Living in the Insane World

Mark Noonan36 Comments

In 1877, President Grant, just out of office, embarked on a world tour. He had been pretty much at the helm of great events since 1861 and he and his wife and long talked of a day when they would just travel the world…this was the fulfillment of what must, at times, have seemed an idle hope. They were in no hurry and stopped at many places along the way so the tour went on into 1879 (and, of course, travel by steamship and train is much slower than modern methods). In the course of this tour they visited the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey (including the Holy Land then under Turkish rule), Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia, Russia, Poland, Austria-Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, India, Burma, Siam, Indochina and Japan. Aside from his wife, he was accompanied by his son, Jesse, a journalist to document the trip and one aide. He was never under any threat of harm, was greeted warmly wherever he went and generally had a splendid time.

This, my friends, was the real world. A sane world. Of course, there were dangers – Lincoln had been assassinated in 1865. The Empress of Austria would be assassinated in 1898. But the world was sane. Safe. Murder was a rare and shocking thing (my grand-uncle Eddie Diggins was murdered in a speakeasy in 1927 and it made the New York Times – back pages, sure; but a murder in LA of someone of no real prominence made the papers in New York; that is how odd murder was). Now, why bring this up?

Because Trump has removed Secret Service protection for a lot of people of late – most notably John Bolton. This is causing quite a lot of outrage in the Ruling Class as these people are allegedly under threat of assassination, especially by agents of Iran. This might well be true – and I respond to this worry by saying that John Bolton and the rest of these people who had a hand in making this insane world should suffer the consequences of their actions. We’re not supposed to be in a world where a former official of the US government is at risk of assassination. We’re supposed to be so powerful and respected that nobody but a sheer madman would dream of killing one of our people. The solution to a threat by the Mullahs in 2025 was to have removed the Mullahs from power in 1979 when they took our Embassy. Our Ruling Class didn’t. And the replacements which have moved in since then never made any real response to the 1979 outrage. Indeed, some of the Ruling Class replacements who have come and gone positively encouraged the Mullahs to remain in power.

So, if a Mullah tries to kill you, I’ve got no sympathy.

We’re not supposed to live in a world of terrorist bombs, assassins, bums sleeping in tents, illegals pouring across borders, grooming gangs in England, sex tourism in Thailand, gangsters running Haiti, Hamas sending in rape/murder squads, 300,000 Americans overdosing on drugs, bridges that can’t be repaired for years, wildfires burning out of control for lack of water…you getting the picture? This world has gone mad and I don’t propose to protect the people who made this world from harm. They should have thought about it while they were destroying everything…I’m not going to hide a guy behind walls and guns where he’s safe from the consequences of his actions. Perhaps this will concentrate some minds going forward? Make some decisions go different ways?

We can only hope – meanwhile, let those who made the mess live in it.

UPDATE: Right around the time I wrote this, Trump ordered the declassification of the JFK, MLK and RFK files. I’m not expecting much – everyone has had plenty of time to carefully sanitize them. OTOH, our Ruling Class has a lot of very stupid people in it so maybe they didn’t? In these cases, I always recall that the Brits are keeping part of their Himmler death documents secret until 2045. I’ve always thought this weird – the “conspiracy theory” about it is that the Brits offed Himmler and faked his suicide because they didn’t want him to spill it about contacts between the UK (especially, perhaps, Royal Family) and Himmler during the war. But, if so, why not just destroy the documents? But, if the documents have been destroyed, why keep them secret until 2045? It is just weird…and maybe someone sifting through, say, the JFK files can shed some light on the sequence of events…like why the FBI didn’t have Oswald under surveillance given he was a known Commie kook and the President was coming to town?

Goodness: It’s Only Wednesday!

Mark Noonan7 Comments

But doesn’t it feel like we’ve been winning for a while now? The whole nightmare four years is *poof* gone. And, wow: was Team Trump ready for this! They must have been prepping for a long while. My guess was since September when the public polls started to show a fading of the Kamala-mentum (which meant that the internal polls already showed a Trump win). Small thing Trump said didn’t cause a lot of stir, but I noticed it (I think it was on Monday) – words to the effect of, “yeah, they knew at nine it was over but they kept hoping a miracle would happen”. That would be nine, eastern, of course. Which is probably pretty accurate – my stepson is a number-cruncher computer kinda guy and he wandered out into the kitchen/family room about 6:30pm on election night (so, 9:30 in the east) and, getting something from the ‘fridge, said “you feeling happy?”. “Still waiting for it to be called.” “You kidding? Its been over for a couple hours…”. I don’t know exactly what he had been checking on, but it means he looked at something just as the polls closed in the east and then went on to other things because it was all over but the shouting. And now we’re just rolling!

Trump has terminated affirmative action. Keep in mind that Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Bush W all neglected this. That’s all affirmative action ever was – a note from Johnson. It never has been a law. And in practical effect, affirmative action was the assertion that the cure for injustices in the past is to commit injustices in the present. I mean, seriously: it would be hard to find a more stupid idea in history. It is so very crucial that we start to live in the real world – and part of the real world is that we can’t fix the past. It is set in stone. It happened. All we can do is go on from this point trying to do better. Sure, black Americans were behind in education and economic advancement in 1965…no doubt about it. Slavery and Jim Crow had massively and totally unjustly impacted the ability of black Americans to get educated and wealthy. And once Jim Crow was terminated by the Civil Rights Act there was absolutely nothing anyone could do about it. There wasn’t a magic wand to be waved to make it all go away – and by force-feeding black Americans into positions it merely meant that the most politically connected people would get all the benefit while the overwhelming mass of black people not only got nothing, but took an additional hit in their ability to climb the ladder. Not for nothing post-Civil Rights did a lot of the leaders get on the gravy train…because they could. They were by that time connected…and nobody gave a damn about the working class black family living in an increasingly crime-infested neighborhood as the jobs were shipped to China.

As I said on Sunday, the fix is to go back to the error and correct it. Various GOPers had tried to fix Affirmative Action…it can’t be fixed. It was the mistake. Trump did away with the mistake.

And he’s doing that a lot. I’m sure you’ve all seen this or that act which particularly pleased and/or impressed you…telling the DEI staff to clear out their desks was pretty good in my book! Its been a massive assault on a corrupt and incompetent system since the moment he took the oath…and we can look forward to a lot more of it.

Meanwhile, the new face of the Democrat resistance is that lady “bishop” at the National Cathedral. I don’t think she or anyone on the Left realizes how egregiously insulting they are. “Please protect the LGBTQ people who fear for their lives!”. Fear? Fear, what? We’re not going to go around oppressing people. We don’t give a darn! But think about what she’s saying – what the overall Left is saying: “we’re terrified!”. But that is all a lie – not by word, deed or even implication has Trump or anyone supporting him indicated hostility to people living like they want to live. “Love is love” is an absurd statement, but if that’s your creed, knock yourself out. I don’t care. But the “bishop” told the lie. Does she believe the lie? It doesn’t matter – it is still a lie. But it is a lie routinely stated and now believed by tens of millions. And its nothing but a damned insult. Until the Left understands what they are doing, they can’t even start the trip back to sanity.

President Donald J Trump (Again)

Mark Noonan44 Comments

Happy day!

Be sure to take some time to call your Liberal friends! They will be feeling very down…so, I suggest a bit of pointing and laughing.

With love!

Can you feel the hope? Not the manufactured “hope” of Obama…because we didn’t need hope then like we do now. Remember what the Left was bitching about in 2008…a center-left GOPer who pretty much gave them everything they wanted. To them, Obama was going to “save” them from that. Everyone seems a bit buoyant. Little bit of a spring in the step. Guys, I’ve never felt so good about the country. It’ll work out. I’ll get what I need. We all will. The times they are a-changing!

A veritable avalanche of Trump Executive Orders are pending – he’s said some, hinted at others…but from what I’ve heard, there are a couple hundred that will be done right away. I’m pretty sure they’ve been prepping this at least since September.

Of course the J6’ers are going to get pardoned – only question is if it will be all or if some who may have actually broken a law get left out. I’m fairly confident that no J6’er will remain long in jail. At worst, these people should have a got a fine…in the most egregious cases, maybe a fortnight in jail. All of that is long-since paid.

Trump will revoke the security clearances of the 51 intel officials who signed the letter saying the Hunter laptop was Russian. That, to me, is just a start – like with so many over the past 10 years, I figure they conspired to deny civil rights. Lots of people should go to jail.

Tom Homan has noted – as I did some while back – that it is a violation of federal law to in any way harbor an illegal or impede federal law enforcement in detecting and removing illegals. This is a direct shot at the Democrat mayors and governors who say they are “Trump-proofing” their jurisdictions. Can’t do that, guys. Nullification was settled when Lee surrendered to Grant…you can’t on the State or local level nullify federal laws. If you believe a federal law or action is unconstitutional, take it to court or apply to Congress for a change…but you can’t just set aside the law. I really do hope he makes a few very prominent examples…a governor and/or mayor in cuffs and brought before a federal court for arraignment on harboring illegal immigrants will get the message across: don’t do that. This doesn’t mean they have to actively pursue illegals, but they can’t stop the feds from doing it…and this includes actions like ignoring ICE detainers. If you know you have a bank robber in custody but let him go before the feds arrive, you just committed a crime…so, too, with illegals.

Hegseth is going to turn our military back into a military. No more fudging standards just so a careerist officer can get a “first”…”first woman Ranger!”, “first woman submariner!”…heck with that. Look, if the girls can meet the necessary standards, fine…but no more making it up as we go along so that we can have a “diverse” force. We need a lethal force…I don’t care what color or gender it is. Can it kill the enemy? That has to be the only standard. And for goodness sake, scrape the rust off our ships…its a darned disgrace.

And as we saw yesterday with The Village People singing, it is going to be fun. No more morose fussing over the lunatic obsessions of people with daddy issues or still angry the cheerleader wouldn’t date them in high school. The world will once again be for the normies…the people who work, pay the bills, pay the taxes, serve in the military and make society work. It is time for us to Make America Great Again!

Now What?

Mark Noonan5 Comments

I will have a January 20th post up, of course. Liberation Day is nearly here! But before we get into Trump 2.0, I want to take some time to sort of review where I am, politically, and where I think we need to go to really get out of this mess.

As has been seen over the past dozen years or so, there has been a fairly significant shift in how I view things – not really so much a change in ideological perspective, but more an understanding of just how wrong things have gone. This, I think, is a journey all thinking people have been on – even some on the Left have taken it, while remaining Left overall. The bottom line is that if you are a person of moderate intelligence, a bit of goodwill and some patriotism, you can’t possibly believe the same exact things you did in, say, 2005. The trouble with our Democrats, the overall Left and the diehard Never Trumpers is that it is forever 2005…the only wrinkle they’ve added to it is the trans issue (which has proved very destructive to these people and they don’t realize it yet).

It has been a journey! Someone a little earlier on X referenced the McMartin Preschool Trial and that blast from the past got me realizing that it was then and there the first doubts crept in…that the Media is simply lying. That government institutions don’t have a few bad apples, but are rotten barrels. And that if they’d lie like that – even after it was clear the lies were exposed – then just what else are they lying about? But the beginning always ties into the end…and now we see here of late that again and again senior people in our public and private institutions are sexual degenerates…when not messing with kids, they are just being generally horrifically abusive to anyone they can dominate. And that while they’re doing it, everyone around them knows it and doesn’t talk about it until it is too late.

The archetype of this is Jimmy Savile over in the UK – the man became a major player in 1964 when he started hosting Top of the Pops and remained front and center in the public eye until his death in 2011. And it was only in 2012 that the sexual abuse allegations exploded into the public sphere…but once that happened it came out that as early as 1963, before he rose to the top, people knew what he was doing. And he was allowed to just keep on doing it. You read he was made a member of the exclusive Atheneum Club in London…and was nominated by Cardinal Hume, who appears to have played a role in covering up sexual abuse scandals in the Church…and round and round it goes.

But this isn’t about sex scandals – it is about an Establishment filed with abusers and enablers and its all covered up by the MSM. And then you move on to defense contractors. Other government contractors. People getting grants from the US government for very bizarre-sounding projects. And we can’t stop people from crossing our border and then you find that we’re giving grants to NGO’s that are providing transport to the border and illegals are caught with pre-paid debit cards and just now Speaker Johnson tells us that when he met with Biden like a year ago he knew he was gaga but didn’t bring it up in public.

So, you conclude: what has gone on is all nonsense. Its all just a corrupt scam of one type or another…people raking in money, doing payoffs, working deals where in return for burying this bit of scandal that thing will be done. And where are the decent people? Oh, right: there are none. At least, not in the institutions. If they were decent, they’d expose it, even if it cost them their job. And that means that the very best people are…go-along-to-get-along careerists. Guys, this sort of system nearly got Trump killed in Butler, PA. And it doesn’t matter if the slackness was deliberate or just how things are…absent Trump’s miraculous turn of his head, he’d have died right there and we might be locked into bloody civil war right now. All a full review tells us is that the rot has been there a very long time. McMartin happened in 1983. JFK’s assassination in 1963. McCarthy was hounded out of the public square for pointing out the obvious in 1954…just when did the USA become dipped in filth with no chance of logic or common sense coming out on top?

All we can say is that it was a long time ago. Before most of us were born the seeds of the current swamp were planted. Sure, probably as early as Woodrow Wilson. Or even Teddy Roosevelt who got a free ride from the press because they liked him and who first came up with the idea that a President can do whatever he wants unless expressly prohibited by law. But we also know: once you step aside from the rules, everything that comes after is wrong. As I said a while back ago, if you start your equation with one plus one equals three, then everything that comes after is wrong, no matter how desperately you try to make it right. Once you have an error your only way out is to go back to the error and correct it, and then start all over from that point.

And that, ultimately, is what I think we’re doing. Perhaps a bit haphazardly, certainly not totally consciously, but that is it. In a way, finally trying to carry out Warren G Harding’s “return to normalcy”. Keep in mind that he said that in the 1920 Presidential election…this was before FDR and the New Deal. We didn’t have a military-industrial complex at the time. The FBI was just a few guys in the back rooms of the Justice Department. The CIA and NSA were far in the future. Government regulations were still a rarity. But Harding could see – and the American people could feel – that the period of time from McKinley’s assassination to the end of Wilson’s term had gone wrong. That muscular American foreign intervention was just not good for us. That preening “great men” trying to force us down new paths wasn’t wanted. With Return to Normalcy as his slogan, Harding got more than 60% of the vote…and he and Coolidge did try to get us back to normalcy. It was our bad luck that Hoover managed to get himself into the Harding/Coolidge administrations and managed to work himself into the favored spot for the 1928 GOP nomination when Coolidge (who could easily have won it) decided not to seek a second full term. Hoover, who was a Progressive to his core, was merely a mini-FDR in policy…with the unintended catastrophe being this nominal-Republican (we’d call him a RINO today) presiding over the start of the Great Depression and tarring the GOP for 40 years with it. By the time the GOP had recovered, it was too late – the rot (the swamp) had become overwhelming.

Trump is our attempt to return to normalcy. Not for nothing is Trump looking back and back for policy inspiration. Having been at the raw end of the Swamp for ten years now, he’s not in a mind to take their policy recommendations at face value. I have seen statements of his on economics and foreign policy which could have been lifted out of McKinley’s last speech (worth a read; a bit dull, but its like the sun coming out when you consider where we are). Even on immigration, all Trump is trying to do is get us back to the Immigration Act of 1924 – which was itself a huge component in the attempt to return to normalcy…because tens of millions of Third World immigrants wasn’t normal. Keep in mind that Titanic wasn’t built to provide John Jacob Astor swank accommodations across the Atlantic…it was to get steerage immigrants into the American labor market as fast as possible. The luxury of the Titanic was PR…the money was from importing cheap labor. White Star. Cunard. Hamburg-America, North-German Lloyd and many smaller firms…all competing to build the biggest and fastest ships to transport poor people into the American labor market. The Act of 1924 put a stop to it (and put those firms mostly out of business – only Cunard sort of survives as a subsidy of Carnival Cruises). Side note: Titanic was built by White Star, which was owned by International Mercantile Marine which was founded by J P Morgan, who wanted to monopolize the Transatlantic trade in labor which would, of course, benefit the profitability of his industrial interests in the USA. Neat, huh?

Do keep in mind that the Immigration Act of 1924 didn’t stop immigration. It is condemned these days because it excluded Asians and is described as something that simply stopped immigrants from coming in, but that isn’t so. Plenty of immigrants continued to arrive…just not a flood of immigrants, and those that were allowed in were cream of the crop from their home countries. Naturally, these days we won’t exclude based on race or national origin…but it simply makes no sense to allow a flood of unvetted immigrants to pour in. It is abnormal to do that. Stupid. Insane. Directly harmful not just to us, but to the immigrants, themselves…especially the lower end of the immigrants who are bound to be most abused all through the process.

And that gets us to our conclusion here – what are we to do? Simple: find out where we screwed up, go back to that point and fix the mistake. For immigration, the mistake was the 1965 immigration act. Like that, again and again and again. We keep losing wars? Why? Well, because we allow military officers to think of it as a career rather than a calling…they aren’t striving to defend America, but to get that star on their shoulder, and then some more. Pete Hegseth pointed out that we now have 44 four-star officers on the roles…we had 7 in World War two. This is what careerism breeds. Meanwhile, in the pre-WWII army, outside of MacArthur (who was unique in so many ways) the men who lead us to victory were majors and lt. colonels until just before the war started. They weren’t working for promotion, but to make the best military force they could. The mistake, then, is the gigantic military bureaucracy…get rid of it and turn the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines back into warfighters.

One thing I believe is crucial is to jettison certainty – everything needs to be thought about. Certainty does exist. There is absolute truth. But right now we’re in such a fog of swamp-created nonsense that we can’t be sure about anything. We might have to sort of feel our way forward here. Be ok with some potholes and some mistakes along the way. But the goal is to return to a sane, rational, logical and common sense society. A place where normal human beings can live and work. A return to normalcy.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan19 Comments

I think we’ve all noticed it – that Trump’s nominees are giving a full-throated endorsement of Trump policy. This is different from 2017 when it was pretty much “hey, approve me for this position and I’ll keep an eye on Trump for you!”. This now has the Democrats in quite a state of terror. They realize that what they’ve dished out for decades is about to be handed right back to them.

Our Democrats are now, as per usual, demanding bi-partisanship and that we make sure there isn’t any politicization of Justice. This is quite hilarious – that is, that they think we’d listen to them. We know what “bi-partisan” means: they get 90% of what they want, we get nothing. We also know what they mean by “politicization of Justice” means: for goodness sake, don’t do to us what we did to Trump! Of course, we don’t have to politicize Justice to go after Democrats…in what they did to Trump are a host of violations of federal law. This is why when Bondi said she would go wherever the law leads, Democrats got a sick feeling in their stomachs. All she has to do is follow the law and a lot of Democrats are going to jail.

Still, it remains to be seen: that is, if she’ll really follow the law. It is our hope, but nothing is for sure until it happens…and Trump is a deal maker: he might agree to turn a blind eye on this or that in order to get something he wants more. This would be ok as long as its something good for us. On the other hand, even if Trump would like to turn a blind eye, if Bondi gets the right people around her, it might not matter what deals Democrats want to strike…the hammer of Justice will drop on them.

The real problem the Democrats have is what Tallyrand said of the Bourbons after their restoration to the throne of France: they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Democrats are still voting against deporting illegal immigrants who commit sex crimes, and against banning men from women’s sports. Think about it: these are no brainer issues. Of course if you’re in country illegal and commit a sex crime you must be deported. Of course you can’t have boys competing with girls in sports. These are issues Americans are 70/30 in favor of. There is not a single vote to be garnered by opposing these measures…and plenty to be lost. But most Democrats are still committed to the flag they lost under in November.

The rule of thumb is that the party which won the White House will door poorly at the following midterms. The GOP should work from this assumption but there is an even money chance that it will go badly for the Democrats…and it’ll start leaning GOP if Trump has even moderate success over the next year. People carefully considered what the Democrats were offering and rejected it. The normal course of events for Democrats is to identify the issues they failed on and either jettison them, or at least modify them towards the political center. Nothing doing: the issues they failed on the worst are being held up as a litmus test for Democrats.

The ceasefire deal in Israel seems to me like a bad idea. I’m going to rely on Trump and Bibi to pull the fat out of the fire here but I can’t see an upside to allowing Hamas to live…let alone remain in charge of Gaza. It is clear, however, that the Israelis have lost some of the iron in the veins. The spirit of 1948 has atrophied. Time marches on. The Holocaust generation is nearly gone. A 25 year old Israeli has to ask great-grandpa about it, and great-grandpa is likely passed away by now. Sure, he learns about it in school and, by rote, honors the fallen…but he’s looking for a job and a girlfriend and there’s that weekend at the beach…suiting up to dig Hamas rats out of bunkers in Gaza lacks appeal. And lacks apparent immediate need: Israelis don’t feel like their backs are to the wall.

But their backs are to the wall. The Islamists take a very long view of this struggle. To them, survival after 10/7 is all the victory they need…they are now the he-men of the Islamist world who stood up to the Israelis and survived. Money and recruits will flow in. The world will rebuild Gaza for them. It might take ten years, but they will attack again. Sure, the Israelis will implement many new security protocols but human slackness always erodes these things over time…it is just the way things are. On 10/6 Hamas could easily get anything it wanted into Gaza – its why they had those thousands of rockets. The day after the ceasefire it’ll be almost impossible to get things in…but day by day it will get easier. Hamas’ goal is the total destruction of Israel and the murder of every single Jew on Earth. Unless and until Israel recognizes this and acts accordingly, there is always the possibility that Hamas can win.

UPDATE: Our Matt has an interesting look into the behind-the-scenes backstabbing that led to Biden’s withdrawal. Do read it: looks like they had knives out for a long time.

Normal vs Insane

Mark Noonan20 Comments

Their real objection to Hegseth is that he’s a normal man. Good looking guy, too. Incredibly in shape. They hate that. What I mean is that the basic Liberal’s path to getting a girl these days is to be a “male feminist” which means agreeing with every dumb thing feminists say and hoping you get a shot at it…the darker side is, of course, the actually abusive men who declare they are feminists so they can gain access to their victims. Hegseth is…a man. No saint. As someone once said: “soldiers are no angels, nor the gentlest of creatures”.

Their attempted smears of Hegseth on grounds of drinking and dallying with the ladies is, well, ridiculous and reveals that his critics have spent no real time with a combat unit. People who have signed up to be at the sharp end of a war – even if no war is going on at the moment – do live a little bit on the edge. In wartime, probably a little over that edge. In the World at War TV series, I believe it was an interview with cartoonist Bill Mauldin where he relates the story of when he was in Italy and taking a little break in a bombed out Italian house and in walks a British Tommy with a young Italian girl of…shall we say, questionable moral character…and the pair, taking no apparent notice of Mauldin, proceed to do what boys and girls will do. After they had finished they got up to leave, the Tommy saying, “good day, Yank”, and back off to the battle for him. When you might die soon, questions of morality get a little hazy. And you don’t judge the military by civilian standards. Ever.

The fact that Hegseth is in superb physical condition at age 44 tells us that he’s not a boozer. That he is a good looking man explains why he had plenty of opportunities with the ladies and didn’t refuse them. That he’s now married for five years and there are no recent allegations of him getting off the morality ranch shows that his statement that he underwent religious conversion six years ago is credible. In other words, in his late 30’s, he grew up a bit, as men will do. Sure, would have been much better if he had come to this ten years previously…but life is life and we’re not on a schedule.

They hate Hegseth because he’s a normal man – but they fear him because he’s not one of them. He’s not a career officer who kissed butt to get stars on his shoulders as prep for moving into a defense contractor job as prep for returning to the Pentagon and on and on ad infinitum. He’s not committed to the defense bureaucracy. Not committed to letting today’s brigadier general become a major general just because its his turn. Not committed to “diversity” when what we want is lethality. An old veteran like myself has seen over the past few years our Navy ships covered in rust and I know that its all gone wrong…no sailor would ever allow his ship to look like that. This means that our current sailors, ain’t. I believe that most of them want to be and will be if given leadership to become sailors…and that is what I hope Hegseth will do for the entire military. And the Left hates that, too…to them, the military is a social program for their experiments. For patriots, it is the lifeblood of the nation.

As we watched the lunatic ravings of the Senate Democrats, it became crystal clear that Trump represents a return of sanity to DC…Democrats are in a last-ditch, rearguard defense of insanity. And it is clear they learned nothing from the election…they even engineered some Code Pink crazies to disrupt the start of the hearing (who should now be prosecuted like J6 defendants, IMO). They don’t realize that 2024 was a demand that the craziness end…the clear failure in the California wildfires just putting a nice cherry on top of that…all that money to be spent and they couldn’t even get working fire hydrants. No. We’re done with that. We don’t care about boutique Liberal whines. We want things to work. We want things to be sane again.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan19 Comments

I think that at least Gavin Newsom’s career is over…sure, he’s still a golden boy of the Democrat party and thus has full protection from the MSM…but if he runs in the 2028 primaries, then Josh Shapiro is just going to run the fire on a loop in his ads and that will be that. And if it is determined that his continued existence is bad, then the Democrat Powers That Be will put out the political hit on him just as the did on Biden after the debate. Side note, the 2028 Dem primary is likely to be brutal…nobody is really in charge over there and there is no obvious successor to Biden. We’ll probably have a vigorous primary, ourselves, but it really comes down to Vance or DeSantis – who are both highly intelligent, good men who will do the right thing.

I am advised this is real, not a parody:

The trouble with the Left these days is that it is harder and harder to make fun of them because whatever exaggerated nonsense you want to say for the joke is quickly overtaken by Leftwing reality. So, even if this isn’t real, it will be next week.

This kinda passed under the radar – Romania had a Presidential election back on November 24th. Their system is that everyone can pretty much leap into the race and among the candidates if nobody gets 50% +1, the two highest vote totals go to a runoff. Fine and dandy, right? There were six major candidates so it was pretty much a given that nobody was getting to 50% and, sure enough, the two highest votes were for Elena Lasconi at 19.2 percent and Calin Georgescu at 23 percent. The second round was due to happen on December 8th and, from what I’ve read, Georgescu was going to win fairly easily. But there was a problem. You see, Georgescu was the wrong guy.

I can’t tell you just how horrific it is to have The Wrong Guy win. I mean, how are we to Protect Our Democracy if The Wrong Guy gets in? Look at what happened here in the USA when we let The Wrong Guy win!!!

So, what makes him The Wrong Guy? Sifting through it all, he’s considered a far-right extremist because…he wants a strong Romanian military and doesn’t want to fight Russia. Other than that, lots of things are said about him but as I don’t read Romanian, I’m not going to call the reports credible…knowing how our own MSM lies all the time about everything, I can’t rely on them to tell me the truth about The Wrong Guy. Maybe he is a nut and a bad guy…but if so he’s a Romanian nut and bad guy and my view is that if the people of Romania (who seem as sane as any other people in the world) want to vote for a nut and bad guy, that’s their business. The global Ruling Class saw it differently – and they managed to get the Romanian Supreme Court to annul the November vote. To protect Democracy, you see? Apparently no actual reason was given by the Court for the annulment but it is darkly hinted that Russian disinformation caused Romanians to vote for Putin’s Puppet, Georgescu. The vote is now rescheduled for May and, as you probably guessed, Georgescu is being criminally investigated by the government which had its term willy-nilly extended to preside over the re-do which will make sure The Wrong Guy doesn’t come in first.

This is very much what they tried to do in the USA and only thanks to our Constitution was it (barely) prevented. Make no mistake about it – the Global Ruling Class does not propose to let the people vote the Ruling Class out of power. They’re already saying that what they did in Romania they’ll do in Germany if the Krauts vote for The Wrong Guy.

It is now my view that we must withdraw from NATO – there is nothing left in Europe to defend and, indeed, a strong case can be made that a Russian conquest of Europe would make it freer than it currently is.

The Fire Burns, the Left Fiddles (and Steals; They Always Steal)

Mark Noonan30 Comments

What has been most pronounced to me as Los Angeles has burned is that when the local officials are giving a statement, they don’t actually say anything.

Sure, they tell us they’re sad.

They tell us they are consulting with everyone.

They tell us that everything is being done.

What they don’t tell us is what they are doing. There’s no plan. No effort to map out a strategy.

This all follows along with the fact that they cut $17 million from the LAFD budget and sent LA firefighting equipment to Ukraine. What it tells us is that those in charge haven’t the foggiest notion of what to do. They are failing and they don’t really understand they are failing…after all, they are sad, consulting and “doing everything”! What more is there to do?

For them, nothing. I guarantee you that Bass will believe for the rest of her life that she did nothing wrong…scratch that: not only did she do nothing wrong, she was downright heroic and showed what a WOC can do! Take that, MAGAts!

The truth of the matter is that running large, modern city is more difficult than any other task in the world. Even being President isn’t as taxing. You are responsible for everything – trash, water, fire, earthquakes, roads, public transport, health care, zoning…on and on and on and every issue has a host of interests often not just competing but diametrically opposed and through this minefield you have to get it running so that when disaster happens – and it always will – the damage is at least minimized and people have confidence that the authorities know what they’re doing.

What is Karen Bass’ experience? Well, she started out in life involved in a Cuban Communist front organization. From there, it appears she never looked back. She did get an education when standards were higher so we know she isn’t stupid – but that just makes it worse. If she were a merely incompetent boob it probably would have worked out better…such often will make a decision even if the wrong one. Bass doesn’t make a decision because she feels she doesn’t have to – she’s a college-educated WOC, dammit…and you racist crackers out there should just sit down and shut up!

The danger we have right now is all up and down our system are people like Karen Bass and worse – people who are dead certain they are heroic geniuses but who aren’t fit to run a lemonade stand. They’re blaming climate change not because they really think that climate change caused a $17 million cut to LAFD but because climate change is our fault, not theirs. It is perfect…gets them off the hook, places the blame on us and the cure is to give them more money and power. The people running the show by and large hate us, hate the USA and have no expertise beyond knowing how to work the system to obtain more money and power.

The perfect contrast right now is with Florida – as hurricanes bore down on Florida, DeSantis has 50,000 people ready to go after it passed to get power back up…knowing that power restoration was the key to all other relief efforts. It worked flawlessly and power was mostly restored quickly. Police were ready so there was no looting. Evacuations happened in a timely manner. There was no lack…because there was a plan and an Executive willing to order it and kick some rears if anyone started slacking. That is how it used to be – even the most corrupt political systems in our past still managed to do the things necessary…today we still have the corruption but absolutely no competence.

And aside from property damage, people die. I’m confident that the death toll will go above the official number of (I believe) 5 at the moment. The fire was moving so fast at first that I’m sure some poor people just didn’t have time (if you’ve never experienced a wild fire, let me tell you: treat them with respect. They can move extremely fast and that after it seems like it stalled at some point). Thing is, everyone knows that it has been bone dry in Southern California for nearly a year (bone dry here in Vegas, as well; indeed, most of the southwest has been bone dry due to the weather patterns). The Santa Ana winds never sneak up on you…they develop like hurricanes in the Atlantic. You know you’re going to get them days before they arrive. In other words, everyone in LA knew the perfect storm for massive fires was coming together…there should have been lots of prep, just like DeSantis did in Florida. Reservoirs filled, plans made to bring in outside firefighters, evacuation routes established, stockpiling of equipment at strategic points…and an overall plan of how to attack a fire where ever it started.

The Mayor of Los Angeles went to Ghana, instead.

How much did that cost the taxpayers of Los Angeles? I do know that a military plane was sent to fetch her home…and just who authorized that? How is it justified to use federal assets to move a city official because it looks bad on TV that she’s not home as her city burns? But don’t worry…I’m sure her budget for next year will include plenty of money for DEI…which is basically just payoffs to her particular cronies.

We’re all for federalism here on the Right but we do have to think about things…because a lot of the tax dollars that will rebuild LA will be federal…and that means all of us have a vested interest in how LA is run. Also, is it a republican form of government if one party gets total control of all institutions public and private in a State and then rigs the system so they can never lose? The Constitution commands the federal government to ensure a republican form of government in the several States…we need to consider if there is a genuine republican government in California. We certainly can’t just let things burn.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan19 Comments

Today the comeback becomes officially certified – and it is enormously funny that Harris has to certify it. Side note: that law they passed governing the VP in counting the electoral vote? Unconstitutional drivel. And even if it wasn’t, totally useless – there’s nothing anyone can actually do to stop the VP from taking any particular action in certification. I’ve always thought that with the obvious questions about the accuracy of the 2020 vote count that Pence’s duty by no later than mid-December 2020 was to announce he could not in good conscience count the EVs of the disputed States – that the House and Senate were going to have to get together and work it out in the manner of the 1876 election. Keep in mind that I figured this would result in Biden getting in after all was said and done…but it would have been said and done via a clear, open and fully Constitutional process (probably via a House vote for President)…what we had was obviously fraudulent votes being shoved down our throats.

And, hey, Liberals: how’d that work out for ya? Feeling positive and happy about it today?

I’d comment about Trump’s upcoming sentencing but its all so very stupid and corrupt and ultimately pointless that its just not worth it.

New York City imposed “congestion pricing” for driving in Manhattan – basically you now have to pay to drive your car into the city. This move was backed by the usual collection of Commie idiots who were all celebrating it yesterday. Its nothing but a “soak the poor” scheme…it won’t affect the rich people (you know: who backed it) because they can afford the freight. Oh, and the rich now get the additional benefit of less traffic as they drive from their vulture capitalist office to the celebratory gala. You could probably challenge the law on equal protection grounds but, meh…I don’t really care as I don’t live in NY and will never once in my life drive myself into Manhattan. New Yorkers keep doing this to themselves…and then wonder why their city is falling apart.

Senator Mike Lee introduced a bill to deny benefits to illegal immigrants…to which most people go, “why are they getting benefits now?” The answer to that is simple – California passed a law to deny benefits to illegals (back when CA was sane) and the Commies took it to Court and, ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that since the law doesn’t specify you have to be legal to get welfare, everyone gets welfare. This could all have been fixed right after that by amending the welfare laws and at times we have had a GOP trifecta and yet its never been fixed…which lets you know just how our Uniparty government has operated. Let’s see if Lee’s proposal gets anywhere…if he’s at all clever he will be able to generate publicity for this and, in the end, even some Democrats will have to vote to ban welfare for illegals…this is something that will have 85% public support.

Looks like a lot of Trump’s main agenda will go through Congress via one, large bill which is funny as heck because it’ll be passed via reconciliation so Dems can’t even slow it down and we’re using basically their “omnibus bill” garbage against them to enact policies that will save America and wreck Democrats. Democrats and Never Trumpers are trying to stop this by saying, “hey, that’s not fair!” and we’re all just laughing and laughing.

Canadian governor Justin Trudeau will resign in the next day or two – becoming yet another person who crossed Trump and wound up in the dumpster. He’s been just a horrid PM and he’s a bad man and, finally, even Canadians had enough…latest polling indicates that at the next election his Liberals are going to be wiped out. His resignation will probably help Liberals recover some ground – which is why he’s going (and much the same reason Biden went).

Bottom line is that all around the world, the Uniparty Ruling Class is feeling the heat…even people with an overall Liberal outlook are just sick of it all and want things to start working again…we don’t want imported grooming gangs, imported terrorists and imported anti-West activists. And that’s just one of a dozen problems the Liberal global order has ushered in.

Evil People Like Being Evil

Mark Noonan17 Comments

People are now really noticing the grooming scandal out of Rotherham, UK and there’s all the “how can this happen?” sorts of statements going on. I refer you to this passage in Book VII: Empress:

This, I think, is what we normies don’t fully realize. A person on X asked is there’s some sort of passage (ritual?) where becoming a child abuser is necessary for advancement in the Establishment. To this I replied, in a way. You see, to really have power with the full backing of the global Establishment, you must sign off on abortion as a positive good. No more of this mucking around with “while I’m personally opposed” drivel from the 1980s…you have to get out there and say and do actions which actively promote abortion as a moral good. Once you’ve passed that Rubicon…well, tolerating the abuse of kids is easy. And, as noted above: fun. Rely on it: the people who covered up Rotherham had a big, old laugh about it…because their ability to cover it up and their current program to just bareface it out demonstrates their power.

“So, now you know we pretty much actively encouraged it. So, what? What can you do about it? Oh, and here’s a Bobby to arrest you for posting about it on social media.”

We aren’t quite there in the USA yet but, as per usual in social disintegration, we’re always about a decade behind the rest of the Western world. Takes longer here because of our federal system and written Constitution. But make no mistake about it, and we’ve already seen it: the government is going to eventually try to arrest us for noticing government corruption. And just like over in Europe, they’ll justify it as a fight against racism or whatever alleged “phobia” they can think of. Trump is going to become a finger in the dyke in 17 days…but if we don’t really dig deep and reform, then he’s just going to slow it down.

This really should come as no surprise – we have seen it before. In the Soviet Commissar forcing his female prisoners to be his sex slaves. In the Nazi camp guard waking up is prisoners with ice water in the middle of the night. Needless cruelty done just because the perpetrator can do it. And they do it because they enjoy it. Having no sense of decency and no real conception of God (whatever they might have started with long since burned out of them), they just do it because they can. Solzhenitsyn theorized that the interrogators of the Lubyanka must have got together to discuss ways and means of being cruel because once it happened to one prisoner, it soon happened to all the rest…as if they were trying out new ways of being gratuitously cruel…with some har, har, hars and back slapping as they decided which prisoner to try it out on first. And then these people went home to their wives and/or girlfriends and acted like they were normal human beings.

But they ain’t. Now, to be sure, as long as we are alive we are all capable of redemption but we also know per the Bible that sometimes hearts can be hardened…that God lets the choice of the wicked be ratified and that’s when they get exceptionally horrid. People who have those hard hearts might, at times, seem normal…they can still put on the false front. But deep down inside they’re just looking for the next cruel thing to do…and the more senseless it is, the better. Remember, the slaves of GULAG and the Arbeitseinsatz didn’t have to be treated brutally…nearly starved and beaten over trivial things. In fact, the Soviet and Nazi regimes would have got vastly more economic benefit out of their slaves had they been well fed and treated with kindness. It actually worked against the regimes to do what they did…Nazi soldiers lacked sufficient weapons and supplies because of it towards the end of the war. But it happened…because, as I said, evil people like to do evil things.

So, what to do?

First thing – call it evil. These aren’t mistakes. These are failures of the system. These are deliberate, malicious acts of evil and those who did them have to be very severely punished.

That is going to be the key to restoring our world. To resume a society of logic and decency – severe punishment inflicted upon the wicked. If we don’t do that, then we’re doomed. I’m hoping that we’re just about to start doing that.