Open Thread

Open Thread

Mark Noonan12 Comments

You know how it went:

“Time to award the Peace Prize!”

“Cool, who we got?”

“Well, we want to award it to Hamas but the bodies ain’t cold yet.”

“Guess we gotta give it to Trump, then. Darn it!”

“Wait! There’s this lady in Venezuela: María Corina Machado! She’s Latina, South American. You know: Trump hates them! We’ll give it to her!”

“Genius!”

(((And then what happened?)))

They just don’t understand – not anything. I pointed out that shortly after Butler, I saw a video of some kids in the middle of nowhere Africa reenacting the event with Trump as the super macho man…Trump has been a social phenomena for a while…he became a popular hero after Butler. You just can’t get around the fact that the man was shot at, got back up while bleeding and shouted, “Fight!, Fight!, FIGHT!”. He’s certified heroic…and people do respond to such men (and women).

Sure, the entire Global Establishment still hates him and despises his supporters…but if you look around the world today, you can see that Establishment is hanging on by the skin of it’s teeth. Nobody likes it. If more populations were armed like Americans, they’d already be engaged in bloody revolutions. Trump stands against them all – and even if you have this or that exception to what he does or how he does it, you know the choice: it is either Trump or the grifting, slave-trafficking, war-mongering, anti-human scum of the Establishment.

It isn’t a difficult choice.

Bari Wiess is fairly liberal lady and she’s being placed in charge of CBS news…and the MSM is having a meltdown. Why? Well, you see, Bari has this bizarre idea that its ok to hold Democrats to account.

And it is bizarre – and I remember reading the articles in the 1980’s where the Left was insisting that there wasn’t a “both sides” to issues and that everyone had to follow the Leftwing Party Line…and the MSM dutifully followed. But now nobody believes it and its shedding audience and news divisions – never money makers – are now bleeding networks dry. So, it is get rid of news, or get someone in there who might be able to draw an audience. Wiess is the MSM’s last chance…if she can merely make it 25% even handed (just one fourth of the time!) it’ll be saved…if not, then its over.

Trump’s peace deal in on track in Gaza – with Hamas being just what it is: savages. There’s video of them rounding up Gazans suspected of disloyalty and summarily executing them. I do hope the deal holds…not because I think it’ll bring real peace, but because there’s no point in continuing this round any longer. Israel had their 90 day window after 10/7 to kill Hamas. They didn’t do it. Whatever deal is made, Hamas will want to eventually attack again. They can’t do otherwise – their whole existence, their justification for power, is killing Jews. Any deal which concedes a right of Jews to live – anywhere – makes Hamas pointless. But, a peace deal now at least stops the current battle…and with the benefit of Hamas being greatly degraded in power (might be ten or fifteen years before they become a serious threat again). And the end of this does allow more Arab States to come to terms with Israel…and that, long term, is the best way to undercut Islamism…if Jews are visiting a resort in Dubai it is hard to justifying firing a rocket from Gaza.

Team Trump has commenced the Reductions in Force necessitated by the Democrats shutdown. I’m starting to think that Trump is one of the very few people in DC who understand how American government works. In this case, if the money isn’t appropriated by Congress, then the thing simply doesn’t exist. If there isn’t an appropriation for your job, you don’t have a job. Previously Presidents have pretended to furlough the workers and made sure back pay was in every budget deal…but you can’t really furlough someone…if there isn’t money for them, their position is gone.

Trump is now acting upon this reality. And Democrats don’t quite know what to do about it.


Open Thread

Mark Noonan24 Comments

Saw a video of a fairly large crowd of people in New York City celebrating 10/7. As I said in the previous thread: we’re going to have to decide what we do with evil people.

We are not, at this juncture of history, actually trying to preserve a certain form of government: we’re trying to save our lives. And we will be forced – and I believe very soon – to act like people do when their lives are at stake. This is beyond a concern of free speech…this is people telling us they are delighted when we’re killed (and 10/7 isn’t just about killing Jews – it is about killing the whole concept of civilized behavior). I can let them keep on…or I can find a way to stop them.

I said for a long while now that I thought we had a peaceful way out – that the window for a political settlement is still open. As of this moment in time, I want that window closed. I’ll let them start the fight…but I’ll do everything I can, when they do, to ensure we finish it. This time around, no more Grant-like “let ’em up easy”.

The Senate confirmed 107 Trump nominees all at once – and for those who wanted Trump to recess appoint these people: well, you were wrong. Trump knew what he was doing and all of these are now in place until 1/20/2029 (unless Vance keeps them on). In fact, this time around, Trump very much seems to know what he’s doing all the time…he’s running rings around the Democrats and, to be fair, around some of his supporters as well. As I noted early on in the Trump Era: the man plans. You might not like his plan, but he’s always got one…he does nothing actually off the cuff. Everything is calculated and my goodness but has he learned how to do politics…he’s got Democrats going into 2026 defending medical care for illegals and riots in the streets.

Some people are mad that Trump hasn’t fired hundreds of thousands of federal workers here in the second week of the shutdown. I, too, want those firings…but at this point, I’m just going to let Trump cook…perhaps he was waiting for these 107 to make sure some Deep State bureaucrat doesn’t step in as Acting this or that? We’ll find out.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan5 Comments

What if they gave a government shutdown and nobody showed up?

And just how seriously stupid are the Democrats? AOC was out saying she’s ready to negotiate with the GOP at any time…did she forget she’s in the House that already passed the budget bill and thus has no further say in the matter? Its an even money chance that she doesn’t know how our government works…I mean the legislative process. After all, she’s only there to exercise power and grab money…you think she spent any time reading Robert’s Rules of Order? Heck, I wonder what her reading level is? She was born in 1989 which means she attended school from approximately 1994 to 2006…and New York education levels have been substandard (even by today’s dumbed-down standards) for a while. There’s a real chance that if you read to her:

11. A Main or Principal Motion is a motion made to bring before the assembly, for its consideration, any particular subject. It takes precedence of nothing — that is, it cannot be made when any other question is before the assembly; and it yields to all Privileged, Incidental, and Subsidiary Motions — that is, any of these motions can be made while a main motion is pending. Main motions are debatable, and subject to amendment, and can have any subsidiary motions applied to them.

She’d just stare blankly at you for a minute, call Trump a fascist and then demand Medicare for All. We’re dealing with very stupid people who haven’t the foggiest notion of how the world works but are at the same time dead certain they are right about everything and their opponents (us) are pure evil. Its a toxic stew.

We’d pity Chuck Schumer if he hadn’t spent his entire career being a vile liar enriching his cronies while America fell apart…he’s looking over his shoulder at a possible AOC primary challenge and realizes that he hasn’t got a chance against her. He’s vastly better educated and far more intelligent but in order to advance his interests, he allowed people like AOC to take control of the Democrat base…and if he doesn’t drive off AOC’s cliff, he’s doomed.

Team Trump – apparently with the cooperation of the Congressional GOP – is preparing a series of moves which will gut the Deep State…huge numbers of terminations and reorganizations to get rid of the last of the people sabotaging MAGA from within. And there’s nothing the Democrats can do about it – in fact, they are quite out of their depth right now as they learn we simply don’t care what they say. Call us racists and fascists and meanies and what have you…we know we’re not and we’re not interested in surrendering just to get you to stop calling us Nazis for 24 hours. The Democrats had their chance to come to the table and get something prior to the shutdown…now they get to twist in the wind as polling shows the people blaming them for it and their demands for a budget bill are horrifically unpopular.

Investigations in Minnesota are revealing massive immigration fraud – like half the people looked at committed at least some form of fraud to get and/or stay here. This is the sort of thing we need to do…especially to break up these concentrations of foreigners who are taking over segments of the USA and turning them into foreign enclaves…abodes of hostile people seeking our destruction and, worst of all, doing it with stolen taxpayer money. I’ve been saying that everyone who has come in over the past few decades needs to be looked at, and this is why. You don’t get millions of people illegally into the country by accident…to move that many takes a massive logistical support system and the people who provide logistic support for human trafficking aren’t altruists…they’re gangsters who want to get paid, and keep getting paid. My bet is the price for a ticket to the USA was (and remains) quite high and the people sent in have to pay – not only a cut out of any legitimate income they earn, but as much welfare as they can siphon off. I’ve noticed here in Vegas that the beggars seem quite organized…it usually isn’t some drug addled bum with his “will work for food” sign trying to cage the price of meth or booze…it is now more and more an obvious foreigner working shifts on particular street corners gathering whatever is tossed from a car window…I don’t give to such people. In the past, I’d drop a buck or even a fiver on the bum even though I knew it was for drink…these new people are probably kicking back to the cartels to pay for the price of passage.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan2 Comments

Trump’s peace plan for Gaza is pretty much a diktat – there is very much a subtext of “or else” in it. But it is also a very fair deal. In fact, it is far more merciful to the Gazans than they deserve. The nutshell: war is over, Hamas is out, they get totally rebuilt under Trump’s watchful eye and Tony Blair as the Governor-General (in all but name) essentially until such time as we’re confident that 10/7 out of Gaza isn’t going to happen again. Peace, freedom and prosperity are offered to them – all they have to do, ultimately, is reject Hamas and the ideological commitment to murdering Jews.

Not a big ask.

Most of the major Muslim powers immediately signaled their overall approval (with reservations, of course) with the only notable hold out being Iran…but the Mullahs also know they are quite defenseless against Israeli and American power so we’ll see how that plays out…they’ll never officially drop their “kill the Jews” platform but if they’ve got the sense God gave little, white mice they’ll cut off the funds for Hamas and call it a day. The rest of the Muslim world is telling the Palestinians that it is past time to pack it in on that whole “Palestinian Liberation Movement”. It is over. They won’t march on Tel Aviv. Israel is a permanent fixture…and perhaps if they are very nice and behave themselves for a while they might get sovereignty over the Dome of the Rock and maybe a small section of the Old City as the symbolic capital of Palestine. It is time for this stupid war to end – and if the Palestinians prove intractable, then I can only see this ending with their total and permanent exile from the entirety of the Holy Land.

Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma posted on X the picture of a New York State CDL – it was all fine and dandy but the name said “No Name Given”. Yes, the holder of it was an illegal. In fact, Oklahoma found a very large number of illegals driving on their highways. And now I’m finding out that multiple Blue States are issuing “temporary” CDL’s with “No Name Given”…which totally defeats the purpose of having a driver’s license…but is exactly what drug and human trafficking criminal cartels need for moving their product around.

And that is what this actually shows: the governments of the Blue States are in bed with the cartels. There is simply no other explanation for allowing an un-named person to carry a CDL. You only do that if you want to assist organized crime.

Democrats are threatening a government shut down and Trump is proceeding on the assumption that this is threatening him with a good time. Reminder: if the money isn’t appropriated for a position, then that position legally ceases to exist. That is the Power of the Purse, guys. Now, in the past when there was a government shut down, the President has placed those unfunded on furlough and made sure their back pay was placed in the final budget deal…but the President doesn’t have to furlough them. They’re gone the moment the money is gone…and they only get to come back if the President wants them back (that is, makes sure its in the final budget deal). Trump might be able to fire a vast number of bureaucrats.

Which the Democrats know is the case and they hold absolutely zero cards here – because what pain there is won’t be inflicted on MAGA. Trump will make sure of that. Obama made sure regular Americans suffered under shutdown…because he hates Americans and wants us to suffer if he doesn’t get his way. Trump loves Americans…and so all the pain will be inflicted upon the Ruling Class. But Schumer and Co are also looking over their shoulders…Far Left primary challengers are already trying to get started. They’ve called Trump Hitler for 10 years and their base believes it…and you can’t cut a budget deal with Hitler. The Democrat Base wants this fight…and might turn with fury on any Democrat who tries to avoid it. So, Schumer might have to drive over the cliff here – and that’s funny.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan2 Comments

Another Leftwing nut opened fire – this time at an ICE facility. And this was deliberately provoked by the Democrats. They’re calling ICE a new Gestapo and as with Kirk two weeks ago, such overheated rhetoric is having its intended result. Don’t forget that – the Democrats want the violence. They believe that chaos and killing advances their cause…that out of this welter of hatred the people will turn to them in 2026 and 2028. I don’t believe that will happen – but they do, and so they won’t stop.

It had just never occurred to me to check but I looked at the warning label on my generic bottle of Tylenol and there it was: if pregnant or breast feeding, check with a healthcare professional before using. So, RFK isn’t on a flight of fancy here. Then throughout the day people were posting articles – some of them years old – indicating that some studies shows negative effects of Tylenol use during pregnancy. Here’s the kicker: I saw several doctors posting they had never heard of this.

So, what I’m hearing is that some doctors don’t read the label. Which isn’t as surprising as you might think – all professional qualifications have been downgraded over the past few decades in order that we might have diversity…which seems to work out that we’ll lack attention to detail.

Here’s my view:

  1. We’re probably massively over diagnosing autism as well as other maladies which are really no more than parents refusing to impart a sense of discipline to their children. Much easier for some to say “he’s autistic!” rather than admit “look, we’re working two jobs here to keep up a high end lifestyle and I just don’t have time to make sure the kid is on track”. One of my older brothers is autistic so I grew up with it: I know what it looks like. I hardly see anyone claiming autism have any of the outward signs of it.
  2. In our rush to get the next miracle drug out, we’re probably skipping steps in testing…and probably not doing enough long-term testing to see how its really working over time. There is huge money to be made in medications and the pressure is on to get it out and gloss over any problems. This can easily mean a variety of negative health effects are simply not being looked at.

The cure to all of this is to raise standards back to where they were before diversity became a goal. Whatever it took to be a medical person in, say, 1980: that’s what you’ve got to meet now. If you can’t meet it – get out. I want my doctors to be like the doctor I had as a kid – he set our broken bones, stitched our cuts, dealt with our illnesses…almost always just in his office: he was a general practitioner and simply knew how the human body worked and how to restore it to excellent condition. I’d stack him up against the entire staff of Johns Hopkins these days. And we need this reestablishment of standards throughout all professional fields…everyone is less capable than they used to be and it is all starting to fall apart.

Rumor is that Comey might get indicted. We all hope so. And if he is, then it will be outside the Beltway – he gave his testimony remotely…which means he’s out in Trump Country for his jury.

Rep Summer Lee got all shouty about Trump trying to bring patriotism back to education – her rant about how evil the USA is and that being patriotic is wrong. To which I replied: if you’re not proud of your country, why serve in its legislative body? The bottom line is that you can’t fix what you hate – you can only destroy it. If she hates America, she can’t help America. Just go away if you think this country is evil – get the heck out. Seriously. I wouldn’t stay here if I hated it.

But that also got me thinking – it is very sad that people like Lee are now the leaders of America’s black community. And not just on the racial hate they preach so they can live the high life off of misery. It is more than just robbery of money: it is theft of memory.

Agrippa Hull was a black man born free in Massachusetts who joined the Continental Army in 1777 – eventually serving for 6 years and becoming a aid to Polish General Tadeusz Kościuszko who was the Continental Army’s main Engineer. Hull was a man of intellect and education (he had to keep up with Kościuszko who was a superlative military engineer). He knew when he enlisted that most people in America who looked like him were held in degrading slavery…and even a free man of education like himself faced routine bigotry on account of his skin color. And yet he joined – and served honorably (his discharge was personally signed by George Washington). Why would he serve? Because he could see – that is, he could perceive what he was fighting for. Not for degrading slavery in South Carolina, but for the ringing declaration that all men are created equal. He knew – he must have known – that a nation so founded could not forever hold slaves…or, indeed, be the abode of any systemic injustice. That whatever sins such a nation has or had, they would be corrected because the nation was founded just to make that correction. Not immediately, but over time – and so he signed his life over to America and risked his all just to see this thing created.

That is what these race-baiters are taking away from black Americans and, indeed, all Americans. Think about our black Americans…endured slavery and Jim Crow and yet rose to the heights of education, art, science…incredible devotion to their families, heroic bravery on the battlefield. They, too, crossed wildernesses to carve civilization out of nothing. And all that is taken away so that a few race-baiters can live well and get lauded by upper class white Liberals. It is both disgusting and sad. They’d rather stew over some perceived slight in 2025 than marvel at what their ancestors accomplished in the face of genuine adversity. And the demand that white Americans hate America, too…that we tear down all statues, rename all places…do everything we can to show disdain for those who came before us.

The good news is their time is past…they are just shrieking into a void these days. We’re moving on – and we will teach youth of the greatness of America.

The Turning Point

Mark Noonan15 Comments

The MSM is saying 90,000 attended the Kirk memorial and 20 million watched – the reality looks like 200,000 attended (including the overflow) and as many as 100 million watched it live or streamed it via various platforms. It was a gigantic national event – Super Bowl in scope. And for a man who just…talked. I have to admit, I was deeply moved. If you didn’t choke up while Erika Kirk spoke then you simply aren’t human. Trump was, of course, Trump: he’ll never be what he isn’t. And while he seemed to drift at times into a typical Trump speech, he always came right back to the matter at hand: Charlie Kirk and the message of restoring America.

And how did the Left view it?

Well, over on Bluesky they started noting there are three k’s in Erika Kirk and they ran with that. They are some very sick people…pathetic. I do feel sorry for them. Sure, I know they have to be stopped…but to live your life like that, to give up any semblance of truth and beauty just so other twisted people will pretend to like you? I just don’t understand it. It is outside my experience and, indeed, my imagination. It is something I can’t really comprehend.

Pollsters who matter have started to notice a big shift in Party ID among respondents – one pollster has the American electorate at R +6. Maybe that will slip back a bit but I’m thinking it won’t – the Left at long last revealed itself for what it is over the past week: just hatred and lies. It doesn’t matter what high-minded phrasing they cook up, everyone knows they’re just lying…just hating. Just trying to latch on to power and wealth and justifying it by a bizarre (insane, really) belief that they are worthy of it all. This polling shift is being confirmed in the continued increase in GOP registration – the GOP, for instance, had a net gain of 3,000 in Pennsylvania last week. There is an even money chance that PA is a Red State by registration in time for 2028.

Vance really helped himself a lot – his speech was very impressive. While we will have a primary in 2028, it is probably Vance’s for the taking. He’d have to really blow it to fail…and then it will all come down to who is the Veep, with plenty now plugging for Gabbard. I think we all have some doubts about her on policy, but none of us doubt her deep patriotism. As I’m now fully entering into old age, I’ll leave that for the young to decide. I’ll back whomever they pick.

Can we still lose? Of course we can. We’re human. We’ll make our mistakes. Things may happen to derail the train…but with the Left exposed and the GOP shedding the last aspects of Corporate Establishment, I think our side has the edge…that we will prevail, and perhaps for a generation. And this will be Charlie’s monument…a future for his children.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan10 Comments

In response to Kimmell being fired a lot of people on the Right are trying to explain it – that is, squaring it with our disgust with Cancel Culture. I’m not. Kimmell wasn’t cancelled – he’s a disgusting liar. That’s the only reason he’s off the air. If he hadn’t been a disgusting liar, he’d still be on. Simple as that. We didn’t do anything to him – he did it to himself. The only surprise here is that the network kept him on to spew his disgusting lies as his audience collapsed. If I ran the network, I would have ditched him years ago – saying that having a disgusting liar on the air is not what the network is about.

But, of course, that is what all networks have been about – and for a long time. The movie Network (1976) nailed it pretty well in that they’ll do anything to get eyeballs glued to the tube…but missed entirely the depth upon depth of lies the networks would put out if they thought lies meant good ratings. And it isn’t remotely the news that has all the lies – in fact, the news has the least lies necessary to advance the Leftist agenda. The popular culture stuff is where you get down to really nitty-gritty lies…like Law and Order with its bizarre fixation on anything that isn’t a crime problem in the United States. Of course, no production company would ever put out a show dealing with real crime problems…that is, a massively disproportionate number of non-white people committing most of the serious crimes. Better to cook up something which always has a white man as the bad guy…and even better if he’s Christian. I mean, you could do a whole series of criminal procedure episodes just about welfare fraud in Minnesota…but as its massively Somali…ain’t gonna see it! Better to just lie.

As least, until now. Now we have a President who is being totally uncool about that whole drag-him-through-the-courts-and-also-try-to-shoot-him thing the Democrats set up. He’s willing to use the immense power which the Left handed off to the Executive in the firm belief that it would never be turned against the Left. Oooops! Now networks have to worry about licensing and lawsuits and just the President talking about how dishonest they are…absolutely no respect given to them. It hurts – socially and financially. Look for some shows that start to reflect our values pretty soon…especially if Vance or another Trumper wins in 2028.

In my view, Ilhan Omar should be denaturalized and deported. I am thoroughly disgusted with this foreigner who was rescued by our nation deciding to call us the bad guys. If she showed the least bit of gratitude for the immense wealth and position this nation has afforded her I’d be ok – but she’s just a bitter, spiteful woman – as well as being a mindless tool for people who want America destroyed. Enough. Back to Somalia for her…where she won’t be allowed to appear in public, have any position or wealth.

AOC got up in the House to say that the motion to honor Kirk causes pain – which is her way of saying, “we’re glad he’s dead, the operation worked – you’re all Nazis and we’re coming after all of you”. Not at all kidding. She’s a mindless Commie but she also has internalized the way Commies work…everything that helps them is good and the vile hatred which got Kirk killed helped Communism…so, she’s not going to condemn it and, indeed, will continue to encourage it.

Some Democrats tried to block ICE and got treated exactly like those who try to interfere with Federal law enforcement should expect: badly. These actions by the Left prove their utter contempt for the USA. The laws about immigration may be good, bad or indifferent…but they are the laws. They were passed over many years via our representatives in Congress assembled and represent the considered wisdom of the American body politic. They cannot be set aside. That they have been set aside for decades is the blot upon our honor – enforcing them is the only decent thing to do. If anyone doesn’t like the laws – and everyone is free to do so – then the only course of action is to work within the political system to obtain a government which will change the laws…trying to riot in front of ICE is a betrayal of the American ideal. I’m hoping that we’ll eventually get some indictments out of this behavior.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Trump nuked a drug boat – and this is fully in line with what I’ve been saying about fighting the drug trade. It is primarily a logistic issue – and all true strategists concentrate on logistics. In the trafficking of human beings and drugs, we’re talking very large amounts of physical things which must be moved from place to place (and the money, also physical in the form of cash, must also be moved). Our enemy in the War on Drugs has a very long and entirely naked supply line…that is what we hit. We hit it by sealing our borders and by taking out identified drug transport in international waters and air space. Rely on it, we keep doing it, the people who transport the contraband will get the message…it won’t, of itself, stop the trade…but it’ll shift it from moving easily identified and targeted tons down to small quantities carefully concealed. Reminder: the widespread use of drugs like cocaine switched from a vice of the rich to a general vice because the suppliers worked out the means of producing and transporting large amounts of it – driving down the retail price to where everyone could avail themselves of it. Trump’s strategy will make the contraband vastly expensive…once again the province of decadent rich people.

I’d add to this a wrinkle to hit the money – while there are still some major global banks willing to facilitate criminal money, most don’t and all of it eventually gets detected. This is why to this day, to move the money to the cartels it has to be physically carried there. I’d offer letters of marque to anyone who wants to take the risk – outside US territory – to seize this money. Get it back to the USA, and you get to keep half the proceeds. Full title, tax free. Not just money – anything of value; go after everything they’ve got. Make them expend vast resources just to protect their money.

Covid cases are allegedly rising – and some California officials are recommending masking…which doesn’t work. They are getting desperate on the Left…trying every expedient they can. We won’t fall for it again.

Tim Kaine – who is allegedly a US Senator – says our rights are from government, not from God. And that any system that says rights are from God is a tyranny.

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by the Creator…”

I think I read that somewhere once.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Mike Fragoso gets it:

That is all “muh precious norms!” is about – simply trying to hamstring the GOP with rules the Democrats will ignore if they get into the majority. And the Never Trump guys are all on board with this – because they are now paid by the Democrats and their audience is almost exclusively Democrats. This particular bit is in relation to calls for the GOP Senate to ease rules so that Trump’s nominees can get confirmed – we are in September here and the Executive Branch still isn’t fully staffed with Trump’s people…meaning Deep State holdovers are still in charge of various things and are diligently working to undermine Trump. And that is why the Democrats and RINOs want to slow-walk the process…

Someone started calling them “paperwork Americans” and I think that is spot on – that is, people who do have all the documents for being Americans, but ain’t all that American. You know what I’m talking about: foreign born or born to foreigners people who are up there on the public stage calling America an evil nation. Sorry, not seeing a lot of connection here. Not a lot of love, that is.

No sane nation would allow inside it those who hate it. It is just literal lunacy. Heck, even the barbarians the Romans imported towards the end at least wanted to partake in the Roman world – we’ve got people who want to torch the whole project. They aren’t just dissenting. Not just pointing out this or that flaw or injustice we need to fix – they hate the whole thing and want it gone, replaced with something else. They are quite open about it – some saying that their purpose in the USA is to defend their foreign homeland. We do need to start working on a complete reform of citizenship in the USA, including Constitutional Amendments. My basics are:

  1. Only natural born citizens can hold office in the USA – elective or appointed: from dog catcher to President.
  2. Only those born to an American citizen in US territory or connected to a diplomatic or military foreign posting are natural born citizens.
  3. No more than 100,000 immigrants may arrive in any calendar year. They must be 18 to 30 years old, physically fit, unmarried, no children, fluent in English, not related to any foreign government official and have at least $10,000 on them when they arrive.
  4. A review of everyone naturalized over the past 25 years with careful attention paid to all documents, the slightest flaw in which results in denaturalization and deportation.
  5. Concentrations of foreign born are to be broken up – that is, if a city has within it 10% or more of people originating in one foreign nation, half of them must move elsewhere or back to their country of origin. No more take-overs of American cities by foreigners.

Pete Hegseth is working to have the Confederate Memorial returned to Arlington – there was a short moment when I was thinking it was ok to move Confederate memorials but it so quickly became a first step in removing all American memorials that I switched sides on the issue. And now the thought really kicks in: sure post-Civil War a lot of ex-Confederates erected the shameful Jim Crow system…but a memorial to Confederate soldiers isn’t a memorial to Jim Crow, even if some of them were erected by proponents of Jim Crow. The bottom line is that the major Confederate memorials – like that at Arlington – were erected with the cooperation and blessing of Grand Army of the Republic veterans. The war was over, enemies had forgiven each other…as they aged out and erected their last memorials to each other, their memories of the war were fond…remembering how young and brave they all were, not how much they hated each other at the time. They left us their memorials – North and South – as expressions of love…and we should leave them alone. We weren’t involved. They aren’t ours to judge…merely to learn from.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan16 Comments

Flag burning and a 14 year old Scottish girl fighting off a migrant with an axe. Kinda says it all, in my opinion.

Now, do keep in mind that Trump didn’t ban flag burning – the hair on fire comments about his Executive Order were made by people who hadn’t read it. In line with the absurd Supreme Court ruling that flag burning is speech, Trump doesn’t propose to arrest anyone for burning a flag. But if that burning is an incitement to riot, then you’re going to be in trouble. Trump is, as usual, the most law-abiding of Presidents. Probably the most law-abiding since Coolidge. Certainly far better at it than the utterly lawless Biden and Obama Administrations.

So, why do I tie it in with the Scottish girl? Because she’s not free – that’s her problem. She had to take an axe to defend herself because the UK is a lawless nation. Oh, sure: the authorities will arrest you and charge you and put you in jail…but only very selectively (for instance, the girl is being charged with assault…not the man who was trying to assault the girl’s 12 year old sister). Selective application of law is no law at all. It is merest whim of whomever has the power to do a thing.

Here’s now the Ruling Class works – and they’ve done this since the USSR and Nazi Germany – create lawlessness and then impose rules allegedly designed to suppress the lawlessness but which actually work out to tying the people hand and foot. Lenin ordered the Russians to “loot the looters” and they did…and then Lenin’s successor imposed a criminal code to ostensibly to get a handle on this but what you found in practice is that it allowed the looting to continue unabated (except, of course, against those who were specially protected) while the slightest deviation from Stalinist ideology got you ten years in Gulag. The British Ruling Class imported a huge class of aliens with no connection to or love for Britain, allowed them to run rampant with crime, and has now enacted laws allegedly to control crime but which actually control the British people…various speech codes for social media, and such. The migrants are still out there committing crime with impunity…their victim is facing criminal charges for not allowing herself to be attacked…oh, and that censorship is still in place…from what I understand, hardly anyone in the UK has even heard of the incident…it is completely suppressed on social media while the MSM won’t talk about it. And if they do, rely on it the girl will be called a racist in all reporting.

What Trump is trying to do with the EO on flag burning and by sending the Guard into DC is to end the lawlessness. It has to be done. If it isn’t done, then the next time the Democrats get back in, they’ll enact laws allegedly to stop the the chaos they created but which will have the practical effect of making MAGA illegal. Now, I personally believe that burning the American flag is not speech and I’d be perfectly happy sending a flag burner to jail for a few years, and then disenfranchising and deporting him. But, Trump won’t do that – but he’s doing the next best thing: making the Left think twice…and if they don’t think twice and decide to go on a rampage of flag burnings, that just goes into the 2026 campaign ads.

Trump fired Fed Governor Cook – she’s being charged with signing for two different mortgages that listed each separate property as her primary residence. This, by the way, is illegal. Under US law, you only have one primary residence – it is why it is called “primary”. Now, you might ask: why would she do something as stupid as sign loan documents like that when its all easily accessible records which nobody can possibly misunderstand? Because she thought she’d never be caught – none of them do. The entire Ruling Class thinks it is invincible…because until January 20th of this year, it was. The only people who got caught were those the Ruling Class wanted to dispose of for whatever reason. The sooner everyone starts thinking of the Ruling Class like a Mafia, the better – because that is what it is: and as the movie Goodfellas pointed out, the primary purpose was to provide protection. The Mafia, as such, didn’t commit the crimes…they just took a percentage of the proceeds in order to provide cover (that was the genius idea of Lansky and Luciano). So, too, with our Ruling Class…with the percentage being extracted in various ways – some times it is just straight up money, but it is also things like lowering interest rates to help Biden and then keeping them high to harm Trump. That’s Cook’s job – and she was sure something as trivial as a mortgage document would never come back to haunt her.

Our Ruling Class is shot through with such corruption – it is part of the reason we really gotta work for GOP victory in 2026 and 2028 because we’re going to need years to really get after these people. They’re all giving and taking bribes, falsifying documents, producing bogus reports and studies…anything and everything they need to make sure that everything works out to them staying in power and on the gravy train.