Open Thread

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.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan41 Comments

Elon Musk admitted that he voted Biden in 2020. A lot of people are taking this as a bad thing but for the first time I think we might have something here. Like most rich people, Musk moves in circles that are heavily liberal and he also, being rich, doesn’t have to worry about things…so, to such a person, the grand plans to “save the world” both sound good and are cost-free. Rich people are the easiest people to get on board with liberal ideology. But every now and again a rich guy has a wake-up call.

Think about what Musk has seen in the past few weeks: the liberals whom he thought of as the good guys are now trying to get Twitter deplatformed on the Ap store. Team Pudding Brain is threatening investigations. Liberals who viewed Musk previously as some sort of demi-god are turning on him viciously. In and amongst all that, Musk has obtained a first-hand look at how Twitter has operated. As CEO, there is nothing that anyone at Twitter gets to hide from him…and from what he’s saying on Twitter, my guess is that he did ask…and found out that Twitter’s “safety” staff were nothing more than Stalinists looking for any excuse to stifle dissent. These people were all let go by Musk. About 90 percent of Twitter’s staff was let go…and its still running just fine. What all this boils down to is that Musk might be, for the first time in his life, really getting a look at the mentality of a liberals and finding that it is ignorant, self-centered and cruel. I doubt that Musk will ever go MAGA, but he might become someone we can rely on in the fight for liberty.

Musk is also growing disillusioned with the MSM, and that’s a good thing. The trouble is that plenty of people – including some on the right – still believe the MSM to one degree or another. At this link you’ll see that someone put together a bunch of local news broadcasts with the subject of disinformation and the threat it poses to “our Democracy”. The MSMers all say the same thing. It is a script – and it must come out from a central source. Someone orders the MSM what to say and it gets said. With this, what they count on is that nobody sees the other broadcasts – and, of course, most won’t. So it will seem to be something that your local news guys all thought up on their own…but in the modern world, that sort of thing can get found out. Trouble is, we lack a genuine national Conservative broadcast/cable outfit that can give max exposure on such things. This sort of rank propaganda would have made Goebbles blush. It also, shows, in case you weren’t sure, how entirely mindless the news readers are – their only qualifications are the ability to look and sound good on TV. If a thought ever passed through their heads it would be the first time. And it is something we do need to take action on – can we really hold that the First Amendment was designed to protect that sort of thing? Is it really free speech – freedom of the press – when mindless drones are just repeating the talking points a political party handed off to them? Shouldn’t that at least count as an in-kind political donation? Shouldn’t they have to disclose they aren’t news organizations but merely party propagandists?

WEF’s Klaus Schwab declares China to be a role model. The same China building concentration camps – allegedly for Covid quarantine but that’s just the cover story: dissent is growing in China and the ChiComs are building places to put dissidents. I did a little looking into Schwab and he’s just a rich guy. He comes from an exceptionally privileged background and he’s certain he knows how to fix us. Not make us happy: he doesn’t care about that. But he does want us to cease being an inconvenience.

Been saying for a while now that I really do understand the Jacobins. Some people just earn a trip in a tumbril.

NASA says we’ll live on the Moon by 2030. I think we might be hanging out there for periods of time – as with Mars, we can’t live there: too much radiation and too little gravity. We just sent our first capsule to the Moon since Apollo – unmanned whip around the Moon. Which I don’t understand in the least – seems a complete waste of money and a perfectly good spacecraft. We’ve already been there. If we’ve got a ship that can do it, send people. But, anyways, unmanned – as will the next couple. Then we send people in a flyby. The plan is to put people back on the surface in 2026.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan50 Comments

Stochastic terrorism is the coming thing! If you’ve never heard it then the explanation is simple: it was just made up. Far as I can tell, less than six months ago. The claim is that when someone says something mean, it triggers the violent – so, when you say you don’t like minors going to Drag Queen Story Time, you are a stochastic terrorist…someone may hear you say that and go on a shooting spree!

Now, if a Leftist says that Trump and his supporters are Nazis and this causes Antifa to attack Trumpsters that is not stochastic terrorism. Do keep that clear in your head – it is only stochastic terrorism when you say something the Left doesn’t like. When the Left says something you don’t like, that is just Speaking Truth to Power, or whatever drivel phrase the Left is using these days. What they are trying to do, of course, is get us to shut up – but don’t think it is just to get us to voluntarily shut up. They are calling our words terrorism for a reason: because terrorism is illegal. They very much want arrests to be made of the “stochastic terrorists” who are the root cause of mass shootings.

Don’t underestimate the Left. They are not merely wrong – they participate in evil. Even that nice Leftist guy you know – he’ll denounce you to the police if given the opportunity. And he’d think he was doing you a favor. The basic Leftist is the sort of person Solzhenitsyn was talking about when he wrote, “you won’t understand it until they hiss at you, ‘you’re under arrest'”. They don’t understand where it all leads – that the path their on leads to Civil War…and if the Left wins, it eventually means that everyone gets arrested because the Woke dare not run out of enemies…there will always be people who weren’t with them fast enough.

There is much discussion of the 2024 GOP Primary season – mostly falling into the two Trump and DeSantis camps…but the DeSantis camp perceives a real problem: a whole bunch of also-rans are talking about getting in and they are afraid that a splintered anti-Trump vote means Trump gets it.

That is true, of course. But the way the anti-Trump people frame it shows they still haven’t learned anything. Trump can be beaten for the GOP nomination. And not just by DeSantis. In theory, any potential GOPer can beat Trump. But only if they out-Trump Trump. This has been true since 2015 and it will remain true until Trump withdraws from politics. At least 45% of the GOP base is Trumpster – and in some States, it is far higher. Plenty of Trumpsters are willing to move on and find someone else. Even my MAGA-from-the-elevator brother is willing to go for DeSantis. But you know what will happen: it will be Trump vs whomever and Team Trump will highlight the Establishment backgrounds of all other GOP contenders. For the most part, in most States, this will be an unanswerable argument – unless a GOPer proves not just that they have left the Establishment, but that they are actively at war with the Establishment. I’ve been saying this for a while and it remains true: the best first move of any Trump challenger is to take up the cudgels for the J6 detainees. Not even Trump has really done that. But if done, it proves that you don’t give a darn what the Establishment wants…and, rely on it, any GOPer voicing support for the detainees will be condemned by all Establishment people. Does DeSantis want to beat Trump? We’ll find out not in attacks on Trump. Not in attacks on Trumpsters. We’ll find it out in a relentless war against the Establishment.

Word is that Warnock is favored next month in the runoff in Georgia. But, I don’t care what Experts are saying. We’ll see how it comes out – what we’ll find out is who can turnout the base. I doubt that anyone is terribly enthusiastic at the moment – it was a long, exhausting 2022 campaign season. So, dragging people to the polls will tell the tale.

FTX is enormously funny to me. Even more than Theranos was. Just more proof that our Ruling Class is corrupt and also rather stupid. But not all of it is stupid – there is zero chance FTX got that far without the active cooperation of Money and government. It looks to be that a Ponzi scheme was used to finance political payoffs. Pro tip: if you’re buying nothing and hoping to make money by selling your nothing for even more money to someone else….give me a call: we should play poker.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan38 Comments

After Trump has his announcement speech, quite a bit of Catholic Twitter had a debate about Trump’s call to execute drug dealers. As you might recall, I long ago decided to oppose the death penalty. My grounds for that were that mercy should always triumph over justice and that I don’t really trust the government with the power to execute citizens. I’m still of that opinion but the debate got me thinking.

A hundred thousand people died of drug overdoses in the USA in the year ending April of 2021. That was a big jump – more than 25 percent – from the year before. But lets say the jump was temporary and in a normal year 70,000 die. That’s still a lot. More than 190 a day. And that doesn’t cover all the drug deaths – we’d also have to include all murders related in the first or second degree to drugs (ie, drug trade people killing each other over drugs as well as drug addicts who commit crimes – including murder – to support their addiction). Any way you slice it, that’s a lot of stiffs.

How many people would die of drug overdoses next year if this year we hung a thousand drug dealers?

It needs to be thought about. A lot of people are in the drug trade because it is a low-risk, high profit enterprise. They start tuning in each day to see a couple drug dealers were hanged, it might make them seek other lines of work. Can anyone know for certain that we wouldn’t immediately get a thousand replacements for the thousand we hung? No. But suppose we did so and it made it 50 percent less likely that a druggie can get his drugs at any given time? Hang 1,000 criminals, save 35,000 lives?

What it comes down to is how we will view both Justice and Mercy. I have my growing suspicion that softness on crime is neither Just nor Merciful – and not only unjust and merciless to the victims, but especially unjust and merciless to the criminal. I do believe it is crucial to provide a way out even for the worst criminals…but by the time we’re on a guy’s fifth arrest for drug dealing, I think we might be dealing with someone rather incorrigible. It is something to think about.

Looks like the House will be a 222-213 split. The GOP is pledging investigations of Biden and we’ll see if they really do it or just go through the motions. Meanwhile the bed-wetters are upset with us – saying that we should ignore Biden’s crimes and get legislating! Morons. The last thing we want is legislation – though we do look forward to zeroing out the budget for the Special Counsel Garland just appointed to investigate Trump for the millionth time. Also those 87,000 new IRS agents. The Special Counsel was appointed, by the way, to give the MSM something else to report about if the House investigations of Biden prove to have teeth.

Maricopa – it was either cheating or the most fabulously incompetent election ever held. And don’t think that people won’t be purposefully incompetent. It is nearly as effective as box-stuffing and if done right it keeps you away from any legal jeopardy. Bottom line: cheating or incompetence kept Kari Lake out of the governorship. And as the person running the election was Lake’s opponent…kinda makes you go with cheating-via-incompetence. Certainly Abe Hamadeh coming up just short after late ballot drops is highly suspicious…but if you’re cheating the new governor in you’d better make sure you cheat in your guy as AG. No doubt things are screwy – the good news is that Hobbs is a zero and her legislature will be GOP controlled.

Elon Musk is conducting a poll on Twitter about reinstating Trump – as of this moment, 3.9 million votes, 56 percent for reinstating Trump but that is down from 60 percent earlier.