Open Thread

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

My view on the GOP Primary is: I will support the nominee. I will not engage in nasty fights with fellow GOPers or GOP-leaning voters.

With RDS now officially in, the shape of the race is clear; it is mostly Trump vs DeSantis with Trump enjoying a huge amount of loyal Trumpster support while RDS is looking for a way to draw some of that vote over to himself. The rest of the pack is probably kidding itself about getting the nomination and, on balance, they probably help Trump by splitting up the anti-Trump vote. Of course, some of these also-rans likely won’t make it to January…the money battle is important right now. Not for Trump and RDS who functionally have unlimited amounts, but for the rest…any of them who want to be around past South Carolina had better come up with some hefty bucks. Those who can’t will likely bow out before the Iowa caucuses.

Do keep in mind that the Democrats are very likely paying for GOP division. We have seen over and over again how relative peanuts will get people to alter their views. It would cost only, say, $100,000 to get a prominent Trumpster pundit to start going “only Trump” as a means of keeping Trumpsters home if Trump doesn’t get the nomination. It wouldn’t cost any more to pay a DeSantis pundit to start going “only DeSantis” for the same reason. The Democrats very much need a divided and weakened GOP for 2024 because that is the only way they drag Biden’s senile carcass into a second term.

As I’ve said for a while, I’m not at all confident of GOP victory in 2024 – because of those divisions being diligently fostered. But I have had a little bit of a mental shift; there is a chance. What I see is that Biden – who has never been loved – is losing what popularity he had. Inflation continues to bite as does overall economic anxiety. We’re already in a recession which is being hidden by number juggling. And now the Culture War has taken an interesting turn. From Biden on down, they are all-in on the transgender thing especially for kids…but outside a few lunatic Blue enclaves, parents are rejecting this. What we might have is a perfect storm brewing where Democrats are set to become unpopular both on economics and social issues…hammering on abortion just barely scraped them by in 2022…that issue is a lot less salient for 2024 while other social issues are coming to the forefront. It could be a very interesting year.

CNN Headline: “Minorities, immigrants and now members of the LGBTQ community are being warned of the risks of visiting Florida after the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group issued a travel advisory following newly passed laws and policies”

Reminder: this lie is not pitched at you. They don’t care about you. They know you’ll never vote Democrat. This lie is for Democrats. And it doesn’t require them to actually believe there’s tyranny in Florida…but what it does tell them is that this is what they have to say is happening in Florida. This is to keep the conversation within the Party Line. That is, to keep them voting Democrat no matter how bad it gets.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan35 Comments

Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) announced his Presidential bid and one of the first questions the MSM asked him was, “are you a virgin?”. Just absolutely flabbergasting. Until I heard that, I didn’t know if Scott was married or not – but as it turns out, he’s 57 and unmarried and has no kids. This does, especially in 2023, bring up the prospect of homosexuality but this does not appear to be the case for Senator Scott. But, whatever: who’s danged business is it? Unless you have some solid information of inappropriate sexual activity, it is nobody’s business. But there goes the MSM – and you know why: they’re hoping he is homosexual or at least hope they can get people thinking he’s homosexual because you know us bigoted, hill-ape inbred MAGA morons would hate that. For goodness sake.

I don’t know Senator Scott’s personal life. No whiff of scandal along those lines has come up and you gotta figure that something would have by now. Is he chaste? I don’t know. Not my business. But it isn’t impossible for him to be chaste, you know? Not everyone even in 2023 is an animal. Some people remain civilized…and if Scott is a real believer in God and he is trying to follow his Christian faith then he might remain chaste because for the true Christian, sex – any sort of sex – outside of marriage is immoral.

There is the meme out there which goes, “you think you hate the media as much as you should, but you don’t.” There is no bottom for these vile and disgusting people.

Now, as for Scott’s ambitions: everyone assumes he’s auditioning for the VP slot for whomever gets the nod – likely Trump or DeSantis at this point. He’s kept friendly with both sides. But never count anyone out. I know that plenty of MAGA folks have problems with Scott but he’s a pretty good guy. Sure, he is close to the Establishment and that is a worry…but he also seems to be his own man. We could do a lot worse. If he does emerge, he gets my vote.

Target has been marketing “tuck friendly” clothes for little children. If you don’t know what they’re “tucking” then just think about it for a minute: it’ll come to you. And I mean really little children. Like 5 year olds. That is how far this insanity has gone. There has been good pushback on this and we’re winning lots of victories in Red States…but the overall American Establishment is still fully committed to making medical transition of minors the norm. We have a long way to go here. Victory comes when major retailers won’t even think about making “tuck friendly” clothes for kids.

LA Dodgers invited the anti-Catholic hate group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to “pride night”. Then uninvited them when everyone pointed out that, hey, they’re bigots. But now has re-invited them because when it comes to bullying, the LGBTQ community has that nailed down. Corporate America is simply too weak. I know that the basic principle we have is free markets…but in order to win this battle, we are going to have to forcibly instruct Corporate America that non-Lefists also exist.

Debt battle is rather boring but I am pleased that McCarthy is at least showing some backbone. The problem is that we can’t forever keep printing up new money so we can borrow it. It does come to an end. It might actually be better long term if it came to an end right away. We don’t have any money left. Its all gone – blown on wars and graft over the past 70 years as America’s industrial, agricultural and mining base has been destroyed. Go broke and start all over again.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan23 Comments

Over on Twitter @ZubyMusic asks, “What is the most damaging popular myth?”. Getting a lot of responses, some of them jokes of course. But it did get me thinking.

And I think that the most damaging popular myth is the history (so-called) of the last 100 years. That is, what we’ve been told is the history.

I’ve yammered on quite a bit over the past couple years about aspects of our received beliefs which don’t hold up to scrutiny and I’m coming to the conclusion that just as we have Narrative-Drivers for our politics (ie, story lines created – often in advance – to drive opinion in certain directions desired by those in charge) so we’ve had History-Drivers: that is, gatekeepers in the production of history who make certain that the historical Narrative only rolls into accepted grooves.

Just as in the MSM and the larger popular media the ability to be seen and heard largely depends on your ability to do as you’re told, so too is it likely to be this way in all disciplines. Do we really want to think that there is some institutional aspect of our society which isn’t controlled? That the people who have crafted Narrative after Narrative for our immediate political debates would let slip something as crucial as how history records things? That in a world of overwhelmingly conformist thought, they’d let independent thinkers have a place all to their own?

I’m just reminded of a story I heard some years back – it involved a moderately famous man but I can’t remember exactly who at the moment, but no worry as that isn’t fully relevant here. The key thing is that this man’s father was a British colonial official at the tail end of the Empire and upon a time this man pointed out to his son a ragged ship heading north from coastal east Africa and said, “that ship is filled with slaves, and I’m under orders to do nothing about it”. The British were leaving, as were all the colonial powers and with them went any impetus to stop the slave trade…and what had been firmly suppressed was now rising to the surface as the anti-slavers quite the scene. And then, 40 years later, we were all told that the British Empire was nothing but racist colonial oppression. Of course, a true history of Africa since the end of colonial rule would rather harp upon the breakdown of services, the rise of oppression and ethnic murder, the return of slavery…but, we can’t have that, can we? Doesn’t fit the Narrative. Oh, sure, when some particularly hideous thing happens, the world takes notice (like, say, the Rwandan genocide) but it is never placed in context. If any context is given at all, the problem is ascribed to “the legacy of colonialism”, as if the people today had no agency. And then we move on, not noticing until the next outrage occurs. Meanwhile, South Africa is slipping back into Third World status as the millennium promised with the end of Apartheid breaks down under the weight of bribery, incompetence and a raft of anti-white laws and rhetoric.

Just a little bit of the actual history of Africa and none of this would have had to happen. But just as in everything else, all we got was the Narrative history…and it is sustained in spite of any contravening facts.

Pudding Brain’s Secretary of Education said the quiet part out loud – asserting that teacher’s know better than parents what is best for kids. It is absurd and evil, but they really do think that way. They believe, that is, that someone with credentials is inherently superior. No surprise there: they all rise based on their credentials and so they hold credentials as supreme. None of these people – either in government or corporation – has ever had to produce. To actually make something happen or come into existence by their own efforts. Its all just reviewing plans and picking among them based upon the Current Thing and where the strongest pressure is coming from. And they are never tossed out, never jailed, never wind up in poverty. What we’re going to have to do is change laws to require first of all real world experience before you can take a government position and, secondly, entrance exams…really tough exams. Like, say, if you are seeking employment at the Department of Transportation, one of the questions should be along the lines of, “what is the per mile cost of moving a ton of goods from Long Beach to Denver?” and “if fleet average MPG is increased by 10 percent, what will be the average annual cost to an American consumer?”. Guarantee it will weed out these credentialed morons and allow room in there for people who actually know how things work.

See that little flap of metal up the pole there that everyone is smiling about? That was a shade installation to make travel by bus more equitable in Los Angeles. No, seriously; that little bit of metal is supposed to provide shade. I guess when its high noon and if you can stand right under it. It cost $10,000.00 to install. The Progs are seriously proud of this.

How about some fun stuff, now?

Open Thread

Mark Noonan30 Comments

The legal defense fund for Daniel Penny has raised a million dollars so far – its only been up for a day, maybe two, so that’s good. Its getting to enough money to really pay for some top flight lawyers. Couple things about it:

The Left is relentlessly pointing out that Penny is white and the man who died was black. Race, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with the incident. But inflaming race hatred is a key component of the Left’s program…its been part of it since the mid 1970’s but it went into overdrive when an increasingly failing and unpopular Obama needed a tool to keep his troops in line. It has just gone thermonuclear since then. Do keep in mind that this isn’t a mistake. This isn’t an unintended consequence. This is deliberate and malicious: it is just like Julius Streicher and his Der Sturmer in Nazi Germany: it is intended to otherize us and make us legitimate targets for violence.

Meanwhile, I’ve noticed on the Right far too many people trying to split the baby: deploring the indictment of Penny but also making statements to the effect of, “he took it too far”. This is why we lose – and it is because we have forgotten. Nobody is ever allowed to act out in public. Not even once and not even a little bit. It is impermissible to accost people; to yell at them; to threaten them in any manner. All Penny did was what a man is supposed to do in that situation; stop the guy. It is unfortunate – and was clearly unintended – that he should die. But his death is on his hands, not Penny’s. It was the raving nutter who deliberately placed himself into a situation where any decent man would have to take him down…as gently as possible but with whatever force proved necessary. If Penny had deliberately killed the man, it would still not be a crime: because, once again, nobody is ever allowed to be a raving lunatic in public. Doing that is a complete breakdown of the social contract wherein we all agree to be polite and reasonable for the benefit of all. Start allowing people to at will ignore that rule and social chaos ensues – as we already see in New York, San Francisco and many other places.

Team Pudding Brain has manufactured a border crisis and is flooding America with what may be many millions of illegal immigrants – with of course untold thousands of vicious criminals mixed in with them. The official numbers are staggering and probably aren’t 50% of what is really coming in. Now, why should they do this? I think they believe that the resulting chaos will help them short and long term: as communities get overrun with illegals, the Democrats will claim their “common sense immigration reform” (ie, amnesty) will fix the problem but Republicans are obstructing it (this is why they are dumping lots of illegals in deep Blue areas) while, long term, they figure these illegals they’ll eventually turn into citizens will be grateful and vote Democrat for a couple generations. The crime and social chaos is just a bonus in this plan – keeping in mind that your basic Democrat (whether conscious of it or not) is a Marxist who believes that our wealth and security are the result of an evil system and we must be punished for taking what was never ours. But I have noticed that the deep Blue areas become illegal dumping grounds aren’t the high end deep Blue areas. They aren’t moving these people to Malibu, ya know? It is poor urban areas mostly made up of POC who are getting the shipments…and it is infuriating these people. There is a huge opportunity here…and the person best able at the moment to take advantage of it is Trump…though RDS can also make the pitch very well: that we GOPers will save low income communities from being overrun.

Biden is congratulating himself for appointing lots of women as judges – our Matt asks how can he tell as he’s not a biologist?

CNN is trying to tell us that it isn’t the bums, looting, feces and crime driving retailers out of the big Blue cities. It is something else. Lots of stuff. Complex social changes. But not the bum sh***ing on the street. It isn’t that. Trust them!

Elon Musk hired his new CEO for Twitter – a lady names Linda Yaccarino who checks off just about every Left SJW nutjob box you can think of. This has caused a lot of negative comment on Twitter and, yeah, it is worrying. OTOH, Musk is still saying he’s committed to free speech…to troll the Left he even Tweeted out a Pepe the Frog meme (if you don’t know – Pepe is a frog used in rightwing memes and it is hated by the Left). So, I don’t know. I can see on the face of it why Yaccarino was picked – she’s apparently first rate at generating advertising dollars and Musk does want Twitter to be profitable. But there is the worry that the Safety Council will come back, by one means or another, and Right comment will start to be throttled again (towards the end of the old Twitter regime it was getting really bad). I’m going to wait and see, myself: some of the people Yaccarino follows are accounts the Left hates with a white-hot passion. She might be one of those few Commies who is actually ok with the free flow of ideas – they are very rare, but they do exist. We’re going to find out.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan20 Comments

Twitter started a “Community Notes” function which allows third parties to attach a statement to Tweets making certain claims of fact. As far as I know, any account can be subjected to such notes and there is a process for doing so…and then everyone can comment and vote on the Community Note. The main thing is that its beautiful – after years of Right Twitter getting banned for posting facts, Left Twitter is now finding that when they make the egregious lie, someone puts a Community Note on it – and the best are when they quote back to the Lefty their own previous words! The Left is, of course, going ballistic about this; often with the usual threat of leaving Twitter but as we on the Right found over the years, there’s nothing better than Twitter for fast-paced commentary with a big reach. It is still a relatively small thing – it doesn’t stop them from lying – but it does put out there the fact that they are, indeed, liars.

The newest St George Floyd of Fentanyl has dropped – a lunatic named Jordan Neely. He was, as per usual in such, a bum and drug addict with a long rap sheet (42 priors and when he was killed he was wanted for assault). On the NYC subway he started acting like an aggressive, lunatic drug addict and so a former Marine did what any decent man would do – he took him down. Because Neely was a drug addict this ended up killing him. Naturally, the Usual Suspects are all out there shouting “racism” and “no justice, no peace” while the MSM – pretty much all of it, including the parts you might think aren’t far Left fanatics – are trying to paint Neely as some sort of street artist beloved by all; failing that, they are trying to work up sympathy over the fact that Neely’s mother was quite brutally murdered some years back – as if that excuses being a violent, drug addicted lunatic. We’re all waiting for the Manhattan DA to charge the Marine with murder…and its 50/50 on conviction. A lot of Manhattanites are getting fed up with the rampant crime and disorder in NYC but they also know that if the Powers That Be want to punish a jury for coming to the “wrong” verdict, it will be done; their names and addresses would be “leaked” so that lunatics could hound them.

Joe Manchin looks ever more like electoral toast next year in West Virginia. He’s nobody to blame but himself. He could have triangulated himself into a life seat by ditching the Democrats to become an independent who caucuses with the GOP. He’d have had to do this some years back, but if he had done it the Senate would still be split and none of Biden’s legislative agenda would have passed. But instead he stuck with the Party and in return for just some really small time pork nobody in WV cares about, he empowered the far Left in the Biden Admin to totally screw over blue collar West Virginia.

Joe Biden is monumentally unpopular. I’m starting to wonder if now so unpopular that even a weak and divided GOP might have a shot next year? I’m still doubtful – especially as the MSM will prop Biden’s corpse up if they have to. I’ll use as my marker this: if RFK stays in and score 20% or more in the NH primary, then Joe is done. And it would be funny as heck if its a like father, like son replay of 1968.

Jesse Kelly has been ringing the alarm bell on what the Establishment plans for Trump – the Manhattan indictment is just the start. They are going to go nuclear on him with all the really bad stuff pouring on if he wins the GOP nomination. Now, if Trump fails in the primary, nothing to really worry about but if he emerges then its a problem. And not just an electoral math problem: if they can really destroy Trump with a series of bogus indictments, then they will destroy everyone who challenges them. Hate Trump all you want, but you must stand up for him in this matter…the charges are all lies. He’s being persecuted, not prosecuted. And it may come down to we have to nominate and elect him just to make sure their effort fails.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan13 Comments

Whole Foods and Nordstrom are pulling out of San Francisco. Think about that – when you think of major American cities, it is New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco as the top four. I guess someone can dispute that but, tell me, where is the different city which has the cachet of those four? Nothing wrong, per se, with Boston or Dallas or Miami…but in the popular mind, when you think of American cities, you’re probably thinking of one of those four. So, San Francisco, one of America’s premier cities – a city famed throughout the world and which most foreigners could name – is losing two major retailers. Why?

Crime. Filth. Social chaos.

It is really nothing more than that – it is impossible to do business in a city where the police simply will not protect order and prevent crime. Reading about Whole Foods, it sounds like since their store was opened last year it has been a happy hunting ground not just for shoplifters and vandals, but simple crazies who would destroy food, get into fights and defecate on the floor. These are not small outfits who can’t absorb the normal extra expense of people in a major city center…these are big players, and they just can’t take it.

Now, imagine how it is for the small fry – and they can’t leave. It is sink or swim with San Francisco.

Its all deliberate and malicious, by the way – the Left is doing this on purpose to punish people for not being sufficiently Maoist. How long can this go on before there is a reaction? Don’t know. One of the marks of being a Progressive is a willingness to put up with a lot if the Party demands it. Solzhenitsyn wrote of Communists in Gulag sending endless appeals to Stalin…begging the man who sent them to prison for nothing to let them out again…or, failing that, allow them to run the prison. The greatest fear of the Godless is to be cast out from society. So, San Francisco and other cities may get quite a lot worse before someone living there, say, votes for a Republican.

The Navy has hired a non-binary drag queen to help with recruitment. Recruiting what, I can’t imagine. This is not my Navy any longer. I would advise any young man out there considering service to just stay out. If you’re not to be sent to fight a war you won’t be allowed to win, you’ll be turned on your own people one of these days. The good news is that the military is falling far short of recruitment goals – seems like middle and working class white people (who have always made up the overwhelming bulk of service members – especially in the combat arms) aren’t interested in serving right now.

The latest trans to make a splash is a odd ball in Montana – broke the rules of the Legislature and got the boot. But here’s the kicker – such was able to get elected in Montana. Shows that even in the deepest Red States, we’ve allowed the Progressive cancer to grow. It is usually in the towns with a large college. The problem here is that the professors and administrators of these colleges are all imports from Blue areas, or are people who went to Blue areas and were propagandized into being Commies. We must take control of our Red State higher education. Start booting out the Commies and hiring people who agree with us to teach and administer. This, by the way, helps us two ways – it takes away power and influence from the Left and if we do it, then our colleges will be providing real education. This is going to be crucial going forward because when its time to staff agencies and business, when the hiring people are given a choice between Ivy League Woke and Red State Educated, our people will get picked simply because they’ll be capable.

The boycott of Bud Light has been a phenomenal success – but, it was easy, wasn’t it? All across America beer drinkers can just reach for the Coors Light rather than the gay beer. Don’t know how Bud Light comes back from this.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan40 Comments

Starting a few weeks ago and now really gathering steam is a coordinated effort in the MSM to smear the Supreme Court’s Conservative majority. I’m sure most of you have seen at least bits of it but what the stories all amount to is the portrayal of business as usual (the Liberal Justices and families do the same things – and apparently the sorts of activities have been common in the Court for ages with no complaints) in the most lurid terms possible. With the smears comes the Solution: pack the Court for the more far Left voices, enact “ethics” rules for the seemingly reasonable part of the Left.

What it all amounts to, though, is an attempt to de-legitimize the Court as preparation for its emasculation. To make it something of no account in American governance. At least until such time as it regains a Liberal majority, then it will all be Holy Writ again. But, of course, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube…once the Court is de-legitimized it doesn’t get legitimacy back. It either becomes utterly powerless or a mere rubber stamp for the powerful. In neither case do you retain an independent branch of government able to halt unconstitutional actions by the other two branches. To nutshell it, because the Court is no longer a happy hunting ground for the imposition of grossly unpopular Liberal policy, the Liberals propose to destroy the Court…and in the process destroy the Republic.

While most Liberals, themselves, are too brainless to understand what is happening, we on the Right must very much be aware and seek to stop it. But here’s the real problem: just as polls now show majorities are fearful of the climate change hoax, so will majorities eventually hold the Court to be corrupt – if the MSM repeats a lie often enough, it gets believed and thus affects votes. Essentially, the MSM – at the behest of the DNC – is going to lie to the American people until the people say we have to “do something” to fix the Court…and the “something” will not have any connection to the Constitution. And if the Court strikes down the “something” that will be seen as proof that the Court is corrupt. Our problem isn’t Liberal desire here so much as Liberal lies – especially Liberal MSM lies.

The Founders knew full well that there would be lies. They were all men of the world and bleakly aware of the follies of mankind. They wrote the First Amendment so ensure that the truth would also be spoken. That with everyone getting their say, the lies would more often than not be exposed and people would support the truth. But what the Founders never envisioned was 90% or more of the means of speaking being under the control of liars serving one Party. What we can’t do is pretend that the uniformity of lies from CNN/MSNBC/CBS/ABC/NPR/Washington Post/NY Times/etc, etc is something protected by the First Amendment. The Constitution is not a suicide pact.

Starting on the local and State level and going to federal if as and when we obtain trifecta power, we should enact a series of laws removing all protections from those who lie in the MSM. The Sullivan ruling – made by a Liberal Court to empower the MSM to lie with abandon – must be jettisoned. And I think that we’ve now got a Supreme Court which has a vested interest in seeing it jettisoned. We must not ever get the government in the business of policing speech…but we must restore the pre-Sullivan criteria that if you lie about someone in public, you have defamed them and are liable for civil penalty. Keep in mind that Sullivan held that actual malice had to be shown and it is almost impossible for a person lied about in the press to prove actual malice (who can see into another person’s mind?). What we must restore is a standard of falsehood: if you lie, you must pay. Don’t want to pay? Then don’t say in public anything you aren’t 100% certain is true. I don’t see this as a burden for anyone. And I mean, at all. Tell the truth or shut your trap.

If we can do this, then we will be able to push back against the MSM. Remember, they lie all the time about everything. If they don’t lie all the time about everything then the Democrats will lose in landslides all across the country – including in Blue States. It is lies which sustain the Left, nothing else. Take away the ability of people to lie without fear…and we win.

Jim Cramer says the banking crisis is over. So, I suggest you invest in canned goods and shotguns given Cramer’s record of always being wrong.

Tom Brady reportedly done with dating models. Yeah, Imma call that Fake News. I mean, why do rich, good looking guys date super models? Because they can.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan51 Comments

Democrats have a Feinstien problem. No, its not her lifetime of corruption or that she employed a Chinese spy for years. For the Democrats, none of that is a problem! Their problem is that she’s 900 years old and is ill – can’t get to the Senate to vote the way she’s told and its holding up Biden’s horrific judicial nominees. Naturally, they want the GOP to get them out of this jam by voting to suspend the rules and allow some other Democrat to temporarily fill her seat. McConnell has come through for us on this and not allowed it – as they can’t get unanimous consent, they’ll need a floor vote and that takes 60 votes to happen. Can they get GOP votes for it? Perhaps some, but I suspect not enough. This does provide some real leverage for the Senate GOP…but one thing McConnell has never liked is using leverage against Democrats. Naked exercises of power are ok with him, but making them pay a price for something never enters into his head. OTOH, McConnell is clearly not in the best of health, himself, and as GOPers start jockeying for position, maybe they can force Mitch’s hand here? With the debt ceiling looming, this is the perfect time to take a pound of Democrat flesh.

There’s several videos of a completely looted Chicago Wal Mart. This isn’t just some high value items – the store is pretty much cleared out. The most heart wrenching was put out by a Chicago mother who was simply shopping for food for the kids and there was none left. And she does blame her fellow black people for it – pointing out that she is not a thief, but now because of them she can’t get what she needs. The bad news: it just gets worse from here. Chicago’s new Mayor is a full-blown Leninist who figures that looting is just “loot the looters”. But you can’t sustain this: businesses can’t remain in business if at any moment their whole stock of goods is to be stolen. And think about it: a whole Wal Mart was cleaned out. Even the neighborhood Wal Mart stores are pretty darn big. Think how long it would take even for a sizeable mob to clean it out…which means the police weren’t even called on a “why bother?” attitude or they didn’t come after being called (and why should they? If they did and tried to make arrests, they’d just be setting themselves up for accusations of racist brutality with the mayor siding with the looters). In a short while, the only retail outlets in Blue cities will be fortresses with only limited goods and high prices to pay the costs of security. And without any easy targets to loot, it isn’t like the mobs will then settle down and get a job…they’ll just start moving out into the rich, white suburbs with their BLM flags (that last bit will be a little funny, tho…)

China appears to be opening police stations in the USA in order to monitor and harass Chinese dissidents residing here. The two cops here were arrested but I have my doubts will really put a stop to this: the PRC has so entirely penetrated the American establishment that this might merely have been the signal for them to keep it more low key.

The latest comic book turned movie has become another in a long string of flops. Get woke, go broke as they say. But really its more “go boring, go broke”. Fun movies are supposed to be fun. Perhaps a bit ridiculous and heavy on special effects and explosions, but that is all part of the fun. But they become a drag if you have to bootstrap social commentary into them. I’m no genius author but I always consider the story before anything else. A character first introduced in Kings and Queen is gay, though not obviously so. If you’re paying close attention, you’ll notice it. But that fact also plays no role in the story. My characters have always appeared to me full grown as soon as I need them: there is character development as time goes on, but the gender, looks and basic motives of them are all there, whammo, as soon as I need them. This character, who shows up in a battle scene, showed up gay. In The Crimson Blade (Book VIII which will be released after Empress) this character becomes a secondary character in the overall story and so I tell more of his backstory – with him remaining gay, but that fact remaining utterly uninteresting in his role. Because something like that is primarily uninteresting. Its like hair color: something that just is. It is what your characters do in the story which makes or breaks them, and decides if the story is interesting. As it turns out, I liked this character so much that in Book IX (Home World), he becomes a main character.

What I’m saying here is that you can have in your stories non-traditional character roles. In fact, having a few odd balls in there is kinda fun. Anyone who reads my stories knows I favor strong female characters – I’ve never liked shrinking violets and I didn’t marry one. Mousy women have always irritated me. The girls I’ve got are gutsy broads who aren’t afraid of anything…but I’m also not going to please modern absurdity by having one of them take down a 250 pound warrior in hand to hand combat (Rossalyn slicing the unwary up with a sword is another matter entirely, of course). You can have just about anything you want in your story – but its got to be fun, not be boring because you had to shoehorn in the latest social mores as decreed by the ultra-woke. The sooner the movie makers figure this out the sooner they’ll get back to making money.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan43 Comments

I saw a meme yesterday and I may have been a photoshopped joke. I wish I had copied it but it is long gone somewhere in the Twitter TL but the gist of it was a chryon claiming 15% of the American people believe Satanist pedophiles run America. We smile. Har har. Can’t be! But then, today, I came across something called UNAIDS 8 March Principles.

It ain’t good, folks. To quote:

…sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law. In this context, the enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them.

I think that you and I – because we’re not insane – would simply hold to a principle that the age of consent it set for a reason. Understanding that there can always be exceptions to every rule, in most Western nations we have decided that before your 18th birthday, you lack the capacity to reasonably consent. Whether that consent is to take out a loan or to engage in sexual activity. We know that a 15 year old can be wise beyond their years and that a 25 year old can be childish. But the line has to be drawn somewhere and we drew it at 18.

We are also reasonable people so we’re probably not going to prosecute a 19 year old boy who has consensual sex with a 17 year old girl. But our rule will still remain that any time a person over 18 has sexual relations with a person under 18, scrutiny is to be applied and the younger the minor and the older the adult the more harsh we’re going to be. And to be fair here, the UN is not calling for the decriminalization of pedophilia but do note the way they wrote it: the minor involved is to be asked how they felt about it and if the minor says it was ok, that must be taken into consideration as a matter of law. In other words, if a groomer manages to successfully groom, then its ok.

We’re really barrelling ahead into very dark times, my friends. Evil is stalking the world and taking over every institution. Because we believe in God we know we will win…but when we do win, we must remember that at times harshness works out to mercy. We must instruct those who are going down the UN’s path. They must forever learn that you cannot do that.

Never heard of Yuengling beer until just recently – but I guess they are America’s oldest brewery and they are ruthlessly taking advantage of Budweiser becoming the King of Gay Beers. I don’t drink much these days but I will have a beer or two by the pool. So, I’ll pick up Yuengling.

In case you have been living under a rock, it is now officially reported that anti-Christian bigotry is reaching unprecedented levels. This is the natural course of events. Gay is now the national religion and no national religion allows a rival. Do keep in mind, it isn’t all gay people. Might not even be most gay people. But certain people are insisting that everyone bend the knee to LGBTQ and if you don’t, you will pay a price.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan40 Comments

Rumor mill says McConnell is about to call it quits: I guess that fall he took a little while back was much worse than originally advertised. The good news is that the Kentucky GOP rather miraculously engaged in foresight and in 2021 enacted – over the Democrat governor’s veto – a new provision for replacing a Senator: the governor must select between 3 different candidates put forward by the Party which won the previous Senate election. So, Mitch gets replaced by another GOPer. I do pray that McConnell recovers but I’m also happy he’s moving on…he did a lot of good things for us, but he’s too old and too old fashioned. He’s not the sort of leader we need in the Senate right now.

Update: In a Tweet, McConnell says he’ll return to the Senate on Monday, scotching that rumor, at least for now.

The IRS is now going to force 1099’s on anyone who receives $600.00 or more via Venmo or other electronic means. This is what Pudding Brain meant when he said he was going to make those billionaires pay their fair share: it was always about going after low paid people not letting Uncle Sam get his cut. As I’ve said again and again: the richest 1% doesn’t have any money. Not in relation to what Uncle Sam needs. In 2022 Uncle Sam spent $6.2 trillion. All the rich people in America, if we confiscated it, probably wouldn’t cover 80% of that. And even if it covered a year, that’s it. All done. No more rich people. You can only confiscate once. The real money in America – by a vast amount – is held by working people. Those who go to work every day and earn taxable wages. Each of us only has a small amount but there are 166.7 million of us. Collectively, we make vastly more than the super rich and the pool of taxable money replaces itself every year. Any “tax the rich” scheme by the Democrats will always work out to “soak the poor”. It simply can’t be any other way.

Netflix is going with a black Cleopatra. This is what she looked like from contemporary sources:

She was Greek. She might not have even known how to speak the Egyptian language. She was the tail end of a Greek Ruling Class which set itself up in Alexandria in the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s demise and simply milked Egypt for all it was worth. But even if she was the product of some intermarriage with native Egyptians, this is what Egyptians looked like:

Were Egyptians Swedes? No. But they also weren’t black Africans. They were fairly typical Mediterranean peoples – skin darker than northern Europeans but not as dark as Africans. Easily could have been admixture into them from both sub-Sahara and northern Europe (the more we study the ancients the more we’re finding that people really moved around a lot).

So, why are they doing this? Two reasons:

  1. To eliminate white people from any positive aspect of history. White people are the devil in modern thinking and so cannot be connected to anyone who ever did a good deed, or even did anything interesting. This is cultural erasure and it is spreading: black people are being credited with innovations of Europeans and rely on it, eventually black people will be credited with all technology, art, literature and architecture.
  2. The Left feels a need to create a pro-Black myth to replace the older, pro-White myth. They can’t go around and simply say that the old racism was wrong and we shouldn’t do it anymore. Because just saying that means you’re still sitting around wondering just why black Africans were so technologically backwards as late as the 19th century. Even in the Americas there were some impressive civilizations. The highest sub-Saharan cultures barely rose to the heights of the neolithic era. Only the Australians were more primitive. I mean, there are very obvious reasons for the lack of development…almost entirely stemming from the peculiar geography of Africa. But your basic Marxist “studies” professor probably can’t read a map and never learned about how trade developed. So, they just make up things.

The Ruling Class is really angry that someone leaked intel showing that the Ukrainian military is weak. They are leaving no stone unturned to find the miscreant. Which is kinda weird: after all, even if you support Ukraine, you still need to know the true situation so you can assess the needs and respond. Unless, of course, the whole thing is a money laundering grift and so you need to hide it all to keep it rolling until just before Russian tanks arrive in Kiev.