Open Thread

Mark Noonan36 Comments

It does feel like a misprint. Mail is working a little better for Democrats…but not nearly enough. Even TDS-Ralston is conceding that the Clark County firewall isn’t nearly big enough for Democrats. Don’t bet the ranch on this…but, let’s face it, this sort of data is happening all around the country. You’d much rather be a Republican candidate right now than a Democrat.

In 2020 the Conservative Party in British Columbia – pretty much moribund at the time – got 36,000 votes. So far this year, they are just a hair under 888,000. The bad news? So far they are also just a hair under a majority of the seats (and, naturally, the commie ruling party – the NDP – is saying it may take a while to get final results…especially in the seat where they lead by 23 votes). The Conservative Party leader has already pledged to provoke an early election if NDP gets back in. Basically, after many years of British Columbia varying between Commie and Super Commie governments, it looks like people have had enough. Lets hope that translates here south of the border.

Elon Musk is pouring it on for Trump and the GOP. Do keep in mind that a lot of Elon’s basic views are Liberal. Globalist. Free Trade. All that stuff. But he sees, because he’s trying to build rocket ships, that government has become poison to effort. And he knows the only way out is to get Trump and the GOP in – not because they are totally in line with him, but because they aren’t insane against effort. This is the first time we’ve had someone like him really do this – the cool, tech billionaire guy on the GOP side. And it is driving the Democrats nuts! This is a beautiful thing.

Ireland continues to show that sending condolences over Hitler killing himself (they really did it!) wasn’t a one-off thing – Ireland will now impose a trade embargo on Israel. This is more than just now having Muslims in Ireland…this is a deep-seated bit of anti-Semitism that I really didn’t know existed in Ireland until lately. They just don’t like Jews.

The Stupid Empire

Mark Noonan24 Comments

I was thinking earlier today that Harris is sort of the end result. All of us who think at all look around our world and wonder why its just all so bad. That nothing seems to work and that only bad things keep happening. We almost feel like rats in a maze – and no matter which way we go there is always something or someone even stupider than before blocking the way. I think I’ve hit upon why.

For about a century and a half the world has been continually ratcheted towards stupid: that the only way we’re allowed to operate, at all, is by agreeing to really dumb things. We’ve been again and again confronted with a manufactured crisis and our only way out – or so we perceive – is to agree to the monstrously stupid proposal of the person who created the crisis. I say it goes back a century and a half and I’m getting more and more certain of it as I roll it around.

It all started with Bismarck.

He, himself, was a very intelligent man – indeed, he might even be rated a genius if given a cognitive test under modern conditions. But he wanted something that he shouldn’t get. You need to step back a moment and realize where he was when he was essentially preparing to become Minister-President of the Kingdom of Prussia. He was a citizen of a second-rank power (Prussia) which was part of a larger entity called the German Confederation (a loose agglomeration of independent States) which was dominated by its most powerful member, the Austrian Monarchy. He looked around at this and didn’t like it – possibly out of a sense of patriotism (who likes to be part of a second-rate thing, right?) but more likely it was because Prussia was too small a field for a man who thought very highly of himself (with justification; he mostly ran rings around every contemporary: only Britain’s Disreali was unawed by him). Whatever his reason, his ambition became to dispense with the German Confederation, push Austria out of German affairs and unite all the other Germanic States into one Empire ruled from Prussia.

Nobody wanted this. Not even his fellow Prussians from King on down. The rest of Germany didn’t want it. Austria didn’t want it. France, Russia and Britain didn’t want it. Common sense dictated against it – on the Continent you had France, Russia and Austria as the three Great Powers and they were in roughly equal power relations and with no soaring ambitions to remake Europe (after the 23 years of Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, nobody in Europe was keen to disturb things and risk a resumption). Sure, there was rising German nationalist sentiment and this was working towards greater German unity but this didn’t mean that every German wanted to be ruled from Prussia…most of the nationalists envisioned German unity coming via voluntary association under freedom. If you could get Gallup to poll Germany in, say, 1864 the number who would opt for a Prussian Germany would be small. So, how did Bismarck manage his amazing trick in 8 short years (Minister-President of Prussia to Chancellor of the German Empire)? He bribed who he could, and suckered who he couldn’t bribe.

The bribes were pretty straightforward – and really got rolling after 1866 when Bismarck got his hands on the royal treasury of Hanover. This was turned into something called “the reptile fund” entirely under Bismarck’s control and he dispensed it as needed to grease the wheels. The other thing was simply lying to people until they did something horribly against their own interests but very much in line with Bismarck’s desire. Its how he got his wars against Austria in 1866 and France in 1870. Had Austria simply not declared war in 1866, or France in 1870, Bismarck’s plans would have died stillborn. But you pay some newspaper editors, you plant some lies, you threaten here, induce there and, presto, people feel like their only way out is to do the one thing they shouldn’t.

And people did observe this. They watched and learned. That is, our overall Western Ruling Class watched and learned. That you can easily own newspaper editors and convince them to say anything you want. That you can bribe your political opposition into become controlled opposition. That you can lie with impunity as long as the end result at least seems like a success. The trouble here is that what was started by a genius was turned over to ordinary people…who, to make it work, had to foster and advance people even dumber than themselves. More venal. More cowardly. More willing to do anything to get a seat at the table and do twice that to stay at it.

I’ve talked before of how during WWI the real problem with the conduct of the war – among all belligerents – was that hardly anyone in charge was a serious person. This was fifty years after Bismarck and the example he set and year by year among all Western nations the amoral liar had become ever more prominent.

You consider, for instance, the Dreyfus Case in France – an obviously innocent officer was railroaded by the military to cover up the fact that a favored man was a traitor. The spy was obviously someone else – and someone who clearly fit the bill for being a spy. But they settled on Dreyfus because it was easy to stir up a bit of anti-Semitism and blame him. It took twelve years to fix things. The poor man was shackled in a Devil’s Island cell. People were paid or bullied into backing the Army against Dreyfus even though simple patriotism – a desire for a strong France with an effective military force – dictated that justice be done as soon as possible. It dragged on as long as it did because the various false choices placed before the primary actors boiled down to them thinking that their only way out was to continue to lie. It wasn’t just one or two miscreant French officers…it was most of the officer corps, a huge number of elected officials, judges, newspapers…on and on all resolutely defending what was from the start a transparent lie. Just amazing! And even though justice was eventually done for Dreyfus (who went on to further honorable service in France’s army), it was grudging…they let him go and restored his officer’s commission. Nobody who had slandered him or railroaded him was punished…and that same officer corps who engineered that travesty was still in charge of France’s army when World War One started. And that officer corps went on to massacre the flower of French manhood in fruitless attacks against German trenches.

It wasn’t just the French, of course. At the Battle of Jutland, David Beatty had five battlecruisers and four of Britain’s newest, fastest, most powerful battleships under his command. He was confronted by five German battlecruisers under the command of Franz von Hipper. By every metric – speed, armor, gunpower, numbers – Beatty outweighed Hipper. All he had to do was concentrate his force and use his superior speed to close within range of the Germans – while staying out of their range; easy because his guns all had longer range – and he could have simply blown Hipper’s command to pieces. But, Beatty charged ahead forgetting to ensure his battleships got the order, got himself in range of the German guns and instead had his ships blown to pieces by the far more accurate German gunners. He lost three battlecruisers. Thousands of British tars were killed.

They made him a Fleet Admiral and an Earl.

John Byng was a British admiral who was charged with relieving a garrison under French siege in 1757. He failed at his task and when he returned to England he was court martialled and shot on the quarterdeck of his flagship. Bit of a different thing. Bit of a different time. Back then, Britain – and the West – were governed by serious people who weren’t about to get all weepy eyed and forgiving for someone who bungled an operation…and it wasn’t that he was defeated that got him shot. Everyone understands getting defeated…but he was judged to have wasted lives and material. He could have done more; and, really, why should he live after so many of his sailors had died pointlessly?

But to get back to our incompetents: it just went on like that, year after year and always worse. We kept on getting false crisis and stupid solutions and the people placed in charge became year by year stupider and more corrupt. Because we started with a high level of competency, it didn’t seem too bad. Sure there were horrible mistakes costing untold numbers of lives and uncounted treasure, but things still seemed to move along in a positive direction overall. And the few successes cast an aura of competence over people who really did a pretty poor job (and most of the successes were in spite of the senior leadership – it was a secondary commander who pushed things through to success in spite of idiotic orders from on high). But still the ratchet was set and the course was increasingly stupid.

When we start getting into Vietnam and later we’re really starting to see the stupid – but only in hindsight. That aura of success rather blinded all of us. Because, for instance, the Army had finished off the Germans we believed that, deep down, the Army was in good shape…we just didn’t see that while commanders like Bradley were getting caught with their pants down it was the unsung people like Lightning Joe Collins who actually got the job done. But it was the Bradley’s who commanded after the war and ensured that yet more of their like rose…and while Bradley was only a mediocre commander, his successor would be just bad…and bad…and bad…and bad…until we get a Joint Chiefs chairman calling the ChiComs to warn them about Trump. See how this goes? I mean, maybe Hoover did like to wear women’s clothing but he at least did arrest criminals…the current FBI director is trying to arrest his boss’ primary political opponent.

We got Obama because the stupid insisted that we call it a “War on Terrorism” and that Islam is a religion of peace. Had we just went right after Iran and Syria after 9/11 without worrying about semantics or offending Muslims, this thing would have been over by 2004. The current wars going on in the Middle East wouldn’t be happening. But, nothing doing – the stupid had bungled our security pre-9/11 and, none of them being shot post-9/11, they then gave us the false choice: either back a counterinsurgency war in Iraq or the terrorists have won! While the crash of 2008 finished off Bush’s GOP, it was the war that killed the brand…that made people simply tired of the old Republican party…and willing to try anything that seemed fresh. You know: like Obama. Who is an amazingly stupid person raised up entirely by corruption…but who seems like a smart guy. He proceeded to install stupid with a sense of pride – the dumber the policy or person, the more favored. People didn’t like it and so we managed to get Trump to replace Obama…but the stupid where, by then, in charge everywhere and were furious that someone non-stupid was in charge…and so they very stupidly went after Trump like a bunch of morons.

Now, to be sure, they did manage to force him out – but only to replace him with someone who had been chosen because he was stupider than Obama. And, naturally, this stupid Biden had to then choose someone even stupider than himself: Harris. You really do have to understand that if they hadn’t been stupid they would have worked with Trump, glad handed him, allowed him to take his second term and now he’d be heading out the door…with some success and with some changes made that the stupid hate…but he’d be nearly gone and with the stupid still largely running the show, and just waiting for the next stupid person – Republican or Democrat – to come in and resume the ratchet towards stupid.

But they instead made him – and us – mad. And they are really, really afraid of us coming back…but, being stupid, they settled on Harris as the means to do us in, went with stupid lawfare and now are running an incredibly stupid campaign. Stupid does undo itself in the end – it kills itself. Because its stupid.

There is still the question: we know how stupid the Ruling Class is, but how stupid are the people? If they are, indeed, stupid then we might not prevail on 11/5. If we do, though, then we might for the first time in 150 years be able to try something smart. To actually think about what we want and then set about obtaining it…without a stupid liar trying to sucker us into shooting ourselves in the foot. The Empire of Stupid might be set to fall.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan39 Comments

The Virginia Project notes that someone placed 6,063 non-citizens on Virginia’s voter rolls. This is probably an underestimate of the total but it is what is known for sure: and then asks the relevant question: who did this? You don’t accidentally register non-citizens. I mean, sure, maybe a couple can get in there…lets be generous and say maybe even a couple hundred could slip through a system which is supposed to guard against illegal votes. Six thousand? That’s intentional. That’s a crime.

Of course we know, in general, who: Democrats. But we do want to drill down and find out exactly who – and who they’re connected to. And, most important, who they’re paid by.

Mark Robinson (R-NC) has simply shaken off the allegations and kept rolling along – he’s still expected by all Experts to lose (and he had an uphill battle even under optimal circumstances) but I’m curious to see how he does. If he does pull this off it means the late hit-piece on GOPers becomes a dead in the water thing…because it will show that GOPers and GOP-leaners just don’t care what a pack of liars say. That’s the key metric: if enough people know that the MSM is lying – and they always are, about everything – then they can lie until they’re blue in the face: it won’t work. There is a new poll which shows Trump +5 in North Carolina but I’m taking that with a grain of salt – the State is still so disturbed from Helene that I’m doubtful that really good polling can be done…OTOH, the people most likely to be displaced are GOPers…so, maybe I’m just being a Nattering Nabob of Negativism here? If Trump is up by 5, then Robinson has a shot.

That thing that isn’t happening – Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment complexes – is, of course, happening. Vance nailed the MSM on this – he was asked a couple days ago why he’s so concerned when its only a “handful” of apartment complexes. He crushed the MSMer by essentially asking back, “its ok because its not everywhere?”. That is the way to handle this – to push back and ask the relevant question: in this case: just how much death is acceptable to you?

Happy Settler-Colonist Day!

Mark Noonan23 Comments

As we head towards Columbus Day and the annual whines from the Left about what a meanie he was I am inspired to point and laugh at how stupid they are.

Settler-Colonialism is the best purely human thing to ever happen. It is what made us – all of us. Most importantly, the Natives who were Colonized. That is, it is what gave them the ability to pathetically whine about being Colonized. Their ancestors were too busy trying to scratch out a bare, hand-to-mouth existence to be pathetic. Yesterday, the aurora borealis came down pretty far south and there’s this one Native activist account on X who said we’re not supposed to take pictures of it because the gods would get offended or some such drivel. Just tried to picture that:

Pagan god: “Just remember, when the crackers show up, don’t let them take photos of the aurora borealis.”

Savage: “uh, sure…but, what’s a photo?”

PG: “you want a fork of lightning up your bung?”

S: “got it: crackers, photos, no go.”

Its all just so ridiculous – and I mean pretty much the whole Native ethos they try to sell us these days. As if getting here earlier endows a person with some special connection to the land. It doesn’t. It is dirt. It is for anyone who is on it and they’ll do a good or bad job at stewardship based upon their moral character…not because of some legend, probably only half remembered because it was passed down orally, said a certain mountain was sacred to the gods (or, more likely, had the really good hunting ground so make sure you keep the other tribes away from it).

Also ridiculous is the notion that, somehow, Natives are more in touch with Nature. Nothing like that at all. All of humanity once used stone – from paleolithic beginnings to some pretty advanced things in the neolithic. But here’s the thing: as soon as anyone came across usable metal, they dropped stone like a bad habit. Nobody knows when the first person made bronze. It might have been made in several different areas but the main thing to keep in mind that as soon as bronze comes in, stone goes. There is just no comparison in quality and durability between even the very best stone tool and bronze.

The Natives in the Americas were still stone age when the Europeans showed up. Some pretty sophisticated stone age societies, but all still using stone. They had gold and silver but nobody in the America’s ever got around to combining tin and copper to make bronze – so, gold jewelry, stone knives. This also indicates that the Americas were cut off from the rest of the world some time before bronze was made – because wherever it arose outside the Americas (there’s some dispute about this) it spread everywhere…but not to the America which were lands pretty much unreachable from the end of the last Ice Age until ships as good as the Nina were built. This doesn’t mean that the Native of America were dumb – they just never put copper and tin together. Whoever did was some sort of genius or just very lucky (think about it: why would you try to combine metals? Who would think of that? But someone did…but not in the Americas). Without that stroke of luck or genius, the Americas just went on and on in the Neolithic and would have continued to do so unless that bronze stroke of luck happened…but what did happen is Europeans showed up. And not with the bronze the Americas missed out 5,000 years earlier, but the iron they missed out on 3,000 years earlier. But like everyone who first came across bronze – and then later came across iron – the Natives of the Americas dropped stone like bad habit as soon as they did so. In other words, they were just like everyone else. They weren’t living in harmony with Nature – they just lacked the technology to alter it like Europeans, Asians and Africans had.

The main thing to keep in mind here is that Cortez showed up in Tenochtitlan, not Moteuczoma in Madrid. Why? Not for lack of desire for conquest and glory. Both men engaged in that quite a lot; as much as they could, in fact. Not based on inherent intelligence: there’s nothing in the history books which indicates that either men – or their people – were intellectually inferior to the other. So, what happened?

Well, Cortez had a compass on his ships. That originated in China. He also had arquebuses, which used gunpowder which also originated in China. For calculation he used the efficient numbers developed by the Hindus. He wrote with pen and ink. On paper. He had steel swords and lances. He had horses; the use of none of these things originated in Spain. But they were all in Spain, along with a lot of other things. And this Spain wasn’t inhabited by the first human beings to show up. Heck no! Whatever indigenous stock had been there had been overlayed by Celts, Phoenicians, Gauls, Romans, Germans, Berbers and just about everything else outside of East Asians. All of that Spanish history – which included multiple periods of being Settler-Colonized – worked to produce Hernan Cortez meeting Moteuczoma. And then looking around at a nation of proud conquerors and going, “I can take this”. And take it he did – because he was better than the Aztecs. Not inherently braver. Not inherently smarter. But better. The total sum of knowledge Cortez had was the total human inheritance…Moteuczoma just had his own culture to fall back on, and it wasn’t sufficient when the whole world, as it were, pressed against it. What Moteuczoma needed more than anything else when Cortez showed up as all the history, trade, war and development behind Cortez.

And it must be kept in mind that Cortez was helped by other Natives. These people didn’t like their Aztec tyrants. They were also quite impressed with what the Europeans had and wished very much to take advantage of it. No, they couldn’t see the future – nor the very crucial immediate thing of the European arrival: that Cortez and his men brought with them the collected disease environments of Europe, Africa and Asia – diseases the Natives simply hadn’t encountered before and initially had little resistance to. It is very important to remember that when we talk of the Native death toll following the European arrival, most of the dead died of diseases before they even saw an European. The activists call it deliberate genocide – which is ridiculous because (a) it wasn’t intentional and (b) it didn’t kill them all. It was something that was going to happen some day – and it was going to be tragic when it did. But it was never a crime.

But that also needed to happen. It is part of human development. The world has certain diseases and until modern medicine came along the best way to make sure they didn’t destroy you was, counterintuitively, to be exposed to them. It built up resistance – both in the infected individuals and in the fact that those who survived the new disease environment were biologically stronger and would pass that along to their children. And, once again, it highlights the crucial importance of getting around out there. To not be isolated in your own, little world. To meet with others. In other words, having a Settler-Colonialist show up is, long term, the best thing that’s ever going to happen to you. A better world is going to rise out of it.

Now, this is not to excuse any crimes. Wrong is wrong – and as the Spanish moved into the New World there were crimes committed as the Spanish found that they could just lord it over Natives who had no chance against them. But it wasn’t all Spaniards. And the law did try to protect the Natives. Spanish voices were raised in protest against ill treatment. And this was also something new brought to the Natives – the concept of a human right. That certain things can’t be done to you simply because you are human. This is something the Natives had never had as a concept before – which is why in 1500 they were still engaging in human sacrifice which had been extirpated in almost all of Europe, Asia and Africa ages before. Long term, this was a huge benefit to the Natives…it eventually gave them the freedom to speak a lot of nonsense about Columbus, for instance.

So, what I do is bless the Settler-Colonists. Heck, if my ancestors in Ireland hadn’t been Settler-Colonized I’d be living in a mud hut by an Irish bog rather than typing on a computer in my air conditioned home. Three cheers for the Limeys that came to Ireland – even if they did hang great-great-great-great-Grandpa for stealing a sheep. On Monday, take a moment to remember Christopher Columbus and the incredibly brave men who set out with him to discover the New World. It changed everything, and for the better.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan26 Comments

Harris is moving radio ad money out of Wisconsin and putting into rap/hip hop stations in Philadelphia. This is the Democrat woman-of-color candidate who figures she needs to shore up her support among African-American voters in Philly. Make of that what you will. I say it is triage. I think her campaign has now settled on MI, PA and NC as her one and only path. Any one of those 3 goes to Trump, and it is over, presuming that Trump is ok in WI (which he must be if Harris is conceding the State) as well as AZ, NV, GA. If so and she gets all 3 she’s at 276. This is what is known in the betting world as “a long shot”.

But I really view this as an attempt to save downballot. Democrats might have thought a month ago they had a chance to get Harris past 270 but that’s fading and so her campaign is now in default mode – a mode she’s probably not even aware of: she was brought in to save the House and Senate (with the Senate looking forlorn so now its really about trying to get a House majority or at least a narrow enough minority that the Dems can essentially call the House shots).

Side note: something to consider is that her campaign says she’s raised a billion dollars since she got in. Where’s the money? If she raised that much she’s got enough for both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. There wouldn’t be a need to shift resources.

Unless that number was fake…and/or people who pledged big bucks are now looking at internals and pulling the plug.

All in all, it looks good for Trump. If this works – that is, the Trump campaign strategy, it’ll rewrite the book on how the GOP wins nationally. If it doesn’t work then the nation will collapse. So, no pressure, guys!

The Democrat Fear

Mark Noonan41 Comments

Prior to the allegations against Mark Robinson he was trailing in the polls – which makes you wonder why bring up the allegations in a race that, supposedly, the Democrat was cruising to victory in. Especially six weeks in advance. That sort of story is a kill-shot story to be used in the last week of a campaign so that the target simply lacks the time to respond. After the story came out, Robinson addressed it with a denial…and then moved on. Over this past week he’s been front and center in North Carolina organizing aid for the Helene victims. Talking up love, peace and unity. Its all been great. How’s he polling? Well, even if someone gives you a North Carolina poll, toss it straight into the trash…the State cannot be effectively polled right now as too large a part of it simply can’t be polled.

The fact that the story came out so far in advance – and far enough in advance where the State GOP could have inserted a new candidate – tells me that the polling wasn’t telling the story. It couldn’t be. It wouldn’t have gone like it did if polling was accurate. If you’ve got a ten point lead – as polling said the Democrat did – then you just relax and go on cruise control, more fearful of making a last-minute mistake than anything your opponent is doing. I think that it was a lot closer than polling suggests. That the polls showing Trump up narrowly and Robinson down ten were massively understating GOP support. That’s why you do the hit piece on Robinson. You’re desperately afraid of losing.

But why be so afraid?

I mean, if the Democrats win the NC governorship, its a hold. Democrat replacing Democrat. The GOP will almost certainly control the legislature by large majorities…and with Presidential year turnout, it might be super-majorities again. The governorship of North Carolina was also stripped of some key powers by the GOP legislature. It isn’t that much of a political prize. And Harris’ path to victory doesn’t really go through North Carolina. That is, losing it isn’t at all fatal and if she’s winning it, she’s probably winning big enough elsewhere that North Carolina just doesn’t matter. So, what gives?

The fact that Robinson, after the hit piece dropped, made a brief statement and then moved on. Team Trump never even addressed it. The MSM was rife with stories about how the GOP was in a panic about it, but none of that panic emerged in actions other than Robinson’s RINO staffers bailing out, merely to be replaced by far more rock-ribbed MAGA types. This terrifies the Democrats – that we’re getting candidates and becoming a party that no longer cares what they think. For 80 years every time the Democrats shouted “jump” the GOP asked “how high?”. Not like that any more. We all recognize the damaging nature of the accusation against Robinson but we just don’t care. If the whole thing is true, he’s still the intellectual and moral superior to the Democrat. You can’t get more vile than Democrats these days. They are disgusting liars and any appeal to morality they make is mere hypocrisy. If Robinson loses then that will be lousy but he’s not going to lose because we abandoned him at the behest of sick pro-aborts indicting him on a morals charge.

It isn’t just losing in North Carolina – or nationally – that frightens Democrats. It is who they will lose to. They’re not going to lose to a Bush who will then reach across the aisle to his good friend, Nancy Pelosi. They’re going to lose – to Trump and other MAGA types – to people who don’t care what they think. People who have no friendship or loyalty to them. No loyalty to the system, either. People who have been targeted with disgusting, illegal efforts to destroy them (earlier in the campaign, Robinson and his wife were forced to address the issue that before they married, they had come up pregnant and had opted for abortion…think about how many laws Democrats had to break to find that painful bit of information). We can’t even begin to list all the laws the Democrats have broken to get after Trump…and not just Trump, of course, but anyone who seems an effective surrogate for Trump (it looks like Musk’s Starlink wasn’t immediately available in North Carolina because Biden Administration efforts to hamstring Starlink…all done simply because Musk purchased Twitter and wouldn’t let Democrats censor the Right any longer).

The top of the ticket is, of course, the real fear – that Trump will win and go on a rampage. We hope! But the larger Democrat fear is that all up and down in both elective and appointive office they’ll find people who do not care what Democrats want. Who won’t take their calls. Just won’t be moved to do their bidding. They’ve got this huge power structure in the USA and it is all ultimately dependent upon government money and power…if they don’t have the power they can’t get the money. That is, if they can’t call up a bureaucrat and get their wish, nobody will give them money…which means even fewer people will take their calls and so on in a vicious, power-draining cycle. They’ll still be able to get on CNN to complain about it, but nobody watches CNN. They’re staring at this fate and I do believe they are starting to panic.

They see things like at least 55,000 people showing up in Butler yesterday (this is the number of unique cell phones present – the total number of attendees was certainly significantly larger) and it terrifies them. At least 20,000 of those attendees had never attended a Trump rally before. Harris is set to go on The View and issued a statement lauding American aid to Lebanon. These are the actions of a candidate losing support among core constituencies (that is, only Muslim Americans will be pleased with aid to Lebanon and only upper class urban/suburban women watch The View). Tammy Baldwin refused to campaign with Harris. Tester is running away from the Democrats as fast as he can (it won’t be fast enough). There are deep fears among Democrats about the Pennsylvania Senate race. Early and mail voting continues to be depressing for Democrats as the numbers just aren’t there while the GOP is doing better in both than ever before. We could be at the start of a cascade preference.

Time will tell! But I’m feeling good. I love the smell of Democrat panic in the morning – and I love the new GOP which no longer cares what Democrats think.

It is a Long Fight Ahead

Mark Noonan41 Comments

Melania Trump had a short video promo for her autobiography where she said the dread phrase “my body, my choice”. The word is that she does fall on the so-called “pro-choice” side of the abortion issue – which is really no surprise given her background – European who grew up under a Communist system. She’s Slovenian but when she was born Slovenia was captive by Tito’s Communist Yugoslavia. All that woke garbage our kids are subjected to these days? It was being imparted in the Communist bloc decades ago. Not the bourgeoisie-decadent stuff like being sexually non-binary we have, but all the drivel about human life being of only subjective value. So, even though Catholic, it wouldn’t surprise me that she’s in favor of legal abortion (most Catholics in America are, as well – though heaviest support is, naturally, among the more nominally Catholic). But I have my doubts that she’s in favor of the absolutely lunatic, anti-human position the Democrats have – federally funded on demand to the moment of birth…and maybe a little after if the abortion “doctor” botches it.

This has sparked some intense debate on the Right – naturally with the Left gleefully joining in – and I understand the angst. It is just a plain fact that there can be no justice in a system which allows the killing of unborn children. If anyone is innocent, it is the child. If there is any situation where killing isn’t justified, it is when dealing with an unborn child. I get that. I understand it. I believe it to the depths of my being. But we have a problem here: we lost the fight.

While we were busy trying every expedient we could to get 5 Justices who would simply rule on the law and thus dispose of Roe, we didn’t really notice that in the overall culture, abortion was becoming entirely normalized. It is still viewed with distaste by all sane people, but we probably don’t have nationwide more than 25% in favor of a ban. It just isn’t politically possible for us to get anything like a series of pro-life laws enacted across the nation. Even if the deepest Red areas we are finding it difficult to so much as restrict the practice. People are resistant to us – and it is because the Left has successfully couched the issue as one of “choice”. Americans do not like being told they can’t do something. This natural inclination has been ruthlessly exploited by the pro-abortion liars of the Left.

And that brings me, once again and for the zillionth time, back to my main point these days: the lies are the problem. I got into a little debate on X with a fellow Righty who is sure that Trump is headed for a loss and in this debate I put out that if the mere truth were told on a consistent basis, Harris would be lucky to get to 30% of the vote. He felt that even if the truth were told, she’d still score at least mid-40s. I disputed that and I still do. I really do believe that once the lie is exposed, people do reject it. The trouble is getting the lie exposed – it isn’t enough to simply state the truth, the lie must be suppressed. In other words, we can’t have a debate between lies and truth…only truth must be allowed on the stage. And if the stage is held by truth, then people will act according to truth. Let a lie up there and at least some percentage will act on the lie…and if the lies are clever and ubiquitous, then you’ll find majorities in favor of lies. People still might make a mistake with truth, but they won’t do self-destructive things with it. Its the difference between telling a child that boiling water is hot vs telling that while having six other people say it isn’t. The truth will not win – the child will stick his hand in the boiling water.

I’ve talked before about some of the ways and means of crushing the lies but the first step in any such program is to obtain power. Without power we can’t do anything. If we fail to obtain power, then the lies will rule the roost and we’ll be led away in chains by liars. It is going to be difficult to get power. With a horribly bad economy, with the world on fire and with our two main opponents gibbering idiots, there is still a chance we can lose. As I’ve said, I don’t believe we will – I believe all factual metrics point to a GOP victory…but even if it is a smashing GOP victory, it’s going to be 50.5% of the overall vote, a 2-seat Senate and a 10-seat House majority. In other words, even if we win big this year…we’re just going to barely do it overall…and we’ll be faced with nearly half the population united firmly behind liars. To get to this victory and to continue to obtain victories long enough for us to enact real reforms – reforms which will allow us to really push back against liars – is going to require some tactical flexibility.

The Democrats are thermonuclear on the abortion issue. Here in Nevada I’d guess fully half the Democrat ads are about abortion. It is all ridiculous fear-mongering about what we won’t do – and can’t do: ban abortion nationwide. In this fight, Team Trump has decided on tactical flexibility on the Life issue…they’re trying to defuse the Democrats’ most potent weapon and make it, as best, a wash for them. Will their plan work? We’ll find out in a month – but I advise against complaining about it until we see. If it doesn’t work then we’ll have to rethink things…but if it does work and gets us a government that will stop prosecuting us for praying near an abortion clinic, that’s a win, guys. A big win. We must learn to take the win.

It is going to be a long, frustrating and at times very painful march to restore a semblance of American liberty and justice – it took us a century to lose this fight and it may well take another century to win it back. Step by step! The first step is to win.

VP Debate Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

I didn’t watch the VP debate!

Sorry, just couldn’t. Padres were playing Game 1 against the Braves. Keep everything in perspective! And the Padres won it 4-0. They are genuine Series contenders.

Anyways, I did follow along on X and I got the flavor of it – Walz is a knucklehead who’s friends with school shooters while Vance was like a wrecking ball fighting off both Vance and the “moderators”. We really have to stop having debates with MSMers running the show. First question should have been about inflation. Second about Ukraine. Third about immigration. Fourth about the Middle East. And that’s it – those are the issues that matter. Asking about climate change and J6 is just ridiculous.

But we live in a ridiculous age, don’t we?

This debate will not move the needle – VP debates never do. People don’t vote for the understudy. Ever. But I think that Vance’s overall performance solidified things for Trump. The MSM has been calling him weird and making him out to be some sort of woman-hating creep and he came across tonight as clearly informed and in command of the issues. People now know that if Trump wins then if anything happens, a fully competent person will immediately take charge. For Harris…not so much. Walz revealed himself as someone who is only possible in a hot-house Liberal atmosphere and only as long as he’s protected by the Media. He was protected again tonight but he still had to get out there…and while he wasn’t Biden-like in his performance, he clearly is not ready for the national stage. More and more it becomes obvious that he was picked because he was the only guy who would accept – nobody with real ambition and ability wanted to be tied to Harris.

I remain as I have since July: confident of victory. All real metrics are showing Trump strength – only some of the polling shows any chance for Harris, and even that is starting to waver as pollsters start to be concerned about future credibility and so start hedging their bets. People are tired; they do want a new way forward…and Team Harris’ attempt to make out that she hasn’t been in charge over the past 4 years has fallen flat. She can’t convince enough people that those who made the problem can fix it.

The precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart – Psalm 19

Mark Noonan13 Comments

You heard that this morning when you went to Church.

Right?

It really struck home…and sort of worked into something that occurred to me earlier in the week: the laws of God are not a ban on fun, but just ten simple rules (boiled down to two by Our Lord) for a sane life. The precepts of the Lord really do give joy to the heart. Think about it. If everyone on Earth just agreed to abide by the Ten Commandments for one week – just seven, little days – think about what a wonderful week that would be? No lies. No murder. No adultery/fornication. No theft. No wrath or jealousy. It would be a week of total chill…and it would cost us nothing. Nobody would lose a thing by it. If we would obey the precepts of the Lord, we’d be living pretty joyfully.

And that’s why the world today is held up by a scaffold of lies. It is all a bunch of drivel designed to really get to one thing – that people don’t have joy in their lives. And that just tells you who the author of the modern world is right there.

Here is Nevada we are inundated with pro-abortion ads. The most sick and twisted is teenage-looking girls (I’m sure they’re over 18 for legal purposes but clearly chosen to look 15-ish) begging us to save their right to an abortion. “Think about us”, they say. We have to make sure they can get an abortion…we have to make sure, that is, they can get their lives ruined as early as possible but at least scrape away the most inconvenient result (and, of course, protect the older men who abuse them…can’t forget that: Question 6 here in Nevada legalizes abortion for minors without parental consent…because we must ensure the degenerates can dispose of the strongest evidence against them). What strikes you about it – aside from revulsion – is how very sad it is. That we’ve clearly got girls of a very young age who are resigned to being sexually used and tossed aside…and abort that kid so you can have your career in a cubicle farm.

If they were just working on obeying the precepts of the Lord, of course, they’d look forward to marriage to a man who will promise and kids growing up and all that normal, sane, human stuff. Can’t have that, can we?

On and on like that. Young boys are also taught to ruin themselves – that their relationship goal isn’t to make a manly promise to a woman, but to skip from one to another because that “respects” a woman’s independence. This has had the effect of making more and more young men have contempt for women…to see them as objects. And irritating objects at that. Useful for only one thing so why put up with her outside of the bedroom? It is causing a real crisis in manhood…men aren’t geared to be like that and talking them into being pigs is causing psychic breakdown in the men as well.

There was a reason we used to stamp on people who lived badly and lied – and it wasn’t because we were anti-fun. It was because we had a little bit of common sense. We were a mature, sensible people – we didn’t believe childish notions about having one’s cake and eating it too. We knew that life was a series of trade offs and that if we wanted a bit of real happiness and prosperity then we had to ensure at least a basic level of morality – that we had a least a little bit of obeying the precepts of the Lord, even if a lot of people did cut corners on that when they could.

We have to get back to that.

It will be difficult.

But it will be worth it.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

You’re only as old as you feel!

Which is why we feel like extras in a Walking Dead scene!

But, seriously: earlier today and last week I was doing cannon balls into my pool. Its heading to 99 here in Vegas and the pool temp is 80…but I didn’t just get in to cool off. I decided to do some cannon balls. You remember those, right? I do. And I remembered how to do them…though I suspect I made a bigger splash than I did as a kid. Don’t know why I decided that a cannonball was the thing to do; just did.

They are just as fun as they were when I was 12.

And it got me thinking that the world really is a magical place – I just think that as we age, we lose our awe of it. If you’ve read any of the Mirrors series, that attitude probably comes through…the feeling on the part of the Lontarians that our modern marvels are magical even if we say they’re not. I’m flip-siding that a little bit in the soon-to-be-released Home World where Hadwin notes that there’s something technological in the magic, as well. And, to me, there is.

I think it is important that we never get “too old”. I mean, sure: there are practical considerations. Someone not too long ago posted a meme saying, “remember when we used to jump out of the swing and just land ok? Them knees were fresh out of the box!”. I do not recommend anyone in geezerdom to actually jump from any height. But I think that in our spirit, we should still try to see the magic. That it is a miracle – even if we can explain it – that we’re able to communicate instantly across vast distances. But that its also a miracle when a raindrop falls or a cloud drifts by. Of course, maybe I’m just weird…but I do feel inside like I always have. I’m nearly 60 and I just don’t feel the slightest bit different from when I was 16. Sure, my knees hurt all the time and I have to get a magnifying glass out to read a label..but I’ve never lost that fascination with the world; and I feel very young.

Latest polls are mixed – and I mean, completely mixed. Depending on which polls you look at, both candidates are winning. This is not possible. Any honest polling of the same population would show roughly the same thing. Sure, you might get Poll A saying Candidate X is at 47.2, Candidate Y at 46.8 while Poll B shows X at 46.9 and Y at 47.3. That is normal statistical variation. But when Poll A says X at 52 and Poll B says Y at 51…well, they simply both can’t have majority support. They both can’t be winning. At least one of the polls is then lying – could be both, but definitely is one.

In my opinion, the most likely liars are the Harris-favorable polls. This is based as I’ve said all along on voter registration info, primary voting patterns, etc. We can add to it now a slight bit of early voting data which is also favorable to Trump. The objective facts that we can see show Trump doing well, not Harris…and so it is far more likely that the pro-Harris polls are nonsense. But, we shall see, shan’t we? It is all up to who shows up – Team Trump is banking on angry, irregular voters to not just tip the election in his favor, but to utterly bury Harris. He’s got a whole plan to appeal to these people and get them to the polls – the segment of the American population that is fed up with the Uniparty. Will it work? We’re going to find out.

NYC Mayor Adams got indicted. Democrats are citing this as proof that the Justice Department is even-handed. We GOPers immediately assumed it was revenge against Adams. There are lots of theories out there as to why they would go after Adams for what amounts to fairly moderate and common corruption (trust me, he ain’t the only one getting airline upgrades) but nobody is really sure. Is it because he dissented from the immigration? Is it a power play by other people in NYC government? There is a chance the power players in NYC are perceiving him a disaster but one who will be re-elected next year…maybe this axe was swung to get him out and get in a radical-left Mayor who will so turn everyone off that a Bloomberg or Guiliani will get elected next year? Who the heck knows…but whatever it is, it isn’t merely going after corruption (they’d have to arrest almost everyone involved in NYC government if they did that).

Zelenskyy showed up to dun us for more money – after doing a campaign swing in Pennsylvania for Harris. Infuriating…but he was probably ordered to do it by Harris. I’ve read that he’ll meet with Trump tomorrow. Naturally the GOP has already signed on to provide more money…and material; even though our own military is saying the cupboard is bare. It’ll take us years to restock our supplies…we simply don’t have the manufacturing capacity we had even 20 years ago. This whole Ukraine thing is a mess. But it did occur to me as Zelenskyy marched though Congress flanked by McConnell and Schumer that there in front of us was the reason why Vietnam lasted 8 years while our involvement in WWII was 3 years, 8 months: a failure of will. Simply cowardice.

Let’s concede for the sake of argument that Ukraine is vital to America’s interests – ok, if that is the case then you gather your forces, send them close by and then issue an ultimatum to Russia to pull back…failure to do so being casus belli. It isn’t an unusual thing. Heck, it happened pretty much right there in 1854. The Russians wanted to take advantage of the Turkish Ottoman Empire – Britain and France didn’t want Russia to do that. So, when the Russians attacked the Anglo-French sent a fleet and army and issued their ultimatum. The Russians didn’t back down and so the Crimean War came. After it was over, Russia was defeated and had to accept Allied terms. Maybe Russia would back down this time? Maybe not. But if its vital, you must take the risks.

And if it isn’t vital? Then what the heck are we even doing here? But it has to be one or the other. It is either vital, or it isn’t.

But they won’t do that – they won’t call it vital but won’t declare it unimportant. They won’t fight and they won’t surrender. Just like Vietnam…fight but never win. Or even try to win. So, we just keep feeding the fires of war and immense monetary cost to us and a huge blood cost to Russia and Ukraine. Anyone around here long enough knows that I’ve always viewed Russia as a potential ally. Heck, even back when it was the USSR I had no real ill feelings for the Russians as people. Keep in mind that Russia provided diplomatic support for us during the Revolution, staunchly refused all efforts by European powers to recognize the Confederacy and, of course, were our allies in the field in both World Wars. We also share a lot of strategic interests. But now that is all burned…I doubt that Russia will want to draw close to us after years of American money buying dead Russians…and this will include the hatred of Russians who are opponents of Putin and/or the war. And now we’re about to give I guess another $8 billion so that Ukrainians can kill Russians and be killed by same with no possibility that Ukraine can force a decision in their favor. Just disgusts me.

On the economy – the official Stats show everything is ok. OTOH, credit card delinquencies are heading into record territory. Lots of stories emerging about rising eviction rates (which does make me suspect that corporate landlords are giving citizens the boot because they can get more renting to governemnt-subsidized illegal immigrants. It is still far too expensive for most youngsters to buy a home (seen a happy/happy, joy/joy ad for a bank showing a happy 20-something living in a studio apartment he’s got a mortgage on…geesh!). Food prices remain ruinous. In other words, what the people are living in is bad…and likely to get a lot worse. I suspect this will play a role in determining who the next President is.