Open Thread

Open Thread

Mark Noonan16 Comments

There is no way we get the Texas primary result if Trump is at 40% or less approval.

There was a poll not long before the vote which showed Cormyn slightly up over Paxton. This wasn’t a mistake: it was a malicious lie. It was an attempt to depress Paxton’s turnout – an attempt to interfere with the election. The rest of the polling is pretty much just that: a lie. Lies designed to make it seem like Trump is unpopular and the GOP is doomed if it sticks with Trump. Both the Democrats and the RINOs want this to be true – they need this to be true. And they are trying to propagandize their desire into reality.

But the vote shows it isn’t working – not one little bit. Cormyn was humiliated in the primary. Losing by nearly two to one. Plus GOP turnout has been high – lost in the shuffle is that the GOP won all three Georgia Supreme Court seats up for grabs last week. That Court now stays with us for the long term. It was crucial for Democrats to win those so they could start to Californicate Georgia. They won’t be able to, now. Far from being a swing State, Georgia now will start to shift back to reliably Red. Over and over again over the past few months it has been like that – endless polls and analysis showing we’re doomed, results showing we’re surging. And this is before gasoline prices start to drop.

The people are tired of liars – the Democrats latest attempt to lie their way into office, Talarico in Texas, is going to fail miserably. The man is a complete freak – totally out of step with Texas. But the Democrats thought they could nominate him – a white man – and use smooth words to convince Texans to send a man to the Senate who utters blasphemy on the regular. Ain’t gonna work. It won’t even be close. The race is called for Paxton on poll closure.

And the GOP base is tired of electing Republicans who always find the time to help Democrats and never find the time to advance core GOP desires. The SAVE Act is backed by at least 80% of the people. It is a slam dunk. Paxton said he’d back out of Cormyn got it passed. Trump clearly would have endorsed Cormyn if it had been passed…but the GOP Senate leadership figured they are untouchable and this whole MAGA thing will just blow over once Trump is gone. That isn’t happening. Hopefully Thune will now wake up to reality and ride the wave…a GOP Senate that now passes the SAVE Act – or at least puts a real effort into trying – will roll up huge victories in November.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan22 Comments

Bill Cassidy is out – didn’t even make it to the runoff; came in third, so two other GOPers will vie for Cassidy’s seat this November.

The Usual Suspects are out there deploring this – “just because he wasn’t loyal to Trump!”. News flash: it wasn’t Trump who overwhelmingly voted Cassidy into history’s dust bin. It was the people of Louisiana. Seventy three percent of primary voters voted against Cassidy. That is a complete rejection not by Trump, but by the people.

The proximate cause, of course, was Cassidy voting to impeach Trump in 2021 – voting to do so based on what was a transparent Deep State op on January 6th. In other words, Cassidy wasn’t standing for Law … he was merely cooperating with a Dem op. And that is why he was punished. The GOP base – increasingly MAGA – is fed up with Republicans who help Democrats. It wasn’t the actual vote…it was why he voted like that.

The bottom line is that we’ll no longer tolerate weak-kneed Democrats in GOP clothing…people who only run as Republicans because that is the only way to power in their State or district. If you are to take GOP votes, we want a GOP result. Nobody has to jump on a grenade for Trump. You can be in opposition to this or that Trump policy. Plenty of GOPers are and Trump isn’t saying a word against them…because they aren’t cooperating with Dem ops. Trump doesn’t mind fair give and take – and he knows that the battle is some times knee to groin. He’s ok with that. In fact, he seems to enjoy that. But don’t backstab…don’t get out there repeating Democrat talking points – which are always lies.

The result also shows that MAGA is vibrant – the two advancing are, from what I can tell, MAGA and More MAGA, at least in rhetoric. The base is still with Trump. And if Trump and the MAGA GOP can get these people to show up in November, the result will be amazing. Reminder: all models are based upon the Trump 2024 voter not showing up. Could it end that way? Sure. But Trump and the GOP have a billion dollars in hand to remind these people how important it is to vote.

In 1859, the State of California passed the Pico Act – named after Andres Pico who led the effort. What did it do? Per the Constitution of the United States, it split California into two States – that is, with the consent of the State in question. This Act has never been repealed – it is still on the books in California. It was never completed because the Secession Crisis came on right afterwards and there simply wasn’t any time or desire to deal with it. Post Civil War, it was simply forgotten. But it is a law – and it is still in force. And Trump could do the funniest thing ever by sending the Pico Act back to Congress for their vote on it.

Iran might have thought Trump had forgot about them, but Trump hasn’t – earlier today he issued another warning to them: make a deal or else.

Robert Stacy McCain notes that a good starting point in discussing the odd ideas out there is to check, as it were, the browsing history of their advocates.

Looks like what we all suspected was correct: Omar knew all about the corruption. We need to indict, convict, denaturalize and deport this foreign agent.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan30 Comments

Trump is now in China with quite the retinue – including Musk. And he’s talking up Xi as if he’s the greatest guy, ever. Almost like there’s some big deal already worked out and this summit will merely announce it. We’ll have to wait and see, of course. But do keep in mind that Xi has to make nice with us right now.

A few days ago, two of Xi’s hand-picked military leaders were given suspended death sentences (which works out to life in prison) for corruption – and a host of other lower level military officials are being prosecuted. The Chinese government is corrupt – nothing gets done in China save via bribes, so convicting those two men of bribery merely means they fell out of favor. Why? Can’t say for certain, of course – but you gotta figure that the total failure of China’s weapons to protect Iran is playing a role here. Xi has spent vast sums to build a military capable of challenging the USA and the equipment is a complete bust. It might as well not be there as far as the US and Israeli air forces are concerned.

That, in turn, put a huge squeeze on China. For all the talk of China leading the way in green energy, they still massively rely on oil – cheap oil, provided at a deep discount from Iran. Said oil has not been forthcoming of late! And we still control the spigot…and will continue to control the spigot for a long time to come. At the moment, China can’t engage the USA in direct confrontation – until they manage to build a military force which can challenge us on the seas and in the air, they are entirely dependent upon our good will for survival. As I noted some years back, China is like Germany was back in 1910…very powerful, but still second rate because at the snap of fingers, the British could shut Germany out of the world’s markets. Makes sense for Xi to make a grand deal with Trump and hope that in later years another cowardly, traitorous Democrat will get into the White House and gift China world power.

Side note on this: while China ended the one child policy 11 years ago, Chinese couples still aren’t having a lot of kids…and at the moment the whole Chinese military is made up of the sons of one-child families. That is, the family line goes extinct whenever any Chinese soldier gets killed. This is very sensitive in Chinese culture. China has a military…but it is manned by men whom the Chinese are loath to sacrifice. Used to be, China could always count on endless waves of men for warfare…not so much any longer. Too many Chinese soldiers die and the families of the remainder might decide its time for a complete policy change before their sons – their family lines – are also wiped out.

The Ruling Class is trying to work up the hantavirus as the next Covid pandemic. Don’t know why they’re bothering – none of us are going to fall for it a second time. Until we start seeing people dropping dead right in front of us, we’re going to assume that any “pandemic” is a mere fraud designed to control us.

Democrat Senator Van Hollen tried to ambush FBI director Patel by bringing up the rumor that Patel drinks a lot – this rumor is, by the way, completely unsourced to named witnesses – and Patel responded by bringing up Van Hollen’s recent $7,128.00 bar tab. Van Hollen tried to get out of that by saying it was for 50 people, but that still works out to nearly $143.00 per person…and even in a DC bar with inflated prices, it means everyone pounded down at least 5 drinks. To be fair, that isn’t nearly what me and the shipmates used to do on a 72 hour liberty…but we also weren’t United States Senators…

Nolan’s upcoming Odyssey is rumored to be extremely woke – like woke on SSRI-strength steroids. If so – and it does appear to be the case – then I’ll be disappointed. Nolan has done some really good movies over the years and, in fact, over the past while has made about the only watchable movies. From what I understand, the problem isn’t just a Nolan thing here – in order for any film to get Oscar consideration, you have to check off lots of DEI boxes. If your cast and crew doesn’t, then it won’t matter how good the movie is, it can’t be Oscar nominated. There is a slight hope that Nolan just checked off the boxes and let the story alone, but the word is that he’s using a recent feminist re-write of the epic as his source material (it is claimed as a translation, but if you look into what this lady did, she re-wrote the story with modern Leftist ideology at its core). It looks as though we have another big-budget flop in the works here.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan3 Comments

I’ll just say it: the Martin Luther King model has turned out to be a catastrophe for both America and the black population. It taught that political activism is the way ahead. Straight line from Du Bois to King to the race hustlers of today. Keep in mind that Du Bois – founder of the NAACP – was the son of an immigrant who lived a middle class life in an integrated, American community which gave him so much opportunity that he obtained a PhD from Harvard…but he rejected the ideology of Frederick Douglas which urged integration and became a Pan-Africanist…a black nationalist. This man, who had no connection to American slavery or Jim Crow, used both of those to attack the nation which had given him a great life. And it has simply lead to disaster.

A couple days ago an old man in New York was murdered – pushed onto the subway tracks by a random attacker. The attacker was there because a couple weeks before that, he had assaulted a random woman who refused to press charges because she “didn’t want to see another black man in jail”. This is where race-conscious political activism leads…to complete insanity. Had we kept with Douglas things would have been better. Here is George Washington Carver’s – a man strictly in the tradition of Douglas – eight points of the true Lady or Gentleman:

Be clean both inside and out.

Who neither looks up to the rich nor down on the poor.

Who loses, if needs be, without squealing.

Who wins without bragging.

Who is always considerate of women, children and old people.

Who is too brave to lie.

Who is too generous to cheat.

Who takes his share of the world and lets other people have theirs.

Nobody can improve upon this – it is all anyone needs. If everyone followed these precepts – even if haltingly and with mistakes – this world would approach Paradise. But it was abandoned – and largely so because the white upper class in the USA paid for it to be abandoned. They paid for political activism…because they simply could not imagine a world where black people were their actual equals. I know that sounds weird, but it is so – for all the trouble Klan racism caused, the worst was that of upper class whites in the big cities. It was they who essentially decreed that black Americans could not make it…and so they were going to pay off political radicals who would keep a welfare-dependent black America in line for them. This all needs to be reversed…and the means are now in place. The end of race-based districting is the door being kicked in…the end to racially set-aside political power at the beck and call of urban white liberals.

The media is barely reporting it but the US Navy is winning the battle for the straight decisively – and if this were normal times, we’d now have national heroes to celebrate. But it works out well for Trump so the MSM prefers to ignore the fact that the Iranians tried their best to attack our ships and got totally destroyed without even causing damage. And the blockade continues…Iran is desperately trying to get empty tankers into their ports because they’re running out of storage room for oil…and I guess that if you shut down production you can’t just whistle it back up. That is, once it is cut off, there’s a significant time and effort cost to get it back up and running again…time when you have to spend a lot of money while not making any. I honestly don’t know what game the Iranians think they are playing…Trump will resume strikes if there’s no deal. And as we’ve now got past the War Powers Act time line, he can resume strikes at any time without having to invoke the Act.

The redistricting fight has ended in catastrophe for the Democrats. Do think about it: in response to Democrats massive gerrymanders (which, among other things, shut the GOP out of New England even though 40% of the voters there are GOP), the Republicans did a modest gerrymander in Texas (nowhere near as byzantine as the districts Democrats draw in their gerrymanders). In response, Democrats went flat out…and in Virginia tried to draw a 10-1 gerrymander in a State Trump got 46% of the vote in. To do this, they had to violate laws that they had written! It was Democrats who got Virginia a “non-partisan” redistricting commission. It was theirs – it had already drawn districts overly favorable to Democrats. And there were strict provisions in their own law to prevent redistricting outside the commission structure (this to prevent a transient GOP legislative majority from writing districts!). Democrats ignored all that, forced through their referendum (at the cost of $70 million)…while the GOP just waited for it to be done, got an injunction against the results and then a SCOVA ruling on the obvious…it was against the law for Democrats to do that. Now its at least even money for the GOP to hold the House (personally, I think it’ll be 222 or better GOP, but we’ll see)…because in response to the Democrat outrage in Virginia and the SC ruling that race-based districts are unconstitutional (mostly because they are), Red State after State is redrawing districts. Florida already has their new districts…and we’re going to get 4 more GOP reps out of the State.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan27 Comments

Just astonishing – MSMers who slander Trump on the regular are still so obsessed with him that they’ll make up stories of being close to the man. Look, if I don’t like a man, I stay away from him. Why in heck would I want to spend my time with or fussing over someone I don’t like? But these insane liars seem to feel some need to be TDS 24/7. It is clinical by now.

We’re getting more immigration sob stories – this one related to an India guy here for 20 years on a temporary (!) visa who was allegedly sad that he couldn’t get home to see momma die. But if you dig into it, you see that it is Indian bureaucracy which is the ultimate source of the lag time on paperwork…what he’s really upset about is that the USA wasn’t basically waiving all the requirements because India’s bureaucracy has been massively downhill since the end of the Raj.

And, of course, we used to just waive it all – GOP, Democrat, didn’t matter. Come on in! Take an American job! Live the life that an American family was supposed to have! Trump changed all that. And now we’re supposed to weep bitter tears over it. But, guys: if you immigrate, you are living kith and kin. That’s the thing about this. He wasn’t forced to miss his mother’s death…he abandoned her twenty years ago. His choice. His desire. His result.

I admit that I did have some concern that the sob stories would work. That is, as Trump ramped up deportations the sob stories would convince the American people to abandon the project. I’m really rather impressed at how well we’re all handling it…the usual comment on the sob stories range from “good” to “deport them all”. I think we’re at last fed up with this – the idea that we’re the world’s refuse tip and everyone gets to get in here, wreck our world and demand we feel sorry for them. Nothing doing. I’ve got the solution for every foreigner worried about mommy – go back home and look after her. We’ve been lied to just a bit too often.

And that gets me over to political prognostication. Sure, its a mid-term with our guy in the White House. The normal snap-back from a Presidential year is a thing. It happens almost all the time. But not all the time. Some times intervening events give the White House party the win. Back in 2002 it was W riding high in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Here in 2026, I think we also have a deeply disturbing, national event which will help shape the November vote:

Democrats are insane.

Remember that Clinton – and even Obama – would pretend to a moderate view. Neither of them were in any way moderate, but they could pretend. They would speak the sweet, soft words while the Maoism was deeply buried in the bowels of Democrat think tanks and other institutions. Not any longer – the crazies are out in force. It is said that Barney Frank – now on his death bed, and do say a prayer for him – has warned the Democrats they are going to far Left. If Frank is saying this – and he’s pretty kook Left, himself – then you know its gone ’round the bend. They are seriously committed – I’ve seen the ads! – to stopping ICE. They want impeachment on Day One. They are openly opposing the Laken Riley Act. People are already turned off…and Trump and the GOP have combined about a billion dollars to put all of this front and center starting after Labor Day.

As long as Trump remains firm and the economy continues to improve (and its already on fire – the MSM isn’t reporting it but we’re surging), then I think we can win…definitely hold the Senate and 50/50 we hold the House (it is such a narrow majority that just a couple votes breaking different ways might decide it). I rooted around and found my posts from early August, 2024 on X…yep, I was saying Trump was going to win. Why? Objective factors. Not polls! I was looking at things like voter registration trends…and they almost all favored the GOP. The still almost all favor the GOP. If Trump is as unpopular as the MSM makes out, the GOP would not be gaining these new voters. Simple as.

We’ll find out soon enough!

Open Thread

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Trump pretty much said what I’ve been saying – there is no actual government in Iran; just various factions striving for control. We, of course, want the faction that will deal with us to win…and my guess is that, for now, that faction is back door asking us to hold back – and so Trump has extended the ceasefire while still keeping up the blockade. This is because the faction which hates us the most is the one that needs money the most…that is, you can’t pay your goons without cold, hard cash.

I’ve been saying forever that you can’t take our enemies at face value. They don’t actually believe it. I mean, sure: there are always fools who can be suckered into believing just about anything. But those who call the tune never do. As Hitler’s armies approached Moscow in 1941 the whole Soviet leadership took off running…except for Stalin, and that because he knew if he fled he’d be killed almost immediately by the rest of the leaders. So much for being Communist stalwarts…they weren’t: they were sucking Russia dry to live better than the Czars and when it looked like the game was over, they ran (with sacks of money and fake identities). So, too, with the Nazi leadership. Most of it just took off running or, if cornered, killed itself. True believers would have crawled out of the rubble and insisted on having their say – proud of what they had done and ready to defend it against all comers. But what it did was Himmler…shave off the mustache, grab the fake ID (made months before because he knew it was over) and try to make to a cache of cash and gold so he could get the heck out of Dodge.

The fanatic faction in Iran is lead by men who know they have no way out – if there isn’t a Mullah regime under their control, then they’ve got nothing. No place to hide. No money, either. Nothing. So, might as well keep it up and hope for the best. But they will run for the hills if the end really does come…because they don’t believe it. Never have. It was just a rationale for obtaining money, power, what have you. This does make for a rocky ground for Trump to go over…but he also holds every last advantage. There is nothing Iran has that the world needs…it is even finding out that it doesn’t need Iranian oil. Time is very much on our side here.

Democrats managed to get their gerrymander through in Virginia – via mail in ballots which went +45 for the referendum in a State that looks like it went overall +4 for it…meaning that without those sacks of mail in ballots, the measure would have gone down to flaming defeat. And, of course, the Democrats held back their reporting until the rest of the State was in…because they weren’t sure just how many votes they’d need. Trump’s DOJ should open an investigation into it – I’m sure it is rotten to the core. But it is also going to spur Florida to just take those seats away.

Meanwhile, we simply must win 2028 so that we have control of the 2030 census. An honest census is going to lock Democrats out of the House and the Electoral College for a generation. It is the win it all election. For both sides.

Trump’s DOJ indicted members of the racist hate group, SPLC. And about time. But what is coming out is what we suspected all along – the SPLC was paying for “racist right wingers”. The Charlottesville protest was their op…and we’re now all betting that most of the BLM/Antifa actions were bankrolled the same way. And there’s more than an even money chance that this is how the J6 riots originated.

The Mets are now 0-12 since Mamdani gave their mascot a hug. And 45-71 since the raised the Pride flag at the start of a game last season.

Something, something about not being mocked…

Open Thread

Mark Noonan25 Comments

The ceasefire doesn’t seemed to have ceased much fire…but I’m gonna trust Trump on this as he’s earned that. Plus, one must understand a couple things:

  1. Iran hasn’t had a government since 1979. Its all just factions which have absolutely no consent of the governed. The Mullahs have been the primary faction but the whole thing is various politico-economic-religious groupings competing for power and wealth within Iran. When we went in and started decapitating this beast, it then fell to third and fourth tier members of these groups to pick up the torch, as it were. These people will be unsure of themselves, unsure of their fellow faction members and none of them will initially be able to impose their will upon everyone. So, when Trump talks of negotiating, he’s probably working in terms of trying to find the faction which can emerge triumphant and become the transitional government of Iran.
  2. The Mullahs did create the functional equivalent of the Hitler Youth and the Waffen SS in the Republican Guard. For 47 years now, this has drawn in Iranian youth (not all of it, but a substantial portion) and relentlessly propagandized them. Now, don’t get me wrong: this doesn’t mean they’re all true believers. One thing which should actually surprise nobody is that in 1945 when the Soviets started imposing Communism on eastern Germany, the people they found most apt to become bright, shining Commies were Hitler Youth leaders. Things like the Hitler Youth draw to leadership those who most want to be part of the Ruling Class…and they’ll turn on a dime if necessary to keep on the inside. But, also, you do create a class of True Believers…the kind of kids who were fighting to the last teenager in 1945. Iran has some of these as well. They will not accept a ceasefire…they’ll keep firing missiles until they run out of them or they’re killed.
  3. Trump’s goals are not what his critics think they are – they are highly strategic. And, in the end, the Mullahs were just in the way…Trump wants American control of the seas and global trade. That is the long term issue here…this means that Trump isn’t worried if a de-fanged, quasi-Mullah regime remains in Iran. American domination of the oceans and trade and, here ya go world, an open Hormuz courtesy of us, is the real end result. This does require a peaceful Iran, of course – and a destroyed Hezbollah, as well…and thus we haven’t agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon.

We’ll see if he can pull several rabbits out of the hat here. I think he will.

The war has completely exposed how hollow NATO is and that European leadership is universally disgusting…even the so-called Right in Europe is mostly craven. Even if we get a change in government over the next few elections in Europe, we know that when push comes to shove, they’ll still side with the Globalists and the Islamists…and will continue Europe’s trajectory towards being overtly anti-Semitic. Sure, Labour only got 35% of the vote in 2024…but if you add up Labour and all the even worse parties in the UK, you find that more than 50% of the British people are evil and/or stupid. So, too, in France, Germany, Spain and on and on. Heck, there are rumors that the Turks provided the anti air weapons which shot down our jet last week. Not only do I want us out of NATO, I want us to become in policy overtly hostile to it. I might agree to some sort of alliance with Poland and Romania, but that is about it. But I’m also increasingly Isolationist…because the world is so disgusting. Even if currently governed by friendlies (like Japan and Israel) there is still the prospect that the next election will return a raving lunatic anti-American government…so, why sign in alliance with people who might vote to become America’s enemies? Better to cut it all out, build that 600 ship Navy and call it a day.

The bastard who stabbed Iryna was ruled not competent to stand trial – likely because the local establishment doesn’t want a trial at which it will come out just how hideously cruel and incompetent they are. The Feds say don’t worry too much – the murderer is in federal custody and they’ll be holding their own competency hearing. Meh. Look, guys, if a man can stab a defenseless woman to death then of course he’s insane…but he also knew exactly what he was doing. Such a man is precisely who you most want in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed. Its far more important to keep him locked up than it is to keep anyone else locked up…because that lunatic might just decide one moment that its time to stab again for no reason at all. And it doesn’t matter if you “cure” him in jail – he still has to stay locked up because (a) we can’t ever be totally sure of such a cure and (b) he took a life…if he is ever really cured, then the only they he’ll want is to sit in jail until death in atonement for his crime. If he ever wants out, then that is proof he ain’t cured.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan35 Comments

Let us modify the 14th:

All persons born to two American citizens, native born or two persons naturalized in the United States according to law are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Persons born to one American citizen are citizens of the United States if they have been continuously resident within the United States for at least ten years prior to their eighteenth birthday and take an oath affirming their loyalty and renouncing all foreign ties. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, nor shall any State provide any aid whatsoever to non-citizens. Violation of a oath made in any capacity shall result in permanent disenfranchisement and is not subject to the pardon power.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective number of adult citizens. No legislative district shall be valid if it is drawn for the purposes of securing a partisan political victory nor shall any district be based upon race, ethnic, gender or religious grounds. If any district is challenged on grounds of validity, seven adult citizens of that district shall be randomly chosen via lottery to gather and rule on the validity of the district. A majority is required for ruling on the district validity. The House of Representatives shall be required to expel members from invalid legislative districts; any Representative or Senator who disagrees with said expulsion shall also be expelled. Any person expelled from Congress is by that act permanently disenfranchised and may never hold any office of profit or trust in the United States or the several States.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in actions which violated that oath.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred due to fraudulent activity; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Make your own additions or subtractions as you like: but it is clear that if we are to be a serious nation with a future, we’re going to have to start spelling things out. We can’t rely on honesty and good will – too many of our fellow citizens are idiots and crooks. We can’t leave things open to interpretation because the liars will simply interpret them to support lies.

I saw a picture of that Islamist massacre of Christians in Nigeria over Palm Sunday and it is going to stick with me forever – quite horrific. Don’t search for such pictures. This poor kid had his face sliced in half.

But we do need to think about it – these savages hacked the Christians to pieces. Think about the physical effort and time that takes. The perpetrators would have been covered in gore after they were done. Yes, they are still humans and thus endowed with the rights of same – but they are also unreasonable, inhuman savages. We can’t negotiate with such people – they don’t have grievances which we can ameliorate…they have a vision of themselves as eternal brute masters over slaves. There is no half way point between what they want and what any decent person deserves.

In Iran, this is what we’re fighting – the same sort of people. Yes, they are in error. Yes, they are capable of repentance. Yes, if they do repent then they can be welcomed with open arms into the community of people. But first they must be stopped – and that will require violence. You can’t disabuse people of such deep seated evil by careful reasoning…if they were open to careful reasoning, they never would have got to the point where they chop people up. I hope that Trump arms the Christians and provides them support via our Navy and Air Force.

Apparently for Season 3 of Rings of Power, one of the heroes is an orc. It is like they are deliberately going out of their way to be insulting.

Orcs were creatures of Morgoth in Tolkien’s universe. It is never made clear whether they were something made out of whole cloth by Morgoth or captive elves which he ruined. Suffice it to say, the orcs were made in mockery of elves. Entirely evil and entirely enslaved to Morgoth and, later, to Morgoth’s emissary, Sauron. Clever enough to make weapons and do other basic things, they were usually lazy, greedy and cowardly. Unless they had a Dark Lord to impose his will, they wandered in small bands, killing and stealing what they could. Orcs aren’t born – they are spawned. This does imply some sort of female of the species, but orcs are incapable of love or devotion. So, no, an orc can’t be friends with an elf, even as some sort of temporary alliance. That the writers of Rings of Power are doing this means they want to change the entire meaning of Tolkien’s work – and IMO, this was started with the first series for the Lord of the Rings. There were two major parts totally excluded from the movies: Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire. Part of this was time constraints but I believe that most of it was because the people who made the movie failed to understand why Bombadil was in it and why the Shire had to be scoured. Most important, though, was the excising of the Scouring.

Tolkien, himself, said it was an integral part of the story and envisioned from the start. That is, the hobbits after their arduous adventures, would have to return home and set the Shire to rights. Clean out the bad elements – a sort of low-key version of what Aragorn was doing in Gondor. That is, in any people, bad elements slip in and start to erode the good things and if they aren’t called out and expelled from time to time, it just gets worse. The hobbits had grown lazy and overly tolerant…they just wanted to be left alone and thought it was their right to be left alone. But all the while, enemies were gathering…enemies which could have been easily kept out by a bit of vigilance, but laziness allowed them in, causing death and destruction. By not having it in the movies, we are left with the sense that nothing was ever wrong with the hobbits. Nothing needed to be cured, nobody needed to stand guard. It left a hole in the tale…and that hole is now being driven through by people who not only don’t understand Tolkien’s world, but hate it.

It is my hope that eventually the slop they’re doing now will eventually be forgotten and in later years, truer adaptations will be made.


Open Thread

Mark Noonan19 Comments

The Iran war has been a major revelation showing us how the entire Global Ruling class has a vested interest in keeping the Mullah regime going. Now, just why is that? Well:

  1. A lot of them are bribed. The Mullahs pay them off. Never forget that the Ruling Class is corrupt and greedy – throw a couple bucks at them and they’ll dance to your tune.
  2. Peace in the Middle East would be a catastrophe. Reminder: the continued chaos there justifies the continuation of migration to Europe…gotta get those poor people outta there, right? If there’s peace, there’s no justification for replacing French and British voters.
  3. They really hate Israel. Of all the geopolitical events since 1945, Israel is the one they’ve come to hate the most. It is rich. It is powerful. It has the only growing Christian population in the Middle East. It is the only Middle East nation where Muslims are able to vote in genuinely free elections. It is a standing indictment of not just the Muslim world, but of the entire Third World…showing that starting from war and poverty you can lift yourselves up and very rapidly. You can have a free and law abiding society.
  4. Combined with this, the Ruling Class has been importing Muslims by the million and in order to keep them voting for that Ruling Class, hating Israel is a requirement. Even if one of them would prefer to support Israel, the potential loss of votes – and the turning over of their nations to patriots – is something not worth the risk.

Combine all that and you can see why they are so invested in the Mullah regime. Make no mistake about it, the Mullahs have not closed the Straight of Hormuz. They can’t. They lack the physical means to do so. But the Mullahs said it is closed and the Global Ruling Class went along with it and ordered the ships to stop sailing…because they hoped it would spike oil prices and force Trump to back down. What they didn’t understand was that Drill Baby Drill had already made the USA independent of the global oil market…we have had price spikes, but those really are just people being greedy. Charging the higher price because they can, not because they need to…in the USA, there is no shortage of oil or natural gas. To be sure, lots of countries are running out (I hear that Thailand is already rationing gasoline), but we aren’t. Trump is right when he proclaims we don’t need the Straight – it is Europe and Asia’s problem if it is closed. We can go on like this for a while – and the longer it goes on, the more the USA will be decoupled from the global oil and gas market…that is, our prices will start to drop, rapidly, even if the rest of the world is paying $20 a gallon for rationed gasoline.

Now, how will Trump wrap this up? I have no idea. It won’t go on much longer, though. Don’t pay much attention to alleged statements from the Mullah regime – in reality, there is no regime. No real government. Just various factions – mostly led by third and fourth tier people – vying for survival. Any idiot can put on a dress uniform and appear in front of a camera with a flag in the background to make a statement. What appears to be happening is the continued rapid degradation of every Iranian military asset – including tanks, vehicles and ammunition supplies – while Trump people talk to various Iranian people, trying to find the guy who will cut a deal…that is, bury the Mullah regime and become the transitional government. The continued bombing is important because day by day the various factions have less to bring to the table…and now it appears we’re hitting the ability to censor the internet and television. That is, the Iranian people are now getting access to non-regime news. The longer the factions hold out, the less their leverage…the coup de grace would be US occupation of strategic Iranian territory. Everyone is focused on Kharg Island, but I’m thinking Bandar Abbas and environs. But, that is all up to Trump and his people. We’ll see how he brings this to an end.

A Spanish girl in government care was raped by migrants. Not getting proper help afterwards, she attempted suicide which left her paralyzed. Then the government pressured her in to “assisted suicide” and her organs were harvested. You really need to think about that one – and not get angry at the migrants. To be sure, they all need to be flogged and then hung…but they aren’t the problem. The problem is the host of people – doctors, nurses, lawyers, bureaucrats, politicians, orderlies, etc – who made it all happen. The evil of the Nazi regime – or the Stalinist regime – wasn’t Hitler (or Stalin) it was the army of faceless operatives who made it all happen. The clerks who fill out the forms. The officials who sign the forms. The end-use operatives who carry out whatever is written on the forms. There was someone who filled out the form for the girl’s suicide…typing away at a computer screen, making sure there were no typos and all the relevant information was accurate…and what that clerk was doing was having a poor, suffering victim killed…to be harvested for organs and then forgotten about. After all, looking up at the clock, have to get this one done before lunch today!

The evils of the modern world are only possible because people go along with them. With a shrug. And it is just those people who must be severely punished. The insanely evil can’t do it unless (allegedly) decent, hard working people agree to help. We have to figure out some way to make such faceless actors indictable – and then convict them and subject them to something really horrific. It is the only way to drive home the absolute moral requirement that nobody cooperate with evil. Ever. Even for a minute.

UPDATE: All yesterday a growing love between Americans and Japanese flowed through social media. Appropriately it started with a shared love of barbecue. But it looks pretty awesome…some samples:

Japanese version of Country Roads. Very much worth a watch!

Japanese apparently like country music:


Japanese thanks Trump for the Pearl Harbor joke because, in his view, it finally completely buries the WWII hatchet. We can josh with each other, even about the bad things, because we’re friends.

Awesome:

Also awesome:

And more awesomeness:

Open Thread

Mark Noonan43 Comments

Trump may be playing a much deeper game than even his supporters suspect – that the Iran conflict is just one piece of a global puzzle designed to make NATO useful, or no more while at the same time imposing American dominance not just in the Naval sphere, but in the whole of global maritime commerce. Think about what he’s concentrating on – Panama, Greenland, Hormuz…some of the major choke points for global seaborne trade being taken under American power with a US President who wants a massive revival in American shipbuilding (once again, all true strategists concentrate on logistics…the movement of people and goods…Trump wants us in control of it). The NATO aspect is, crudely, poop or get off the pot…is NATO of any worth at all? Can NATO do something as simple as control a maritime trade corridor? If it can’t or won’t do that, what is the point of it?

And what, then, the point of the UN?

Things are moving on a deep level here…and I’m interested to see how Trump wraps it all up. The war with Iran will probably finish up to at least the main elements in the next seven to ten days. But the long term ramifications of it might be quite surprising and take some months to shake out.

There’s a non-zero chance that in the California jungle primary it is two GOPers who face off in November for governor. Naturally, Democrats will do all they can to ensure against this – but the seven Democrats in the race are all morons and egotistical…they might not be able to get enough of them to back out.

Latest propaganda line out of Tehran is that the more Mullahs we kill the stronger Iran gets. This is like me winning a fight by letting the other guy bash my face in. Its a bold strategy, we’ll see if it pays off.

The late Cesar Chavez – of United Farm Workers fame – appears to have been a guy who liked to abuse young girls. It isn’t all confirmed but it does look pretty bad for his reputation…and if it is true, then we have to keep in mind that everyone – and I mean everyone – around him must have known it was going on and kept their mouths shut because, at the time, Chavez was doing the Ruling Class’ bidding. Why tear him down now, years after his death? Because he was opposed to illegal immigration…and so the Left is unpersoning him posthumously.

Biden’s CIA identified “motherhood” and “homemaking” as indicators or racist extremism.

But it wasn’t just a brand new thing – essentially, since 1945, the things of the West have been considered by our Ruling Class as the markers for evil. They’ve been at war with them since the end of World War Two…it is just out in the open now.