Absolutely Stunning, if True

Mark Noonan5 Comments

From Huffington Post:

At a private meeting of conservatives in Cleveland this summer, Donald Trump’s senior economic adviser, Stephen Moore, said the candidate planned to pay for his costly proposals by eliminating the departments of Commerce, Energy and Education; lifting all restrictions on mining, drilling and fracking; ending Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs, and offering rust-belt factory workers new jobs on oil rigs and steel mills.

Speaking at the private summer meeting of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a secretive group of powerful conservatives, Moore, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, also described how Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions had “infiltrated” Trump’s campaign operation, and how Moore and other supply-side economists were working hard to get Trump to be more supportive of free trade…

Personally, I don’t see Trump as in opposition to free trade – I just see him as reasonably suspicious of trade deals which do always seem to work out to higher profits for American corporations and lower employment rates for American citizens. My views are long known on this – I believe in Freedom Trade…free trade with free, democratic nations which having a free press can ensure against cheating (not perfectly, of course, but much better than China’s tyrannical regime allows).

Also long known is my view that we must reduce the size of government and not so much because of government power, but because the way Big Government works out to be a gigantic subsidy machine for the left. The smaller the government, the less money the left has to pursue it’s Progressive goals (and, of course, less chance for Progressives to use government to oppress us). But I’m doubtful of fighting on the hill of the Department of Education right out the gate – that is too easily painted as being “against education”, even though it is nothing of the sort. Now, someone willing to vigorously attack on the issue can, correctly, make out the case that the Department of Education has been directly destructive of education in the United States, but I still wonder at the wisdom of picking that fight right away. On the other hand, picking a fight where you actually are trying to reduce the size of government is a fight worth having – and I note, with great care, that Trump would be the first Presidential candidate since Reagan arguing for a reduction in the size of government – and he’s already staked out a position of protecting Social Security come what may, so the Democrats can’t really use the charge of “Trump wants to starve seniors” with any great effect.

Now, I don’t know how true this all is, nor how committed Trump is to it…but if it is true, it is a political earthquake.

Barack Obama and the History Books

Mark Noonan59 Comments

Matt’s got a bit up at TownHall:

What will my son be taught about Barack Obama?

At two years old, he won’t remember the Obama years, but he’s most definitely going to be taught about them outside the home one day. Liberal bias in schools is well known, and one can only imagine just how slanted curricula will be about the 44th president.

When I was in school, I can remember being taught whoppers like: the Second Amendment only applies to militias and/or muskets, the Founders wanted to keep religion separate from the public square, southern Dixiecrats all became Republicans, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt ended the Great Depression….

Read the rest here.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan46 Comments

If you’re digging up dirt on Melania Trump then you are just being lousy. She’s the spouse, not the candidate.

The MSM is convinced that Trump did not have a good day yesterday. I’m not sure he had a good day or a bad day, mostly because it’s hard to tell what the heck is happening in 2016. But one thing I will say: he definitely ripped the lid off the hypocrisy of our immigration debate. Essentially, people are shocked and hurt that Trump said we should enforce U.S. law regarding immigration. The non-Trump position is now, “any desire to have any immigration or border laws is bad”…and I’ve seen some #NeverTrump people finally come out and admit that they are #ImWithHer over this. Trust me on this – any Conservative who now jumps on the Hillary bandwagon will be a full-blown Progressive within 6 months – partially because their new Progressive friends will insist (Progressives really, really hate dissent) and partially because a lot of Conservatives are turning out to have always been Progressives who merely want a low corporate tax rate. A lot of illusions are dying in 2016 – one of the main things to go down is the illusion that there ever was a Conservative movement. We genuine Conservatives will not be rebuilding, but building for the first time a Conservative movement in 2017.

Hint: it won’t look anything like the false-Conservative thing which has proved a barnacle on American politics for the last 20 years.

Zika is now in Miami Beach – because we all thought the 21st century was going to be about insect-borne disease, right?

I completely understand Jonah Goldberg’s call to purge the Alt Right – but I do wonder why the left never has to purge their extremists?

Nate Silver – proof that even among Progressives you can find a sensible person from time to time.

The thing about Hillary is that there appears to be no bottom to her corruption.

St. Thomas More was a Conservative:

Ignorant People are Unpatriotic People

Mark Noonan5 Comments

“My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober”. – G K Chesterton

Colin Kaepernick is just someone who doesn’t know history – which puts him right square in the middle of all too many of the American people. I saw a Facebook meme a couple days ago which asserted that Cecil Rhodes killed 60 million Africans compared to Hitler killing 6 million Jews. I did a bit of checking and found out the entire population of Africa was 133 million when Rhodes as doing this thing – how he managed to kill 40% of the continent’s population escapes me. This is especially perplexing as he didn’t have a “kill all Africans” plank in his political philosophy as Hitler had a “kill all Jews” in his. But that is the level of discourse these days – people are so ignorant of history that anyone who wants to grind an axe just has to make a statement and some people will believe it.

Columbus is made out to be this horrible person who set out to pillage and enslave – guys, he was just an intrepid sea captain who wanted to find a way to engage in the lucrative spice trade with Asia…as Muslim powers controlled the overland route and the Portuguese had got the route around Africa, pretty much the only other way was going west. Columbus, like everyone else, just had no idea an entire continent stood in the way. Every bad thing which happened afterwards was laid at Columbus’ feet – and it is all asserted as deliberate. Remember, people say that what happened to the Native people was a genocide – which means they are asserting it was a deliberate act. Of course, almost all the Native people who died were killed by disease, often before they even set eyes on an European. Isolated for a very long time in the Americas, the Native people had simply never encountered outside disease environments…as it turns out, the Europeans arrived with a concentrated disease environment from Europe, Africa and Asia. But this was going to happen eventually – someone, at some point, was going to sail from Europe or Africa or Asia and arrive in the Americas. The only way it could have been avoided is if the Americas remained untouched until modern medicine was invented and even then only if the first people to arrive were a bunch of doctors bearing vaccines.

We are told (endlessly) that if we don’t pay close attention to the bad then we are denying the bad ever happened. That is just a bit of nonsense. Does anyone sit around continually going over every last mistake they ever made? Of course not – when we idly think of our past, we like very much to think over the pleasant things we have done or experienced. A wise person does ponder the bad in order to learn the proper lesson from it – but to dwell on it is morose. But we’re not even so much dwelling on it as obsessing over it. It is an endless parade of evil and everyone who ever did a great thing in America is torn down because he or she also had some sins to account for. Because the Founders weren’t perfect, they are to be disparaged; as if any human being – even the most Progressive hero – hasn’t been heir to human folly. It is sufficient to know enough of the bad to ensure against repeating it – but once that is done, it is time to seek inspiration from the good that was done so it can be built upon. And even though George Washington engaged in the sin of holding slaves, it is far more important that we learn of his courage in adversity; his determination to succeed against all odds; his unwillingness to seize power for himself.

Colin Kaepernick probably has never heard of Prince Estabrook – he was a slave, and also the first African-American to fight in battle for American liberty. He was wounded during the Battle of Lexington and Concord. He continued to serve in the militia until the end of the Revolutionary War, after which he was granted freedom. It was a terrible crime that he was held as a slave by men who held themselves to be freemen. But that was the nature of the times – slavery existed everywhere on Earth in one form or another, and when Estabrook stood firm on Lexington Common, it was still about a decade before any voice would be raised asserting that slavery as a thing was inherently wrong. To remember the good and the bad is necessary – and thus remembering Prince Estabrook is important…because he was good and brave and fought for freedom even when he didn’t have it, because people wrongly believed that others could be held as slaves. But he still fought. Plenty of men – born free – would run away on the battlefields of the Revolutionary War. Estabrook didn’t run away – and because of men like him, we have freedom. But, also, because of men like Washington and Jefferson, who both owned slaves. It is said that the evil men do is interred with their bones while the good they do lives on – and this is completely true. We don’t know much about Estabrook – like most true heroes, he doesn’t seem to have gotten around to talking up his actions and making sure everyone knew about them. All we really know of him is that he lived and he fought…but he was also a man, and thus there were probably times when he didn’t rise to Christian perfection. But, no matter – if from time to time he wasn’t perfect, that is now interred with his bones. But the good he did lives on.

Right now, our nations teeters and rocks – we sway giddily on the path, reeling from disunion, bitterness and mutual recrimination. We hope, as Lincoln once did, that the mystic cords of memory which stretch from each Patriot’s grave will continue to bind us…but for that to happen, people have to know about it. Right now, all too many people don’t…and that is why you can find people saying America never was great. But America has been great from the beginning – it started out great, because it was started out by people willing to sacrifice all to strive for an ideal. We must recapture the past – the whole past, and most especially the past which showed us at our best. If we deny that – if we continue to harp upon evils done along the way with no mind to the greatness done by intent – then we will be doomed to failure.

What Media Bias? Part 201

Mark Noonan12 Comments

Been a while since I did one of these – but this article has some interesting things to say regarding media bias and the 2000 election:

…The northwesternmost part of Florida is the Panhandle, which stretches along the Gulf of Mexico to Alabama. Often called the “Redneck Riviera,” it is the most Republican part of Florida, regularly giving Republicans big margins in state and national elections. The nine Panhandle counties that are farthest west—Bay, Calhoun, Escambia, Holmes, Jackson, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Walton, and Washington—are in the Central Time Zone, and one additional county, Gulf, is split between Central and Eastern Time. According to the Miami Herald, “It is only a few miles to the Alabama border from anywhere in the western Panhandle, but more than five hundred miles and a cultural light-year to Miami.”

On Election Night, between 6:30 and 7:50 p.m. Eastern, anchors on all the major networks and cable channels reported over and over again that the polls in all of Florida closed at 7 p.m. Eastern. Not once did anyone on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News Channel, NBC, or MSNBC inform the audience that Florida has two time zones and two poll closing times. During that hour and 20 minutes, 13 journalists asserted a total of 39 times that there was only one poll-closing time throughout the entire state of Florida…

Why does that matter? Well, after 7pm Eastern, voting dropped off to practically nothing in the Florida Panhandle. It was over, you see? The Networks were already calling Florida for Gore before the polls closed in the Panhandle. The article goes on to note that the drop off probably cost Bush a net of about 11,000 votes – that margin would have still triggered an automatic re-count, but with that large a margin the result would never have been in doubt. Gore would have, at the latest, conceded a day or two after the election…no Bush vs Gore to the Supreme Court, no doubt cast over President Bush’s legitimacy. A lot of things would have been different (as an aside, I still recall very vividly that when the Networks finally did call the State for Bush, it was something like 97% of precincts reporting and Bush had a healthy lead – all of a sudden, a bunch of votes reported from heavily Democrat precincts and, presto!, it was effectively a tied race…I do wish someone had looked into that little, electoral miracle; that sudden surge in Democrat votes in FL is what caused the Networks to re-re-call FL and Gore to suddenly refuse to concede).

In light of this, you might recall the JournoList scandal – where it was discovered that a bunch of journalists had a private chat room, as it were, where they could discuss and coordinate their message…in the service of Democrats, naturally. We don’t know if there was such a thing during the 2000 election, but such things as JournoList and the massive repetition of the “polls close at 7 Eastern” lie over all MSM outfits in 2000 does indicate that the friendliness of journalists for their Democrat pals probably extends beyond mere friendliness. It might well go all the way to Democrats and journalists coordinating their efforts to tear down Republicans and build up Democrats in the public mind.

Remember, it wouldn’t take much – a hint here, a short phone call there and there you have it…messages all in agreement, everyone takes essentially the same line about whatever issue is being pushed at the moment. It’s not like this hasn’t happened – Ben Rhode’s demonstrably coordinated the MSM talking points for Obama’s Iran deal, after all.

We all know that almost all journalists are liberals – Progressives; Democrats with by-lines, as Instapundit puts it. They are not in journalism to serve objective truth – most of them, given their education, probably don’t believe there is such a thing as objective truth. But they do believe in Progressive ideology – they are quite certain that the world will be a better place if Progressive ideology triumphs in every particular. We know they are not on our side – but we only partially accept that they are on the Democrats’ side. In a certain sense, we know this – but in a larger sense, we still reject it…still expect that when facts are on our side, they’ll have to acknowledge it and (however grudgingly) go along with the facts. Drop that – if the facts disprove Progressive ideology, then the facts are wrong: this is how Progressives always have and always will view matters. And if they have to simply make up facts – or work up a scandal to destroy the purveyor of anti-Progressive facts – then that is what they’ll do.

And they do it all the time – right now, they are inventing “facts” to show that Hillary Clinton’s foundation is just this wonderful, life-giving entity out to serve the poor and downtrodden, even though all the actual facts show it to be nothing but a slush fund to keep the Clintons and their minions on the gravy train. What genuine charity would hire a political hatchet-man like Sid Blumenthal at $10,000.00 a month? Don’t get me wrong, almost all major political figures have a hatchet man or woman on the payroll; it’s part of the nature of things in politics…but 10 large per month for a hatchet man at a charity? Come on! That is just a bit of payola to your hatchet man…keeping him well fed until you needed him for political work. But, if you listen to the MSM, they’re going to have you believing that the Clinton Foundation was the next best thing to Mother Theresa…and perhaps better because the Clinton Foundation is pro-abortion (remember, in the topsy-turvey world of the left, being in favor of abortion in saintly).

And, so, don’t believe them. Oh, you can read and listen to their reports – and when an identifiable fact comes across, you can believe it (but check, to be sure – and even if it’s confirmed elsewhere, run it through your “does this really seem likely?” mental filter). But remember that even when the MSM reports something true, it is bound to be mixed with lies – and as I said the other day, add an ounce of lie to a pound of truth, and you get a lie. The stories will be reported, if they relate in any way to politics, in a way which will reflect ill on GOPers/Conservatives and well on Democrats/Progressives.

As it relates to 2016, the real problem is that Trump is giving the Democrats and their MSM lapdogs a lot of ammunition – but, even then, keep in mind that as bad as Trump may be, the MSM will paint him as worse than he is (and they’ll be assisted this year by a section of the right which has decided that hating Trump is vastly more important than stopping Progressives). Don’t fall into conspiracy theory stuff about it – it isn’t a conspiracy, once you understand that the nice, attractive and well-spoken reporter on TV is as dyed in the wool Progressive as Hillary and is convinced that come heck or high water, Hillary simply must be elected President. Even if they wanted to be honest, this simple fact of life will color their perception of what is going on…and if they don’t care about being honest, then it’ll just be worse as far as telling the truth goes.

Random Thoughts

Mark Noonan32 Comments

A Conservative movement would argue for a ban on no-fault divorce.

Here’s a shorthand of our problem: we’re a nation which has 800K+ divorces per year and we’re mad about politicians not keeping their promises.

People are furious that the drug maker Mylan has jacked up the price of the EpiPen. Progressives are upset over the price hike while Conservatives are out there pointing out (correctly) that the reason Mylan can do this is because of restrictive, government regulations which prevent a competitor from placing a different EpiPen product on the market…but even the Conservatives are missing the point that Mylan has spent just in 2016 $875,000.00 lobbying the government, and they spent $1,550,000.00 lobbying in 2015. Who wants to bet that some of that lobbying was related to making sure that Mylan has a clear shot at the EpiPen market? Who wants to suppose that even a penny of it went to lobbying for a more open drug market? As I’ve been saying for years, Big Corporation is no friend of ours – they are not Conservative. And, yes, this means that we Conservatives should be fighting against Big Corporation. That is, if we ever want to win. I advocate for a law requiring the break up of any corporation that has a market capitalization in excess of $50 billion (that, by the way, breaks up all the large corporations you’re likely familiar with). Competition is good – let’s have some.

Whatever level of immigration we ultimately decide upon, it should be based upon merit and national need. We don’t need people over 45 moving here. We do need more doctors and engineers. Don’t need more billionaires. And we don’t need that many of any sort – we’re rising towards 320 million people, and we’ll hit 400 million by mid-century. In and among such a large population, we should be able to find all the people we need.

A Progressive is someone who continually changes his goal – every time something a Progressive does fails, it isn’t a time to re-assess the original desire, but to make up a whole, new desire and then pretend that was the goal all along.

Public schools are built on the concept that everyone has the same general education desires and abilities. I’ve looked around a bit and noticed one very stunning fact about people: they are different from one another. Some kids are good at this, some are good at that – and the parents likely know best what the kid likes and is good at. To be sure, there are bad parents out there – but most will make an effort at it; and if we didn’t have a public school system, then we’d have a myriad of different types of schools catering to different desires and different income levels. We, as a people, need plumbers, electricians, carpenters and mechanics far more than we even need engineers…and vastly more than we need Liberal Arts grads. There is an honorable place for those who learn essentially for the sake of learning – who delve deep into history and philosophy and try to understand the nature of humanity…but when the faucet is leaking, you need a plumber. You’ll never actually need someone to explain Cartesian philosophy to you.

Telling the truth is not the same as not lying – you can say nothing and thus not lie, but you aren’t by that act telling the truth. Telling the truth, as our famed oath in court says, means to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The problem with modern times is that, for the most part, people refuse to tell the truth – to tell everything that relates to the subject at hand, in clear and concise language that cannot be mistaken in meaning.

There is no such thing as a half-truth, by the way. Add an ounce of lie to a pound of truth and all you get is a lie.

If you are opposed to Big Government, you should be opposed to the death penalty. After all, a wise man doesn’t trust the government to consistently get it right about trivial matters – it is the height of folly to somehow think that the government will always get it right on the matter of executing a human being. I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever want it on my conscience that an innocent man was sent to death because of a mistake, or because of prosecutorial misconduct.

The End of Superficial Politics

Mark Noonan30 Comments

I got to use the word “jejune” today – not too often I get to use that word, but when considering all the punditry I’ve seen since the 2016 Presidential cycle got rolling, “jejune” seemed quite appropriate. I’ve never seen so many people – including people who are supposedly smart and informed – be so utterly childish and superficial in their views.

The thing which set me off has been the response to Trump’s statements on whether or not African-American and other minorities in the United States should roll the dice on him. In the end, all Trump said was that a lot of things are very bad, Hillary represents precisely the people who created the bad and, so, why not give something new a chance? That was it – all of it, actually, quite sensible, in a way. It’s not that anyone can be sure that Trump has any answers but that we can be sure that Hillary will merely continue the status quo…a status quo which has African-American youth unemployment at more than double the unemployment rate for white youth…31% against 14%. A status quo which also has African-American (and other minority) youth trapped in failing schools, forced to live in crime-ridden neighborhoods, enduring the long-term effects of family breakdown. If there’s something Trump could possibly do to make things worse in America’s minority communities, I’m all ears. Tell me. I’m listening.

And as I’ve been listening, most of what I’ve been hearing on the anti-Trump right is mere echoes of the Progressive critique – Trump’s words are racist, apparently because they point out what is wrong and assert that Hillary and the Progressives can’t (won’t) fix it. To give an idea of the silliness we’re getting into among some on the right, I pointed out that Trump is the first GOPer in a very long time to directly address the African-American community. I was immediately hit back with all the times GOP candidates for President have addressed the NAACP! As if that is to address the African-American community! Sorry, folks, but the NAACP is a mere arm of the DNC – the NAACP is an organization which provides a rubber stamp of approval for whatever Progressive notions the left has seized on at the moment. What is the NAACP? An organization which is now fighting tooth and nail against charter schools – the very charter schools which give, among others, African-American kids a chance to escape the failed public school system. The NAACP made a choice – black kids, or union bosses (and their donations): the NAACP choose the union bosses. To speak to the NAACP is to merely speak to the DNC. It is not a worthwhile activity for Republicans or Conservatives. To speak to the African-American or other minority groups what needs to be done is to speak to them, directly. Trump did that. Yes, it would have been vastly better to do it in Detroit – but various Progressive groups would have started a riot to prevent Trump from actually pointing out, at ground zero, just how lousy Progressive policies are.

It seems that we are not allowed to discuss certain things. Make certain points. Bring to light certain truths and falsehoods of modern, American life. For the longest time, we thought it was only Progressives who were proving gate-keepers preventing certain things from being discussed. Turns out, plenty on the right are, as well. I don’t know why. Perhaps they are afraid to – it is risky. As we can see, discussing it merely brings the charge of “racist”. But that doesn’t excuse childishness – nor cowardice. The people who live in the hell-holes the left has created in America are our fellow Americans. They are part of us – they are our fellow citizens; our brothers and sisters. We must go to their aid – and even if they reject us in scorn, we are still bound to try. But here’s the thing – I think that if we do go and try, out of every ten people, nine might reject us in scorn but one might be moved to listen…and that is one more person who can help us reform our nation. If we do nothing, we’ll still be called racists, but we’ll also not have any chance of getting any of their votes…any of their aid, that is, in saving our nation.

As I’ve said all along, Trump is no one’s answer – but I will credit him with this: his candidacy has exposed the massive hypocrisy at the center of American political life. A hypocrisy which is a sick bit of theater wherein we pretend to argue, but all eventually just go along to get along.

It is time to end our superficial politics. We have real problems. Real people are actually suffering – some of them unto death. It is time to attack what is wrong – all of it, every where. It is time to start doing what is right – even if it is difficult. More than likely, we’re going to have Hillary as President – that will have to be endured. But if all we do is dance around the real issues then come 2020, we’ll fail, again, to take a step to reform our nation. Some have said that Trump ensures that we won’t get another Trump – the truth of the matter is that Trump ensures we’ll get an endless parade of Trumps, on both sides, unless we actually start to deal with the real problems. You see, as long as we keep up this kabuki theater of pretending to argue and pretending to do things – while leaving a corrupt Ruling Class to just keep rolling along – then the anger which propelled Trump will not only remain, it will grow.

Weekend Open Thread

Mark Noonan21 Comments

Nothing better proves the complete hypocrisy of the left better than the way they’ve treated Obama’s non-action on the Louisiana floods. The left only cares about people when they can wring political advantage out of it – there’s no upside in highlighting disaster in Louisiana (Democrat President, Democrat governor), so there’s just nothing to care about.

LA Times tracking poll shows Trump once again with a national lead – not that big a thing, but the LA Times did pick up the previous Trump surge in the polls. I suspect that Trump’s “pivot” (as it were) over the past week is going to bring most GOPers home to him…and that will work to increase his poll numbers.

Libertarians should focus on liberty. Of course. But they don’t seem to be – in fact, in 2016, I’ve seen them as de-facto Democrat Lite.

Ed Morrisey’s review of the Ben Hur reboot. He gives it 4 out of 5 stars. I’m very wary of watching remakes as 99% of them suck very, very badly. This is especially a tough hill to climb for me because (a) I was always a big fan of Charlton Heston and (b) that version of Ben Hur is now a beloved memory of my youth. I think, though, that I might give this one a shot.

A Palestinian who rendered aid to a Jewish woman is facing persecution by his fellow Palestinians. Couple this with that Egyptian athlete who refused to shake hands with the Israeli in Rio and you really get to the crux of the problem: all too many Muslims refuse to concede the basic humanity of Israelis. Obviously, given the subject of the story, some of them do – but enough of them don’t to cause all the trouble.

The glories of socialism – Venezuelans raid zoo for food.

Some people are upset at questions regarding Hillary’s overall health – but I think it just natural. She’s pushing 70 and Trump is over 70…both of them should be observed closely as to whether they have the sheer physical stamina for the job. And there’s Trump, out on the hustings day in and day out…while Hillary keeps to a light schedule and just isn’t in the news all that much. To be sure, part of this is just in the nature of things – Hillary is disliked and her advisors have probably carefully explained to her that the less people see her, the better her chances…but surely the Democrats can come up with enough friendly audiences to keep her busy?

Honest conversations about race are anything but. The bottom line is that the Progressives don’t want such a conversation as anything relevant and true on the subject indicts them. But, meanwhile, the right also doesn’t want such a conversation because, well, I guess we’re afraid to have it. But it does need to be had – and Trump, to his credit, has at least dived into it. I’m praying that we on the right start seriously talking about it – and, more importantly, listening about it. The future of our nation really revolves around how we resolve this issue…Tribalism is what can break us apart and finish us as a people. We must become united.