Nuke the Judges: Restore the Constitution

Mark Noonan93 Comments

It has been noted that we have 677 Federal District Court judges and if just one of them objects to a Trump action, it is stopped…and we are instructed that only the nine Justices of the Supreme Court can really do anything about it…when and if they decide to get around to it. This is not, however, how our Constitutional system works. Or at least is supposed to work. Another person has pointed out that the Covid response kinda showed the entire Constitutional system is gone – if they could lock us down for a bad cold, then what rights do we really have? This is a strong point – but I’m still going to stick with the Constitution.

We simply have to make it work – because the alternative is a Caesar and I don’t want that. I’d bequeath the next generation liberty, if I can. If pressed to it I will bequeath them mere sanity…but I’ll try for liberty. And that means we have to make this system work – make the Constitution do its job.

The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that Trump must have a showdown with the judges. A direct defiance of a court ruling – written down as an Executive Order. No mistake about it – the ruling will not be enforced, all those charged with ignoring the ruling are granted a preemptive pardon. Basically telling the courts to jump in a lake – and challenging Congress to impeach and remove because that would be the only thing anyone could do about it. But it has to be done with care – and Team Trump is already setting the table for it…because the Constitutional crisis isn’t in a Trump defiance, but in the courts issuing rulings. It is the judges who are busting the deal, not Trump.

Some on the Right are still not getting this – and Chris Withans (@chriswithans on X and a definite must-follow; he’s a kid compared to us so you will get polls on which weird 2010 band is best, but he’s sharp as a tack on politics) gives the reason:

Literally the only reason why they think Trump is pushing the limits of the law too much is that the legal right has never fought as much as the legal left has, so we don’t see how fast-and-loose Obama and Biden play with the law and the Constitution.

I remember so many legal conservatives saying there was no point in challenging Biden’s student loan actions because of standing and the vagueness of the laws in question (which surprise surprise is meant to give discretion to the executive branch), but fortunately Missouri did so we ended up with a couple of key decisions to block it.

And then Biden of course violated the orders but because the legal right already undermined the case by saying we had no standing, they put themselves in a disadvantageous position to complain about Biden’s post-SCOTUS executive actions.

Nutshell: we’ve never really fought this out. Think about the 2000 election court cases – W naturally fought tooth and nail over Florida because that was the decisive electoral college State. Those EC votes decided who was going to be President. And Florida was as close as it was likely due to voter fraud…but so, too, were Iowa, New Mexico and Wisconsin. It is very likely, in my view, that a full audit of all 4 very close 2000 States would indicate W won all of them…and likely won the popular vote once you backed out the fraudulent votes. The 2000 election was the perfect time to fight out the overall issue of Democrats stuffing ballot boxes, which is something they’ve always done and GOP insiders always knew was done. There was zero chance we were going to lose Florida once the first recount was done as long as the W people kept an eye out for Democrat skullduggery (in this case, trying to post-facto manufacture just enough votes to get Gore over the top). But had it been fought out in all 4 close States, it would have exposed the Democrats then and there because such a fight would show that Gore did not come remotely close in Florida, either…that some late night ballot box stuffing was the source of the disputed election result…and this fight would have created a massive backlash against Democrat cheating and lead to a much more secure and honest election system. Nope. Nothing doing. W and his people accepted the stuffed ballots in Florida and held on to merely saying (in effect) that the Democrats didn’t cheat enough. The W team just wanted to get the power…not actually do something with it. That was the point of the Florida 2000 exercise…and that is the way the GOP has always fought legal battles: on the narrowest possible grounds.

We can’t be narrow – it has to be point blank we’re right, they’re wrong and our way will prevail. A district court judge does not have the power to issue a nationwide injunction and the Article II powers of the Presidency may not be taken away by any law or court ruling. The President may hire and fire at will and does not have to expend appropriated money. We have to make the battle the People vs the Judges. It is a fight we must have, it is a fight we can win – and by winning restore the actual Constitutional order. The judiciary is not a referee nor a last resort for the losers of the last election. Political matters are to be settled by politics. Period.

Opening Day Open Thread

Mark Noonan31 Comments

That time of year again – when hope is strong…

As a Padres fan, I know that pain is coming my way. Ah, well! Its Opening Day…for now, its all good.

With all the woke garbage, baseball is still American. Of course, some bits of legend are fading – I was at a minor league game with the grandsons last Spring and after a guy whiffed I commented “Mighty Casey has struck out” and got blank stares from the boys. I was shocked: they had never read Casey at the Bat…but, then again, I don’t think the kids are reading much of anything these days. Anyways, they’ve heard of it now…and they both like to play a bit of Little League ball. It goes on.

One thing that is still amazing me is how so many on the Right still go along with the Left Narrative. The Signal thing is just that – another Left Narrative. We know the Left doesn’t even give a darn about national security. Heck, they hate the USA with a white-hot passion. But they got their little report (provided to us by a known and quite notorious liar who has routinely lied about Trump since the get-go) and they’re running with it…and the Usual Suspect Right voices are “well, this is bad, we should do something, there should be investigations and resignations!”. Which, of course, is the point of the exercise.

Back in 2017 the resignation of Michael Flynn and the start of the “Trump-Russia” special counsel investigation was really the beginning of the end for that Trump term. Very much good was still accomplished but so much time was lost and as people were forced to resign, they were invariably replaced by Establishment hacks who undermined Trump at every turn. I get us falling for it a bit in 2017 but in 2025? Come on – only a moron would go along with this.

And there they go – going along with it. So, morons.

The good news is that Trump is not allowing himself to be stampeded here – he’s holding firm and so are his people, and if you think the AG is going to recuse herself and appoint a special counsel, you’re nuts.

Meanwhile, the lawfare against Trump continues – with the judicial rulings getting ever more absurd…which, in the end, will play right into Trump’s hands. Keep in mind that Trump does not want to defy these rulings. As I’ve said for a while, Trump is the most law-abiding President we’ve had in ages. He wants to work within the system…but the system does include his ability to deport any foreigner he wants (no reason required) and to hire and fire at will in the Executive Branch (Executive power is vested in the President per Article II…this power is 100% Trump’s, not the judges – it can’t be taken away in any form save by Constitutional amendment). Our hope – and likely, Trump’s – is that the Supreme Court calls the District courts off…tells them to stop doing this. If they don’t…then on the matter of deporting criminal illegal aliens, Trump will openly defy and the American people will back him on it.

Don’t want it to be this way – I want us to retain judicial review (which is not, by the way, written into the Constitution…it isn’t even really implied in the document; the independent Judiciary was created so that the Executive wouldn’t have the power to jail people…it wasn’t set up to play referee on political matters) but we can’t let judges decide the course of the country. That is for the people via their elected leadership to decide. The Courts should only intervene if there is a really egregious violation of the obvious requirements of the Constitution. No penumbras here, guys. And if the Courts don’t curb themselves, then they’re going to find that they have no mechanism to enforce their rulings. The Judiciary has no army or police…and even if they want to hold in contempt and issue fines, the President can just pardon his people. I hope that Roberts can see the writing on the wall and reverse course.

A Brutally American Open Thread

Mark Noonan60 Comments

The Left is floating a new line of attack against Trump and his supporters: we’re now the Brutal Americans. We’re just so mean. So cruel. We don’t understand the subtle relationships of the world.

You know: that’s where we pretend that credentialed morons know what they’re talking about and that cowards who are letting Islamists assault their women are the brave guys.

Our failure to hold up our end here has “shattered” European illusions about the USA. Well, I guess we’re supposed to feel bad about that. Of course, once upon a time, Brutal Americans were more appreciated…like back when Easy Company was drinking Goering’s booze on Hitler’s patio:

Those were some pretty Brutal guys, I guess. But, times change.

I know that some of MAGA – including Trump – are urging Europe to live up to their NATO commitments but I’m more and more wondering what we’re even defending over there? Turkey has slid into anti-Israel Islamism, in Germany you can get arrested for being upset about Islamist violence and in Britain I understand you need an ID to buy a knife. I’m supposed to send some 18 year old kid from Kansas to die for that?

The most recent European entry into my bloodline arrived in the USA in 1849 – that is 176 years ago. I ain’t European. I’m American. I’m Native. I know that some people will get upset at that but I figure after a while the Settler is Settled. My rule of thumb is that if you own a couple great-great-grandparents born in the land, then you are Native to it. I own a lot of them. My earliest American ancestor got here some time before 1640. We’re just a stone’s throw from 400 years in the area. I have no connection to any other land than America. What I’m saying is that if I’m to care about Europe they have to give me a reason to care…just because I look like some of the people in Cork, Ireland doesn’t mean I give a darn about them. Don’t know them. Never met them. Have no intention of ever going there. So, tell me why I’m suppose to care what happens to them?

Oh, sure, in the general, Christian sense I do care…if they suddenly were struck by catastrophe I’d be willing to help them out of the jam…but if someone decides their idiotic population which keeps electing people who hate Ireland should now be governed by a Russian proconsul, I don’t see how this matters to me. Might suck for them but it won’t suck any worse than what they have now. Anyways, the way the Irish are going they will soon impose upon themselves Sharia law. And, hey, if that’s what they want – and they seem to want it – then who am I to complain? People get to choose their own path. But what would I be sending American soldiers to defend over there? Nothing that is of our interest, as far as I can see.

It is said that RFK Jr has plans to ban pharmaceutical advertisements on TV. We older folks remember a time when you never saw such ads…but there were court cases in which it was argued that a ban on such ads was a violation of the First Amendment…but I also understand that even in these rulings there is wiggle room to restrict “direct to consumer” ads of such things as drugs. We’ll see how this plays out – but as I have said again and again, the Constitution isn’t a suicide pact. I am dead certain that people are taking way more medicine than they have to for a host of maladies because the TV told them to. A prescription medication should only be taken fairly rarely. I’m 60 and I take none of them – and I do suffer from chronic pain and, like all human beings, I’m sometimes sad or anxious. I don’t go the medicine route for two reasons:

  1. I have my doubts that these drugs – especially the newer ones – are the result of a first-rate scientific method development.
  2. Human bodies learn to tolerate what they ingest. Not 1 for 1 but it happens…and we see it happening with the overuse of antibiotics…we’re developing Attila the Germ because we’re taking antibiotics when just a clean bandage would do the trick. If you take a med for something on the regular, your body is going to try to make that med ineffective because it isn’t what your body is naturally producing. The more you take it, the more your body will get used to it. Take medicines rarely (yes, I understand for some people a chronic condition requires daily, weekly, monthly dosing or they die…but some people are popping pills for things they don’t really need pills for).

My view on the ads is that the weak-minded person who believes the TV sees the ad and goes “you know, I have that ache, too!” and they’re off to the doctors who may not be totally on the level in their prescriptions. Especially if the customer calls the company for advice and they refer the customer to a doctor who might really be no more than a pusher of the drug. Take the ads off the air. It will get us back towards more of a system of a person feeling really bad, going to the doctor and then getting prescribed something the person never heard of before.

The new Snow White has flopped. It isn’t because Snow White isn’t White – it is because it is hot garbage. The apparent re-telling of the tale bears little relation to the original story. To review; Snow White is born of a Queen’s wish to have the most beautiful daughter. This comes true but the Queen dies. Later, Snow White’s father marries the Evil Queen who becomes obsessed with jealousy over Snow White’s beauty. She tries one strategy after another to kill Snow White and fails in all of them…but the last one seems to work and so Snow White is buried in a glass casket, which is discovered by a Prince out in the woods for a hunt. He rescues Snow White and they get married – the Evil Queen discovers that Snow White is alive and tries again to kill her, but is thwarted and executed. Just a fine fairy tale with the obvious moral that jealousy and pride are sins and you’ll get punished eventually for them. Meanwhile, if you are brave and good you’ll live happily ever after. Disney appears to have loused this up – I understand there really isn’t even a Prince character in this. Which kinda kills the whole story because it is the fortunate arrival of the Prince that changes defeat into victory for Snow White (always in fairy tales the actual victory must be of a miraculous nature…the destruction of the Ring in the Lord of the Rings only happens because Gollum trips and falls into Mount Doom’s flames). And in addition to butchering the actual story, the reviews indicate that it is badly written, badly acted and visually atrocious.

I don’t know how long Disney and the rest of Hollywood can go on losing money like this – I haven’t been to a theater in ages and it is hard to find a major studio production over the last 20 years that is even watchable. I do find some foreign and Indy stuff that is good – that is, actually has a story with some good writing and some interesting cinematography but even that is getting rarer. It is like everyone has been forbidden to tell tales and must, instead, either produce insipid drivel offending nobody or go on a Woke Fest which makes the story ridiculous (I’ve been watching the Walking Dead series – still sticking with it even though it went pretty woke after a while because the Daryl and Negan characters are intriguing and very well acted…they have various spinoffs going right now and in one of them a 5’7″ female character goes toe to toe in a fight with a 6’4″ males character…sure, they did have her ultimately lose the fight but the reality is there wouldn’t have been a fight…but Super Chick must always show up these days; it isn’t the worst thing, but it is irritating). There are stories to tell. Heck, I know this guy who has 9 books in a series which would make an awesome Netflix adaptation. But Hollywood can’t tell them…until they go broke, I guess.

The Liberal Retreat

Mark Noonan20 Comments

Pity the poor Liberal, my friends: they are in a bad place right now. Let’s take a quick look over there – we have two types of Liberals:

  1. Absolute lunatics. These are the people who are out there setting Tesla’s on fire and trying to tackle Trumpsters on the train (did you see that video? Hilarious when the Liberal face-plants).
  2. The intellectual Liberal who sounds oh, so reasonable and just wants peace, love and freedom.

The trouble for both types is that Liberalism cannot exist in anything like a free society. This paradox stems from the underlying error of Liberalism which is the assertion that human Reason, uncorrected by Authority, is sufficient. Back there in the 18th century when the so-called “Enlightenment” was creating the first Liberals the phrasing went along the lines of “I will follow Reason wherever it leads”. This sounds like a good idea and maybe it even was a good idea to some extent…but while the assertion was made by people who asserted they would always come to the correct thing via Reason, the facts of history show us that Robespierre, Lenin and Hitler were able to follow their Reason to some rather surprising results.

I bring this up because one of the second types – goes by the handle Carl @HistoryBoomer – has a post on X who is trying to explain to us benighted MAGA/Conservative types why Liberals are fleeing to Bluesky – he says, in part:

“Leftists are leaving Twitter because they can’t take criticism.”

Imagine you have a favorite diner, but the new owner is a Trump fan. Trump posters, Trump statues, Trump menu items.

Eventually you tire of waiters saying “Hail Trump” and leave.

Many of you underrate the effect of Elon being 100% behind Trump and daily spewing pro-Trump propaganda (often pure lies). This isn’t just a pro-Trump guy buying a diner. This is a guy who spends 20 hours a day tweeting his love of Trump and his hatred of “corrupt” Democrats.

He’s then got this chart showing that Musk’s account is popular, as are other Trump and pro-Trump accounts. So, you see, its just too much Trump all the time! It isn’t healthy. And, darn it, he’s going to have to leave if it doesn’t stop…presumably to retreat to Bluesky.

Have you been to Bluesky? I opened an account when it became a thing right after the election and I maintain it – because by checking it once very few days I can quickly discern the talking points of the Liberals. It is all there is over there – nothing but the most mindless Liberal propaganda. And it is just like Twitter was prior to Musk purchasing it. No real dissent…just endless repetition of the talking points. It is depressing. Mind-numbing. But it is the only place Liberalism can exist.

For the most part, Liberals don’t even engage in debate. We see it here when our resident Liberals show up from time to time – they just want to come here and put out the talking points and get furious when we don’t respond to their talking points in a way which allows them to just keep repeating the talking points. Forcing them to think and defend their position is something most Liberals hate. But even those who want to take a stab at an intellectual argument always fall back on departure if they can’t censor, and censorship if they’ve got the power. This is because they can’t defend their positions.

Don’t get me wrong, they think they can. They think they’re both smart and well-informed. Very sure of themselves. And so, for instance, a Liberal who is in love with the idea of high speed rail might come around to point out how awesome high speed rail is and how Europe and China are pressing ahead with this wonderful, Green tech which makes travel fantastic because they once took the bullet train from Paris to Brussels and we’d better get moving on this or we’ll be left behind by the world!

To which we respond: a high speed train from Los Angeles to New York would take nineteen and a half hours…if it was non-stop and there were no problems. And has anyone ever built a high speed rail crossing something like the Rocky Mountains?

Whammo – argument is over. The Liberal will not address the practical difficulty of building a high speed rail and that ends it…the Liberal might keep repeating the talking points for a while but is totally incapable of actually defending the position…because it is indefensible. Because there is no need for a nationwide high speed rail system in the USA. We like our cars. We like flying. You might be able to successfully build high speed rail for a few well-traveled corridors (Los Angeles to San Diego, DC to NYC, eg) but there’s just never gonna be a guy who wants to get on a train in LA and arrive nearly a full day later in NYC – he can be there is six hours by plane.

And it does go back to Liberalism’s initial error: that Reason alone is sufficient. Never has been, never will be. There must be an Authority which is outside of our control – something which tells us that certain things are always right, certain other things are always wrong and we are to simply conform ourselves to this. The seeming oddity of this is that it is liberating – once you know the rules, then you can do all sorts of fun and interesting things….like have a really cool give-and-take-argument over an issue where at the end of the day the best idea emerges victorious and everyone with any sense bows before it. My example about high speed rail was just to take a rather low-key issue…but it is like that on every issue.

Abortion is good. People are born in the wrong body. Migrants always improve the community. Muslims are never the bad guys. Black people can never be racists. Women are paid less than men. Funding a program means you get your desired result. Lack of funding means you will never get your desired result. Roads are Socialism. All of us have seen this – these assertions and many others, all made with vigor and not one of them defensible on the merits. The least push back on them and the Liberal has to censor you or retreat if censorship isn’t possible.

And that is why they hate Musk – sure, the DOGE stuff is a huge thing and supporting the Bad Orange Man is an outrage…but the very worst thing Musk did was allow criticism of Liberalism on X. It is intolerable…because Liberalism is indefensible. Trust me, if they could win an argument with us, they’d be having arguments with us day in and day out. They can’t so they don’t. Vast contrast to us on the Right who are arguing amongst ourselves all the time and we really do have diversity…we don’t agree on everything. We’d be bored to tears if we all did.

So, the Liberals are retreating – to their intellectual ghettos like Bluesky and MSNBC. This is good – we’ve got them on the run. Any of them worth anything will stay and eventually abandon Liberalism. Not necessarily all Liberal views – because some sorts of Liberal views are defensible (even if most of us on the Right still think them mistaken). But anyone of intellect and honesty is going to leave the Left…it is a dead and boring thing. A new dawn comes…the mind is being freed from Liberal bigotry.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan21 Comments

To get back at it, Home World was released on March 15th! It is Book IX and the penultimate book of the series (with the possibility of some one-off books in the future). Book X (currently untitled) will come out later this year to wrap it up. As the title suggests, our heroes are back here! As the jacket blurb notes, just a quick trip back home to wrap up all affairs…but things go wrong.

Its a fun one, guys! You’ll especially enjoy the time frame it happens and some side comments about America and the world. I thoroughly enjoyed putting part of the action in Arizona; with a character met there being based on an X friend who’s a rancher and author out in that State, though as with all characters, also a mash up of two or more people.

The JFK docs were released – no, we’re not going to find the plan by the CIA to kill him. That was never going to be in there. But this doesn’t mean we’re not finding things. Steve Portnoy did some reading:

So, the CIA noted that Oswald met with Cubans and Russians two months before Dallas. And then failed to note this little fact to the Secret Service/FBI when they knew Oswald was in Dallas when Kennedy was scheduled to be there. This is very much shades of Butler, PA. Had the CIA advised the Secret Service that a Dallas resident (and had been since June of 1962) has serious Commie connections, then it would have been natural for the Secret Service (and/or FBI) to keep tabs on him during JFK’s visit. Like maybe figuring out that he worked at a place which had a field of fire into the path the President would be taking through Dallas. And then for 60 years the CIA demanded that this be kept secret.

Pro tip: if you don’t want people to believe conspiracy theories, the first rule is to not lie by omission.

Do keep in mind that you don’t have to do something to cause an event…you can often cause the event by not doing things. You know, like not having an officer on the roof with a clear line of sight to the Presidential podium.

Malicious or incompetent? That is the unknown thing – and likely can’t be known at this point as nearly everyone involved in dead; and likely didn’t write it down…or destroyed ages ago the documents which would give us an answer. And the jokester gives us the best word on it:

I do apologize for the vulgar language…but its appropriate here. The fundamental problem here, as I’ve been noting for a while, is government secrecy. That somehow the government has got the idea that they are allowed to hide things from the people…as if we are serfs and they are masters. It isn’t supposed to work like that. What started as operational security concerns (Grant being furious at newspapers for basically writing his battle plans into the newspapers) has morphed into the government carefully doling out information which doesn’t tell us what the government actually did. If Oswald was just a lone nut then we, the people, did need to know how this lone nut was able to get into position to fire three rounds at the most powerful man in the world. The government hid that from us. Quite diligently. Because a lot of them would have been hung out to dry whether it was conspiracy or incompetence.

Trump is still holding back on a showdown with the Judiciary. The deportations to El Salvador are called “too late, judge”; implying that if the judge had ruled prior to the planes leaving our airspace, the deportations wouldn’t have happened. Roberts rose to the defense of his judges and that made them go totally insane…now basically ruling that Trump can’t be President without their permission. It is absurd…and it isn’t actually stopping anything. And Trump is just giving them enough rope to hang themselves.

In any battle between the elected and the un-elected, the elected is going to win. Simple as: the people will always favor those who they voted for. Trump is likely just waiting for his best moment to strike…when it all piles up as idiotically (and it is; high and deep!) that he can be the reasonable one defending Constitutional norms.

It must be kept in mind that the Judiciary has no method of enforcing its rulings. In that, only the Executive can enforce. The unwritten rule since Marbury is Executive acquiescence – though Biden’s refusal to obey the Court on student loans ended that precedent (to no Leftwing complaints, of course). And on the whole the Marbury precedent has been good – healthy. But it isn’t so much any longer. This is mostly because the Courts are intervening in areas which have no Federal or Constitutional scope. It has happened before, of course. Dred Scott was an egregious example of the Court getting involved in something it shouldn’t have – at that time, the legality of slavery was up to the States but the Court decided without any Constitutional authority to decree that Missouri’s slavery laws were valid in Wisconsin. It was an absurdity. But for the most part, the Court remained reticent and only acted when it was something crucial.

We can pick a case to say this is when the Great Departure happened but I’ll settle on Roe – that horrible poison in our body politic. Abortion was largely unknown (and mostly impractical) at the time the Constitution was adopted. No provision in that document in any way relates to how medical practices are to be regulated, nothing in there defines when a human being is endowed with their rights, no clause says a person has a right to an action which requires the assistance of at least one other person. Given all this, it all fell under the 9th and 10th Amendments…it was a matter for the States or the people to decide. If you wanted to make it a Federal issue, you’d have to amend the Constitution. And, by and large, the people and the States were dealing with it – badly in my view as abortion was legalized in State after State but this is how it works and I could have no complaint about the process much as I dislike the result. Whammo: here comes the Supreme Court to invent out of whole cloth a “right to privacy” which means we can’t regulate abortion at the State level. It wasn’t just a stupid ruling – it was an evil ruling. It cut at the very heart of the American system of government. Until Hobbs, it essentially removed the American people from any say in the matter. Since then, its just been one bad, wicked decision after another and now we have the Courts completely out of control trying to insert a “but, Trump” exception to Article II. It has to stop. It will be stopped. Only question is whether Roberts will call off the dogs or if Trump will start to openly defy the Courts.

Cancel That Pardon Open Thread

Mark Noonan22 Comments

I was going to write up a bit about Home World (Book IX of the Mirrors series) being released but we’ll pause that for this:

Absolutely impossible to see where this winds up. It has never happened before – that is, an Executive saying the previous Executive’s actions are invalid. But, also, we’ve never had such a slew of last-minute pardons from an Executive. Given the number, there is no possible way that mentally deficient Biden spent sufficient time reviewing the pardon documents to arrive at a valid decision. This is why some genuine bad guys were allowed to skate; people Biden would never have let off when his mind was functioning. In addition to that, Trump is saying – and there appears to be solid evidence of this – that an autopen was used to sign the documents. Is that valid? Can at least two or three people affirm under oath that Biden was even in the room when the pardons were signed? Maybe a case can be made that an autopen is a legal way to carry out Executive actions…but I can’t see any possible way to say an Executive action can happen if the Executive isn’t even present.

I guarantee you a thrill of fear just went down a lot of backs when Trump posted that. It is completely unknown territory…and a lot of people who were sure they had skated on multiple serious federal crimes now wonder just how safe they are?

An Urban Homestead Act

Mark Noonan12 Comments

We do have to think long-term a bit. Our immediate need is to gain control of the government, de-fund the Left and set the stage where freedom and logic have a shot at winning. But the bottom line is that political success in a democratic Republic requires that the people feel like they’re getting advantage out of you being in power. This mostly translates into how are they doing economically.

Trump economic policy, carried through, will go a long way on this – we might be in for a rough year but the cessation of inflationary spending, the tax cuts and the regulatory easements will lead to rapid economic expansion. That’s good and if it comes soon enough it might even allow us to win – or at least hold our own – in the 2026 midterms. But we have to be cognizant of the fact that last November 75 million people voted for a talentless, ignorant person of zero accomplishments. A good number of those voters are just hate-filled, Democrat bigots – not reachable by us no matter what we do. But the fear is that a flip of just 1.5 million Trump voters means we lose. Think of the catastrophe we’d be stuck in right now if Harris was in office. We dodged a bullet – and we need to think of ways to ensure we dodge it going forward.

And the seeds of what we need to do are right there in the election results – Trump did better than any GOPer ever among traditionally Democrat constituencies. These people voted for hope: a hope that Trump would revive the economy and give them a shot. If we don’t deliver on that hope we’re doomed – but if we can deliver even better than expected, those voters might start to come over to us in droves, leaving the Democrats in the position of the GOP 1932-1952. Think of all the Democrats accomplished in that 20 year period we were out: total transformation of the USA. We can do that, too; if we have the power.

Lots of people will have lots of ideas on this and here is mine: an Urban Homestead Act.

All through the big cities we see swaths of totally abandoned residential and commercial land. You’ve seen the videos – just totally blighted buildings (when they’re still standing). Testament to a different America 60+ years ago when our urban cores were places of work and hope, not death and despair. I know what you’re thinking: not another urban redevelopment plan! It isn’t! Promise! Those old liberal urban plans were merely giveaways to cronies…if anything concrete was accomplished it was either useless or merely catered to upper class urban liberals (you know – building an arts center…places to display garbage liberal art and it is all staffed by well-paid liberal foot soldiers). I have something else in mind: to turn decayed neighborhoods back into thriving communities. Turning abandoned factories and stores back into thriving businesses. Here’s the nutshell of it:

The federal government does a survey in a city (let’s say min population has to be 100,000) and if they determine a certain percentage is blighted (I’d go with something like a figure equal to 25% of the blighted land in Detroit), it is seized under eminent domain and becomes federal land (not exactly what was intended with this provision but after Kelo totally reasonable, and what we’re doing is actually good). We don’t overly interfere with local zoning ordinances (except in such cases where they are just liberal NIMBY urban planning trash) – if it is zoned residential, it remains that. So, too, with commercial and industrial zoning. The government clears away the completely useless buildings, cleans up those buildings which are still usable (even if they need work). The resultant properties go into a pool and at fixed times and places, American citizens (only citizens, and never corporations) can stake a claim to the properties…just like the old Homestead Act, if you stay on it for five years and develop it (you know, build or repair the house; open a factory up in that industrial property, etc) then title is transferred to you.

First thing: this will cost. Probably a lot. Not in obtaining the property – under eminent domain the full market value has to be paid but we’re talking here about de-facto abandoned property. We’d have to draw up some rules on that but a rule of thumb would be if the city hasn’t collected property taxes on it for, say, five years before it is seized in eminent domain, then that is abandoned property – it has no legal owner. Sure, there would be lawsuits on it…we’d win them. But the real expense comes in clearing/cleaning the property. But that, my friends, is the first step in giving benefit to the people…this would open up a huge number of low skilled jobs in areas of highest economic blight. Anyone can haul away trash. We just created some jobs – sure, government funded, but still private sector (various contractors would obviously be employed here) and just in cleaning up the mess, that will start to improve the areas we’re working in.

Second thing: making sure we’re not screwing ourselves. One thing is to make sure that the corrupt city governments don’t get their greedy little fingers in here. That’s part of the reason to federalize the property…but it can’t stay federal forever and I don’t want, say, the mayor of Chicago licking his chops at how much property taxes he’s going to be able to collect in five years. So, such property after transfer of title remains federal land for twenty years – federal land, no local or State taxes on it. The provision against corporations getting the land is because I don’t want corrupt political machines in the cities setting up fake corporations to stake a claim and then in five years just selling it off at whatever price after Uncle Sam picked up the tab for cleaning the land. This act is for people, not for governments or corporations. After the title is transferred then what will happen will happen…but the connected are not taking this thing over.

Some incentives:

Aside from being property-tax free for a total of twenty five years, I would also make the labor and material costs of fixing/building on the properties tax deductible. Full ride on it – whatever you spent to get that house or factory into working order, write it off your taxes…and you can allocate those costs over a twenty year period (you don’t have to take the write off in one year…you spent, say, $100,000 on it, go ahead and spread that tax deduction over five, ten or twenty years as seems best to you.

For contractors actually doing the work (as most of it will be) profits from such work are taxed at half whatever federal rate you pay on profits. Massive incentive for contractors to get into this…and pass at least part of the savings on to the customer. So, too, with materials sold to people building on the Homestead properties – you sell lumber then the lumber you sell for this is taxed less. The key here is to kickstart the thing – to make everyone want to jump in. And, of course, the goal was two-fold from the start: to revive these blighted areas, and to provide an increased market for goods and services. Because then the final step here: all materials used in these properties must be American made. We’re not doing this so China can sell us more drywall (some care will have to be taken here – if there is some aspect of this that is genuinely not available in the USA or not available in sufficient amount then we can grant some easements on this requirement…but just think about what is needed to build any structure and you know that 90%+ of it is easily obtainable in the USA). Think of the ripple effects in the economy as more lumber, nails, drywall, ducting, glass, wiring and on and on and on have to be made in the USA to rebuild America.

Anyways, that is the basics of my idea. Sure it would actually need refinement and there would be lots of nuance based on local conditions but the basic concept is to get Americans to rebuild America using American materials for the benefit of Americans. And I’m sure other people will come up with other ideas or improvements to this one. But we need the ideas. We need to talk about them. Send them along to those in charge or who have influence. Even if its just a tiny bit…that is how things are supposed to be done in the USA. Bottom up – the people are the prime movers, the government just clears the decks. And if we do this – and a hundred other good ideas as well – we’ll leave the Left out in the cold. They can’t come up with positive, helpful ideas – because they hate the USA and Americans. They don’t want us doing well – they want us punished for our sins, real and imagined. But as long as they can talk a game about helping, their message will resonate…if, however, we show the people that we’re helping, all the talk in the world won’t change the result.

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.