Obeying Immigration Laws: Not a Big Ask

Mark Noonan16 Comments

Last night on X I did something I very rarely do: got into an argument with a priest. I’m always wary of such out of respect. But this was a bridge too far and I felt I had to speak. The issue was illegal immigration and the Catholic Church’s efforts to instruct illegals on how to avoid deportation. I objected to such efforts on grounds that it amounts to helping people evade the law. The rejoinder was that we have a moral obligation to follow the laws and so illegals must know their rights, especially as regards to ICE needing a warrant to enter a house. It went back and forth a bit from there but it ended (that is, no further response), with me pointing out that this was the assertion being made:

Congrats, illegal! You’ve jumped the fence! Jackpot! You broke the law but now the Americans must scrupulously follow every possible law and pay for you to stay while they go through a lengthy and expensive process to get you to leave!

How is this just? It simply isn’t. And here’s the real crux of the matter: obeying our laws is not a big ask. It is not an onerous burden to demand that everyone trying to enter the USA do so at a legal point of entry. In fact, crossing illegally is vastly more dangerous and expensive for the migrants than crossing legally. Our asylum laws are very generous. It isn’t difficult for anyone who is under any real threat back home to obtain refugee status. There is a fully developed legal process to determine if a person is a refugee and the dice are loaded in favor of the foreigner. To not avail yourself of this and to instead try the highly dangerous and expensive illegal crossing can only mean one thing: you have no case to make.

And do keep something in mind here: the advocates for these people illegally in the country are not asking for us to provide for an even more generous asylum law combined with strict border security. They’d probably get that out of Trump who is not opposed to immigration: he has said again and again – to some dismay of the hard core MAGA voters – that he’s ok with H1B visas and legal immigration as such. His whole thing is merely that we stop the illegal invasion. That we secure our border and find out who is coming in. That our most law-abiding President since at least Coolidge just wants us to obey the laws.

Entering legally is not a big ask. Neither is getting your visa renewed (advocates for the illegals always claim that half or more illegals are visa overstays…as if that somehow makes it ok). I get the Church on migration: the Church is supranational and has always advocated for the free movement of people. I also understand that one of our charges against the old USSR was their denial of the right to move. But here’s the thing: an insistence that the laws be followed is not anti-immigrant. It is, in fact, the most pro-immigrant stance one can take. It protects the rights of the migrants – whereas the illegal immigration system is routinely and grossly abusive.

This is another thing we don’t pay nearly enough attention to. The real breaking point for me was a couple years ago when this 17 year old boy was found wandering the desert in Arizona (I believe). He had been abandoned by his traffickers because he couldn’t keep up. He was left to die. He would have died if he hadn’t been very fortunately found. When found he was literally crying for his mother…it ripped at my heart to read the story. And then I thought further about it.

The story said that the boy was traveling north to join his father – an illegal immigrant working in (as I recall) Minnesota. In other words, he was being sent to work alongside his illegal father doing work neither of them were legally permitted to do. Then you consider: who lets their child take a difficult, dangerous, several thousand mile journey with strangers? No parent does that – unless the alternative was very much worse. What alternative could be worse? After all, dad was already in the USA – sure, being paid substandard wages by ruthlessly exploitive rat bastards…but still making far more than he could make in Mexico. In other words, was there a crying need so desperate that you’d essentially bet your son’s life on it?

Nope. Can’t be. Then it dawned on me – the kid was from an area of Mexico where the Cartels are all-powerful. The Cartels that transport the illegals. He wasn’t sent north by his mother…he was sent north by the Cartels who provide the slave labor for the USA. And you just know take a cut of the wages (after all, the Cartels don’t transport you for free; its actually a pretty stiff price and most of the migrants don’t have that much cash…but you know the Cartels are getting paid). You can easily see the Cartels telling mom that the boy is going north…and what can she do? She just a woman against ruthless men armed with machine guns…they own the police. And she’s got her other kids to think of. Off the boy goes…almost to his death.

In my reading of the relevant US statutes, ICE almost never needs a judicial warrant. It is a bit debatable whether they need one to enter a private home or whether probable cause is sufficient to enter – but even if they do need a judicial warrant to enter a private home such entry can only be objected to by the home’s owner or agent…and, guys, illegals living ten to a room do not have a valid rental agreement and the owner isn’t going to object because doing so just proves the violation of multiple immigration and zoning laws. But in addition to this, it is absurd to demand that we Americans adhere to the highest jot and tittle of the law while the illegals are free to break our laws at will. It can’t work like that – the law isn’t a suicide pact. Sure, everyone has inalienable rights and I’ll die to defend such rights…but this doesn’t mean I’m going to let someone screw me via the law.

The illegals didn’t forget that its illegal to enter. They didn’t forget that there are legal points of entry. They didn’t forget their visa was going to expire. They didn’t forget that illegals cannot be legally employed in the USA. They knew all up and down the line and again and again that they were breaking laws – and that they were giving a gigantic middle finger to the United States of America…showing utter contempt for this nation and her people. Its a stranger walking into your house, taking a sandwich out of your fridge, settling on the couch and then demanding you go through a legal eviction process to remove him. Even if the law says you must, justice says you can grab him by the hair and toss him out.

And before anyone out there goes on about the multiple Biblical injunctions to welcome the stranger in both Old and New Testaments: I am the most welcoming guy you can imagine. I’m also helpful to those in distress. If I did find the man beaten by robbers I would do everything I could to take care of him. Anyone coming into my country is going to get a hearty “hello”. If you are a foreigner and your life depends on escape from your homeland, not only will I accept you into the USA, I’ll even agree to our government helping you to escape the clutches of the tyrants trying to kill you. For instance, I’m totally ok right now with every Druze, Alawite and Christian in Syria getting the heck out of Dodge – I know what is happening to them and what is likely to keep happening to them.

Knock on the door. That’s all I’m asking. Let me know who you are as you come in. Cross at a legal point of entry. Once again: not a big ask.

And nobody can have any rational, moral objection to this stance. Just as nobody would let a stranger come in through the window unannounced, so nobody can rationally object to a nation hanging a sign at the legal point of entry and saying that everyone has to come through that door. It is the only possible way to do it morally…because having a legal point of entry where people present themselves for legal entry cuts out all of the criminals – in and outside the USA – harming these poor people. You’re safe. Come here. I’ll look after you as if you’re one of my own. If you can’t ever go home again I’ll place you on a path to citizenship. I’m not cruel. The traffickers and their enablers are.

And I’m terribly sorry but being poor is not being oppressed. Almost everyone is poorer than Americans. Heck, the UK’s income is on par with Alabama, America’s poorest State. If being poor is a valid reason to enter the USA then we’re going to have to take 9 out of 10 people in the world and that is obviously not physically possible. I understand that if you are a poor foreigner you might want to come to America and live the American dream – I favor that. But not everyone all at once. Maybe we can increase the annual numbers but we also can’t just take in millions willy nilly. We’re 37 trillion dollars in debt. We have massive homeless and drug addict problems. Our infrastructure needs lots of work. Our mining, manufacturing and farming sectors have to be revived. We can’t do everything for everyone all at once and that means we have to prioritize our resources…and, sure, people wanting to come in are in the mix, but they aren’t everything. Some people will just have to wait a bit.

In the end, I refuse to be insane on this issue. Or any other, for that matter. It isn’t a big ask, you know, to demand that people be clean and respectful in public spaces, either. I could go on quite a long list of things the Left has tolerated which are actually intolerable. But that’s for another time: today I talk immigration and I refuse to be insane. I refuse to be suckered into essentially providing back up for traffickers. I won’t be guilt tripped into the ruthless exploitation of foreigners. I will insist upon the easiest possible way: just obey the law. It isn’t difficult. If everyone does that regarding immigration, then the issue is solved. Forever. At little long term cost.

Time for everyone to get on board with this. Not a big ask.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

Stock markets have been sliding and, naturally, the Democrats and Never Trumpers (BIRM) are all, “see??? We told you so!!!”. The reality is that Trump’s actions are deflating the Biden Bubble. The stock market gains of the past 4 years were illusory: fueled by massive inflationary spending and producing, very likely, no real wealth at all…indeed, ten years from now a review of that time frame might reveal we lost real wealth over the 4 years. Reality actually started to set in before Biden was carted out – many months of year-over-year declines in the “win” for Vegas casinos. Always an excellent barometer of economic health…Vegas does well when people have money to blow.

In addition to the printing- and debt-fueled asset bubble, it was also manipulated higher via bogus government stats. This sort of thing started under Obama (with a chance it started under Clinton). It is very easy to manipulate the numbers – especially the top-line inflation and employment numbers which are still, quite ridiculously, accepted as gospel in the financial world. If you think the little bureaucrats in the Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t lie for politics, then you just haven’t been paying attention. Of course they will – and they did. They are probably trying to lie right now, making out that things are worse under Trump than actual. I do hope his Treasury Secretary gets a handle on it. We do need actual economic data, after all. Hard to make valid decisions based on false information.

This will hurt! Economic dislocations always do. It hurt recently in Argentina when Milei took a DOGE-like chainsaw to Argentine government. It is hard to obtain economic news from Argentina as the global MSM is controlled by people who hate Milei as much as they now hate Musk…but they can’t hide the fact that Argentina’s monthly inflation rate has dropped from 300% to just over 2%. When you start to take apart a system based on graft then that system will experience pain. But it is merely draining the poison out of the system…and better for Trump to be doing it now, pretty much on purpose, than just muddling along waiting for another 2008-style financial collapse. A year from now will be the test – and my bet is that inflation will be beaten, interest rates will be much lower and the economy starting to boom just in time for the 2026 midterms.

Meanwhile, how are the Democrats prepping for next year? On a day when they could have been highlighting the market drop (this will temporarily hurt Trump’s approval, no doubt about it) they decided to go with this:

Khalil is one of those piece of trash foreigners who lives in the USA (ie, nowhere near the third world…poop hole he claims he’s proud to be from) and organizes anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and anti-American protests. He’s a green card holder but that has now been revoked and he’s going to be heading back home. Dems are trying to tear-jerk us into a guilt trip by pointing out he’s married to an American woman who is pregnant with his child. My suggestion: she goes with him and finds out what life is like for a woman under Islamist rule. See if she’s still proud of him then. If they let her out of the house ever again.

And how did our man Trump respond to this disgusting effort at emotional blackmail?

Very weirdly even some on the right are arguing this guy has rights – to a certain extent, yes. He’s a human being and all human beings are endowed with certain rights. But he’s not a citizen. Our laws are the attempt by the citizens of the USA to secure the rights endowed to them … not some backdoor for a hate-filled foreigner to enter our country and try to tear it down. Guarantee you, no American soldier ever gave his life so that foreigners could shout anti-Semitic slogans on a college campus. If you aren’t a citizen of the USA then you are a guest – and guests are to behave will or be asked to leave. Khalil is free to go back home and be all the Jew-hater he ever wanted to be. He doesn’t get to be here doing that.

At this point it is good to note that what Trump and team are doing is clearing the decks. A lot of people are upset at the pace of this or that action or wishing that something else was being put first and so on. But what Trump is going via DOGE, via firing people, via things like deporting that creep is sort of resetting the system to its factory settings. This is why Trump has signed off on the Continuing Resolution – something we all despise and I’m sure Trump does, too. But with the cuts happening via DOGE and the Democrats about to be starved for funds, the time for the budget battle is in September after Trump has defunded the Left and fired/deported some of the leadership. The fact that the Senate Democrats posted that on X shows that the adults have abandoned the Democrats…probably because the money isn’t coming in any longer. Its the theater kids in charge…and, man oh man, are they stupid! If all goes just moderately well, then Trump will be setting the entire fiscal agenda against Democrats who are shouting incoherently about issues the American people are 80/20 against.

I’ve never felt better about politics than right now – and it just keeps getting better and better! Like I said, we’re in for some pain. There will be rocks in the path. But the course is set – as long as we remain firm and Team Trump’s security has their head on a swivel, we’re just going to roll over the Left.

Intervene or Not?

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Syria has started to descend into murder as predicted by everyone who isn’t an idiot. Remember: those of us who were wary of ending the Assad regime were called Putin stooges. To be sure, the Assad regime was horrible and aligned with both Russia and Iran…but everyone with a bit of knowledge of Syria knew that a post-Assad Syria wasn’t going to be pretty (and this is why our real policy vis Syria was to wean them away from their Iranian/Russian connection). In this particular case, it looks like some Alawites (Assad’s clan) attacked some ISIS types and in response the ISIS types are killing every Alawite, Druze and Christian they can get their hands on…because that’s what ISIS types do.

And, of course, nobody cares. It isn’t Jews killing Muslims or Russians killing Ukrainians so the world is barely taking notice and if the world does, they’ll blame Israel and the United States for it (somehow). Meanwhile, over in the Democratic Republic of Congo a few weeks back 70 Christians were beheaded by ISIS types and there’s been hardly a ripple about it…or about all the other Christians routinely massacred in Africa and elsewhere around the world. It’s funny, isn’t it, that certain things are front and center and others aren’t.

I bring this up because we are told – endlessly – that we have a moral obligation to assist Ukraine. That if we sit this one out we’re being horribly bad people who are letting the bad guys win. Ok. But which bad guys? Is Putin the only bad guy in the world? And if we have an obligation to rescue Ukraine, don’t we have an obligation to rescue the Druze of Syria? Probably not. Because, you see, the Druze don’t have any money. Christians in Congo have even less. Nobody in those places is going to be passing out 50 grand a month no-show jobs…nor would there be juicy contracts for anti-air systems or other high tech war material. Sure, Congo has a lot of resources but the people you need to bribe to extract them are already bribed and the stuff is flowing…who cares if 70 Christians are beheaded in their Church on a Sunday? It seems our moral obligations are a bit selective and mostly driven by money.

Guys, I’m good with either model for America in the world: Isolationist or Interventionist. Personally I prefer Isolationist but I can see the argument for Interventionist. But if we’re going to be Interventionist then it can’t be selective except in the sense of practicality. That is, if we’re going to be Interventionist then the reason why we don’t intervene in A is because at the moment we’re intervening in B and C and so just have to let A slide for a while…but A is on the menu once B and C are dealt with. And if we are Interventionist it can’t be driven by money – because that is totally immoral. It must only be driven by a desire to set things right.

But here’s the real kicker that will show that Interventionism isn’t really the way to go: once you go in, you can’t just back out. The European scramble for colonies wasn’t exactly that. Oh, sure, there was a scramble to get some choice spots but most of the territory which came under European rule did so because of the force of events…you’ve conquered your valuable trading port! Woohoo! But to operate this port you need peace around it but barbarian tribes are raiding the people living right next to your port…killing people and carrying off slaves and so forth. So, you move out and take a bit more territory under control…not out of a desire for more land, but just because you have to. But the further you move out the more you find that causes you trouble and so, eventually, you just take the entire territory under your rule to make sure that basic human decency rules the roost. Once in, you’re in. And I doubt that Americans are really willing (or suited) to be colonial overlords.

This interventionism where we arm various factions, provide food and medical aid for all factions and then watch as the savages murder each other by turns is not really all that good a thing. Syria isn’t the first nation to fall into chaos and murder after we intervened to “help”. The other interventionism where we arm one side in a proxy war also isn’t all that great…the bottom line as we see in Ukraine is that the Ukrainians aren’t very good at it. Russians aren’t, either. But this just means we have a stalemate and lots of death and a risk of a wider war getting out of hand. The Brits tried arming friendly forces to protect their interests in India but it fell apart because the friendly forces were just as bad as the forces causing trouble…and so the British Indian Army was created…with British officers commanding Native troops…who, under British command, performed well. To get Urkaine’s military up to snuff would require American officers in command from battalion on up and fully in charge of training. Why? I don’t know why after 3 years of hard fighting Ukraine’s military isn’t any good. It should be. That amount of battle testing should mean those on the line are Blood and Guts Pattons to a man…they ain’t. It is what it is. The Czarist army made up of Russians and Ukrainians simply melted away in 1917 when they had already won the war against Germany…all they had to do was stay in line for another year and it was all over. They didn’t. True grit isn’t as common as some might think.

So, what I’m saying here is that if we intervene it has to be total intervention. Nations like Ukraine and Congo who are failing the basic tests of being functioning States have to be left entirely alone or taken over entirely. Pick one. No halfsies. This is why I prefer to stay out – the amount of effort required to be successfully interventionist is more than I want America to expend…and the only way to possibly make it work it total takeover and to start taxing the foreigners for the costs of our intervention. And this is what needs to be presented to the interventionists when they get excited about their next killing field: what are you actually trying to accomplish? Another Afghanistan? Another Haiti? Or should we, instead, shoot for the Crown Colony of Malacca…which was peaceful and prosperous under British rule? If I’m to intervene – if I’m to save a people from disaster – then I want it coming with an American Governor-General. Rather not! But if I must, then that is the deal I demand.

Where it All Went Wrong

Mark Noonan19 Comments

Some older folks will remember EvKL – he used to write a lot in National Review back in the days when it mattered. Upon this comment on X, another person noted that it really started with the Reformation. And then in the comments one wag noted it all started in the Garden. Which is true – it is because we’re Fallen that we’re ultimately in this mess…though we Christians believe we have been given the exit. But outside our hope in the life of the world to come, it is important to go back and see where the mistake was made. EvKL (who, like me, was a Monarchist at heart) believed it was in the tearing down of the old system of European Christendom with its monarchies and feudal loyalties. The problem being that the common people would not and really could not transfer their loyalty from their local lord and national king over to a parliament of fools endlessly arguing when they weren’t stealing. As the historian Edward Crankshaw noted, a king believing he rules by divine right is being pious…a elected official thinking he’s the only person in the world suited for the office is being arrogant. It is good to note here that EvKL fully approved of the American Republic at its founding. What happened since then he was much less pleased with but the concept of the Constitution with its king-like President, appointive Senate, popularly elected House and an independent but limited Judiciary combined the best of all government worlds.

All love to my Protestant brothers and sisters, I do fall into the camp where it was the Reformation which got the ball of destruction rolling. Not that reform isn’t periodically needed in the Church but that in denying there is a central authority outside of individual control it set the stage for all the destruction to follow. Sola scriptura might work if everyone always agreed on what the scriptura meant. Because we’re Fallen, we don’t. We can’t. And so a central body needs to exist which will decide in the end what it means. And to this decree all must bend. And that is how it was for a thousand years until some of the kings of Europe decided that backing Luther and the other Reformers was the way to go. This was mostly from mercenary motives (a Christianity lacking monks and nuns means there’s a huge amount of wealth available for confiscation) but the bottom line is that it worked. At the conclusion of the Thirty Years War in 1648, the unity of Christendom was broken forever. At first, it didn’t seem like much but the fact that people could now argue endlessly about the nature of God opened up a can of worms…worms eagerly devoured a century later by the so-called Enlightenment philosophers who proceeded to argue about the very nature of humanity and reality. All in the name of Liberty, of course. But as for Liberty:

Nothing is more pleasant, nothing more flattering to our self-esteem, than wholly unrestricted liberty. Liberty is the word which has supplanted the word religion in our enlightened century when every one thinks and acts in the light of his own convictions or calculations…They condemn the past for its ignorance and prejudice, while knowing nothing at all about the past and not much more about the present. Should I ever see that these so-called wise men and philosophers were happier in the undertakings and more content in their private lives, then I should be guilty of bias, pride, prejudice and obstinacy if I did not follow their example. Unfortunately, however, the experience of every day convinces me of the contrary. Nobody is weaker, nobody more cowardly than these strong spirits: nobody more servile, nobody more cast down by the least unpleasantness than they. They are bad fathers, sons, husbands, ministers, generals and citizens. And why? Because they lack foundations. All their philosophy, all their principles arise only from their own self regard; the least mishap throws them down, with no resources to fall back upon. – Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, 1717-1780

Maria Theresa was not one of those massively educated people. She had the normal education of a Princess of her time but, my goodness, did she get some experience of life. That was written in a letter to her younger son in regards to her older son and heir who was very much a fan of the Enlightenment. Her older son was arrogant, self-centered and cruel…so, a very modern man. He was trying to tell her how badly she was governing the Empire…and you think about it in context and its this privileged rich boy telling his mother who had governed for decades and had navigated the Empire through two massive wars that she had no idea what she was doing. You can see why mom was irritated in that letter! And she was right – if the Enlightenment was producing the better man, then she’d be a fool not to sign up for it…but she saw in her own son and his associates just what sort of person was being bred by Enlightenment philosophy and she was very much dismayed by what she saw coming.

And she saw correctly – take a look at our Left today. Our Progressives. Our people who claim they just want to be free to do as they like. Have you ever seen more servile and cowardly people? People more easily thrown into despair by the tiniest set back? The blue haired ladies putting out videos of themselves screaming in their cars about Trump are the final result of the Enlightenment. For heaven’s sake, get over yourselves! But, they can’t – because they have no foundation. They don’t really believe anything and so have nothing to ground themselves on. For us on our side, the joy remains…because we know that even if the very worst thing happens to us, God is there…we will be rescued. This allows for a sense of peace…and builds into us at least some measure of courage. We don’t want to die. We don’t want to lose all we have. But we can do both…knowing that in the end death is the path to life and what we have is nothing compared to eternal life.

The most important thing a person can have is humility. I can’t be emphasized enough how important it is to be humble. Remember, the most humble human being who ever lived was Jesus who is God. To understand that you can’t, on your own, figure it all out is the first step to sanity. We don’t bend to Authority because we’re slaves but because that is the path to real freedom. It is simply saying, “you know, I believe it might be this way and I won’t just accept what others say, but I admit that I may be wrong and I’ll accept reasoned correction”. That is what the arrogant moderns cannot accept. It is why we can argue with Progressives until we’re blue in the face and no matter the facts or logic provided, they won’t change. They have no humility – they believe they’ve figured it out. That they are the smartest people in the room.

I don’t know if we can, as it were, manufacture humility. That is, convince the arrogant to give up their pride. It might take events – lots of very bad events – to humble their pride. But no matter how you slice it, humility is the only path to victory here. That is, only by humbling ourselves are we going to find the right thing to do. That is what we lost between the Reformation and the Enlightenment…and that is what will be there when we do win.

Trump Triumphus

Mark Noonan26 Comments

I mean, he might as well have been leading the Democrats in chains behind his chariot.

I didn’t write about it last night because I wanted some time to ponder it all. As a man old enough to remember Reagan’s greatest speeches, I have to say that Trump’s speech before Congress last night was the best I’ve ever heard. Sure, it was Trump all over the place – that is the Trump style. Sure it slowed in the middle but all Trump speeches slow in the middle. Sure, it could have been fifteen minutes shorter, but if you do that then the peroration wouldn’t work as well as it did.

It was inspiring, hilarious, moving and patriotic. The Democrats played the role assigned to them by Trump – pointing out early that nothing he would say would get them to cheer just set the stage and even when DJ was introduced, Democrats did exactly what Trump needed them to do…sit on their hands. The Democrats, in political parlance, are the “out” party but last night they became the exiled party. They have no connection to the United States…just rude, old, ugly representatives of a ignorant, corrupt and stupid Ruling Class that had its day. Trump placed a vision before us of a united, free, prosperous America reaching for the stars…and Democrats shouted out they didn’t like this…and held up their pathetic, little signs.

We’re moving on, Democrats. The past is past. The future beckons. You can still join us. But you won’t.

Meanwhile, for the sane part of the country – well, as was pointed out in the previous thread: 76% of the American people gave the speech a thumbs up. That is remarkable. We’re supposed to be far more polarized than that. But, perhaps we’re not any longer? Perhaps outside of the Leftwing fever swamps, people are wanting a united America? Sure, not everyone is going to agree with everything Trump does. You can’t even get 10 people to agree on where to get something to eat so getting 340 million people to agree on things is a tough task. But this isn’t about Trump. It is about America. We Americans want our country to work again…not be tied up in boutique Leftist issues that require all of us to bend a knee. Sure, go be a blue haired vegan who rides a bike to Save The Planet. Knock yourself out. But that is you. Your life. Not everyone…and we’re not about to go back to a place where the Left puts one chain after another on us to Save The Planet.

Lefties, we don’t need a Savior. We have one and He’s coming back one day…long before my barbecue kills all the polar bears. Chill.

Most of all it was fun watching Trump last night. Democrats tried to manufacture joy for Harris last year but Trump brings the real thing. And fun will always beat Debbie Downer. We have a lot of hard work ahead. There will be pain as we MAGA, but we’re going to have fun and we’re going to Make America Great Again.

There is no Hitler II

Mark Noonan47 Comments

More and more people are seeing what I’ve been seeing for a while: in the opinion of our Ruling Class, every foreign enemy is Hitler, every crisis in Munich and everyone who doesn’t get on board with fighting the new Hitler is Chamberlain. This is what they’ve sold us again and again since 1945. To be fair, nobody wants a repeat of World War Two. Six years of killing, 60 million people dead, uncountable physical damage to the civilized world. It is just too horrible to contemplate going back into such a shambles. But, here’s the thing: a repeat of World War Two has always been highly unlikely. The ingredients are hard to come by.

The first ingredient has to be a Great Power defeated but not destroyed. Germany was completely and utterly defeated in World War One. Had the Germans not called it quits in November of 1918, then the Spring of 1919 would have seen a massive allied invasion of Germany with a 3 million man American army in the van and the total allied armies equipped with tanks and planes to make mincemeat of any German defensive lines (and, as it turns out, the first airborne troops – US General Billy Mitchell envisioned dropping thousands of US soldiers behind enemy lines as the offensive started). Had the Germans fought on then the only result would have been more killing and a destroyed Germany. The Krauts quit to prevent that. They shouldn’t have been allowed to do that.

To be fair, the Allies didn’t have our luxury of hindsight so they couldn’t know that right after the war the Germans would cook up the “stab in the back” legend which excused German military failure and laid the blame for defeat on first the socialists and, later, the Jews. But some Allied leaders did have some foresight…notably Marshal Foch and General MacArthur both pointing out that the peace treaty was, at best, an armistice of twenty years. They could see this because while Germany was defeated even the supposed harshness of Versailles did nothing to cripple Germany’s latent power. It was still a united nation. It still had its industrial base. It retained an army which anyone could see would be exceptionally first rate as the Germans retained only the best of the best in the ranks. All Versailles did, really, was to clear the board and allow the Germans to start building from the ground up a new and more deadly force – and the Germans started working on this within a year of the peace (the Germans built new U-Boats in Holland and tested out tank and plane designs in the USSR, for instance). There’s the first necessary ingredient.

Second is a charismatic leader able to spellbind the Great Power’s people and forge them into a united force for conquest. Can such a person rise again? In theory, yes. But the thing about oddities is that they’re, well, odd. Not easily replicated. Plus in the German case you not only had to get that leader, he had to dovetail in with decades of the preaching of racial superiority by others who came before him…in other words, there had to be plowed ground ready to be seeded with the charismatic leader’s ideology. We do not have in any foreign leader that particular sort of person with that particular sort of ground to work with. Keep in mind how totally Hitler captured the German mind: German soldiers would throw themselves on enemy machine guns shouting “Heil Hitler” while they died. Even at the very bitter end the soldiers desperately fought completely hopeless battles for their leader. The chances we’ll find another like this are very low – almost nil.

And now comes the really hard part: once you’ve got your Great Power defeated but still intact and looking for revenge combined with your charismatic leader you need the most crucial thing: a huge run of luck. I mean like hitting the lottery five times in a row luck. The sort of luck where an observer looking back on it goes, “just ain’t possible!”.

The luck of being appointed Chancellor just as his popularity was waning. The luck of Hindenburg dying just as he’s reaching for total power. The luck of the French not destroying him in 1936 over the Rhineland. The luck of the Anglo-French agreeing to remove the Czech threat to the heart of Germany in 1938. The luck of the Anglo-French delaying Polish mobilization until August 31st, 1939. The luck of Stalin agreeing to back up Germany’s invasion of Poland. The luck of France’s massive army remaining immobile against a German military screen in the West as Poland was destroyed. And then the greatest stroke of luck of all – when Germany invades France and hits the weakest part of the French line in the Ardennes the French general on the scene totally flubs the response even though he had an armored division in place to pinch off the German offensive before it could get going. You can see why Hitler thought himself a providential genius after all that.

This belief, by the way, is what did Hitler in. He really thought he was unbeatable…that a string of very bizarre luck was something he willed into existence. The luck ran out first over the skies of Britain and then in the rubble of Stalingrad. But, still: horrible war. Never want to do that again. And provision should be made in case someone else starts to get on a run of luck like that. But this doesn’t mean that every foreign enemy is Hitler and every crisis is Munich. We must stop being stampeded into bad actions by people who are not only lying to us about the threat but are, themselves, very stupid and ignorant people. That’s why they overuse the Hitler analogy, by the way: they’re too stupid to come up with anything else. We stop letting them use that on us and it’ll stop being used.

Absent a Hitler, any foreign crisis is just a thing to be dealt with based upon our perceived needs at the time. It isn’t the precursor to World War Three…it is just Russia wanting the Donbas. Do we let her have it? Try to stop it? These are empirical questions to be answered on a case by case basis. Subsidiary questions are: if we let her have it, what price do we extract from Russia? If we try to stop it: to what extent? That is, how far are we really willing to go to keep Russia out? Rational arguments can be made both ways on this – and it is in the rational argument where we’ll eventually arrive at the best solution. Shouting its Hitler II and you’re a Putin stooge if you don’t drop a hundred billion into arguably the most corrupt nation in Europe is…bad. Unwise. In fact, it is so bad and so unwise that only a complete moron or a con artist would go that route.

As I’ve endlessly yammered on about lately, it is time to rejoin the real world. Paraphrasing Bismarck, if I am convinced that well-reasoned national policy requires it, I’ll see American soldiers fire on Russians or Iranians or Chinese without batting an eye. If we are pressed to it, then war to the knife. But I also believe that cool headed diplomacy backed up by force-in-being will resolve most foreign crisis. Do keep in mind that if Germany and France had between them a military force of, say, 600,000 ready to go in 2022 then a joint declaration by them that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would be casus belli then almost certainly there would have been no Russian invasion. But, also, it doesn’t mean that Russia would get nothing…because if the Russian demand is that Ukraine turn over the Donbas to Russia or Russia will invade, then it is time for the Great Powers to get together at the table and see if a solution short of war could be found. In the real world, diplomacy is backed by force. In the fantasy world, it is backed by a Clinton Administration memo which means nothing. A powerful EU confronting a powerful Russia probably means Putin gets half a loaf. Maybe a quarter of a loaf. But he doesn’t get nothing. And war is avoided because everyone is well armed and ready to use it to make sure that Russia doesn’t try for the whole loaf.

And do keep in mind that the Russo-Ukraine crisis can become a World War if things are managed badly. Much like WWI growing out of a fracas in the Balkans. Nobody really willed that war into existence but a whole string of dumb decisions came together to make it happen. It might well be a dumb decision for us to go to the mat to stop Russia because that might draw in other powers who don’t want Russia humiliated and soon we might find the lights going out all around the world. Much better, as noted, to have armed diplomacy to come to a reasonable solution before things get out of hand.

And now to a last point on this: NATO was a huge mistake. Never should have entered into it. The theory was that Soviet Communism could only be deterred by collective security…and that does have some basis in fact if the USSR was militarily aggressive. But it wasn’t. Certainly not right after WWII and for a couple decades afterwards. Russia had been wrecked by the war. Sure, Stalin and his successors would have fought if they thought it necessary…but they weren’t about to go launching into WWIII any time soon. They couldn’t (people forget that without massive Anglo-American material aid, the USSR would have been compelled to peace in 1943, if not sooner). All NATO did was allow the Europeans to skimp on their own defense. All through the Cold War the NATO allies failed to really live up to their commitments. Sure, their armies in the 1980’s were massively larger than now…but not as large as they were supposed to be. All of them sought cuts in defense spending to use on social programs…all of them coasted along on the back of American military power. Absent NATO, the British would have had to retain a very powerful Navy (powerful enough to secure Britain’s trade unaided) while the French would have had to retain a very powerful Army (powerful enough to stop any theoretical Russian invasion at the Rhine). And our part of defending the West could have been a mere diplomatic note stating that the operation of a hostile naval force around the UK or the invasion of France by a hostile power would trigger American intervention. The Europeans would still have been backed up by us…but not dependent on us. And Europe would have been strong enough to force a diplomatic resolution to the Russo-Ukraine crisis.

Foreign Affairs

Mark Noonan10 Comments

Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz (and known by all in his time simply as “Kaunitz”) was effectively chancellor of the Austrian Empire (within the framework of the very reduced Holy Roman Empire) from 1753 to 1792. I have mentioned him before mostly because he’s one of the most fascinating figures in history, though little known these days. But in his time he very much strode the world as a colossus … everyone listening to him, wondering what he’d do next, that sort of thing. He served a total of four Hapsburg Emperors but he’s most famed for his service to Maria Theresa. It is something he did there that I want to bring up.

A lot of nonsense is being written about foreign affairs since the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting. Lots of people are considering it a disaster and that it’ll encourage Russia and China and we’re really screwed now unless we somehow get Ukraine to victory over Russia. But among the hand-wringing dramatics a couple voices have whispered: “you know, we need Russia as an ally against China”. These voices are ridiculed – yet more accusations of being a Putin stooge and so forth because, as these people say, Russia and China are friends and the only way to deal with them is to show them we’re tough…by backing Ukraine to the hilt!

It is like nobody can read a map or has even cursory knowledge of history.

To be sure, Russia and China are friendly today – China providing lots of help to Russia against Ukraine. While the war goes on, Russia will be careful to keep China happy. The quid pro quo everyone expects here is that since China supports Russia against Ukraine (which Putin states is a renegade province of Russia), Russia will support China against Taiwan (which China considers to also be a renegade province). And that does make sense. But there’s one fly in the ointment: China doesn’t need Russian help against Taiwan. Not even in the UN where China holds the same veto power as Russia. Sure, Putin issuing a diplomatic note supporting China’s annexation of Taiwan will be nice for China at the time, but it will also be quite meaningless…the merest gesture.

One does have to actually think about things and in the Russo-Chinese case given that Russia needs China right now but China needs Russia not at all, try to figure out why China is being so helpful. It becomes blazingly obvious with just the least bit of thought: a conflict between Russia and the West means there’s a conflict between Russia and the West and that suits China right down to the ground. The western world concentrating its military and diplomatic efforts over the Donbas is a West not paying attention as China builds a blue water Navy and deeply economically penetrates Africa and South America. It is a no brainer for China to help Russia – just as its a no-brainer for Russia to accept Chinese help. But because their interests coincide today doesn’t mean they always will.

And that brings us back to Kaunitz. He was made first minister by Maria Theresa because she thought him the man to cobble together an alliance which would undo the result of the War of the Austrian Succession. This had occurred just after her father had died when Prussia had invaded Austria’s province of Silesia. Entirely without justification – a mere power grab by the Prussian king who felt his army the stronger and himself the superior to any woman on a throne. In the event, after 8 years of war, Prussia did manage to keep her stolen goods in the form of Silesia, but Maria Theresa had proved herself a woman of courage and good sense, more than a match for the Prussian king. And she hadn’t given up on getting back what was stolen…but she needed a man of brilliance and tact to rework the European balance of power in her favor. That man was Kaunitz.

Part of the problem Austria had in the previous war was that Prussia was allied with France, which was Austria’s ancient enemy (French and Austrian rulers had engaged in wars for centuries). As long as Prussia could count on the large French army attacking Austria from the west and south then things would go well for Prussia. Kaunitz had the skill and he carried out Maria Theresa’s instructions – France was detached from alliance with Prussia and entered alliance with Austria (it actually was in France’s best long-term interests to curb Prussian ambition…as was proved in 1870). Getting Russia to join the Franco-Austrian alliance just made it even more powerful. This diplomatic tour de force has been called “The Reversal of Alliances” and it was an earthquake in diplomatic affairs. And it almost worked – when the war between Prussia and Austria resumed the combination overwhelmed Prussia with sheer weight of numbers…until the very untimely death of the Russian Empress at the time pulled Russia out of the war. But that is neither here nor there for our purposes today: what we’re doing is pointing out that alliances aren’t permanent. That you don’t conduct your foreign affairs based on sentimental attachments but on the cold, hard facts of your situation. The problem for the USA is that since the fall of the Berlin Wall, sentiment has governed our actions. It is time for facts to come to the fore.

The biggest fact we have right now is that China is far and away the biggest foreign challenge we face. Our foreign policy should be geared primarily towards curbing Chinese ambitions. If you take a look at the map of the world and all the strategic points on it, there will be one rather glaring absence: Ukraine. It has no strategic importance in global affairs. It is a geographic irrelevancy. To Russia it is important. Poland, too. But if you don’t border Ukraine then Ukraine doesn’t matter. Whoever holds it will not harm your own strategic position. Not for nothing have the Dardanelles just south of Ukraine been fought over for centuries while Ukraine has slumbered in obscurity for almost all its history. The former is a crucial strategic point…the latter is just a bit of flat land really good for farming. There is no upside for the USA in fussing over Ukraine – it does not help us contain China.

Another glance at that map and you’ll notice that China and Russia share a huge land border in Siberia – which is 5.1 million square miles with 37 million people living on it. Do that bit of math: that is 7.25 people per square mile. China, just south of Siberia, has a density of 381 per square mile. Siberia has vast reserves of gold, silver, lead, tin, zinc, oil, diamonds, nickel, natural gas…like some of the largest reserves in the world for these materials. Oh, and huge chunk of Siberia was under Chinese rule until the late 19th century.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Russia has this gigantic territory – larger by itself than the USA or China – which is largely unpopulated, stupendously rich in natural resources and part of which used to be Chinese…which sits south of the border with 1.2 billion people, limited natural resources and a crucial need for cheap and easy economic growth to keep their people from questioning Communist party rule. In other words, while Russia and China have a community of interests today, it doesn’t mean they always will. And, truth be told, the only way Russia can be certain of holding Siberia is in alliance with the USA. There are, then, fertile grounds of a new reversal of alliances…detaching Russia from the Chinese connection and adding her to a consortium of nations (USA, India, Vietnam, Korea, Japan) united to keep China under control.

But how can we ally with Putin?!?!? You Putin stooge!!!! Yeah, whatever. We allied with Stalin against Hitler so allying with the far less unsavory Putin against China is within the realm of possibility. And this alliance with Russia remains valid even if Putin – or any Russian leader – tries to cobble together the entirely of the Czarist Empire. It would not alter America’s strategic position. It would gravely alter Europe’s, of course, but that is an European problem…and so far only Poland and Italy are acting like Russia is a problem by vastly increasing their defense spending. But no matter how it goes over there, it isn’t an American problem.

But we can’t let aggression stand! Sure, whatever – that boat sailed in 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea and we accepted stalemate. The two World Wars were very much fought on the ground that you can’t shoot your way into power. The Allied victory in both wars placed that ideal as an absolute in global affairs. Heck, we even hung and imprisoned Nazis on the charge of plotting aggressive warfare. But at the very first challenge to the principle in Korea, we and the rest of the West folded like a cheap suit. We actually had Nazis sitting in jail for aggressive war at the time we decided that North Korea’s aggressive war was something we’d just have to live with. Don’t blame me that the main point of the world wars was wasted…that while the great good of stopping Nazism occurred, all other fruits of the victory were thrown away within a decade of the end of the war. That was done by others, not by me. And I won’t adhere to a standard rejected before I was born. Whether or not I’ll try to stop aggression is entirely dependent on whether or not that aggression negatively impacts the United States. And, sorry, but a Russian invasion of Ukraine doesn’t qualify.

I don’t advocate for a pullout from NATO out of petulance but simply because I can’t see the slightest need for it. A Russian invasion of Ukraine doesn’t matter to me. Those whom it does matter are quite powerful enough to build an army to repel a Russian invasion. I also know that in the primary challenge my nation faces – China – the Europeans are far more likely to back China than the USA. There is little community of interest between the USA and the EU…and as Europe is arresting people for social media posts, I can’t see how a stand for Europe is a stand for liberty…sure, a German prison is much nicer than a Russian prison, but both are holding people who said things offensive to the government. This is very alien to the American experience – it makes Europe no longer America’s cousin, but a very strange, malevolent place that Americans better not travel to any longer, lest we run afoul of their Orwellian speech laws.

As in so many things, it is time to enter the real world. The real world is that the USA has maybe one or two friends in the world (Israel and Japan? Maybe a couple others). Everyone else wants us dead or at least to play us for their own ends. We might have a sentimental attachment to France because of Normandy but we must start to understand that the French government will piss on our graves over there if they felt it was in France’s best interests to do so. Nobody else in the world acts on sentiment, and we must stop it.

The Russo-Ukraine War

Mark Noonan9 Comments

The War of the Spanish Succession lasted from 1701 to 1714. It was, in a sense, the first world war in that it involved fights in Europe, Asia and the Americas as a coalition led by Great Britain fought to curb the ambition of France under Louis XIV. In the much-smaller population of the time, it still carried off via war and disease about 2 million people.

Thing is, the war actually ended in August of 1704. That was when an Anglo-Dutch force captured Gibraltar and secured British control over the Mediterranean Sea. After that, it was just a lot of fighting with no major strategic shifts until a peace of exhaustion was secured in 1714…with Britain retaining control of the one prize of the war: Gibraltar (still under British rule to this day).

It is often like that: wars going on after the issue has been decided. This is invariably because the side that lost doesn’t want to admit it and so keep smashing their skull against the stronger, victorious side.

World War Two? It ended in June of 1942 with the Japanese defeat at Midway. It is understandable once you realize that the only path to Axis victory was keeping the American military out of Europe. For all FDR’s commitment to the “Europe first” strategy, he wouldn’t have been able to carry it out if Midway had been lost, Hawaii conquered and the west coast under attack from Japanese carrier battle groups. Without full commitment by the USA to Europe, the Anglo-Russian alliance would have been insufficient to overcome Germany (side note: if we had been defeated at Midway that wouldn’t 100% mean we lost the war – we could build ships faster than the Japanese and so we might have retrieved the situation…but for Japan, and thus for the Axis, Midway was do or die; Japan lacked the resources to replace the equipment and men lost when 4 fleet carriers went down during that battle). Midway won, FDR could keep his promise…and an American army landed in North Africa just five months after Midway. In a sane world, Germany and Japan would have sued for peace no later than January of 1943.

So, too, other wars. The Civil War was over when Vicksburg surrendered in 1863. World War One was over for Germany when they lost the Battle of the Marne in 1914…doubly over when their gamble at Verdun in 1916 was drowned in blood. So, why bring this up? Because the issue in Ukraine is not who is right or wrong, braver, more noble…the issue is this: is this war already over?

In my view, it is. Ended before it even started. After Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 and clearly indicated that he considered Ukraine to be Russian, it was time for Ukraine to pursue one of two courses of action:

  1. Appeasement of Russia.
  2. Building a military force so potent that it could immediately respond to Russian aggression in an absolutely devastating manner.

Ukraine pursued neither of these options. They lived on in a sort of dream world where a corrupt and incompetent Ruling Class passed out bribes to foreign influencers and hoped that the mere thought that Ukraine would become part of NATO would deter Russian aggression. This obviously was a very bad idea – it is clear now that building up a military force was the best option as the war has revealed Russia’s astonishing military incompetence. This really shouldn’t have surprised us…we should have figured that 70 years of Communist rule had pretty much wiped out all decent and courageous elements in Russia and the dregs of Stalin’s GULAG weren’t going to be very good (side note: they weren’t very good in WWII, either: Russia’s victory was gifted to them by Hitler’s incompetence…and even then the Russians lost a couple million more than necessary simply because the Russian leadership used blood rather than thought to get at the Germans).

But all of that is past. Can’t change it. But what we also can’t change is the battle lines. For example:

And then:

Notice that the lines have not moved in any significant way in two years. Nobody really knows how many have died in the war as both sides lie quite egregiously about it. Best estimates are about 2 million total casualties and this would indicate given normal killed to wounded ratio that about 700,000 are dead and 1.3 million wounded, some significant number of those wounded permanently crippled. All credit to the Ukrainian military for at least stopping the Russians from taking over the whole country…but there’s no further point in fighting. It is just going to get more people killed and likely not change anything…with the understanding that if this becomes a genuine war of attrition, Russia will win due to superior numbers and eventually conquer the whole country. It is highly unlikely that Putin wants to draft enough Russians to do that…so, once again, back to nothing ever changing.

Peace now based on current lines of control is the best option. And I’m talking full peace. No ceasefire: an actual treaty between Russia and Ukraine ratified by both sides which cedes Russian-controlled territory to Russia but also commits Russia to no further territorial claims against Ukraine. Such a thing won’t actually stop Russia but it puts to bed Putin’s theory that Ukraine is Russian and should be part of Russia. It would be an admission by a Russian government that it really doesn’t have title to Ukraine. And then Ukraine can start to build that first-rate army they should have built after the 2015 ceasefire. Of course, I don’t know if Ukraine has any better military material in their population than Russia does – they, too, are the dregs of Stalin’s GULAG. But they can at least try – and very likely a force even a little bit better than Russia’s will whack the Russians pillar to post if it comes to it. The idea here is for Ukraine to have a force in being – instantly ready to go – which can both defeat an oncoming Russian invasion and rapidly move the conflict onto Russian territory…so when the battle lines stabilize it is Ukraine holding the whip hand. This is just Weaker Country Strategy 101, guys. I’m not suggesting something new. It is how the IDF trounced the combined forces of the Arab world in four different wars.

I’m naturally bringing this up because of the meeting today between Trump and Zelenskyy. Yes, a lot of NeoCons are very upset about it. I’m not. Zelenskyy has been playing a role and getting the aid and its all been quite useless…and then he had the idiotic idea of campaigning for Harris in Pennsylvania. This will go down as one of the most bone-headed moves in diplomatic history…the foreigner seeking aid always strokes both sides of the political divide. The Israelis know to keep lines open to both Republicans and Democrats and never overtly engage in partisan American politics. When the life or death of your country is at stake, you swallow your pride and do what’s best for your country…not what’s best for a partisan photo-op. So, today Trump and Vance raked Zelenskyy over the coals. Fully deserved and the best way to get to a peace deal…the Ukrainians had to learn that they’re not talking their butts out of this one…more aid may be forthcoming, but peace is the objective here, not another four years of war.

And this is yet another example of us getting back into the real world. The pretend world is Slava Ukraini! with the brave and heroic Zelenskyy in his fatigues fighting the Russians in the trenches. The real world is that Zelenskyy is an entertainer promoted way above his pay grade, his fatigues are a costume and the trenches are running red with blood. Maybe the Ukrainians really do want to fight on – we don’t know as Zelenskyy cancelled the elections so there’s no way to assess Ukrainian opinion on the matter. But whatever on that – it is their country and their blood. If they want to keep fighting then God bless…do your best. But without our money and weapons. I don’t want to risk a hot war with Russia in the center of Europe over the Donbas…not when we’re $37 trillion in debt, our armed forces are very weak, our manufacturing capacity anemic and China is building a blue water navy.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Nevada’s Attorney General – a Democrat – decided he wanted Nevada to be a sanctuary State. Nevada’s Governor – a sane person – said not so fast:

Aaron Ford – the aforementioned AG, Democrat and lunatic – is already running for Lombardo’s job in 2026. So you can understand why Ford would want to pick some fights with Lombardo…but, this fight? Seriously? Nobody outside the Leftist loony bins likes sanctuary policies. Even those who favor loose immigration policies don’t like the idea of State and local governments not cooperating with federal law enforcement on removing illegal aliens…and the more stories we see of illegals getting caught, released and then committing absolutely hideous crimes, the less people like the idea of sanctuary.

Nevada is a closely divided State (though registrations are trending GOP of late) but with 2026 being the mid-term year after a GOP win, you’d have to rate Ford’s chances out the gate as “has a solid shot at it”. Lombardo has been an effective and generally popular governor – and Democrats seem to have a really hard time winning the governorship – so it was never going to be an easy fight for Ford…things like this are going to make it impossible for him absent a complete GOP meltdown. But that is the Democrats right now, isn’t it? They are all-in on transing kids, protecting illegals and defending wasteful spending. Trump has picked a series of 70/30 issues, got himself on the side of 70 and has the Democrats digging in behind 30. Just amazing.

Jeff Bezos has decreed that the Washington Post will take a Libertarian line on personal and economic freedom. This did get his the opinion editor to step down – we’ll see if any further resignations occur. Best post on X about it:

We’ll see how this comes out – but if WaPo merely becomes a place where non-Left opinion can exist, that will be an improvement. A vast improvement – not least in getting a lot of the Ruling Class out of their bubble. The reason Democrats are tripling down on trans, illegals and waste is because all signals they receive indicate these as the popular positions. They never hear dissenting views. You will seriously find liberals out there who never even heard of Hunter’s laptop or that Trump-Russia was totally debunked…the MSM never told them.

And that is what Jake Tapper is counting on – he’s got a book coming out in May called Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, its Cover Up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. I’m not kidding. Look it up. He really wrote a book called that. As if he wasn’t one of the people desperately covering it up! He’s naturally being scorched on X over it but it must be kept in mind that most people who actually pay attention to Tapper never heard about Biden being gaga until the debate. It was just a stutter!

When we ask ourselves how Kamala Harris got 75,017,613 votes, that’s why: these people never heard about her. The MSM hid her inability to string a coherent sentence together. They carefully edited the clips. They told the viewers that what she said was brilliant. Just at they told their viewers that the Orange Man is Bad while Harris is nothing but Joy. And even after Trump put full effort into showing this to be nonsense, more than 75 million people still hadn’t been reached on it. They still bought the MSM lies…and will buy Tapper’s book.

Greenpeace is going on trial in civil court – with the plaintiff asking $300 million. An amount that would effectively bankrupt Greenpeace. At issue was a series of protests orchestrated by Greenpeace against an oil pipeline (now completed). The plaintiff argues that Greenpeace encouraged illegal acts during the protests and then raised funds off the press coverage of the protests. This would be a criminal enterprise designed to enrich the perpetrators. It all came to a head in 2019 so I can see why federal prosecutors didn’t do anything…but I believe they should now on any charges still within the statute of limitations. It is a rather new thing to consider but as I think about it, I kick myself for not thinking it up years ago. I mean, think about the BLM/Antifa people who raked in huge donations…off of riots! That they encouraged and perhaps even directly participated in. RICO – its not just for Mobsters any more!

Open Thread

Mark Noonan23 Comments

The Official Word from the Progressive TV Chattering Class is that Trump has gone too far and now people are getting angry as Trump’s support collapses. How’s that working out? Well, lets check in with one of the most accurate pollsters of 2024:

The “Trump is going too far” message is orchestrated on the Left – it isn’t really directed at Trump but at week-kneed Congressional GOPers and the center-right people who are still all “well, I never” about things. The Left knows that Trump isn’t really controllable in that he doesn’t have to seek another term…but there is leverage over the Congressional GOP. But here’s the thing on that – the GOP House majority is so narrow that everyone in the GOP expects it to be lost in 2026…and that means if you want to get anything done, better get it done now. Absent a complete economic meltdown over the next 12 months or so, the Senate is probably safe for the GOP. So, a Dem House majority isn’t all that much a threat. Plus the Congressional GOP knows that going against Trump now is probably political suicide. There might be some time in 2026 to take a vote against Trump to provide a little separation in a swing district, but now isn’t the time for it.

It looks like our prayers for Pope Francis should be more for a holy death rather than recovery right now. Still some hope he’ll emerge from the hospital but an 88 year old with his maladies doesn’t have a lot of time left. As I’ve said pretty much from the start, Francis is theologically rock-solid but in the areas of politics and economics he is Left. He’s been an interesting Pope and probably what was needed at the time as the Church had become a bit ossified. Naturally, however, the Left elements in the Church took advantage of a kindly nature and tried to push actual heresy. That is for the next Pope to clear up. Cardinal Sarah is probably out of the running on account of age so I’m at a bit of a loss of who to pray for on it. Some are talking up Cardinal Pizzaballa – the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem – and while the man has guts (he offered himself as a Hamas hostage in return for release of the captive Israelis) he also seems (in my view) far too soft on Hamas, itself. Cardinal Besungu of the Democratic Republic of Congo is considered a very conservative alternative…and as the Church in Congo is horribly oppressed (a short while ago Islamists there beheaded 70 Christians in a Protestant church), he’d probably be a little bit…militant in defending Christ’s flock. But, in the end, we’re all just going to have to wait and see how this goes.

The German elections went about as expected – the socialist SPD was trounced, the center-right CDU emerged on top…and AfD came in second, about doubling their support from the previous election. Between the CDU and AfD and some small fry, there is a solid, Conservative majority for the Bundestag…and what this means is, naturally, that the CDU will coalition with the just-defeated SPD to keep AfD out. This is the Ruling Class Uniparty writ very large. But I think the CDU is making a huge mistake here – the German people rejected the Left but weren’t quite ready to go AfD…but if the CDU sees its mandate as something other than curbing migration, then there will be another election pretty quickly and the AfD might wind up the largest party in the Bundestag (they are second largest now). One curiosity about it – if you look at the election returns by district, what you see is that almost universally the old “West Germany” voted CDU while old “East Germany” voted AfD – with the SPD winning a few urban cores. A guy I know on X pointed out that old Germany was actually best preserved in the east because, in reaction to Communist occupation, they desperately clung on to their national identity. Looks like he was right. Additional observation: exit polls show that German youth resoundingly rejected both CDU and SPD, the two major post-WWII German political parties…they opted for the Right-Populist AfD or the Left-Populist Linke. The German Ruling Class is on borrowed time.

Bongino as Deputy Director of the FBI is a clear sign that Trump, Bondi and Patel are not about to put up with internal sabotage.

Among many senior officers fired after Hegseth took over Defense was the Chief of Naval Operations – Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to hold the post. And the Left has gone ballistic…”she highly rated! She’s a warfighter!”. The ships are rusty. I’ve seen video after video of US naval warships entering or leaving port absolutely covered in rust. She’s a bad officer, period. So are all other senior officers in the Navy. Civilians don’t fully understand the need for “spit and polish”…its not don’t just to look good but to internalize into serving sailors that they are sailors. This is the USS Aaron Ward after suffering repeated kamikaze attacks off Okinawa:

That crew fought off most attacks and got this hunk of junk back into port for repairs – because they were sailors. Meanwhile, in our modern, diverse and equitable Navy, USS Bonhomme Richard caught fire in port, San Diego, and burned to uselessness…because nobody on the ship or even in that whole naval installation was a sailor. Hegseth can’t fire the senior officers fast enough.