Open Thread

Open Thread

Mark Noonan16 Comments

In the immediate aftermath of the Texas flood the Democrats swung into action!

Going to help and raising funds for the victims?

Oh heck no! They got their talking points out and started blaming Trump! You see, because NOAA had some DOGE staff cuts a few months back, THIS WAS ALL TRUMP’S FAULT YOU MAGA MORONS!!!! Of course, if you read the articles about the NOAA cuts from the time they don’t actually list who was fired – sure, they say it was vital people but since they didn’t tell us which, exact, people were let go, you can rely on it was the Deputy Assistant Director for Diversity Affairs – not anyone mission critical. And, anyways, as the storm built up the NWS in the area called in the troops and so they were actually overstaffed at the time of the disaster.

I pointed out on X that after reading the articles about it, I got the distinct impression that nobody had messed up. The warnings were issued in a timely manner and people reacted responsibly to them – but it seems that the storm cell stalled in place for a bit and just dumped water…and in a particular place where the terrain ensured it was going to be bad. In short, it is a natural disaster…like an earthquake or tsunami and while we can all look back and wish this, that or the other thing had been done, there really wasn’t anything that was going to change the result. It is all just a horrible tragedy and Democrats are some sick, twisted people trying to wring political advantage out of it.

Elon has started his new American Party – which is going to be a bit interesting, mostly in who joins it. Most will be sheer lunatics. But what Musk will first find out is how difficult ballot access is. Here in Nevada it is fairly straightforward – but even here we require a new party to get the signatures of 1% of the voters in each House district. Each district: you can’t roll up the numbers in NV-01 and use that to make up for a deficit in NV-04…he’s going to have to hire people to wander around Elko trying to get signatures. Also, Nevada already has an Independent American Party (a last echo of Wallace’s 1968 campaign) and that will cause confusion. And other State’s have positively Byzantine access laws. Bottom line, it will be very difficult for Elon to get on the ballot in all 50 States by election day, 2026. And he’s already said he’s going to be very targeted…which translates into, “I’ll try to torpedo GOPers in tight races”.

Why is he doing this? Can’t say for sure: I can’t read his mind. But I did find out that one of the things OBBB did was terminate the sale of what amounts to carbon credits to meet CAFE standards. The CAFE standards still exist but the fine for noncompliance has been reduced to zero…Musk’s Tesla makes huge money – apparently the difference between profit and loss, by a lot – selling credits to other car makers who don’t meet CAFE standards. They won’t need these credits and so Tesla will lose money…lots and lots of money. If what I read is correct – and it seems to be – Musk is already selling each Tesla at a loss…and more than making up for it via Green New Scam provisions which will now no longer matter. As I said many times before, people who make the kind of money Musk has have a primary loyalty to their money. If Musk had just wanted to be rich then once he got to a couple billion dollars he would have kicked back at the beach…that he keeps going piling up more and more means that money (and the power it brings) fascinates him. You risk his money and he will be upset with you.

Also as I’ve said, Musk is no Conservative – he’s really rather all over the map and mostly seems to favor things which work out best for Musk. Heavily invested in solar, so he boosts solar. Heavily invested in EV’s, so he favor’s EV mandates and subsidies. Heavily invested in space exploration, favors big subsidies for that. Etc, etc, etc. I personally think that he’s simply trying to pressure Trump and the GOP into making concessions…that in the next reconciliation bill promised by Speaker Johnson, he gets back some of what he lost in the OBBB. Perhaps Trump will accommodate him? He is a deal maker, after all – but Trump holds the whip hand here: Trump is actually popular and he doesn’t need Musk for anything. In addition, we have the history of Trump – everyone who crosses him gets wrecked, usually by their own stupidity.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan18 Comments

The other day the UK voted to kill people to save on their healthcare budget. Of course, it wasn’t presented that way…it was all about “compassion” … where we compassionately whack granny rather than take care of her. After all, the old broad has been around a while and in her current condition she can’t bake a pie…so, here: take this $20 pill instead of this $20,000 medical treatment. It is all just horrific…but what is to be expected by people who don’t really believe anything any more. This is why I say the UK is doomed – and its not doomed by Muslims being imported, but by Brits not believing in God or, indeed, anything of note. The Muslims will take over the dead body of Britain…but someone would no matter because very soon there won’t be any British people left even if you do see some white guy with a Cockney accent. The only slight chance for Britain is the fact that – like a lot of places around the West – there is an ongoing revival of Christianity among youth. Still small in numbers, but growing rapidly…so, there might be a fight for Britain. But not over the current system – over who gets to replace it.

But I bring this up because there was this Lib-Dem MP who was rebuked from the pulpit by his priest. His Catholic priest. Had the guy been Church of England his non-binary priestess of color would have awarded him a medal for voting to kill. The MP was upset because the priest had made the public statement that he could no longer receive communion. That’s what bothered him – the public rebuke. Not the fact that he took his immortal soul in his hands and let it slip away because his constituents favor offing the elderly. The man goes to Mass every Sunday. Over the years the entire New Testament and most of the Old has been read out to him. He’s heard untold numbers of homilies expounding Catholic teaching…and he’s shocked and hurt that his public defiance of Catholic teaching led to a public rebuke of same. Catholic in Name Only! But that is the problem and if you wonder why we get some bad things happening in the Church – and, indeed, in all religions – it is just this: some people are only nominally in their religion. It is a sort of a hobby but it doesn’t touch their lives in any meaningful way…they live lives of practical paganism. And there are plenty of priests and pastors (and rabbis and imams) who are just as practically pagan as their wooden-headed congregations.

In case you wonder why I’m no longer in favor of universal suffrage it is really this: it isn’t that people are too stupid to vote but that people are too indifferent to be allowed to vote. If you don’t believe in anything, then why the heck are you even voting? For more welfare? To make some sort of social statement because you voted the “right” way? Well, that’s what gets us people like Obama in office so no thanks on that. I’d rather compete with people who hate me for a reason rather than people who hate me because TV told them to.

Canada tried to slap some BS tech tax on us retroactive back to 2022 and Trump terminated trade talks and Canada dropped the idea. It can’t be emphasized enough that access to the US market is the most valuable thing in the world…other countries might be richer per capita, other countries might have more people in them…but nobody has our combination of money and people. To sell in the USA is the most magnificent opportunity available…and people will pay through the nose for the privilege. That is what our Experts didn’t and don’t get and Trump instinctively knew all along. The tariffs are to get them to understand that there’s a price for doing business here and it’ll either be paid at the customs house or by a deal which allows us to sell in your country. Everyone gets to pick what they want but nobody gets a free ride any more.

Over on X a veteran posted about his experiences in the Muslim world during the War on Terrorism. It isn’t a pretty picture. It went viral. A lot. The guy has about 45,000 followers but the post is now up to 13.7 million views. Give it a read. What I believe is important about it is the fact that he’s just brutally telling us what it was like – with no condemnation of Muslims as Muslims. It is just what he saw – what he had direct experience of in a wartime situation in the Muslim world. I can tell it is true because it is a very extreme version of what I experienced in the peacetime Muslim world back in 1985-86. And do note that none of this sort of stuff was reported in the MSM…they’d be all over an American who shot the wrong guy but they never gave the actual context of what being there was like. It didn’t fit the Narrative.

First thing for all Americans to remember about Islam: it is different from the United States. This may come as a shock – especially for the fine people at Gays for Palestine – but they really aren’t just like us. Different language, different religious atmosphere, different historical development. The point being made in the post was that you can’t just willy-nilly transport these people to the USA – or the larger West – and expect them to simply fit in. Sure, self-selected people arriving via normal immigration process can be fine…and have been fine for ages…but waves of “refugees” being shoved in via NGO-funded human trafficking, not so much. The difference is that the Muslim who simply wants to live in, say, Germany and so does his best to live like a German is an immigrant…the Muslim trafficked into Germany is a combination of welfare bum and invader…who not only does not understand the West, but holds it in contempt.

We don’t want to have any more excuses for bad behavior – and it extends not just to importing people who don’t want to be here, but also to excusing Third World failure. I pointed out on X that Haiti is on the same island as the Dominican Republic and yet Dominica’s per capita GDP is more than five times that of Haiti. I asked, reasonably, just how could people louse it up as bad as the Haitians had? And then I got hit by The Excuse:

After independence from France – a quite brutal affair where the Haitians massacred all the white men and forced the surviving white women to marry Haitians – the French and Haitians reached a deal…and to be sure, it was a deal made with a French fleet off of Port au Prince. The French demanded an enormous sum of money as compensation for lost property and all the French who had been killed and, faced with overwhelming force, the Haitians agreed. These payment were enormous, especially on a poor country like Haiti, and the various financial means used to pay off the indemnity ended up working out to the last payment not being made until 1947. And that’s it, you see? Had that indemnity not been imposed, the Haitians would have had the economic sinews to build themselves up. There are serious calls for France to pony up $100 billion in reparations for all this.

I’d like to point out at this moment that 1947 was 78 years ago. Suppose Haitian development was negatively impacted by the debt – a reasonable assertion – this doesn’t explain why since the debt was paid there’s been no real improvement. Over the course of 78 years – a human lifetime – there should have been some movement towards economic prosperity and political stability. Instead we recently had some sort of bizarre cannibal gang rioting in Port au Prince. I get that Haiti has a legacy of slavery, colonialism and being treated unfairly by Great Powers…but lots of countries have that and aren’t basket cases. I start to suspect that there’s some fundamental failure in the Haitian people.

And we’re all done with that – and Trump revoking Temporary Protected Status for 500,000 Haitians has got the Democrats in an uproar and the rest of us asking, “does this mean we’ll get them all out? I’m sure there are more than 500,000 here”. It isn’t indifference to human suffering…it is impatience with endless excuse-making and explaining-away. The Haitians – and the rest of the people of the Third World – are human beings just like the rest of us. They are no dumber and no smarter than we are. They are as capable of building up a free and prosperous society as anyone…and we’re now suggesting that they get on it.

An Interlude About Music (Sort Of)

Mark Noonan20 Comments

Yesterday I watched a bit of a documentary called 1971: the Year That Music Changed Everything. And there’s a bit of Boomer pretentiousness, right? Changed everything! For crying out loud, Won’t Get Fooled Again, What’s Going On? and Ohio were pretty good tunes but they changed precisely nothing. And, anyways, if you want a song with refrain of “what’s going on?” the 1993 song What’s Up? is actually superior (though I may be biased as the songwriter/singer is a contemporary and so the song speaks more to me than Boomer political slop even though it is more overtly Left in tone than Marvin Gaye’s song).

But what caught my eye is that it opens with Chrissie Hynde talking and until I watched I didn’t know she had been present at Kent State during the riots there (her work with the band The Pretenders not starting until 1978). Hynde is, of course, a life-long far Left person – but she’s also one of the few intelligent people on the Left and so when cancel culture got started she condemned that because how can you arrive at truth if people aren’t allowed to be offended? Anyways, she’s talking about Kent State very matter of factly – no high emotion just saying they had burned down the ROTC building because they felt that the Army shouldn’t be on “their” campus…and you could tell in the talking that she was looking back on it all and wondering just how they came to believe the Army was the problem and that the campus on a taxpayer-funded college belongs to the kids? And then as she finishes talking the video cuts to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young singing their very famous song about it, Ohio. You know it:

Tin soldiers and Nixon’s comin’
We’re finally on our own
This summer I hear the drummin’
Four dead in Ohio

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

Apparently, Young wrote this in a flash of anger after hearing the news of Kent State. It was released in 1971 (so, of course, included in a documentary about 1971) even though the events happened the year before and…it did just ok. Peaking at number 14 on the charts…which makes you wonder just how much of everything the song could have changed?

I don’t know if the documentary producers meant it, but the juxtaposition of Hynde’s reasonable reminisces and Young’s shouting contemporary screed is very interesting. She was there. She knew what happened and what they had been up to. Young wasn’t. He saw the TV news reports about it. The song wasn’t about the events at Kent State but about how Cronkite and other news-actors presented it to Young. One recalls another Young song called Southern Man which made out that white Southerners were just racists who didn’t want white women having sex with black guys…and this was ripped to shreds by Ronnie Van Zant in the Lynyrd Skynyrd song Sweet Home Alabama which has the line:

Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow

To Young’s credit he did later admit that he richly earned that slam and it is one of the best lines ever written in a pop song (the best line in a pop song is “Many dreams come true And some have silver linings” in the Led Zepplin song Over the Hills and Far Away – I will not be taking questions about this assertion). And perhaps if Young had actually found out a bit about Kent State – or even just thought about it a bit, the song Ohio would have been different? Probably. But that is kinda the problem, isn’t it? People just reacting – especially reacting to dramatic video presented in a way designed to elicit a conditioned response. After all, Hynde one day decided to write a song about Ohio and called it My City Was Gone (you remember it as the opening music for Rush Limbaugh’s show).

I went back to Ohio
But my city was gone
There was no train station
There was no down-town

South Howard had disappeared
All my favorite places
My city had been pulled down
Reduced to parking spaces

Ay, oh, way to go, Ohio

No mention of Kent State which must have been a formative and very shocking event in her life…because, of course, it was in the end, nothing. A tragedy in four deaths but a farce about why they happened. For heaven’s sake, the Army wasn’t the problem. No matter how much you hated the war in Vietnam, hated Nixon, even hated America…the Army is not in charge of deciding things. And the kids burning down the ROTC building were exact contemporaries of the kids in the Army at the time. Were they evil? The Left would have people believe so…and worked up events to convince people it was, but it was all stupid and any really thinking person looking back on it would be appalled by their participation in a stupid riot that ended up getting four people killed. And so the thinking person’s song is about urban sprawl.

On and on it has gone over the decades…provoked action, manipulated media reporting, emotional reaction. And it goes into the Book of Liberal Lore as canon…never a modification or a bit of reflection…it was Nixon who killed those kids at Kent State just like Brown had his hands up and was saying don’t shoot. When its all a very long time past, someone will make a documentary about it and will just rehash it all…just wait: in 2034 there will be “20 years after” documentaries about the Ferguson riots…and the 2045 documentaries about the anti-ICE riots will be a thing to behold! If, that is, the Left is still around to spin the Narrative. I’m starting to think they won’t be.

I think it is rather played out now – and with the money being cut off, the sinews of propaganda will weaken. And I think we’re all rather tired of it…this pretend world where those who set fires are heroes and the firefighters are the bad guys. Just perhaps by 2045 we’ll have a new version of Hynde singing an interesting song…rather than regurgitated slop about Fighting the Man? Hope so. It’ll be like being liberated.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan29 Comments

I get Trump’s reticence in relation to military action against Iran. War is always incalculable in results. Once the guns go off, you never quite know how it will come out. Clearly, the Mullahs should never possess a nuclear weapon. The chances they’ll actually use one are low given Israel’s almost certain already existing nuclear deterrent, but the world can’t rely on Mullah reasonableness. Additionally, I have held since 1979 that the Iranian regime is a pestilence. And since the fall of the USSR, they have been the primary promoter of Islamist terrorism (good to remember that prior to the fall of the USSR, most Muslim terrorists officially adhered to some sort of Socialist program downplaying the Islamic element…but the only pay for it post 1991 has been Tehran, so the Socialism is muted and the Islamism emphasized). Bottom line, if the Mullah regime goes, the most likely outcome in the Middle East is a general peace settlement as there will be no one to pay for Islamist programs (another good thing to remember is that outside Iran and its proxies, Islamist propaganda these days is heavily suppressed in Muslim nations…sure, they’ll let you publish endless copies of Mein Kampf and anti-Semitism if the order of the day…but this “river to the sea” nonsense is kept under control). In my view, we should – if necessary – launch attacks to ensure Iran’s nuclear program is crippled (there is some doubt that Israel has a weapon – outside a nuke – which can reach the deepest buried elements).

But I’m going to trust Trump’s judgement on this. He does have access to a lot of information we don’t have and, very important, he has earned our trust. The man took a bullet for us. He’s reliable – even if he gets it wrong, the motivation will still be to do what is best for the USA. If he orders an attack, I support that – if he decides to hold off, I’ll support that.

Someone posted a video on X claiming to show an empty Los Angeles emergency room – with the narration claiming it is a horror as “our people” aren’t getting life-saving care. If true, what it means is that illegals aren’t using the ER as their primary care facility…which they routinely do, clogging up the system and costing everyone untold sums of money. If they’re refusing to do this out of fear of ICE, then that is what I voted for – illegals should be afraid to show their faces. They should live furtive lives in the shadows – impossible to rent a house, buy a car, get health care…because they aren’t supposed to be here. They can go back home and not have these problems.

We’re also getting more tear-jerker bits of propaganda about some of the deported – “she’s a grandma who has been here 30 years and she loves being in America”. Yeah, if she had the least bit of respect for America and Americans, she wouldn’t have come here illegally. We really need to get that across – illegally crossing our border is an insult. It is done by people with total contempt for the United States and our people.

And, guys, it has been a long time since the immigrant was a self-selected, hard-working person who wanted to build a better life. The floodgates were opened under Obama (and, really, even before that) and the word went out that the suckers in the USA would let you stay illegally and provide you housing, medical care, food and education…never asking you to contribute or develop any love for America. The people who flooded in – especially when Biden was in office – are leeches looking to live off the American people. They’re precisely the people who keep their home countries as dumps…voting for any conman who offers a free ride and cheering loudly each tin pot dictator in turn…and, of course, considering it a point of honor to help and protect criminal gangs. They all have to go.

ICE is reporting a 500% increase in assaults on their officers – all of this encouraged and orchestrated by the Democrats. They are all-in on illegals – this is insane but, really, they can’t do otherwise…an end to illegal immigration and the huge amounts of graft it begets is a death knell for the Democrat party. Already the DNC is being starved of funds…the more Trump does the less money the Democrats will have. And that’s just one of a score of problems here – each 750,000 illegals deported means one less Blue State House seat, even if the SC refuses to allow Trump to only count citizens in the census. They must fight like this and hope that some even turns the American people against Trump’s policies. I don’t see that happening – they probably don’t, either – but they’ll keep at it because they have no choice.

I’m on Vacation Open Thread

Mark Noonan5 Comments

The thing is, I’m here right now:

That is Torrey Pines State Beach in California – far, far away from the anti-ICE riots, carefully guarded so the upper class Commies who reside nearby never have to suffer the consequences of their actions. But, as you can see, one heck of a nice beach. You can see that little inlet there with the bridge going over it…first time I was there was Spring of 1972. Mom brought me there. You used to be able to go inland on from that inlet and it was quite spectacular but the Commies decided it was a Wetland and HAD TO BE PRESERVED FOR ALL TIME and they closed it off to human activity…which will be funny as heck when erosion destroys that little inlet. Those cliffs you see were quite a bit further out back in 1972!

But as I’m there and not here (I’d normally be plunking myself downright by that closest lifeguard tower but with the Mrs still recovering from the broken hip, we’ll probably be over by the furthest one as its an easier path – if you happen to be in the area, say hi!) I decided to schedule this one so that everyone can keep a fresh post to talk up the issues of the day…which I’m confident will be different from the issues of today (Sunday). Things move very fast during Trump II! Remember the Elon/Trump fight? Seems like twenty years ago, doesn’t it?

I’ll be back late Thursday – so, if the world doesn’t blow up by then, we’ll chat some more!

Open Thread

Mark Noonan11 Comments

There is still some debate about whether or not Hitler actually hated the Jews or if this was all just part of a program to amass power. Keeping in mind that Hitler was the creator of the Big Lie – the concept that if you brazenly repeat the most absurd lies, they’ll be believed. In addition to this, the doctor who unsuccessfully treated Hitler’s mother for cancer was allowed to slip out of Austria unscathed after the Anschluss. So, there are some indications that it was all drivel. Of course, massively more indications that it was sincere hatred. But in the end, it didn’t matter if it was real or feigned…what matters is what happened.

I bring this up because the Army 250 parade really showed the divisions in our country. While our side was quite delighted with the parade and enjoyed a nice, patriotic afternoon honoring the Army, the Democrats were out at their No Kings marches around the country…and shouting incoherently the whole time. It was like trying to eat your dinner when there’s a couple three tables over having a shrieking fight. I pointed out on X – on a couple different threads – that the protests are over nothing. There is no fascist threat of tyranny. There is nothing unjust going on. Everything is actually pretty nice in the USA right now and getting better. But there the Democrats were…out there getting all shouty. And quite proud of themselves! They really think they stopped fascism cold!

Let’s go over some of the things the Left believes:

  1. Trump is a Russian agent.
  2. George Floyd is a hero.
  3. Luigi Mangione is a dreamboat hero.
  4. The Butler Assassination Attempt was faked.
  5. There is a due process for deportations.
  6. The Judicial is superior to the Executive.
  7. Homo sapiens can be born in the wrong body.
  8. America was built by slaves.
  9. America is stolen land.
  10. Los Angeles is actually part of Mexico.
  11. The 2024 election was stolen by Elon Musk for Trump.
  12. Cloth masks can stop a virus.
  13. Banning gas powered leaf blowers will save the environment.
  14. There is no physical strength difference between male and female.
  15. Trump is a Nazi.
  16. MAGA is all racist all the time.
  17. A violent protest can be “mostly peaceful”.
  18. The Founders were less educated than a purple haired 2025 college grad.
  19. There’s a genocide in Gaza.

You could probably add another 50 to the list – and the common run is not just that its all wrong, it is that it is all laughably, stupidly false. They’re pointing at the sky and saying it is green…and shouting at us when we say, “uh, you know its blue, right?”. Do they really believe all this drivel? I don’t know – I’ll bet that at least some of them (especially in the leadership) don’t believe a word of it. But like with ol’ Adolph, it doesn’t matter if it is sincere or not – it is what is done as a consequence. And among the many things the Democrats would like to happen now is for ICE agents to be cornered by a violent mob so they have to shoot their way out of it…thus making a new George Floyd for them (this is why Newsom filed his absurd suit to remove Trump from command of the CA Guard – the Guard has been protecting ICE as it goes about its raids – which haven’t stopped for a minute – thus preventing the bloody confrontation Newsom and the rest of the CA Democrats were trying to orchestrate from the start). And keep in mind that there’s a violent mob to go after ICE because people believe the nonsense lie that there’s something wrong with enforcing immigration laws…that somehow picking up a drug trafficker illegal in Compton is the same as loading Jews up on the train for Auschwitz. The lies used to gin up the mobs are that stupid…and there’s the mob, at least acting like they believe it.

And once again it all comes back to lies: and the lies are killing people. Some day everyone will admit that I am right – until we start to punish liars, we don’t really get out of this.

Trump caused some tremors among MAGA when he announced a pause on ICE raids for agricultural and hospitality industry workers. From what I’ve learned, this is a bit of window dressing to get a few GOP wets on board with the Big Beautiful Bill. Don’t know for certain if this is the case, but it does make the most sense. Though I also offer the possibility that ICE is overwhelmed with the scale of the task and so this is merely prioritization of resources…while we want all illegals out, there are illegals we should get out, first…and as agribusiness is a generally GOP-friendly constituency why not give them a break? At least some time to readjust their labor pool…and perhaps revamp the guest-worker program? Bottom line is that Trump will not go soft on illegal immigration – but also good to keep in mind that Trump has never been anti-immigration. And he doesn’t want to be mean here – certainly not to some poor guy who is really just trying to make a few bucks working the fields in the USA…but the invasion of illegals is a crisis that must be addressed, very firmly. Until the border is totally secure and millions deported, it is a crisis we can’t let up on.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Gotta say, I’m a bit encouraged here. Sure, the Democrats worked up a few Narrative polls to support their contention that Trump is going too far, but nobody believes them while reliable polling shows solid support for deportations.

The Democrats trotted out an attractive DACA recipient who was supposed to make us get all weepy-eyed about deportations and it just didn’t work. Pretty much everyone agrees she has to be sent back to her home country – and almost no hostile comments. Most people are just tired of playing this game where we allow criminal gangs to import millions to make sure the one good one gets to stay. Just not worth it. And I do feel for that lady and those like here – but we can’t make exceptions. Everyone who entered illegally must go back. More than happy to even make an easy process for such like her to come back (that is, brought in as a minor and never got into trouble since arrival) but we must make it absolutely rock-solid you can’t cross illegally without consequence.

And, sure, I understand that they were encouraged to come by the Uniparty. I get that. But everyone has a moral obligation to obey the laws…and you aren’t excused because those charged with enforcing them are being slack. Her parents should have had enough respect for the USA to say, “no; even though corrupt American officials are letting it happen, I still won’t cross illegally: I respect America and the Americans so I will get permission to enter their country”. Go back home, ask to return. It is hard, but it is a sacrifice any patriot would be willing to make for their country…as well as a sacrifice which will literally save lives because if we allow illegal crossing, people will die because we do.

I’m also encouraged by people instinctively not falling for the “it used to be Mexico” Narrative. Outside of idiots, everyone who hears that is thinking it over. It is a pity that history isn’t taught in US schools but the post I made on X briefly describing the sovereignty over Los Angeles is up to 31,100 views in less than 24 hours. And 2,700 have liked it. This indicates to me a hunger for knowledge – and it is up to us who do know to impart it. Remember, some person shouting Los Angeles is Mexican is a stupid liar – when Mexico declared independence it wasn’t like the USA where everyone involved sent valid delegates to a Congress which debated and then enacted the measure. It was a mere clique of self-selected people who arrogantly presumed to speak for all of New Spain. Naturally, this writ only ran as far as they could force its acceptance and huge tracts of New Spain broke away as fast as possible. While the Spanish government surrendered its claim to rule New Spain in 1836 this is no way amounted to a consent for all of New Spain to be ruled from Mexico City…especially those parts of New Spain which didn’t even have theoretical representation in Mexico City (like, for instance, Alta California). Once again, useful to remind everyone that a lot of what is “known” today is a carefully curated Narrative about what happened all designed to support the claim of the Global Ruling Class to power. It isn’t that the history books directly lie (but some of them do) but that the information has been selected and presented in a manner designed to elicit certain conclusions on the part of the reader. These days, you have to dig deep to find the truth (anyone interested in this particular subject would do well to read The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon and the Mexican War. It is from 1973 so before Wokeness took over academia and it is a fair and accurate portrayal of the various political factors in Mexico, the USA and Europe which ended up with America annexing half of Mexico).

Inflation is coming in “lower than expected”…by the Experts. Like, am I the only person on Earth who understands that inflation only happens because of currency devaluation? Keep in mind, there can always be price fluctuations. A temporary break in supply or some such can cause a spike. But inflation – the steady rise of prices against goods and services – is only caused by money printing. Its been going on since money was first invented – governments always seek to repay good money with bad. In the olden days they had to be more honest about it – continually lowering the gold or silver content of the coins. These days, much easier – you don’t even have to print up paper currency. All you have to do is tell you central bank to add another zero to the ledger. But it is always monetary devaluation that leads to inflation. If governments and central banks were simply honest about how much money there is (or isn’t) then inflation would never happen. You might get a host of other economic problems, but you won’t get your wealth eroded by inflation.

For our purposes here, they were expecting the tariffs to increase inflation and are shocked that it isn’t…this is because the market reacts and the first reaction might be a price spike, but the second reaction is to lower costs. In the case of tariffs, it means finding a supplier not covered by the tariff. You know: domestic or at least from a country not being hammered like China is. Prices are actually pretty stable over time – that is, the actual value of things doesn’t really increase except in rarities (like the Mona Lisa continually increased in value until it became priceless – because Da Vinci can’t paint another one and so there is no way to increase the supply of Mona Lisa’s on the market). It wasn’t prices in France that rose over the centuries…it was the continual debasement of Constantine’s gold Solidus into the lowly French sou (it was originally made of 4.5 grams of gold…the last sou minted in France was 5 centime bronze coin; 4.5 grams of gold would still buy what a Solidus did). Price spikes because of shortages or tariffs are met with new or improved supplies from elsewhere leading to price stability. It is just they way things work. Once again, we’re dealing with people who don’t know much – and they have advanced degrees.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan26 Comments

This was done in Los Angeles yesterday:

The riots were pretty bad there – with the Mayor and police chief of Los Angeles positively encouraging violence against ICE, which was executing valid warrants to detain illegal immigrants. As noted in my previous post: I’m supposed to let people who do this vote? People who scrawl that on our buildings? They get to have as much say as I do?

Look, you’re allowed to hate Trump. You’re allowed to hate Trump policies. But if you are violently trying to stop lawful actions by the Trump administration, you’re insane. You are creating a situation where people can get killed. The place for disagreement is politics…that is, you try to change the government in future elections, not try to intimidate people via violence. Insane purveyors of violence should not be allowed to vote.

Team Trump is responding properly to this – these idiots all did this on video. They seem to forget that there are federal charges – very major federal charges – in trying to prevent the execution of a federal warrant. The funny part here is that these laws were first enacted to stop Democrats from denying civil rights to black people…now they’re to be used to stop Democrats from protecting illegal immigration. It seems that from time to time the heavy club of federal law is needed to keep Democrats under control

The Trump-Musk feud has calmed down a bit…and it really does seem that the proximate cause was Trump withdrawing Musk’s preferred man to head up NASA. From what I understand on that, it was Senate opposition that convinced Trump to withdraw the guy…which does sometimes happen. Could there be some level of Deep State machination in this? Sure. But you also pick your battles…and I guess this was a battle Musk wanted Trump to pick. Trump saw it differently and here we are.

It is good to keep in mind that Musk never was 100% on board with the Trump program. Musk is also a strategist…and his strategic interests are high tech plus space exploration. A lot of this matches up with MAGA but its not a 1 for 1 thing. Musk favors solar over nuclear. Favors open immigration in the tech industry. Musk is a free trader who dreams of a massive human investment in making humanity multiplanetary…Trump wants America first, restrictions on immigration and his Department of Energy is already pushing hard for massive nuclear power development. These are issues honest people can have disagreements over…but they are different strategic aims and those pushing for their aims will come into conflict. Two very large figures came into conflict…and Trump emerged as the more reasonable of the two. I suspect that Musk will work out some deal with Team Trump so that at least he can get some of what he wants. Think of Musk as Nimitz and Trump as MacArthur…very different ideas about how to defeat Japan but their conflicting visions, pushed with vigor, actually ensured quicker defeat of Japan than if one of them had got their way entirely.

The Democrats got their “Maryland man” back! With a raft of federal charges. And while he is back in the USA to face those charges, he’s still illegally in country…which means no matter what some federal judge says, he’s not being let out of federal detention per-trial. Looks like their hero is a pretty bad guy…and that the reason he had to flee El Salvador was because of a hit he did on a rival gang. So, he’s going to sit in federal custody, be convicted of a long list of federal charges…and then deported back to El Salvador to face charges there.

And the GOP will be able to make a whole series of campaign ads about this for 2026. Oh, and all that “Death to Amerikka” stuff from yesterday will also make it into the ads. Do keep in mind that our opponents are very stupid – they only managed to hang on to power because their idiocy was covered up by an MSM almost all Americans trusted.

Most Americans no longer trust that MSM.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

So, Ukraine managed to whack Russia pretty hard. Gotta say, I’m impressed…big, deep strikes right at the heart of Russia’s strategic power. They claim they did it all on their lonesome but I just have to figure they had US intel help…and probably some tech support on it, too. Trump probably does want to send a message to Putin that it is time to bring this adventure to a close…and with Putin digging in his heels, this is a necessary push.

Naturally, Putin will feel that he has to strike back, hard. That will come before any peace deal is made. It is a matter of prestige for Putin and the Russians that they make Ukraine pay for this. So, get ready for that. I do hope the Ukrainians are because if they can thwart or even just significantly blunt the Russian response then that will be just more pressure on Putin to throw in the towel.

This whole mess could have been avoided if we had a good deal maker in DC when it started with the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2012. The bottom line, as I’ve said all along, is that the Crimea and the Donbas were added to Ukraine by Stalin for domestic, Soviet political purposes. Never in the past had that territory been considered Ukrainian even in theory. The whole purpose of US and Western diplomacy should have been figuring out how to un-draw the lines drawn by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin probably after a few too many vodkas. I’m hopeful this will end with that recognition of reality.

The nut who threw firebombs at mostly elderly Jews in Boulder is in the country illegally. Because of course. We now have two iconic photos from the past 12 months – and together they define the political divide.

MAGA world:

Democrat world:

It is so beautiful, isn’t it? The shirtless, raving lunatic holding a Molotov cocktail and that Pride flag in the background…about to set fire to Jews in a liberal city where refugees are welcome.

Someone linked today on X to a video of Jasmine Crockett (D-Looney Bin) – and along with her cosplaying as ghetto (she’s actually the product of elite, private education and has perfect diction), she was asserting that once the Democrats retake the House, they will impeach Trump. Of course we all know this – because of course they will.

If they get back the House. That is the fly in the Democrat ointment: they have to win. Winning requires building a coalition around some set of actions. We’ve all wondered why the Democrats aren’t toning down the lunatic Leftist rhetoric and we can now see why: they don’t think they have to. Crockett and her like think that because they are being insanely Left they will win the House in 2026. There are older and wiser heads in the Democrat party (Schumer knows this garbage is political suicide but as an elderly Jew he’s got to walk soft in Democrat councils these days) but they can’t call the shots – they can’t get people like Crockett to shut up, that is.

We can’t know what will happen. Mid-terms are notoriously difficult for the party holding the White House. But with voter registration trends still favoring the GOP, with Trump having already raised $600 million for the 2026 effort and with the economy starting to perk up….I’ve got to start thinking that this against Democrat insanity might give us a favorable 2026.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan14 Comments

One of the problems with the Third World is that infrastructure is deliberately destroyed when not merely allowed to decay. Copper theft from power lines and such is a massive problem. So, let’s see how the Third World is doing on that:

Oh, sorry, I’m being told this is not the Third World but Minneapolis, MN…

Import the Third World, get the Third World. The bottom line here is that the people stealing this didn’t build it – didn’t build anything that exists. They just were willy-nilly shipped in and they’ve brought their habits from home with them. Things exist in order for them to be stolen – and you don’t care if things don’t work because never in your whole life have things ever worked.

I’m kinda tired of being told that my nation – my people – are bad. That the settlers who built Minneapolis are inferior to the “migrants” who are now stealing the copper wire of Minneapolis. Only an idiot destroys infrastructure…but here it is, being destroyed. It is sort of like pictures I’ve seen of South African hospitals…filthy, garbage literally sitting on the floor. Everyone knows that a hospital isn’t supposed to be like that but its like that…because nobody gives a damn. They didn’t build it. It is just something to be stolen, and vandalized if it can’t be carted off.

No people are better than any other people. We are all human beings, children of God. But some people behave a heck of a lot better than others…and the problem of the Third World isn’t the legacy of colonialism or any other excuse being offered up. The problem is the people of the Third World who seem content to live badly. That’s fine. Their life. Their country. Do whatever you want to do. But I’m done with thinking we should continue to import these people – anyone coming in gets vetted and they should be 18 to 30, unmarried, no kids, fluent in English and have $10,000 in cash on them. That way I know they’re people who can reasonably integrate into my society rather than stealing copper wire.

There’s some TV show out there which decided to open up this season where a nun played by Rosie O’Donnell gets it on with another female character.

And the entertainment industry wonders why they’re losing audience. I mean, just in practical terms, if you want to have something vulgar, at least have the vulgarity portrayed by good looking people. Nobody wants to see a 60-something getting it on.

It is just insults, of course. Not even avant-garde. It is boring. To be truly transgressive these days you’d have to respectfully portray a nuclear family having a good life, or a man who works hard and plays by the rules. A distinctly feminine woman who likes and gets along with men. Heck, even just two gay guys who run a bait shop. Something like that. What entertainment does is insult us…not just our morals, but our intelligence. There is a place for the risque in entertainment…but if you’re doing to do it, it is supposed to be subtle and interesting…not a sledgehammer like using Rosie as a lesbian nun.

Thomas Massie seems determine to burn all bridges on the right – his latest effort being a demand we cut off military aid to Israel because “Nothing can justify the number of civilian casualties (tens of thousands of women and children) inflicted by Israel in Gaza in the last two years.” Just absurd.

First off, nobody knows how many people have died in Gaza. The only reports we get are from Hamas or Hamas-allied organizations and we know they lie with wild abandon. Secondly, if there were tens of thousands, there would be pictures of that. You can’t individually bury huge numbers of bodies – once you get past a few hundred, you have to get them into the ground – or burn them – quickly because of health risks. We would have video of mass graves and piles of corpses if even hundreds were being killed at a time, let alone tens of thousands. My bet is that once this is over, we’ll find that the total number of dead in Gaza is no more than a few thousands, almost all of which will be armed fighters with only incidental killings of civilians due to Hamas’ tactic of using civilians as human shields.

As I’ve said before, I think Israel has already lost this war – lost it within 90 days of the start. I could see how this would go: any length of time and public opinion would turn against Israel as the global Establishment geared up to make Israel’s response the problem rather than the Palestinians rapes and murders on 10/7. So it has happened – and I can’t see this ending without Hamas remaining in charge of Gaza. In other words, total Israeli defeat. Israel should have imposed a regular siege – after a legal declaration of war – and compelled the Gazans to surrender unconditionally. They would have. Sure, Hamas would have kept all the food for themselves and let the people starve…but eventually even in that system the food runs out and no human being can resist hunger pangs. After a while, almost everyone will do just about anything just to get a bite to eat. They would have stacked arms and come out with their hands above their heads.

But Israel did not go that route – for fear of offending global opinion, they decided to go slow and soft. Hasn’t worked, of course; the world already hated Israel. There was no upside for Israel to go soft. But softly they went…carefully and methodically targeting only confirmed armed opponents. They have had some major coups in this – the exploding pagers the most notable – but they haven’t had victory. But for our purposes here, the main thing is that Israel is not indiscriminately killing. It isn’t that bad in Gaza. Lot of stuff blown up, but not a lot of death…and nobody is starving or lacking medical care. For Massie to mindlessly repeat the Hamas lies about Israel is astonishing and disgusting. I don’t know what brain disease is affecting some people but it might be that some have just been waiting for their excuse to hate Jews…just as some wait for their excuse to hate Christians. Could be that when you alienate yourself from God, you feel compelled to hate Jews? Don’t know – but it seems that way.