Open Thread

Mark Noonan57 Comments

Note to self: when its 100 degrees in Vegas and 40% humidity, best not to trim the hedge out front.

We’ve had the wettest monsoon season in years here in Vegas…been muggy with lots of rain. Some very cool thunderstorms, which is always nice. But, also, a lot cooler than usual. We did have about a two week period in July where it was blazing at 110+, but we’ve had a lot of daytime highs in the 90s over the past two months and I’ve never seen that in my 25 years here. Wonder if we’re in for a cold, wet winter? Be nice – the drought in the southwest has gone on more than a decade and it is time for it to end.

From what I’ve been able to glean from votes, it looks like we might have a 10 point swing to the GOP in November from the 2020 result. This would be a rather catastrophic loss for the Democrats. Just take a look at all the House districts Democrats won by less than 10 and you can see their vulnerability. Of course, it won’t be uniform across the nation. Some Democrats will buck the trend but any Democrat who isn’t running 10 points ahead right now is in trouble.

This is why you’re seeing polls showing Democrats doing well in Red and Purple States. They have a two-fold purpose:

  1. Convince Democrat donors to pony up. Hard to get Blue money into Ohio if its a coming loss, right? No amount of money will actually cure what ails the Democrats but their calculation is that it will be less-bad. Meaning that if a lot of money is poured into Ohio it will shore up marginal Ohio Democrats and trigger GOP spending which could be spent elsewhere.
  2. To get GOPers depressed, worried and pouring resources into places that are in the bag. Like Ohio. Every dollar spent there is a dollar not spent on races which the GOP could win if a full court press was made. A GOP challenger in a D+6 State or district usually doesn’t see a red cent of RNC money because it is normally a waste of money…but in 2022, the payoff might be magnificent. The polls are designed to head fake the GOP away from such efforts. Naturally, the GOPe is falling for it. But some outside groups aren’t. We’ll see how it plays out.

I’ve been thinking about McConnell and the coming GOP Senate majority – and it seems to me that McConnell’s heart isn’t in it. To McConnell’s credit, when Trump was elected, he worked with Trump, especially on judges. But he didn’t really work a lot with Trump, now did he? A lot more could have been done in 2017 with the GOP trifecta had McConnell really pressed the issue. He didn’t. And McConnell likely didn’t because he didn’t like Trump. And when fraud clearly altered the 2020 result, McConnell (like the rest of the GOP leadership), dropped Trump like a bad habit. They did this because they thought that Trump and what he represented was done. That we, the base, would just roll over and accept the fraud and then nominate a Jeb! for 2024. I think that as McConnell sees the GOP becoming increasingly Trumpist, he just doesn’t like it. He also doesn’t know what to do about it. It is time, I believe, for a change – we might not be able to force McConnell out in 2023, but we should be able to get some of ours into senior leadership so that when McConnell rides into the sunset, a MAGA Senator is in charge.

Now, Devil’s advocate: can we end up losing? At least in the sense of not scoring as many victories are we should win in this environment? Of course we can – politics is screwy. All signs (other than polls) show a big GOP win coming, but you can never tell until the actual votes come in. But I see no reason to fret about it – we’re either going to score big or we’re not. And if we don’t score big, then our problem isn’t candidate selection or policy or what have you…failure to win big in 2022 simply means the USA is much further Left than we think. This is a whole different problem: it would mean we’d have to start all over again and figure out how to craft any sort of Right message which can win in a Left world.

Meanwhile, Democrats have got their finger on the pulse – today, in Miami, the Democrats showed up for their rally waving Communist flags. No, I’m not kidding: they really did. They’re waving the hammer and sickle in front of an electorate which fled precisely that. I don’t think this is going to work the way Democrats hope.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan139 Comments

Liz Cheney wasn’t defeated last night, she was humiliated. If it hadn’t been for Democrats crossing over to vote for her, I bet she wouldn’t have cracked 15%. As it was, with their votes, she inched up to 28%. This is a rejection not just of the Old Guard, but of the sort of Republican who will spend time attacking fellow GOPers based on the Democrat Narrative. That is important – there are reasons for intra-party battles. You can, under certain circumstances, speak ill of your fellow GOPer. But it has to be on our terms, not Democrat terms. The J6 Narrative that Cheney signed on for is based, ultimately, on the Steele Dossier…in other words, they’re still going with the underlying assumption that Trump is a Russian agent set upon the American people to turn us into a fascist dictatorship (how this helps Russia is left unexplained). The raid on Trump’s home was in furtherance of this (though I did read someone thinking that the raid was to recover Hillary documents that Trump had declassified: this rings a bit true). Brian Kemp in Georgia firmly rejected Trump’s contention that fraud caused the loss – I believe Kemp is wrong in this (and his actions in strengthening voter security indicate that even Kemp thinks he was a little wrong on this), but Kemp managed to do this while keeping the GOP base largely on his side. You can thread this needle – you can, that is, go against Trump (or any other competing GOPer) and still come out roses on the other end. But no longer can you do this if you betray the GOP Base.

And that is just the thing: we GOP voters were tired of being betrayed. We put up with Bushes and McCains and Romneys on the promise that while they’d trim their sails to the Left from time to time to retain electoral viability, when push came to shove they’d get done what we most cared about – and all these people ever did was betray us on what we think most crucial. So, we’re done with them – and, yes, we have now made Trump a litmus test. Some are very upset about this, but is has to be. We need a quick shorthand for whether or not someone will betray us – and joining Democrats to attack Trump is the bright red, flashing light that you’re a RINO Establishment creep.

There are tens of millions of people in the USA who don’t work – and I mean, like ever: they are permanently or semi-permanently on welfare. We also have a host of people who have office jobs which produce no value…HR people, diversity coordinators, extra layers of Administrative staff. Combined, I’ll bet these total about 50 million of our population. We can’t sustain this: these people will have to get real jobs. Any system we craft to replace the fiat money/debt/welfare/billionaire system we have now will have to address the economically useless – and make them useful. When we build a new economy (and we’ll have to as our old economy is completely wiped out: in many ways, we’ll be starting all over again from scratch), we must ensure that everyone physically capable of work does something useful. Nobody is allowed to skate – whether that skating be via welfare or working out a powerpoint on DEI. To bluntly speak it: we’ll have to compel them (at first) to work…and that might mean work projects like CCC from the Depression…at least get these people on to a job site and have them put some hours in. It is the best means of breaking the twin cycles of welfare dependency and bureaucratic empire building. I chipped paint in the Navy, guys. Did I like it? No. But I did it. Also washed dishes and cleaned bathrooms (bathrooms used by 30 men to get ready for the day, ya know?). It wasn’t humiliating: it was work. I did it and I did it well (those fricking sinks glowed when I was done with them). It taught me how to do physical work and to take pride in a job well done – any job well done. Everyone needs this as the basis of their work life no matter what else they do later.

They’re going after kids as young as two to start transition. This is frightening. The only two year old who is trans is the two y ear old with insane parents. I do believe that this push to transition kids, especially prepubescent kids, will one day be viewed with the same horror we view the Tuskegee Experiments and Eugenics.

Britain is still north of 80% white – and the RAF is pausing the hiring of white men in order to increase diversity. And think about this – allegedly, a Conservative party is in power in the UK right now. This is what is wrong with the world: it has gone full Marxist/Globalist/Moneybags and they all, regardless of stated beliefs, go one way on policy. This is why Trump is hated – it is also why Orban in Hungary is hated. Unpopular observation: it is why Putin is hated (they don’t hate Xi, even though for China he’s as much a patriot as any of these…but Xi provides a lot of money to the global elite, so he’s off limits). Don’t get me wrong: Putin is a bastard in his own right…but he’s also for Russia. As Orban is for Hungary and Trump is for the USA. We should never fear someone who is looking after their own people and trying to get them the most advantage…we just need leaders who will do that for us.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan28 Comments

Euthanasia is the 6th leading cause of death in Canada – and, as you and I knew would happen, people are being pressured to off themselves when they get seriously ill and/or old. As I’ve said for ages, the fundamental problem with nationalized health care is that there is no incentive to care for sick people. All that does is cost money and take time. For someone working in a nationalize health system, the whole incentive is to provide as little care as possible because you don’t get more money for providing more care…all you get for providing more care is more work. And the success of the “death with dignity” ghouls has played right into this…why spend the time and money taking care of the 80 year old with a chronic illness when you can guilt trip them into killing themselves?

Been watching the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico and it is quite good – minimal woke drivel (though there is some, of course) and a gripping story of how the Mexican drug cartels rose. Being familiar with a lot of the events I can easily tell when the story is adhering to fact and when it is altering it for dramatic and time purposes. As I’ve watched and went down memory lane on the War on Drugs, I find that I’m viewing it all through a bit of a different prism these days. The show, itself, does a very clever job of showing the flaws of the DEA and law enforcement in general while also highlighting just how cruel and wicked the drug lords are while still not making them entire monsters – leaving them just a shred of their humanity to make their (usually violent) ends pathetic. But it also got me thinking. One of the things presented in the first episode is a claim that half a million people have died in the drug war in Mexico. A shocking figure which at first glance is simply unbelievable.

But, then you think about it and check – between 2015 and 2021 211,000 people were murdered in Mexico. Officially. The real number is probably higher given the very large number of people who simply disappear. Nobody really knows how many of these people died as a result of the drug trade (who is going to really investigate that?): estimates range from just under half to more than two thirds. I think it the latter number – and in reality probably ninety percent are direct or indirect from the drug trade. Gun ownership is pretty much illegal in Mexico and that means only the police and the cartels have guns, after all. So, anyways, 211,000 in a seven year span is 30,000 per year. Call it half are drug and you get 15,000 (and probably a lot higher) and then you take that back to DEA Agent Camarena‘s murder (which is when we got serious about it) in 1985…and, yeah, low end you get half a million Mexicans dead in the drug war. Probably half of US murders are directly or indirectly related to the drug war, as well. Then you’ve got to add in Central and South America…and we’re probably into a couple million dead. Over cocaine. Just amazing. And its not like we’ve made a dent in it.

Nobody knows how big the global trade in drugs is, but its hundreds of billions of impossible to trace, tax-free, cash transactions (when you get away with it, of course!). And we’ve been told it can’t be stopped. I’m not buying that. I don’t think anyone wants it stopped. I mean, we know that the Mexican government via bribery and threats is pretty much owned by the cartels…but how much of ours is? How many Americans are on the payroll? Is this the real reason for resistance to border security? And its not like the US is a mere destination for cocaine – the price of cocaine doubles from New York City to Antwerp…and whoever is moving it from the Big Apple to Europe is taking their cut. And then you think of crack which is a way to make pricey cocaine available to people who are, lets face it, largely on welfare both in the USA and Europe; as if someone figured out how to get the taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction. As for laundering the money…you think China would refuse to launder drug lord money which provides a product which weakens their western adversaries? I believe it is time to rethink our views here – and understand that what is happening isn’t just something that happens. Some very powerful people are making sure it happens.

Interesting thing on education:

As a teacher in Oakland, Calif., Kareem Weaver helped struggling fourth- and fifth-grade kids learn to read by using a very structured, phonics-based reading curriculum called Open Court. It worked for the students, but not so much for the teachers. “For seven years in a row, Oakland was the fastest-gaining urban district in California for reading,” recalls Weaver. “And we hated it.”

The teachers felt like curriculum robots—and pushed back. “This seems dehumanizing, this is colonizing, this is the man telling us what to do,” says Weaver, describing their response to the approach. “So we fought tooth and nail as a teacher group to throw that out.” It was replaced in 2015 by a curriculum that emphasized rich literary experiences. “Those who wanted to fight for social justice, they figured that this new progressive way of teaching reading was the way,” he says.

Now Weaver is heading up a campaign to get his old school district to reinstate many of the methods that teachers resisted so strongly: specifically, systematic and consistent instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics. “In Oakland, when you have 19% of Black kids reading—that can’t be maintained in the society,” says Weaver…

Good for Weaver to see the light and I wish all success – but think about Weaver’s initial reaction to it: hated it. And now he has to fight to get it back in. And who will he be fighting? The teachers. Guarantee you the parents are probably on board. But this is how our Ruling Class views things: through Marxist ideology on race and class. That is how far it has penetrated into our society – that people will fight to defend a system which leaves 80 percent of black kids illiterate on the theory that at least they aren’t literate under Capitalism and White Supremacy.

Spot on about Trump and his opponents:

Trump isn’t just a MacGuffin, but he is a symbol, and more. Sarah Palin was a similar symbol before him, but because she never was elected VP that sort of faded. Trump would have faded from their ire, too, if he had lost the 2016 election. His winning was the outrage. They could not believe it, and he MUST BE STOPPED from ever winning again. Not just him, though; any Republican who isn’t part of the genteel NeverTrumper club. Any Republican who might really be serious about stopping them and especially about draining the so-called swamp. It is a deadly serious game and they are determined to win.

Trump himself said it, and he was correct: “They’re not after me, they’re after you – I’m just in the way.”

We’re living in a world where those who have the juice are living ever better while for everyone else it just gets worse. This is not sustainable but the Ruling Class is determined to sustain it anyway. Trump placed their game at risk.

The Turning Point

Mark Noonan69 Comments

I didn’t write about the raid yesterday because I was so furious I probably would have written something intemperate. I am much more calm now. But no less determined.

The “warrant” was signed off by an Obama-donating attorney who helped some of Epstein’s people skate – and tells you all you need to know: he just did what he was told. Apparently, he’s some sort of federal magistrate who normally handles routine federal matters…not signing off on warrants for an unprecedented raid on a former President.

The story is that they say that Trump violated some provision of the records laws. This is bull and you know it: we have learned from experience that Trump keeps his legal affairs in order. If he does have any documents from his Administration, then he has them perfectly legally. What they were really doing was a fishing expedition…trying to find in some of Trump’s most personal and private information something – anything – they can hang an insurrection charge on relating to January 6th. This tells you that in all their investigations so far, they’ve found nothing like that. If they had, they would have already indicted Trump for it and brought him in front of a DC jury which would know their job was to convict, facts be damned. But they have to have something – because if they tried to indict over nothing, Trump’s lawyers would get the indictment tossed at the federal appellate level. A secondary effort here would be to simply intimidate Trump’s people…to scare them into cooperating (ie, lying) in exchange for immunity. I doubt they’ll get that: the people around Trump at this late a date are the loyal of the loyal.

The whole thing is simply infuriating – Hunter Biden is on record violating a host of federal laws and he’s walking free, making money and laughing it up with the Big Guy. The Big Guy, himself, is hip deep in Hunter’s corruption. The Clinton’s were never raided even though we know – for absolute fact – that they illegally mishandled official documents. Epstein is dead and Maxwell is convicted but not a single client of theirs has been indicted (which tells you that the bulk of their clients were on the Left – the Democrats would sacrifice a large number of their own if they could get a dozen or so GOPers in jail over Epstein). We live in a two-tiered justice system…those who are favored by the Ruling Class skate, while ours are raked over on trumped up charges.

Over and over again in the past 24 hours I’ve seen people come to Trump’s defense – with large numbers of people getting determined – as I am – to see him back into the White House in 2024. And we’re taking names on the GOP side – Senator Scott made a typical RINO statement on an MSM show, got roasted for it and came out hours later with a strong condemnation of the raid. The litmus test for being involved in GOP politics going forward is condemnation of the raid…and if (when) we take back Congress, it’ll be how much pain we put Democrats through over it. We are all in a mind to punish – to make them, for once, feel the heat they’ve joyfully directed at us for decades.

In the primary elections on Tuesday, there seems to have been quite a surge in GOP voting and, more particularly, GOP voting for Trump-endorsed candidates. People are furious and ready to take action.

I hope this is the turning point – the final pebble that starts the avalanche. It isn’t time to just talk, it is time for action. I still prefer the abolition of the FBI, but if we can’t get that, then we certainly need a massive housecleaning. There are no good apples – if there were, they would have immediately resigned when news of the raid got out. From top to bottom, the bureaucracy is run by and for the DNC…that has to end, even if we literally have to fire every last one of them and start all over.

Because Revolution is our only way out of this – fortunately, we still retain the means the Founders gave us to make Revolution at the ballot box. I do believe they went a step too far here. In their desperation to remove Trump from the political field (they know he’ll beat them in 2024), all they’ve done is shown their fear and united their opponents.

2022 Election (and Some Other Stuff, so Kinda an Open Thread)

Mark Noonan31 Comments

In the 2010 midterms, the overall House popular vote was 52% Republican, 45% Democrat. That election netted the GOP 63 House seats. Of course, we were coming back from a pretty low number after our 2008 wipe out. But the main thing is that it was an R+7 year which, certainly since WWII, was unprecedented for the GOP.

So, what is happening in 2022? Well, if you listen to the MSM and the Experts (though Lord only knows why you’d do that), Joe Biden’s firm and decisive leadership has turned things around and the Senate is almost sure-Democrat while the House is a tossup. And, man, do they have poll after poll showing this…someone even released a poll showing the Democrat up by 3 in Ohio. We’re doomed!

Well, maybe not.

Someone actually took the time to find out what people are doing – as opposed to what someone else is saying about what they’re doing – and he found that as of this past Tuesday, the GOP portion of the primary vote has been running 6 points head of Democrat voting…so, R+6. Not quite at 2010 levels, but pretty darn close.

As I keep trying to explain to the hand-wringers and bed-wetters on social media, for there to be actual improvement for the Democrats something has to get better. And, sorry, but a drop in gas prices from stratospheric to way too high doesn’t cut the mustard. The bottom line is that as soon as Pudding Brain got installed into the White House, 2022 became a GOP year. What this means is that the House goes GOP (given the Democrats only have a half dozen seat advantage) and the Senate probably goes GOP (Democrats having a little better chance there because of the map). That was if things sort of cruised along with nothing bad happening. Remember what Biden was supposed to be about: shutting down the virus and returning to normalcy. This didn’t happen. Afghanistan happened. Ukraine happened (and I perceive the Ruling Class is getting ready to ditch Ukraine). Shortages happened. Inflation happened. A flood of illegal immigrants happened. All the while Joe Biden getting increasingly senile and unable to perform the basic tasks of the office. Not only did nothing get better, everything got worse – and Biden coming down with Covid just puts a pathetic exclamation point on the fail.

Can the Democrats overcome all that? If they can, then we’re doomed. It would mean that we’ve gone so far mindlessly Left that even abject Leftist failure doesn’t shake the people out of complacency. But I don’t think that is the case. Among many other things, I’m encouraged by Lake’s win of the GOP nomination in Arizona – every part of the Establishment was against her…and she went on to win every county in Arizona. Sure, its just on the GOP side, but we’ve been Expertly informed that Trump and Trumpist candidates are fading and that Roe has triggered a surge of moderate GOP voters who are determined to change the party’s course. Their evidence is Kansas where a badly crafted pro-life initiative was soundly defeated…and, yes, some of these Expert nimrods are asserting it means Kansas votes Democrat in November.

What I’m saying is: don’t worry. We’ll either win (cool) or lose (unlikely) but in neither case is there much any individual can do about it. Either America is sane enough to properly punish the Democrats (I think we are) or America is not. We find out in November.

The Other McCain notes that what is said cannot happen – gay pedophilia – does, indeed, happen. Rather twisted case: gay couple adopts child and then sexually abuses child. Does this mean that all gay people are molesters? Of course not – but as RSM points out, we’re not even allowed to talk about such things because the Ruling Class has decreed that gay people can’t be abusers. Gay people have been granted a plenary dispensation from ordinary human sin, you see? What is really crucial here is that because we allow ideology to blind us, we’re not able to make the distinctions necessary to ensure the best outcome. Rely on it, if a hetero couple seeks to adopt, they’ll be checked six ways to Sunday to make sure they aren’t abusers…but I am certain that if a gay couple is even looked at in that area, it is perfunctory…because nobody wants to be the official who vetoed a gay adoption. The kid winding up abused doesn’t risk a career, after all.

New study shows that being in space has a bad effect on bones. I guess it ends up being that a few weeks in space can age your bones by the equivalent of about a decade. This is entirely unsurprising to me: whether you believe we were created by God in a second or evolved over millions of years, the plain fact is that our bodies are designed to live on the surface of the Earth. We can’t even successfully go too deep into water or high into the sky without special equipment. And at least when we’re flying at 80,000 feet or diving to the bottom of the Marianas Trench we’re still within Earth’s gravity and magnetic field (which is our primary shield against solar radiation). Until we learn how to deal with low or no gravity and how to shield ourselves from solar radiation, the primary means of deep space exploration will have to be via unmanned vehicles…and for all the dreams of colonizing Mars, it is currently a suicide mission until these problems are solved.

A NYC bodega owner who was assaulted (and the DA initially wanted to charge him for defending himself) is moving back to the Dominican Republic because he no longer feels safe in the USA. This is Joe Biden’s America – and this is the result of deliberate and quite malicious policies on the part of the Democrats who want crime to be high in order to stress the system and convince us to go far Left as our escape from it.

How is religion in America doing? To the Ruling Class, it is dying and deservedly so. But, others say it is still doing ok. I take a slightly different view: Religion isn’t dying, but actual belief in Christianity is in rapid decline as even many professed Christians haven’t been taught who Christ is and what it means to be Christian. And this cuts across all denominations…mainline Protestant, Catholic and Evangelical. The Mainline Protestants seem to view Jesus as a swell guy who wanted everyone to be nice to each other. Catholics seem to think that it was all symbolic and you can pick and choose what parts to believe. Evangelicals seem to think Jesus is some sort of magic talisman against suffering and/or to bring personal wealth.

To be sure, among all types, there are those who deeply believe and understand what they believe…but my bet is that a majority of Christians if questioned right now wouldn’t even be able to assert that Jesus is God. And it is because they haven’t been taught. Christianity is not a religion for sissies – it is the only religion in the world hated for its beliefs (Jews are hated for cultural reasons: nobody really disputes Jewish theology); it asks a great deal of believers. And it requires an informed and active consent on a daily basis. It is a tough religion…and so, naturally, it has been watered down in the past century. But the hard nub is still there…and I do believe a springtime will come.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

Getting massive gloom and doom punditry from the right these days about our November chances…all fueled by polls. There is a great deal of “as per usual” in this, but I think this year there is an extra twist on it – the underlying contention is that the GOP was heading for a massive win this year until Trump endorsed a bunch of crazies! I do detect a GOPe desire to dampen GOP prospects as a way to cut against Trump for 2024. There are plenty of Establishment types who would love a Democrat victory if it meant that they could stop worrying about Trump coming back.

Will it work? I don’t think so. As I’ve said for years, never pay attention to what people say, but what people do. And all through 2022 the voters have been turning to the GOP. The key markers for me right now is primary turnout and voter registration trends and both of these show a remarkable surge for the GOP.

The Nuclear Option on keeping Trump out in 2024 is, of course, to indict him – and if he’s indicted, rely on it they’ll craft a jury which will find him guilty. Doesn’t matter if he’ll win on appeal, they feel that such a move would prevent him running. I don’t think so. It would be such an obvious political indictment that it might actually work to Trump’s favor. Will they do it? Depends on how desperate they get.

For 2022, it is the Recession, stupid. Naturally, the palace guard MSM swung into action to tell us that a recession isn’t a recession when a Democrat is in charge…but the problem they have is that people are living in the recession and no amount of spin changes that.

I’m sure you’ve heard the joke that when seconds count, the police are minutes away – well, in New Orleans, they are two and a half hours away. That is the average response time, and it means that New Orleans effectively has no police, at all. This is not sustainable – eventually, vigilantes will appear.

I don’t know how many of you are J K Rowling fans, but she got herself into trouble over transgenderism…keep in mind that Rowling is a big Lefty in everything else, but she did make the reasonable statement that a woman is a woman and this set off the trans rights people. Fundamentally, they can’t hurt Rowling because she’s already made buckets of money off her Harry Potter books…but the attacks on her are relentless. Now, imagine this turned on a regular person who didn’t have all that money? That’s the problem we have to address…the online bullying that we do have to stop.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan27 Comments

So, the Mirrors series does head towards it’s end: I’m doing revisions to Book VI: Heirs and shortly after that, Book VII: Empress will come out. Then Crimson Blade, Home World and Ghost Tower. There might be some more after that (I planted several story lines in each book that I can pursue if I wish). But, mostly, Book X will wrap it up – that is, all the Bad Guys and Evil Things our four main heroes have to deal with will be, well, dealt with. I’ve already written The Very End where I wrap up the story line for everyone, including secondary characters. So, of course, I got another idea.

I was at work yesterday and when I took a break, in about five minutes a story of science, magic and adventure came to mind – all revolving around people who are Of The Sixteen, those who ain’t and the Terrible Secret the Sixteen hid thousands of years before. It’ll be lots of fun: no spoilers! It was amazing how fast it all came into my mind…Arkan is our hero, helped by Thomas (who has a Secret of his own) and desperately in love with Samantha, who doesn’t realize she loves Arkan. A lot of the outline is already written and I hope to have a first book out in a year or so, even before Mirrors wraps up.

That stuff is a lot more fun than real life.

So, how do we know we’re heading into a very bad recession? Because Team Pudding Brain and the MSM are out there telling us that two quarters of negative growth don’t count as a recession…even though the very same people claiming this were saying as recently as last month that they would. They must have seen the report on Sunday because this drivel started on Monday and I’ve just got to figure its a doozy of a bad report…I mean, a slight drop they’d just pass off as nothing…so, I expect it to be on the hideous side. And keep in mind that ever since Obama (with a temporary reversion under Trump) the Keepers of the Stats have been fudging the economic numbers to make it look as good as possible for Democrats.

How do we know that Democrats are about to get wiped out in November? Two things: they’re pushing out D+12 polls showing Democrats with a slight Generic Ballot lead and they’re working up to a reinstatement of mask mandates in Blue cities and States…so they can justify ballot harvesting and drop boxes again. All this means that they are expecting a 10 point or so swing to the GOP…and you just have to look at 2020 results to see that such a swing means a 35-40 seat GOP House gain. What they’re doing now is attempting to shore up not swing districts, but deep Blue D+8 to D+12 districts…because as we slip into recession and oil supplies foretell another spike in gas prices, Democrats may be in for an historic defeat. As per usual in such things, lots can change – it is months away: but at this point in time, it is getting rather baked in. If the Democrats are lucky and all the breaks go their way, they’ll only lose 25 House seats.

Democrats are insane, by the way – they brought a witch and a furry (if you don’t know what a furry is, do not look it up) in for a hearing on abortion. But they are also stuck – they said that such insane people are legitimate in the debate and now they’ve got to pretend that normal people watching this won’t be disgusted.

McDonald’s is seeing fewer customers. Think about that. Wrap your mind around it and then just know what it means for the economy. People are refraining from a burger and fries because the money isn’t in the budget for it.

Hey, Conservatives: Stop Believing MSM Lies, Ok?

Mark Noonan22 Comments

Some people on the right, foolishly accepting MSM framing, are horrified by a proposed anti-abortion law in South Carolina. The MSM is framing it as a ban on so much as talking about abortion – but I read the bill and while it does ban someone from, say, maintaining a website which instructs you on how to perform an abortion, I don’t see anything in there that I object to. After all, abortion is to be illegal, right? And as an illegal act, shouldn’t it be illegal to tell someone how to do the illegal act? I’m a pretty strong 1A guy here but if there was a website telling people how to set IED’s for the police, I think I’d have an objection to it being allowed to continue.

Of course, I’m no lawyer – so maybe there are aspects of this I’m missing. If so, then those in the know should be telling us their objections on that level…not just accepting MSM framing and running with it. I mean, for crying out loud, we all know the MSM lies all the time about everything. And on the abortion issue they are currently working overtime to spread fear among urban and suburban white women on the subject of abortion. If you click the linked article, you’ll see a series of links within it with frightening headlines about women losing their right to privacy – so, you know, the whole point here is fear-mongering. The MSM wants the reader to be afraid that those inbred, hill-ape, Christo-fascist morons are trying to impose theocracy. The bill doesn’t do that. What is does do, aside from making abortion illegal and defining an abortion, is make it illegal to prosecute the mother for obtaining an abortion, illegal to coerce a woman into an abortion, illegal to transport a minor across State lines to obtain an abortion, makes abortion legal to save the life of the mother and codifies the legality of contraception.

Not exactly Theocracy stuff.

But people on our side ran with it. Why? Can’t look into souls, of course, but I suspect that many are actually pro-choice but don’t want to come out and say it lest they lose Conservative audience share. Also, of course, quite a few of these people have liberal friends and they want to be sure such friends know they’re not like “those people”. You know – not like you and me.

And this is just one of many examples – couple days ago I saw that Hugh Hewitt was saying we had to codify same sex marriage and legalized birth control on the Federal level to prove we’re not going to ban SSM and birth control. So, we’re to play into DNC fear-mongering because…why? To stop something that isn’t happening? Or does Hugh and those like him just want something to separate from “those people”? Look, you inbred hicks, you got your abortion ban in some States, now you’d better sign on to a federal law imposing SSM even though the Constitution gives no warrant to the Federal government on the issue.

No. No, no, no and f*** no. Please, stop it: stop ratifying liberalism. We’re Conservatives, dammit. No, we don’t have a particular interest in banning SSM but this doesn’t mean we’re suddenly ok with it, nor that we’ve come around to approving the idea of the judicial activism which created it. SSM was (we hope) the last fling of leftwing judicial activism. Don’t put our stamp of approval on it.

And in the name of all that is decent in the world, stop believing the MSM. At all. Best if you simply stop consuming it – even if this costs you a gig or two. No amount of money is worth being associated with liars. But if you feel you must consume and participate, then at least have the common sense to know they’re lying and go to the original source to see what is happening before you comment. Yes, this might upset your liberal friends and some people might think you’re an inbred redneck…but that’s ok: the people who hate you for being actually Conservative are stupid and not worth caring about.

The Rich, Not the Left, are the Enemy

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Saw this on Twitter:

And it is real. They are paying people to stop farming. You know: growing food. As has been pointed out: you are the carbon they want reduced.

You see this and then you take Sri Lanka in mind, see all the fast food corps trying to market “beyond beef” products, endless articles about how we can eat bugs instead of meat…deliberately pushing up gas and oil costs while pushing electric vehicles while mega corps buy up residential property to rent it out. Sorry, but I see a plan: reduce human population and have what remains jammed into mega-cities where common folks eat bug paste in their life pods while getting around by bicycle or electric train. Did some group of rich people sketch this out? Not sure: but the various rich people NGO’s are all singing from the same Green hymnal and it all comes out to regular people having less, with the subtext being there will be fewer regular people.

Leave aside whether this is or isn’t a global conspiracy and you’re still left with the fact of what they are doing: in the name of “saving the planet” they are proposing we completely restructure our society to be Green – and no matter how you slice it, Green gives you less food and energy. With seven billion people on Earth, the wheels of agriculture, manufacturing and transport must turn rapidly in order for everyone to get their daily bread. If you interfere with that, there simply won’t be enough to go around. And rely on it, if there are shortages, the rich people telling us to go Green aren’t suffering them. Went to the store today to get yellow peppers and they didn’t have any. Hardly any red peppers, either. This isn’t odd food – this is staple stuff for the modern American diet. Bin after bin where the peppers normally are sit empty. But I guarantee you that if Gates wants some yellow peppers with his dinner tonight, he’s got them or will have them within the hour.

So, in my view, it isn’t the Left that we really have a problem with. They’re just kooks who don’t know anything – the problem comes in when the rich adopt Leftist views and seek to implement them. As to just why billionaires want to impose the ideals of ignorant Marxists, I don’t know for certain. It is probably a variety of reasons: but the underlying issue is that the Masters of the Universe want to remain Masters…and they are more than happy to change title and Party Line as long as they stay rich and in charge. Chesterton pointed this out more than a century ago when he noted that the British Ruling Class would have no problem changing over from being Duke of Norfolk to being Administrator of Norfolk. Because at the end of all plans of the rich, they remain fabulously rich, immune to law and firmly in control. What matters to you if the mass of people are crammed into stinking, crime ridden cities? You’ve just flown out to your private island after another Geneva confab and you’re getting ready for you and your buddies to abuse some young men and girls.

We have to cease worrying about absurdities like AOC or the latest Tik Tok Progressive weirdo who is grooming kids to be trans – these are problems and they’ll have to be dealt with, but the way to deal with them is to get rid of the rich people. Get rid of those who fund, promote and protect the Marxist fruitcakes. The Marxist numbskulls would be powerless and ignored except for very rich people funneling them money so they can attack not the rich, but you and me with our suburban homes, cars and our weekend trip to the beach (and the Rich hates that – hates that right next to their zillion dollar beachfront home are regular folks just being there). And do keep that in mind: for all the Left’s “eat the rich” rhetoric, their practical policy demands are for you and me to have less…less money, less property, less freedom. And who want us to have less? Those who have the most – their wealth is sacred, ours is Destroying the Planet. The footsoldiers of the Left are just too stupid to see how they are being manipulated…but that is no surprise because you have to be monumentally stupid to be a Leftist to begin with. But they are still not the enemy – the most aggressive BLM/Antifa rioter is not your enemy. He’s an idiot. He’s a tool. And he’s sent out against you by people who have fabulous fortunes, almost all inherited or recently acquired via political connections.

Unless and until we make this mental shift and realize that the rich are our enemies, we’re really not going to get anywhere. Any victory will be temporary in nature. Defeated in one field, they’ll just use their money to open up another one…and it doesn’t take them much money. Just a few million dollars can fund all sorts of people and programs to attack us. And what is even a billion dollars to someone with tens of billions? It is chump change – and for chump change, they will destroy you. Unless you take all their money away.

I’m not talking about taxing and redistributing – I’m talking about straight up confiscation. The Ruling Class does it to us all the time via asset forfeiture. Turn about is fair play – their money is forfeit one fine day. We just take it, leaving them with nothing – and then we pass it out to our people in some set increment so that the net wealth of our side increases.

Or, you can adhere to some tired theory which holds that private property includes fortunes of hundreds of billions which are being used to undermine the very basis of normal, human life. Up to you. Pick what you want. I prefer we get rid of those who propose to desrtoy us.

They Want You to Lie

Mark Noonan17 Comments

You might have seen the exchange between Senator Hawley and Professor Khiara Bridges. Bridges is absolutely insane. Stupid, too. Someone who knows absolutely nothing but whatever Marxist drivel was shoved into her…and then she was advanced in the legal career because as a POC who could regurgitate the Party Line on command, she was just what Diversity demanded. But there is a very sinister aspect to her – and I’ll be generous and say she, herself, might not understand it. Mindless mouthpieces like the Professor are such because they are mindless, after all. But consciously or not, what she is demanding is that we all become liars.

In the exchange, what the Professor insists upon is that saying only women can get pregnant is transphobic and is violence against transgender people. Think about that – she’s saying that if you state a biological fact (“women get pregnant”) then you are killing people. It is an absurd thing to say. It is insane. But, it is crucial to the Left’s agenda – because sane, tolerant people don’t like to get into confrontations. We like peace and quiet. And, so, faced with someone like Bridges, we start to trim our sails…maybe not all at once going along with it, but carefully editing our own words to cause the least offense possible. But, folks, we’re trying to cause the least offense to people who are insane liars. I don’t think this effort has an upside to it.

The crucial thing for the Left – all the time and on every issue – is to get people to lie. To get them to concede, even if only partially, that the Left’s lie is true. Think about it – when the Floyd issue exploded the Left’s Party Line was that racist cops were hunting down unarmed black men just for the racist heck of it. Not wishing to cause offense, people on the right hemmed and hawed about it – instead of just calling such claim what it is (an insane lie), there was an attempt to not be confrontational. You know how it went, “sure, there are racist cops and there is much racism in America and all of us are saddened by the unjustified death of George Floyd, but…”. And everything after “but” was pointless…because the lie had been agreed to. Maybe not exactly in Leftist terms, but enough of it to make any policy response to the Floyd death in line with Leftist ideology. Had we true courage on our side, we would have said the truth: Floyd died because he was a stupid, high as a kite and passing funny money. Had he not be stupid, high or breaking the law, he’d still be alive. That a cop was involved in his death was pure happenstance – Floyd was going to an early grave, cops or no cops. The example in my mind while this unfolded was my late elder brother: died because of a stupid drug-addict fight at the age of 50…because he was stupid and got high and then got into a fight and so he passed out on asphalt in the summer sun and his brain cooked to death. It could very well have been an interaction with a cop that killed him…but, it was another drug addicted bum who did him in. And it didn’t matter – my brother is dead because he was stupid and high; the particular circumstances of his death are irrelevant.

And I know that seems harsh and perhaps it is – but it isn’t like my brother didn’t have any agency. He had a thousand chances to alter course. He was given aid by family and friends over a many year span of time…all he had to do to live a nice life was stop being stupid and getting high. Lots of people have successfully navigated this and gone on to happy, productive lives. It isn’t a miracle: it is an act. A choice. A decision. Some people never make it and pay the price for their folly. George Floyd and my brother: same/same.

But the Left doesn’t care about that. Didn’t and doesn’t care that Floyd is dead, either. Floyd was just what was necessary for the lie: a black man who died in custody of a white cop. Once that fact was established, all the Left did was tell as story based on the Left’s lie – that racist cops hunt down black people. And it worked – by and large, almost the entire Western Establishment went along with it. But do keep in mind that the Floyd case wasn’t just to advance a false Narrative of racist cops…it was to make it impossible for cops to police our cities and thus allow for an explosion of crime which the Left will then use to advance their biggest goal: the breakdown of American society as “proof” that a free market system governed by people who believe in God doesn’t work. Crime, in the Left’s view, is the result of an unjust system…and by getting the cops out of the equation, they can now proceed to the social destruction which, in their minds, will force people to turn to the Left for a solution.

And it isn’t just one lie – it is a lie about everything. Racist cops, men can get pregnant, illegals are mere migrants, etc, etc, etc…are all designed with the same purpose, to get us to go along with the lies and so make us defenseless as society falls apart…after all, if we’re liars, how do we call out the Left and demand they stop? Can’t: not if you’re a liar, too. But the Left is making it so that just to live in society, you have to lie.

Put the breaks on it – concede nothing. Whatever the Left is saying is a lie. It can’t be other because the Left’s ideology is based on lies. Push back against the lies – this will take some courage and some of us who do so will suffer social and economic pain. But it must be done. The Leftist Emperor has no clothes and if we can merely say that, the Left will lose.