MAGA

Mark Noonan28 Comments

With the RFK, Jr endorsement of Trump we can truly say that this is no longer a GOP vs Democrat election. It really is The People vs The Powerful. We’re not fighting to elect Trump so much as fighting to destroy a corrupt, stupid and cruel Ruling Class. This Class does include many GOPers as well as a host of pundits and such who have made their way by being the controlled opposition to the Democrats. This is best shown by some alleged pro-lifers saying they’ll vote Harris or sit the election out because Trump hasn’t been Simon-pure on abortion.

Nobody on Earth is more of a pro-life fanatic than me. I want the barbaric, inhuman practice banned. There is never any legitimate reason to terminate a pregnancy. Pregnancy is not a disease. No pregnancy is unplanned. No child is unwanted. There are some times tragic and even wicked circumstances that produce the unborn child, but the unborn child is still a miracle of life…and a human being vested immediately upon conception with all the rights that every other human being enjoys. But politics is the art of the possible. Except in a few very Red States and localities, a ban on abortion simply isn’t possible. We’re more than 50 years into the Ruling Class propagandizing for abortion and those lies have sunk deep roots into the American heart and mind. So deep that even decent, moral people can be confused on the issue and so be unwilling to ban. We’ll be a long time undoing it – and the effort is now, politically, State and local while the real work is to build a Culture of Life that will make the very concept of abortion unthinkable.

But here are supposed pro-lifers essentially knifing us in the back – as if electing a pro-abortion fanatic like Harris will help. Of course it won’t. But they don’t care. They are not actually pro-life…they are pro- making money off the life issue. And you make the most money by losing. That is, by having abortion legal everywhere and issuing futile complaints about it with a link at the bottom for a donation. This is the sort of people who infest our Ruling Class – Democrat and Republican. Truly vile people who play upon emotions to secure power and wealth they couldn’t earn in a fair system. And now the people are starting to unite against it. Sure, under the banner of MAGA and with Trump in the lead, but it really isn’t about Trump any longer.

It is about MAGA.

It is about getting rid of these hideous people and starting to reform our nation – to restore the shining city on the hill. To secure for ourselves and our posterity the blessings of liberty. But here is the thing: you can’t recapture the past. The America of, say, 1912 when my grandfather was 16 is gone forever. We’ll never get back to that time when Americans were largely untaxed and unregulated – and the America where it was expected that everyone pulls their weight with no help from the government. In order to secure those blessing of liberty we are going to have to take reality into consideration. And while always working to reduce the tax and regulatory burden and build a self-reliant people, understand that in the short- and medium-term quite a lot of the Progressive mess will have to remain; our job being to turn it away from its Progressive intent.

In light of this and in keeping with building the broadest possible Reform coalition, we can’t just outright reject some things. I’ve talked in the past about the GOP leading the way in student debt reform – the Democrats just want to keep passing out the debt and then relieving it selectively for political purposes. We should be working to make it dischargable in bankruptcy, holding the schools accountable for at least some of the debt and forcing colleges to reduce costs (education costs have increased by orders of magnitude faster than inflation). In other words, we drop the “pay your bills, bum” and start to work on measures that resolve the problem while garnering support.

Welfare is a bane. We know this. But we can’t just end it like waving a magic wand. We need programs that require recipients to work – even if its make-work. And ensure that anyone who works 40 hours a week has sufficient to live a dignified life in their neighborhood: so, if the person is working but only making 80% of what’s needed, we kick in the other 20%. The goal is to show the poor that we’re here for them; that we want better for them – and to twist welfare away from a permanent dependency into a temporary launch pad. You can see where I’m going with this.

Coalition building is hard, but it is necessary. We can’t do the reforms we need with a bare EC win, or even a bare popular majority. We need to start working for 60% of the vote…for a MAGA trifecta that will last for 20 years. That is how long it will take to impose sufficient reforms to ensure that even when MAGA finally loses an election, the other side will be required to keep our programs in place…much as the GOP had to when they finally beat the Democrats after 20 years of the New Deal.

I do believe we are on the cusp of an historic victory. The Harris campaign is a fraud. Not just the usual run of lies, but a complete set of lies from start to finish, all designed to make it seem like she’s winning when the reality is 180 degrees different. Reminder: if it elects Harris, that is a bonus – the goal is to prevent a Congressional and State Democrat meltdown. They know that if they hold that power then even 4 years of Trump won’t fundamentally change things. This is what they are doing – saving the Party; Harris is just a placeholder who allows Democrats to pretend their standard bearer isn’t responsible for the mess. But I do not believe this will work – I can see the outlines of a big Trump win coming. But it only comes via Trump’s strategy – and you have seen enough by now to know he’s not running ideologically Right…he’s running to garner a broad coalition. Our job is to join in the effort. Make it our own. And carry it forward even after Trump is gone.

Off We Go to the General Election

Mark Noonan57 Comments

Didn’t watch Her Cackleness speak – X comment is on partisan lines.

Democrats: “I’d commit seppuku for her!”

GOPers: “It sucked”

Doom Mongers: “She’s like Reagan and Trump is going to lose!”

Personally, I don’t think it matters what she said – her entire campaign is an attempt to lie her into office just as Joe’s was in 2020. They are pretending she isn’t in office and wasn’t for the last 4 years. Vote for her! She’ll fix everything! Don’t even ask! Just vote. Joy!

Can it work? If it does then, as I’ve said from the get-go, we never had a chance. If an electoral majority falls for this drivel then no matter who we nominated we were going to lose.

But, I don’t think we’re going to lose. In fact, I think we’re going to win pretty big. Even with the Kamala-hype BS polling, Trump sits at 287 Electoral Votes. That is more than 270, by the way. The rest is just gravy. They will put out some polls over the next few days showing her up big because that is all part of the Narrative but in the nitty-gritty, she’s just not catching on. People do see the scam and I think they are getting increasingly revolted by it. Covid made the Joe-BS seem at least partially credible…but now its just all bad and there’s nothing big to blame it on, except those in charge. Harris is one of those in charge. She can tell us all she wants that she’ll fix things and it’ll always come back to the question: why aren’t you fixing them now?

Be that as it may, now the real contest begins – and while Never Trump Doomsters are talking like its 2016, the bottom line is that Team Trump is highly disciplined and hitting Harris where it hurts while also getting into the mechanics of getting voters to the polls and making sure the count goes correctly. Trump is not hated by a majority. Trump does hit the points he needs to hit. If there is anything like a fair-minded majority in America, this is in the bag.

And, personally, I think it is – heck, every time someone goes to the grocery store, MAGA shines a little brighter. If you are feeling nervous then here’s the cure all: turn off the TV. Seriously: that is where all the Harris-hype comes from. It is just news-actors on TV saying what Team Harris told them to say and, guess what?, they’ve been told to say that Harris is beloved and rocking and just soaring to the heights. They’re like German radio in April of 1945 saying that Berlin remains German and Vienna will be German again. Baghdad Bob got nothing on these guys. It isn’t happening. She isn’t popular. Nobody likes her. Heck, her own supporters can’t even tell you why they support her…its just “she’s like a woman, you know, and black and she cares about me”. Her campaign is infantile and designed to impress the least knowledgeable people in the United States…you know, news-actors, welfare bums and college students.

Meanwhile, as you collect your paycheck among rumors of imminent layoffs you have to figure out what you won’t buy this week because food is so damned expensive. Guess who you’re voting for?

UPDATE: Did not have RFK, Jr endorsing Trump on my bingo card. OTOH, we all should have: the Democrats really screwed him. To be sure, RFK has some kooky ideas…but, so what? That’s the thing about our side: you’re allowed to have your views. Speak! Let’s hear it. Try to convince us. We’re not afraid. And let’s all admit that especially after COVID we all have our doubts about pharma…but its been longer than that, hasn’t it? The TV ads for drugs which list a score of side affects…what the heck is that about? Does the damned thing work, or not? And if I’m sick, I’m going to a doctor…you advertising seems to be an attempt to get me to buy medicine I maybe don’t need.

The main thing about this is that there is a clear and growing movement against the Ruling Class and against its titular head, Kamala Harris. Nothing works. Space ships stuck in space. Rag tag Islamic militia in Yemen thumbing its nose at our fleet. Bridges can’t be repaired for years. Kids can’t read. Crime. Inflation. Wars all around the world. A flood of illegals. We all feel it. We know its going badly. And we’re supposed to give the Ruling Class another four years? We’re supposed to believe that somehow Trump is the threat?

No. It won’t wash. We’re voting Trump.

UPDATE II: Our Matt explains that if we do want to save Democracy, Harris has to lose.

The Evil Know They’re Evil

Mark Noonan26 Comments

Candace Owens rose to fame via being a black woman on the right: certainly a rare bird. But it appears that she did so to become famous: that is, her views weren’t informed by knowledge and thought, but by what needed to be said to get Conservatives slobbering all over her. It did help that she’s a very pretty young lady. But now she’s going full bore into the very worst parts of the swamp of anti-Semitism. She is rightly being condemned for this but I think that the condemnations are going about it wrong – they mostly accuse her of being stupid or venal or some such. She may well be all sorts of things, but the primary thing she’s being is evil.

Given her youth, my expectation is that her education is lacking. It has been a long time since any Western system of education provided an actual education. Some private schools do, but the general run (even in most private schools) is pretty deplorable. Even the smartest kids don’t really know all that much. And one of the subjects where things are worst is in history – it is either not taught at all, or it is a sort of kindergarten-Marxist view of history which leaves out much fact and all context while pushing some pretty transparent lies. And that, I think, is why so many youngsters are feeling the pull of anti-Semitism…when you’re told in school a pack of lies and then discover this, you start to doubt everything…and latching on to those doubts are the anti-Semites. Mostly Muslim in origin these days, but the more traditional Nazi types are also active here. This is why Owens not too long ago rather breathlessly reported to us that the Germans were treated harshly in the aftermath of WWII. The over 50 were all, “of course they were: they deserved it. And more”, but the younger were shocked about it. This has led Owens, and many others, into the fever swamps.

But that still doesn’t excuse. No matter how ignorant Owens is. No matter how many lies have been fed to her, she still knows that her views about the Jews are wrong. She knows it because she knows that she, as a black woman, would reject with fury any attempt to paint all black people as malevolent. The human heart can be corrupted and, per the Bible, it is sometimes permitted to become hardened at the choice of the person…but that still doesn’t excuse:

Therefore, you are without excuse, every one of you who passes judgment. or by the standard by which you judge another you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the very same things. We know that the judgment of God on those who do such things is true. Do you suppose, then, you who judge those who engage in such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? – Romans 2:1-3

Owens and those like her are now judged – if they don’t repent, then what they have meted out in judgement against the Jews will be repaid to them. They have falsely accused the Jews of a conspiracy to destroy, can they escape judgement for this? They know they shouldn’t. They know all Jews are not bad and cannot be judged as a group. But they do it anyway…for a bit of fame or money or power. They accuse the Jews of trying to destroy and thus reveal themselves as people trying to destroy. It is a very dangerous ground to go on…and God does permit hearts to be hardened. None of us know precisely what happened to Hitler after that bullet passed through his head – but given how hardened his heart had become, we have a strong belief about where he likely is today. The people like Owens are risking everything they have…for nothing.

It is very important for us to resume calling evil what it is – and calling out those who practice it. We do have to be careful: there is a line where a person is mistaken rather than evil. Like the person who wishes abortion to be legal for fear that banning it is worse than keeping it. That isn’t an evil view. It gets into evil when we start having people “shouting their abortion”, as if killing at kid, even if incidental to saving a mother’s life, can in any way be something to be proud of. It is a tragedy at best…murder at worst. And everyone knows this because everyone knows they don’t want to be killed at the convenience of another. The judgement they meted out will come back to them. That we leave to God, but what we have to do is close it off. We can’t end evil, but we must place it aside, condemned and controlled…as far as practical in a pluralist, human society.

It is my view that once we stopped calling evil what it is, we essentially gave permission for it to flourish. We were told that calling birth out of wedlock disgraceful was wrong…and so we stopped, and now 40% of all births in the USA are out of wedlock. There was a reason we called out of wedlock births bad…not to be mean, but to discourage people from doing it – instinctively knowing that the best chance a child has is with two parents committed to each other and to the child. Any other arrangement would be bad and could prove fatal. But we were told to stop. Too mean.

Tell that to the 100 or so kids under 18 who will OD on drugs next month because they come from not broken homes, but homes that were never built to begin with…some pathetic, ill-educated woman cohabitated with an equally pathetic, ill-educated man…for a night, or a week, or a month…and a child emerged 9 months later lacking family and structure and the sense of belonging this creates…and so he dies at 16 on a dare after taking some drugs because he had no ambition or hope. That is what happens when we stop calling evil what it is. That and all the other monstrous social pathologies we see every day in our sad, dying society.

Time to stand up and start calling evil what it is. Tell the wicked. Tell them again. When everyone shouts at you, tell them again. They aren’t wrong. You can call the wrong, wrong. You can educate the mistaken. The only thing you can do with evil is stop it. And we’d better get doing that fast before we’re overwhelmed.

Get Ready for the Psy-Op

Mark Noonan30 Comments

No, as it turns out, I won’t watch a minute of the DNC. Reminder: I almost didn’t watch the Trump-Biden debate because I find Biden to be such a vile person that I have no desire to hear him speak as if he’s on an equal moral or intellectual level with me. It is 50/50 whether I’ll watch the Trump-Harris debates. I utterly despise these people. They are evil. Cruel. Corrupt. Stupid. Anti-human. Anti-American. I want them permanently removed from power and I want them punished under law for what they have done. So, yeah, I’ll be watching something else while they talk.

I will check out the X feed though.

But no matter what you do this next week, keep in mind that you are being targeted by a massive psy-op. It is designed to get you to quit; to think that Harris is genuinely popular and that Trump is a worn out has-been headed for defeat. They will have polls showing precisely this. I mean really big this time – national leads of 5 or more and there will be polls showing her down only 2 in Ohio and 1 in Florida. It will be the most absurd set of lies ever produced. A level of lies that Goebbles would have rejected as too implausible. Don’t fall for any of it.

The race is about whether or not people want a continuation of the last 4 years. That is what a Presidential election is always about. If things are going well, then the party in power is usually rewarded with another 4 years even if the incumbent President isn’t on the ballot. 2000 was a rare exception here – and that was a photo-finish that very easily could have gone the other way. There are no objective factors which indicate that people want 4 more years of Democrats or that they think Kamala Harris is someone of wisdom and courage able to lead the United States. Objective factors, by the way, does not include polls. Polls are weak reeds under the best of circumstances and they will be warped heavily over the next ten days or so.

It is after that you’re looking to. Especially after Labor day. Trump will start the knock down actually during the DNC – he was going to lay low but now there are several events…and they will get coverage just when the Democrats want all eyes on their psy-op. A message of courage and hope will come straight from Trump just while the op is telling everyone to give up, Trump can’t win. But it is still after Labor day that the real battle starts – and what I believe will end up being a step-by-step dismantling of the entire Harris propaganda effort. Trump did it in 2016 and he’ll do it again in 2024…except this time with far more muscle.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan33 Comments

A lot of recent polling indicates that whatever momentum Harris was getting after the coup against Biden, it is fading fast. Personally, I don’t think it ever really happened but there are only so many thumbs you can put on the scale before your poll becomes such garbage that you lose credibility entirely…there was a gap of at least several days in polling before the most recent releases and my guess on that is that they were finding what was, in the end, found: even with thumbs on the scale, Trump was at worst holding position to get past 270.

As per usual in all elections, it will be decided by who shows up. Gallup’s most recent party ID poll had the electorate R+6. All of us doubt that – but maybe we shouldn’t. Someone pointed out on X that after months of good polling for Trump GOPers were still dooming and glooming while a week of good polling for Harris got Democrats seriously claiming they’d flip Texas and Utah. We’re just built to be Debbie Downers, aren’t we? We’re so used to losing that we can’t envision winning. Maybe we should start to act like winners? Trump sure seems confident – at the worst of the Kamala-mentum he was out there golfing and nailing it. Any golfer will tell you that if you’re stressed you’ll do poorly. Trump wasn’t stressed in the least.

Keep in mind that public polls are “free” and are therefore designed for a purpose. None of them are agenda-free. Sometimes it is far more subtle than others, but if someone gives you something for free then they want something out of you. Your grandmother can give you a free lunch – everyone else is working an angle. Meanwhile, both parties have pollsters who are crucial in determining which States to spend time and money in. These people don’t mess around. If you’re such a pollster and you steer candidates wrong, you’ll be out of work. Both Team Trump and Team Harris know the state of the race – and they are pouring money into Pennsylvania, especially after Labor Day (oddly, so far Team Trump has reserved about 50% more time in PA than Team Harris – Harris almost certainly can’t get past 270 without PA…so being heavily outspent seems weird…but might also mean that the supposed record-breaking fundraising she did after the coup was just a story; of course, Team Harris might push up their numbers in PA as they see Team Trump do it).

If Gallup is right, or even if its R+2, Harris has an impossible task – there simply won’t be enough votes out there to get to 270…probably not even enough to win the popular vote, even with CA and NY voting for her in droves. R+1 to D+2 means Harris has to draw an inside straight just to get to 270. D+3 its a complete tossup. The polls are mostly predicated upon D+3 to D+5. So, we see lots of polls showing tossup or a slight Harris advantage. And if the electorate is D+5 then, yeah, Trump is going to lose. He simply won’t be able to find enough votes to get past 270. But there is zero indication that the electorate will be worse for Trump than even on party ID – voter registration and primary voting patterns all indicate an electorate more GOP than polling suggests.

Who shows up: that decides it.

And do note that Team Trump is expending efforts to drag low-propensity voters to the polls. These are people who do vote but only in Presidential years and even then not all the time. Lots of polling shows Trump absolutely crushing it with this demographic. Trouble is: they don’t vote all the time. It isn’t an absolute necessity that Trump get these people to show, but if he’s successful in doing so, what in polling today is a tight race becomes a blowout win for Trump. We’ll see if Team Trump’s bet on this pays off.

Harris’ first big policy roll out has been to steal some Trump policies and add a bunch of Communism. You should hear her border ad in Nevada – to listen to it, you’d think she’s a MAGA border hawk. It stops just half an inch before “build the wall”. It is a nauseating lie – if she wins she’ll do nothing to control the border. In fact, it’ll be a signal to let 20 million or more in. But that she’s running the ads shows (a) she’s very weak on the issue and (b) Trump has moved the window on it…just by talking about it over and over and over again. Open borders is simply unpopular. Even pluralities of Democrats favor closing the border. I’ve seen polling where majorities of Latinos favor mass deportations. Trump has won the immigration debate – of course, it only becomes reality if he wins. Anyone else will simply mouth some words and keep the bodies flowing.

But the Communism is the thing – and it is working out badly for Harris. Her program of essentially imposing price controls is being panned even in parts of the Left. Everyone who thinks at all knows it is a bad idea. The inflation is because of the government spending money it doesn’t have. Everyone knows that the only way to get inflation to halt is to dial back government spending while increasing domestic production until rising wealth restores the equilibrium we had in 2019. Her bizarre idea of providing 25 grand to new home buyers is being noticed as the pandering it is – with plenty of comments from current homeowners about how its not exactly fair to shovel cash at some people and not others.

Walz continues to be a drag on Harris – not in polling, but there’s some nonsense in that. But the crucial thing – and the thing least likely to show in general national polling – is how veterans view Walz. Most civilians simply won’t understand how infuriating it is to any veteran to see someone fake their record. Sea stories are fine – appreciated (Old joke: what’s the difference between a sea story and a fairy tale? A fairy tale begins with “once upon a time” while a sea story begins with “no sh*t”). But to lie about actual service is despised. We all honor each other’s service – doesn’t matter where you were assigned; if you showed up and did your job, you’re one of us. Sure, there is extra honor accorded to those who had to really get down into the mud and blood, but no veteran denigrates those who served. All veterans pledged their lives and that’s good enough. But to lie about it – to appropriate valor and suffering not endured – is just disgusting to veterans. And to do it – like Walz – to burnish a resume for political purposes is just beyond the pale. Recent polling in Virginia shows it close – and this after the coup. That is Virginia’s massive veteran population. There are lots of bureaucrats in northern Virginia voting with their paymasters in DC…but tidewater Virginia is packed to the gills with retired Marines and sailors who, I assure you , despise what Walz did. This could have a small but decisive effect on the result.

Meanwhile, JD Vance continues to impress. We all loved how the latest attack on him was someone dredging up a picture of a young Walz apparently down for the count after a bout of youthful drinking. Another showed him goofing off with some girls in the boys room. I don’t know what they were thinking on this one – all it did was make him more relatable. I mean, relatable to anyone who challenged Jose Cuervo to a duel in high school. This, I think, is most of us. But maybe not Liberals? I dunno. Maybe Liberals don’t have fun. Maybe that’s their problem? Anyways, the guy is turning into teflon – and I think he’ll mop the floor with that phony, Walz.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan15 Comments

There’s been a persistent rumor that Biden is not at all pleased to have been forced out. I don’t know if its true but I’d bet money that it is. Gotta think about it: He was happily retired in 2019 and it was the party bosses who prevailed upon him to run. They figured that “Scranton Joe” was the best shot at beating Trump. He got into it because he was asked to get into it – and this after being rudely passed over in 2016 in favor of Hillary! Remember: he was the sitting VP of what was accounted as a very successful, two-term President. The normal course of events would be Biden getting the nod as reward for his loyal service much as Bush did in 1988 and Humphrey did in 1968. But, no: Obama and Clinton had struck the deal in 2008 and she was determined to collect in 2016…the skids were greased for her so that, really, nobody else had a chance. Passed over for what Biden likely thought was his turn, he went into retirement…until called out of it. Then, in his mind, he beat Trump (and, likely also in his mind, confirming that he would have beaten him in 2016 if he hadn’t been pushed out). He loyally allowed the Party to do its thing under the umbrella of his name…and then got unceremoniously dumped when the chips were down. In Biden’s lucid moments, that has to be infuriating. And justly so – I despise the creep, but he was done wrong by the Democrat establishment. This is why, I believe, that Harris’ desperate attempts to create distance from Biden are being undermined by routine Biden statements that she and he were tied at the hip.

I also believe that the recent revelations about Hunter and Bursima are part of this – a stern warning to Biden to knock if off. Remember: the weapons charge he was convicted off was the smallest charge possible. He actually faces a host of very serious federal crimes (along with untold numbers of State crimes across multiple jurisdictions) – it was all buried in favor of what was supposed to be a slap on the wrist. Hunter – because he’s a druggie – rejected the sweetheart deal and now does face some jail time…but still no more than a year. The rest of the charges would have him in jail effectively for the rest of his life. Biden is now being warned that if he doesn’t cool his jets a lot of bad things will happen.

And to the thought that Biden could just pardon Hunter – definitely not for State charges and the bottom line is that Nixon’s pardon was never seriously challenged. It is not settled as to whether or not a President can pardon for charges not yet filed, let alone not even known. Basically, Hunter is massively at risk – at the bare minimum of spending years tied up in court burning through every cent the Biden family has. So, cool it, Joe.

But, will he? He’s an arrogant ass as much as his son is. Personally, I hope Joe throws a grenade or two. Not just because it would harm Democrats but because it would be just. Democrats didn’t have to lie. They chose to lie – and they should pay the piper for that.

The Musk-Trump conversation has been seen by, well, just about everyone. Officially 263 million views on Trump’s X account…easily quadruple that across all platforms. They can’t stop Trump from getting his message out – and a lot of people seem interested in hearing what Trump has to say. Trump is not unpopular. Not hated. Oh, sure, mindless Democrats still hate him…but everyone else has mellowed on the man. He’s one of us. He’s not a scripted hack saying what consultants say the people want to hear. He’s not in it for himself. In fact, had he announced in 2023 that he was backing out, almost all of his problems would have gone away. He’s obviously doing this primarily because he knows that if he doesn’t – if he doesn’t win – then some very dark, evil things will have won.

Polls are still mixed – some of the most recent have Trump up. Some polls released recently but having end dates 10 days ago show Harris up. As I’ve said all along, if the Democrat isn’t consistently up by 3 points on 11/5 then getting to 270 is almost impossible…and to really have it they’d have to be up by 5. A poll showing Harris up by 3 or less is Trump at 312 electoral votes.

Harris’ popular vote total will benefit from California a lot – she’s popular there. Much more so than Biden ever was. The wine moms of suburban CA will see voting Harris as something they must do in order to retain their social position. But even with that, I still give Trump about a 30% chance of winning the popular vote – because voter registration and voting trends elsewhere just grow more favorable to the GOP. Outside of those wine moms, nobody is pleased with how things are going. As for the EC, Harris will not do as well in WI/MI/PA as Biden – just can’t happen. California liberal simply won’t have as much appear as Scranton Joe. Sure, Joe’s blue collar act was just that, and act – but its an act Harris is incapable of performing. I have no doubt that all three of WI/MI/PA go Trump…and do keep in mind that if any 1 of the 3 go Trump, Harris can’t get to 270. She needs all 3; she has to draw an inside straight…and not lose Nebraska’s 1st CD…which has had a big increase in GOP voter registration since 2020.

Side note: the funniest result is Harris taking all 3 but losing NE-01…that works out to a 269 tie. It won’t happen. Like a billion to one against…but it can happen and it shows how much Harris has to thread the needle to 270 while Trump has a half dozen ways to get to it.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan39 Comments

If Biden hadn’t picked Harris then she would have spent the rest of her life as a rather stupid Senate back-bencher. Of course, Biden would have spent the rest of his life as a rather stupid Senate back-bencher if Obama hadn’t picked him. Harris is kinda stupid squared. And once again it is all Obama’s fault: I’ve complained about Biden’s ego but nobody comes close to Obama on that score. Everyone around him had to be second-rate so they couldn’t possibly outshine Obama…who isn’t nearly as smart as his acolytes think. In fact, maybe we’re into stupid cubed here?

Anyways, how’s it going? I know you’ve been exposed to the Doom Mongers; they’re out in force! And I suspect some of the larger Doom accounts on social media are paid by Democrats. It is all an op, guys. Never forget that. The MSM doesn’t just shade the truth here and there – they are the Comms op of the DNC. The only way Harris wins – and that barely – is if GOP turnout is forced down quite a lot.

62.9 million in 2016.

74.2 million in 2020.

That’s more than a 11% increase. The Democrat’s nightmare? That he even does 50% of that for 2024…they need to depress the GOP and especially GOP-leaners who only vote in some Presidential election years. How bad are they going to lie? This bad:

That is how much they will lie – completely brazen. Absolutely not telling you the truth. They will be 180 from reality. Do not lose heart! Do not let them fool you. I remain absolutely confident in Trump’s victory. In fact, I’ve never felt so good about politics. Not even 2004 when I was feeling pretty darned good about our chances. This is different – I am happy we’re having this battle. I am not stressed in the least. This is the most fun I’ve ever had watching politics.

How is it really going? Here’s how:

Not every State lists their voter registration by partisan ID but it is highly likely to be like this across the board. Does this guarantee a Trump win? Of course not – but people are moving to the GOP for a reason. I can’t see this not coming out in the votes. Do keep in mind that the Party in Power loses for two reasons:

  1. They’ve just been there a long time (like the GOP in the 1992 cycle)
  2. The Party in power has loused everything up (like the Dems in 1980 or the GOP in 2008)

Team Democrat hasn’t been in very long – not enough time for everyone to just grow tired of them…but I will assert they have loused everything up. To be sure, trends only continue until they don’t…but I have to figure that every time someone goes grocery shopping “MAGA” shines a little brighter…and that’s why we’re seeing these voter registration trends.

Trump went back on X – and his posts are immediately getting millions of views. Democrats are upset about this. I suggest pointing and laughing at them.

Update: The Musk-Trump conversation. I listened to it live. Those two can talk! And that’s what it was – two normal human beings having a conversation about what is going on. Peaked at more than 1.3 million active listeners. 72.9 million views of the X post about it. Many large accounts were also streaming it – some have guessed the live audience in total might have peaked at about 10 million. Lord only knows how many people will listen over the next few days. Team Trump definitely needs to do an edited version – some of it was outright fantastic and laugh out loud funny. Probably boil it down to a 30 minute “best of” and get 50 million to download it, easy.

Do You Want to Die?

Mark Noonan38 Comments

Couple things came across on X today that got me thinking a little more deeply about our current condition.

The first was a news report about the President of the International Olympic Committee claiming, to quote, there is “no scientifically solid system” to determine male or female.

Next thing was a report out of the UK where the government is going full-Gestapo against British people who dared to be upset about foreign savages stabbing British girls.

Final thing was, in response to that, someone posting a link to the Sex Pistols song, God Save the Queen. You remember it, don’t you? I do; and this bit:

God save the Queen
She ain’t no human being
There is no future
In England’s dreaming

These three things rolled around in my head a for a bit and it occurred to me, very counter-intuitively, that because the Brits tolerated that lyric, they are now being arrested for posting memes about foreign savages.

It might seem wrong to think that because, of course, the UK government is savagely repressing free speech whereas the Sex Pistols were a sort of test case for free speech. The sort of thing we were told we must allow to happen or we’d all end up arrested. Well, the Brits did let it happen – and now they’re being arrested. Funny, isn’t it?

There’s no future in England’s dreaming. They did get that right, but not how they meant. What they meant was that there was no future in England’s dream of a solidly middle class society of strictly law-abiding people who did the right thing cheerfully. Punk rock was at war with that. So was the rest of British pop culture – and, indeed, pop culture all through the West; taking endless shots at the staid, boring old fuddy-duddies who just wouldn’t let people have fun. We’ve got to fight for our right to par-taaaaay!

But, of course, nobody was ever against having fun – but the fuddy-duddies did object to thinking that being garbage was fun…being drunk. Being stoned. Being on welfare. Dressing like a weirdo. This wasn’t fun; this was just being insulting. And living off the productive while doing it. So the fuddy-duddies objected and got made even more fun of…and so they just let it happen because, being fuddy-duddies, they didn’t want to seem rude. Problem was that there was a social system which was based upon sobriety, hard work, thrift, being law-abiding…and it was so very successful that it built a surplus that lazy, profligate drunken thieves could take advantage of. That old fuddy-duddy society is now long gone…and now your daughter can be murdered by a foreign savage and if you object you’ll get a visit from the police.

And that brought my mind back to the IOC President – what he said is a lie. He knows it is a lie. Everyone who heard it knew it was a lie. He knew that everyone who heard it knows that he knows it is a lie. Yet, he said it; he went ahead and lied. And he still has his job. The particular lie here isn’t really the point – the point is that our society has become so entirely suffused with lies that we don’t really even notice them. A lot of people commented on the article – but only very rarely did anyone call it a lie. They called it stupid. They called it ignorant. They called it all sorts of things but only a few (me, included, of course) called it what it is: a lie.

You have to really roll that around in your head for a moment, what the IOC guy said: he is denying not some controversial theory of the universe but a self-evident truth. I don’t need to prove to anyone what a man is. I don’t need a DNA test. I need to merely see the person – naked if necessary just in case there’s been some surgery, etc – and that will tell me what I need to know. I no more need to prove a person is man or woman than I need to prove to anyone that water is wet by pouring a bucket of it over their head. We know water is wet. We know what a man is. We know what a woman is. There’s no guesswork here. And that makes the IOC President a liar – quite an egregious and ridiculous liar. The only possible out for him would be a determination that he is stark, raving mad. Because only a madman can possibly not know the difference between a man and a woman. Anyone else making such a claim is just a liar.

It is said that C. S. Lewis was greatly influenced by G. K. Chesterton and I do believe this is true – if for nothing else than that both of them hit upon the requirement that if you’ve gone wrong, you have to go back to the mistake – no matter how far back that is – and fix it from there. It is no use trying to tinker with the mistake. You can’t fix wrong – you can only stop being wrong. And as I pondered all of this, it came into my mind that the error – where we went wrong – was when we accepted the assertion that we must tolerate wrong if we want to be right.

You know the argument: its generally associated with the Libertarian ideal these days but its been around for a long time. Let’s just say it started with Voltaire in the 18th century – “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”. This, of course, was in stark opposition to the societal expectation of his day – in both Catholic and Protestant countries – that there are some things you just couldn’t say. Mostly related to blasphemy against God. To be sure, some nations took it hard in the direction of not saying anything against the King, or the government, or the higher orders in general and that was wrong. But because Louis XV would unjustly send a man to the Bastille for speaking out of turn about Madame du Pompadour it doesn’t necessarily follow that we must allow everything to be said as if nothing matters.

It is a good theory, I’ll grant it that – it does seem that if I in any way curtail someone’s ability to say a thing then it might come out that I, in my turn, am curtailed. But what if what the other person is saying is just a lie? What if its an insane lie? What if its an assertion that we can’t tell man from woman? To be sure, we didn’t immediately jump from Rousseau’s absurdities to “hey, I can’t tell what a man is”, but it is a rather straight line. There is another quote from Voltaire which is pertinent here: “those who can make you believe absurdities will get you to commit atrocities”. Yeah. No kidding, Volty ol’ buddy. We went from the absurdity of the proposition that humanity once lived in a “state of nature” to “you can be born in the wrong body” in just 250 years. Blink of an eye. So maybe defending to the death everyone’s right to say whatever they damned well pleased wasn’t such a good idea?

What we’ve done is place lies on the same platform as truth and said, “you’re equal, have at it”. But lies, being lies, cheated and has now kicked truth to the curb and is running wild. Here’s my assertion on this: nobody actually believes a lie. Even the people who get conned out of money by the more conventional kind of liar – you know: “hey, I can get you 25% returns forever, just give me your money”. Nobody believes that – the “suckers” are just hoping they get paid before the pyramid scheme blows up. Everyone knows that there’s no such thing as a free lunch and that what is too good to be true is always false. A six year old can believe a lie. A senile person can believe a lie. No person in possession of their senses does.

But people do go along with the lies – for a variety of reasons and none of them matter. What matters is that they are participating in them even if just by silent consent. And they participate because they are expecting a payoff before it all goes to hell. Even if that payoff is just what they think will be a little bit of peace and quiet. And after now a couple centuries of allowing lies to pervade we are now in a situation where things are starting to crack – and I mean the basics of civilization. You see it: most obviously in the public brawls and looting of stores. But it is also in a bridge that can’t be repaired for years, or a space capsule that can’t land because, apparently, someone forget to make sure it could land…or maybe they didn’t even know what’s required for landing a space capsule? But they launched the thing! They did that – clearly didn’t know if it would work, but they launched it. Far more important than the space ship was that the lies were agreed to…and I’m sure the workforce that failed to replicate 1969 tech is filled with diverse and equitable people…when we need some geek with a slide rule to just do the math.

So, as Chesterton and Lewis pointed out, to fix this we have to go back to the beginning and start all over again. Our mistake was to allow lies. We must not allow lies any more. First off, we have to punish those who are lying. This is crucial: they must feel real pain. Not so much to punish them (though there is that) but to instruct everyone else that lying is bad. Really bad. Like so bad you should never, ever do it. Not even a little bit. Secondly, and far more importantly, we have to ban lying. We can’t let people lie and call it free speech. Just can’t. I know: tricky. This won’t be easy – but if we allow lies to flourish then we’ll just get more lies. Liars like to lie – beats working for a living. Until it is legally and socially impossible to lie and be rich, we’ll just continue to be overwhelmed…and our civilization will die. First in a round of cruel oppression as the liars try to kill everyone who won’t go along, secondly as everything falls apart because liars can’t do things like keep roads and sewer systems working. And do keep in mind that I said the liars will kill us – in fact, they already are: those girls stabbed in Britain were stabbed by liars. Sure, maybe a foreign savage held the knife, but it was a polished, urbane bureaucrat who invited the savage in via lies. Bottom line is that one way or another a lot of people are going to lose everything – liberty, property and life. Your choice: liars, or you.

This Post Never Deployed to Iraq Open Thread

Mark Noonan48 Comments

Who the heck vetted Tim Walz?

His whole thing is “level headed but liberal solider”…you know, MidWest Dad…hunter. Not a kook. The guy bails out on his unit – apparently backing out of his service commitment – just before his unit deploys to Iraq. Then he goes into politics repeatedly claiming to be a combat veteran!

FFS: this is catastrophic for Harris.

Of course the MSM went into overdrive cover up mode as this all came out but more and more of it just kept showing up…it is now impossible to ignore and if they let Walz debate Vance it’ll be presented to a national audience after Walz is the official VP nominee.

Don’t know what they do here – most likely they’ll just try to brazen it out. But there is a non-zero chance they’re forced to dump Walz at some point.

In addition to that, the Walz’ are…well…psychopaths. Walz signed bills to give illegal aliens drivers licenses and place tampon machines into the boys room…while Mrs Walz recalls with delight how she opened her windows so she could smell the fire of the BLM riots. Kinda funny on the tampon machine thing: all day today on X the Democrat bots were out there jumping on every tampon post to say “hey, we need tampons to be available!” as if this somehow explains why they’re in the boys room. The other line the bots took is that all cool guys carry a tampon around just in case a girl needs it. Maybe things have changed since I was in high school back in the last Ice Age but this just seems like…bullsh** on stilts. You’d need a PhD in mathematics to calculate the number of lockers “tampon boy” would be shoved into. I just have this odd idea that girls – being fully capable beings – look after that aspect of their lives very well, thanks very much, and don’t need a man to tell them what to keep handy in case of an emergency.

Harris got heckled by some pro-Hamas people at a rally – it might have been a set up but maybe not. The Democrats ditched the Jew to keep these people quiet but the bottom line is that Hamas – and thus the Hamasniks – want all Jews dead. Just not having one on the ticket isn’t going to make them shut up.

JD Vance again and again proves he’s intellectually brilliant and verbally adept. He simply destroys the false Narratives of the MSM and if he debates Walz the fight will be called after twenty minutes. Think about this: Walz was chosen because he’s lesser than Harris (and, of course, not a Jew)…Vance was clearly chose because he’s great and Trump is not afraid of his understudy shining bright. I’m still favoring RDS for 2028 but I freely admit that Vance impresses me more day by day. And if I’m torn between RDS and Vance in 2028, that’s a good thing.

Officially the race is a tossup with Harris having a slight edge 270-268. This is at the peak of her glow (or maybe a few days after that peak – there is some recent polling showing Trump rising again). I don’t believe that for a minute. I’ve got it at 312 to 226 favoring Trump with him still having slight chances in Virginia and Minnesota. I am completely confident that Trump/Vance will mop the floor with Harris/Walz (or whomever, who knows?). Because Harris is on top, I rate Trump’s chances of winning the popular vote low but I bet he gets above 80 million votes. And he might pull off a popular vote win – if Harris is finally flushed out of hiding and forced to expose herself to the American people in an unscripted setting, she might implode as badly as Biden did – remember, Biden’s implosion was a combination of bad times and Biden’s clear personal failure. If Harris is revealed as unfit (and she’s totally unfit; and without Joe’s excuse of being senile) then that same dynamic will come into play.

As for the bad times – they’re here and very likely to get much worse. The market volatility we see is based on fear that a recession is inbound. In the USA the employment outlook is bleak and while this might lead to a rate cut, that would immediately set off inflationary pressures. Meanwhile, crime continues to surge in the USA, the war in Ukraine continues to go badly: the Russians have been putting massive pressure on the Ukrainians and slowly grinding ahead. To give Ukraine her due she did launch today (or yesterday, depending on time zone) an incursion towards Kursk: this is, in military parlance, a “spoiling attack”. It isn’t a serious drive on Kursk but a means whereby the Ukrainians hope to draw in Russian reserves thus relieving the pressure elsewhere. How effective it is will be determined by the Russian reserves…if they’ve got enough to contain this attack and still press ahead elsewhere, then that is very bad news for Ukraine. South of there, the Middle East remains on fire and nobody can predict how that is going to go. The bottom line is that all of the things that dragged Biden down pre-debate are still at play…and the MSM hyping Harris can only have so much effect on that and that effect wanes ever faster as time goes on.

Meanwhile – here in Nevada we booted 90,000 bogus voter registrations off the rolls here in Clark County. Methinks I feel the hand of our Republican Governor in all this – former sheriff of Clark County and thus has many connections here. Lombardo does have policy ambitions but to get any of them he needs more GOPers in Carson City…so he’s doing what he can to help. Getting those registrations off the books helps a lot because that is the pathway of Democrat cheating – casting ballots for dead or moved-away voters. Not no more! I rate Nevada as Likely-R for November. There’s also moves along these lines in Arizona and Georgia. And there’s been reforms like this all over where GOP has power – so, it’ll be vastly harder for Democrats to cheat this time and they won’t have Covid to help them. This, by the way, is why Trump kept harping on the steal – to keep it in GOP minds and thus provide the political pressure to clean up the system. You think any of this would happen if Trump had just meekly accepted the 2020 result as Nixon did 1960? Also: voter registration trends continue to favor the GOP all over the Battleground States. Lots of Experts downplay this but I just can’t see someone switching to GOP or registering GOP unless they are planning on voting for Trump…with the indication in new registrations that it is low-propensity voters lining up for The Donald.

Feeling Good About #MAGA

Mark Noonan77 Comments

Dow go down – but now the Futures are up. Its a bit volatile out there…and I do think the big banks managed to manipulate us out of a major slide today. A thousand points isn’t anything to sneeze at but there were multiple reports of trading house websites crashing…and so preventing a lot of people from dumping their stocks, especially early on. The bottom line is that we’re in the midst of a debt-fueled bubble. Will it pop? Not if the central banks around the world have anything to say (and they have a lot to say). For the USA it is a matter of just keeping it afloat until November 5th – after that, even if inflation spikes again, they don’t care. Either Harris will have won or Trump would have – if its Harris they’ll blame anything but her. If its Trump they’ll blame him for it all. If Harris they’ll count on the worst of it being over far enough in front of 2028…if Trump, they’ll exacerbate it and hope it stays bad all through 2028.

But it still might pop – and in a 2008 manner. If that happens in the next 60 days, Trump will win in a landslide. That is what will keep the Fed and others massaging the system furiously. Do keep in mind that the very thought of Trump being sworn in terrifies our entire Ruling Class. They will stop at nothing to prevent such a thing from happen. I do hope that Trump’s security team has heads on a swivel. But outside a repeat of Butler, everything else is also on the table – and if you think the MSM has been brazenly lying to this point, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

They are going to try to lie Harris into office. In 2020 they at least had Covid and related problems…here in 2024, it is all bad for the incumbent party. They’ve got nothing to work with except to lie, lie and then lie some more. Harris won’t just be coddled – she’ll be given an endless tongue bath. The whole point of it, though, isn’t to increase her support – they really can’t. She seems to have a hard ceiling and Trump continues to gain in personal popularity. What they are trying to do is convince Republican-leaners to stay home. To figure Trump has no chance and so don’t bother. Harris needs a low turnout election. Very low. Like an election of complete indifference. If you take a look at the polls showing her “surging” they are predicated upon a D+5 or more environment…and not just heavily D, but low turnout so that the D voters make up 42 or 43 percent of the electorate. In other words, an electorate where a huge swath of Presidential-year independent (but GOP leaning) voters stay home. Can they make this happen? We’re going to find out – if they do, they win. And win forever.

Trump’s task is to take the anger at current conditions and channel it into a message of change – if you look at his tag line it isn’t just “make America great again”…it is also make America safe, powerful, wealthy, etc again. This is a line of talk designed to get those GOP leaning independents to the polls. This is why, at times, you’ll see some odd moves in Trump’s messaging…he’s not speaking all the time to you and me, the core GOP electorate. He knows we’re going to be there and for him…but he needs 5 million people who only vote when angry. Angry with crime, prices, immigration…that sort of thing…and willing to come out and give Trump a shot at fixing it.

I remain serene – certain that Trump will win. The party that had to swap out its candidate with a sleazy backstab isn’t on the path to victory. If Harris was in any way good, the DNC would have dumped Pudding Brain late last year and rigged the primaries for her, not Biden. She’s no good. She isn’t “brat”…she’s nearly 60. Like me. She’s old and she represents a dying past…and a dying Ruling Class. Trump may be older in years, but he represents a bright, youthful future for America…a land of hope and dreams…not fussing over pronouns and worried about if a person meets certain gender and demographic requirements.

This is our times, my friends. Finally and at last, America can break free of the Left. Not all at once – what was a century in the making will take time to undo. But we can shatter the chains. We can reclaim freedom – and sanity. I do believe that Trump has tapped into that sensation that nothing is working but that it can be fixed, if the cretins represented by Harris are turned out of office.

They can’t stop us. Oh, they’re going to try – but we are the stronger side. The decent side. The intelligent side. The hard working side. Their collection of grifters, charlatans and blue haired weirdos doesn’t stand a chance against us. We’re going to fight and we’re going to win.

UPDATE: Word is she picked Walz. So, the candidate who bailed out BLM has picked the guy who let BLM burn Minneapolis. This is the first Judenfrei major party ticket. FFS the Democrats are going to get wiped out.