Open Thread

Open Thread

Mark Noonan12 Comments

Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner…and the Democrats/NeverTrump people are sure this is the very end of Our Democracy.

In the specific, they are claiming that Trump is merely mad that the latest job numbers had massive downward revisions. And, hey, maybe Trump is mad about that…but the bottom line is that if you’re getting it that wrong, then why the heck are you even putting out numbers? This is the same BLS which month after month after month massively overstated the job gains under Biden. Is the data worth anything? Major financial decisions are taken based on what BLS is saying…and they can’t even nail down accurately the number of jobs gained or lost?

Some say that there is a declining response rate from those surveyed. Ok. Is anyone looking into an alternate method? Seems to me that they’re really just kinda guessing and then revising based on more solid data…so, why not make the monthly report out of the most recent, solid data we’ve got? Sure, it means the July jobs report might be about April or May, but if its accurate then its at least useful and we’d still have long term trend data. If BLS is just throwing numbers at the wall, though, then it is useless…and the Commissioner is either stupid (and so should be fired) or corruptly massaging the data to favor Democrats and harm Republicans (and so should be fired). And do keep in mind: all this statistics stuff was first put together during the New Deal when a bunch of Leftwing pinheads thought they could decide economic policy based on statistics. This is why, today, we buy our consumer goods from China, guys: the stats say it is the way to go.

You know: it doesn’t matter in the long term if in any particular month jobs are gained or lost overall…what matters is how much we, as a people, are making, mining and growing. Bottom line on that is that the more we make, mine and grow here at home the more job openings there will be…and the more national wealth which, stored, can provide aid for those who lose their jobs because of fluctuating economic conditions. Production is the measure…not the household jobs survey.

Some reforms being pushed by Team Trump do look like a back door method to eventually privatize Social Security. They are going slow and careful here because this is a dangerous issue…but everyone with sense knows that eventually the Social Security system is going to need deep reforms to survive. For us older people, it won’t matter: nobody is going to change it for us and we will get what we were promised (nobody is going to vote to cut benefits and then have everyone on or about to be on benefits vote against them next election). Probably for people fifty and older no significant changes are forthcoming. But for the youngsters, I think there will be – and likely with their eventual enthusiastic support. There is much wrong with youth but they do have knowledge about markets…a lot of these kids have been playing around with various investment items since they were little. It will be easier to sell to them the notion that their Social Security is theirs – a government guaranteed investment account that they own, that follows them around wherever they work and which they can start to access by some fixed date in their lives and which will have some guaranteed minimum payout no matter what happens…but which they could also grow to be quite significant, perhaps combining it with their personal savings and their employer 401k’s.

Ultimately, America is Made Great Again by the total dissolution of the New Deal.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan15 Comments

Texas, Ohio and Florida Republicans – and perhaps some other Red States – are planning on mid-decade redistricting. This has caused our Democrats to shriek about how we’re destroying Democracy. Yeah, whatever. This is actually just retaliation: the Democrats have mercilessly gerrymandered their deep Blue States so that the GOP is only getting a fraction of the seats their total House vote merits…now that is being turned about, and that is fair play. The real reason the Democrats are shrieking is because if this goes forward it will make it nearly impossible for the Democrats to win the House in 2026.

In 2024, the GOP won the House vote 50 to 47 percent but ended up losing 2 seats. That is how powerful the Democrat gerrymander has been. Back in 2016 we got 48 percent to the Democrats 47 and won 241 seats…a 23 seat majority. Had the Democrats not done their gerrymanders we probably would be sitting on 250+ seats right now. If all goes well, the net gain for the GOP in 2026 will be in the neighborhood of 12 to 15 seats, thus putting us in line with our actual vote share. And that means that the last two years of Trump will be even more productive than the first two years (it is almost certain the GOP will retain the Senate in 2026 – absent a political meltdown, it stays GOP. Bottom line, the only Senate seat that is a possible flip to the Dems is North Carolina while the GOP has prospects in New Hampshire, Minnesota, Michigan and Georgia).

Democrats have decided that their next target in the Culture War is Sidney Sweeny. Honestly, I don’t know much about her – can’t say that I’ve ever even seen a show she’s been in. But she’s young, blonde and very pretty and she’s doing blue jeans ads…you know, a pretty girl rather than some overweight, blue haired weirdo. It has driven the Democrats nuts – they are saying it is a Nazi dog whistle to be a pretty blonde. I don’t know where they hope to go with this but if their goal is to win back young men (latest polling shows them swinging by more than 40 points to the GOP in the past couple years), then I don’t think attacking the hot blonde is the way to do it.

Some of the documents we’re seeing in the Trump-Russia case indicate the conspiracy continued right on through the Biden years…which means the statute of limitations is ongoing. That’s the thing about a conspiracy – the statute of limitations only kicks in when it ends. If the players were still doing it until 2024 (and it looks like they were) then everyone involved in the conspiracy from Day One (even if that day is more than seven years ago) is still on the hook…and the raid on Mar a Lago means it can be tried in Florida (Trump +13).

Sam Brown ran for Senate out here in Nevada last year and ended up losing by merely 24,000 votes out of 1.3+ million cast…which was a disappointment especially given how tardy the GOP was in giving him financial support (the Democrat incumbent had months to nuke Brown from orbit via TV ads…and she still barely pulled it off). But, he’s now been Senate confirmed to a VA position and among those congratulating him is the Cherokee Nation…which Brown is a member of. Didn’t know that. He didn’t play it up in his campaign ads like a Democrat would…but that’s because Brown wasn’t trying to get elected to check a box but to serve Nevada. Now he gets to serve America – again, as he was quite horrifically wounded in combat serving us before.

UPDATE: I know, poor taste – but LOL!

Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

Polls is polls, of course; always grain of salt them. But this does reflect the reality of voter registration trends, which have almost all favored the GOP for years now. A few hiccups here and there but for the most part State after State – especially Battlegrounds and the light Blue States – are showing GOP voter registration increases. And even deep Blue like California are showing a GOP trend, though Democrat strength there is so dominant it’ll be years before it matters.

The Official Narrative remains that the GOP will certainly lose the House in 2026. Likely hold the Senate; though we’re already getting the “is Red State X about to turn Blue?” that we get all the time with some new Democrat hope being polished up for the MSM…and about to rake in untold millions for what will prove another futile campaign (though I wonder: with the cutoff of money to NGOs, maybe there won’t be $70 million for a useless Democrat Senate race in Texas next year? We’ll see; these things are done to get the GOP to spend money in Red States and thus have less resources for prospects…and you’ll note that the GOP still hasn’t figured out that its time to find some Great GOP Hope for deep Blue states, finance them out the wazoo and force Democrats to spend money). But the House is considered a goner for the GOP. And, normally, this would be so – the GOP majority is razor thin and just the normal mid-term snap back would propel Democrats to a majority. But voter registration trends and things like this recent poll are putting a fly in that ointment.

The Democrats are staking out the 20 in the 80/20 issues. They are doing this because they are convinced that they are on the popular side. They honestly believe – because they tell themselves endlessly – that the American people don’t want mass deportations, want boys in girls sports and are furious that we’re no longer providing funding for NGO’s. They believe that the federal judges issuing ridiculous rulings against Trump are in line with the people’s will. That rioting against ICE is the spontaneous expression of the people.

Could it be like this? I guess anything is possible. But my sense of the matter is that the Democrats are being simply insane and the American people perceive this. Given this, even if things aren’t perfect in 2026 and even if there are some serious complaints about Trump or GOP policies, they’re going to stick with Trump and the GOP. That the 2026 midterms will be akin to the 1934 midterms…in that election, the first for FDR, there should have been a snap back in favor of the GOP. There wasn’t because the GOP spent two years reminding everyone why they hated them.

The View announced they are going on hiatus. Can’t emphasize enough how important this is. It is part of the Democrat information ecosystem…even though they don’t have massive viewership, they reinforce the Democrat Narrative. Much like Colbert does with his show. Without this continual reinforcement of Democrat bigotry it will become increasingly difficult to sustain it. Can’t forget how propaganda works: it isn’t just the lie, it is the endlessly and universally repeated lie. A lie so pervasive that even skeptical people start to think there’s something to it…after all, it was on the daytime talk show, the evening news and the late night show! How can it not be true? They wouldn’t all lie…would they? Make no mistake about it, the people who run the MSM are still almost all Democrats…but they also are getting pounded in ratings as more and more people switch off while lying is becoming costly…Trump’s Presidential library will be gold plated if things keep going as they are! At the end of the day, the purpose is to make money – and shows like Colbert’s and The View aren’t money makers – or if they do squeeze out a profit, it isn’t worth the risk that a host of the show will go off on some anti-Trump rant, lie and cost the company 20 million dollars.

Lindsey Graham is asking that a Special Counsel be appointed to look into the Trump-Russia scandal – and that’s gonna be a hard No from all sensible people. This is a last, desperate attempt to cover up what Obama, et al did. To bury it under an investigation that will take at least two years…plenty for time to sandbag the whole thing and come out at the end with some lying report saying that while there were improprieties, no laws were broken. Laws were obviously broken: the only question here is can we sufficiently prove who broke them to get indictments and convictions? Indicting Obama is pretty much pie in the sky – one in a million shot – but the last thing we want is someone who starts out not wanting to indict. We want Bondi – someone who wants to indict because that’s what the records indicate should happen. The high hurdle here is the protections Presidents have in carrying out the duties of their office…this doesn’t protect actual criminal behavior, but it makes for murky legal ground that defense attorneys and judges will be happy to latch on to in order to protect Obama and their class. What I’m saying here is that we need to find out if there is such indisputable evidence that we really can indict…a special counsel will not get us there. Ever. And even if we can’t get Obama, there are probably a couple hundred people we can get…and we need an investigation which will make people want to turn State’s evidence, not work out a statement that obscures things in exchange for immunity.

The latest social media sensation is the Door Kick Challenge: it involves youngsters going up to random doors and kicking them very hard. Police are urging parents to talk to their kids and let them know this is foolish and dangerous. Most people are treating it as described – just a youthful (if rather dumb) lark. It ain’t that, guys.

It is gang recruitment.

It’s a test: will you do as you’re told? Will you, quite especially, do as you’re told when it is wrong and dangerous? The gangs are finding out who in the neighborhood will do something violently stupid. This is the perfect ground to develop young gang members you can use for hits and intimidation.

And right now the gangs need new blood – they are losing quite a lot of their foot soldiers via deportations. Enforcement via people brought in illegally is going to become increasingly difficult – but the gangs still need their enforcers to make sure the money keeps coming in. What better than to have a 16 year old true blue American citizen do it? Can’t be deported. If arrested, tried as a juvenile in most jurisdictions. At all events, totally expendable. You get that young man a nice car and some cool clothes for doing it, he’ll do any thing you ask him to. I do believe the gangs are going to hit back, hard. There are billions of dollars at stake here. They need an army to intimidate us into giving up the fight. This is the recruitment of that army. They essentially did this in all the Latin American countries they dominate…for relative peanuts, get a mass of ignorant but strong youth to do your bidding no matter how horrific it is…but you never start with having them chop someone to pieces. It is always the smaller, easier step that comes first…as part of the winnowing process to find the hard core.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan5 Comments

It is clear that the Democrats do not want Trump’s people to gain full control of DoJ operations in New York and environs – their ridiculous efforts to get Democrat federal judges to replace Trump’s person shows this. Of course, they don’t have a leg to stand on and Trump simply re-appointed the same person the federal judges tried to replace. But it shows that is the place they fear the most – possibly because it covers both the Clinton and Biden families. Anything they can do to gum up the works will be done.

Trump has now said that Obama was at the back of the Trump-Russia scam – which, of course, we’ve known all along. But the documents Gabbard has been releasing are confirming it. Will Obama be prosecuted? We all have our doubts. But at the very least, let the process be the punishment. And I understand that Trump isn’t going to hold back – that is, he learned his lesson: he went easy on Hillary figuring it was the decent thing to do and their payback to him on that was a mugshot. Ok, then. Off we go – let the investigation go forward and the chips fall where they may.

It is complicated by the fact that some of the crucial events happened outside the statute of limitations. But a conspiracy is a conspiracy…you don’t get to check in and then check out. Once you’re part of it, you’re part of it forever. And 18 US Code 372 is pretty clear:

If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof…or impede him in the discharge of his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both.

Or from discharging the duties thereof or impede the discharge of his official duties. Most people tend to think of this as trying to intimidate a judge or some such and, true enough, that is what is mostly in mind here…but it is all encompassing. Any person you try to stop from discharging official duties. Including the President. From what we already know, Obama, Hillary, Clapper, Brennan, Mueller, Schiff and a couple score other people are guilty of violating this provision. All of them, after all, were trying to impede Trump in carrying out his duties. And in addition to that, the manner in which the conspirators acted are a host of other violations…you’re really not supposed to suborn perjury or use our national intelligence services to frame up a political rival. That is considered a no no.

Biden pardoned a lot of these people but not all of them – and the pardoned people cannot plead the 5th. That Amendment only protects you from self-incrimination…if you’ve been blanket pardoned, you can’t incriminate yourself. You have to talk or be held in contempt. Just how loyal are these people to the Establishment Club? I guess we’re going to find out.

I guess most of the MSM has been all Epstein all the time of late – and are trying to work out that Trump’s charges against Obama are an attempt to distract from Epstein. This just lets us know that the sudden surge in Epstein reporting is the distraction…and it makes some sense. Rely on it that the Epstein record has been sanitized over the previous four years. It isn’t that dangerous to those in the Establishment at this point…and if they can work it up like they worked up Trump/Russia it could be a huge drag on Trump II…and that is why, I think, Trump went hard on dismissing the whole thing. Any attempt to separate out the Democrat BS on Epstein from the real Epstein issue was going to be a losing fight…too confusing for the casual observe to sort out. So, better to just say it doesn’t matter at all…knowing that by going after the Trump/Russia people you were going to end up getting most of those who covered for Epstein anyway.

Mamdani is still on track to win the NYC election – keeps sitting there with 40-45 percent while the rest is divvied up between Adams, Cuomo and Sliwa. I guess New Yorkers are gonna get what they want good and hard. Here’s what I would do if I were Trump: let it play out. Watch the whole cartoon closely – just in Mamdani’s plan for public grocery stores there will be massive corruption (just imagine the kickbacks and such!)…watch them steal, and then arrest them for stealing. Normally, a GOP Administration would look the other way…say it is a local affair. But NYC receives huge federal funding…and that gives Trump’s DoJ their way in. Basically expose the whole thing – show the world that Mamdani’s fundamental problem isn’t his ideology, but the fact that he actually has no idea what he’s doing. He heard a few catch-phrases in college and has run with them. Show him up. Make him look the fool. It’ll be a useful service to our nation.

Back At It Open Thread

Mark Noonan24 Comments

Well, wonderful time at Lake Tahoe. Totally exhausted and we had the fun of the last 100 miles home the AC in the car conked out. Still makes cold air but the fan system simply isn’t blowing it into the cab in sufficient force to counteract Southern Nevada sunshine! So, with more than 93,000 miles on the car, we’re already looking for a replacement as at that mileage cars always start to nickel and dime you to death (this is probably just a busted fan or, perhaps, some break in the venting…but I suspect the fan as I could still feel cold air right at the vent openings). Its been a good car but it is time for it to go to that great garage in the sky (ie, the high miles used car lot where some poor sap will pay three times what its worth on a 19% APR loan…on the plus side, the actual maintenance was done on the regular so it probably has 25,000 miles left on it).

Gabbard has referred the Trump case to the DoJ. About time! Everyone involved from start to finish was breaking a whole raft of federal laws day in and day out. There are a host of very serious federal laws regarding the improper use of intel and law enforcement powers. And every person involved is guilty of the conspiracy – even if, in theory, they didn’t know exactly what was happening. And for those thinking the statute of limitations applies because it started in 2015…bad news! These people kept on breaking the law right through the 2024 election. That is, the law breaking kept on going…so, if you entered into the conspiracy in 2015 and bailed out of it in 2018, you’re still on the hook.

It is hard to decide if this or Biden’s dementia is the biggest political scandal in history. Not just American history: world history. That officials sworn to uphold the laws failed to do so – and, indeed, deliberately broke those laws – isn’t unprecedented, but the staggering scale of it here is hard to imagine. And it cuts right through just about every institution…even MSMers could be caught in this net. Not because they wrote it up, but because they actively cooperated in advancing the scam. It is one thing to say “I’m just a reporting saying what I’ve been told”…it is quite another to rigidly adhere to what were clearly talking points all through the matter. Remember, they all refused to cover the Hunter laptop story…not one of them broke ranks and pointed out the obvious: it is real, it is Hunter’s and it details quite a large number of felony actions. There are coincidences, but none quite like that – and if we can prove they were part of the conspiracy (which doesn’t require forensic proof – that is, to charge someone with conspiracy we don’t need to prove they took orders), then they’re going down as well. And it was all of a piece – the same people and institutions which created and pushed Trump-Russia created and pushed the myth of Biden cognitive ability as well as Hunter’s innocence.

We’ll see how it goes. But this tells why Trump wants us off Epstein and the Democrats want to talk about nothing else. We all know what a complete slime ball Epstein was and that very large number of well-connected people were deep in with him…but the bottom line is that the man is dead and the more crucial law enforcement issue isn’t to go after those who covered for Epstein but to go after those who tried to carry out a coup against the elected President. Democrats would love to talk Epstein for a year – after all, Biden’s people had four years to destroy evidence in that case. And even if it singed some Democrats, that’s worth the price if it bogs down Trump. My view: I don’t think Trump has let Epstein go so much as back-burnered it. At all events, if we take down the people who tried to destroy Trump, we’re probably going after most of the same people who protected Epstein.

Democrats are saying Colbert was fired from his TV gig for political reasons – as someone pointed out on X, the truth of the matter is that Colbert was kept on the air for political reasons. His ratings were horrible from start to finish. He was just considered a useful took in the DNC propaganda machine…his usefulness is now at an end.

You can – in theory – be liberal and be funny as well as insightful (stop laughing! It is possible!). A liberal host could make a success out of a late night or other TV gig. But it must be entertaining. I’ve watched a few episodes of Guttfeld’s show on Fox – sure, he and the guests lean Right (or at least Libertarian) but the most important thing is that they are funny and have something interesting to say. Endlessly repeating variations of Orange Man Bad is, at the end, just boring. It might make Liberal trained seals happy but nobody else. Joe Biden was a gold mine for the host of any humor-centered late night show…they left him untouched. Meanwhile, Trump is actually a funny guy – and the key to getting a hit on him is to first laugh with him…then you can tweak. Heck, the guys at Babylon Bee do it all the time. Trump also rolls with a joke – liberals never do. At least, not in some decades. One thing for certain, if Biden had been mentally competent those four years he would have been furious at the slightest fun being poked at him – so, too, was Obama (he actually took people aside and scolded them for being other than laudatory in all respects about him). This is why anyone with an actual sense of humor these past ten years has gravitated to the Right…first off, we laugh. Secondly, we can take a joke – in fact, we tend to laugh harder at jokes at our expense. We know we’re the Stupid Party! There’s a goldmine just in the Senate GOP for laughs (one recent joke: Senator Graham had to call his doctor after we bombed Iran because his erection lasted more than 4 hours). Democrats just can’t get this – and their attempts at being funny just fall flat.

On Vacation (Again) Open Thread

Mark Noonan15 Comments

Ok, so I’m here or somewhere close:

If you’ve never been to Lake Tahoe, put it on your bucket list! It is just one of the most beautiful places in the world. That water is cold. All snow melt. But its so sunny and warm up there this time of year that the water doesn’t feel so bad after the first shock.

I won’t try to anticipate the future here – we’re on Trump Time so what was OMG!!!! today is “remember the Old Times?” in a few days. Confident Trump will continue to confound his opponents.

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.