Open Thread

Open Thread

Mark Noonan61 Comments

Trump pulls our tiny number of troops out of part of northern Syria and all of a sudden, all of Trump’s opponents are pro-war. Ain’t fallin’ for it, guys.

As I said back when Obama was President, I’ve become quite the peace-nik – mostly because of complete lack of trust. I do trust President Trump’s basic instincts here, but overall I don’t trust our government, our military brass or the Democrats when it comes to war. The lives of our troops are too important for them to be thrown away on unclear, endless missions where we surrender all our military advantages and then haul up our troops on charges of war crimes when they make what some REMF thinks is a mistake. I’ll agree to send our troops to war on the following conditions:

1. It is declared.
2. It is fought with brutal and unlimited use of our military force.
3. This is very important to me – we inform all and sundry that when dealing with captured irregulars and hostile “civilian” populations, we’re going to use Rule .303.

The Trump impeachment circus goes on – from what I can tell, Schiff all but wrote the “whistleblower” complaint and as that is falling apart, the Democrats are cooking up a second “whistleblower” to shore up their collapsing case. Meanwhile, various DOJ investigators seem to be closing in on the whole start of the scandal – you know, back in 2016 when the O Admin authorized spying on Trump – and this is getting more and more people into a panic. None of can say where this goes, but I’m feeling confident that Trump (and McConnell) have a very firm grip on this and they are planning on using impeachment – if the Democrats do go for it – as a hammer in 2020.

Dick’s got woke and went broke – but don’t think that will deter them. The only thing an American corporation fears these days is offending the Chinese government. Dick’s made its anti-gun SJW move because it was, socially, cost-free for them. We have to make it economically expensive for corporations to indulge in this sort of thing – only then will they cool it.

Ellen DeGeneres was in the box at a football game with W and the left went ballistic. Ellen made a statement about how its ok for people to disagree and still be kind to each other. That isn’t sitting at all well with the left:

“Avengers” star Mark Ruffalo certainly agreed, saying kindness was out of the question until Bush was brought to justice.

Got that? Brought to justice…for the crime of being a moderately conservative Republican. And this is what Ellen – conventional American liberal – and W – conventional American conservative – don’t get: the left hates. It is what it does, first and foremost and above all else. For every Ellen there are a dozen liberals who’s fondest hope is to see people like us suffer. We could get along with – and often split the difference – with liberals who don’t hate, but such are not remotely in control of the left. We have to defeat these people – drive them from power and take away their subsidies. And we won’t be able to do that if we’re all pretending – as conventional conservatism has – that the left is run by sane people.

The brownouts in California afford us, I think, an opportunity to start rebuilding Republican strength in California. California is horribly misgoverned and this power outage thing just highlights how bad it is there. Trump has commented on it – to the fury of California Democrats – but I’m hoping that someone on Team Trump is really looking at the State to for any election prospects. Certainly it is worth it simply to run up the GOP vote total and thus help Trump win the popular vote (not that it matters, but that it’ll be a fitting and final insult to the Democrats) – but, long term, we can’t rely on Texas forever…and Californians are our fellow Americans (well, most of them, anyway) and we should be working to free them from liberal tyranny and malfeasance.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan98 Comments

In the Romney vs Trump battle, I can only say that it is the last straw for me: I am done, forever, with people like Romney. I can understand why someone might not like Trump but if you’re a Republican, your job is to advance the fortunes of the Republican Party – to propose Republican things. To make Republicans look as good as you can. To battle back against the Democrats. There was so much Romney could have done…and among all the things he could choose from, he decides to go after Trump…which no Republican was asking for him to do (Trump’s approval rating among GOPers is in the 95% range). So, what is Romney up to? In my view, its one of two things or it could be both: his own family is deep into garbage like the Bidens are and Trump refused Romney as SecState. I regret deeply voting for Romney in 2012 and I’m glad he lost.

If you listen to the Left and Never Trump (BIRM), Trump is already finished…its only a matter of a short time before he’s forced out (Romney’s thing was scripted into this, I’m sure). They believe this because, seriously, they only talk to themselves. Lots of things may happen to Trump – but being forced out over a clear hit job by the Democrats isn’t one of them.

Related: McConnell is doing anti-impeachment ads. This tells you what the fate of impeachment will be in Cocaine Mitch’s Senate should Nancy be forced to call a vote (she does not want to).

AOC says Trump’s attacks on Schiff are anti-Semitic. The most common response to this accusation from Trump supporters (myself included): he’s Jewish? Didn’t know that.

Related: anti-Semitic hate crimes are rising fast in Progressive NYC. Why? Because Progressives welcome anti-Semites. It is really that simple.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan117 Comments

The Experts are still talking up how Trump is doomed…but:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) continues to bring in lots of money thanks to the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

The RNC’s fundraising platform has brought in over $30 million in three months since it launched in June. Officials credit the impeachment inquiry.

That’s a lot of scratch…and while we can’t say for certain what it means, the fact that its happening does say that Trump and the GOP are popular somewhere in the country. Trump is already teeing up general election ads and its more than 13 months from election day…and Democrats won’t get started on a general election campaign for at least five months. You ask anyone who really does politics and if he gets to pick which situation he’s in, he’s going to pick Trump’s.

Meanwhile, our Matt takes note other another aspect of it:

Democrat Senators from red states have expressed concern that the impeachment process started by Nancy Pelosi “may spin out of control and destroy any chance their party might have of winning back the majority next year,” according to a report from The Hill. These Democrats believe that if their party doesn’t act quickly, Trump could “turn the tables on them.”

Would Manchin or, especially, Jones (who is up for re-election next year in a Trump +30 State) really vote to convict?

In case you were wondering how our liberals are dealing with things:

Recently, I went to dinner at the home of Rebecca Kee, a preschool principal in San Francisco who turned to Maddow in her depression and confusion over the 2016 election. I brought a bottle of rosé, and she poured it into glasses decorated with charms that featured Russia-investigation figures on one side and characters from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” on the other. I sipped from the Hope Hicks/Beverly Crusher glass, and we watched Maddow’s show over veggie enchiladas. “I think of her as a news doula: You know the news is going to be painful no matter what, so we might as well have someone who helps us survive it,” Kee told me. Last year, Kee had a Maddow-themed birthday party, at which her friends and her two young sons put on big black glasses and slicked their hair to the side. Also in attendance was a life-size cardboard cutout of Maddow, which is now in storage so as not to startle guests.

These people have lost it. If we don’t win next year, then we deserve every bit of what’s coming to us.

Report indicates that red meat isn’t all that bad for you – which is another “of course”. The campaign against red meat – like previous campaigns against eggs or coffee – were ridiculous efforts by various puritan scolds who got fixated on a thing and then tried to force us all to go along. The key to human diet is moderation – eat the red meat; have the cake; drink the beer…but don’t eat ten pounds of red meat a day; don’t have the whole cake; after two or three beers, ease off. We’re built – by God or Nature, take your pick – to eat pretty much everything there is. My view is that we must have a varied diet to be healthy. To tell anyone to entirely eliminate a food or heavily concentrate on only one thing seems to me rather insane.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan60 Comments

I’m getting some feedback on “Mirrors” and I have to say I’m pleased – people are liking it. Wish it would sell more, of course! But, the main thing is that I’ve written a story that people like. And I’m very grateful for that.

So, the Ukraine thing – looks more and more like it is another self-own by the Democrats: it is the Bidens who might be in jeopardy, not Trump. My view: in any controversy regarding Trump, always work on the assumption that he’s the guy who didn’t break the law. We’ve long heard about Biden’s son getting sweet heart deals in Ukraine…and my bet is that this NSA “whistleblower” was a desperate rear-guard to try and keep it from coming out. RSM has thoughts.

Patriots ditch Antonio Brown after a mere 11 days with rising allegations of bad behavior. I don’t know what is true in this – it’ll come out over time, I’m sure.

We’re close to flipping the 9th Circuit – this is why we elected Trump and why we have to re-elect him. Once the Courts are firmly in the hands of judges who will enforce the law not only will the left no longer be able to impose their policies via judicial fiat, but we’ll be able to start rolling back the previous, unconstitutional rulings liberal judges made. All those years the Tru-Cons told us they’d do this…and they never, ever did: Trump has nearly done it in three years. All that was lacking was the will.

“Ad Astra” has a good review. I might have to go see it – and as the Progs are simply hating Sallone’s latest “First Blood” installment, I’ll probably have to check it out, too.

Trump’s approval rating is better than Obama’s at this point in his term. And this with, I’m very certain, polls cooked to make Trump look worse than he is.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan95 Comments

Polls are meh, but there is a poll which says that Trump’s approval among Hispanics is at 37% and African-Americans at 26%. If so, the Democrats are doomed. But, once again, it is a poll. On the other hand, I’ve seen various news stories indicating that Team Trump is rolling out a very sophisticated voter outreach program…not just designed to do the usual stuff, but do things like bring people into voting who haven’t voted before or not very often. If they can really pull off something like that, then the 2020 results might be the shocker of all shocks…and other than a few bits and pieces fed to MSMers (some of which will be deliberate misdirection), most people won’t see it until it happens.

Beto decided to hand the GOP a gift in the form of admitting that liberals like him are after gun confiscation. Beto knows he won’t be the nominee – and he also knows that he has no real future in Texas politics. So, he’s just setting fire to things because it will generate attention and money and allow him to live well. But the bottom line is that a Democrat President for candidate has called for confiscation…and you can rely on it that none of the others will really dissent from that view. They can’t: they’ve told their mostly-mindless base that guns are bad and for a Progressive, all bad things must be utterly destroyed. Just that one assertion might get Trump two or three million more votes in 2020.

Democrats want to impeach Trump – because they’ve been told that Orange Man Bad and, once again, all bad things must be destroyed. However, the Democrat leaders know that doing such a thing absent a half dozen GOP Senators willing to vote with them is political suicide…and that wouldn’t happen unless Trump’s approval among GOP voters drops below, say, 75% (latest poll shows him at about 94% approval among GOP voters). So, they are trying to have it both ways – telling their base that they are super serial gonna get that guy Trump, but behind the scenes not actually doing anything. Well, Trump’s DOJ is calling them out on it – essentially telling them to sh** or get off the pot; which boxes the Democrats in nicely. They’ll eventually either have to drop it or drive forward…either way it would be a political disaster for them.

Abortion “doctor” kept body parts of his victims…you know, like serial killers do. This is not at all surprising – no decent doctor would perform an elective abortion. Only the dregs of the medical field would go into that as a primary means of making money…and the dregs tend to be low caliber people. Like this house of horrors abortionist.

China has some food problems:

…lifting the tariffs, China has just admitted it cannot produce enough protein for national consumption, both as a staple or as a preferred meat. Imagine a US shortage of wheat and chicken, with no real access to corn or beef, and a couple dozen urban areas of 20 millions or more with just a third arable land as now. That’s China.

So, what’s the problem with China’s agricultural industry? Basically, they simply do not have enough land to grow the volume of soy they need; and, their pork production is highly diffused and is ravaged by a massive and seemingly uncontrollable swine flu epidemic. In fact, it is estimated that up to 60% of China’s pigs are infected with the flu.

To compound a bad situation to worse, Chinese officials are both incapable of enforcing a quarantine and too corrupt to stop the spread of the flu.

China is a giant on spindly legs. We have far more leverage over them than we suspect – and we’ve never used it, until just recently. We’ll see how Trump does.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan38 Comments

The Democrats really do seem to want to go all-in on leftist insanity – what was just a couple years ago the fringe is now the center for the Democrats. One excellent example is the way Democrats are treating the 2018 Georgia governors race:

While Beto is not the only Democratic candidate for president who has kissed the Abrams ring by indulging in the fantasy that she would be governor had Brian Kemp not allegedly committed election fraud, he has perhaps embraced the myth more than the rest.

All of us are old enough to remember when Democrats said questioning the election results was a horrible thing – but what really makes this sick and twisted is that the Democrats routinely engage in voter fraud. Now they are claiming to be victims of it, without the slightest bit of evidence…and only to pander to a far left base. My theory going into 2020 is that there is a line – which none of us can see – which if crossed will result in a Trump landslide. There is a point so far left that the Democrats will alienate 60% of the electorate. They may have already crossed it – once again, the line can’t be seen because you can never fully appreciate how things work out in the public mind over the course of time. But if the Democrats keep pushing this way, they will cross it.

Vegans got their butts kicked when they stormed a Spanish rabbit farm. Yeah, I laughed.

Brit MP’s checked with their masters in Brussels about delaying Brexit – because that is what this is all about: the British Ruling Class wants to turn all power over to the EU while retaining all the perks of power in the UK for themselves. It is really nothing more than that – just a Ruling Class wanting to abdicate and stay in office.

China is working against Trump’s re-election – which is a big no-brainer. China wants and needs an American President who will kowtow to China’s wishes. Every US President from Nixon to Obama did…which was amazingly stupid. Only a madman would want to help build up the power of a nation which has 314 million men fit for military duty. A couple centuries ago Napoleon was asked what to do about China and his words were, “let China sleep”. He knew what you could do with manpower…all it takes is intelligent leadership and they’d be off to the races. China now has intelligent leadership. Our job is to contain China, not help her out. But China is still 20-30 years away from having the technical ability to successfully fight us – they could definitely stop a US invasion of China, but they can’t project their power far outside China. Yet. Our job is to make sure “yet” never arrives.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan50 Comments

I got into a gun control argument with a Brit on Twitter the other day – very unusual in that it wasn’t nasty. But, it also didn’t really have a conclusion…the guy simply stopped responding. This was after I pointed out something which most don’t think about these days:

To love someone is to do what is best for them – if I am to show love for my fellows then certain things are required of me. One is that I never permit someone to be unjustly attacked. Another is that I restrain the wrongdoer from carrying out his plans. The former is far more easily understood than the latter, but neither are really thought of these days.

What my interlocutor was on about is that my Christian faith – which he claims to share – is about mercy and turning the other cheek and so forth; so, it isn’t really right for me to have a gun to shoot the burglar. But the reality is that it is almost a moral requirement that I be armed – as I’m physically capable of bearing arms – because if I am unarmed I can neither defend my neighbor nor attempt to prevent the burglar from doing his evil deed. I can only sit helplessly by…while my neighbor is robbed and maybe killed and the burglar risks his immortal soul in the commission of his crime. How can I be said to be showing love to either of them by doing nothing? There is much we’ve lost: most importantly our sense that justice and mercy go together. Its not one or the other – and, in fact, if you try to do either in isolation, you’ll get neither.

Germany’s Populist-Conservative AfD did well in regional elections – so well, in fact, that Germany’s other major parties (CDU, SPD and Greens) are thinking of a partnership with the German Communist Party (now called Linke, because “Communist” sounds bad). This is the mask fully dropping: all the parties were simply about who gets to slice the pie, not about what the pie shall be. And the Ruling Class in Germany – and around the West – wants the pie to be about open borders and only the Elite getting to decide what happens. We’re all in this together, folks: as goes AfD goes Brexit goes Trump. Either we all win, or we’ll all be destroyed.

John Hindraker is probably like most of us these days – watching what’s happening and figuring the Democrats are completely out of touch with reality. Of course, he also notes that he could be the guy out to lunch. We’ll all find out next November – but, I’m betting it is the Democrats who are busily alienating 60% of the electorate.

France’s Macron is offering a $15 billion bribe to Iran to keep it in the nuke deal – which we’re out of and Iran never had the faintest idea of abiding by. I don’t really understand this: is Macron that stupid, or does Iran just have so much dirt on Europe’s Ruling Class that they have to play ball?

South Dakota Democrat Party closes its last two offices for lack of funds. One down, forty nine to go…

Open Thread

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Looks like Hurricane Dorian may miss the USA…this after liberals went all gleeful at the prospect of it hitting Trump properties. Seems that MAGA has been granted a special dispensation.

Greece is seeing a new surge of migrants from the Muslim world – a lot from Afghanistan. By land from Kabul to Athens is 3,591 miles. That is quite a trip. It took Alexander the Great years to make it…and somehow I don’t think most Afghans own an SUV to make that trip go faster. Someone is organizing and supplying this migration. And government must be involved as before they get to Greece, they’ve crossed at least two international borders.

And here’s the sort of upstanding citizens Greece and Europe are getting:

A … asylum-seeker was arrested in Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon, France, on Saturday after he allegedly killed a 19-year-old and wounded nine others at a subway stop.

The suspect, armed with a knife and a “skewer” of some sort, was arrested at the scene. He is reportedly a 33-year-old Afghan citizen who was hoping to gain asylum in France.

The bad news: I bet his attack will probably not be held against him at his asylum hearing.

Mickey Kaus talks Epstein:

We’re in the middle of a global populist surge. There’s a sense that elites are not playing by the same rules as everyone else. They might not even be playing the same game. It’s pretty clear that Epstein was running some kind of a sex ring for the rich and well connected. How big a ring? We don’t know until we try to find out. But there are reports out there [click if you dare] that it’s bigger than we might think — bigger than old, familiar Prince Andrew, involving a non-trivial cross-section of business and entertainment leaders, plus some prominent Anglo-American families and maybe a handful of nation states.

Read the whole thing – there are circles within circles going on here. I started out figuring someone handed him the hemlock (as it were) to protect some other interest of his…but I’m starting to wonder if he was killed? We don’t really know what he was doing all those years when the very top of the global elite were at his beck and call; even after his conviction. And sure in heck the global elite doesn’t want us to find out. But, we must: we have to know. We need to know how Epstein got his money; how he got his connections; who protected him; who was involved on all levels. Chips fall where they may – we need to find out every last detail…and then start arresting everyone who committed even the least crime related to it all.

Still lots of talk about the Hong Kong protests – but, in the end, the people of Hong Kong have no weapons. They are doomed, unless the rest of China rises…and from all accounts, the people of China don’t want to rise.

There was some renewed talk of the way the CIA backed modern art stuff in the middle of the 20th century. The official word is that the CIA felt we needed to have some cool, new art to show the world that we were hip and with it…what I think actually happened is that the CIA was penetrated from the beginning and the USSR used the CIA to push cultural garbage (like modern art) as a means of tearing down the West.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan106 Comments

Been hearing – and not just from Never Trumpers – that people are simply growing tired of Trump and all the drama and will opt for Biden simply because they want someone dull. I don’t buy it – I mean, I can understand that the whole circus around Trump is abnormal and people can get frustrated with it, but I don’t feel like it makes we want to vote for Biden, nor anyone I know. What do you think?

PM Johnson has got the Queen to prorogue Parliament: ie, put it on ice for a period of time; in this case, until such time as the PM finishes extricating Britain from the EU. This is something Americans don’t know much about as it is outside our political experience. But in a Monarchy, sovereignty doesn’t reside with the people, but with the Monarch. That’s why they call it “Her Majesty’s Government”. It has been nearly two centuries since a British Monarch exercised any authority outside the advice of the Prime Minister, but the authority is still there under the British constitution and Boris advised the Queen to exercise it – to forestall Remain efforts to prevent the PM from carrying out the will of the people…and because we live in insane times, the PM is being criticized on grounds of being undemocratic in his insistence that the results of a democratic vote be implemented. I still doubt Johnson will pull it off – too much of the British Ruling Class is dead set against it; they really, really want faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who take their orders from Berlin to run things. But, he’s clearly got the brass to give it a try.

Laurence “Stop the Hammering” O’Donnell tried to revive the Trump-Russia debacle with a “scoop” claiming that Russian oligarch’s close to Putin co-signed some Trump loans. I didn’t pay much attention to it because, well, the Trump-Russia thing is drivel and I just don’t care about it…but this is interesting:

According to Harder’s demand letter, “The Program and Tweet make the false and defamatory statements that ‘Russian oligarchs’ co-signed loans provided to Mr. Trump by Deutsche Bank, and described these ‘co-signers’ as ‘Russian billionaires close to Vladimir Putin.’”

Harder is also warning others against republishing the allegedly false statement. (The Hollywood Reporter is doing so because it believes such republication is necessary to convey what is a matter of utmost public concern and protected by the First Amendment in connection with anticipated litigation.)

In a tweet following Harder’s letter, O’Donnell wrote, “Last night I made an error in judgment by reporting an item about the president’s finances that didn’t go through our rigorous verification and standards process. I shouldn’t have reported it and I was wrong to discuss it on the air. I will address the issue on my show tonight.”

Trump likely wouldn’t win any case – the judges would all rule that he’s the President and the MSM can say pretty much whatever it wants. But, the vigorous pushback shows that Team Trump feels, at least, that the facts are on their side.

More and more Democrats are latching on to the Wealth Tax, under various forms. Now, our Democrats are doing this simply because they want the money to shovel to their cronies…but it will be popular, boys and girls; and even if not particular popular, very hard to fight against. Who wants to stand up and defend a billionaire’s horde? We should be stealing a march on the Democrats…and making sure that any wealth tax hits heavily at constituencies favored by Democrats…tax free foundations; private college endowments (Harvard sits on $37 billion – the college is more of a tax dodge as far as the money goes); Soros-type Progressive moneybags. Like getting out in front of student loan debt, it will allow us to push Conservative policy while taking issues away from the Democrats.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan180 Comments

The RNC continues to set fundraising records and has buckets more money than the DNC. Now, don’t get too cocky about this – the Democrats have a vast network of non-party funding sources (the “dark money” they complain about when it isn’t them doing it), so it doesn’t mean the Democrats will be low on cash for 2020. But the fact that the RNC – under Trump – is breaking fundraising records does show that the new GOP is appealing to a large number of people. Keep in mind that every last thing the MSM does vis a vis politics from now until election day is to help Democrats and/or hinder Republicans. And they won’t shy away from just making things up, is that is required. From the MSM you simply will not get the true state of affairs…you’ll have to dig around a bit; because the truth is freely available. It just won’t be headlined or lead the nightly broadcasts. But if you look around you’ll find things like fundraising totals, crowd size, voter registration stats and such which will give you an idea of how things are going. Almost nothing is ever an actual surprise in politics – remember that Hillary cancelled her fireworks display a few days before the election. She knew – she knew – that she already lost the election about a week out from the vote. So did everyone else who was juiced in – they just didn’t tell us. Team Trump because they didn’t want anyone overconfident (and they’ll be like that again in 2020), Team Hillary because they were still hoping for a miracle…and the MSM because they were ordered by the Democrats to keep their traps shut about it.

Moonbats prepare to descend on Area 51. It is a bit of a joke, but from what I’ve heard about 50,000 people are going to a county with 5,000 residents, and that is going to put a huge burden on that county (as well as providing a bonanza of business: so, a bit of plus to the minus). Things like this are silly, but they can also get out of hand. I hope everyone just behaves themselves and has a good time. As for Area 51 – my Dad was out there frequently in the 80’s and early 90’s and assured me there are no Aliens there…but, that’s what They would want him to say, isn’t it?

China’s one child policy lead to a gigantic disparity in the number of boys and girls being born…and that, in turn, has lead to the price of a bride skyrocketing in China. A bride can set a family back 200,000 Yuan, that’s about $28,000 – and I don’t think that includes the cost of the wedding, etc. The more Progressives try to “fix” things, the worse they make them – and I find it enormously funny (mixed in with the overall tragedy) that this attempt at social engineering has simply allowed women to charge even more than they used to for the whole marriage and family thing. Hate to break it to ya, guys, but a woman – well, a wise woman – always looks for the guy who she believes can best take care of her. She might want the good looking, studly guy but she wants more the kind, strong man who looks like he can hold down a job and won’t go wandering off at the next pretty face. And in China, she’s getting that…because she’s so rare, now, that she’s commanding the whole country to bow before her.