Open Thread

Open Thread

Mark Noonan26 Comments

Harris is moving radio ad money out of Wisconsin and putting into rap/hip hop stations in Philadelphia. This is the Democrat woman-of-color candidate who figures she needs to shore up her support among African-American voters in Philly. Make of that what you will. I say it is triage. I think her campaign has now settled on MI, PA and NC as her one and only path. Any one of those 3 goes to Trump, and it is over, presuming that Trump is ok in WI (which he must be if Harris is conceding the State) as well as AZ, NV, GA. If so and she gets all 3 she’s at 276. This is what is known in the betting world as “a long shot”.

But I really view this as an attempt to save downballot. Democrats might have thought a month ago they had a chance to get Harris past 270 but that’s fading and so her campaign is now in default mode – a mode she’s probably not even aware of: she was brought in to save the House and Senate (with the Senate looking forlorn so now its really about trying to get a House majority or at least a narrow enough minority that the Dems can essentially call the House shots).

Side note: something to consider is that her campaign says she’s raised a billion dollars since she got in. Where’s the money? If she raised that much she’s got enough for both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. There wouldn’t be a need to shift resources.

Unless that number was fake…and/or people who pledged big bucks are now looking at internals and pulling the plug.

All in all, it looks good for Trump. If this works – that is, the Trump campaign strategy, it’ll rewrite the book on how the GOP wins nationally. If it doesn’t work then the nation will collapse. So, no pressure, guys!

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

You’re only as old as you feel!

Which is why we feel like extras in a Walking Dead scene!

But, seriously: earlier today and last week I was doing cannon balls into my pool. Its heading to 99 here in Vegas and the pool temp is 80…but I didn’t just get in to cool off. I decided to do some cannon balls. You remember those, right? I do. And I remembered how to do them…though I suspect I made a bigger splash than I did as a kid. Don’t know why I decided that a cannonball was the thing to do; just did.

They are just as fun as they were when I was 12.

And it got me thinking that the world really is a magical place – I just think that as we age, we lose our awe of it. If you’ve read any of the Mirrors series, that attitude probably comes through…the feeling on the part of the Lontarians that our modern marvels are magical even if we say they’re not. I’m flip-siding that a little bit in the soon-to-be-released Home World where Hadwin notes that there’s something technological in the magic, as well. And, to me, there is.

I think it is important that we never get “too old”. I mean, sure: there are practical considerations. Someone not too long ago posted a meme saying, “remember when we used to jump out of the swing and just land ok? Them knees were fresh out of the box!”. I do not recommend anyone in geezerdom to actually jump from any height. But I think that in our spirit, we should still try to see the magic. That it is a miracle – even if we can explain it – that we’re able to communicate instantly across vast distances. But that its also a miracle when a raindrop falls or a cloud drifts by. Of course, maybe I’m just weird…but I do feel inside like I always have. I’m nearly 60 and I just don’t feel the slightest bit different from when I was 16. Sure, my knees hurt all the time and I have to get a magnifying glass out to read a label..but I’ve never lost that fascination with the world; and I feel very young.

Latest polls are mixed – and I mean, completely mixed. Depending on which polls you look at, both candidates are winning. This is not possible. Any honest polling of the same population would show roughly the same thing. Sure, you might get Poll A saying Candidate X is at 47.2, Candidate Y at 46.8 while Poll B shows X at 46.9 and Y at 47.3. That is normal statistical variation. But when Poll A says X at 52 and Poll B says Y at 51…well, they simply both can’t have majority support. They both can’t be winning. At least one of the polls is then lying – could be both, but definitely is one.

In my opinion, the most likely liars are the Harris-favorable polls. This is based as I’ve said all along on voter registration info, primary voting patterns, etc. We can add to it now a slight bit of early voting data which is also favorable to Trump. The objective facts that we can see show Trump doing well, not Harris…and so it is far more likely that the pro-Harris polls are nonsense. But, we shall see, shan’t we? It is all up to who shows up – Team Trump is banking on angry, irregular voters to not just tip the election in his favor, but to utterly bury Harris. He’s got a whole plan to appeal to these people and get them to the polls – the segment of the American population that is fed up with the Uniparty. Will it work? We’re going to find out.

NYC Mayor Adams got indicted. Democrats are citing this as proof that the Justice Department is even-handed. We GOPers immediately assumed it was revenge against Adams. There are lots of theories out there as to why they would go after Adams for what amounts to fairly moderate and common corruption (trust me, he ain’t the only one getting airline upgrades) but nobody is really sure. Is it because he dissented from the immigration? Is it a power play by other people in NYC government? There is a chance the power players in NYC are perceiving him a disaster but one who will be re-elected next year…maybe this axe was swung to get him out and get in a radical-left Mayor who will so turn everyone off that a Bloomberg or Guiliani will get elected next year? Who the heck knows…but whatever it is, it isn’t merely going after corruption (they’d have to arrest almost everyone involved in NYC government if they did that).

Zelenskyy showed up to dun us for more money – after doing a campaign swing in Pennsylvania for Harris. Infuriating…but he was probably ordered to do it by Harris. I’ve read that he’ll meet with Trump tomorrow. Naturally the GOP has already signed on to provide more money…and material; even though our own military is saying the cupboard is bare. It’ll take us years to restock our supplies…we simply don’t have the manufacturing capacity we had even 20 years ago. This whole Ukraine thing is a mess. But it did occur to me as Zelenskyy marched though Congress flanked by McConnell and Schumer that there in front of us was the reason why Vietnam lasted 8 years while our involvement in WWII was 3 years, 8 months: a failure of will. Simply cowardice.

Let’s concede for the sake of argument that Ukraine is vital to America’s interests – ok, if that is the case then you gather your forces, send them close by and then issue an ultimatum to Russia to pull back…failure to do so being casus belli. It isn’t an unusual thing. Heck, it happened pretty much right there in 1854. The Russians wanted to take advantage of the Turkish Ottoman Empire – Britain and France didn’t want Russia to do that. So, when the Russians attacked the Anglo-French sent a fleet and army and issued their ultimatum. The Russians didn’t back down and so the Crimean War came. After it was over, Russia was defeated and had to accept Allied terms. Maybe Russia would back down this time? Maybe not. But if its vital, you must take the risks.

And if it isn’t vital? Then what the heck are we even doing here? But it has to be one or the other. It is either vital, or it isn’t.

But they won’t do that – they won’t call it vital but won’t declare it unimportant. They won’t fight and they won’t surrender. Just like Vietnam…fight but never win. Or even try to win. So, we just keep feeding the fires of war and immense monetary cost to us and a huge blood cost to Russia and Ukraine. Anyone around here long enough knows that I’ve always viewed Russia as a potential ally. Heck, even back when it was the USSR I had no real ill feelings for the Russians as people. Keep in mind that Russia provided diplomatic support for us during the Revolution, staunchly refused all efforts by European powers to recognize the Confederacy and, of course, were our allies in the field in both World Wars. We also share a lot of strategic interests. But now that is all burned…I doubt that Russia will want to draw close to us after years of American money buying dead Russians…and this will include the hatred of Russians who are opponents of Putin and/or the war. And now we’re about to give I guess another $8 billion so that Ukrainians can kill Russians and be killed by same with no possibility that Ukraine can force a decision in their favor. Just disgusts me.

On the economy – the official Stats show everything is ok. OTOH, credit card delinquencies are heading into record territory. Lots of stories emerging about rising eviction rates (which does make me suspect that corporate landlords are giving citizens the boot because they can get more renting to governemnt-subsidized illegal immigrants. It is still far too expensive for most youngsters to buy a home (seen a happy/happy, joy/joy ad for a bank showing a happy 20-something living in a studio apartment he’s got a mortgage on…geesh!). Food prices remain ruinous. In other words, what the people are living in is bad…and likely to get a lot worse. I suspect this will play a role in determining who the next President is.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan29 Comments

I admit to feeling a little sick about how the campaign is going – what I read this morning placed a deep bit of fear on my heart.

No, not the ridiculous polls that came out Sunday – and were, at any rate, totally contradicted by the polls that came out Monday. It was when the FBI decided to release the “bounty” letter from the Florida shooter. An FBI which never releases anything suddenly decided that today was a good day to release a letter allegedly from the shooter calling on others to finish the job for him. It doesn’t matter the actual provenance of the letter – the fact that it was released was the bad thing. It was a call for every Leftwing nutjob to grab a gun and get busy. It disgusted me.

Trump is being hunted and the agencies tasked by law to protect him are doing everything they can via calculated incompetence to help it along. I really do hope that Trump has contracted private security…some of those former Navy Seal or SAS Commando types who hire themselves out to provide security for those really at risk. You know: the kind of guys who held off Jihadists in Benghazi back in 2012 when outnumbered literal hundreds to one. The kind of guys who almost ensure you never get a first shot and definitely never get a second.

What has happened to our country? What has become of us? We still have people on the Right objecting to Trump on moral grounds as if the Ruling Class, in all its nauseating elements, isn’t simply anti-human. Trump isn’t our savior – he’s not even the guy to save America, really. He’s just a stopgap for us. A desperate attempt to hold the Ruling Class at bay as we look for the means to destroy it utterly. These people simply cannot be allowed to retain any power anywhere in the USA.

Of course, we all bear our share of responsibility for this. On X yesterday someone claimed that Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London was an allegory of the overall Entertainment industry creepiness. Don’t know for sure – and I can’t find anything where Zevon, who died in 2003, made the explicit connection. But then you think about the lyrics (for instance, “I saw werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vick’s and his hair was perfect”) and match it up to the “open secret” perversions of Jimmy Savile when the song came out and you think, “sure, maybe”. The main thing here – and with the Epstein, Weinstein, Cosby and now Diddy revelations – is that they all knew. None of it is actually secret. Nor are things like the insider trading, kickbacks and other such corruptions a secret. We’re being run by a corrupt, cruel and stupid Ruling Class and they are ever more just throwing it in our faces, confident that we’ll just continue to put up with it.

We can’t. We must elect Trump. I do believe we will but now its a matter of simple national survival. And then starting with Trump and continuing as long as it is necessary we simply must cut down these people. Expose them all. Jail them. Turn them against each other so that some will talk. It is either them or us, and I choose us.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan12 Comments

An Atlas poll came out Saturday showing Trump at 51% and this means, of course, that ABC puts out a poll on Sunday showing Harris at 52%. Guys, you can’t get results like that via honesty. At least one of the pollsters is just flat out lying. It could be both of them, but one of them definitely is. Given that ABC is ABC, my assumption is that their poll is flaming garbage. But the real lesson here is to never put too much faith in polls – as we’ve seen and discussed for years, even those trying their best can get it wrong. What do we see rather than hear? That Harris is pretty much setting up camp in Pennsylvania. If she was up by six, she would be trying to expand the map, not trying to thread the needle to 270.

Now that we’re past the initial Cat Memes, the Left and Never Trump are saying we were wrong to bring it up – racists, too. Of course. But the crucial aspect of it was to bring to the public mind the real problem: that we’re taking in just tens of millions all at once and it is causing problems. Here’s the bottom line on it – if you are an immigration supporter and think we should make it as easy as possible for people to move here, you’d still be opposed to the sort of influx that Springfield, OH is enduring. It is just too much, too fast. But that the other side of this is not conceding this – and calling us racists for noticing – points to the real problem we have here: a significant portion of the power in the USA wants this to happen. That is, for a variety of reasons, they see mass migration to the USA as a good thing.

It is partially for money; a lot of people make a lot of money just bringing them in. In this, non-profits make, well, huge profits bringing them in. Billions in taxpayer dollars are passed out to non-profits based on the number of immigrants they handle and, guess what?, that means they work diligently to increase the numbers they handle. I’ve seen reports where some of these organizations have had their revenues increase by several orders of magnitude since 2020.

It is partially for exploitation: huge numbers of these people are ruthlessly exploited by corporations, sex traffickers and criminal cartels. They take these poor people and squeeze the blood out of them. Every year untold billions of dollars are remitted by immigrants to foreign countries and if you think even a large percentage of it is winding up in the hands of some poor farmer in Oaxaca then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Drug cartels run the poorest areas of Mexico…and gangs that chop off heads to send a message aren’t going to pass up the opportunity to steal from a multi-billion dollar revenue stream. One must keep in mind that the most valuable commodity on Earth is human beings. Wars were fought to secure the African slave trade because it was so incredibly valuable. An ounce of gold is great…but an ounce of gold can’t clean up for you. Can’t be exploited every single day to provide unearned income for you.

And it is partially political. Not for nothing have most of these immigrants been sent to Red States. The Democrats are now starting to lose every demographic except upper class whites and black women. The blue collar votes they are losing to Trump and an ever more populist GOP have to be replaced…and that is precisely what they’re trying to do…totally abusing Executive authority, they are bringing in millions on parole, calling them legal immigrants and giving them work permits…but also welfare. And you know darned well that their goal is to amnesty these people and get them voting as quickly as possible.

So, when you’re called a racist for pointing out there are downsides to mass migration, remember who is saying it: ruthless, cruel people trying to exploit the poor of the world for personal benefit. And when Trump wins in November, remember that it was silly cat memes that helped him to victory: never accept the Left’s Narrative. They’re only mad right now because we successfully implanted immigration as an issue.

J D Vance continues to impress – he did 3 Sunday talk shows today while Harris and Walz did zero. He’s articulate, intelligent, has done his homework and doesn’t roll over for MSM lies. He doesn’t accept their premise and that is so very crucial…Trump started down this path but, lets face it, he lacks a bit of discipline in this. Vance just crucifies the lying sons of bitches. He’s going to be an excellent Vice President and we GOPers are going to have a tough call in 2028 choosing between him and DeSantis.

Here Kitty, Kitty Open Thread

Mark Noonan35 Comments

The Democrats hate those cat memes.

I love how the MSM is all “official sources are denying reports of cats being eaten”…as if anyone believes official sources…or that the MSM’s job is to just repeat the press release rather than checking.

Look, do I know with existential certainty that a cat has been eaten by an illegal immigrant? No. But there is enough anecdotal evidence to indicate it…and it would be rare for a person to call the police to report a missing cat. The place to check is actually the local animal shelters: has there been an increase in inquiries about missing pets? That would tell the tale…but the MSM won’t do that. Why not? Because they are terrified of what they might find.

What is important about this – and why Democrats hate it so much – is that it makes it personal and easily understood by the American people. There was a news report not too long ago about the Biden Administration providing “temporary” protected status for another 309,000 Haitians. We know that “temporary” means “forever” – but it is another 309,000. Meaning there are far more than 309,000 Haitians in country. 309,000 is nearly 3% of Haiti’s total population. Just how many of them are here? 5%? 7%? 10%? We really don’t know – and extending “temporary” protected status to 309,000 means its really extended to every Haitian who can get here…how in heck you going to sort them out? It isn’t like there’s a government in Haiti we can check with…even supposing the Haitian government actually kept records about their people.

But all that I just wrote still doesn’t mean a lot. It gives a sense of unease…but nothing you can put your finger on. Missing kitty cats? That is something. Huge numbers of us have cats. We love our little kitty cats. If someone is doing something to them – and we’ve got enough recent reports to say that things are being done to them by foreigners in the USA – that is horrific…and easily understood. It demonstrates the complete cultural incompatibility of these people. They simply don’t know that you can’t kill Fluffy…nor are you allowed to hunt the geese in the local park. To a Haitian flown from his shack next to an open sewer in Port au Prince to a Section 8 house in Ohio, that goose is just free food…he doesn’t understand. And why should we expect him to? I don’t blame the Haitian guy for seeing the tame park goose as an easy meal…I blame the monied interests who brought him in.

It is entirely killing their Narrative about Dreamers…an already unpopular thing (illegal immigration) has become politically toxic. And they can’t do anything about it – the Democrats, as a party, are committed to mass importation of a replacement population. If Harris were to really get up there and say “we’re going to deport and we’re going to seal the border” then 20% of her vote would to to Jill Stein. The far Left will not forgive such a thing. So, she makes vague statements about providing more funding for the border patrol and getting tough on drug trafficking…which statements are, of themselves, lies.

Gavin Newsom signed a new law to “get tough” on smash and grab robberies. Or, at least, that is how the regime propagandists at the Associated Press described it. But once you dig into it you find out that its only if the robber passes $50,000.00 in theft or damage. In other words, it is the Beverly Hills Retail Establishment Protection Act. Gavin must have got some calls from the rich about how they don’t want their nice little shopping areas ruined…and like a good, little Ruling Class tool, he got the job done. The poor suckers in Compton losing their local CVS and Target get nothing. I think Trump should figure out a way to bring this one up – it so clearly shows that the Democrats are just the Ruling Class and only care about the Ruling Class.

Over on ABC’s Tik Tok account, Trump’s closing statement from the debate is past 23 million views, overwhelmingly positive. Harris’? Not quite 4 and a half million views.

I’m sure you saw that video of Biden putting on a MAGA hat. I’m still not 100% sure about what happened there: was he just senile and didn’t know? Just having a little fun?

Or was he giving a gigantic middle finger to Harris and the DNC for what they did to him?

Nobody despises Biden more than I do but the bottom line is that they did totally screw him. The time to get him out was June of 2023. That’s when Hillary and Barry and the other leaders should have gone to Biden and said, “Joe, we love you; we appreciate all you’ve done and we’re forever grateful…but your fast ball has lost a bit and it is time to bow out gracefully”. Biden probably would have agreed. There would have been a real primary and the Democrats would have someone who could credibly campaign on change…but, no: they decided to lie (with Biden’s cooperation, of course; he is still a rat bastard in his own right) and keep him in only to have him implode…and now they’re stuck with Harris.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan43 Comments

Actual MSM headline:

Former President Trump sidesteps his role in Afghanistan exit in trying to link Vice President Harris to chaos

This is the level of lies we’re dealing with – in the MSM’s lie, Trump is trying to pin his failure in Afghanistan on Harris. The hook they’re using is an allegation that what Trump did in office made the Afghan failure happen. This is, of course, nonsense. Whatever Trump did to 1/20/2021, Biden and Harris had until 8/20/2021 to fix it. And that is presuming that Trump did something wrong. He didn’t but it is no use arguing the point – the people in charge when the catastrophe happened were Harris and Biden…with Harris asserting in olden times (like a year ago) that she was the last person to advise Biden on it.

The reason I bring this up is not to show yet another lie but to remind you that they are lying – about everything, including their polling. What we’re being treated to in 2024 is an effort to make people vote based on something 180 from reality. It has never been done quite like this before – even the most egregiously dishonest campaigns in the past at least tried to deal in the situation as it was…here we’re getting people trying to secure your vote by saying “black is white”. It will naturally work with the most dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. Will it work on anyone else? We’re going to find out. I believe it will not work – and, in fact, will prove counter-productive as people get pissed off when someone so brazenly lies to them.

The real state of the race is this: all through the 2024 cycle Senator Rosen (D-NV) has steered away from any mention that she’s a Democrat, has refused to appear with the Democrat nominee and has burnished her image as a non-partisan problem-solver. This is just a pack of lies and according to polling it is working…supposedly she has a comfortable lead over Sam Brown, her Republican challenger. But this morning I saw a new Rosen ad – it explicitly attacks the Democrats for harming blue collar workers with tax increases. Naturally, the ad concludes with her pledge to fight against that but think about the state of her internal polling if she feels the need for that sort of ad. This race is not going as the Narrative says. Not even close.

They’re going to keep it up – they won’t stop. They’ve committed to it – the BS will continue to 11/5. But we live in a world where 46% of middle class workers have cut their retirement plan contributions because of the rising cost of living. That is the reality. That is what people will remember. That is what they will vote on.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan33 Comments

A lot of recent polling indicates that whatever momentum Harris was getting after the coup against Biden, it is fading fast. Personally, I don’t think it ever really happened but there are only so many thumbs you can put on the scale before your poll becomes such garbage that you lose credibility entirely…there was a gap of at least several days in polling before the most recent releases and my guess on that is that they were finding what was, in the end, found: even with thumbs on the scale, Trump was at worst holding position to get past 270.

As per usual in all elections, it will be decided by who shows up. Gallup’s most recent party ID poll had the electorate R+6. All of us doubt that – but maybe we shouldn’t. Someone pointed out on X that after months of good polling for Trump GOPers were still dooming and glooming while a week of good polling for Harris got Democrats seriously claiming they’d flip Texas and Utah. We’re just built to be Debbie Downers, aren’t we? We’re so used to losing that we can’t envision winning. Maybe we should start to act like winners? Trump sure seems confident – at the worst of the Kamala-mentum he was out there golfing and nailing it. Any golfer will tell you that if you’re stressed you’ll do poorly. Trump wasn’t stressed in the least.

Keep in mind that public polls are “free” and are therefore designed for a purpose. None of them are agenda-free. Sometimes it is far more subtle than others, but if someone gives you something for free then they want something out of you. Your grandmother can give you a free lunch – everyone else is working an angle. Meanwhile, both parties have pollsters who are crucial in determining which States to spend time and money in. These people don’t mess around. If you’re such a pollster and you steer candidates wrong, you’ll be out of work. Both Team Trump and Team Harris know the state of the race – and they are pouring money into Pennsylvania, especially after Labor Day (oddly, so far Team Trump has reserved about 50% more time in PA than Team Harris – Harris almost certainly can’t get past 270 without PA…so being heavily outspent seems weird…but might also mean that the supposed record-breaking fundraising she did after the coup was just a story; of course, Team Harris might push up their numbers in PA as they see Team Trump do it).

If Gallup is right, or even if its R+2, Harris has an impossible task – there simply won’t be enough votes out there to get to 270…probably not even enough to win the popular vote, even with CA and NY voting for her in droves. R+1 to D+2 means Harris has to draw an inside straight just to get to 270. D+3 its a complete tossup. The polls are mostly predicated upon D+3 to D+5. So, we see lots of polls showing tossup or a slight Harris advantage. And if the electorate is D+5 then, yeah, Trump is going to lose. He simply won’t be able to find enough votes to get past 270. But there is zero indication that the electorate will be worse for Trump than even on party ID – voter registration and primary voting patterns all indicate an electorate more GOP than polling suggests.

Who shows up: that decides it.

And do note that Team Trump is expending efforts to drag low-propensity voters to the polls. These are people who do vote but only in Presidential years and even then not all the time. Lots of polling shows Trump absolutely crushing it with this demographic. Trouble is: they don’t vote all the time. It isn’t an absolute necessity that Trump get these people to show, but if he’s successful in doing so, what in polling today is a tight race becomes a blowout win for Trump. We’ll see if Team Trump’s bet on this pays off.

Harris’ first big policy roll out has been to steal some Trump policies and add a bunch of Communism. You should hear her border ad in Nevada – to listen to it, you’d think she’s a MAGA border hawk. It stops just half an inch before “build the wall”. It is a nauseating lie – if she wins she’ll do nothing to control the border. In fact, it’ll be a signal to let 20 million or more in. But that she’s running the ads shows (a) she’s very weak on the issue and (b) Trump has moved the window on it…just by talking about it over and over and over again. Open borders is simply unpopular. Even pluralities of Democrats favor closing the border. I’ve seen polling where majorities of Latinos favor mass deportations. Trump has won the immigration debate – of course, it only becomes reality if he wins. Anyone else will simply mouth some words and keep the bodies flowing.

But the Communism is the thing – and it is working out badly for Harris. Her program of essentially imposing price controls is being panned even in parts of the Left. Everyone who thinks at all knows it is a bad idea. The inflation is because of the government spending money it doesn’t have. Everyone knows that the only way to get inflation to halt is to dial back government spending while increasing domestic production until rising wealth restores the equilibrium we had in 2019. Her bizarre idea of providing 25 grand to new home buyers is being noticed as the pandering it is – with plenty of comments from current homeowners about how its not exactly fair to shovel cash at some people and not others.

Walz continues to be a drag on Harris – not in polling, but there’s some nonsense in that. But the crucial thing – and the thing least likely to show in general national polling – is how veterans view Walz. Most civilians simply won’t understand how infuriating it is to any veteran to see someone fake their record. Sea stories are fine – appreciated (Old joke: what’s the difference between a sea story and a fairy tale? A fairy tale begins with “once upon a time” while a sea story begins with “no sh*t”). But to lie about actual service is despised. We all honor each other’s service – doesn’t matter where you were assigned; if you showed up and did your job, you’re one of us. Sure, there is extra honor accorded to those who had to really get down into the mud and blood, but no veteran denigrates those who served. All veterans pledged their lives and that’s good enough. But to lie about it – to appropriate valor and suffering not endured – is just disgusting to veterans. And to do it – like Walz – to burnish a resume for political purposes is just beyond the pale. Recent polling in Virginia shows it close – and this after the coup. That is Virginia’s massive veteran population. There are lots of bureaucrats in northern Virginia voting with their paymasters in DC…but tidewater Virginia is packed to the gills with retired Marines and sailors who, I assure you , despise what Walz did. This could have a small but decisive effect on the result.

Meanwhile, JD Vance continues to impress. We all loved how the latest attack on him was someone dredging up a picture of a young Walz apparently down for the count after a bout of youthful drinking. Another showed him goofing off with some girls in the boys room. I don’t know what they were thinking on this one – all it did was make him more relatable. I mean, relatable to anyone who challenged Jose Cuervo to a duel in high school. This, I think, is most of us. But maybe not Liberals? I dunno. Maybe Liberals don’t have fun. Maybe that’s their problem? Anyways, the guy is turning into teflon – and I think he’ll mop the floor with that phony, Walz.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan15 Comments

There’s been a persistent rumor that Biden is not at all pleased to have been forced out. I don’t know if its true but I’d bet money that it is. Gotta think about it: He was happily retired in 2019 and it was the party bosses who prevailed upon him to run. They figured that “Scranton Joe” was the best shot at beating Trump. He got into it because he was asked to get into it – and this after being rudely passed over in 2016 in favor of Hillary! Remember: he was the sitting VP of what was accounted as a very successful, two-term President. The normal course of events would be Biden getting the nod as reward for his loyal service much as Bush did in 1988 and Humphrey did in 1968. But, no: Obama and Clinton had struck the deal in 2008 and she was determined to collect in 2016…the skids were greased for her so that, really, nobody else had a chance. Passed over for what Biden likely thought was his turn, he went into retirement…until called out of it. Then, in his mind, he beat Trump (and, likely also in his mind, confirming that he would have beaten him in 2016 if he hadn’t been pushed out). He loyally allowed the Party to do its thing under the umbrella of his name…and then got unceremoniously dumped when the chips were down. In Biden’s lucid moments, that has to be infuriating. And justly so – I despise the creep, but he was done wrong by the Democrat establishment. This is why, I believe, that Harris’ desperate attempts to create distance from Biden are being undermined by routine Biden statements that she and he were tied at the hip.

I also believe that the recent revelations about Hunter and Bursima are part of this – a stern warning to Biden to knock if off. Remember: the weapons charge he was convicted off was the smallest charge possible. He actually faces a host of very serious federal crimes (along with untold numbers of State crimes across multiple jurisdictions) – it was all buried in favor of what was supposed to be a slap on the wrist. Hunter – because he’s a druggie – rejected the sweetheart deal and now does face some jail time…but still no more than a year. The rest of the charges would have him in jail effectively for the rest of his life. Biden is now being warned that if he doesn’t cool his jets a lot of bad things will happen.

And to the thought that Biden could just pardon Hunter – definitely not for State charges and the bottom line is that Nixon’s pardon was never seriously challenged. It is not settled as to whether or not a President can pardon for charges not yet filed, let alone not even known. Basically, Hunter is massively at risk – at the bare minimum of spending years tied up in court burning through every cent the Biden family has. So, cool it, Joe.

But, will he? He’s an arrogant ass as much as his son is. Personally, I hope Joe throws a grenade or two. Not just because it would harm Democrats but because it would be just. Democrats didn’t have to lie. They chose to lie – and they should pay the piper for that.

The Musk-Trump conversation has been seen by, well, just about everyone. Officially 263 million views on Trump’s X account…easily quadruple that across all platforms. They can’t stop Trump from getting his message out – and a lot of people seem interested in hearing what Trump has to say. Trump is not unpopular. Not hated. Oh, sure, mindless Democrats still hate him…but everyone else has mellowed on the man. He’s one of us. He’s not a scripted hack saying what consultants say the people want to hear. He’s not in it for himself. In fact, had he announced in 2023 that he was backing out, almost all of his problems would have gone away. He’s obviously doing this primarily because he knows that if he doesn’t – if he doesn’t win – then some very dark, evil things will have won.

Polls are still mixed – some of the most recent have Trump up. Some polls released recently but having end dates 10 days ago show Harris up. As I’ve said all along, if the Democrat isn’t consistently up by 3 points on 11/5 then getting to 270 is almost impossible…and to really have it they’d have to be up by 5. A poll showing Harris up by 3 or less is Trump at 312 electoral votes.

Harris’ popular vote total will benefit from California a lot – she’s popular there. Much more so than Biden ever was. The wine moms of suburban CA will see voting Harris as something they must do in order to retain their social position. But even with that, I still give Trump about a 30% chance of winning the popular vote – because voter registration and voting trends elsewhere just grow more favorable to the GOP. Outside of those wine moms, nobody is pleased with how things are going. As for the EC, Harris will not do as well in WI/MI/PA as Biden – just can’t happen. California liberal simply won’t have as much appear as Scranton Joe. Sure, Joe’s blue collar act was just that, and act – but its an act Harris is incapable of performing. I have no doubt that all three of WI/MI/PA go Trump…and do keep in mind that if any 1 of the 3 go Trump, Harris can’t get to 270. She needs all 3; she has to draw an inside straight…and not lose Nebraska’s 1st CD…which has had a big increase in GOP voter registration since 2020.

Side note: the funniest result is Harris taking all 3 but losing NE-01…that works out to a 269 tie. It won’t happen. Like a billion to one against…but it can happen and it shows how much Harris has to thread the needle to 270 while Trump has a half dozen ways to get to it.

This Post Never Deployed to Iraq Open Thread

Mark Noonan48 Comments

Who the heck vetted Tim Walz?

His whole thing is “level headed but liberal solider”…you know, MidWest Dad…hunter. Not a kook. The guy bails out on his unit – apparently backing out of his service commitment – just before his unit deploys to Iraq. Then he goes into politics repeatedly claiming to be a combat veteran!

FFS: this is catastrophic for Harris.

Of course the MSM went into overdrive cover up mode as this all came out but more and more of it just kept showing up…it is now impossible to ignore and if they let Walz debate Vance it’ll be presented to a national audience after Walz is the official VP nominee.

Don’t know what they do here – most likely they’ll just try to brazen it out. But there is a non-zero chance they’re forced to dump Walz at some point.

In addition to that, the Walz’ are…well…psychopaths. Walz signed bills to give illegal aliens drivers licenses and place tampon machines into the boys room…while Mrs Walz recalls with delight how she opened her windows so she could smell the fire of the BLM riots. Kinda funny on the tampon machine thing: all day today on X the Democrat bots were out there jumping on every tampon post to say “hey, we need tampons to be available!” as if this somehow explains why they’re in the boys room. The other line the bots took is that all cool guys carry a tampon around just in case a girl needs it. Maybe things have changed since I was in high school back in the last Ice Age but this just seems like…bullsh** on stilts. You’d need a PhD in mathematics to calculate the number of lockers “tampon boy” would be shoved into. I just have this odd idea that girls – being fully capable beings – look after that aspect of their lives very well, thanks very much, and don’t need a man to tell them what to keep handy in case of an emergency.

Harris got heckled by some pro-Hamas people at a rally – it might have been a set up but maybe not. The Democrats ditched the Jew to keep these people quiet but the bottom line is that Hamas – and thus the Hamasniks – want all Jews dead. Just not having one on the ticket isn’t going to make them shut up.

JD Vance again and again proves he’s intellectually brilliant and verbally adept. He simply destroys the false Narratives of the MSM and if he debates Walz the fight will be called after twenty minutes. Think about this: Walz was chosen because he’s lesser than Harris (and, of course, not a Jew)…Vance was clearly chose because he’s great and Trump is not afraid of his understudy shining bright. I’m still favoring RDS for 2028 but I freely admit that Vance impresses me more day by day. And if I’m torn between RDS and Vance in 2028, that’s a good thing.

Officially the race is a tossup with Harris having a slight edge 270-268. This is at the peak of her glow (or maybe a few days after that peak – there is some recent polling showing Trump rising again). I don’t believe that for a minute. I’ve got it at 312 to 226 favoring Trump with him still having slight chances in Virginia and Minnesota. I am completely confident that Trump/Vance will mop the floor with Harris/Walz (or whomever, who knows?). Because Harris is on top, I rate Trump’s chances of winning the popular vote low but I bet he gets above 80 million votes. And he might pull off a popular vote win – if Harris is finally flushed out of hiding and forced to expose herself to the American people in an unscripted setting, she might implode as badly as Biden did – remember, Biden’s implosion was a combination of bad times and Biden’s clear personal failure. If Harris is revealed as unfit (and she’s totally unfit; and without Joe’s excuse of being senile) then that same dynamic will come into play.

As for the bad times – they’re here and very likely to get much worse. The market volatility we see is based on fear that a recession is inbound. In the USA the employment outlook is bleak and while this might lead to a rate cut, that would immediately set off inflationary pressures. Meanwhile, crime continues to surge in the USA, the war in Ukraine continues to go badly: the Russians have been putting massive pressure on the Ukrainians and slowly grinding ahead. To give Ukraine her due she did launch today (or yesterday, depending on time zone) an incursion towards Kursk: this is, in military parlance, a “spoiling attack”. It isn’t a serious drive on Kursk but a means whereby the Ukrainians hope to draw in Russian reserves thus relieving the pressure elsewhere. How effective it is will be determined by the Russian reserves…if they’ve got enough to contain this attack and still press ahead elsewhere, then that is very bad news for Ukraine. South of there, the Middle East remains on fire and nobody can predict how that is going to go. The bottom line is that all of the things that dragged Biden down pre-debate are still at play…and the MSM hyping Harris can only have so much effect on that and that effect wanes ever faster as time goes on.

Meanwhile – here in Nevada we booted 90,000 bogus voter registrations off the rolls here in Clark County. Methinks I feel the hand of our Republican Governor in all this – former sheriff of Clark County and thus has many connections here. Lombardo does have policy ambitions but to get any of them he needs more GOPers in Carson City…so he’s doing what he can to help. Getting those registrations off the books helps a lot because that is the pathway of Democrat cheating – casting ballots for dead or moved-away voters. Not no more! I rate Nevada as Likely-R for November. There’s also moves along these lines in Arizona and Georgia. And there’s been reforms like this all over where GOP has power – so, it’ll be vastly harder for Democrats to cheat this time and they won’t have Covid to help them. This, by the way, is why Trump kept harping on the steal – to keep it in GOP minds and thus provide the political pressure to clean up the system. You think any of this would happen if Trump had just meekly accepted the 2020 result as Nixon did 1960? Also: voter registration trends continue to favor the GOP all over the Battleground States. Lots of Experts downplay this but I just can’t see someone switching to GOP or registering GOP unless they are planning on voting for Trump…with the indication in new registrations that it is low-propensity voters lining up for The Donald.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan30 Comments

Harris is at the peak of her MSM-created glow…and according to the polling averages…she’s still losing.

We also know this, even without looking at polls, because she’s putting the word out that she won’t ban fracking, doesn’t support a mandatory gun “buy back” and no longer supports Medicare for All…at least, that is what aides are telling MSMers. To get Harris to actually state this publicly is probably an impossible task…it would infuriate the Democrat base. This is just done so the MSM can slander Trump for making “baseless” attacks.

Here in Nevada the only thing I’m seeing from Democrats on the regular is their abortion-all-the-time ads. These specifically trying to make Sam Brown politically toxic against Rosen in the Senate race. Will it work? We’ll see; the issue saved Democrat bacon here in Nevada in 2022…but that was because the GOP never refuted the ads. The apparent strategy was to ignore the issue and hope it went away. That didn’t work. Brown has put out some counter ads explaining his position…but I think to defeat the issue (that is, make it neutral) he’ll have to take on the pro-abortion referendum on the Nevada ballot. This was designed to drive up Democrat voting for November – it is totally un-necessary as abortion is secured in the Nevada Constitution up to six months. But the referendum the Democrats cooked up is extreme – it legalizes abortion to birth, allows non-doctors to perform abortions and doesn’t require parental notification if a minor seeks an abortion…so, you know, its the “Let’s Protect Degenerates Act of 2024”. It is being marketed as just “protecting reproductive freedom” but if Brown and the GOP can come up with a good program it can be exposed as the extremist bit of legislation that it is…and thus essentially take abortion off the table for 2024.

But the lack of ads attacking Trump or lauding Harris indicates that Team Harris is still getting its act together – they haven’t worked out their message and haven’t put together a strategy for the Fall. Do keep that very much in mind: Harris is nothing more than a stop-gap. A desperate ploy to get rid of Biden who was ushering in a down ballot meltdown for Democrats. So far, Harris is doing what she was supposed to do – stabilize the field. Going from there to 270 is a very tall order, though. Harris is still Harris; someone so bad that she didn’t even make it to Iowa in 2020 and who some were trying to boot from the VP slot earlier this year. And as Harris gets out there – and as the anti-Harris ads from Team Trump get repeated on a loop – we might find that Harris is as toxic as Biden.

Team Harris’ first bit of genius was to work up “White Women for Harris”…where a bunch of looney-tunes Karens talked up how white chicks gotta defer to black women…but also vote for Harris to make up for their support for racism. Not sure how well that will play with people outside the wine mom demographic. Their next step is the upcoming “White Dudes for Harris” which will apparently be headlined by David Hogg, Adam Schiff and Pete Buttigieg. Errr…not sure how this expands Harris’ support. This aside from the fact of the racial segregation. As a joke Trump should have a “Rednecks for Trump” Zoom call…in fact, maybe not as a joke. Heck, I’ll get into overalls and rent a hound dog for that. Team Harris is touting that 80,000 “dudes” have signed up for the event…”Rednecks” would get a million participants, easy.

Bottom line is that I don’t think Team Harris knows what to do here – or, worse for them, they think they do know and what they’re doing is playing Woke Team Intersectionality while asserting that Trump and Vance are the weirdos.

Meanwhile, Venezuela had an election. Why? Because the “deal” Team Pudding Brain made with Maduro was for us to lift sanctions on Maduro’s thug regime in return for an election. Maduro kept his word – he had an election. And after forcing his primary opponent off the ballot and using every manner of fraud in the book…he still lost. But then just announced he had won. He can do this because he has all the guns. It was a box checked off some years ago: confiscate all civilian firearms.

There is widespread unrest in Venezuela because the steal was so brazen but the bottom line is that if the people don’t have guns, they can’t win. There are some rumors that some army units are joining the people and if that is so, there is a chance…but no guns, no revolution. It is that simple: guns = liberty. In truth, there is only one free nation on Earth: the United States with our Second Amendment. Maybe Switzerland a bit but even there I doubt they secure a right to bear arms…it is more that you’re part of the militia and the government provides a weapon, revocable at will.

UPDATE:

“JD Vance and Trump are weird!” – Democrats

Also Democrats: