, all of them…is tip top. The Blob will not go down easy.

We Have One President

Mark Noonan13 Comments

As JD Vance posted on X today:

Career bureaucrats don’t get to violate lawful orders from the President of the United States. They answer to the president, and he answers to the people.

Really not that complicated.

And as I said some long while ago: we elect one person to be President. Per the Constitution:

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

Not vested in a committee. Not vested in government employees. Not vested in some bizarre coalition of media types, bureaucrats, former Democrat Presidents and RINOs: a President has all executive power. If there’s something the federal government is allowed to actually do, it is the President who does it. This is actually a bit different from every other nation on Earth – because we’re a bunch of American weirdos as far as form of government goes. Personally, I like it – but it is a strange hybrid of Monarchy, Republic and Democracy. If run properly, it works like a charm. All Trump is doing is moving us back to a Constitutional form of government.

And that has the overall establishment (more and more are calling it The Blob – and that’s a good description) in a panic. As I’ve also been saying: there’s trillions of dollars of annual spending at stake here. Huge numbers of people – foreign and American, private and public sectors – simply live off The Blob. They have no other life skill than extracting taxpayer money from it. They don’t do anything. They don’t know how to do anything. Their whole career path (and lots of them have advanced degrees!) is get in and then just rising up the path ever higher in the government/corporate/NGO system. Never having once been held accountable but each year getting more income and benefits. Trump is a threat to that – and it does involved millions of people. Over on Bluesky the Left is apoplectic – and there are subtle calls for violence. If I dug deeper I’d probably find open calls – but looking at Leftist chatter is something you can only do in short bursts.

Of course, I do expect The Blob to react – and I honestly hope that Trump’s security team is absolutely first rate. Vance’s too. Heck, even Rubio’s. Remember, many Leftists are certifiable and just as in the two attempts in 2024, there are plenty of people who will believe that shutting down USAID is the End of Our Democracy and will act accordingly.

UPDATE: Just want to point out something as we really start to get some whines from The Blob about how hard this all is. Peter the Great in his great, reforming drive in Russia relied mostly on a few close aides and some foreign employees because he simply didn’t – or couldn’t – trust a lot of run-of-the-mill Russians to carry out the reforms (they were by and large not liked by the Russian people who preferred to stick with their old ways). This did make sure a lot of Peter’s orders were carried out with dispatch but he got the “cat’s away/mice will play” problem. In other words: if Peter wasn’t directly watching, these people would steal everything that wasn’t nailed down. Eventually it was found out and Peter, being what he was, had the miscreants knouted – this was whipping with a pretty horrific rawhide device.

On the day of the punishment he had it all done in the public square with him and other prominent people in attendance along with a great mass of Russian people. There was no specific number of lashes ordered – they were to be beaten until Peter said to stop. They went at it. Probably quite the horrific spectacle but it was getting Peter’s point across. Why bring this up?

Because when the thieves were a few strokes away from death, Peter ordered a halt. The men with the whips then shouted up to Peter:

“Please, little father, let us beat them a little more: they stole the bread out of our mouths!”

Peter, though, ordered it stopped. Here’s the thing – everyone who works for a non-profit who is making more than the average American income is stealing money out of the mouths of the poor. That they are doing it legally just makes it worse. A non-profit is a charity. Its why we don’t tax it. A charity isn’t a place to have a career – its a place to dispense aid to the poor.

The people losing their place at the troughs should count themselves lucky we’re not whipping them for what they’ve done.