Open Thread

Open Thread

Mark Noonan14 Comments

Animal Farm was Orwell’s stinging parody of Stalin’s rule in Russia. The lies. The corruption. The secret police. The hypocrisy. Naturally, it is now being remade in a big budget film where the villain is – wait for it! – the Capitalist!

Yes, that’s it! The nice, wonderful Commies are doing a great job and it is all ruined by a Capitalist who subverts it.

It is a…well…rather Orwellian perversion of the story. And oh, so very 1984 in that it is a falsification of history. The kids ain’t reading, guys. And they won’t want to watch the old 1954 animated version (too stale in looks!) so going into the future if someone wants to find out about Orwell they’re going to find out he was a Communist who exposed how Capitalists ruin everything.

This is why the Right simply had to get into pop culture. We have to start writing books (doing my best!), songs, movies, TV shows…painting, sculpture. And we can’t just copy what was done before the Left ruined everything. It does have to be fresh and new – something that will appeal to people who are only barely literate in the traditional sense (they might be able to read words, but if you try to lay on them something as complex as, say, 1984, they won’t be able to fully understand it). This is where people like Musk have to step forth…we need money. Lots of it. We need to reward those who are right now in the infancy of an alternative pop culture.

Trump is going to address the nation – as of now, I don’t know for certain about what, but we’ve got quite a fleet off South America and Trump showing he’s rather upset with the corrupt, communist narco-terrorists down there. The Right is on the march down south – Chile being the latest nation to toss the Left out. But in Venezuela and Columbia as well as other places, the Left is too deeply entrenched (and is too willing to kill) to remove from power by normal means. I think Trump wants to give things a little shove. But, we’ll see! You never can tell what Trump has up his sleeve.

Trump caught a lot of flack over his post about Rob Reiner’s death. OTOH, Trump would catch a lot of flack if he posted, “I like apple pie”. TDS is widespread. But what was irritating was the number of people on the Right – not TDS-infected Never Trumpers – who took the opportunity to tut tut about it. As if they had just been waiting for their chance to show how morally superior they are. Like that is actually a morally correct thing to do…or that it is something that helps.

Look, I get that many have fond memories of Reiner as “Meathead” on All in the Family (a very conventionally Liberal , anti-American show in hindsight) as well as his movies Spinal Tap (mediocre with only one really funny scene) and The Princess Bride (cute enough, but it doesn’t hold up well – saw it for the first time in years a couple years back and it is definitely at the bottom of the re-watch list…its cuteness doesn’t sustain itself). Additionally, the manner in which he died was horrific – nobody should have to go like that. But none of this changes the fact that Reiner, for the last ten years of his life, voluntarily became a vicious liar for political purposes.

It wasn’t a mistake. He didn’t misinterpret the data. He set out to lie because, in his mind, Trump did the unforgivable thing of defeating Hillary. Reminder: all of these Hollywood types were good friends of Trump. Sought him out. Honored him. Couldn’t wait to be around him. Until Trump decided to challenge Hillary…whom the Hollywood types wanted as President because that is what the Script said. She had stood by Bill (as so many Hollywood types have stood by cheating spouses) and the payoff for that was supposed to be the White House (akin to a movie or book deal). Trump ruined all that. They had a whole host of TV shows and movies based upon the idea of a female President. Trump took it all away – and, so, when Hillary had her nervous breakdown about it, Hollywood took its cue and went to work. Knowingly. Voluntarily. Deciding that poisoning American politics was worth it if it could harm Trump.

Those lies are not funny. They have got people killed. They already sparked two attempts on Trump’s life (that we know of). They got Trump’s friends and allies ruined in Lawfare of the most foul, Stalinist sort. They have the USA today simmering on the edge with violence common and Civil War a possibility. Was Reiner the only person to do this? No. Was he even the most important? Again, no. But he was a willing participant in it and he never backed away. It was his own son who killed him – his now 32 year old son, who has a long history of drug addiction. Meaning that over the last ten years, when his son was 22 to 32 to years old and battling demons, Rob was taking the time out of his day to lie about Trump. This is just freaking bizarre – but it it was Rob chose to be.

So, no, we are not morally obligated to forget all that. In fact, it is far more morally important that we view things clearly than try to soften things up with pablum. Lives are at stake in our ability to fearlessly state the truth. And the truth is that whatever Reiner was in the past, for the last part of his life he decided to do very bad things. Trump called that out. And it should be called out. Yes, the evil that men do is interred with their bones – in that Reiner’s fate is really up to God now. But we have an obligation to not set up a system where a vicious liar is honored. Only a repentant liar may be honored.

The Left is trying to sweep the murders at Brown under the rug. Have to: if Jews and the few Conservatives at Brown were targeted, then all of higher education is going to feel the heat. The Left is hoping they can string things out and hope the news cycle changes (I think the fracas over the Reiner post was partially because of that – they wanted us to talk about anything else but Brown – especially after the pogrom in Australia). I’m hoping that Trump’s people are looking at it very closely…I want to find out just how deep the colleges are with antifa and Hamas.

Just Thinking a Bit

Mark Noonan20 Comments

Had a Man Cold this past week – toughed it out to Thursday end of shift by means of using up my “work from home” days but for Friday I had to do the worst possible thing you can do: take a sick day while sick! Total waste of a day! But, I needed it: slept most of the day. Didn’t go to Mass today because I’m still feeling it and I don’t want to get people sick just in time for Christmas (feel a bit guilty about that even though it isn’t a sin to miss a Mass because ill) – but what this really got me thinking is that I’m 61 and I felt the first symptoms last Monday while by tomorrow – a week in – it’ll be almost all done. Always been like that for me: I don’t get ill much and I get over it fast. Same thing with injury. I never bruise. I take falls that should break bones but they don’t. I heal fast – like when I have a root canal in the morning the pain is gone by afternoon and I’m eating normally that evening. The dentist is flabbergasted about how strong and deep the roots of my teeth are. I go and get a physical and everything is fantastic. I might be from what they call “the deep end of the gene pool”…that is, one of those people who’s genetics have determined a strong constitution. Generally people in my family (both sides) make it into their 80’s but I did have a grand-aunt who made it to 100. We’ll see how long this ride lasts!

As you might have guessed, I’ve been pondering my own mortality – not in a morose way! We all owe God a death, right? True, we all want a highly extended line of credit, but it stalks us all. It is more in thinking of how much time has passed, what I’ve seen – and when considering, say, my grand-niece born earlier this year, what she might see? I mean, if she lives the normal female lifespan for 2025 of 81 years, she’s going to 2106! And she’ll have met a man who as born in 1964. And will be one handshake away from a man (my grandfather) born in 1896.

Let’s roll that 81 years back – and its 1944. Call it 1945. Think of all that has changed since then. There was still a British King-Emperor of India. Israel was still in the future. To us oldsters, that world seems familiar but not for the young. Black and white photography? You had to dial a phone. And the number was Lakewood 2697. Long distance seemed a bit miraculous. The kids are now asking, “what the heck is long distance?”. Hardly anyone had flown in a plane as yet; if you could afford to travel you still got aboard a train…or a ship if crossing the sea. Television existed but was still years away from common; you listened to radio shows. And if you needed to reach someone fast you sent a telegram. This is an alien country to anyone, say, under 40. You know: born in 1985 or later. As for the rising generation (born after 2000, now, guys!), even a cell phone without video capability would seem stone age.

Things change very rapidly. In the Mirrors series I deliberately created a world where change wasn’t happening – the final explanation (and end) of that status is explained in Book X (honest, I’ll have it out soon – but its the last of the series and I love it so much I’m loath to finish it…I keep refining the refinements!). Change is good. Change is natural. But, also, change is deadly. Gotta be careful with it. In general, the Revolutionary is someone to be afraid of – most of the time, he really doesn’t understand anything and is entirely destructive. Only very rarely does a Revolutionary create something better than what was destroyed (our Founders, of course, being one of the rare examples of good Revolutionaries). In this bit more of a century since the end of World War One, we changed very much too rapidly. We let the Revolutionaries run wild. Sure, this got us the Moon and some very amazing medical advances…but it also got us nuclear weapons and assisted suicide. There’s some plusses and minuses here.

In the main, most people do just want to live their lives. To be sure, “living their lives” for some subsets of humanity is, well, bad. Afghan tribesmen living their lives see a bit of rapine as a fine way to make a few extra bucks. But, for the common run of humanity, just living as they see fit is the sum total of life’s goal. Tolkien noted this in his works when he had Aragorn point out that his job – his purpose in life – is to protect the simple people so they could remain simple. That is, not stupid: but untroubled. It is the duty of those who know to protect those who do not. Just as a parent sets guardrails for children so, too, must the true leader set guardrails for the people as a whole. Our Founders set them! But, just perhaps, not firmly enough? Trusted too much? Living as they did as free and equal people and being honest and upright patriots, they possibly assumed that the perverse could never gain sufficient purchase in the American mind to ruin their great work…we have found, now, that some things should have been much more firmly written. Ah, well: live and learn, right?

After Revolution, Reaction. And I think that is where we’re heading. These days, the word “reaction” has a bad connotation. Of course it does: we’re under the rule of Revolutionaries! But the last great Reaction was after the maelstrom of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Everyone had had quite enough of Revolution! That is why the later attempts to revive Revolution – most notably, 1848 – failed miserably. There were gripes and, indeed, even things to fight over. But, in the end, nobody wanted to create another period like 1791 to 1815. People opted for incremental change. And, year by year, they largely got it – the 19th century was a century of political, economic and social improvement. It was only after the turn of the 20th century…when the Bad Old Days were getting on to a century before and out of living memory…that people started listening again to the siren song of revolt and Revolution.

Though, to be sure, I don’t think anywhere there was a majority in favor of overturning the entire system. Lenin annulled the Russian election of 1917 – his Bolsheviks only winning 23% of the vote and, by far, a center-left coalition of democrats having won. Hitler never got more than 37% of the vote in a truly free and fair election. Mao, Mussolini and Castro never even considered a remotely free election. As angry as a people might be with the system, a desirous as they may be of deep changes, hardly anyone wants a complete overturn. Sure, the peasants of Russia had abandoned the Czar, hated the nobles and wanted the land for themselves…but they didn’t want to replace all that with a Commissar telling them all their land belonged to the State. That they might have been confused or lacked understanding is neither here nor there – they didn’t get what they wanted. In fact, hardly anyone ever does from the Revolutionaries because, for the most part, Revolutionaries hate the people…and want them punished for not measuring up to what the Revolutionaries believe is right conduct. And I do believe this latest run of the Revolutionaries is coming to a close – their desperate efforts to import a new population to use in overturning things is failing. And this was the last trick they had up their sleeve.

All around the world – and not just in the West – we see people rejecting those who uphold the current status quo. Nobody wants to continue as we have. Everyone looks around and wonders just why there are suddenly tens of millions of migrants and we have to let them in…and give them full benefits, legal protections and the right to vote. And then we also look around and notice that it isn’t our people who need to be replaced. That is, the Christians – the real believers, and the people who are of those who made our nation and civilization – are still having sufficient kids to maintain their population. It is those who have abandoned God who need replacements…not us. But it is those who abandoned God who are importing the replacements…and why replace us with people who aren’t like us? Who in many cases actively hate us? We figure we can do without the replacements as much as we can do without those who are actually being replaced.

This is why Populist-Right parties are going from strength to strength all over the world – even in places like Japan. The system the Revolutionaries made has failed in its promise and we’re all figuring that our old ways are just fine. You know: that tired, old bit about being sober, hard working, loyal, honest. Sure, it is boring as all get out and you don’t get the sort of art our Ruling Class prefers, but it works. And it’ll work forever. It will never fail – and it will always improve things. And so we no longer care what they say about it. It doesn’t sting. Perhaps if they had actually got us wealthier and, say, pushed us to the stars we’d still let them stay in charge…but we’re a bit pinched on the finances and they can’t even build a bridge in less than ten years. So, thanks; but go away.

And if they don’t go away voluntarily? That is, if they don’t surrender the power they lost fair and square in elections we win? Well, that would be…bad. Like very, very bad. Mostly for them, of course. But also for us. You see, we’re kind and tolerant and do want to live and let live. But if pressed to it…well, let’s just say that the Left won’t like what happens.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan27 Comments

Looks like we found a large deposit of “rare Earth” minerals in Utah – showing that Bismarck’s phrase about there being a special providence for fools, drunkards and the United States of America remains true: just what we needed. China was definitely leveraging their control over the global supply against us. And this discovery is in a Red State, so no fuss about extraction (there are actually sizeable rare Earths in California but good luck trying to get them out of the ground).

The Doomsters – who I more and more consider merely bought by the DNC – continue to Doom but from my perspective, things are rapidly brightening. We’re looking at sold economic growth in 2026 combined with increased personal income – just the recipe for people getting in a good mood. Tariffs work. They’ve always worked. They always will work. They are the natural economic order for any trading nation. The two insanities are to allow no trade at all or no restrictions on trade. As in all human action, a balance must be struck. Trump is doing that.

Between deportations and self-deportations, about 2.5 million illegals have left the country since January. And do keep in mind that we’re still ramping up enforcement – the OBBB paid for hiring and new equipment, most of which won’t come on line until 2026. We’re just getting started. Any illegal with a lick of sense is going to self-deport ASAP. Because next year there will be plenty of people to catch them…and if you’re forcibly deported, you can’t come back while self-deportation means you still have a shot at it.

A Democrat in Congress called the shooting of two National Guardsman – one dead – an “unfortunate accident”. Internalize the fact that they hate you and want you dead. They might have smiles on their faces. Might talk in the most reasonable tones imaginable. But what every Leftist wants is your corpse at the base of a wall.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan19 Comments

Never heard of Franklin the turtle until Hegseth posted a meme using the character – apparently a well-beloved children’s book character and the Canadian author is very, very upset that Franklin was used for some based memes. So, be sure to check them out so you can know what is inappropriate:

And, apparently, Franklin has been hanging out with Amazona of late:

So, whatever you do, don’t make any inappropriate Franklin memes. And don’t laugh at them because the Liberals say That’s Not Funny.

So, the Somali community of Minnesota is neck deep in fraud – and, guys, I am confident it is the tip of the iceberg. In fact, my bet is that immigration (legal and otherwise) over the past 20 years is heavily driven by criminal Cartels sending people here, getting them on benefits and then raking off a substantial amount. This is why Blue States are trying to refuse Trump demands to hand over the list of people on welfare…because that would expose the fraud. It can’t be emphasized enough how much theft is driving the opposition to MAGA. Sure, you get your true believers on the Left, but most people involved – especially in leadership – are bought, corrupted and corrupting. Trump is a threat to their gravy train.

I doubt very much we’ll actually go to war in South America. This is all a pressure campaign – ultimately not on any government down there, but on the Cartels who actually run things. El Salvador and Argentina are showing there are patriots in Latin America who can change things by ruthless action. But we can also see how hard it is for one to get in, and how much local and global opposition arises. And outside those few bright spots, it is a morass of cowards and criminals running things simply to keep themselves on the gravy train.

Securing our border and lighting up the mules at sea is rapidly generating an acute crisis. To maintain their position, the Cartels have to bribe the politicians and pay for thugs to go after those who can’t be bribed. What Trump is doing – in my view – with the military build up is putting pressure on people who are starting to feel less and less pressure from the cash-strapped Cartels. They can ease that pressure by either turning over power to patriots, or turning on the Cartels, themselves. It is a high stakes gambit, and we’ll see if Trump can carry it off.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan49 Comments

Keep in mind that a year ago the American people very solidly rejected the Left – but the Narrative being pushed now is that everyone regrets that and yearns for Kamala.

That simply isn’t true. Also keep in mind that at no time in 2024 did Harris’ own pollster show her with a lead – they knew they were cooked from the get-go. To be sure, they might not have told Harris (and her actions on election night indicate they didn’t) but they knew they never had a chance. And if you watch carefully the MSM coverage of Election Night 2024, after a brief burst of optimism early on, by 8 PM Eastern, they all knew it was over. I’ll never forget watching at about 6:30 PM here in the Pacific time zone irritated that they hadn’t called Georgia (they would call it just about half an hour later) when it had been clear since 5:00 that Trump had won it…and my stepson walks past, asking idly what I was watching: “the election.”

“Election? That was over two hours ago.”

I don’t know what particular cyber-nerd-fu he had used, but he told me that the numbers just weren’t there for her and was shocked that everyone hadn’t called it for Trump. So, too, with everyone else in the know. The latest they should have called it for Trump was 11 PM Eastern when California closed. But, they dragged it out until 1 or 2 PM Eastern. Why? Because the Democrats hadn’t given the MSM permission to call it. The Narrative was still be held up, likely to make sure they got all the votes they could downballot. That is how totally owned the MSM is – they could show the raw numbers. They could show that the outstanding votes weren’t there for Harris to catch up…but they couldn’t call it.

So, whatever you see in the MSM is whatever Narrative the Democrats have ordered the MSM to present. It is worse than useless to watch it – because even hate-watching it gives ratings and thus money to them.

Trump rope a doped them again and is now saying he’ll approve releasing the Epstein files. He knows he’s not in them. We know he’s not in them. Those who are saying he’s in them, know he’s not in them. We know by the simple fact that if he was in them, that would have come out years ago. We also note, with great care, that we’re not supposed to question any of the victims…to merely accept their assertions as Gospel. That tells you right there that the victims standing forth are in on a new con – a con designed to make people think that Trump is involved. After all, an NDA does not cover criminal acts…you can talk them up with out violating an NDA. There is nothing, really, to stop any of them from talking…unless they’re being paid not to talk. And I don’t mean by some rich idiot fifteen years ago, I mean today. Something is very dirty in all of this – and Trump has called their bluff.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan10 Comments

Apparently at UC San Diego something like 130 students were asked this math question: 7+2 = 6+___. And twenty five percent of them couldn’t answer it.

That is third grade math, tops. Another education thing I saw recently was a professor who’s class was upset because he was using letters for mathematical equations and the kids were furious that he expected them to know there are twenty six letters in the alphabet.

Turns out when Sir Edward Grey said the lights were going out in Europe in 1914 he was dead right – the only real reason I can think we’re here is so many of the very best people in the West were killed in WWI that we were left with nothing but the dregs…who have, step by step, brought the West down to their level. It is worse in Europe – where the dying was must greater – than in the USA, but everywhere in the West the 20th century saw the most intelligent, physically fit and bravest sacrificed…and as time went on, sacrificed by ever stupider people.

Always good to keep in mind that to be educated 125 years ago meant you knew Latin and Greek. That you had a firm grounding in math, history, law, theology, philosophy and geography, no matter what sort of degree you were aiming at. And also good to keep in mind that money didn’t keep you out of college – sure, the rich kids got in because daddy paid, but anyone who had the intellectual chops for college could get in. Sure, it was difficult to pass the exams…sure you probably had to work to earn money in addition to your scholarship…sure, you lived poor and struggled to keep going. But if you had the grit plus brains, you got the degree…and entered into a world of rare and honored achievement. To be an educated man or woman in 1900 placed you in an elite. A class of people who were not only intelligent, but knowledgeable, hard working and disciplined. Since WWI, all of that has been dispensed and getting a degree is really no more than sitting there and waiting to get it. And now the kids can’t add or read.

Democrats are in massive psy-op mode, again. The bottom line is that they want us talking about anything but their support for illegals, criminals and boys in girls sports (positions their insane base will not let them retreat from). This is why they are now bringing up Epstein as if it had anything to do with Trump. They don’t care that every scrap of evidence indicates that Trump never used Epstein’s services and that the two men hated each other – they’ll just lie and say up is down not really with the intent to convince, but just to get us talking about it. Meanwhile, the GOP is on track to flip voter registration in North Carolina red by 2026…and Pennsylvania by 2028. And even our loss in New Jersey this month is masking a distinct trend in favor of the GOP in that State. Oh, and Nevada is a Red State – so Red that both our Democrat Senators voted to end the shutdown.

The real key is to understand that whatever it is the Democrats and MSM (BIRM) are talking about is mere distraction. Don’t get distracted.

Marjorie Green has decided to join a long list of people who decided to go to war against Trump…and she’s destroying herself in the process. Lets face it, we all had questions about her from the start but as long as she was MAGA, ok. But now that she’s going on the View to attack Trump, that pretty much dispenses with her. Whatever she started out to do, she’s chosen the path of TDS grifter. So be it – and so long.

Michelle Obama is a bitter and exceptionally ignorant woman – she’s been gifted wealth unimaginable (and entirely unearned by her) from a nation she despises…and now she’s out on some book tour telling us how horrible we all are. She is the modern Ruling Class writ large…no ability, no accomplishment, massive sense of entitlement combined with disgusting bigotry. The bad news is she and her husband are only in their 60’s and so the USA has decades left of hearing these two creeps whine about America.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan20 Comments

Happy Veteran’s Day!

What is the MSM up to? Well, lying. As a really good for-instance, 60 Minutes did a bit on Margaret Atwood where it is claimed that her weird kink book, The Handmaid’s Tale, has been banned. The book which has been turned into movies and TV shows and is ubiquitous on line and in bookstores has been “banned”.

As an author I don’t like to critique the works of others – especially since I can’t claim the mantle of the Great Author, myself. But I’ve always found the basic premise of Atwood’s story simply ridiculous. In fiction you’re allowed your flights of fancy – after all, you can use magic in Lontaria, right? But I still try to keep the story grounded in how human beings work. And one thing is certain: if only a small percentage of women could get pregnant (as it is in Atwood’s book), those women would rule the world and be able to command the loyalty of the richest and most powerful men. They wouldn’t be slaves while the rich and powerful are married to sterile women. But, anyways, absurd or not, it hasn’t been banned. But the MSM just goes on and lies that it is – not for you and me, but for the upper class white women who still consume MSM product (and who seem to enjoy Atwood’s weird kink…they also liked Fifty Shades of Grey, after all).

It really can’t be emphasized enough how important these lies are to the Ruling Class, now being heavily attacked by Trump and MAGA. Without lies, they’ve got nothing. They’d have to repent of their sins and join us. So it is very important for us to always know what the MSM is up to – what it is for: to keep the Dem base in line and to depress us.

Democrats caved on the shut down – and it has been noted that they didn’t cave in the face of SNAP benefits being delayed, but once some upper class areas were about to lose air service. That’s when they threw in the towel. I mean, can you imagine? What with climate summit and ski seasons upcoming, it was a crisis.

Main thing is there is nothing to show for it – Trump got almost all of his priorities funded for two years with the One Big Beautiful Bill (and, once again, showed himself vastly smarter than anyone else in DC) so the Democrats had no leverage. They tried to get GOPers to panic and fold but they only snagged Rand Paul on that effort. They never got a bi-partisan majority to reject the CR and that was, in the end, the whole story.

The absolutely insane Left base of the Democrat party is furious about this – they were told the Democrats were fighting. Nobody advised them it was all kabuki failure-theater. So now there are rumblings of primary challenges next year to Democrats who voted with the GOP on end the shutdown. Buy popcorn on that.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan21 Comments

I love being a trendsetter! You might recall that back in 2018 I suggested that we need to return to the Battleship concept for the Navy. To nutshell what I said, we should be building a massive class of warships which are heavily armored, fast and packing a gigantic punch. This isn’t to replace the carrier, but to give us a balanced fleet. Right now, we’re pretty much nothing but carriers and destroyers on the surface and while this has a lot of important advantages, nothing dominates better than massive power…especially close in to enemy territory.

I envisioned back then a ship of probably 100,000 tons, about a thousand feet long, low profile, taking full advantage of the new alloys being developed for armor protection and packed with missiles and carrying with it significant guns (to eventually be replaced by railguns if we ever work them out). It would be heavily automated and so probably have a crew of no more than a couple hundred and nuclear powered. Well, turns out I’m not the only person thinking along these lines – so is Trump.

It seems that Trump is dissatisfied with our fleet. Is it something he knows or is it instinctive? I don’t know – but while I discount those who say the era of the Carrier is over I do believe it is time for one of those evolutions of sea power, the last of which ushered in the Carrier as the dominate Naval asset. Do keep in mind that while I call this a Battleship, it isn’t to perform the role intended for those old castles of steel – that is, lines of them coming into conflict, guns blazing until one side is destroyed. The new Battleship is a strategic asset – it is designed to survive whatever you can throw at them and still arrive off your coast…carrying in her train, as needed, an invading army you cannot stop. Carriers can defeat enemy air power. Submarines can destroy your trade. But only a battle fleet can compel your surrender. Five such ships off Shanghai ends whatever point China would be trying to make via war with us.

The government is still shut down. I guess. Nobody cares.

Mamdani says his aunt faced anti-Muslim backlash in NYC after 9/11. Given that Mamdani is a Commie we can assume this is a lie…but even if it isn’t, so what? Who the heck cares if your aunt got some nasty looks after 3,000 Americans were murdered? Mamdani didn’t mention them. Because he doesn’t care about them. To him, the true victims of 9/11 were Muslims…just as he holds the true victims of 10/7 were the Gazans. Its some real sick, twisted stuff in that man…and all those like him (which includes, it should be noted, quite a few upper class liberal white women).

Trump’s plan to kill drug mules on the high seas seems to be accelerating. The latest tactic the Cartel apologists are using is “these poor people are coerced into shipping drugs”…which is probably true to a certain extent. To bad, so sad. Not our problem. As with all bad things, they only happen via cooperation. Sure, you and your family might suffer if you stand up to the Cartels…but by not standing up to them, you’re just moving the suffering around…from you and your family to some poor slob and his family in the USA. And, of course, the mules – under threat or not – are being well paid to make the runs. And that is the real key here.

As I’ve noted before, we can’t defeat the Drug Lords – simply because once you get one, you just get the next…who is probably going to be better at it as he’ll learn from the mistakes of his predecessors (and, indeed, often a major Drug Lord only goes down after someone below betrays him to us so that we’ll remove him, allowing the new guy to take over). The whole thing about this illicit trade is that it is massive amounts of stuff to be moved. Very different from days when we might be talking a kilogram or two…they are shipping tons of the stuff. And the return trip is literal tons of money. This takes huge infrastructure…and apparently we’ve known all along about these shipments (routes, timing, ports, all of it). By hitting the mules we’re doing the worst possible thing to the Cartels – denying them their ability to earn money. The money which, among other things, buys the bully-boys necessary to keep everyone in line (you know: if you threaten to kill a man’s family if he doesn’t cooperate this rings rather hollow unless you have some menacing guys around to back up the threat – menacing guys don’t work for free). We’re strangling the Cartels…and that is why everyone involved is blowing a gasket over it (huge numbers of supposedly honest people are hip deep in the Cartel trade). As per usual, Trump is simply doing what could have been done all along…which shows that all of our problems are actually policy choices.

No King of Open Threads

Mark Noonan16 Comments

The Democrats are out there yapping away about No Kings today – they do this because they’re still dead certain the American people are on their side. Do keep in mind this is a sincere belief…and there’s polling to back it up! No, seriously! Of course, such polling shows Trump minus fourteen on immigration…so, in other words, its a poll of the faculty at Columbia University. But that doesn’t worry our Dems! They have their poll showing that Resistance is working and so if they just keep calling Trump Hitler and keep fighting for illegals, 2026 will be a landslide win for them.

But I think there is a more serious issue for us on our side to discuss: what are we to do with these morons? That is, how can our Republic survive if complete nitwits who believe obvious lies are allowed a say? I’m honestly not sure it can. At least, not as we knew it forty or so years ago. They are just too completely stupid to be fully reformed…someone who’s, say, forty years old and seriously believes that allowing millions of Third World migrants in is not someone who is capable of thought. Because only a moment’s thought would get to the point of “oh, yeah; that’s not good. Even if immigration is good. Even if high numbers of immigration is good – just waving millions through is a really bad idea”. Eventually, I believe, we’re going to have to restrict the franchise and return at least some government power to a body only indirectly elected by the people (you know, the Senate as it is supposed to be).

It will be the only way we can preserve the rule of law, after all. The thing about having a rule of law is that you need those in charge of making and enforcing law to know what a law is, and the various circumstances which those charged with enforcing law are faced with. It isn’t a game. Sure, there is a need for a theory of law – for those who are philosophers of law. Who try to draw out of law its underlying meaning and help us determine what is likely a good or bad law. But we also need very practical people who will ensure that the laws are both enforced but also not a suicide pact. You have people right now who are saying zapping drug boats on the high seas is illegal…and it is lawyers saying it. Which means – unless they’re just flat out lying – none of them have the least clue about how law works.

Guys, we read them their rights when we’ve picked them up on suspicion of bank robbery…we kill them when they’re heading towards our shores with a load of poison. Both are proper operations of law and in both cases all required respect for human rights have been observed. You don’t get to try to import poison – or slaves – into America and then expect us to jump through hoops before we can do anything to you. No: if we catch you in international waters, we treat you like a pirate (but much more efficiently than taking the time to hang you from a yardarm). A man arrested for bank robbery can waive his fifth amendment rights and confess freely to his crimes…a man driving a drug-laden boat in international waters has by the action waived all of his rights. That is, had he stayed in his own nation’s territorial waters or not taken contraband into international waters then we’d have to largely be hands off…but the combination of contraband + international waters = hellfire missile. Per the rule of law.

And here’s our real problem – there are millions of Americans who think we actually are doing something wrong. And not just in killing drug dealers at sea…in the mere process of detaining a person illegally in the USA, they believe our laws say we can’t do that. That we must only arrest such with a specific warrant listing a definite crime and then give the illegal a full trial – at our expense – before we can deport. Only a drooling idiot would believe that. And would you let a drooling idiot vote? Well, tens of millions of them did so last November.

They also believe there is a “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment, that “shall not be infringed” means you can infringe all the live long day, that abortion is a Constitutional right…on and on and on like that. Complete nonsense. Twaddle…but it is said not just by some low level moron but by people who hold elective and appointive office. People who can have us arrested. And there is the real problem we have – if these dimwits can vote then they may obtain power again and then we’ll find ourselves faced with morons who hate us having the power to jail. Not something I want to do. And it is not something I think our country can survive long term.

Here’s the kicker: restricting the franchise is also the only way we can ensure ourselves against a King. As others have pointed out, Trump is our Gracchi. If this doesn’t work, then we’ll find a Sulla. But make no mistake about it, we’re not actually going to allow ourselves to be lined against a wall by the functional equivalent of the cast of Idiocracy. In the end, the only way to avoid Caesar is to make sure morons can’t guarantee his arrival.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan18 Comments

I guess we’re all supposed to be upset that some youngsters were crude in a group chat. I guess a lot of people haven’t met young people lately – they are freely profane and deliberately use provocative words because their elders told them they can’t. I know this will cause shock among geezers and calls for the smelling salts, but there it is…young people are, well, young. I mean, not you and me: we were never young and if we were then we were completely what our parents told us to be no questions asked and we never used The Bad Words.

Additionally, its the people who cheered when Kirk was shot who are telling us to mind our manners. So, yeah, I don’t care what some kids said in a group chat. I care what people do in the real world…and I especially care about the “ready, aim, fire” folks on the Left. At least, a heck of a lot more than some 20 year old using the N word in a group chat.

Reminder: the government is shut down! Be sure to panic!

The reality here is that the government being shut down is only a problem if the government makes it one…like Obama did back in his day when he maliciously inflicted maximum pain on the people because he wanted Congress to fund his pathetic little pet projects. Trump is not inflicting pain on us. And unless you are the deputy assistant director of diversity affairs at the Department of Wheel Spinning, the shut downs doesn’t mean a lot. Trump even figured out how to use appropriated money to pay the troops. Sure, this can’t go on forever…eventually, a budget does have to be passed…but nobody on our side has any incentive to cave on Democrat demands.

The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments on the Voting Rights Act – specifically the bit where we have to draw minority-majority districts to ensure a certain skin color gets elected to the House (note they don’t insist upon making majority-minority States so we can have a more diverse Senate). This requirement is, of course, evil and anti-American. It is wrong to draw districts with a mind to making sure a black person can’t win…but it is just as wrong to draw them to ensure nobody but a black person can win. Our Constitution has always been colorblind – and this bit of the Voting Right Act has to go. Democrats are in a panic about it, of course – because they garner 19 House seats based upon these racial gerrymanders.