Open Thread

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:

Open Thread

Mark Noonan39 Comments

You realize that its only been five days since the shooting?

Doesn’t that seem like a month ago?

Time is like that – and we are living very fast right now. It is something that the late William Manchester noted in his memoir Goodbye, Darkness – During times of great events and stress, time compresses and seems to go a lot faster. Titanic forces are at work in our nation and it is hard at times to keep up with everything.

The USSS failed utterly. The shooter was seen hours before the event and was marked down as suspicious. From there is just got worse and worse until there’s no aspect of the security set up which didn’t fail. Trump is alive by simple miracle – had he not turned his head at the right moment, he’d be dead. No question about that – I’ve seen the time line videos showing the angles. The shooter had Trump dead in his sights.

The USSS and its parent organization DHS are stonewalling the investigation – not even letting Senators ask questions. This is feeding the files of conspiracy theories with dark hints about the Deep State. It probably isn’t that complex – all you have to do is order the troops to do the wrong thing and give every opportunity for the enemy to act. You think about the Alamo holding out as long as it did but if at any time those inside had simply done the wrong thing, it would have fallen quickly. That’s all it takes – for want a nail, right? I suspect that the ROE the USSS operates under for Trump is so deliberately bad that there was little chance, outside someone disobeying direct orders, for Trump’s Secret Service detail to stop it before the shots rang out. And that would be what they’re covering up…busily deleting texts and shredding documents so that those who ordered the total fail don’t have documentary evidence against them.

If I were Trump I’d start relying far more on personally hired security. I’d have at least some number of people I pay just to keep an eye on things. If someone paid by Trump was involved with security, that roof would not have been empty. No person determined to protect Trump would have missed that.

We all thought after the shooting that the push to oust Biden was over – and it made sense to think that. And, I believe, it was like that for a couple days. The Democrats resigned themselves to losing the White House and while they’d go through the motions of rah-rah for Biden, their focus would be on the House and Senate. But starting this morning the push to oust regained steam…with Schiff openly calling for Biden to step down. Schiff is supposed to win by 25 in a State Biden is supposed to win by 25. He shouldn’t have the least worry and so should have no need to step into a party fight which will earn him enemies no matter how it comes out. But he stepped in – and it can only mean that he’s seen internal polling showing Biden dragging Democrats down. And I mean badly down – like a 10-15 point shift to the GOP in some places bad. Schiff still gets his Senate seat…but if this is so, there will be about five fewer Democrats in that Senate with him.

Biden claimed Covid and retreated back to Delaware. Not the White House: he wanted a place where there are no visitor logs. I suspect over the next couple days there will be some conversations. We’ll see how that comes out – they still can’t force Biden out. His people are in charge of the Democrat party, and the delegates are mostly Biden loyalists. If Biden digs in his heels, it is almost impossible to get him out and it would require a massive political fight to even try..leaving the Democrat party divided and in tatters, maybe for years. So, people are going to talk to him (or, more accurately, Jill and Hunter) and see if some deal can be struck that strokes Biden’s ego enough to convince him to step aside.

Nobody has any idea how that will come out – the principle players in it don’t know how it will come out. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Almost

Mark Noonan62 Comments

Just an inch the other way and we’d be plunged into nationwide political violence this evening.

They call us racists.

They call us Nazis.

They call us Fascists.

They call us traitors.

They call us homophobes.

They call us Russian agents.

This is what they did. On purpose. They wanted this to happen. They willed this to happen. And it almost happened.

It is all still very confused – we only know for certain that Trump is ok and at least one poor, innocent American is dead. There are rumors that the shooter is dead, as well.

Who the lunatic was is immaterial in the grand scheme of things. Obviously an insane person. Connected to the Left? That remains to be seen – but the reason this person opened fire is because of the hate-filled rhetoric that has come from the Democrats, Biden on down, without ceasing for years.

In November comes the reckoning.

UPDATE:

His name was Corey Comperatore, 50 years old. Father, firefighter…but, also and most importantly, just a man. A man who worked hard and tried to do the right thing. He’s a hundred different men I know. Dead now because a Leftist lunatic killed him – after years of Democrats saying that Trump and MAGA are racist, Nazi existential threats to Our Democracy. And don’t fall for the MSM spin going on right now – they’re trying to say the shooter was a Republican because of a voter registration document…but the more that comes out the more it shows he was a far-Left fanatic.

We’re still short on details as the government busies itself scrubbing social media and working out their best strategy to distance Democrats from this crime. But there is no real mystery here – a leftist lunatic tried to murder President Trump and did manage to murder Comperatore, and seriously injure two others. Showing the true spirit of America, the Go Fund Me set up by the Trump campaign has already raised more than $1.2 million for the victims.

But that doesn’t bring Comperatore back. Nothing can. His family has lost him forever. This man who was supposed to grow old surrounded by his family is now gone.

(Post edited to correct name – sorry, guys: my proofreading skills are off today)

Open Thread

Mark Noonan40 Comments

I didn’t watch the presser – just didn’t feel up to watching the senile creep. But I guess he managed to say “Vice President Trump” while implying he thought Harris unfit to serve. And something about reuniting Japan and Korea. Something which will comes as a bit of a surprise in both countries.

Right into it the Democrat comments were all along the lines of “this is going well because Biden has such great experience in foreign policy”…which is news to me, you and everyone on Earth. Biden has never been good on foreign policy. He’s grotesquely ignorant of it, in fact. But that a large number of Democrat comments were along these lines shows it was a talking point passed out before the presser. And, of course, he had a list of reporters to call on – which means it wasn’t a press conference but a campaign event.

At the end of the day, Biden has to show the people that he is in great health and mentally sharp. That he didn’t have a debate-style meltdown isn’t going to do the trick. He had to be like the Biden of the 2008 Vice Presidential debate where he was able to smoothly lie his way through the whole thing without a hiccup. He is mentally and physically incapable of that and every time they put him out there looking like a worn out geezer the more frozen the public mind will be on “unfit.”

I still doubt they’ll force him out – there is a growing desire on the part of some Democrats to get him out but the delegates are mostly Biden loyalists. Unless he voluntarily goes, there’s not much the Democrats can do about it – and his pride along with Jill and Hunter will keep him in it. He does not want to be remembered as the man who quit…especially in the face of Donald Trump, whom he hates with a passion. But at this point I’m not sure the Democrats can get to the monotonous unity they normally present for the general election. You know it: where day by day regardless of what is actually happening they all stay on message. We might have leaks and back biting among the Democrats all the way until November.

This is why the GOP wants Biden to stay in.

And how is it going?

Well, the Biden people put out a memo which says, essentially, they’re counting on holding WI/MI/PA…which means here in July their plan is to thread the needle to exactly 270. The campaign trying to do that is the campaign that is losing. Badly. Side note: the MI Senate race has been moved from “Leans Dem” to “Tossup”. Why? Because Biden is proving such a downward drag on Democrat enthusiasm that nobody is sure if enough Democrats will show in November.

Trump VP speculation is rife – I honestly have no idea. I think his team is stirring the pot on this deliberately so that his pick will come as a complete surprise…and, who knows?, maybe it’ll be someone nobody expects? One thing everyone is agreeing on: this 2024 Trump campaign is vastly more disciplined than either 2016 or 2020. No leaks. Message discipline. Prepping for turnout and fraud prevention. Mapping out strategy to hold or take States and, perhaps, move into one or two traditionally Blue States if that seems warranted.

Democrats are trying to turn Project 2025 into something to harm Trump. I think it only works on the most committed Democrats. And that could mean, actually, that Team Pudding Brain hasn’t even locked down traditional Democrat constituencies. We’ll see!

SIDE NOTE: You know how fans love their teams? Well, I found out something – when you abandon your team after more than half a century of sticking with them, the other fans get really mad about that. I became a Padres fan in 1972 when at the age of 7 my Dad brought me to my first game. The Padres beat the Cubs that day. I was hooked. And like a good, little fan I stuck with them all these years. But when the Padres got swept by the Mariners after a two game totally inept and lazy performance, something inside me broke…I just couldn’t be a fan any longer. Honestly, I think it’s that I became a Golden Knights fan that ultimately ruined it for me. Being a Padres/Chargers fan I had long been accustomed to “next year”. Knights got a Cup in six years. I now expect that if I’m going to invest time and emotion in team that they at least try hard. Anyways, when I posted my anti-Padres rant on X, did I get scorched! So, if you do decide to bail out on a team which perennially sucks, don’t post it!

Open Thread

Mark Noonan58 Comments

As of this moment in time, still thinking that Biden remains – he’s really digging in his heels (or Hunter and Jill are) and he is garnering some public support among Democrat electeds. There are still a few Democrats calling for him to step aside but the numbers are small and it can often be seen a tactical: they’re in areas where Democrats are weak and Democrats are always forgiving of Democrats who do what it takes to survive.

I think, bottom line, that its really too late to swap out. Not based on law. Laws don’t matter to Democrats. If they were really determined to push Pudding Brain out, they’d do so and rely on friendly Democrat judges and squishy cooperative GOPers to ensure the new guy is on the ballot in all 50 states. Its too late because getting someone new in and trying to ramp up a national campaign with a new candidate is just entirely too forlorn. Democrats know they are headed for defeat – they could have pushed Biden out 9 months ago, but now it is just too late. On to the end – maybe a miracle shows up, but keeping Biden is now at the very least no worse than hitting the eject button. It is now all about down-ballot. At the moment, most State-by-State polling shows Democrats doing ok – it looks like they’ll lose the House and Senate but only by a few seats in each…but that is the polling. This polling screens for Presidential-year voters…who only show up every four years.

And that is the problem Democrats really have – the Presidential-year Dem-leaners aren’t going to show up in sufficient numbers if it gets into the public mind that Biden is done for. This could be catastrophic for Democrats. If even five million such people become stay-at-homes then what is now a narrow Congressional loss could become a landslide loss…all sorts of Dem House and Senate candidates who are up by even 5 to 7 right now could end up losing. And so I just saw a Rosen (D-NV) Senate ad lauding her for fighting to secure the border; an egregious lie, of course, but it indicates that even with polling showing her substantially up over Sam Brown, the GOP Candidate, she’s concerned about losing the race on the right.

Team Biden is still going with “he’s vigorous as heck!”. In fact, they even have surrogates out there going, “hey, where’s Trump?”. Basically implying that since Trump isn’t on the stump right now, it is Trump who is feeble while the vigorous and manly Biden is out on the trail. Of course, Trump is wisely holding back – while your opponent is self-immolating, just shut up and let him do it. Remember, we’re only here right now because Team Pudding Brain issued a debate challenge they clearly thought Trump would decline. Had they not done that, this would be going a lot differently right now (and a heck of a lot more funny if June’s debate happened in September and it was only at that moment Democrats realized they’re screwed). Trump is naturally delighted with how it went and as he preps for the RNC and the Veep selection, there’s no need for him to do anything.

Especially as the latest RCP average has Trump up something like 3.3. I might be slightly wrong on that – it might be more. But, no matter: as I’ve said – and everyone says – for Biden to have a shot as scraping by with 270 Electoral Votes, he’s got to be up by 3 nationally. Trump up by 3+ puts this entirely out of reach. Trump was narrowly winning pre-debate. He’s comfortably ahead now (many forecasters have taken GA, AZ and NV out of the “tossup” realm and put them “Lean-R”…and an argument can be made that PA is “Lean-R” – and, if so, that is game over). Trump is in the driver’s seat here. Lots of things can happen, of course, but it is also a well-known fact of political life that usually in June the thing is pretty baked in. Takes something really major to shake it up. Unfortunately for Biden, most of the major things that can happen are bad for him (another mental breakdown live, Ukraine being defeated, inflation spiking, that sort of thing).

The French election went as I expected – the Left convinced that squish “Right” to vote Left to keep the “far Right” out. Do keep in mind that when they say “far Right” they mean “middle class French patriots”. It is the same as when they call you and I “MAGA extremists”. Looks like Le Pen’s party actually got the most votes – and by a substantial margin. But by the quirks of French election process, her party came in third, seat-wise. This has caused a lot of heartache on the French Right (as it should) but I tell them to buck up – a decade ago there were like 4 French patriots in Parliament. Now there’s 150. And while the Left is trying to forge a governing coalition (no party obtained an absolute majority) it already looks unstable…with plenty of the squish Right being dismayed that the Left now wants 100% of their program enacted. I expect a good portion of the squish Right to defect to Le Pen’s party…and they might have to call another snap election if a stable government can’t be formed.

The Brit’s, on the other hand, are screwed. Labour obtained an unassailable absolute majority. Moving swiftly they have already announced they will let a bunch of criminals out of jail. Not kidding. This is apparently a high priority for Labour. No, they didn’t campaign on that. The Left never campaigns on what they’re going to actually do. They learned that lesson in the 1980’s when in both the US and UK the Left did campaign on what they wanted and they got electorally wiped out. Since then, it has always been like this:

“We’ve passed the free ice cream for everyone law!”

“Cool! When do I get my ice cream?”

“Ice cream? We’re here to shoot your dog.”

I don’t see how the UK comes back from this – the Labour government is going to import a couple million Muslims and give them citizenship to make sure Labour never loses again. Think I’m kidding? I’ve seen videos of new-minted Labour officials dressed entirely in Muslim garb and with only Muslim flags being waved by the crowds. One does have to remember that Leftists – all Leftists, everywhere – hate their own country and their own people. Its why Labour is rushing through the release of criminals…they want these criminals to prey upon the British people. To the Left, the British people are evil and now they’re going to get what’s coming to them.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan18 Comments

It isn’t important so much as a thing, but it is showing how things are done via the MSM in the modern era:

Justin Timberlake – who I didn’t realize until just now was part of the boy band NSYNC and who’s songs I couldn’t for the life of me identify, but who has been a pop icon for 20 years – was arrested for DWI in Sag Harbor. This is one of those Long Island communities where rich people soak up the local atmosphere…meaning, the actual purpose of the place is long gone and the whole thing is like a Disney-park, in this case the community pretends it still has some connection to its nautical, whaling past. So, you know: a place where the rich are privileged. Timberlake is, of course, rich. And the rich people of Sag Harbor and such places are not about to put up with impertinence from the cops.

There is this article in the MSM and many others attacking the cop. He has, as the story says, been “unmasked” as a rookie cop who didn’t recognize Timberlake. The horror! There are also stories circulating claiming that other locals don’t like this particular cop. This is all intimidation: not just of this particular officer, but the entire police force and law enforcement apparatus of the area. It is a PR blitz to let everyone know that you damned well better recognize Timberlake – and any other rich/famous people – and do what you have to do to make sure the rich/famous don’t face significant consequences for actions. And the MSM is playing along with it – just as they do with the overall Ruling Class, which includes Democrats and kept Republicans. The particulars of the cop are, of course, irrelevant unless there is a charge that the officer violated the law – that he’s a rookie or didn’t recognize Timberlake is unimportant. The only thing we, the people, need to know is if the arrest was legit – that’s all we ever need to know about the cops: did they act within the law? Whether or not Timberlake is guilty is a matter for the courts. But if you want to put a shot across the legal system’s bow, you do it like this – letting everyone know that big wheels are not pleased and so maybe make this all go away.

In the UK the Tories are going to get wiped out in the July 4th election. Some polling indicates the Tories may drop from their current 344 seats down into the low 50s. The Tories have completely earned this destruction. My actual hope is that the party dissolves shortly afterwards. They have been the worst of the worst “RINO” type of party. You think Romney is bad? He’s a conservative stalwart compared to PM Sunak and his cronies. There is nothing that Labour wants that the Tories don’t go along with – from open borders to pronoun policies, the Tory government has been Labour for all intents and purposes. Don’t get me wrong – an actual Labour government (which the UK will get, and with an unassailable majority) is going to be worse. You know how Leftists are – once they do get power, they kick in the afterburners and go for it. And like always, this new Labour government will rest secure in the knowledge that once they screw everything up and get the boot, a new Tory government will just tap the brakes and keep on with Labour policies. But, will it?

Nigel Farage, famed leader of the Brexit movement, has come out of retirement to lead Reform UK into the election. Reform will not win. In fact, best polling has them winning less than 10 seats; this is because of the way things are done in British elections. Reform is polling just a little below Tory but it is first past the post in the UK (as it is in our Congressional elections) and with the Right vote split between Tory and Reform, it’ll be Labour (barely polling above 40%) that takes as many at 470 out of 650 seats (that is 40% getting 72% of the seats – and 100% of the power because there is no actual check on the power of the House of Commons). But while Reform will enter the next Parliament as a tiny party – and with perhaps the absurd Liberal-Democrats as the official Opposition to His Majesty’s Government – they are, perhaps, a harbinger. All across the world, the Ruling Class is threatened by a rising tide of discontent. This discontent is going to result in a Labour government in the UK (which is monumentally stupid, but change does take time) but everywhere the Establishment is besieged by a populace running out of patience. Labour will ruin Britain. It is what Leftists do. And at the next election, Reform might come into its own.

In addition to the “you want expensive tomatoes?” arguments in favor of illegal immigration, the Ruling Class is trotting out the, “you think only illegals commit crimes?” excuse. I’m not sure this one will work any better than the other given that the crime rate for illegals should be zero as there should be no illegals in country to commit crimes. In addition to this, I don’t put any stock in the Libertarian and Left studies claiming that illegals commit less crimes than Americans. That is just a stupid assertion given that illegals are people and are prone to crime as any other random group of people. Of course they commit, on average, at least as much crime per 100,000 as anyone else. And that is the baseline – now add in this:

“Hey, you’re an illegal…transport this meth to Arizona or we’ll tip off immigration.”

It is almost an existential certainty that illegals commit more crimes than citizens.