Open Thread

Open Thread

Mark Noonan85 Comments

Turns out that Pudding Brain, back when he was VP, mishandled classified documents. The MSM says that this is (D)ifferent and is of no concern. Naturally they say that, because China Joe actually broke the law – he was VP and didn’t have classification authority, unlike Trump who could declassify anything on a whim and didn’t even have to write down that he did so.

But, it doesn’t really matter: the law only applies to us, not to the Democrats. Even if we got an AG at some point willing to enforce the law against Democrats, they’d go before a DC jury which would vote to acquit no matter the facts. This is why I’ve suggested randomly assigning federal cases to different areas of federal jurisdiction…and/or moving most major agencies of the government out of DC. Put Justice in Yuma, AZ. Defense in Boise, ID. Treasury in Mobile, AL. This would also make it a lot harder for lobbyists.

The newest Current Thing is that gas stoves are a threat – and they’ve really worked this thing up. I hadn’t even heard of it until this morning and by the end of the day I was being referred to “studies” that allege NO2 from gas ranges causes a range of health and cognitive issues. They are doing this, of course, to get us all on 100% electricity, eventually controlled by a “smart thermostat” which will be able to ration our power as the Ruling Class sees fit. But, that aside, I’m amazed at the number of people who are acting as if they are convinced of the dangers of natural gas – as if we hadn’t been cooking with natural gas since the 1880’s with no ill effects. Are they really convinced? Are they really that stupid that they’ll set aside a lifetime’s experience and just believe it because the Experts say so? Or is it that they are really that dishonest? In either case, the result is the same: now we have to defend the use of natural gas.

This is how the Left wins: they are always on the offensive and are forever opening up new fronts. Any attack helps the overall push…and they don’t care how stupid the attack is. That it is made is the criteria for success because even if we manage to beat back the assault on gas stoves, it just means we didn’t have time for something else.

Like, for instance, in Minnesota to teach in public school you’ll have to be licensed and to be licensed you’ll have to positively affirm CRT and transitioning kids. The lives of thousands of children in Minnesota are about to sacrificed on the altar of Woke and we’re going to be overt there somewhere, trying to argue against a gas stove ban…

Joe went to a carefully cleaned up section of the border near El Paso for a photo op and a few remarks about how there is nothing wrong. You and I know it was all quite ridiculous but the Independent voters who will decide who wins the next election will just see it on CNN and it’ll be, for most of them, the first bit of border reporting they’ve seen in years and it’ll all look great. Do keep in mind that lying propaganda works. It works very well. Until everything falls apart.

McCarthy and the new GOP House majority are making some base-pleasing early moves but the proof will be in the pudding. What sort of investigations are done? What sort of bills are sent to the Senate. What is done to bills emerging from the Senate. That’s where we’ll find out of McCarthy and the GOPe have leaned any lessons. Fight and we win: it is as simple as that. Roll over and we’ll lose. We’ll know in a few months.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan8 Comments

Word is that the Russkies are calling up 500,000 reservists for a major Spring offensive. They’d just enough time to do that before the ground gets dry and hard in June. There is some dispute out there as to whether or not the Russians can equip that many but the Russians have massive stockpiles of arms and munitions – older stuff, but it’ll get the job done when your plan is to simply overwhelm with numbers, which is the invariable Russian plan after their initial effort falls flat. That many troops in the wide, flat lands of Ukraine are going to be tough to stop, as the Krauts discovered during the Battle of the Dnieper in 1943.

The Ukrainians can beat this horde but they’ll need to trade space for time and have in hand sufficient mobile reserves to strike hard at Russian flanks. We’ll see if they’re up to it.

The Regime Media is pointing out that time is not on the Ukrainian’s side – it never has been. Absent Putin quitting, unless the Ukrainians can destroy Russian military capability fairly quickly, it becomes a matter of who can call up the most and the Russians have vastly more military-aged males and material resources than Ukraine. This is why at the start I said that Ukraine needed mobile strike forces to go deep into Russian lines and, if possible, into Russia, itself. A positional slugging match – which is what we’ve had for months now – only ends in Russian victory.

Democrats in the States they control are, as per usual, enacting a host of new gun control laws to start 2023 – but I do suspect this will backfire on them. We already have two SC decisions noting that the right to bear arms is an individual right…what we don’t have, so far, is the actually correct Constitutional ruling: the right of the people to keep and bear arms is a very simple statement and it is the law we live under…all restrictions on the people keeping and bearing arms are unconstitutional. I don’t even think a law which says a felon (once out of jail, of course) can’t own a firearm passes muster (and it shouldn’t – once you serve your sentence, you’re square with the house and you should be treated no differently from other citizens…and anyone rated too dangerous to have a pistol after committing a crime is likely someone who should be serving life…reform the law that way, not towards gun restrictions). These attempts to backdoor gun control might eventually get a decision which simply enforces the law as written – and if anyone wants to restrict the keeping and bearing of arms, they’ll have to amend the Constitution.

Been a lot of attacks on US power stations of late. Someone is organizing and paying for it. I can only suspect that it is a dress rehearsal for an asymetric warfare attack on us at a later date.

Hundreds of Chicago teachers had sex with students. The more we see, the more we can’t escape thinking the world is run by a pedo ring trying to normalize it before they get caught.

Speaker of Open Threads

Mark Noonan67 Comments

Who gets to be the Speaker? The world holds its breath.

Or goes, ‘meh’ and watches some hockey.

Your mileage may vary.

But the battle is important. So far, the rebels have not put forward a solid set of demands upon which they will come back into the fold. That is a strategic error. But Chip Roy and a few others have hit the nail on the head: it is about making the House a legislative body. This might seem small – changes to the rules to make amendment and debate possible, but it is what has been missing. Since 2016, there has been no such thing…and for a couple decades before that, it was highly attenuated. It is why we just passed a 4,000 page, $1.7 trillion Democrat Christmas list. It was an up or down vote.

But if Representatives have the power to propose amendments and force debate, you can’t do that. That is, you can’t have a bill written by lobbyists and staffers, agreed to by a few leaders and then just handed off to the House for an up or down vote. Representatives would have to do their jobs…and go on record with votes on amendments. This is how you stop our remorseless slide into tyranny and bankruptcy…because, rely on it, most of the stuff in these huge bills would not survive a recorded vote…the Michelle Obama Trail doesn’t have a constituency.

In practical terms, as Churchill pointed out about a century ago, no potentate on Earth has more power than the President of the United States with one limitation – and it is massive. That is the Power of the Purse. The President can’t spend a nickle on a piece of gum unless Congress appropriates the money. This Power has largely atrophied as both parties have preferred to just give the President a blank check in return for various pork goodies. But if Congress actually asserts it’s power, the President will find that he can’t buy a pen or phone to issue an Executive Order. We must get back to that – no more rubber stamp. Make the House matter again – make the Executive come, hat in hand, to beg for money…and extract legislative benefits for our policies in return for funds. Like this: if Pudding Brain’s people want to provide money for diversity training in Zimbabwe, then we get something in return…like, say, a border wall. That is how it is supposed to work. And that is how it must work or the Republic will die.

You already know that science is twisted by propagandists to support the Left’s Narratives. Now you have proof.

The climate alarmists may revive nuclear power – it is, after all, clean and efficient. Of course, most Greens despise it, mostly because most Greens are morons (the believe your barbecue is heating up the planet, after all): but the bottom line is that business needs reliable power and wind and solar just don’t cut it, so some money bags are investing in nuclear. I don’t care how we get it, but that we get it is good – by this year, almost all electricity in the USA should have been provided by nuclear power. We should have so many nuke plants that I could run my AC at 50 degrees all day in July here in Vegas for $5.

Hello 2023

Mark Noonan17 Comments

A lot of people are writing morose bits about 2022 and how they hope that 2023 won’t be worse. I dunno: I had a good 2022 and I expect a good 2023.

To be sure, when I paid $111.00 for about $50 worth of groceries earlier today, that was disappointing. And gas is getting back above $4 a gallon here. So, yeah: I know that some things really sucked in 2022. But I had a good year.

I put out Shadow Army and Kings and Queen. I had hoped to get Heirs out in 2022 but, believe it or not, I’ve had the hardest time finding appropriate cover art for it. I know, sounds silly: but it is important. And let me tell you, for all the really first rate art there is to buy out there, I was surprised to find that getting a couple pictures of young men looking heroic for a fantasy novel cover was hard. I think I finally found what I need: of course, it’ll have to be modified. Not for me is the wealth that would allow me to commission original art – I buy art on the market and then have it modified to suit.

And I recently received a note from a reader who found Kings and Queen to be first rate. I’m happy when I get that feedback. If I can bring just a little bit of joy to someone’s life, then the whole thing is worth it. Right after that note, I did have to read Kings and Queen again to make sure that nothing in Heirs contradicted Kings – and as I read it, I had to agree with my reader: it really is a first rate novel. Lots of fun; I hope a bit moving in places. Heirs I also think good, and Empress is the best of all so far, in my view. The Crimson Blade needs some work on the ending. Home World also need a bit of work on the ending. Home World gets us back into our world for a bit of fun and adventure, Ghost Tower is shaping up nicely…and I was suddenly inspired again and got a start on Antaki, which will be book XII. I’ll be at this for a while!

And, of course, just before Christmas we released Aleste and the Icecrystal Dragons. While I hooked the story into the Mirrors series, it is a stand-alone story and it really is my granddaughter’s story. As I was one day explaining the Mirrors series to her she got a thoughtful look on her face and observed that my story had no dragons in it. And so I told her to invent some dragons for me – and then I just took her Narrative and put it into book form. It is an excellent little tale suitable for about 8 to 12 year old kids, probably more favorable to girls (imagine that: a ten year old girl comes up with a story that little girls will like!). It is clean (of course) and its got dragons, magic, a princess, an evil witch and lots of fun. If you’ve got a youngster in your life, I recommend it: you can find it on Amazon.

I took some vacation time to the beach: Del Mar and La Jolla in San Diego, to be exact. I had introduced my wife and granddaughter to it a couple years ago and they’ve fallen in love with it. The shining memories I have is my granddaughter building a sand castle in just about the exact spot on Torrey Pines beach where I did when I was 8 or so…and then taking an hours walk on the beach with her. Just Pop and her…with her asking me every question under the sun about oceans and seagulls and starfish and sea lions and on and on and on.

We all heard that Pope Benedict passed today, the last day of the year. Hard to be sad when someone passes away at 95. But it was a bit of a wrench. I am not one of those Trad-Caths who abhors Pope Francis. I have my disagreements with some non-doctrinal things he’s said and done, but on doctrine he’s been as solid as Benedict or John Paul ever were. I do believe that the Church was getting at risk of being too rigid – starting to get into a habit where the form was more important than the substance. I dig the people who want the Latin Mass (I prefer the Novus Ordo, myself) and there is a need to hold fast to the past…but there is also a need to recognize that we’re no longer defending Christian civilization. That is dead and gone and if we pretend otherwise, nobody will listen to us. We have to take people as they are and bring them along: not demand that they immediately be like a Catholic or other Christian was in, say, 1923.

It does suck that China Joe is still in office. Also sucks that we lost the Senate. I’m not thinking we’ll have a good political year in 2023 for the Right. Unless things really go south. Which they might.

It also continues to suck that Russia is being Russia, China, China all the while our political and military leadership is incompetent if not bought by foreign powers. But, leaders comes and go. And we have made lots of progress at the State and local level. We get a Republican governor here in Nevada on the 7th. the North Carolina Supreme Court will be Republican dominated at least until 2029 – thus putting an end to Democrat efforts to fraud North Carolina from Red to Blue. And that is the real key to the future: hold what we’ve got, make it legally impossible for Democrats to fraud us out…and then build outwards into the purple and blue areas of the country. So, we do have some reasons for optimism.

And, also, crying won’t help. You can, if you wish, drop into a funk about it all – but why being miserable seems a good option is a bit beyond my experience. I prefer to be happy, and have a good New Year.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan42 Comments

The sentenced the guy the FBI set up to be Whitmer’s kidnapper to 19 years today. Word to the wise, guys: anyone – and I mean anyone – who advocates anti-government violence is a Fed. They have whole teams of agents looking for any loudmouth they can sucker into playing along. They have their Narrative – that violent White Supremacists are the Real Terrorists – and they will make up crimes to support this. Don’t be drawn into it.

Our task is not the violent overthrow of the US Government – it is to work where we can to expand our power. While the Constitution is in shreds, it is still there. The States are still sovereign. Counties are well-nigh independent of all higher authority. School boards answer to nearly nobody. In the States where we can win: win big. Enact laws defending liberty. And also start pressing our States to cease accepting federal money: huge amounts of the laws on your State and local books are there simply because the federal money doesn’t come unless it is. Stop it and break free. Take over County commissions, sheriff’s offices, school boards. Bottom up has to be our plan – still complete on the national level and take what wins we can…but the future is a kid starting first grade next year after we took over the school board. Twelve short years from now that kid is a literate, numerate, sane and physically healthy patriot. Get the sheriffs who will simply refuse to enforce federal laws which infringe on rights. Pass restrictions on the actions of federal agents in the States. Things like that – while also pushing into the Blue areas and winning whatever we can, no matter how small, because even the smallest victories today become big wins tomorrow: I remember when in the 1980’s the Liberals started their plans to take over San Diego and Orange counties in California – and it has largely succeeded. Took them ages. Started with a couple school boards, a city council here and there…

Voting grows. More people do it. The various laws and programs the Democrats have enacted are bringing ever more people to the polls. We’re still very much playing catch up. But as the crisis in our civilization grows more acute, look for this trend to continue and intensify. And don’t think it will forever favor the Democrats. Remember that Trump scored 11 million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. People are angry, confused and want answers and solutions – they will surge to the polls in ever greater numbers trying to find them. Our task is to ride that lightning. If we can provide a real alternative – no more Democrat-lite – and shed our connections to Big Corporation (almost done) and the Military-Industrial Complex (about half way there) then we can really start to talk to people.

Governor Abbott is still sending illegals to DC – to the fury of Democrats who would never, of course, lend a hand to any of those poor people. It is effective propaganda but I think we need to next-step it. My suggestion to Abbott is that he get together with other border State governors and work up a plan to send 10,000 illegals to DC all at once. Force the MSM to cover it. Make it a crisis; show the Ruling Class that we’re serious and this has to stop. Side note; Abbott is my third choice for 2024 behind Trump and DeSantis. He’s doing solid work. Made a few policy errors here and there, but when the chips are down he fights for us.

Musk is thinking – so the rumor goes – of buying Substack and essentially getting into the MSM business. I think he was genuinely surprised at how little notice the MSM has taken of the Twitter Files, and that what little is said about them is invariably a pack of lies. Musk is a liberal – I doubt he’ll ever stop being a liberal – but he’s been mugged by reality and I think it is dawning on him that if he wants to remain free, he’s got to attack the system. It is either that or just roll over for them.

One thing Musk did point out today – which I didn’t know and apparently a lot of other people didn’t know – is that the person tasked with keeping Fauci ethical in his professional service is…his wife. Which really isn’t a surprise except that it shows you that not only are they corrupt, but they don’t really care if we find out how corrupt they are.

Congressman-elect Santos apparently told a bunch of whoppers in his successful House campaign. The Democrats are demanding he resign because of his lies. Most of us are just laughing at that and pointing out Warren and Biden just for starters. GOPe types are wetting themselves over it, as usual. But I don’t think the bedwetters will rule the day here – I think that even someone like McCarthy realizes there is no upside to throwing one of our own to the wolves. If Santos is a real problem, them primary him in 2024.

Hooters is thinking of rebranding itself on the conclusion that Millennial men just don’t care that much for boobs. I really don’t know what to make of that.

CNN broadcast a story of a 9 year old girl being sold by her father to an old man – apparently because the girl’s family is impoverished. Most people are naturally horrified by it: but I’d like to point out that this is what they do there. It is what they’ve always done there. You won’t talk these people out of it. To them, a nine year old will now be with a rich man who will ensure she is fed and her position will also ensure her larger family survives tough times. In their mind, while this might not be ideal, it is better than the girl going hungry, her family going hungry or the women of the family forced to engage in dishonorable practices to keep body and soul together. Have you ever been really hungry? In the sense of having nothing to eat and no prospect of getting another meal? That is what the family faced and this is how they decided to get out of it.

Now, you can still stop this: but it will require killing. Lots of killing. Including women and children. These people will view you as alien outsiders and no matter how much they might hate their own rulers, they’re going to hate you even more for trying to force change on them. Nothing is quite as cut and dried as a news report tries to make out. For the record, I’d like that practice to be stropped. But I’d also like to hear a Mass at Hagia Sophia. There’s lots of things I’d like but I’m never going to get. And before I do anything which will result in our young me killing their young men I’m going to think carefully before I even speak, let along act.

Grumpy Open Thread

Mark Noonan80 Comments

Feeling grumpy. Lots of things got on my last nerve today.

McConnell says the Omnibus is great because it addresses what Republicans care most about.

Look, you know I’ve defended Mitch…but this is just an insult. He clearly no longer cares what we think.

That Omnibus has $3,600,000.00 in it for the Michell Obama Memorial Trail. This is the entire Ruling Class insulting us. Look. I don’t know Michelle from Adam. For all I know she’s the sweetest person who ever lived. But has she done that is worthy of a memorial? Has every last Medal of Honor recipient already had their memorial constructed? Are we simply out of real heroes to honor?

There’s also the $47 billion going to Ukraine – which is, apparently, not enough because Zelensky is heading to town to pan for more money. It is a bottomless pit – and I’ve seen no substantial Ukranian advance into Russian-held territory. What the heck are we paying for? And nobody knows where the money is really going. There’s no audit or oversight – we’re just supposed to take it at their word that none of it is being stolen.

Meanwhile, the J6 Committee referred Trump for criminal charges. I figure its 50/50 they’ll indict him – thought it will be an interesting legal issue when the House rescinds that referral next month. But the Democrat base has been shouting for a perp walk for two years and the Democrats may feel they owe them one. Another Committee also voted to release Trump’s tax returns…so, feel safe, guys! They’ll never do that to you!

A picture was posted by the NY Post showing a clearly happy Kellyanne Conway out to a swanky dinner with Andrew Cuomo. Think about that. This is the thing that started me being grumpy today. Supposedly, Conway was one of the good ones. We all defended her because she was one of us. Now, you might think, “hey, her personal life is hers and maybe she just sets politics aside on it”. Yeah, no. Andrew Cuomo is a woman-abusing, lying, corrupt thug who engineered sending Covid patients into nursing homes so that the death toll would spike and be blamed on Trump. I could set aside differences of opinion…I can’t set aside gross immorality. That Conway feels that Cuomo is a proper person to jump into the sack with means she approves. She probably is impressed with Cuomo’s “kill granny” program and how well it worked. And now we know where at least some of the leaks came from. We also, now, can see why her daughter went ballistic…she could see from the inside the corrupt game mommy was playing. And we also tip our hat to George Conway – his hatred of Trump was misplaced, but he probably figured that if Trump was aligned with Kellyanne, he must share her amorality.

Nothing better illustrates the Uniparty than someone we thought one of our champions turns out to be someone who couldn’t wait to join the Ruling Class. A lot of people blame Trump’s personnel picks and, sure, he must bear his share of the blame here…but, my goodness, was there anyone who wasn’t stabbing him in the back from Day One? He had people around him. He was politically inexperienced. He assumed that there was some basic amount of honesty and patriotism in all those who expressed a desire to work with him. How could he possibly have foreseen the depth upon depth of depravity?

Grumpy enough yet? No? Ok, then lets go on.

You might recall the Wi Spa incident where a woman and a couple minor girls where confronted by the swinging…stuff of a transwoman and the Official Word immediately became that We Must Stand Against Anti-Trans Hate and that anyone offended at a swinging…thing in the girls’ room was a bigot. Yeah, well now that its no longer a burning issue…the guy is a convicted sex criminal who became “trans” so that he could whip it out in the girls’ room because that is how this perv gets his jollies. Which, by the way, was exactly what we all said would happen as soon as you allowed biological males into female spaces. It is a red carpet for every flasher in the world to wear a dress and just get rocking.

Not only was Twitter censoring the news, the FBI was paying Twitter to censor the news. This violates a host of federal laws. But, the law doesn’t matter. Nothing will be done. Even if we get a Trifecta in 2024, nothing will be done.

Enough Grump? Ok.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan25 Comments

Big Q1 2023 layoffs are coming for the Washington Post – word is they’ve lost half a million subscribers. This is good on so many levels.

And I think it is just the start – when Musk bought Twitter it had 7,500 employees. From what I can tell, he’s down to less than a hundred now and the thing is running just fine. These employees were being paid San Francisco wages – so, you gotta figure even the mail rook clerk (do they still have those?) was making north of 50 grand a year. The cost savings are immense. Additionally, there is rumor than Musk will move it to Texas, thus saving massive amounts in taxes and other fees. Other companies will be looking at this and wondering just how much they can cut.

To be sure, any of us who have ever lost a job knows that it is devastating. You suddenly don’t have assurance of paying the bills and with that worry, you scramble for another position. On the other hand, the bloat in corporate America is massive. Huge numbers of people are employed doing nothing that produces the product sold, whatever that may be. Empire building doesn’t just happen in government bureaucracies – it is a disease of all bureaucracies. The most positive aspect of this is that the people most likely to be fired are those who pester the American people the most: the woke with useless degrees are going to find that the 200 grand a year job attending a couple half hour meetings per day is gone for good.

As I’ve said before, a huge amount of America’s workforce is employed in useless jobs – and it wouldn’t be so bad if they were just useless, but these people also use their positions to push ever more wokeness on us…because that is their bread and butter. The more DEI you get, the more money you make.

Until, of course, there is no more money to make. We can’t sustain a pack of parasites. We need our workers to produce useful product.

I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t think we realize just how malevolently insane the United States has become. We are no longer the good guys in the world. We’re funding the war in Ukraine when that could have been almost immediately settled by Ukraine giving up the ethnic Russian territory. We’re refusing to produce our own oil and natural gas while pressing foreigners to ruthlessly exploit their own resources and workers so we can have energy cheap enough to keep political damage to democrats to a minimum. We’re arguing over whether or not a healthy 14 year old should have a double mastectomy. We’re allowing what amounts to a new slave trade to operate on our southern border. On and on it goes like that – not just bad policies which could result from mistakes, but directly baleful actions which hurt our own people and people all around the world…all the while with an MSM lauding our leadership and everyone passing out awards to each other for doing it. A reckoning will come for this – and I do believe that in God’s mercy we will have to pay a high price for it all.

But there is some good news – the Temecula Valley (CA) school district has banned critical race theory. This is in California. And this shows just how crucial things like school board elections are. Just put a few sane people into office and, presto, the hate-filled insanity stops. I hope we can get more and enough of this soon enough to avert total disaster.

Donald Trump is not having a good time – ignoring polls (most are created to manipulate rather than inform), he’s just not gaining much traction for 2024. His core supporters are still with him, but it looks like enough other GOP voters are out there to deny him the nomination if they can swiftly coalesce around one candidate (more tricky than it seems). Now he’s saying he has a big announcement coming tomorrow. I guess we’ll see if he’s got something that will restore his fortunes.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan37 Comments

Yoell Roth, the former trust and safety capo at Twitter, tweeted back in 2010 a question about kids consenting to sex with their teachers. In case you were wondering why Twitter prioritized getting the Bad Orange Man rather than all the sexual abuse stuff off their platform.

That, by the way, is something to be wary of when going on Twitter. It isn’t shoved in your face, but sometimes rather innocuous searches can result in some astonishing results. So, best to have a care – I mean, you know if you search “boobs” what you’re going to get…but other words which have completely innocent meanings have been coopted by the naughty into other meanings.

Unlike Facebook, you can find actual rated X stuff directly posted on Twitter – but whether it is the real deal or just a scantily clad woman, the purpose is to get you to click a link which brings you to the adult website. Lots of us, of late, have been followed by bot accounts with all sorts of different names but they all share pictures of the same very pretty Chinese lady. We’re not sure if its Chinese spyware or just a come on for Chinese-themed dirty bits, but none but a fool would actually click the links. As for me, I just block them as they come up – must be at least a couple score by now. There is some hope that Musk will curb that – I mean, I don’t think Twitter needs to be the morality police, but certainly any links to sites which are not just dirty but downright evil should be banned. And now that Roth is out, it might happen.

On Twitter, a mutual posted a poll showing that support for Reparations now sits at 60% among Democrats. This is no surprise at all – Democrats are sheep who will just do what they’re told. But it is also going to be a tricky issue for the GOP. Given the way things are, passing out the cash is popular, as such. And the GOP is perceived as the party that will pass out cash to business and to wars, but always balks at giving money to regular folks. I doubt that Reparations will ever gain overall majority support, but its going to come close and soon – maybe as soon as 2024 and when it does get there, Democrats will campaign on it. This is especially so if trends in black voting towards the GOP accelerate. So, when the issue comes up, we’d better be ready for it and our answer can’t just be, “no”.

The Democrats, of course, just want a race slush fund – a pile of government money that their cronies control and pass out to loyal foot soldiers who will then agitate for even more money. To counter it, I think we need some sort of program to build business and home ownership among the black community. Real wealth owned by individuals, families and cooperatives. And we can’t ignore the fact that from 1776 to 1865 almost all wealth generated by blacks was stolen and from 1865 to 1965 wealth creation among the Africa-American community was hampered a thousand ways in law and custom. It is simply true that the African-American community would be per-capita richer today than it is had there not been nearly two centuries of effort to prevent black wealth creation. We should take that line with it – that those who are genuinely descended from slaves (with some sort of cut off percentage – say 33% at a bare minimum) didn’t inherit as much wealth as they could have, and so we should try to make up for that – perhaps with a program of selling federal land and using the proceeds to pay out? I don’t really know: I’m spitballing here. But some means whereby out of the national wealth, those who’s ancestors were actively prevented from accumulating wealth are granted some sort of benefit. Because, like I said, it can’t just be “no”. We’ll get destroyed on the issue if we just say “no”.

Side benefit to selling federal land: it gets land out of Uncle Sam’s hands. The less land the feds own, the less legal power they have to interfere on the State and local level.

There is a great deal of argument between anti-Trump GOPers and the Trumpsters. Each is arguing in their various ways that the other side getting their way means doom for the GOP. Nominate Trump and we’ll lose! Nominate Ron DeSantis and we’ll lose! The correct answer is: we’re going to lose.

It is always difficult to get the incumbent party out after one term. It only rarely happens – and that usually takes massive economic catastrophe. But even with such, it still won’t be easy – there is so much welfare out there that the pain felt in, say, 1980 or 1932 simply won’t be there. Nobody is going to be worrying about their next meal. So even if, as I expect, we have bad economic times in 2024, that is no assurance that we’ll beat Pudding Brain.

And this is absent fraud – which various laws in places like Georgia has made a lot harder. In a straight up race, we’ll lose. Not only because it is hard to beat an incumbent, we’re also simply too divided and too weak. The Never Trump and Trumpsters hate each other far more than they hate the Democrats. Nominate Trump and the Never Trump ‘burbs will stay home. Nominate RDS and the Trumpster rurals will stay home. In either case, I can’t see our guy getting to 270 absent something like 25% unemployment. And even then it would be iffy.

I think that for 2024 our prime effort should be on holding the House, gaining the Senate and flipping as many county commissions and school boards as we can. That is the seed corn for the future while holding part or all of Congress means that at least Democrat policies aren’t enshrined in law. Now, miracles can happen – and if we find ourselves with a trifecta in 2024, cool. But don’t count on it – and any result will be better if we also won a lot of counties and school boards, where the real power to shape the country lies.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan21 Comments

As expected, Warnock won – and a lot of people are down on our prospects in Georgia in general. And there is much to be worried about. But I don’t think we need worry quite as much as some urge.

Yes, I do realize that the metro Atlanta area is getting a huge influx of northern voters who are ancestrally Democrat and so they are tilting the State Blue. But that same sort of people moved to Florida and look how that turned out.

Message and messenger: that is always going to be key for us. And they both have to be good. Walker has a past – a past not in any way as bad as Warnock’s (who seems a grade A jerk), but it must be kept in mind that our molehills will be made into mountains and the Democrat mountain will be hit with the SEP Field. I bet that just enough GOP voters were demotivated by Walker’s past. Meanwhile, ninety percent of Warnock’s voters – being consumers of the MSM – never even heard of the bad stuff about Warnock. So, our guys have to be first rate. I do, as an aside, think that even someone with a past can get around it – but only by being forthright about it. Get it out early and openly and don’t leave the least detail out. Once it is out and you can credibly show that it was a long time ago, you may have inoculated yourself: you’ve certainly lessened the effect of October Surprise stuff.

But it isn’t just candidates, messages and our ability (ala’ Florida) to eventually turn Democrats our way – that won’t be enough. No: we need more voters. Turns out, I know where they are.

Chicago.

“But, Mark: are you nuts! Biden won Chicago overwhelmingly!”

He sure did. But turnout in Chicago was 73 percent. More than 420,000 of Chicago’s voters didn’t vote. This isn’t residents or citizens – that is registered voters who didn’t vote. And that is just Chicago – not the rest of Cook County and surrounding areas which are the Democrat strongholds in Illinois (outside the Chicago area, Illinois votes like Alabama). And I’ll bet in the other Blue areas around the county we’ll find similar numbers.

So, there’s the votes: they are right there, waiting to be picked up. They are in the low-propensity voter and in the person who has never voted. Democrats area already doing a bang up job with some of these people. We can, too. And not just in getting Deep Red to turnout more…but going into Deep Blue and stealing some. You have to figure if you live in Deep Blue and don’t vote, you’ve gotta be disgusted with the system. That is fertile ground for us…if we can find the right message and messenger. Zeldin seems to understand this best, but others are coming around to it. The millions of votes we need to win are just waiting for us to ask for them. And, look, it isn’t about carrying Chicago and Los Angeles…it is about picking up enough votes in Deep Blue to lock down States like Georgia and North Carolina and put us in striking distance in places like California and New York.

But there is a catch. There always is, isn’t there? You’re not going to get these people with a traditional GOP message. They don’t even know who Madison is and aren’t at all concerned about tax rates or the problem at the border. They’re worried about their own poverty…their lack of safety. They feel they should be given more help.

And you’re going to have to give it to them. Sorry, guys, but the days of small government America are gone and they ain’t coming back any time soon. Right now, we’re just trying to preserve liberty and property, as such. It is either buy their votes and use the power to preserve your liberty…or stick to your small government ideals, lose, and have Communism imposed on you.

Senator Tom Cotton told woke Kroger corp to take a hike: that is one of those “first step” things we need to do. We can’t defend corporations which hate us and fund our enemies.

James Baker was an FBI guy who played a key role in the Trump-Russia drivel. When the heat came on, he was eased out of the FBI (rather than, say, being shot for treason) and got a job at … Twitter! Where he most recently was (briefly) in charge of vetting documents for Musk before they were released to the press. Well, someone pointed out that this probably wasn’t a good idea – so Musk fired him. I was wondering why in the first batch of documents, no names were being named. Now, I know: the Deep State had their finger in the pie. But now that finger is out – what comes out now may prove very interesting.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan40 Comments

Elon Musk announced that he was going to release the info about how the Hunter laptop story was suppressed on Twitter and everyone got al excited. Except me.

The crucial thing we need to know – the only thing we need to know – about how Twitter suppressed the story is who outside Twitter ordered it done. Now, do I have proof that someone outside Twitter gave the order? Of course not. But the bottom line is that as soon as the Post released the story federal law enforcement, almost all the MSM and all major social media platforms suppressed it. You don’t get that sort of uniformity of action without coordination – and you can’t coordinate that sort of action on the fly. People way up high in power in the USA were aware at least some days in advance that the Post story was coming and they swung into action to make sure it had as little effect as possible. They had their talking points all lined up – it was Russian disinformation. They got 50 former intel guys to sign a letter stating it was a Russian op. Doing this sort of thing takes a few calls, ya know?

So what I want to know is who called Twitter. Someone did. There’s no way it didn’t happen. If I can find out who made the call then I can find out who was ultimately behind the suppression effort by working backwards from that person and seeing who they did or do work for. And I called it before Musk released the info – 100-1 against us getting that crucial bit of information. And, sure enough, when the data was dropped, it lacked that. All it told us was what we already knew – that Twitter came up with an absurd excuse out of the Safety group and the story was gone.

Now, to be sure, they did say that political operatives – including some Republicans – had made various requests to suppress this or that account. But they still didn’t name any names. Likely because if we had an idea who had been calling before Laptop, we could eventually figure out who called for Laptop. Because as far as that goes, it had to be someone who knew about it – so, likely DOJ and/or Team Pudding Brain made that call.

And keep in mind that even if you want to say that fraud played no role in 2020, the suppression of this story did. It is absolutely hideous. Had it been about Don, Jr then Trump would have been lucky to crack 40% on election day. China Joe’s son is hip deep in federal crimes based on info on that laptop…and the pictures are downright disgusting. It was a candidacy-killer. Had it been given the normal play a story like that gets, these days Joe’s lawyers would be arguing he’s senile and so isn’t fit to stand trial. It was killed because to save Biden and get Trump out, it had to be killed. And, yes, this does make it even money that senior GOPers played a role in suppressing the story.

Until we get that info, its all pretty pointless. Musk says there is more to come – so, let’s hope. But I have my doubts that the truth will come out…because, remember, a lot of laws get broken in campaign offices and law enforcement agencies when you coordinate with media to favor one party over the other in a political campaign. A lot of well-placed people will be in jeopardy if it all comes out.

Apple CEO Tim Cook dodged questions about Apple’s relationship with China – because what else could he do? You do business in China and the Chinese own you. They have your factory. They control your labor force and supplies. If you don’t toe the PRC line, you’ll lose everything. And that is before the PRC gets you in-country, indulges any perversions you have and gets it all on video.

I’ve thought for decades that America having relations with tyrannical regimes is a huge mistake – we poison ourselves when we do that. Either we believe in our Declaration or we don’t. If we do, then we can’t hold that the PRC is a legitimate government – it is a mafia with an army. And you can’t make honest deals with the mob. We should, step by step, de-couple ourselves from all unfree nations.