9/11 Twenty Two Years On

Mark Noonan66 Comments

What went wrong? Why did that horrific event cause so many other horrific events, resulting in a lost war and a panicked flight from Kabul?

Did you know the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on that fateful day retired to various sinecures in the education and corporate world? He also endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2008; in an astonishing bit of absurdity calling her someone who understood what being in the military is like.

The Director of the CIA? Was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom when he retired in 2004. He also retired to various sinecures in the education and corporate worlds. Got a book deal, too. Oh, and later on offered biting criticism of W. Bush who awarded him that medal.

The FBI Director? That was Bob Mueller. You guessed it: after he retired he was the beneficiary of multiple education and corporate sinecures. And of course dredged up to lend a patina of credibility to the ridiculous Trump-Russia fraud.

So, to review: the people in charge of our military, foreign intelligence and domestic federal law enforcement on 9/11 – the people on who’s watch 3,000 Americans were massacred – all retired to cushy positions of power and influence. That is what went wrong. These three men should have been shot; and if we were feeling merciful after THREE THOUSAND of us were murdered due to their negligence, sent to jail for life. But, they not only didn’t suffer, they were rewarded for their abject failure.

You get what you pay for; we pay (through the nose) for incompetence and corruption…and so we’re awash in incompetence and corruption.

Bet you haven’t heard of Frank Wuterich all that much. You see, when he was a 25 year old Marine in 2005 his unit was hit by an IED in Anbar province and then a lot of shooting happened – as one might expect when an armed unit suddenly has a bomb explode among them – which resulted in civilian deaths. The initial report indicated that the dead civilians were caught in a crossfire but then people started claiming that the Marines – our Marines; soldiers of our United States Marine Corps; not Nazi Einsatzgruppen, but our Marines – deliberately targeted civilians. You know; because fresh-faced American kids who volunteer to fight for America are just the same as bloodthirsty Nazi savages. Given the nature of the beast at that time, the military opened an investigation and brought war crimes charges against 8 Marines. After a lot of years most of the charges against the defendants were dropped with Wuterich getting convicted of dereliction of duty. Because, you know, our Marines don’t go around massacring civilians. Because they’re American Marines. The good guys.

So, think about it: while those responsible for the criminal failure to stop 9/11 were awash in money and fame, the poor bastards we sent out to clean up their mess were being charged with war crimes…not because crimes happened, but because the political Left in the USA and around the world said war crimes were happening and our government went along with this. Who was the Marine’s CO in Iraq at the time? James Mattis; you know, the guy we thought was a rough, tough non-nonsense Marine when Trump appointed him Secretary of Defense. We should have checked a bit – but even in 2017 we were still rather starry eyed about our military officers. But the fact that Mattis agreed to court martial troops who – at worst – fired perhaps in a bit of panic when under fire should have told us just what sort of man he really was long before he resigned in protest against Trump’s effort to end our involvement in the Syrian Civil War. After his resignation, you guessed it, he landed a corporate sinecure. Mattis put his own Marines through hell because some Commie somewhere shouted “war crime!” even though Mattis must have known his Marines were not criminals. And then, apparently lacking any conscience at all, went off to a well paid retirement.

So, what went wrong? What happened to an event which united us all in righteousness? It was taken over by the corrupt, the cruel and incompetent. And when we at last had enough and voted in a man to change the system, that system broke the law to get him out of office. That is what went wrong.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan12 Comments

New Mexico’s Democrat governor Grisham yesterday announced that the Second Amendment was null and void in Albuquerque for 30 days. The alleged justification for the action are the recent murders of some children, including an 11 year old. As far as that goes, this was just par for the course from Democrats – cynically exploiting the death of a child to advance their Leftist agenda; in this case, disarming the population. It was ridiculous in practical terms (the only possible people who would obey the order are those who would never murder anyone) but also an outrage against the Constitution. You really can’t just willy-nilly set aside its provisions.

What surprised everyone a bit was the number of prominent Democrats who came out to oppose the move. Not immediately – there was about a day between order and condemnation. This means someone quickly did some polling on the issue and found it catastrophically bad for Democrats. You know for certain their concern wasn’t the Constitution. Grisham is guilty of not only saying the quiet part out loud, but saying it before the Democrat party as a whole was prepared to defend it. But even with that, it is a huge problem.

The governor can be impeached. But the Legislature is controlled by Democrats. The State and local police could refuse to comply with an illegal order. But the cops most concerned – in Albuquerque – already announced they would enforce the rule. The Federal government can arrest the governor – as well as any staffers or police who cooperate with the order – on conspiracy to deny the civil rights of the people of New Mexico (this is actually a violation of US law; we really have enacted laws making it illegal to deny a person their civil rights…it has just never been enforced against a Democrat), but Pudding Brain’s DOJ won’t do that. So, we’re kinda stuck, aren’t we?

Sure, anyone arrested under the order can fight it in court and almost certainly they will prevail. Eventually. Could take a couple years, maybe longer. And what will they get after the fight? A court order nullifying the order, years after it went into effect (with maybe a judge ordering an injunction against its enforcement while the case winds its way through the courts). No penalty to the governor or for anyone who enforced the order. Lots of expense for those arrested on the basis of an illegal order. Nothing has more clearly shown that when the rubber meets the road, the Constitution is a mere scrap of paper…only in force as long as those with power agree to enforce it.

What we lack – and it is now a glaring lack, given that Democrats have dispensed with the Rule of Law – is any mechanism for enforcing the law – for securing our rights – when the government is actively working to oppress the people. A temporary fix is to get a GOP President in office willing to prosecute the governor. That would go a long way. But not all the way. In fact, might even make a Leftist hero out of her. And a GOPer won’t be President forever. Eventually, a Democrat gets back in and we’re back at square one.

It is a problem we’re going to have to deal with; the construction of mechanisms which allow the people to stop the government. Not quite sure how to go about this (some sort of Tribune like in ancient Rome?), but when all of the power is in the hands of people who don’t respect the law, we need something outside the law to stand between us and the government.

Democrats are increasingly angry over GOP governors shipping illegals to Blue cities. This means it is working; and we should not only keep it up, but increase the numbers. It is turning out to be a PR catastrophe for the Democrats…it is causing huge stress in Democrat cities (and among various Dem voting blocs) but the Democrats can’t seal the border to stop it because that would upset the far Left. They are in a pickle and it is gloriosu.

Senator Kennedy ripped into the Deputy Secretary of Energy over the price tag for getting us to “net zero” by 2050 and how nobody can say how much this will change the climate if we do it. It is in a lot of ways a grand effort by Kennedy but in the end, he lost the argument: because he conceded, repeatedly, that being “carbon neutral” is good; a goal we should achieve. We can’t do that – that is, we can’t even for a moment concede a point to the Democrats. All they believe are lies and we can’t go along with them.

There is no “climate crisis”.

Just as there is no “gun violence”. People are violent; guns are inanimate objects.

Abortion is not healthcare.

On and on like that.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan84 Comments

Senators Collins (R-ME) and Murray (D-WA) proudly announced they had advanced a “bi-partisan” spending bill through committee today. We already know what’s in it without looking: a Democrat Christmas wish list and some kickbacks to the GOP donor class. It is what “bi-partisan” means. One thing this will lack – as all bills lack – is anything for the GOP base.

Dem base: gets stuff.

Dem donor class: my goodness you won’t believe how much they get!

GOP donor class: more than enough to keep them cutting checks for the GOP.

GOP base: diddly squat.

Why is one fourth of the interested parties screwed? Why is that fourth always screwed?

I understand Collins’ position – she’s a GOPer representing a purple State and so she has to trim her sails to retain electoral viability. Totally dig it. Nothing actually dishonorable in that. Politics is, after all, the art of the possible. But, still: why do we get nothing? Collins could do it. She could easily throw us a bone. Even as a minority-party Senator she swings great weight…can gum up the works for weeks if she wanted to; could also work with GOP House Leaders on a strategy to leverage some GOP wins into the final product. But we know what we’ll get: nothing. There will be money in there for all manner of ridiculous things (the X account @RandoLand_us details it regularly); we’re literally sending money out to pay for lesbian poetry in the Third World. If the Democrats can get that – and they always do – why can’t we, say, get a few million to support artists who write from a Christian perspective? I mean, not that I need the money…but if we’re going to flash the cash at Diversity then, well, part of Diversity is me…I’m a Diversity. My voice needs to be heard!

Only moderately kidding there: I wouldn’t take the money. But, still: why not a little cash our way? Why not, say, get a return for our vote? Without Collins and other GOPers in the Senate lots of bills have a murky future. That is massive political leverage. Use it!

But they don’t and that does tell us something: they despise us. People like Collins know they need our votes, but they hate it. She’ll do bare minimum GOP-ish stuff to retain GOP votes but all her efforts are really directed at helping her friends, the Democrats. The only people on the outside looking in is the GOP base; nobody represents it at the tables of the powerful. This is why, so far, it is mostly sticking with Trump…and if DeSantis really wants to make a contest of it, he’ll have to demonstrate that he’s going to get things for the base even better than Trump could.

And it does need to be done; we on the Right are losing faith in the USA. Not in the idea; not in what the flag represents, but in the system under that flag. That is what the Never Trumpers and Collins-style people don’t get: we’re alienated. After all, we get scorned, we get harassed, we get arrested…but we don’t actually get anything. We’re going to rush more billions to Ukraine but we’ve still got people waiting years for VA benefits…and as we on the Right make up the bulk of veterans, it does sink in that slow VA benefits is intentional. They don’t give a darn about us and hope we die before they have to pay out.

Someone in the Uniparty better start thinking fast of this could all blow up.

The ADL – a mere arm of the DNC propaganda machine – has been using accusations of anti-Semitism at X to crush advertising revenues. Though the ADL is a Democrat front organization, it still has the reputation built up in the last century of being a fighter against bigotry. That it decades ago became a mere DNC mouthpiece simply hasn’t registered in Corporate America…so when they get a memo from the ADL they tend to act on it. Musk now says he’ll sue – claiming the ADL has cost X $22 billion in value. Could be an interesting case.

Tucker Carlson is interviewing a guy who says he had relations with Obama way back when. Such has been rumored since Obama first rose to prominence. I’m kinda “meh” about it – if Obama is gay or bi and hid it then it is yet another in a long line of Obama lies.

We’re in Danger: But We Can Win

Mark Noonan60 Comments

Do you know what would stop the DOJ from arresting Justice Thomas on corruption charges?

Nothing. There is no mechanism in the Judicial Branch to actually stop a physical thing from happening. The Court can issue all the writs they want but if the Executive doesn’t obey, there’s nothing the Judiciary can do. Right now, the Democrats are not merely accusing Thomas of corruption – they are baldly asserting that he is corrupt and his judicial decisions should be null and void because of this. It is only a small step now for DOJ to open a criminal investigation…and if they’ve decided that Thomas has to go down, they will indict him. They will arrest him and they will put him on trial…in front of jurors who have been told Thomas is already guilty.

What people don’t seem to fully grasp is that a Republic only works as long as everyone, by and large, obeys the rules – written and unwritten. In a normal, functioning Republic we wouldn’t have to worry about the Executive arresting the Judiciary because forming the mere thought to do so is impossible. But the Democrats have formed the thought. They feel they have to: the only thing preventing them from just doing whatever they want is an independent Judiciary which is not under their control and likely cannot be under their control for decades…unless, of course, vacancies are opened up while they have appointment power.

What is to stop them? Love of the Constitution? Commitment to the Rule of Law? Their sterling moral character?

I’ve been saying for a while now that there is no law – there is only power and the willingness to exercise it. Sure, I’d love for us to get back to law; but the Democrats will not go back to it. They hate it; it limits their ability to do things. Democrats – now ruled entirely by the products of Marxist indoctrination in the schools – don’t believe they should be limited. Like all Marxists they are certain they are right and that any opposition on any grounds is simple wickedness. Combine that with their messianic belief that they have to “save the world” from Climate Change and you get quite the toxic mix ready and willing to bulldoze through any obstacle. The only reason the Democrats haven’t already arrested all opposition (to “save Democracy”…and they’ll sincerely believe that’s what they’re doing) is because they haven’t quite worked up the nerve. They aren’t 100% sure all of the apparatus of power will obey orders to arrest…and shoot anyone who resists.

But that time is coming – they are staffing up. Testing the waters. Getting people in place who are thoroughly of the Left and willing to carry out any order. The Trump indictments are part of it, but not even the most important part. They are cancelling firearms dealer licenses, putting pressure on gun and ammunition manufacturers. They are setting precedent; those 17 year sentences for trespassing are both a test and a warning to opponents. They are already deeply infiltrated into social media, watching and listening to everything; building cases for future actions. It could get very bleak, very fast.

But, don’t get too down! I do not come here offering nothing but gloom and doom. We still have a chance. We mostly have it because the Left has not found it’s Lenin; someone who is absolutely ruthless and willing to take responsibility for the utter destruction of the Left’s enemies. They might not find one, ever: Leftists are mostly stupid and cowardly and the chances they’ll stumble across the right instrument to impose their tyranny is small. Lacking a Lenin, they can only grind ahead and sort of hope that they don’t provoke a reaction. But they have a problem: they’ve already provoked it.

Sending Joe Average to jail for 17 years on a trespassing charge is deeply, emotionally satisfying for the Left – but it also lets every other Joe Average know where he stands. It is not resonating well out there. Nor is the clear over-kill indictments of Trump. Nor are the Democrat efforts to hide grooming in the public schools. On and on it goes like that; lacking a ruthless leader, the Democrat rank and file are going ever more lunatic in their actions but without the necessary total repression of their enemies which can make being insane a viable political option. Not only do they lack a leader, the person at the top of the heap is senile and feeble; he’s also got a lifetime of corruption and creepiness which is slowly oozing out in spite of MSM efforts to keep it secret. What they’re building up is a perfect storm of insane policy everyone hates combined with a leader everyone holds in contempt. If the GOP can unite in 2024 – behind any candidate – it has a chance at a very sweeping victory.

But it will take the unity. This means dispensing with Never Trump and Only Trump positions. It still might not be Trump, but if it is Trump, then all of us have to swing in behind him with enthusiasm. But so, too, if it is DeSantis or, indeed, anyone else: total enthusiastic unity. If we are united, we stand a very good chance.

But here’s the real kicker: no matter who gets in, our only safety lies in punishment of the Left. They have no morals, at all. They have no sense of decency. They will jail and/or kill us as soon as they think they can. That must be kept in mind and our actions must be informed by it. No matter who we get in, huge pressure will have to be applied to ensure that the Democrat power centers are gutted. It isn’t enough to appoint a new FBI director – the FBI has got to go, or at bare minimum be legislatively curtailed in its duties. The government has to be disarmed; way too many federal agencies are armed. If we keep the FBI, then I’d like to see their weapons restricted to revolvers. No machine guns, armored vehicles, Gestapo-raid troops disguised as a Hostage Rescue Team; but really better if they are entirely disarmed and have to request State and local cops make arrests on federal warrants.

We need legislation explicitly prohibiting the government from collecting information on us. From having contact with social media companies. Laws which randomly assign federal cases around the country – no more Democrats bringing charges against their opponents in DC…you might have to argue your case against MAGA in Alabama and good luck with that. Move federal agencies out of DC – only Executive branch departments which need to be there are State, Justice and Defense. Lets move the Department of Education to Anchorage, Alaska and see how many current employees take us up on the offer to move there. Hey, fair is fair – why should only the residents of Maryland and northern Virginia get the chance to have those juicy federal jobs? Lets spread them around the country and give some Kentucky hillbillies a chance to work at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But we can’t stop with just punishing Democrats in government. We have to punish Democrats as such. This would mostly involve confiscations of money and termination of federal boondoogles whereby the taxes of a plumber in Idaho go to pay the salary of a Marxist DEI enforcer at a college in New York.

Glorious, right? Do you love that future? Of course you do. In fact, you want more of it; each of you can come up with a dozen ways to punish and we can do them all. If we win. As I said earlier, unity is necessary to win in 2024. But not quite enough. That is, not quite enough for us to win enough power for a long enough time to sufficiently punish the Democrats so they’ll stop dreaming of us in GULAG. To get that kind of power, we’re going to need a lot more people on our side. People who have never been on our side. I’m talking black voters, Latinos, urban working class, youngsters.

Here’s the easy part: increasingly, these voting blocks are primed to listen to us. As the Democrat party has become captive of shrieking lunatics and their mostly white, urban, upper class and female enablers the concerns of a working class guy are by the wayside. Black people do kinda wonder why we’re now on trans kids when the schools still suck in their neighborhoods. Maybe Latinos dislike us a bit…but how long can they like a Democrat party which continually lets in ever more illegals to compete for jobs, housing and education? They kids think we’re square and totally out of it – but they are also frustrated that affording a house and car is increasingly out of reach. We can talk to these people. We can win their votes. But we’d have to give them something.

Sorry, folks; that is just how politics works. Especially modern politics amid a sea of welfare payments. We have to stop being hung up on the money. It is going to be spent; mostly in kickbacks to those favored by Democrats. Might as well, if we can, spend it on kickbacks to people we’re courting. What, exactly, is another trillion dollars piled atop our debt if by so doing we can give student loan relief to the kids? As I said, the trillion dollars will be spent. Not on debt relief: Democrats don’t actually want that. They like the kids crushed under debt and unable to start a middle class life. You think they want to turn these purple-haired kids with their BLM signs into Republicans? They saw what happened to the hippies after they bought houses – they’re MAGA now. The Democrats will keep the debt; the money will be spent on Ukraine or whatever they can find as a means to launder the stolen money. But what happens if we cancel the debt? What do the kids do at voting time when we’ve got a plan laid out to get them out from under?

Reparations? I’ve explained before that part of the reason America’s black community has lower net wealth than the white community is because for the first 190 years of America black people were explicitly prevented or at least greatly hampered in their ability to build wealth. No, it doesn’t really fix the past. No, the people alive today are not responsible for it all. But what if, in the campaign, we came up with a plan to actually provide some cash to verified descendants of American slaves? And paid for by selling off US land and mineral rights? It is no skin off your nose. It progressively reduces the amount of land Uncle Sam owns in the States (thus reducing his influence in State and local politics). And it does help; and it does make up for the fact that as a nation for 190 years we failed to live up to All Men are Created Equal.

On and on it can go like that. Plans and programs explicitly designed to help out average people. Vote for us; will give you something. Sure its not the way it should be done. But it is the only way it can be done. Win the power – by any means necessary. Use the power to punish Democrats so they are instructed that rules are to be followed for their own protection. Restore American liberty.

The future is ours if we are willing to take it.

The Left is Evil: Say It.

Mark Noonan43 Comments

Came across one of those Right (ish) Never Trump accounts on the website formerly known as Twitter (X); from this account I usually get the moderate-Conservative drivel but this one was different. It was a bald assertion that in a vote between Trump and Biden, this person would choose Biden as the decent alternative. It really rather flabbergasted me – got me thinking: are there any of the Old Right people who have the least sense of what is decent?

Leave aside Biden’s creepiness and personal immorality – pretend that doesn’t exist. You’re still left with a man – and a Party – 100% committed to federally funded abortion on demand to birth, to the medical transition of minors, to an open border which is the new slave trade, to keeping up the war in Ukraine which has already cost at least a few hundred thousand lives…this is decent? In what freaking universe is this decent?

This has got me thinking that people do not realize what we’re dealing with in the Democrats, in the overall Liberal/Left world – and not just the political leadership; even rank and file Democrats. By the time you get to the point where you’re opposed to banning third trimester abortions (which most of the world does) and surgically/chemically altering children, there is no decency left inside you. Oh, on the outside there might be: in other words, the person might be well dressed, well spoken…even polite. But the evil at the core of their being is what is decisive. You can’t have the least regard for human decency if you’re in any way ok with aborting a child 8 months into a pregnancy or think that blocking puberty – the normal development of the human body! – is a good idea. You are – and I’m not at all exaggerating here – on the same level as Germans loading up the trains for Auschwitz or Russians watching human beings herded into Gulag. There is no decency left at that point: that person is participating – in first or second degree – in actions we Catholics call “objectively evil”.

I know the immediate reaction of most to such a thing is to try to explain it away. Most of us, most of the time, are afraid to call it out. Fearful, that is, that we’ll have our own faults exposed. That we might turn the spotlight of evil on ourselves. It is how, especially over the last century, so many people have essentially gotten away with it – gotten away with monstrous crimes. The clearest example of this is the Germans of WWII. To a lesser extent the Russians in the aftermath of the fall of communism. Everyone had their excuses and their claims of ignorance. But, guys, someone typed up the train schedules to Auschwitz. The ladies in the typing pool at the Lubyanka were busy day in and day out typing up the decrees of the OSO sending people off to slave labor for stealing a spool of thread. They all knew; they all participated. That liberal aunt you’ve got who is oh, so sweet: she’s in on it, too. She’s just as evil as any of them. She might pretend to not know, but she does…or if she really doesn’t know, it is because she deliberately strives not to know, because she prefers the profit she makes off the current system to any sense of human decency. What I’m saying is: don’t excuse it. Recognize it. Condemn it. Call it out.

Which is what I did with that comment about Biden being the decent alternative. It was highly liberating for me to do that – knowing that the following of that person would be gravely offended by what I said, but only because they share the guilt. And, who knows?, maybe my comment will be part of the process which wakes people up? But the alarm can’t wake anyone up until it is sounded…and it is way past time for us to sound it.

Because it isn’t that the Liberals are mistaken in their means to a good end. They don’t want a good end. They want an evil end. They want a world where people can be punished for thinking or saying the “wrong” things. A world where privileges are passed out based on connections and credentials. A world where they are spared the guilt which comes from seeing people who live morally correct lives. And the Liberals will do anything to get their way. Remember, these are people who are ok with chopping off healthy body parts from a youngster. People who are willing to do that – or even just willing to tolerate that – have no sense of morality which would prevent them from doing – or tolerating – untold, inhuman horrors done against you.

The first step of solving any problem is to admit you’ve got one. And our problem is that the Left (Democrats, Liberals, whatever you want to call them collectively) are evil – they want bad things because they are bad people who like bad things. We must get into the habit of routinely condemning Left actions out of hand as immoral. Don’t debate them on it. There’s no argument here. What they want is wrong. The only correct action is to stop them. And do keep in mind that they very much view us as in the wrong – and unworthy of debate and their only desire is to stop us. You’re not being unfair here: you’re just fighting back.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan42 Comments

Nashville trans shooter had a manifesto: we still haven’t seen it, might not for years.

Jacksonville racist shooter had a manifesto: it was out pretty much as soon as the story broke.

It could be explained by mere gatekeeping: the MSM simply not allowing anything out which could dispute the Narrative (don’t tell me that some enterprising reporter couldn’t get the trans shooter’s manifesto if they wanted to). But I’m not so sure it is just that. It was out way too fast. Like someone had it all set to go. As if someone knew the shooting was coming.

And that makes me want the shooter’s associates looked into. He was 21 – ie, born in 2002. Woke was already heavily into the schools. As he went through schools he got the full show – racism bad, America bad, white males bad. What I’m saying: whatever was in this guy, the Left put it there. Who, then, turned it to racism? Sure, I know he could have found it himself as the web is chock full of it…and the means used by propagandists to sucker people in are very effective (and that’s whether you’re trying to turn your target racist or trans). But, still; its a long way from posting on some Stromfront chat room to getting a gun and killing human beings (just as its a long way from a girl liking Tonka trucks to having “top surgery”). Who lit the fuse? I want to know – what we need to know: are there people pushing people towards certain actions to support the Ruling Class Narrative/Agenda? We know that scores of the “climate change forest fires” have actually been set by arsonists – someone is setting those people off, and I suspect that someone set the Jacksonville shooter off.

And it might good deeper and higher than we suspect. Over the last couple weeks the FBI has busted down a couple doors and shot people for positing “threats” on line. It is clear that the Feds are looking for a “MAGA Terrorist” they can put on trial. The two guys shot didn’t fit the full bill, not being credible in a trial setting…and now both are conveniently (for the FBI) dead. I strongly suspect that the apparatus of power in the USA is trying to get horrid things to happen to justify the continued power of the Ruling Class.

“But Mark, they would never do that!”

Yes, they would. Ruling classes threatened in the core of their being will do anything to keep in power. There are more than enough questions about the Colosio assassination in Mexico back in 1994 to conclude that it was likely the Ruling Class eliminating one of their own who had got off the ranch. When power, wealth and prestige are at stake, people do all sorts of odd things…and do keep in mind that America’s Ruling Class, each year, dispenses trillions of dollars and the influence that goes with it. And we also know that, by and large, those in charge of the United States has no sense of morals at all. There’s nothing to hold them back.

They’ve set Trump’s trial date for the election interference case for March 24, 2024. They will try to get a swift conviction and place Trump in jail. Sure, Trump’s lawyers will appeal and all that, but they want him in jail – at this point, in the hope that the GOP would then dump Trump. Make no mistake about it, they fear him again…there is a palpable shift out there and some polls are reflecting an easy Electoral College win for Trump. We’ll see how it goes; I would suspect that Trump’s legal team will try to delay it.

Burning Man is a ridiculous gathering of modern, smelly hippies in the Nevada desert. All those purple haired vegans you’ve heard about? They attend it. This year its being held on tribal lands near Pyramid Lake and some other purple haired vegans decided to block traffic to the event to protest hot weather. Absolutely hilarious that two sets of Commie losers were in a stand off! Anyways, what they forgot is that an Indian Reservation is owned by Indians and if they don’t want you blocking their road, you don’t get to block their road – Native cops busted down the barricade and arrested all the whiny, upper class white Commies and you’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

Think About What You Know

Mark Noonan21 Comments

The thing about history and biography is that what is in any particular book about them is whatever the historian or biographer thought important and then their interpretation of the subject. A really good historian/biographer does, of course, try to stick to provable fact; additionally, if there is speculation, then it is clearly identified as such. But even the best have their biases and in addition to that, those who publish history and biography have theirs, and what you write better not be too far outside the publisher’s ideas. This does lead to a measure of conformity across the Narrative.

I bring this up because it is important to remember that what we “know” about the past is just what someone told us. Not too many of us have the time or inclination to go to original sources, after all. The Left is, these days, going “Aha!” about this – as if it were a new thing – and claiming that history has been falsified. It wasn’t that a historian had particular interests or ideas, the history was nefarious! Deliberately hiding crucial facts…usually because its all Racism and Patriarchy and such. And then the Left proceeds to produce its own histories and biographies…as if these don’t have their own biases. And given that the modern Narrative must denigrate the white/Christian/European, what we’re often getting in modern Leftist histories isn’t just the product of biases, but the product of ideological commitment…this is why you’ll seek books and articles essentially claiming that all European discoveries and inventions were actually made by some non-European ages before…what is left unexplained is why Invention X merely gathered dust until some wily European sneaked in, stole it and then presented it to the world as a New Thing.

What I advise is to take everything with a grain of salt; that is, think about it. And not just modern histories/biographies (which would be taken with a couple pounds of salt); everything coming out of the past. Take nothing at face value. I have retained my father’s books and so I go have a great deal of history and biography written before the modern Left took control of the culture, and I’m grateful for them. But even these I now question. Just to take one for-instance: in most histories of WWII, Patton is lauded as the aggressive commander pushing forward to victory while Montgomery is derided as a plodding soldier who only fought when sure of victory. And there is some truth in this – Patton did rush ahead while Montgomery very famously liked to prepare carefully before engaging in battle. But a couple things come out when you see the sequence of events and think about it.

First off all, Patton never faced defeat. This isn’t Patton’s fault, of course, but it is in defeat and retreat where a general’s qualities – if he has any – really shine. Montgomery commanded the British 3rd division in Belgium in 1940 and he had that outfit completely squared away. They moved with precision wherever high command sent them, fought very well and returned to England out of the confusion of Dunkirk intact and ready to go back into the fight. That is generalship of the highest order. To give an American comparison – in the Philippines, MacArthur’s first idea was to defend the whole country. This was wrong – indeed, downright foolish – but when it became clear that MacArthur had picked the wrong strategy, he quickly organized a double-retrograde maneuver of his forces from north and south Luzon into the Bataan peninsula, thus ensuring a prolonged Fil-American resistance there, gravely upsetting Japan’s timetable of conquest. MacArthur had many brilliant military actions before and after, but most people who really know consider this MacArthur’s shining moment.

After retreat, attack. And most histories laud the grand attack, if successful. This is because it is dramatic and often has a large effect on subsequent events. And what people like is the dramatic breakthrough; the sudden route of the foe. This is why the German invasion of France in 1940 captures the imagination – it just amazes people to think about it. But was it good generalship? I don’t think it was. Sure, the Germans got lucky – and most lucky in the lethargy of the French high command – but the bloody thing should have fallen flat on its face. The least bit of energy and enterprise on the part of the French and instead of a dramatic drive to the sea, what the Germans would have had was the catastrophic destruction of their best armored forces. Luck in war is important. Napoleon allegedly asked men newly being appointed to general, “are you lucky?”. But you also can’t count on luck…and so the more famous Napoleonic statement is, “God is on the side of the biggest battalions”. In other words, if you’ve got your act together, things are going to mostly go your way.

Montgomery was a general who always made sure he had his act together – he was prepared. Ready for anything, good or bad. This has a drawback in that it takes more time and thus allows the enemy to react…but it has the plus in that even if the damned thing doesn’t work, you’re so well prepared you can do something else (and so Montgomery’s failed Operation Goodwood on July 20th, 1944 made his Operation Cobra just five days later – which was where he always thought he’d end up beating the Germans in Normandy – as near-certain a thing as war can get). Patton does get the credit for the breakout after Operation Cobra. Hard charging his way across France…and this eclipses the fact that Patton was simply following Montgomery’s plan. And even there he sent major units west into Brittany when the only place he needed to go was east. And at the end of it Patton got hung up around Nancy when he was supposed to still be moving east up to the Rhine.

On balance after thinking it over, Montgomery was the better general. If I had to set up an army to fight an enemy I would want Patton…but only as a subordinate to Monty.

And you can do this endlessly – not looking for new information, just thinking about what you already know. And I do believe this will become increasingly important for us – for our side – over the next few years. Most of what is going on is trapped in a framework developed in the decades after WWII and now congealed into dogma. We’re not supposed to go outside the accepted Narrative. Outside the Party Line, that is. But we have to. As long as we remain trapped in the Narrative, we can’t win because that Narrative is designed to support the Ruling Class’ claim to legitimacy. My example here was to pick something politically non-controversial as an example (though I’m sure WWII buffs would have a fun and furious argument about it). But everything we know needs to be reconsidered. Was it really like that? In my view, most of what happened was very different from the Narrative.

Pull that lose thread and see what unravels.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan103 Comments

Tucker’s interview with Trump has been up (as this point) a bit more than an hour and it has more than 81 million views. This is going to far outpace whatever audience the Fox GOP debate will get. I didn’t watch the debate as I tend not to watch such things this early on, especially with that many people on stage. It is a bit silly. But I did watch the Trump interview with my Mrs – he’s still engaging and fun to watch. Clearly a little older but he seems in good shape. The usual run of Trump thinking out loud…but also, as per usual, did nail point after point. The Mrs was entertained – and she’s never particularly warmed up to Trump.

Trump is still a major political factor. To try to dismiss him is folly.

Now: we’ll see what happens when votes start being cast.

Do any of you remember the Eddy Grant song Electric Avenue? Lately a line in it has been rolling around in my head:

Who is to blame in what country?
Never can get to the one

Does seem like that, doesn’t it? Because we were all good, little GOPers back in 2001 – and patriots, always – we kinda let it slide that nobody in official circles went to jail over the attack. It was massive fail in intelligence, law enforcement and military…nobody paid a price (except for the 3,000 who died, of course). I think that’s when things really started to fall apart…when our Ruling Class found out that no matter how bad the failure, if they just scripted it right, they could breeze right past it…and maybe even get a commendation and promotion.

You know the song Putting on the Ritz where the line goes, “trying hard to look like Gary Cooper”? I never really got that because, for me, Gary Cooper was an older cowboy actor. But here’s a picture of him from a 1926 silent film. I get it, now.

The limit is 13. I repeat, the limit is 13!

Open Thread

Mark Noonan40 Comments

Rumors have been swirling that they are getting ready to impose COVID lockdowns again for 2024. I discounted them but now I’m not so sure – Lionsgate has reinstated mask mandates in their LA office and a few other bits of info in my own life tell me that something is up: that there might be a push to resume COVID panic. The main reason I can figure for this is to allow free flowing fraud for 2024 – and the bad news for us is that most battleground States have Democrat governors who will certainly want to impose the mandates when ordered to. Still not a done deal: outside of a small portion of idiots, nobody wants mask mandates and other COVID lockdowns in place. Popular resistance might prevent it.

The other possibility for bringing them back is that we are teetering on the edge of a major economic downturn and getting COVID restrictions back in place will be a convenient thing to blame…rather than all the selling out to China and paying for a proxy war in Ukraine that we’re losing. Main thing: put nothing past these people. As I’ve said before – once you get a person going along with abortion to birth, there is no morality left. They are into objective evil.

They seem to be slow walking Maui information, don’t they? Rumor is that hundreds are still missing – and must be presumed dead by now. Including large numbers of children. Why not let it out right way? Because they need it to be old news…dribbled out, perhaps with a Friday newsdump. To have Democrat policy cause such a shocking disaster isn’t something they want in the public eye. They also needed a chance to get Pudding Brain’s meds right for a visit. They did the best they could but of course that senile idiot tried to make the tragedy about himself; trying to talk up a minor house fire he had once into something comparable. But make no mistake about it, that fire was caused and aggravated by Democrat policy at the local, State and federal level. It should never have happened – and if by some chance it started, wise policy before and during would have made it a minor event. This is blood on Democrat hands.

We on our side really need to hit on this; every Blue city murder, every death along the border, every drug overdose…all of it comes to us via Democrat policy. They are piling up corpses in great, big bloody batches and we can’t afford to be nice about it: paint their doors with the blood of the victims. No more letting Democrats get away with a claim of being compassionate…they are as cruel and uncaring as the worst savages of history.

The end of Buckley-ite Conservatism? National Review is ending its fortnightly format and going monthly. Naturally they are dressing it up as new and improved…but the bottom line is that it shows a declining appetite for what NR sells. And just what does it sell? Conservatism which Liberals find tolerable.

No disrespect to the late Bill Buckley here. He was a man of brilliance who did many things to advance Conservative thought. In the heyday of Liberal dominance – the 20 years after the end of WWII – Buckley’s magazine was one of the few things keeping the flame of Conservatism alive. But in the end Buckley’s project failed. And it failed because it presumed Liberalism to be a valid worldview. That is, that Liberalism had a genuine intellectual and philosophical underpinning. It didn’t. It doesn’t. It never could have. Liberalism, from its first emergence in the middle 18th century always had the fatal flaw: the absurd belief that if we could just get the system right, we’d get the desired morality. Buckley’s brand of Conservatism did see through that, but not all the way. There was still some underlying assumption that Liberalism is tolerable, when just a bit of thought lets you know that it will always devolve into some sort of totalitarian barbarism. Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Nazism all grew out of Liberalism…and the increasing favor tyranny finds on the Left today is just yet another manifestation of Liberalism’s devolution to tyranny.

The breaking point – the thing which pointed to ultimate failure – was the casting out of the Birchers. I, too, once believed that it was a good and necessary thing. Can’t have kooks! Well, true; but we also can’t let ourselves be suckers. And casting out the Birchers made us suckers. Whatever screwball ideas they may have had, the bottom line is that they were defending what Conservatism is supposed to defend; faith, family and property. Because they were abandoned, the Right essentially abandoned the defense of faith, family and property. If you think back on it all, every time there was a crucial fight on those issues, the Conservative movement caved into the Left. It wasn’t Conservatism which began the pro-Life movement. It wasn’t Conservatism which saved the Second Amendment. There weren’t rich donors behind them; while Conservatism would say kind things about them, they never got into the fight. If Conservatism wanted to Conserve anything then it’s jobs was to guide and channel the Birch-impulse…away from the genuine screwballs. But to do that would be to get down in the dirt and fight it out to the destruction of Left or Right. Conservatism never wanted to do that. Might upset the liberal friends, you know?

And so it drifted until with betrayal piled on top of betrayal, the common folk turned to an outsider to get what they want – a defense of faith, family and property. We’ve yet to see how this comes out – but what Buckley did is gone, never to return.