Thinking About South Africa

Mark Noonan10 Comments

We noted this in the comments earlier:

White South African farmers will be removed from their land after a landslide vote in parliament.

The country’s constitution is now likely to be amended to allow for the confiscation of white-owned land without compensation, following a motion brought by radical Marxist opposition leader Julius Malema.

It passed by 241 votes for to 83 against after a vote on Tuesday, and the policy was a key factor in new president Cyril Ramaphosa’s platform after he took over from Jacob Zuma in February.

Mr Malema said the time for ‘reconciliation is over’. ‘Now is the time for justice,’ News24 reported.

The worst thing Europe did to Africa wasn’t colonialism – it was providing them Marx. It is amazing the applicability of Marxism – the work of a 19th century European Jew who never worked a day in his life is being used by 21 century black African to justify an act of idiocy. Basically, if you’ve got a dumb idea, just filter it through Marx and it will seem like you actually thought of something.

This will end badly – the land will be taken and mostly handed off to various cronies of those in power who won’t have the foggiest notion of how to make the land pay. The poor of South Africa won’t just remain poor, but will actually become poorer. And once you set down the path of injustice, you’re really not going to get out of it easy.

To be sure, this path of injustice was first pioneered by the white South Africans…remember, the Boers moved into the Transvaal, etc because they wanted to keep the slavery which the British Empire had abolished. Later, after gaining independence from Britain, the white South Africans erected Apartheid…which wasn’t really Apartheid because it wasn’t a set up where whites would live with whites and blacks with blacks but, rather, a mechanism where the whites could keep their cheap, black labor while denying said labor any political rights. It was pretty much a duplicate – carried to a further extreme – of the Jim Crow laws in the American South. Now there are those in South Africa who are looking for some payback…and they are suckering the poor by telling them that if the whites are expropriated, they’ll all be well off.

It is a rather sad end to it all – when Mandela was freed and Apartheid came down, I had my doubts…but then Mandela rather rose to the occasion and I hoped that a genuine, pluralist Republic would emerge in South Africa. But even early there were warning signs…those who didn’t want to forgive and forget and who were willing to stir the pot of resentment for political gain. Over time, especially since Mandela’s death, these forces have grown stronger and now appear to be firmly in the saddle in South Africa…where a corrupt ANC government is desperately looking for an expedient to justify it’s continued rule. Well, here it is: bash whitey! Whitey might, indeed, deserve some bashing and it is absurd that the white minority still owns quite so much land…but this way of race-hatred and uncompensated expropriation is the evil way to go about things. And the curious thing about evil acts is that they don’t actually work.

The thing is, it would take at least 100 years for the black population of South Africa to reach the economic level of the white population of South Africa. The cultural capital of the two groups was vastly different when Apartheid came down – for a variety of reasons, not least of which was direct, white suppression of the formation of cultural capital among South Africa’s black population. But however it got to be that way, that is the way it was…and only a great deal of time and hard work was ever going to erase the difference.

The ultimate mistake of it all – the gigantic error – was Apartheid; a system of racial oppression and exploitation. That most white South Africans today had nothing to do with erecting or maintaining that system is irrelevant. It was still the error – and errors always have to be paid for, one way or another. It would have been better paid for at the end of Apartheid by the surrender of a great deal of wealth…now it will be paid for by the seizure of that wealth. And, worse, the seizure won’t make anyone happy. It will impoverish the white population, but won’t enrich the black population. It will impel ever more extreme demands, of course…once it doesn’t work, we’ll start to see more and more racist conspiracy theories floated to explain why expropriation didn’t work…and thus more and more violence directed at the now-despised minority.

There isn’t much we, as Americans, can do about this. I can only advise white South Africans to consider moving – at least to Cape Province, but even that will probably only be a temporary expedient. Probably leaving South Africa will be the only way to be safe. It is a shame that the sins of the grandfathers will be visited upon the grandsons, but that is how the world can work, at times, when wicked people get rolling.

The State of San Francisco (and of course open thread)

Cluster47 Comments

I noticed this article over at American Thinker this morning and I cannot stop thinking about it. There is no better example of progressives and the ideology they embrace and it has nothing to do with bettering anyone’s life. What they have done to California is disgraceful. California is home to some of the world’s richest people, some of the world’s most beautiful coastlines and National Parks, and yet also home to 25% of the nations homeless. In fact the cost of housing in California is so high that nurses, electricians, plumbers, etc., are choosing to live out of their cars, if not exiting the State altogether as Mark recently wrote about. California is becoming the perfect example of leftism – the haves, and the have nots. As is Chicago, Baltimore, New York and nearly every other municipality governed by progressive Democrats.

They certainly believe in equality, it’s just that they consider themselves more equal than others. Look at the salaries and benefits these “big government” progressives award themselves, all the while their constituents are living out of cars and worse. The taxpayers of San Francisco County paid $675,000,000 in salaries and benefits to just 2,600 government workers (an average of over $250,000/yr), while those same administrators claim that the government does not have enough money to provide shelter to the over 12,000 homeless living on their streets. That’s who they are. And when people show you who they are – believe them. Never give up the fight.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan81 Comments

Turns out, we now have a Secretary of Defense who is concerned about our war fighting capability:

Defense Secretary James Mattis said the new Pentagon policy that will remove service members who have not been deployable for a year or more is about fairly sharing the burden within the forces.

The deploy-or-leave policy includes exceptions for pregnancy and wounded warriors. Robert Wilkie, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee last week that “on any given day, about 13 to 14 percent of the force is medically unable to deploy.”

The United States has a population of around 317 million. Our active duty armed forces are just under 1.3 million. This works out to 0.54% of our population being in the military. If we nearly doubled our active forces (which we probably should, given the challenges we face), then we’d be getting to 1% in the military…this ratio of military to population means we should very easily be able to select only the very best physical and mental recruits for our armed forces. There should be no one in there other than those injured in the line of duty who isn’t in peak condition. We have the population to allow us a force of superb soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines…and that is precisely what we should have.

Democrats may be Resisting themselves into a permanent minority:

Finally there’s Mr. Trump. Even with his recent bump in the polls, he remains divisive. But he’s not the only divisive politician who will figure in this election. The most recent Politico/Morning Consult poll suggests that Nancy Pelosi has pulled off a largely unheralded achievement: In the Age of Trump, she is arguably the most unpopular politician in America.

What does that mean for impeachment? Well, in 69 House districts surveyed by the Congressional Leadership Fund (a super PAC devoted to maintaining the GOP majority), Mrs. Pelosi is underwater in every one. She is also toxic among independents.

Take California’s 10th District, held by Republican Jeff Denham. Hillary Clinton carried this district in 2016, and Mr. Trump’s approval rating is at minus four. But again, Democrats are split among eight primary contenders. And the CLF survey showed that voters in Mr. Denham’s district prefer Paul Ryan as speaker to Mrs. Pelosi by 13 points.

I’ve been saying all along that I have grave doubts that dislike of Trump would translate into a desire to have Pelosi return to the Speaker’s chair. It could happen – but only if Pelosi and the Democrats came up with an agenda that speaks to the American people. Hating Trump and wanting impeachment wasn’t going to do it…choosing illegals over Americans and demanding gun control will be millstones around the Democrats’ necks come November. I don’t know how November will come out – but in my view, it is more likely that Republicans will make gains than Democrats will take back the House.

John Kasich is, in my view, laying the groundwork for a run for President as a Democrat:

If all the sudden you couldn’t buy an AR-15, what would you lose? Would you feel your second amendment rights would be eroded? These are the things that have to be looked at and action has to happen.

Next up will be a more “nuanced” position on abortion. Thing is, he’d actually be the strongest candidate Democrats could find to run against Trump…blue collar background; successful governor; from Ohio which could make that State back into a real battleground. He’d pull all the remaining NeverTrump over to the Democrats while at the same time having huge appeal in the suburbs of the Blue cities. But, the Democrat base will reject him – the whole old, white guy thing just won’t work. If he did get the Democrat nomination, the far left would run a Third Party candidate against him.

The Israeli solution to school shootings:

When terrorists attacked a school in Maalot in 1974, Israel did not declare every school a gun-free zone. It passed a law mandating armed security in schools, provided weapons training to teachers and today runs frequent active shooter drills. There have been only two school shootings since then, and both have ended with teachers killing the terrorists.

It is an approach that the Americans should take to end the constant slaughter of innocents.

San Francisco, the Progressive paradise:

As the Investigative Unit photographed nearly a dozen hypodermic needles scattered across one block, a group of preschool students happened to walk by on their way to an afternoon field trip to citiy hall.

“We see poop, we see pee, we see needles, and we see trash,” said teacher Adelita Orellana. “Sometimes they ask what is it, and that’s a conversation that’s a little difficult to have with a 2-year old, but we just let them know that those things are full of germs, that they are dangerous, and they should never be touched.”

In light of the dangerous conditions, part of Orellana’s responsibilities now include teaching young children how to avoid the contamination.

This is what the left wants to bring to the whole country. They simply don’t care about the lives of the people…all they care about is their social agenda of tearing down Western Civilization. If we have to live in a world where filth-borne disease becomes once again a regular occurrence, that is a price they are willing you should pay.

Sunday Open Thread – EXONERATION!

Cluster33 Comments

Friday’s indictment of 13 Russians by the FBI was also an indictment on this entire fabricated collusion issue as well as a complete exoneration of President Trump and his administration. That certainly had to be an embarrassing announcement by a once venerated institution, which came on the same day it was revealed that the FBI had completely dropped the ball in the Florida school shooting. Maybe it is time to question the integrity of the “rank and file” of the FBI who the complicit agenda media has held up to such a high standard. It’s a little more than ironic that the progressive media is more than willing to question the integrity of policeman as they patrol inner city neighborhoods, but somehow the men and women of the FBI are beyond reproach? I don’t think so, and that kind of logic just exposes an agenda driven narrative. Of course that’s the only narrative the Democrats have anymore.

So what does the progressive media and the Democrats do now that their year long talking points have imploded? Why they double down on it, like Rep Jerry Nadler did yesterday:

“My reaction to the news is this is absolute proof of what we knew all along and what the president has denied, namely that we were attacked. This is a very serious attack against the United States by a hostile foreign power, an attack against our election process, our entire governing process. We know that the attack is continuing. And that our intelligence agencies tell us that it’s going to certainly continue through the next election. And the president and the Republicans in the House for that matter refuse, refuse to do anything about protecting us from an attack. Imagine if FDR had denied that the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor and didn’t react. That’s the equivalent.”

So 13 Russians creating fake Facebook accounts and trying to sow discord in our society is tantamount to Pearl Harbor? Is that where they are going with this? And isn’t this exactly what all progressive groups do daily? Try and sow national discord? Yes, it is, or do some people actually think that Antifa and Black Lives Matter are unifying groups. The entire Russia collusion narrative was a fabricated issue designed to cover the tracks of the unethical, and illegal activities of the Hillary Clinton campaign, which was also aided and abetted by the Obama DOJ and FBI. We also know now that the Christopher Steele did leak information to the media, who were more than willing to run with the story, and whose stories were used for corroboration of the dossier with the FISA courts, so the question now is, who in the media knew what, and when did they know it?

The next few years are going to be really interesting to see how the Democrats recover from trying to undermine our election process. Do they follow the lead of one of their more sane colleagues Joe Manchin? Or do they continue to pander to the far left extremists and follow the lead of Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Adam Schiff? I think we all know the answer to that.

On another note, has everyone been watching the Waco series? Very well done. The acting is superb and the storyline, if accurate, is disturbing. I understand the alleged crimes of polygamy, age of consent, and illegal weapons but did that really require the use of force by the ATF? David Koresh could have easily been apprehended on the many occasions that he went into town, or was on his morning jog, but the Clinton Admin. DOJ, led by Janet Reno thought otherwise and the result was horrific. Waco is a reminder of just how authoritarian leftists are, and why the second amendment is more important today than ever before. When any government tries to tell you that you don’t need guns – you definitely need guns.

An Observation About Men in Society

Mark Noonan12 Comments

V the K notes what might actually help to prevent school massacres:

The best approach to ending mass murder incidents at public school seems pretty straightforward; make schools more secure. At the high school my son went to, there was only one to get into the school during school hours. You had to enter into a secure vestibule, then be buzzed into the main office by a staffer. This simple expedient, coupled with an alert staff, would have prevented what happened in Florida. It also would have worked at Sandy Hook.

This is true – but, also, a little sad. The thing about breaking the big rules is that you don’t end up with no rules, but with a lot of little rules, instead. We broke the big rules about what it means to be a man ’round about 50 years ago…and now we’re forced to enact a whole series of little rules to ensure that when the males who don’t know how to be men go nuts, fewer people will be killed and injured.

Men need to feel valued as providers and protectors. If men are not valued as such, then they will tend towards a nihilistic destructiveness. As no one was writing things down way back when, we don’t know if it was a man who cut the deal with the woman or the woman who cut the deal with the man, but the deal was struck: woman sticks loyally to the man and the man, in turn, sticks loyally with the woman…providing sustenance for their children and protection against other men. And when that deal was struck, however it was struck, for the first time a male became a man.

Yes, this does presuppose that the man, in return for doing his part, will gain a bit of authority – in Roman times, they called it pater familias. The concept was, ultimately, that if a man was to tie himself to one woman and make certain that she and all children were cared for, he was to exercise a level of authority over the family. Fair? Fair has nothing to do with it: it was what it was. It turned brutish males into civilized men who would throw their lives away in defense of wife, children and home. If you wonder at the return of the brutish male, look no further than our destruction of the idea of the man as protector and provider.

Build your security gates. Continue to drug males who won’t fit in. Jail them in ever greater numbers. Propagandize against “toxic masculinity” all you want. But unless men feel themselves to be part of a larger whole and have distinct duties and privileges attached to that, then we’ll continue to get madmen wading into our schools to kill.

“Everyone predicted it,”

Cluster28 Comments

These were the words of a fellow student of Nikolas Cruz and a common theme that surrounds many of these mass shootings. Whether it be the Orlando nightclub, the San Bernardino Christmas party shooting, or Aurora, CO, it seems that many of these mass shooters are known by several people to be on the verge of such horrific actions, yet everyone stays quiet and these very disturbed people are given the space needed to act upon their demons. I even read one account where school officials were well aware of Mr. Cruz and his bizarre behavior and his penchant for fire arms, and if one account is correct, authorities were to be called if Mr. Cruz were to be seen on campus with a backpack. If these accounts are accurate, than there enough warning signs in my opinion to have prevented this.

I grew up in the 70’s in Montana and everyone owned guns, nearly everyone hunted, hunter safety was a school course, and it was a rite of passage to carry your rifles in the back of your pickup. AND THERE WAS NOT ONE SINGLE SHOOTING. I will easily wager a substantial bet that there were a lot more guns on my campus in the 70’s than there are at any campus today, yet not one person was shot in my four years of high school. Were the guns different? No. Is the culture different? Hell yes. One huge cultural difference in my opinion is the level of societal discipline towards children and the “first person shooter” games that so many kids are obsessed with. School officials, administrators, and teachers have abdicated their responsibilities and the inmates now run the asylums. Political correctness, and over emotional parents have handcuffed teachers who no longer can impose discipline and order in the classroom and I have seen this first hand. In my day, if you acted out in class and disobeyed school officials, there were real consequences, and the parents followed through. This level of discipline and order is missing from many kids lives these days and we see the negative societal impacts.

In a free country of 300+ million people and hundreds of millions of fire arms, confiscating and controlling fire arms is a non starter, but of course this is what you will hear every progressive across this nation crying about today. Guns are not, and never have been the problem. The cultural environment our kids are growing up in is the problem, and it needs to be addressed. Had there been some well trained officials on campus with fire arms, this may have been prevented. In fact in this day and age, why there aren’t armed guards on many of our school campuses is beyond me.

UPDATE, By Mark Noonan: Looks like the FBI missed it, too. And as usual for me, I bring up this song on these events. It’ll keep happening until we change.

Crime Network, Inc.

Cluster54 Comments

We are currently witnessing the largest attempted cover up of the most egregious political malfeasance our country has ever experienced, and the media is complicit. What is being revealed is a crime network led by the Clinton’s and aided and abetted by the Obama administration, Deep State bureaucrats, and the numerous media members who willingly promote the Democrat talking points in exchange for an invite to the hippest DC soiree, and if it weren’t for the election of Donald Trump, we would not be hearing of any of this. We would not know that James Comey and the FBI lied to the FISA courts three times to secure a warrant to spy on an American citizen. We would not know that Hillary Clinton used a private server to conduct her StateSec business and in the process compromised national security. We would not know that the exoneration of Hillary Clinton pertaining to that server, began even before the investigation. We would not know that the DNC rigged the primary to ensure a Hillary Clinton candidacy in the first place, and we would not know that the DNC destroyed servers and cell phones to keep them away from the eyes of law enforcement. And these are just the crimes we have become familiar with – what is it that we still don’t know?

Did Russia manipulate the Obama’s and the Clinton’s to acquire uranium? Was that the “flexibility” Obama promised Medvedved? How extensive and evasive were Lois Lerner’s actions at the IRS? How political were the actions of the ATF with the Fast & Furious debacle that resulted in the death of border guard Brian Terry? Why was Ghaddaffi deposed, and what was Sidney Blumenthal doing in Libya?

And you know what? They all had convinced themselves that Hillary was going to win and all of this would have been swept under the rug. Well a funny thing happened on the way to the White House.

Post Superbowl Open Thread

Mark Noonan67 Comments

I did watch the Superbowl – it was quite good. Still a bit too much SJW in the commercials, but the game, itself, was great as a game. I’d like to think the NFL has learned its lesson…but it probably hasn’t. The ratings for the Superbowl were at an 8 year low…and if the NFL wants to turn that around, they’d better drop the SJW drivel.

Of course, Philly then went on to behave rather badly. That is something I just don’t get – rioting after a game. But it seems a thing in the deep, blue cities. I’ll leave it to you to speculate why.

Always remember that the Trump/Russia thing started with the paranoid conspiracy theory that Putin had altered votes in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan to throw the election to Trump. This did not happen. We know it didn’t happen because you can’t do that – it isn’t physically possible…and, of course, Stein’s recounts confirmed that the vote was valid. But that didn’t stop the Democrats from running with it. They just can’t get over the fact that Hillary lost – and so, here we are, 14 months later, still wallowing in their psychological stew. But do keep in mind where it came from – it is like starting a math equation with 1+1=3: no matter what you do after that, it will be wrong. Those who are trying to claim that this or that aspect of the Trump/Russia investigation is valid are being quite silly about the whole thing…the underlying basis of it is false; all that follows from that underlying basis is also false. It can’t be otherwise…no amount of addition to a lie will ever make a lie true. This is why I’m quite confident that Trump will never be tripped up over Trump/Russia…there’s nothing to trip him up over. Its also why I think that Trump should just shut it down: yeah, it would cause shrieks, but that will be rapidly drowned out by rising wages and increased employment.

Steele apparently had a second dossier about Trump…and it was peddled back and forth between State and Team Hillary. This is the real scandal: that Obama’s Administration placed itself at Hillary’s disposal for the 2016 campaign. That is what we need to investigate.

A Colt’s linebacker was killed by a drunk driver…this tragedy apparently caused by an illegal immigrant. There’s a reason to enforce the laws, folks.

The MSM is getting filled with heart-wrenching stories of poor, sweet Dreamers being deported by that cruel, racist Trump…and Don Surber digs into one and finds, surprise!, that the MSM isn’t really giving the whole story. Of course they aren’t. Bottom line, folks, is that getting deported from the United States isn’t easy. You’ve really got to work at it, especially if you’ve been here any length of time. The subject of the linked story did work at it – getting convicted on drug offenses. Obama let him skate, Trump is enforcing the law.

We have been working on a thing called a “railgun” for a while…and haven’t done a very good job at it. Now, China is picking up the idea. This is bad news – we daren’t let China get ahead of us on this. This is revolutionary stuff – it could be as decisive a change to naval warfare as was the introduction of the aircraft carrier. The railgun will fire a projectile at about Mach 7 and will have a range of about 100 miles…though I’ve read that this could be extended to 200 miles. There is no explosive…it is just a piece of metal fired so fast that it completely destroys whatever it hits (think about it: we’re basically reviving the cannon ball…and this might revive the Battleship: we were about to build the USS Montana BB-67 when we dropped the Battleship concept, so I say we go with that when we start again). Nothing in anyone’s inventory at present can withstand it (though, I’ve also read of some new metals being developed which might provide protection against it…in the battle between offense and defense, there’s never a final answer). The main thing is that if such a weapon is practical (and it looks like it is, though more R&D is necessary), then we want them…and we want them before anyone else has them. Imagine a ship carrying, say, four such weapons parked 20 miles off an enemy coast…anything up to 80 miles inland from it is doomed. Time for Trump to get busy on this – and I think he is: you might recall he wants an end to the Defense budget sequestration and it has been, partially, lack of money which has held us back here.

The NFL

Cluster20 Comments

Just my thoughts on the NFL:

I heard a report the other day that 10 years ago (I think) could be 5, but not too long ago, 75% of males 25+ said that they followed the NFL closely. Now, only 51% say the same. That’s a huge drop off, and I count myself in that group. Here are three reasons why my interest has dropped:

– The players have become activists and celebrities – these gentleman who play professional sports are gifted with physical talents few of us possess, and it is fun watching them perform at high levels but that is where it needs to end. If you want to protest and/or bling up and hang with celebrities, then do it on your own time. Don’t protest or wear your bling on the field. You’re not rock stars or high paid celebrities, you’re athletes and the field is your stage. Act like it and respect it.

– Too many flags – let the guys play. If the refs wanted to, they could call something on every play. There is always going to be contact violations if you apply a strict interpretation of the rules, so they need to find a better balance. I think that a flag should be thrown only if the violation was blatant and/or egregious, or directly impacted the result of the play. These calls for holding that are on the other side of the field and not even close to the action are ridiculous.

– THE DESIRE TO WIN – sadly I think that because of the money, many players no longer have their heart in the game. When you’re playing on a 4-11 team and still getting in your Ferrari and driving home to your estate at the end of the day, why push it? Why kill yourself when you don’t have to? Few players anymore in my opinion have that true competitive desire to just win. And this is where college ball is different. I am a BIG FAN of college sports because of the desire to win.

Re: this year’s Super Bowl, while I am not a big fan you have to admire Tom Brady. 40 years old and still picking apart defenses. He is the best QB to ever play the game and I say that as a 49er fan and former Joe Montana groupie. My hope is that Nick Foles and the Eagles will pull off the upset and prevent us all from having to watch another Bill Belichick press conference. Eagles 31 Patriots 27.

 

Open Thread

Mark Noonan65 Comments

Marcy Miller, a Twitter friend of mine, keeps up on Arizona history:

By five a.m. on a cold November 2, 1889, Gila County Sheriff Glenn Reynolds and his deputy, William A. Holmes, had barely begun the second day of their long trek from Globe to the Yuma Territorial Prison with nine prisoners. Eight of the convicts were Apaches – one of them the infamous Apache Kid, another Pash-Tan-Tah – and the remaining prisoner a Mexican man named Jesus Avott. The prisoners rode in a stagecoach driven by its owner, Eugene Middleton. Next to Middleton sat Deputy Holmes, riding shotgun, while Sheriff Reynolds accompanied them on horseback…

Read the whole thing. Interesting slice of old west history.

So, they voted to Release The Memo – we’ll see if Trump approves it. I bet he will – but even if he doesn’t, I understand the House can still release it. At any rate, things are rapidly heating up on this front. From what I’ve read, it seems pretty clear to me that the Obama Administration cooked up a reason to spy on the Trump Campaign in order to aid Hillary’s quest for the White House and when Trump wound up winning, they switched it over to a story about Trump colluding with Russia to win the election. We’re all used to Democrats getting away with stuff like this – but this is really big. Like, Watergate was nothing compared to it big. We’ll see how it comes out.

Google has a new camera that will neatly keep track of your every move. I really don’t understand why anyone buys these things. Look, I like being connected, too…but we’re already in enough databases: why give people permission to essentially spy on you 24/7? Want to know what really set me off on how bad things are getting? Some months back the Mrs and I were walking through a store and I mentioned that we needed to buy more treats for the dog…almost instantly, an ad for dog treats at that store popped up in my Facebook timeline. The fricking thing was listening to me and matched what I said to where I was! I don’t like that, at all. I’ve taken to occasionally entirely shutting off my phone so that there is at least some blocks of time no one knows where I am. But, you just watch: eventually not having your phone on and with you will be seen as evidence against you. 1984 turned out to be an instruction manual.

A possibly intoxicated Gam Gam was last seen reading passages from a pack of lies at the Grammy’s. For some odd reason, this resulted in very low TV ratings for the Grammy Awards. Go figure.

MSMer, in the spirit of 1984, throws the actual news coverage of the 2016 into the Memory Hole and announces that the MSM was too tough on Hillary.

Allahpundit, who really has been allowing his disdain for Trump to get the better of him, wants Trump to jettison the televised State of the Union. I don’t see any reason for this – other than a fierce desire on the part of some to deny Trump a widely-watched, national platform. Heck with that – just having him up there giving the speech will bug our Progressive friends…and that is always a worthy object.

Donald Surber points out that some people coming to ardently support the Wall are illegal immigrants…specifically those who would benefit from the codification of DACA. When you think about it, it makes sense: Democrats might want the DACA people stuck in legal limbo in order to wring whatever political advantage they can out of it…but the actual, flesh and blood human beings involved probably just want to get themselves to legal status so they don’t have to worry about it any more. This is a very illustrative thing: Democrats don’t actually give a darn about anyone. It is perfectly ok, in their minds, if people suffer if they think that suffering can get them power and wealth. The thing for the GOP to do is to figure out a way to explain this – not just to DACA types, but all the various social groups the Democrats keep poor and hopeless. We want them to rise and live their lives in independent dignity…Democrats just want them poor and hopeless because that way they may be suckered into voting Democrat.