14 Years Post 9/11

Mark Noonan7 Comments

This post is timed to appear on the blog at the same time the first plane struck the World Trade Center on that day.

It is hard to think of the day any longer – it is like it happened in a different nation. A different era.

But I still can recall my first knowledge of it – getting the phone call from the east coast, turning on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit. I can still see in my mind’s eye the buildings collapsing.

A lot of time has passed. The national unity we had is long gone. We’re not even really fighting the sort of people who commit acts like that – and who will commit them against us, again, just as soon as they are able.

I suggested back in the aftermath of 9/11 that the sort of war we got was a Thirty Years War…a multi-decade effort which would have all sorts of twists and turns. It certainly has had that. How it all ends remains to be seen – but I don’t suspect it’ll end within the next ten years.

Pray for the repose of the souls who have died – those who died on 9/11 and those who had died since. Pray for those who stand up to defend us under arms. Pray for the conversion of the terrorists, that they may discover that peace and mercy are best.

Syria, Refugees and What to Do

Mark Noonan4 Comments

I’m betting that everyone has seen the heart-breaking pictures of that little boy who washed up dead on the beach in Turkey – that picture plus the scenes of tens of thousands of people flooding into Europe has caught the attention of the world. This is because our modern world isn’t a place of thought and knowledge, but of emotions and impressions…and the picture of a dead child gives us an emotional impression…and demands that we “do something” get us off the hook, oddly enough, from having to actually do something (if we make a demand, in the modern mind, that is equivalent to action). But we do need to actually think about this – and then we really need to do something.

The refugee crisis is the result of the failure of the nations of the Middle East. No one went in there and made these people start fighting like mad. This was a conscious choice of the people there – no, not all of them, but enough of them to matter (and even those who didn’t want this also, in a sense, choose it – because they didn’t fight against the mad men, and each insane fighter has to have two or three non-fighters to support him in his efforts). This isn’t the legacy of Imperialism; this isn’t the result of Israel existing; this isn’t because we fought in Iraq – this is because of the people there deciding, all on their own, upon a course of action. The people of the Middle East failed, not the United States; not Europe, not the world.

It is worthwhile to note that the Middle East is not this monolithic entity. To be sure, most of them claim some version of Islam as their theology, but the place is actually made up of the ethnic flotsam and jetsam of 5,000 years of human migration into the Middle East; there are vastly different underlying cultures in the Middle East – just as Europeans have a lot in common but there are vast differences between, say, French and Bulgarian people. The passions within Islam have been held down for most of Islam’s history – invariably by a power which could apply enough force to convince everyone that peace is sweeter than freedom. Up to modern times, it was the Ottoman Turks who held them down; the Turks were briefly succeeded by European empires and then by various strong men. That has ended – and the people there are fighting it out; and there doesn’t seem to be any large force of people who are fighting for an Islam where everyone just goes their own way and lets everyone else just live and let live.

There are three courses of action:

1. Stay out – and that means, also, not allowing the people to come to Europe and the United States.

2. Go in – all the way in, with a massive military force. Pick a side we want to win and then fight until everyone opposed to that side is dead or taken.

3. Go on as we are – maybe a bit of military action; maybe a bit of half-hearted support for people we think might be ok; maybe a bit of diplomacy to try and broker deals between the sides.

The first choice means the war goes on; perhaps to a conclusion, perhaps to mutual exhaustion…but in either case, with plenty of very bad actors still around to cause trouble, including terrorism trouble in the West. The second choice means millions of men and women under arms in the Middle East for years – fighting a cruel war against forces which have no respect for common, human decency. The third choice means the war goes on, the refugees continue to flood into the West and vast amounts of blood and treasure get expended with no end in sight.

Rumors are that Russia is sending troops to bolster Assad’s regime in Syria – if true, then Russia is picking a side. And as brutal as Russia is under Putin, if they can provide enough force to Assad’s regime to beat the regime’s enemies, then peace will come to Syria – the peace of the grave for many, of course, but still peace. While I can’t imagine Putin taking such an action for humanitarian purposes, such an action is humanitarian in its ultimate outcome, if it works. The fighting will eventually cease. Some sort of government will emerge. People will be able to in some manner rebuild their lives. If you don’t like the idea of Assad’s regime surviving then here’s your choice: pick a different side and give it sufficient force to beat Assad’s regime, backed by Russia and Iran (with the attendant risk of war with Russia and Iran over it). Not too pretty a thing, right? But if you want to have a seat at the table when war is going on, then you have to fight – if you decide not to fight, then you are leaving all decisions up to those who will.

Which course do I favor? Either all the way in, or all the way out. Either we decide to fight until we get to impose an American settlement on the Middle East, or we stay out, completely. Half in means you just spend blood and treasure and still don’t get to have much say in how things come out. I don’t want American troops to die – nor to have them kill people – for anything which is unclear and/or indefinite. Whatever we do, we should do it all the way – even if what we decide to do is surrender American influence in the region.

Sunday Open Thread

Cluster13 Comments

I am looking forward to the Fall and the 2016 Campaign battle, and trust me, it will be a battle. The fascist Progressives who currently control the Democrat Party will lie, cheat, steal and personally attack anyone who threatens their hold on power and conservatives had better be prepared to be just as vicious. To hell with political correctness. Conservatives need to understand that we are not dealing with honorable people. This from the American Thinker:

We’re not fighting with honorable men but with people who believe they are better than the rest of us. We are in an ideological conflict with liberals who are at heart monarchists or oligarchists. Liberals reject the rule of law because they believe that they are right and that we should all be forced to live as liberals wish us to live.

Take for example Kim Davis in KY. Here is a city official who refused to uphold a federal law because it violated her conscience and as a result, a gay couple was unable to obtain a marriage license. However in SF, city officials refused to uphold federal law that violated their “collective” conscience, and as a result a young innocent woman was murdered. Guess which occurrence received the most outrage and media attention? I am one conservative who does support gay marriage but wish that the issue would have evolved through the political process and not through a tyrannical edict from Supreme beings. That is what fascism is, and that is who Democrats have become. Democrats are incapable of living in a messy democracy where people are free to be offended and held accountable for their actions, preferring instead to create “safety zones” and “welfare cocoons”. Democrats attack conservatives much more viciously than they attack ISIS, or Putin, or China and because of that, Democrats pose a much bigger threat to our country than any current outside threat. It is time to blow up the political class on both sides of the aisle, hold people accountable, call out the liars, call out the grifters, and tell people like Jorge Ramos to shut up and sit down.

Maybe Just Be Honest?

Mark Noonan47 Comments

I’ve been seeing a lot of statements by politicians of late – naturally – and one thing is striking me: the inability of people in politics to just admit when they don’t know things. All of them appear to be laboring under the impression that they have to have a pat answer to all questions – and as it is impossible for them to do that, they hem and haw around and end up saying things which are wrong and/or stupid.

To be sure, a wise politician will prepare him or herself with answers for likely questions – for GOPers this will be genuine MSM gotcha questions on social issues designed to feed into the overall Progressive campaign themes. But one cannot know everything – it just isn’t possible. And, of course, when a GOPer heads to a conservative or libertarian media outfit, he or she better be prepared for all sorts of smart, penetrating questions – a bit of study beforehand is wise. But even then, you’re still not necessarily going to have an answer for every question. I’m pretty well informed on matters of foreign policy but I, for instance, didn’t know who was in command of Iran’s al Quds force until I read about the Trump/Hewitt fracas over the issue (which seems to be a bit blown out of proportion by anti-Trump forces). Trump didn’t know either – and he should have just admitted not knowing and moved on (one thing about an admission of ignorance is that whatever series of questions your interviewer was planning for that subject are now wastebasket material). If I were running for office and someone leaped out and asked me a question I didn’t have a good answer to, I’d just say: “you know, that is a good question and I haven’t looked into the details of that matter – next time we talk, I’ll have something to say on it. Next question?”. I’d rather take a bit of heat for saying I don’t know something – when I don’t know about it – than take even worse heat by giving an ignorant answer, or getting huffy about the question, itself; or worst of all, lying about things and then getting called out on the lies later.

The main point I’m making here is that honesty is really the best policy. Especially in politics. This might seem counter-intuitive because, well, politicians tend to be people who spread enough bull to fertilize the Sinai. But the reality is that no matter how good a lie seems to be, it never works out in the long run. Well, strictly speaking, it never works out in the long run if you’re the sort of person who cares about the country and our people – those politicians who are just relentlessly on the make find that lies work well, in a sense. But for those who are trying to do something worthwhile, never fall into the trap of thinking that anything other than truth will work. Even if it results in you getting crushed this time around, it merely sets the stage for your ultimate triumph (or the triumph of your ideals, if you don’t get a second chance) – if a politician just tells the truth then in the long run that politician will be perceived as the best person, especially in contrast to the lying opponents who used lies to beat you at the previous election.

Level with the people. Tell them what is on your mind. Admit it when you don’t have the answer nailed down at the moment. Give a precise set of actions you will take once in office. Think about the candidate who has spent the whole campaign telling the truth – and then gets up in debate with the lying opponent: it will be a beautiful moment. “You just heard my opponent tell you a pretty story about what he/she will do – but it is just a fairy tale. It isn’t true.”. It just crushes the life out of someone who lies when someone who is known to be a truth-teller points out the Emperor has no clothes. It has happened before – when Reagan did his “there you go again” in the debate with Carter, that was Reagan saying, “it is just a fairy tale”. Here, take a look:

THE PRESIDENT. As long as there’s a Democratic President in the White House, we will have a strong and viable social security system, free of the threat of bankruptcy. Although Governor Reagan has changed his position lately, on four different occasions he has advocated making social security a voluntary system, which would, in effect, very quickly bankrupt it….These constant suggestions that the basic social security system should be changed does cause concern and consternation among the aged of our country. It’s obvious that we should have a commitment to them, that social security benefits should not be taxed, and that there would be no peremptory change in the standards by which social security payments are made to the retired people. We also need to continue to index the social security payments so that if inflation rises, the social security payments would rise a commensurate degree to let the buying power of the social security check continue intact.

In the past, the relationship between social security and Medicare has been very important to provide some modicum of aid for senior citizens in the retention of health benefits. Governor Reagan, as a matter of fact, began his political career campaigning around this Nation against Medicare. Now we have an opportunity to move toward national health insurance, with an emphasis on the prevention of disease; an emphasis on outpatient care, not inpatient care; an emphasis on hospital cost containment to hold down the cost of hospital care for those who are ill; an emphasis on catastrophic health insurance, so that if a family is threatened with being wiped out economically because of a very high medical bill, then the insurance would help pay for it. These are the kind of elements of a national health insurance, important to the American people. Governor Reagan, again, typically is against such a proposal.

MR. SMITH. Governor.

GOVERNOR REAGAN. There you go again. [Laughter]

Carter did the normal Democrat thing – claim the Republican wants people to die in the streets and then promise a sack full of free stuff if you vote Democrat. But Reagan utterly destroyed it – just by saying, “there you go again”. It means, “you’re just spreading BS, Carter”, and instantly the millions of Americans watching the debate understood it – here was a hack politician promising a world he cannot possibly give, confronted with a truth-teller. Reagan went on to win in a landslide just a few days later. We’ve been hammered by lies for quite a long while now – and people are aware of the lies. In 2016, the Democrat candidate will have to defend the lies – he or she will have no choice as Democrats cannot run far away from Obama’s record (remember: $2,500 reduction in insurance premiums? Keep your plan if you like?)…and when Hillary or Biden or Sanders is up there in front of a massive national audience telling the American people how evil the Republican is and how much free stuff he or she is going to give you for voting Democrat…”there you go again”. But it will only work if the eventual GOP nominee has not spent the campaign hedging and hemming and hawing and trying to triangulate himself into favorable coverage for a news cycle. Telling the truth can make you terribly unpopular at times – you have to endure that heat; embrace it; proclaim how proud you are to be condemned for speaking the truth…and just wait for your moment to point out that the other guy is full of nonsense from start to finish.

A Rather Depressing Day

Mark Noonan16 Comments

Not for me, personally. I had a good day. While not a hunter, I have a friend of mine who was heading out to do some dove hunting and I decided to join him for the day…it was nice just being out there for a few hours, away from the idiocy which is the modern world. But, still, what a lot of depressing news out there:

McConnell says he doesn’t have the votes to de-fund Planned Parenthood. Yes, you do, Mitch. All you have to do is kill the filibuster. It’s not like any future Democrat Senate majority will keep it two seconds longer than it is useful to them. This is the modern world, Senator – the old, “dear colleague” rules don’t apply. They haven’t actually applied since the 1950’s, of course, when Democrats decided that power is more important than anything else. They’ve just played a game of it – and played the GOP for suckers. If you had an ounce of backbone, McConnell, you’d just kill the filibuster, pass the de-fund and send it on to Obama, so he can veto it and we’ll have yet another good issue to run on in 2016. Change the rules so we can pass whatever we want and then let Obama and the Democrats sit there in the fryer trying to explain why they oppose the will of the people.

The Dow shed nearly 3% today – so, we’ve tried printing money. We’ve tried lending it to rich people at zero percent. We tried boondoggle spending programs. The Chinese have added to this by first telling people not to sell, then using Chinese taxpayer money to buy stocks, then arresting people who comment negatively on the Chinese stock market. Nothing seems to work. I’m all out of ideas, guys – I don’t know how they keep this bubble afloat.

Canada, which mostly avoided the economic downturn of the past 7 years, has slipped into recession.

Another police officer shot.

Yet more worn out, has-been political hacks seek a comeback.

Some GOPers apparently believe that Mitt Romney is our best bet in 2016.

There. All depressed? Hope not, but if you are then I offer this:

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” – C. S. Lewis

A Freely Censored Press

Mark Noonan16 Comments

We don’t need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press. G. K. Chesterton, 1908

So, as you can see, it has been going on a rather long time – meaning, this process whereby what is happening isn’t actually revealed in a timely manner by the press.

I was thinking about this the other day when I came across something I hadn’t thought of before – I was looking a bit into World War Two’s “Battle of the Atlantic“; the war-long conflict where the Germans were trying to strangle Britain via sinking merchant ships. I think anyone with a cursory knowledge of World War Two is aware of the phrase “loose lips sink ships”. This was a propaganda effort ostensibly to ensure that Americans on the home front didn’t discuss ships movements – lest the Germans get wind of them and thus massacre our poor merchant ships. It seemed to make sense; and it always did to me until I saw a comment which noted that this might have been more an effort to prevent the American people from discussing the fact that merchant ships were being massacred right off the coast of the United States. The Nazi submariners called this “the second happy time“. The first happy time for them was right after the Germans got control of France’s Atlantic ports, thus massively increasing the effectiveness of German U-Boats against British targets. But the second happy time was a real good time for the Germans – about 1/4 of all merchant ships sunk by U-Boats occurred during this 7 month period. It was really bad – and the response by the U.S. Navy and the American government was less than pathetic. To be sure, there were circumstances which could not be swiftly corrected (most notably the shortage of suitable Naval escort vessels for merchant convoys) but, still, it was just a terrible Naval defeat for the United States. One wonders: maybe “loose lips sinks ships” really reflected a concern that the Germans were learning of ships movements via careless talk but, then again, maybe it was just a means of suppressing news of what was happening? And, after all, it isn’t like the Germans during this time needed to get top secret information – all they had to do was lay off American harbors and wait for the targets to conveniently present themselves in succession (it really was that easy for them – hence, “happy time”…nothing a submariner likes better than easy targets). Now, just where was the vaunted free press of the United States? It was a rather sensational story, wasn’t it? Ships being destroyed in sight of America’s greatest cities. Heroic efforts to rescue people from the briny deep. Widows and orphans of the dead to be interviewed. Questions to be asked about why the Navy was so unprepared – and what steps they were taking to combat the crisis. But, from all appearances, the MSM of the day was going along with the official line.

I wrote a bit ago about the really terrible way World War Two was conducted on our side at the highest levels. Some really bone headed mistakes were made, and all through the war. To be sure, Admiral Kimmel and General Short were cashiered after Pearl Harbor, but not many officers of senior rank felt the heat (and Kimmel and Short both did have some valid extenuating circumstances – but as an old sailor, I still fault Kimmel – the Navy’s job is to be instantly ready for war; regardless of what else was going on, Kimmel should have had his ships in a state to immediately repel an attack from any quarter, 24/7). Let’s take a look at Eisenhower, for instance. In charge of Operation Torch, which was intended to get to Tunisia before the Axis powers could occupy it, he allowed his massively strong forces to be checked by a handful of Germans flown into Tunisia with nearly no heavy weapons. In charge of Overlord, he got his forces hung up in grinding, attrition warfare and when the enemy finally cracked, he failed to close the ring on them, allowing many to escape to fight another day. In charge of the drive towards Germany, he got to the gates of Germany at a time when there were, at most, the combat strength of 10 German divisions to cover hundreds of miles of front, and then paused just long enough for the Germans to scrape up troops to defend against attacks, thus extending the war by months and countless dead. After that, caught completely flat-footed by the Germans in the “Battle of the Bulge“. None of these mistakes, all of them costly in blood and treasure, resulted in a rebuke for Eisenhower – indeed, he was lauded as the great hero and got to be President of the United States for eight years. One wonders if we had in World War Two the sort of press we had during the Civil War just how long Eisenhower could have hung on in command (the Army of the Potomac had four commanders tossed out due to mistakes – but no mistakes they made were any worse than the mistakes made by Eisenhower…or a bunch of other senior commanders during World War Two). And that leads to the question: just how much censorship by the press have we been getting?

Conservatives tend to be aware of what is really going on with things like ISIS and what is at stake in Hillary’s private server – but isn’t that because we tend to read conservative media of various types? Are the full stories of these things – as well as many others – even being reported in any significant way to the average American who doesn’t consume conservative media? I doubt it highly – after all, it is just downright bizarre that more people aren’t demanding vigorous action against ISIS; they are doing very nasty things all the time, after all. Doubly bizarre that the Democrat front-runner may very well have committed a whole series of felonies and yet she remains the front-runner. It can only be explained, as far as I’m concerned, by most people being unaware of what is going on.

Do people – average, every day people who don’t seek out alternative news sources – know that Planned Parenthood is America’s largest abortion provider? Do they know that China is making a bid for Naval supremacy in the western Pacific? Do they know that Japan, India, Australia and South Korea are all building aircraft carriers of various capabilities because of the China threat, and the worry we won’t be there if a war breaks out? Do they know that Iran and Saudi Arabia are coming to military blows over Yemen? Do they know that the Egyptian government is battling Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups in the Sinai? Do they know the United States has record natural gas production and our cheap energy means that with a bit of effort, manufacturing can come back to the United States? Do they know we can produce even more if the government will get out of the way? Probably not – none of these stories are any more helpful to the Ruling Class (of which the MSM is a member) than stories of tankers being blown to pieces off Long Island would have been in World War Two. And, so, they aren’t told in a way which would make people sit up and notice…which means repetitive reporting about it for several days in all the MSM outfits (it takes a while to drill a story into the public mind – an in-depth report on page A-28 of the New York Times won’t do it…it has to be on page one of the major dailies for several days while the talking heads on TV are mentioning it again and again and again…proof of this is if we polled how many Americans know who Kim Kardashian is against the number who can even identify Yemen on a map).

It is said that a free press is vital to a free society – and that is true. But what happens when the press refuses to be free? That is, when it refuses to confront people with what is really going on, preferring instead to just repeat what the bosses think the people should hear? Can a people be free when they can only choose between false alternatives presented to them by a press which is venal and in the hip pocket of those in charge?

I really don’t have a solution to this – among the freedoms the press enjoy is the freedom to sell itself entirely to one side in the political debate. If people wish to be puppets on a string, then it is their right to be such. But we do, I believe, need something of national reach which will tell the actual truth – tell what is really happening in our nation and in the world. How to get it escapes me – but I hope that someone out there with the resources will get on it.

Out and About on a Thursday

Mark Noonan18 Comments

The Chinese government is buying stocks, so the economy is all better now – please resume your regular Kardashian news viewing.

Kasich viewed as a bigger threat to Bush than Trump is. Uh; well…ok. But being a threat to Bush is akin to being a threat to nothing…Bush hasn’t got a chance at being nominated.

Hillary Clinton is viewed as being dishonest and untrustworthy. This surprises precisely no one. Meanwhile, Joe appears to be Biden is time before he jumps in…

Boehner reportedly calls Cruz a “jackass”…this will, I’m sure, make Cruz more than willing to work with Boehner, assuming Cruz becomes President. If this story is true, then it is time to get another Speaker.

Read that Rubio doesn’t think Trump will win the nomination because we’re not an angry nation. Which is true. We passed “angry” in 2010. By now, we’re a scorching furious nation.

Charges have been dropped against a man for playing the Star Spangled Banner on the Fourth of July. Yes, this is still officially the United States of America. Sorta.

There are 141 counties with more registered voters than living people. And that does appear to be more voters than living people – not more voters than adult citizens. So, voter fraud isn’t a problem.

Attacking the Establishment is What 2016 is All About

Mark Noonan15 Comments

I see that Donald Trump got into another fracas with Megyn Kelly and now Ted Cruz has also taken exception to a Kelly line of questioning:

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz was seemingly unhappy with a question on immigration Tuesday night from Fox News host Megyn Kelly, telling her it was something he’d expect to be asked from a “liberal journalist.”

Kelly asked the Texas senator the same question Donald Trump faced on the cable-news network Monday.

“If you have a husband and a wife who are illegal immigrants, and they had two children here who are American citizens — would you deport all of them? Would you deport the American citizen children?” she asked.

Cruz replied that politicians should first tackle immigration by focusing on issues of bipartisan agreement, including stopping illegal immigration and “improve and streamline” legal immigration…

Kelly’s question is just the sort of MSM-Prog question we expect – from the MSM-Prog types. Fox News says it isn’t like that – but here we go. The question is a “why do you hate the children?” sort of question. It is a question which essentially boils down the entire issue to something which is (a) trivial and (b) impossible to answer in a mere “yes or no” manner. Kelly is pretty much holding here that unless Cruz (and, I guess, Trump who was asked the same sort of question by Kelly) states his opinion on whether or not the children should be deported, then he can’t talk about immigration reform. It is a typical liberal trap for conservatives – you either have to show the LIV that you hate the children or you have to anger the GOP base by getting mealy-mouthed on whether or not you’ll deport illegal immigrants. People who are concerned about illegal immigration are not primarily concerned about what we may do regarding those people who have lived here a while and have American-born children – the primary concern is whether or not we, as a nation, will control our borders, at all. Yes, the children of illegal immigrants are an issue and will have to be dealt with as we work out the ways and means of border security and immigration reform…but it isn’t the top issue. The top issue is the number of people flooding across the border today, not the number who flooded across five years ago and now have two American-born children. But, you see, if we start discussing the real issues regarding immigration, then we’ll have to do something about immigration…but if we can emote about the children then we can ignore the real problem…and Democrats and Chamber of Commerce types will get their heart’s desire: open borders.

But, this isn’t really about illegal immigration – it is about the desperate desire of the Ruling Class to get its way in spite of the will of the American people, and the desperate desire of the American people to defeat the Ruling Class. The reason why Donald Trump is surging in the GOP primary and Bernie Sanders in the Democrat primary is because people are fed up. Frank Luntz apparently needed the Establishment Fainting Couch today when he focus-grouped some GOPers and found out they despise the GOP Establishment. This came as shocking news to Luntz, but for you and me down here its old hat…because we all despise the GOP Establishment. We handed them massive victory in November of 2014 and they can’t even defund Planned Parenthood! PP is handed to them on a platter and they can do something which the base would be thrilled about…and at no political cost (the MSM would like to use such a thing to gin up “war on women” for 2016, but they wouldn’t dare because if they did, it would only bring up why PP was defunded; something the MSM has thus far prevented the LIV from learning). For those on the left, they can’t believe they had the whole government for 2 years and the White House+Senate for 6 years and all they got for it is ObamaCare: they were expecting the Progressive Paradise to arrive. We laugh at it, but they really believed Obama when he made his victory speech in 2008…they really thought that getting Obama and a Democrat Congress meant that the sea levels would start to fall. Been a bit of a disappointment, hasn’t it? And now they are told that their only choice for 2016 is a worn-out political hack who drew the lucky straw in the marriage sweepstakes? That isn’t going down any better with Democrats than Jeb Bush has with Republicans.

Trump still isn’t the man we need – but he’s going to keep leading in the polls until some GOPer out there figures out that fighting the Establishment (all of it, everywhere – even, and especially, those parts of it which claim to be on our side) is the only way to go. I think Ted Cruz has figured it out – I think that Scott Walker has partially figured it out (though his basic Establishment background is preventing him from doing it right – and he’s actually hurting himself right now by being all over the map rather than finding a point and sticking to it). Cruz doesn’t spend any time attacking Trump – there’s no point; all that does is make him more of a hero…but getting into a fight with Megyn Kelly? Good politics (I know a lot of conservatives think highly of Megyn Kelly – I’m unimpressed. I’ve never heard so much of a word out of her which indicates a deep level of thought about things…of course, I barely ever watch Fox News or, indeed, any televised news other than local stuff to catch the weather report, so maybe I’ve missed something…and if someone has a quote from Ms. Kelly which is impressive, I’m ready to hear it). Megyn Kelly is part of the Establishment – she’s the opponent. It isn’t for a GOPer to get along with her, but to challenge the basis of her lines of questioning…and so, too, with all other MSMers asking us questions, because not one of them is on our side. And the people – especially the GOP base – wants to hear that. We don’t want to know what Cruz – or anyone – will do about the children of illegal immigrants…we want to know what Cruz will do about the people flooding nearly unimpeded across our border on daily basis…and we want the reporters, if they are such, to ask the Democrats what precisely they propose to do about stopping the flow (we know they won’t – but until they do we’ll treat with monumental contempt any MSMer who presumes to ask a “gotcha” question of a GOPer on the issue).

I really haven’t the foggiest notion how this will all come out in the end – I don’t know who will win the respective party nominations, and no idea who might wind up getting elected. It could get very, very messy – even having both conventions becoming brokered as no one in either party wins a first-ballot majority (still highly unlikely – but in the 5% chance range unlikely, rather than existentially impossible, as it normally is). But from what I have read and heard, the people are just sick of this nonsense. They voted for hope and change in 2008 and all they got was business as usual, a stagnant economy and a world spinning out of control. There is no trust any longer – and as there is no trust, people will go for anyone who expresses their distrust of the Establishment. Yes, even an Establishment guy like Donald Trump – because even though he’s of it, he’s fighting it (he wouldn’t be the first Ruling Class politician in human history to eschew his own…Pericles and Caesar did it thousands of years ago in Athens and Rome). You want to keep Donald Trump out? Then don’t attack Trump – do a better job than Trump is at attacking the system.

The Unraveling

Cluster8 Comments

It’s unfortunate that our country had to get to this point, but the end of our current “progressive” nightmare is near. The free fall of the Dow has exposed the fragility of the economy; the Planned Parenthood debacle has exposed the ugly truth about abortion; the self inspections and recent SAM purchases by Iran have exposed the sheer stupidity of our foreign policy; the Black Lives Matters movement has exposed the failure of liberal social justice policies; and the Hillary email and IRS scandals have exposed the dishonesty of progressive Democrats. It’s all unraveling on every front, right in front of our eyes, let’s hope conservatives can seize the day.

“……..raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people”.  – Ronaldo Magnus

Ok, So Maybe the Markets are Getting Pretty Bad

Mark Noonan8 Comments

Haven’t paid much attention to the global crash in stocks over the past couple weeks because I’ve been figuring, after all these years, that the central banks would be able to make them go higher before things got bad. I know full well that an economy based upon fake money and debt cannot go on forever, but after watching it keep going for 7 years, I figured they’d be able to keep the ball in the air for a few more years. But, maybe not – from Zero Hedge:

FACTS: By midday break, nearly 2000 stocks down 10% daily limit in Chinese market — only 13 stocks up; Shanghai benchmark index down 8.45%

And:

…It is unclear just what is going on, or whether some prop desk or hedge fund just got tapped out, and/or how the Fed will react but the last time we had action like this, the Fed confused a liquidating SocGen trader for an economic collapse, and cut rates by 75 bps in January of 2008. This time it does not have that luxury.

Indeed – back in 2008, the Federal Reserve – and pretty much every other central bank – got into money-printing and zero percent interest to support the collapsed market: what do they do, now? I don’t know – but we’ll see. I was fully expecting the DOW to sky rocket on Monday morning after Friday’s sell off…and that still might happen. We’ll see.