Open Thread

I Forgive Your Debts Open Thread (All Praise to Our Magic Wand!)

Mark Noonan94 Comments

How well is Pudding Brain’s student loan scam going over? Well, three endangered Democrat Senators have already come out against it – including Cortez-Masto here in Nevada, who is already being roasted by GOP candidate Adam Laxalt about it.

I really can’t think of a more maladroit move in recent years – 10k is a pittance, most of it is going to go to the rich, the action is probably not legal and so may be reversed in court after a bunch of people think they’ve skated on debt. Nobody really likes this other than Social Media bot accounts paid to praise whatever it is that Democrats are doing (they’ve all gone silent on praising the raid on Trump’s home, if you want to know how that went over with the public). You might think that they should have gone through Congress but that 3 Democrat Senators have already condemned it shows how that would fare – especially as House Democrats likely wouldn’t vote for anything less than 100% cancellation. It is also so clearly and easily seen as a cynical, political ploy with the mid-terms in mind.

But, also, pay attention to what Cortez-Masto and other Democrats are doing. Remember – and you’ve heard some liberal commenters here say it – the Narrative is that Joe “Shades” Biden has masterfully turned things around. Pivoting from the GOP’s disastrous end of Roe, he’s now got “big legislative wins” which are building towards a remarkably strong Democrat showing in November. And NY-19 proved it! Don’t know if you followed the Social Media meltdown on that one last night…but it was where a Democrat district shifted 9 points to the GOP but the Democrat still won, so this means the GOP is doomed – DOOMED, I TELL YA!!!! – in November. But, meanwhile, there’s not a Democrat out there who wants Pudding Brain on the campaign trail with them (though in Florida the Democrats are in full Kamikaze Mode and may invite him down to seal the deal of a 15 point plus GOP win)…and out here in Nevada’s 4th District, the Democrat is running working class hero ads where he doesn’t mention that he’s a Democrat and, funny, isn’t touting Biden’s “big legislative wins” nor making any promise to restore Roe.

Two rules about politics in 2022:

  1. Whatever is in the MSM is a lie.
  2. Never look at what people say: watch what they do.

Meanwhile: actual harbinger – the GOP flipped school boards all over Florida yesterday. A lot of school boards. This is where the pushback actually starts. We’re winning school boards and county commissions. No longer will we allow hard Leftists to rule these incredibly powerful institutions under the guise of being “non-partisan”. They are partisan – and we’re taking them back.

California will ban new sales of gasoline powered cars by 2035. This is supposed to set the trend for the end of the internal combustion engine…but as California’s population is collapsing (some estimates are that they screwed with the Census numbers pretty badly and that CA should have lost 3 rather than 1 House seat) and this will merely accelerate that trend, I don’t think this will be a trendsetter. The bottom line is that the internal combustion engine works. It is vastly more efficient and durable than it has ever been and we can get even more miles for even less gasoline out of it. Until electric cars cost no more than 5% more than non-electric, can go 350 miles on a charge costing no more than a tank of gas and take no more than ten minutes to recharge, they simply can’t replace internal combustion and all efforts to force the pace will end in disaster.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan57 Comments

Note to self: when its 100 degrees in Vegas and 40% humidity, best not to trim the hedge out front.

We’ve had the wettest monsoon season in years here in Vegas…been muggy with lots of rain. Some very cool thunderstorms, which is always nice. But, also, a lot cooler than usual. We did have about a two week period in July where it was blazing at 110+, but we’ve had a lot of daytime highs in the 90s over the past two months and I’ve never seen that in my 25 years here. Wonder if we’re in for a cold, wet winter? Be nice – the drought in the southwest has gone on more than a decade and it is time for it to end.

From what I’ve been able to glean from votes, it looks like we might have a 10 point swing to the GOP in November from the 2020 result. This would be a rather catastrophic loss for the Democrats. Just take a look at all the House districts Democrats won by less than 10 and you can see their vulnerability. Of course, it won’t be uniform across the nation. Some Democrats will buck the trend but any Democrat who isn’t running 10 points ahead right now is in trouble.

This is why you’re seeing polls showing Democrats doing well in Red and Purple States. They have a two-fold purpose:

  1. Convince Democrat donors to pony up. Hard to get Blue money into Ohio if its a coming loss, right? No amount of money will actually cure what ails the Democrats but their calculation is that it will be less-bad. Meaning that if a lot of money is poured into Ohio it will shore up marginal Ohio Democrats and trigger GOP spending which could be spent elsewhere.
  2. To get GOPers depressed, worried and pouring resources into places that are in the bag. Like Ohio. Every dollar spent there is a dollar not spent on races which the GOP could win if a full court press was made. A GOP challenger in a D+6 State or district usually doesn’t see a red cent of RNC money because it is normally a waste of money…but in 2022, the payoff might be magnificent. The polls are designed to head fake the GOP away from such efforts. Naturally, the GOPe is falling for it. But some outside groups aren’t. We’ll see how it plays out.

I’ve been thinking about McConnell and the coming GOP Senate majority – and it seems to me that McConnell’s heart isn’t in it. To McConnell’s credit, when Trump was elected, he worked with Trump, especially on judges. But he didn’t really work a lot with Trump, now did he? A lot more could have been done in 2017 with the GOP trifecta had McConnell really pressed the issue. He didn’t. And McConnell likely didn’t because he didn’t like Trump. And when fraud clearly altered the 2020 result, McConnell (like the rest of the GOP leadership), dropped Trump like a bad habit. They did this because they thought that Trump and what he represented was done. That we, the base, would just roll over and accept the fraud and then nominate a Jeb! for 2024. I think that as McConnell sees the GOP becoming increasingly Trumpist, he just doesn’t like it. He also doesn’t know what to do about it. It is time, I believe, for a change – we might not be able to force McConnell out in 2023, but we should be able to get some of ours into senior leadership so that when McConnell rides into the sunset, a MAGA Senator is in charge.

Now, Devil’s advocate: can we end up losing? At least in the sense of not scoring as many victories are we should win in this environment? Of course we can – politics is screwy. All signs (other than polls) show a big GOP win coming, but you can never tell until the actual votes come in. But I see no reason to fret about it – we’re either going to score big or we’re not. And if we don’t score big, then our problem isn’t candidate selection or policy or what have you…failure to win big in 2022 simply means the USA is much further Left than we think. This is a whole different problem: it would mean we’d have to start all over again and figure out how to craft any sort of Right message which can win in a Left world.

Meanwhile, Democrats have got their finger on the pulse – today, in Miami, the Democrats showed up for their rally waving Communist flags. No, I’m not kidding: they really did. They’re waving the hammer and sickle in front of an electorate which fled precisely that. I don’t think this is going to work the way Democrats hope.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan139 Comments

Liz Cheney wasn’t defeated last night, she was humiliated. If it hadn’t been for Democrats crossing over to vote for her, I bet she wouldn’t have cracked 15%. As it was, with their votes, she inched up to 28%. This is a rejection not just of the Old Guard, but of the sort of Republican who will spend time attacking fellow GOPers based on the Democrat Narrative. That is important – there are reasons for intra-party battles. You can, under certain circumstances, speak ill of your fellow GOPer. But it has to be on our terms, not Democrat terms. The J6 Narrative that Cheney signed on for is based, ultimately, on the Steele Dossier…in other words, they’re still going with the underlying assumption that Trump is a Russian agent set upon the American people to turn us into a fascist dictatorship (how this helps Russia is left unexplained). The raid on Trump’s home was in furtherance of this (though I did read someone thinking that the raid was to recover Hillary documents that Trump had declassified: this rings a bit true). Brian Kemp in Georgia firmly rejected Trump’s contention that fraud caused the loss – I believe Kemp is wrong in this (and his actions in strengthening voter security indicate that even Kemp thinks he was a little wrong on this), but Kemp managed to do this while keeping the GOP base largely on his side. You can thread this needle – you can, that is, go against Trump (or any other competing GOPer) and still come out roses on the other end. But no longer can you do this if you betray the GOP Base.

And that is just the thing: we GOP voters were tired of being betrayed. We put up with Bushes and McCains and Romneys on the promise that while they’d trim their sails to the Left from time to time to retain electoral viability, when push came to shove they’d get done what we most cared about – and all these people ever did was betray us on what we think most crucial. So, we’re done with them – and, yes, we have now made Trump a litmus test. Some are very upset about this, but is has to be. We need a quick shorthand for whether or not someone will betray us – and joining Democrats to attack Trump is the bright red, flashing light that you’re a RINO Establishment creep.

There are tens of millions of people in the USA who don’t work – and I mean, like ever: they are permanently or semi-permanently on welfare. We also have a host of people who have office jobs which produce no value…HR people, diversity coordinators, extra layers of Administrative staff. Combined, I’ll bet these total about 50 million of our population. We can’t sustain this: these people will have to get real jobs. Any system we craft to replace the fiat money/debt/welfare/billionaire system we have now will have to address the economically useless – and make them useful. When we build a new economy (and we’ll have to as our old economy is completely wiped out: in many ways, we’ll be starting all over again from scratch), we must ensure that everyone physically capable of work does something useful. Nobody is allowed to skate – whether that skating be via welfare or working out a powerpoint on DEI. To bluntly speak it: we’ll have to compel them (at first) to work…and that might mean work projects like CCC from the Depression…at least get these people on to a job site and have them put some hours in. It is the best means of breaking the twin cycles of welfare dependency and bureaucratic empire building. I chipped paint in the Navy, guys. Did I like it? No. But I did it. Also washed dishes and cleaned bathrooms (bathrooms used by 30 men to get ready for the day, ya know?). It wasn’t humiliating: it was work. I did it and I did it well (those fricking sinks glowed when I was done with them). It taught me how to do physical work and to take pride in a job well done – any job well done. Everyone needs this as the basis of their work life no matter what else they do later.

They’re going after kids as young as two to start transition. This is frightening. The only two year old who is trans is the two y ear old with insane parents. I do believe that this push to transition kids, especially prepubescent kids, will one day be viewed with the same horror we view the Tuskegee Experiments and Eugenics.

Britain is still north of 80% white – and the RAF is pausing the hiring of white men in order to increase diversity. And think about this – allegedly, a Conservative party is in power in the UK right now. This is what is wrong with the world: it has gone full Marxist/Globalist/Moneybags and they all, regardless of stated beliefs, go one way on policy. This is why Trump is hated – it is also why Orban in Hungary is hated. Unpopular observation: it is why Putin is hated (they don’t hate Xi, even though for China he’s as much a patriot as any of these…but Xi provides a lot of money to the global elite, so he’s off limits). Don’t get me wrong: Putin is a bastard in his own right…but he’s also for Russia. As Orban is for Hungary and Trump is for the USA. We should never fear someone who is looking after their own people and trying to get them the most advantage…we just need leaders who will do that for us.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan28 Comments

Euthanasia is the 6th leading cause of death in Canada – and, as you and I knew would happen, people are being pressured to off themselves when they get seriously ill and/or old. As I’ve said for ages, the fundamental problem with nationalized health care is that there is no incentive to care for sick people. All that does is cost money and take time. For someone working in a nationalize health system, the whole incentive is to provide as little care as possible because you don’t get more money for providing more care…all you get for providing more care is more work. And the success of the “death with dignity” ghouls has played right into this…why spend the time and money taking care of the 80 year old with a chronic illness when you can guilt trip them into killing themselves?

Been watching the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico and it is quite good – minimal woke drivel (though there is some, of course) and a gripping story of how the Mexican drug cartels rose. Being familiar with a lot of the events I can easily tell when the story is adhering to fact and when it is altering it for dramatic and time purposes. As I’ve watched and went down memory lane on the War on Drugs, I find that I’m viewing it all through a bit of a different prism these days. The show, itself, does a very clever job of showing the flaws of the DEA and law enforcement in general while also highlighting just how cruel and wicked the drug lords are while still not making them entire monsters – leaving them just a shred of their humanity to make their (usually violent) ends pathetic. But it also got me thinking. One of the things presented in the first episode is a claim that half a million people have died in the drug war in Mexico. A shocking figure which at first glance is simply unbelievable.

But, then you think about it and check – between 2015 and 2021 211,000 people were murdered in Mexico. Officially. The real number is probably higher given the very large number of people who simply disappear. Nobody really knows how many of these people died as a result of the drug trade (who is going to really investigate that?): estimates range from just under half to more than two thirds. I think it the latter number – and in reality probably ninety percent are direct or indirect from the drug trade. Gun ownership is pretty much illegal in Mexico and that means only the police and the cartels have guns, after all. So, anyways, 211,000 in a seven year span is 30,000 per year. Call it half are drug and you get 15,000 (and probably a lot higher) and then you take that back to DEA Agent Camarena‘s murder (which is when we got serious about it) in 1985…and, yeah, low end you get half a million Mexicans dead in the drug war. Probably half of US murders are directly or indirectly related to the drug war, as well. Then you’ve got to add in Central and South America…and we’re probably into a couple million dead. Over cocaine. Just amazing. And its not like we’ve made a dent in it.

Nobody knows how big the global trade in drugs is, but its hundreds of billions of impossible to trace, tax-free, cash transactions (when you get away with it, of course!). And we’ve been told it can’t be stopped. I’m not buying that. I don’t think anyone wants it stopped. I mean, we know that the Mexican government via bribery and threats is pretty much owned by the cartels…but how much of ours is? How many Americans are on the payroll? Is this the real reason for resistance to border security? And its not like the US is a mere destination for cocaine – the price of cocaine doubles from New York City to Antwerp…and whoever is moving it from the Big Apple to Europe is taking their cut. And then you think of crack which is a way to make pricey cocaine available to people who are, lets face it, largely on welfare both in the USA and Europe; as if someone figured out how to get the taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction. As for laundering the money…you think China would refuse to launder drug lord money which provides a product which weakens their western adversaries? I believe it is time to rethink our views here – and understand that what is happening isn’t just something that happens. Some very powerful people are making sure it happens.

Interesting thing on education:

As a teacher in Oakland, Calif., Kareem Weaver helped struggling fourth- and fifth-grade kids learn to read by using a very structured, phonics-based reading curriculum called Open Court. It worked for the students, but not so much for the teachers. “For seven years in a row, Oakland was the fastest-gaining urban district in California for reading,” recalls Weaver. “And we hated it.”

The teachers felt like curriculum robots—and pushed back. “This seems dehumanizing, this is colonizing, this is the man telling us what to do,” says Weaver, describing their response to the approach. “So we fought tooth and nail as a teacher group to throw that out.” It was replaced in 2015 by a curriculum that emphasized rich literary experiences. “Those who wanted to fight for social justice, they figured that this new progressive way of teaching reading was the way,” he says.

Now Weaver is heading up a campaign to get his old school district to reinstate many of the methods that teachers resisted so strongly: specifically, systematic and consistent instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics. “In Oakland, when you have 19% of Black kids reading—that can’t be maintained in the society,” says Weaver…

Good for Weaver to see the light and I wish all success – but think about Weaver’s initial reaction to it: hated it. And now he has to fight to get it back in. And who will he be fighting? The teachers. Guarantee you the parents are probably on board. But this is how our Ruling Class views things: through Marxist ideology on race and class. That is how far it has penetrated into our society – that people will fight to defend a system which leaves 80 percent of black kids illiterate on the theory that at least they aren’t literate under Capitalism and White Supremacy.

Spot on about Trump and his opponents:

Trump isn’t just a MacGuffin, but he is a symbol, and more. Sarah Palin was a similar symbol before him, but because she never was elected VP that sort of faded. Trump would have faded from their ire, too, if he had lost the 2016 election. His winning was the outrage. They could not believe it, and he MUST BE STOPPED from ever winning again. Not just him, though; any Republican who isn’t part of the genteel NeverTrumper club. Any Republican who might really be serious about stopping them and especially about draining the so-called swamp. It is a deadly serious game and they are determined to win.

Trump himself said it, and he was correct: “They’re not after me, they’re after you – I’m just in the way.”

We’re living in a world where those who have the juice are living ever better while for everyone else it just gets worse. This is not sustainable but the Ruling Class is determined to sustain it anyway. Trump placed their game at risk.

2022 Election (and Some Other Stuff, so Kinda an Open Thread)

Mark Noonan31 Comments

In the 2010 midterms, the overall House popular vote was 52% Republican, 45% Democrat. That election netted the GOP 63 House seats. Of course, we were coming back from a pretty low number after our 2008 wipe out. But the main thing is that it was an R+7 year which, certainly since WWII, was unprecedented for the GOP.

So, what is happening in 2022? Well, if you listen to the MSM and the Experts (though Lord only knows why you’d do that), Joe Biden’s firm and decisive leadership has turned things around and the Senate is almost sure-Democrat while the House is a tossup. And, man, do they have poll after poll showing this…someone even released a poll showing the Democrat up by 3 in Ohio. We’re doomed!

Well, maybe not.

Someone actually took the time to find out what people are doing – as opposed to what someone else is saying about what they’re doing – and he found that as of this past Tuesday, the GOP portion of the primary vote has been running 6 points head of Democrat voting…so, R+6. Not quite at 2010 levels, but pretty darn close.

As I keep trying to explain to the hand-wringers and bed-wetters on social media, for there to be actual improvement for the Democrats something has to get better. And, sorry, but a drop in gas prices from stratospheric to way too high doesn’t cut the mustard. The bottom line is that as soon as Pudding Brain got installed into the White House, 2022 became a GOP year. What this means is that the House goes GOP (given the Democrats only have a half dozen seat advantage) and the Senate probably goes GOP (Democrats having a little better chance there because of the map). That was if things sort of cruised along with nothing bad happening. Remember what Biden was supposed to be about: shutting down the virus and returning to normalcy. This didn’t happen. Afghanistan happened. Ukraine happened (and I perceive the Ruling Class is getting ready to ditch Ukraine). Shortages happened. Inflation happened. A flood of illegal immigrants happened. All the while Joe Biden getting increasingly senile and unable to perform the basic tasks of the office. Not only did nothing get better, everything got worse – and Biden coming down with Covid just puts a pathetic exclamation point on the fail.

Can the Democrats overcome all that? If they can, then we’re doomed. It would mean that we’ve gone so far mindlessly Left that even abject Leftist failure doesn’t shake the people out of complacency. But I don’t think that is the case. Among many other things, I’m encouraged by Lake’s win of the GOP nomination in Arizona – every part of the Establishment was against her…and she went on to win every county in Arizona. Sure, its just on the GOP side, but we’ve been Expertly informed that Trump and Trumpist candidates are fading and that Roe has triggered a surge of moderate GOP voters who are determined to change the party’s course. Their evidence is Kansas where a badly crafted pro-life initiative was soundly defeated…and, yes, some of these Expert nimrods are asserting it means Kansas votes Democrat in November.

What I’m saying is: don’t worry. We’ll either win (cool) or lose (unlikely) but in neither case is there much any individual can do about it. Either America is sane enough to properly punish the Democrats (I think we are) or America is not. We find out in November.

The Other McCain notes that what is said cannot happen – gay pedophilia – does, indeed, happen. Rather twisted case: gay couple adopts child and then sexually abuses child. Does this mean that all gay people are molesters? Of course not – but as RSM points out, we’re not even allowed to talk about such things because the Ruling Class has decreed that gay people can’t be abusers. Gay people have been granted a plenary dispensation from ordinary human sin, you see? What is really crucial here is that because we allow ideology to blind us, we’re not able to make the distinctions necessary to ensure the best outcome. Rely on it, if a hetero couple seeks to adopt, they’ll be checked six ways to Sunday to make sure they aren’t abusers…but I am certain that if a gay couple is even looked at in that area, it is perfunctory…because nobody wants to be the official who vetoed a gay adoption. The kid winding up abused doesn’t risk a career, after all.

New study shows that being in space has a bad effect on bones. I guess it ends up being that a few weeks in space can age your bones by the equivalent of about a decade. This is entirely unsurprising to me: whether you believe we were created by God in a second or evolved over millions of years, the plain fact is that our bodies are designed to live on the surface of the Earth. We can’t even successfully go too deep into water or high into the sky without special equipment. And at least when we’re flying at 80,000 feet or diving to the bottom of the Marianas Trench we’re still within Earth’s gravity and magnetic field (which is our primary shield against solar radiation). Until we learn how to deal with low or no gravity and how to shield ourselves from solar radiation, the primary means of deep space exploration will have to be via unmanned vehicles…and for all the dreams of colonizing Mars, it is currently a suicide mission until these problems are solved.

A NYC bodega owner who was assaulted (and the DA initially wanted to charge him for defending himself) is moving back to the Dominican Republic because he no longer feels safe in the USA. This is Joe Biden’s America – and this is the result of deliberate and quite malicious policies on the part of the Democrats who want crime to be high in order to stress the system and convince us to go far Left as our escape from it.

How is religion in America doing? To the Ruling Class, it is dying and deservedly so. But, others say it is still doing ok. I take a slightly different view: Religion isn’t dying, but actual belief in Christianity is in rapid decline as even many professed Christians haven’t been taught who Christ is and what it means to be Christian. And this cuts across all denominations…mainline Protestant, Catholic and Evangelical. The Mainline Protestants seem to view Jesus as a swell guy who wanted everyone to be nice to each other. Catholics seem to think that it was all symbolic and you can pick and choose what parts to believe. Evangelicals seem to think Jesus is some sort of magic talisman against suffering and/or to bring personal wealth.

To be sure, among all types, there are those who deeply believe and understand what they believe…but my bet is that a majority of Christians if questioned right now wouldn’t even be able to assert that Jesus is God. And it is because they haven’t been taught. Christianity is not a religion for sissies – it is the only religion in the world hated for its beliefs (Jews are hated for cultural reasons: nobody really disputes Jewish theology); it asks a great deal of believers. And it requires an informed and active consent on a daily basis. It is a tough religion…and so, naturally, it has been watered down in the past century. But the hard nub is still there…and I do believe a springtime will come.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

Getting massive gloom and doom punditry from the right these days about our November chances…all fueled by polls. There is a great deal of “as per usual” in this, but I think this year there is an extra twist on it – the underlying contention is that the GOP was heading for a massive win this year until Trump endorsed a bunch of crazies! I do detect a GOPe desire to dampen GOP prospects as a way to cut against Trump for 2024. There are plenty of Establishment types who would love a Democrat victory if it meant that they could stop worrying about Trump coming back.

Will it work? I don’t think so. As I’ve said for years, never pay attention to what people say, but what people do. And all through 2022 the voters have been turning to the GOP. The key markers for me right now is primary turnout and voter registration trends and both of these show a remarkable surge for the GOP.

The Nuclear Option on keeping Trump out in 2024 is, of course, to indict him – and if he’s indicted, rely on it they’ll craft a jury which will find him guilty. Doesn’t matter if he’ll win on appeal, they feel that such a move would prevent him running. I don’t think so. It would be such an obvious political indictment that it might actually work to Trump’s favor. Will they do it? Depends on how desperate they get.

For 2022, it is the Recession, stupid. Naturally, the palace guard MSM swung into action to tell us that a recession isn’t a recession when a Democrat is in charge…but the problem they have is that people are living in the recession and no amount of spin changes that.

I’m sure you’ve heard the joke that when seconds count, the police are minutes away – well, in New Orleans, they are two and a half hours away. That is the average response time, and it means that New Orleans effectively has no police, at all. This is not sustainable – eventually, vigilantes will appear.

I don’t know how many of you are J K Rowling fans, but she got herself into trouble over transgenderism…keep in mind that Rowling is a big Lefty in everything else, but she did make the reasonable statement that a woman is a woman and this set off the trans rights people. Fundamentally, they can’t hurt Rowling because she’s already made buckets of money off her Harry Potter books…but the attacks on her are relentless. Now, imagine this turned on a regular person who didn’t have all that money? That’s the problem we have to address…the online bullying that we do have to stop.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan27 Comments

So, the Mirrors series does head towards it’s end: I’m doing revisions to Book VI: Heirs and shortly after that, Book VII: Empress will come out. Then Crimson Blade, Home World and Ghost Tower. There might be some more after that (I planted several story lines in each book that I can pursue if I wish). But, mostly, Book X will wrap it up – that is, all the Bad Guys and Evil Things our four main heroes have to deal with will be, well, dealt with. I’ve already written The Very End where I wrap up the story line for everyone, including secondary characters. So, of course, I got another idea.

I was at work yesterday and when I took a break, in about five minutes a story of science, magic and adventure came to mind – all revolving around people who are Of The Sixteen, those who ain’t and the Terrible Secret the Sixteen hid thousands of years before. It’ll be lots of fun: no spoilers! It was amazing how fast it all came into my mind…Arkan is our hero, helped by Thomas (who has a Secret of his own) and desperately in love with Samantha, who doesn’t realize she loves Arkan. A lot of the outline is already written and I hope to have a first book out in a year or so, even before Mirrors wraps up.

That stuff is a lot more fun than real life.

So, how do we know we’re heading into a very bad recession? Because Team Pudding Brain and the MSM are out there telling us that two quarters of negative growth don’t count as a recession…even though the very same people claiming this were saying as recently as last month that they would. They must have seen the report on Sunday because this drivel started on Monday and I’ve just got to figure its a doozy of a bad report…I mean, a slight drop they’d just pass off as nothing…so, I expect it to be on the hideous side. And keep in mind that ever since Obama (with a temporary reversion under Trump) the Keepers of the Stats have been fudging the economic numbers to make it look as good as possible for Democrats.

How do we know that Democrats are about to get wiped out in November? Two things: they’re pushing out D+12 polls showing Democrats with a slight Generic Ballot lead and they’re working up to a reinstatement of mask mandates in Blue cities and States…so they can justify ballot harvesting and drop boxes again. All this means that they are expecting a 10 point or so swing to the GOP…and you just have to look at 2020 results to see that such a swing means a 35-40 seat GOP House gain. What they’re doing now is attempting to shore up not swing districts, but deep Blue D+8 to D+12 districts…because as we slip into recession and oil supplies foretell another spike in gas prices, Democrats may be in for an historic defeat. As per usual in such things, lots can change – it is months away: but at this point in time, it is getting rather baked in. If the Democrats are lucky and all the breaks go their way, they’ll only lose 25 House seats.

Democrats are insane, by the way – they brought a witch and a furry (if you don’t know what a furry is, do not look it up) in for a hearing on abortion. But they are also stuck – they said that such insane people are legitimate in the debate and now they’ve got to pretend that normal people watching this won’t be disgusted.

McDonald’s is seeing fewer customers. Think about that. Wrap your mind around it and then just know what it means for the economy. People are refraining from a burger and fries because the money isn’t in the budget for it.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan4 Comments

There still persists in GOP/Conservatives circles a lack of understanding of the situation. You know what I mean: those on our side who still think there is a path to compromise and that the Left wants what we want, just by different means. But, and I’m very pleased by this, the numbers of such are decreasing, and I think rapidly.

You may have heard the horrid story of the 10 year old Ohio girl who sought an abortion in Indiana – initially, most of us had our doubts as to the veracity of the story because (a) it was too perfect a fit to the Democrat Narrative and (b) it would have been legal in Ohio to obtain an abortion under those circumstances. Now that the perpetrator of the rape has been arrested, the Left went, for a moment, “told you so”, but then just about everyone on the Right – even the wets – pointed out that the rapist is an illegal immigrant (I’ve also heard rumors that the mother of the ten year old was trying to protect the rapist by getting the abortion in a different State: that isn’t confirmed, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least). Because of the pushback, the Left is dropping it – the last thing they need is national attention on the story of an illegal immigrant raping a ten year old.

Side note: the rapist, who is 27, was listed as a minor on the documents regarding the abortion. This is more confirmation in my mind that the trip to Indiana was a cover up, very likely by people who know both the rapist and the girl. This is what abortion is, by the way: the nauseating effort to allow very lousy men to do disgusting things.

Another example of this is the latest AOC fracas – she was rudely accosted by a man outside the Capitol who made crude remarks about her appearance. A few wets popped up with the “while I disagree with AOC, we must not tolerate this sort of behavior blah, blah, blah”, but most were completely disdainful of AOC’s alleged wounded honor. This is the person, we recall, who figures that harassing Supreme Court Justices at home is A-OK. To be sure, I’d never do a thing like that to any woman – and 99% of us on the Right never would. But to pretend that someone like AOC has an honor which can be offended is just absurd – she’s a stupid, corrupt, wicked woman who is out to destroy the United States because she figures she can get rich off the process (and she’s already obtained a tidy sum). She learned that if you play the Progressive song and dance you can get into office and steal to your heart’s content…because only very rarely is the law enforced against the Left. She’s a garbage person – and you can’t insult garbage. She does not get to clothe herself in the residual honor of past members of Congress while spitting on America and her people.

Flying mostly under the radar, a great deal of the election fraud of 2020 has been exposed and, where the GOP can, it is being remedied. This is why I don’t go with the doomsayers – I think that we’ve now got in enough States and localities the means whereby the Democrats can’t cheat sufficient to alter the result. They’ll still cheat like mad where they are totally dominate (Los Angeles looks to be heading back into Covid lockdown…likely in anticipation of November: and, yes, they are worried about the deep Blue areas – it is at least 50/50 that Dina Titus (D-NV) loses her re-election bid in what is at least a D+8 district), but they can’t cheat in enough areas to win the whole thing. The Never Trump people have been very stout in condemning Trump’s efforts to expose this – but that is simply because Never Trump knows very well the Democrats cheated to get Biden in: they just liked the result.

Yep:

Posting that made me realize that a lot of you aren’t on Twitter and so don’t get the best part of it: memes. So, here’s a few:

Open Thread

Mark Noonan18 Comments

This song becomes more meaningful to me every year as I get older…but only today did I realize it came out 35 years ago! I know, I know – some of you heathens don’t like Rush. But that is a serious moral failing on your part, not mine:

The knives are being sharpened – more and more MSM stories pondering if Pudding Brain is too old. He was, of course, too old in 2020. Heck, in 2008 when Barry picked him, he was too old. For goodness sake, he was only picked because Team Obama knew nobody would ever move against Obama to make Biden President. But, really, he’s got to go: he’s delaying his Middle East trip – seriously – because he has to rest up after his European trip. Meanwhile, Trump is barnstorming around the country giving speeches.

We either made a serious mistake in 2020 or are the victims of the biggest rip off in human history (Spoiler: it was a rip off).

On the other hand, if the Democrats hadn’t cheated in 2020 they’d be heading for a solid mid-term victory in 2022 and a likely strong Trifecta in 2024. As it is, at best Joe is polling around 40% and the Democrats might be heading for generational wipe out. And not only that – they’re going to be defeated by a GOP which is vastly more MAGA than it was in 2020 and which is already firmly engaging in the Culture War.

This could get real painful for them. I’ll shed a tear when I find the time.

But it has to get painful for them – and every more painful. Here’s the story of a elderly man who was beaten to death by feral savages let loose by Democrat policy in New York City. And, remember, the Democrats did this on purpose. Don’t let them off the hook. It isn’t a mistake. It isn’t an unintended consequence: they want this level of crime of violence to punish us for being American. Because we’re racists and sexists and we’re too rich and we are too powerful and blah, blah, blah whatever the heck it is the Left is whining about. But, do note that the victim here is a black man.

In case you were wondering what a real insurrection looks like, here’s Sri Lanka where they’ve chased the government out of power and burned the Prime Minister’s house. It all started because Sri Lanka’s Ruling Class wanted to curry favor with the Global Ruling Class, so they essentially destroyed Sri Lanka’s economy in the name of living Green. Turns out people with out food get rather angry.

So, how are the store shelves in your area?

Paranoid conspiracy interlude: I’ve seen the stories of food processing facilities going up in smoke in the past few months. Wonder: is someone in the Ruling Class trying to create shortages which will lead to revolt which they think they can crush once and for all? Do not put this sort of thing past them: remember, the dying Czarist Ruling Class got Russia into both the Russo-Japanese War and World War One on the theory that chaos and destruction would also them to continue to rule.

If you’ve never seen the movie Zulu, you should do so. Here’s a write up explaining why. I like it because it is a soldier’s story and while war is hideous, we must never take away the glory of those who stand up to it and do their duty. There’s a scene in the movie just before the first Zulu attack where a young and obviously very frightened soldier asks “why us?” To which the old sergeant replies – as old sergeants have probably replied for thousands of years – “because we’re here and there isn’t anybody else”. Because we’re here – it is why we do our duty in any field.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan31 Comments

Not your father’s GOP:

Over the top? No, it isn’t.

Jerone Davison is running in Arizona’s newly-redistricted 4th District and it is rated “Likely” to “Lean” Democrat, which is probably correct and so if he gets the GOP nomination, he’s got an uphill climb. But that hill isn’t nearly as steep as it would have been in any other year – Pudding Brain’s approval rating in Arizona is somewhat lower than pond scum.

That is a fun, attention-getting (though very true) ad, but I liked this one a lot better:

He gets it. Yes, we GOPers are Conservative and free market adherents…but when tech giants are this powerful and so closely aligned with the Democrat party we can’t allow free market theory to override our need to get our message out in the primary field of debate: social media. I don’t know much about this man but what little I’ve learned is good. I’m sure the Democrats, if he gets the nod, will find some dirt on him or make some up if necessary…don’t care. He looks like a fighter and I hope he wins.

The other video for you to watch today is linked here: in it, you’ll see three fat, well-off young women trash a fast food joint in NYC. Why? Because they charge $1.75 for extra sauce. This is not sustainable – civilized people will not put up with this forever. Nothing will be done and nothing will be done and nothing will be done – until something is done and that something will be exceptionally violent.

Looks like PM Boris Johnson might be tossed out of office because one of his people named – and I’m not kidding – Pincher has gone around groping men. The British Empire ended not with a bang, but a whimper…and British Scandals degenerated from Profumo to Pincher. Can’t say I’m sad about it if Boris goes – he was clever enough to realize he could ride Brexit into Number 10 and he has kept his word on that, but in all other things he’s what Thatcher called a “wet”…going along to get along with Labour and no real changes in British policy. They are, after all, still arresting you in the UK for misgendering someone. Hopefully someone will ride to Britain’s rescue, but I’m doubtful about it…they’re just arguing over who gets the money as that country slowly dies.

The pro abortion movements seems…kinda meh, doesn’t it? There were a few days of shrieking purple haired feminists saying they wouldn’t have sex with Republicans (thank you!), but now its rather faded away. Didn’t seem to cause much of a blip in polling, either. My bet always has been that abortion is not popular – that even most of those who don’t want to ban it find it distasteful to a high degree. Abortion is something propped up by the Ruling Class…which wants the people to be childless tenants dependent upon government subsidies to pay for imported goods. They don’t want, that is, Americans – they want us to become Europeans, with our population slowly being replaced by immigrants whom the Ruling Class believes are easily controlled (Spoiler: they’re wrong about that as Latino voters are shifting heavy to the GOP). I think that after all is said and done, outside the deepest blue areas, abortion will be restricted in this or that manner and people will cease to care much about it.

They’re supposedly working on a pill which will eliminate certain aging cells in your body, thus allowing you to stay healthy and live longer. A lot longer: like to 200 years old. First pass on this: it won’t work. I can imagine it helping, to be sure – but more than doubling human life is probably a pipe dream. According to the article, we’ll find out – the pill is supposed to be ready in about 10 years. Would I take it? Not to live to 200: don’t want to. But to keep my mind and organs from deteriorating? That would be highly tempting – because outside of death, itself, what frightens us? The fear of being alive but incapacitated. And that, I think, is where any such treatment will fail…it might help, say, keep your liver healthier longer (and that’s a good thing) but ageing is still going on…coded into you is still the decay and it very likely accelerates over time so you’d have to take ever more of the drug for ever shrinking benefit and lord only knows what side effects.