Open Thread

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

Robert Stacy McCain offers some sage advice for any young men out there seeking female companionship.

I’ll add a small note: I definitely fall into the bottom 15% (read it, you’ll understand), but if there are any youngsters out there reading this, I’ll double down on McCain’s advice about having a self-deprecating sense of humor. It is very useful! When you really do it right, a lady will think you’re charming. That goes a long way.

Seal the deal by learning how to cook.

Democrats are already lining up to run against Trump. Illustrative of how this will go is Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). She’s as liberal as the day is long but deep in her background was a time when she wasn’t full-blown liberal. Because of these past heresies, she’s being mercilessly savaged in the liberal world. Mark my words: for 2020, the left – which controls who gets the Democrat nomination – will not settle for anything less than an Absolute Not Trump. Their nominee will have to sign off on the very latest iteration of whatever it is the left is hating Trump about, no matter how obscure or silly it is. If someone on the left makes an accusation against Trump, everyone who wants to be the Democrat nominee will have to subscribe to it. It’ll get really interesting.

In re the Wall and Shutdown, Don Surber notes that Trump Hatred has trapped the Democrats – they hate him so much they are fighting over an amount of money that is so small, it works out to a rounding error. Earlier, I happened to overhear someone conversing with another about the mess – the person doing most of the talking was apparently married to a furloughed worker and went on and on and on about what a bad man Trump was, how stupid the wall was, blah, blah, blah. What was remarkable, to me, was that the other party – while clearly having no love for Trump – kept pushing back and insisting that the wall was necessary because the border does have to be controlled. I think we’re seeing that dynamic play out nationwide: the Democrats just keep repeating their talking points, but it is blowing right past non-Democrats because everyone can see the fight is about nearly nothing and, what the heck, why not build the wall? I think Trump will win this – only a craven surrender by the Senate GOP could derail us, and I don’t think Cocaine Mitch is in the mood to surrender.

It’s a poll from a Libertarian outfit (and, so, probably skewed anti-war), but it shows that the American people largely back Trump’s withdrawal from Syria. I’d have to look it up for how long ago I wanted us to withdraw from the Middle East, entirely: but it was a while back ago. Long before Trump. I did, of course, back the war in Iraq but I thought at the time – given Bush’s “axis of evil” bit – that it was a mere precursor to war with the actual source of the Middle East problem: Iran. I would have had it – Iraq, then Syria/Lebanon…and, then, if Iran hadn’t collapse, on to Tehran to finish the job. A swift moving series of military actions, with no fussing about nation building (I’d prefer we just find local strongmen and let them rule the locals, backed by our force), would have rocked the enemy on his heels and, also, prevented an anti-war left from really coalescing. Bush decided to do it differently, likely on the advice of people at State and Defense. I don’t think the American people are anti-war, as such, but they are anti-war-forever. They are anti-no-victory. They are anti-wasting-time-and-lives. If we go to war, we should go all the way. And if we can’t see our way to that, we should just stay home.

The Wall Open Thread

Mark Noonan33 Comments

Rumor has it that Trump may yet declare a national emergency to ensure the wall gets built. This is, naturally, getting our Never Trump Fredocons in an uproar. Their basic line is that if Trump does this, then the Democrats will turn around and declare a national emergency in the future to impose things like socialized medicine. Of course they will. But they’ll do that regardless of what we do. The Democrats hate law and custom – all they seek is the swiftest means available to impose their views. If we refuse to use our power just as ruthlessly as they do, all they do is laugh at us for being such fools.

We are backs-to-the-wall, folks. Constitutional norms went out the window a very long time ago. Right around the time the Supreme Court found a “right” to an abortion in a document which doesn’t even mention a subject remotely related to a medical procedure. Sure, I’d like it very much if the Constitution and our laws and customs were adhered to by all – but, they’re not. And as the law, as written, appears to give the President the power to declare such an emergency, Trump should go right on and do it, if that is what proves necessary.

And that’s another thing that is burning me up, lately: Trump is doing everything he can to keep to his proper, Constitutional powers. He very much wants to keep everything neat as a pin in law. And he’d get that – if everyone on our side would just get on board and provide a completely united front, rather than writing articles which give Democrats hope we’ll cave, then the Democrats would collapse. They are already a bit messed up because the normal script – immediate GOP surrender – isn’t happening here. They are nothing and nobodies – all we have to do is treat them as such, and so it will be.

Judicial rumor mill is that RBG will quit, soon. We’ll see. But she will have to soon voluntarily leave the Court, or she’ll have to leave it perforce. She’s rather old, you know?

So, they say that space travel won’t turn germs into super bugs. But that is just what They would want you to believe, right?

Bit of a legal note: being found not guilty in court does not work out to being declared innocent. I’ll add a note of my own: we’re finding out, all too often, that just because a person plead guilty to something in court, it doesn’t mean he did anything wrong.

NBC is saying that you can cut through Trump’s proposed border wall with common tools. There is an argument over whether the tools used were all that common. But, to me, that is all irrelevant. Of course a human being, given time and tools, will be able to get through any barrier. We’re rather clever – been so since we first banged those rocks together, ya dig? But the purpose of a wall is not to be an impervious barrier, but to be a barrier which takes a lot of time and effort to get past…thus giving those guarding the barrier a better chance to stop you.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan61 Comments

Trump will give his big immigration speech tonight. So far, I really haven’t seen an definitive word on what he’ll say. As I’ve said, in the crucial things, Team Trump is airtight.

The American Psychological Association has announced that traditional masculinity is harmful to boys. They are going to make psychology into a new form of quackery.

Fidel Castro’s grandson has been flaunting a lavish lifestyle. Which means, as per usual, his dictator grandad was robbing the treasury blind while shouting “Socialism or death!”. And our liberals always fall for these guys – and I think that they are actually in favor of it. You know: grabbing what you can from the poor and living it up along with saying leftist things to absolve you of all sins.

California governor Gavin Newsom is proposing free (you know, “free”…ie, working stiffs pay out the nose for it) healthcare for all illegal immigrants under the age of 26. I’ve no sympathy for Californians: they voted for this nitwit, and they are going to get the government they deserve good and hard.

Gorsuch and Sotomayor joined forces in defense of the Sixth Amendment. Its nice to see that, at least at times, both left and right on the Court can be concerned for our civil liberties.

Virginia’s Democrat governor is proposing a massive, new effort to ensure that there’s enough voter fraud to guarantee Democrats win the State, forever.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan41 Comments

The MSM was working up an anti-Trump “he hasn’t visited the troops this Christmas” meme. Until just recently.

Glen Reynolds talks up the prospects of war and how we might have a very lousy 21st century. It’d have to be pretty bad to exceed the 20th century, but there’s definitely a chance we could see that. It has been rolling around in my head that the existence of things like the UN and NATO have pretty much created this bad situation – alliances aren’t supposed to be permanent and a permanent, global talk-shop is a sure-fire way to make certain that cracks continue to be papered over. We do need alliances and we do need mechanisms for addressing international concerns…but the alliances and the talk-shop should be ad-hoc and set up for specific purposes.

Take, for instance, Russian aggression in Europe. NATO is pretty much a dead weight – the NATO “allies” are hoping that the United States will carry the load. On the other hand, if we had no NATO, we could craft an alliance with the nation’s most concerned and we’d likely get them fully willing to put the necessary muscle behind the effort. And as for something like peace in the Middle East, absent a UN – where Russia and China can veto any action which doesn’t 100% suit them – we could put together a group akin to, say, the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to hammer out a settlement…something where no one can stop it from happening short of war, but with the Great Powers insisting, all the smaller fry would have to just fall in line. None of this would assure against war, but I think it would have a better chance than the current system where we’re slowly drifting to war and none of the mechanisms in place can stop the drift.

IQ scores are falling around the world and a prime suspect is the Boob Tube – TV or computer, doesn’t seem to matter which (my Dad was calling the TV the “idiot box” back in the 70’s). I can definitely see this. First off, a lot of the information provided on screen is just wrong: some of it quite stupidly wrong. But as its on a screen and people, especially young people, have been trained to believe the screen, they are believing some really dumb stuff. Secondly, it takes time to learn and digest information, especially complex information. The whole thing about TV – and even more so the internet – is speed. Quick bullet points with pre-determined conclusions are the norm. I don’t think anyone intended this to happen: but if what is wanted is a generation of stupid people dependent upon government, you couldn’t have planned it better.

A Chinese admiral thinks that if he can sink a couple ships and cause us 5,000 or 10,000 casualties, we’ll quit. This was tried before, and it didn’t work out well for those who tried it. But, I think China will try it, in the by and by.

That Saudi “journalist” who got (apparently) whacked in Turkey? Pretty much a paid, Qatari agent. Important lesson here: the MSM is lying. It is lying all the time. It is lying about everything. It even lies when it doesn’t have to – I mean, come on: it was still bad this guy got killed. They didn’t have to make him out as some sort of heroic journalist truth-teller. Now, all fruit from this tree is poisoned.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan16 Comments

There are indications that Trump is getting ready to fold on the wall…which makes me freel pretty confident he won’t. Stay tuned.

Don Surber says don’t freak out about it.

Turns out that what we’ve long suspected was correct – Team McCain played a big role in getting the Trump-Russia thing started. McCain didn’t like Trump, but there’s more here than that: McCain and Team were 100% Establishment…they weren’t so much going after Trump, as protecting the Establishment. Most of the GOP has swung firmly behind Trump, but in the upper echelon of the party, probably a third of the GOPers there want Trump gone.

The Democrats are getting set for what may be a long, painful primary fight. There simply isn’t anyone on that side that commands the loyalty of sufficient people to be considered a real front runner (most polling of the candidates right now really just reflects name recognition). Be interesting if Hillary jumps in. OTOH, there may be a long GOP primary fight…I see a strong chance that various Democrat money bags will fund people like Flake and Kasich to challenge Trump.

Some liberals starting pitching a fit about Baby, It’s Cold Outside because, well, they’re jerks. It now sits at number 10 on the charts. Here’s the song because we like irritating snowflakes:

Senator Scott wants a bit more sunlight in police shootings. A good idea: the more we all know about all these shootings, the more we can determine which are done by bad cops, and which are being blown out of proportion by leftist activists.

Robert Stacy McCain talks up a commie rat…but what struck me is how the commie is employed at a tax-exempt organization and his mom is employed at a taxpayer funded university. I’ve been saying and saying that we’re funding the left…that without our tax dollars providing them sinecures, they simply wouldn’t be around to bother us.

California is America’s least educated State. This will grind the gears of liberals…it means they control a State of ill-educated morons who simply don’t know enough to vote GOP.

The baker in the gay wedding cake case? He’s now being attacked for not baking a cake celebrating a gender transition. Remember: the process is the punishment. If they can’t drive him out of business, they are still telling everyone else out there that adherence to personal morality comes with a high price. My thinking: this serial harassment amounts to a civil rights violation. If we ever get an AG with any guts, I hope he starts prosecuting the people making such complaints and the government officials acting upon such complaints.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan44 Comments

Its been busy the last few days. Lots of stuff happening. Let’s take a glance:

California is considering a tax on texting.

No, really. They are.

Congressman Ted Lieu (D-People’s Republic of California) wants to ban free speech.

No, I’m not kidding.

Trump cancels the White House Christmas party for the press. Seriously: would you want to hang out with them for a couple hours? Could you be polite to people who know are not merely stupid, but wicked?

Mueller’s office scrubbed the cell phones of Strzok and Page. Why would he do that except to cover up crimes? The only question I have: did Mueller know about the crimes before they happened? Mueller is a corrupt, Deep State hack and his real purpose is to cover up the crimes – he’d like to get Trump, too; but he’s far more set upon making sure no one finds out how this Trump/Russia thing got started.

We’re pulling out of the INF nuclear weapons treaty because the Russians are breaking it. They’ve been breaking it for a while, of course, but only Trump – the Russian stooge – has had the guts to do anything about it. More and more, you really start to wonder if Trump’s critics are stupid, or just too embarrassed to admit they were wrong?

Netanyahu points out that the Khashoggi killing is horrible, but given the realities of the Middle East, better to let it slide. This is all that really needs be said of the matter – the ME is a binary choice between Iranian dominance and no Iranian dominance. Pick which result you want and act accordingly.

The defense being offered for the FBI entrapping Flynn is that they do it all the time. I don’t think the FBI’s defenders realize how bad that sounds.

Study indicates that millennial men are kinda, well, weak. My view: this is the result of so many men being raised in female-headed households. And, don’t get me wrong, there might be a little upside in here as it is good that men care more about others…but, on the other hand, we still need someone to change tires and carry a rifle from time to time.

Trump is going to cut funds for UN peacekeeping missions in Africa. This is good. First off, it treats the Africans like children who can’t manage their own affairs. I, for one, think they are fully capable of settling matters on their own – and only if they directly ask us for assistance do I think we should offer them any. Secondly, UN peacekeepers are, well, kinda creepy.

Gary Sinise continues to prove he’s one heck of a good guy.

Keith Richards says he’s giving up drinking. Now the guy will live to 120.

Boy Scouts face bankruptcy.

Twitter users start to switch to Parler to get away from Twitter’s rather Maoist actions. Gab tried to be the alternative to Twitter, but it really hasn’t taken off. The cool thing about Twitter is that when you follow a few hundred people, you start to get a TL that is constantly updating…you’re getting, news, jokes, remarks, links coming at you in rapid succession. Gab just gets people posting one or two things a day…and it became heavily infested with genuine Nazis which were disgusting to come across. I’m still on it, but only a few times a day. We’ll see if Parler pans out. Something will eventually replace Twitter and Facebook…because no one wants to be on a site where you have to worry about what you say.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Trump and the incoming House Democrats are (surprise!) at a bit of an impasse over border wall funding. Meaning, Trump wants it funded and Democrats really don’t. Some are saying that it was the GOP’s focus on immigration rather than the booming economy which cost the GOP the House…but sounds to me like Chamber of Commerce Republicans desperate to convince us that we have to get on board with open border. We know that the Democrats victory wasn’t as big as advertised. I’m thinking that Trump may be doing the right thing here – if the Democrats want a government shut down over the issue of border security, that might prove a winner for Trump and the GOP.

We might have misjudged Mexico’s new President. He’s passing out awards to Kushner and making trade and border deals with Trump…and now seems determined to really crack down on Mexico’s criminal violence. We’ll have to see how this comes out – but, hey, if he’s a genuine Mexican patriot, then good things will follow. And we’ll be able to work with him even if we disagree.

Tumlbr says it is banning naughty pictures – so, it’ll now be the go-to place for feminist screeds.

Democrats seem to have decided that going on a witch hunt against Trump is what they were elected to do. Funny, we had some hotly contested House and Senate races here during the campaign and I don’t remember a single Democrat candidate saying, “elect me and I’ll investigate Trump”. But, hey, maybe I missed those ads. My thinking: if they don’t swiftly come up with indisputable evidence of Trump malfeasance, the American people will swiftly grow weary of continuing investigations. Either you got the goods on Trump, or you don’t.

Suggestion to the GOP: lower the beer drinking age back to 18. It was raised in 1984 to 21. And it is absurd – if you’re old enough to vote and be drafted, you’re old enough to drink a beer. But, still, I think we should also annul student loan debt in arrears and make such loans subject to bankruptcy laws. There’s lots we can do to get the youngsters to take a look at our side.

Title IX is a reign of terror. Remember, it is never about justice – in fact, leftists hate justice in all its forms. It is about power – the left wants it.

Judge let’s an illegal immigrant MS-13 guy go – MS-13 guy murders. This is why laws have to be enforced. There is never any actual discretion in this – once before the Court, the case must be decided on law. If the law was broken, some price has to be extracted from the guilty. We can be merciful – in fact, we must be merciful – but if someone broke a law, something has to be done by the guilty to redress the balance. For this guy, it was obvious: deportation. Judge disagreed – and now Herson Rivas is dead; hacked to death. Put his picture on TV; to contrast with Mom running into tear gas with the kids, you know?

Open Thread

Mark Noonan14 Comments

About that loss of the House…it might not have been as much a Democrat victory so much as a Democrat theft:

A new (California) state law allows third parties to pick up ballots and drop them off at polling locations on behalf of that person, a practice known as “ballot harvesting.”

In video footage that surfaced last month, a woman who identifies herself to a California resident as Lulu is seen knocking on someone’s door and offering to deliver their absentee ballot, but “only to, like, people who are supporting the Democratic Party.”

This is, to me, clearly legalized ballot box stuffing – there is no way to really know where the ballots came from…and as these votes flipped races days and weeks after election day, it is pretty obvious that Democrats just manufactured whatever votes were needed to win.

There is a chance the Democrats won the House fair and square (and I mean only a chance), but the padding of their victory seems to be to be the work of fraud – and in a lot of cases, fraud the Democrats have legalized. There is not much we can do about things like this – elections are controlled by the States and if a State is firmly under Democrat control, they’ll just do what they want. What I’d like is for Justice to investigate…while elections are controlled by the States, there are a host of federal laws against election fraud. Time to use them.

Bit of good news: this sort of thing only has a small chance of flipping the electoral college in 2020.

Its Aliens, I’m sure.

Seems the French might not be as in favor of Globalism as we’ve been lead to believe: massive riots against the French government. From what I’ve heard, even some of the police are indicating sympathy for the rioters. As for me, I happen to know that Louis XX is available, and it is way past time for France to correct the mistake of 1789.

Oldest and youngest Medal of Honor recipients meet. America still lives.

As the MSM lauds the late President Bush and uses him as a cudgel against Trump, always good to remember that the MSM despised Bush when he was alive.

Trump continues to win the Trade War with China. I told you he would – because all nations which trade with the US need our markets far more than we need theirs. That’s the thing – by putting up barriers to our products, all the foreigners do is make it a big nothing if we get into a tit for tat Trade War. Hopefully we’ll learn the lesson that all the leverage is ours. Now, to be sure, if we do get fair trade then, eventually, it’ll be a bad thing to have a Trade War…but only because that would risk our massively increased exports. That’s a problem I want us to have.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan10 Comments

The caravan arrived at the border and got it’s photo ops which are now being used to try to convince us that we’re rotten, evil people for not having open borders.

None of us are buying that, though.

We need to fix our mistake: in the aftermath of WWII, we failed to make Marxist thought as vile in the public mind as Nazi and Fascist thought is. Oh, to be sure, we made some small efforts…but we didn’t hammer it mercilessly, as we should have. We allowed it to live…and to eventually argue in favor of “Free Speech” as a means to gain a foothold in our institutions. Over time, we’ve got what we have now: various flavors of Marxists working diligently to suppress all non-Leftist speech. The poison that was defeated in the USSR is now thriving in the United States. We have to make an end of it.

I realize this will eventually require amending the Constitution – but if we are, long term, to remain a free people it is necessary for us to make sure that those who argue in favor of tyranny cannot gain access to the public square.

It has to be kept in mind that our American system of government is based upon dogmatic assertions – dogmas as incapable of scientific proof as the dogma of the Trinity. “All men are created equal” is something that you take on faith, because you can’t prove it. And if you want to be free, you have to believe it. Waver even a bit from that dogma, and you’re quickly on the path to tyranny. The Marxists among us don’t believe it for a minute – don’t believe them when they say they do. If they did, they’d never be able to work out a system where people are judged by their class and that some classes of people have to be destroyed. No one who believes in the equality of human beings could do anything like that. You must believe that people are unequal in order to be willing to destroy some people. Let these Marxists advance long enough, and we’ll eventually find that not enough people believe in the American dogmas to sustain a free America.

Mark my words on this: the ultimate, final political battle is to be over whether or not anti-freedom ideology is to be allowed in the United States.

Putin is rolling the dice in Ukraine, again. Likely, he’s testing to see how far he can go. He knows we won’t be at the forefront in defending Ukraine simply because making an argument for an American army in the Donbas is not one Trump can make. What he’s likely doing is testing to see if any European power wants to do anything about it. And it may well be misdirection as he’s planning some offensive action either in the Baltics or the Caucasus. Everything old is new, again. This is pretty much the situation Europe found itself in back in 1854 – an aggressive Russia but a Russia which is moving step by step. Which step is the intolerable one? Back then, Britain, France and Turkey combined to thwart Russian ambitions. Will anyone is Europe do it, again? I doubt it.

Roger Simon talks about the left’s alliance with Islam (and resulting anti-Semitism):

This alliance between the left and Islam, exemplified – although far from exclusively – by Linda Sarsour, who refuses to abjure the notoriously anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan while telling Jews she is “sorry,” leads to mind-bending behavior by “feminists” like support for the hijab and patriarchal Sharia law. What next? Clitoridectomies? Evidently

I’ve said for years that the left would convert to Islam – and be lead there by feminists. It must always be remembered that one of the great appeals of Islam is its magnificent simplicity. It is an excellent religion for anyone who doesn’t want to think too hard. And can you just guess who, in our modern West, is most opposed to thinking, at all? That doing this requires a bow to anti-Semitism doesn’t cause our leftists any worry. They were long ago tired of defending Israel. Allah is everything and everything that happens is Allah’s will. You have no free will (the left despises the very idea of free will) and everything you do is to be run from a script (sound familiar?).

The only real question is: how long will the majority of gays and Jews (stalwart Democrat voting blocs) remain on board? I’m figuring by 2028, a majority of such votes start going GOP…provided it remains a Trumpist GOP.

Instapundit took himself off Twitter because Twitter is now a cesspool of Stalinist persecution. I’m pondering when I’ll terminate my account – that I will terminate it is a given. Though I may have some fun, first, and get Twitter to ban me.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan10 Comments

The Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) case in Michigan is on the rocks:

A federal judge Tuesday dismissed female genital mutilation charges against several doctors in the first criminal case of its kind nationwide, ruling the law is unconstitutional.

And the judge is probably right. It is a religious practice and while we might find it wrong, that doesn’t mean we get to tell people they are wrong for doing it. The only standing I think might have on the matter is whether or not a minor child is sufficiently under parental control as to have no say in whether the operation is performed. Can a minor child refuse parental instruction to have it done? That is something we might be able to test in court…but, even here, I worry that a ruling against the parents means that some liberal, somewhere down the line, will argue that a Catholic teaching her child that homosexual sex is inherently disordered is a violation of the child’s rights. Remember, the Constitution is very blunt here: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. There’s no carve out for outlandish religious practices we find disgusting. And, really, it has to be this way – it is the only way to ensure our ability to exercise our religion freely.

So, what do we do? I think we have to say: nothing. Unless we want to amend the Constitution making certain religious practices unconstitutional…and I doubt any of us want to go down that road.

President Trump is refusing to be stampeded into anti-Saudi actions – and, I think, he is right. As you all know, I have no real use for Saudi Arabia…at least, as it has been these last 40 years or so. There are some winds of change blowing there, though, and they might make Saudi Arabia a decent place in the by and by. But, be that as it may, right now it isn’t all that great…but it is the least-bad place in the area and as it stands athwart Iranian ambitions, it is useful for us to have good relations with Saudi Arabia. My personal view is that Khashoggi was killed in a Mafia-like hit ordered by the Saudi government and the pro-Iran echo chamber in the United States is using Khashoggi’s murder to try to help Iran out of the box Trump has placed them in.

A couple guys once wrote a book claiming that Obama is the Worst President we’ve ever had – now, he’s trying to make himself the worst ex-President we’ve ever had.

I’m figuring Kasich will announce he’s a Democrat any day, now. One of the best things about the Trump Era is how all our squishes and backstabbers are leaving.

Today’s TDS outrage is a claim that Trump was warned off of having Justice look into his political rivals. I doubt he was – but, if he was, then whomever suggested it was wrong. The bottom line – the reason we’re in this mess – is that no one ever looks into the actions of their predecessors. I’m completely in favor of it. And, no, I don’t worry about that spotlight being turned on Trump and his people in future years. They should be afraid of that spotlight. Every official of government should live in permanent terror that someone will comb over their actions in office.