Open Thread

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Gotta say, I’m a bit encouraged here. Sure, the Democrats worked up a few Narrative polls to support their contention that Trump is going too far, but nobody believes them while reliable polling shows solid support for deportations.

The Democrats trotted out an attractive DACA recipient who was supposed to make us get all weepy-eyed about deportations and it just didn’t work. Pretty much everyone agrees she has to be sent back to her home country – and almost no hostile comments. Most people are just tired of playing this game where we allow criminal gangs to import millions to make sure the one good one gets to stay. Just not worth it. And I do feel for that lady and those like here – but we can’t make exceptions. Everyone who entered illegally must go back. More than happy to even make an easy process for such like her to come back (that is, brought in as a minor and never got into trouble since arrival) but we must make it absolutely rock-solid you can’t cross illegally without consequence.

And, sure, I understand that they were encouraged to come by the Uniparty. I get that. But everyone has a moral obligation to obey the laws…and you aren’t excused because those charged with enforcing them are being slack. Her parents should have had enough respect for the USA to say, “no; even though corrupt American officials are letting it happen, I still won’t cross illegally: I respect America and the Americans so I will get permission to enter their country”. Go back home, ask to return. It is hard, but it is a sacrifice any patriot would be willing to make for their country…as well as a sacrifice which will literally save lives because if we allow illegal crossing, people will die because we do.

I’m also encouraged by people instinctively not falling for the “it used to be Mexico” Narrative. Outside of idiots, everyone who hears that is thinking it over. It is a pity that history isn’t taught in US schools but the post I made on X briefly describing the sovereignty over Los Angeles is up to 31,100 views in less than 24 hours. And 2,700 have liked it. This indicates to me a hunger for knowledge – and it is up to us who do know to impart it. Remember, some person shouting Los Angeles is Mexican is a stupid liar – when Mexico declared independence it wasn’t like the USA where everyone involved sent valid delegates to a Congress which debated and then enacted the measure. It was a mere clique of self-selected people who arrogantly presumed to speak for all of New Spain. Naturally, this writ only ran as far as they could force its acceptance and huge tracts of New Spain broke away as fast as possible. While the Spanish government surrendered its claim to rule New Spain in 1836 this is no way amounted to a consent for all of New Spain to be ruled from Mexico City…especially those parts of New Spain which didn’t even have theoretical representation in Mexico City (like, for instance, Alta California). Once again, useful to remind everyone that a lot of what is “known” today is a carefully curated Narrative about what happened all designed to support the claim of the Global Ruling Class to power. It isn’t that the history books directly lie (but some of them do) but that the information has been selected and presented in a manner designed to elicit certain conclusions on the part of the reader. These days, you have to dig deep to find the truth (anyone interested in this particular subject would do well to read The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon and the Mexican War. It is from 1973 so before Wokeness took over academia and it is a fair and accurate portrayal of the various political factors in Mexico, the USA and Europe which ended up with America annexing half of Mexico).

Inflation is coming in “lower than expected”…by the Experts. Like, am I the only person on Earth who understands that inflation only happens because of currency devaluation? Keep in mind, there can always be price fluctuations. A temporary break in supply or some such can cause a spike. But inflation – the steady rise of prices against goods and services – is only caused by money printing. Its been going on since money was first invented – governments always seek to repay good money with bad. In the olden days they had to be more honest about it – continually lowering the gold or silver content of the coins. These days, much easier – you don’t even have to print up paper currency. All you have to do is tell you central bank to add another zero to the ledger. But it is always monetary devaluation that leads to inflation. If governments and central banks were simply honest about how much money there is (or isn’t) then inflation would never happen. You might get a host of other economic problems, but you won’t get your wealth eroded by inflation.

For our purposes here, they were expecting the tariffs to increase inflation and are shocked that it isn’t…this is because the market reacts and the first reaction might be a price spike, but the second reaction is to lower costs. In the case of tariffs, it means finding a supplier not covered by the tariff. You know: domestic or at least from a country not being hammered like China is. Prices are actually pretty stable over time – that is, the actual value of things doesn’t really increase except in rarities (like the Mona Lisa continually increased in value until it became priceless – because Da Vinci can’t paint another one and so there is no way to increase the supply of Mona Lisa’s on the market). It wasn’t prices in France that rose over the centuries…it was the continual debasement of Constantine’s gold Solidus into the lowly French sou (it was originally made of 4.5 grams of gold…the last sou minted in France was 5 centime bronze coin; 4.5 grams of gold would still buy what a Solidus did). Price spikes because of shortages or tariffs are met with new or improved supplies from elsewhere leading to price stability. It is just they way things work. Once again, we’re dealing with people who don’t know much – and they have advanced degrees.

What the Riots Reveal About California

Mark Noonan15 Comments

…what they do create is anarchy; and the difference between these is not a question of violence, but a question of fruitfulness and finality. Revolution of its nature produces government; anarchy only produces more anarchy. Men may have what opinions they please about the beheading of King Charles or King Louis, but they cannot deny that Bradshaw and Cromwell ruled, that Carnot and Napoleon governed. Someone conquered; something occurred. You can only knock off the King’s head once. But you can knock off the King’s hat any number of times. Destruction is finite, obstruction is infinite: so long as rebellion takes the form of mere disorder (instead of an attempt to enforce a new order) there is no logical end to it; it can feed on itself and renew itself forever. If Napoleon had not wanted to be a Consul, but only wanted to be a nuisance, he could, possibly, have prevented any government arising successfully out of the Revolution. But such a proceeding would not have deserved the dignified name of rebellion….

War is a dreadful thing; but it does prove two points sharply and unanswerably—numbers, and an unnatural valor. One does discover the two urgent matters; how many rebels there are alive, and how many are ready to be dead. But a tiny minority, even an interested minority, may maintain mere disorder forever… – G K Chesterton, What’s Wrong With the World?

In that passage Chesterton was discussing what was called at the time the “militant suffragettes” – and his complaint, as can be seen, is that they weren’t really militant. They were just causing disorder on a continual basis in order to irritate the political system into giving women the vote. Trouble is that disorder is mere disorder…and while the positive thing did happen (votes for women) the precedent of irritation was adopted in the broadest sense by the overall political Left in the Western world. But you can’t do it that way – or, at least, you shouldn’t do it that way. And the votes for women finally occurred not because militant suffragettes knocked off the King’s hat, but because non-militant suffragettes simply set to work with peaceful political lobbying – both of government and the public – until the female vote was secured.

You might recall in the past that I’ve had a kind word or two to say about a riot. As Chesterton noted, it isn’t necessarily about violence, but about finality. Violence is to be avoided, of course. We should compose our differences via reasoned debate according to law. All rioters – like all revolutionaries – are doing something which risks the ultimate penalty being imposed by the other side. Don’t do it. If you do, know what you’re getting into. And, also, if you are doing it, have a resolution in mind. Like this:

Julius Jacob von Haynau was an Austrian army officer who was instrumental in suppressing the Hungarian rebellion in 1848. A man of notably bad temper, he was quite brutal in dealing with rebels who came into his hands. After it was over, he had the thanks of the Austrian government and the opprobrium of just about everyone else. A few years later he was visiting England and was recognized by some British workers who promptly got up a riot against him and basically chased him away covered in filth. Total violation of the law. Violence that was dangerous and could get someone hurt. But it was violence with a specific end in mind: letting a foreign brute know that he wasn’t welcome in a land of free men. The cockney’s who threw dung at him broke the law, but they did a right thing. They weren’t trying to merely create disorder…they had a goal in mind and achieved it. Violence is wrong; but if there is to be violence, there has to be a specific end to it.

If I had to say what is wrong with the Left – other than, you know, the fact that they are Left – I would say that they’re Leninists without a Lenin. When Lenin said to loot the looters he wasn’t trying to make a society of looters but working to obtain a certain thing: power for himself. By having the poor loot the rich he knew that the poor would remain poor, but very importantly the rich would become poor…and poor people have a very hard time fighting back. The modern Left does assert that the looters should be looted, but none of them have that single minded determination to seize all power and impose a new order. This is good, in a sense, because Lenin was evil to the core but it is bad that we don’t get a resolution…just continual disorder.

When the current LA riots started someone posted a picture of burning police cars and Gavin Newsom – the alleged governor of California – noted that the picture was from 2020. He was quite triumphant in noting this fact…not at all understanding that it merely indicates he’s let California burn routinely under his watch. Newsom is an evil man. He’s a liar and a crook. He likes being governor because it allows him to lie and steal on a grand scale and he’d like to be President so he can lie and steal even more. But there is no hard center to him – nor in any of the Democrat leaders. They just like to lie and steal and so they need a system which allows them to lie and steal – and a system that allows this is a system which retreats from rioters because you can’t lie or steal about riots and, anyways, any lives lost or property destroyed won’t be theirs so no worry. The main thing is that they don’t want this to end – because a system which suppresses riots is a system which won’t allow them to lie and steal. The disorder must go on forever.

But there is a risk. Somewhere in that mass of masked anti-American rioters there are people who do have a specific goal in mind. There are lots of Lenins out there. None has emerged into leadership. Keep in mind that Lenin got involved in the Marxist revolutionary circles as early as 1887 but it wasn’t until 1903 that he split the Marxist movements and created his Bolsheviks so he could have a movement entirely under his control and dedicated to taking power by any means necessary. So, we might still be a while out before an American Lenin arises…but once one does, that person will ruthlessly suppress dissent on the Left and move on a united front not to just create disorder so corrupt people can steal, but in order to provoke a revolutionary crisis to be taken advantage of.

What this means is that we can’t afford to play this game where the Left uses continual disorder to make governance impossible. And think about it for a moment – the schools suck, the roads are crumbling, burned houses aren’t being rebuilt. Why not? I mean, seriously: none of these are difficult tasks for any reasonably intelligent person. But they keep utterly failing at all of them. Why? Because any attempt to really fix this stuff will lead to renewed, petty disorder orchestrated by the people in charge of schools, roads and housing construction…and so the complete failure keeps going while those who deliberately allowed the petty disorder in the past continue to lie and steal. If it was just California screwing itself – or the Blue States, in general – then we might just smile and move on. But we can’t risk that – we can’t afford, that is, the continuation of a corrupt system where thieves and liars use riots as an excuse for maintaining a corrupt system. Eventually this can spill over into our areas…or throw up a tyrant who will rule us all. We must put a stop to this.

We can cite 10,000 examples of total governmental failure in California – from city to county to State. Nothing is working. Nothing is being done correctly. And this is before we get to the riots, themselves. What it all adds up to is that in their desire to steal, the California Ruling Class has abdicated all actual authority. That is, they were vested legally with certain powers to do certain things…and none of those things are being done. The money is getting spent! That’s for sure – and by “spent” I mean “stolen”, of course. But the things directed by law to happen, aren’t. And the people vested with the power to carry out the law, aren’t. Essentially, the mindless riot of the streets is also a mindless riot in the halls of government. Nobody is in charge – save those in charge of passing out the stolen cash. Everything else is a charade…a pretense. Make-believe government…the form absent any content.

The Constitution enjoins the federal government to ensure a republican form of government in the several States. Donald Trump – and the Congress and Judiciary – are duty bound to carry out the provisions of the Constitution. There is no actual government in California. There is a morass of people feeding off taxes and that’s it…nobody there is actually doing any governing. And that means, in my view, that the federal authorities should step in, dissolve the facade of California governance and call for new elections under strict federal supervision to obtain a government of California which will carry out government responsibilities.

It is time, once again, to enter the real world – in the fake world of the past, we pretended that California was just a bit weird. It isn’t. It is entirely dysfunctional…and flooded with illegals who are used by gangsters and government officials as a third-party cut out to steal taxpayer dollars. California in its current condition is a direct challenge to the Constitution and the territorial integrity of the United States. It must be brought under control and given a government with genuine consent of the governed.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan26 Comments

This was done in Los Angeles yesterday:

The riots were pretty bad there – with the Mayor and police chief of Los Angeles positively encouraging violence against ICE, which was executing valid warrants to detain illegal immigrants. As noted in my previous post: I’m supposed to let people who do this vote? People who scrawl that on our buildings? They get to have as much say as I do?

Look, you’re allowed to hate Trump. You’re allowed to hate Trump policies. But if you are violently trying to stop lawful actions by the Trump administration, you’re insane. You are creating a situation where people can get killed. The place for disagreement is politics…that is, you try to change the government in future elections, not try to intimidate people via violence. Insane purveyors of violence should not be allowed to vote.

Team Trump is responding properly to this – these idiots all did this on video. They seem to forget that there are federal charges – very major federal charges – in trying to prevent the execution of a federal warrant. The funny part here is that these laws were first enacted to stop Democrats from denying civil rights to black people…now they’re to be used to stop Democrats from protecting illegal immigration. It seems that from time to time the heavy club of federal law is needed to keep Democrats under control

The Trump-Musk feud has calmed down a bit…and it really does seem that the proximate cause was Trump withdrawing Musk’s preferred man to head up NASA. From what I understand on that, it was Senate opposition that convinced Trump to withdraw the guy…which does sometimes happen. Could there be some level of Deep State machination in this? Sure. But you also pick your battles…and I guess this was a battle Musk wanted Trump to pick. Trump saw it differently and here we are.

It is good to keep in mind that Musk never was 100% on board with the Trump program. Musk is also a strategist…and his strategic interests are high tech plus space exploration. A lot of this matches up with MAGA but its not a 1 for 1 thing. Musk favors solar over nuclear. Favors open immigration in the tech industry. Musk is a free trader who dreams of a massive human investment in making humanity multiplanetary…Trump wants America first, restrictions on immigration and his Department of Energy is already pushing hard for massive nuclear power development. These are issues honest people can have disagreements over…but they are different strategic aims and those pushing for their aims will come into conflict. Two very large figures came into conflict…and Trump emerged as the more reasonable of the two. I suspect that Musk will work out some deal with Team Trump so that at least he can get some of what he wants. Think of Musk as Nimitz and Trump as MacArthur…very different ideas about how to defeat Japan but their conflicting visions, pushed with vigor, actually ensured quicker defeat of Japan than if one of them had got their way entirely.

The Democrats got their “Maryland man” back! With a raft of federal charges. And while he is back in the USA to face those charges, he’s still illegally in country…which means no matter what some federal judge says, he’s not being let out of federal detention per-trial. Looks like their hero is a pretty bad guy…and that the reason he had to flee El Salvador was because of a hit he did on a rival gang. So, he’s going to sit in federal custody, be convicted of a long list of federal charges…and then deported back to El Salvador to face charges there.

And the GOP will be able to make a whole series of campaign ads about this for 2026. Oh, and all that “Death to Amerikka” stuff from yesterday will also make it into the ads. Do keep in mind that our opponents are very stupid – they only managed to hang on to power because their idiocy was covered up by an MSM almost all Americans trusted.

Most Americans no longer trust that MSM.

Democracy, Limit Thyself

Mark Noonan27 Comments

The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man. – G K Chesterton

This is why I sometimes say I’m the last democrat on Earth – because I understand that if God did create us (and He did) then a democratic system is a necessity. Someone will now object here: but, Mark, you also have said that you are essentially a Monarchist! This is true. I believe it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who said that the test of first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold to two contradictory opinions in mind and not go insane. So, maybe I’m just first rate?

Probably not! But there is no real contradiction here. And a huge part of the problem is that people think there is. That is, both Monarchists and democrats have fought each other quite bloodily on the assertion that there is a contradiction between Monarchy and Democracy when there really isn’t. But then you ponder it a bit and you understand that they weren’t really fighting against each other…they were fighting to hold all power. And neither a Democracy nor a Monarchy may reasonably hold all power. Only God can hold all of it.

The UK was supposed to be a model for sane government: a synthesis of Monarchy and Democracy – and for a while, it was. So sane that it managed with minimal effort to conquer one fourth of the world’s landmass and totally dominated the seas. There was a King and there was voting and there was hereditary nobility and big business and the Church and an independent judiciary and a free press and while there were problems there are always problems and the darned contraption worked. And it was the Reform Act of 1832 which set the UK on the path to self destruction.

Don’t get me wrong, there was need for serious reform – especially in getting rid of what were called the “Rotten Boroughs” where a handful of Electors would send a man to Parliament, often via straight up purchase. Meanwhile, huge communities in the UK had little or no representation at all. Needed to be fixed. The problem wasn’t what was fixed, but what was broken in the fixing…the franchise was extended to renters. Now, to be sure, you had to pay what was at the time a pretty hefty rent…which means you simply had to be a well off, middle class person. But the key was the law finally saying that non-landowners get the franchise. Once that was done, no way that everyone else wasn’t going to eventually get the vote. How can you possibly say ‘no’? Once the cat is out of the bag, it is out of the bag.

And in 1867 was another Reform Act extending the franchise to urban workers – higher paid urban workers, but still lower class. And the 1884 Reform extended it further. And the 1918 Reform yet further…and on and on and on until every Tom, Dick and Harry in Great Britain who is breathing at the time of an election gets to vote. And now with everyone voting all fair and square the UK has its largest cities under the control of recent migrants while the laws say you’re under arrest if you make a meme on social media…and you’re also disarmed in the face of a knife-wielding migrant lunatic. From ruling one fourth of the world to hiding at home in silence…all done by voting! They just happened to vote for suicide.

Turns out, having Viscount Twiddle-Dee sitting in the House of Lords by right of inheritance was more conducive to liberty than having Prime Minister Tweedle-Dum elected by universal suffrage. You see, Twiddle-Dee had only limited power while Tweedle-Dum’s power is unlimited. Therein lies the problem…not so much who has the power, but how much power the person has. That some nitwit heir of a noble house is in the Lords is far less a problem to the average Nigel than the police knocking on his door to ask him about a meme posted on X.

The USA is a little different, of course. The USA is different from everyone. Nobody better forget Bismarck’s statement about there being a special providence for fools, drunkards and the United States of America. We are the invented country. A bunch of guys sat down in 1776 and declared it into existence and then returned in 1787 to declare it now had a government with such and such limited powers. Nobody had ever seen anything like this and nobody ever really would again. That is, no class of rulers – even rebel rulers – was ever going to make the Founder’s mistake: limiting the power of government. People who look at government simply can’t stand the thought that there’s something it can’t do…that there is an element of life simply outside the competence of government. But this is why the USA rose to global dominance pretty much in tandem with the decline of British dominance even though from Day One the franchise was fairly extensive in the USA and became more so over time. Why didn’t this kill us as badly as it was killing the UK? Because, as noted, the powers of the US government were limited…you couldn’t, via votes, obtain all power. Even if you controlled all 3 branches of government you didn’t have all power. You had a lot! But not all. And so the thing worked…until people decided to act like they did have all power.

The first person to do this was actually Teddy Roosevelt but his imagination was small…he set his sights on national parks and the Panama Canal. Wilson had a much grander vision on the uses of total power but even he wasn’t completely brazen about it. FDR was. There was simply nothing that FDR would ever say was outside his purview. Once in office he just did whatever he wanted, confident that a Congress controlled by his Party would never stop him and that it would eventually bring the Judiciary to heel (and he was right about this). FDR’s successors just followed along – usurping one power after another that didn’t belong to them, using bribery (ie, taxpayer subsidy) to obtain compliance at the State level (another brake on total power in the USA – the States are sovereign). Mostly it was done by promising at election time that every good thing would come to you if you voted the right way – and people by and large went along with it because they simply couldn’t see, in a broad majority, that the government with the power to give is the government with the power to take away. In short, the overwhelming majority of people – of all political stripes – were simply incapable of determining the best course of action…because they were being asked to decided the entire course of action.

Do understand that – it is totally reasonable for limited people to make decisions about limited things. In fact, this is the way it must be for a rational society. Only I can determine what color to paint my house…just as only I can decide who I want to marry, who I want as friends…on and on. It is when I propose to decide things for you that the limitations must come in…and the higher up we go (person, family, extended family, social group, town, county, State, nation) there must be continually increased limitations on what you can do (ie, “Congress shall make no law”). We’re human beings. Amazingly strong but also pathetically weak. We can’t know enough to make decisions on everything. And the whole failure of the world – what you see all around you in the USA and the entire world – is the logical conclusion of trying to get people to decide on everything.

To get back to the Reform Act of 1832, the fatal flaw in it was not limiting the power of government. Britain, famously, has no actual written Constitution. It is just the unrepealed acts of Parliament plus judicial precedent. It would take far too long a time to explain why it was like this but the bottom line is that the whole fight was between Parliament and King and it all worked out until the King was made a political cipher. Now it wasn’t a fight between King and Parliament but between Parliament and itself. There was no practical limitation on the power of Parliament except for the fact that the franchise was limited and so only people with a substantial stake in the community could direct the government. By extending the franchise without limiting the power the British set up the nightmare they have now. They really needed a First and Second amendment…and these should have been inserted in the Reform Act along with some provision making it nearly impossible to repeal. But, they didn’t see it. Because the people involved weren’t interested in sanity, but in how to get more power (essentially, the Reform people felt that they’d be rewarded with power for extending the franchise…and they were right).

We all know that unlimited government power is bad. We need to limit government; it must be kept in close constraints and strictly limited powers lest it get large enough to destroy us, the people it was created to serve (remember that: we institute government to secure our rights…not give us a welfare check!). But we can’t have limited government unless we limit the people, too. As per usual in human affairs, its not 100% one way or the other. It is a little bit of both. Human affairs requiring striking a balance, film at 11.

We must balance the need for responsible government with the need for limited government. Some years back a friend of mine bought a house he was going to rent out but, naturally, it needed cleaning and painting before that happened. For a variety of reasons he couldn’t get to the cleaning in a timely manner and asked if I’d help him out. Sure: that’s what friends are for. Plus, as he was going to paint it was really just a matter of cleaning sinks and bathtubs and so forth. I decided to start in the master bath and as I walked in, I noticed that the shower enclosure seemed an odd color…it was kind of a brownish grey and not at all nice looking. But, hey: who am I to judge? Someone wants a nasty color on their bathroom, not my concern. But when I go close and examined it I found that it wasn’t brownish grey…it was a white shower.

The house was about twenty five years old at the time and had one owner prior to my friend purchasing it. I scraped my fingernail along the brownish grey and it peeled off and I realized that the prior owner had never, not even once, cleaned their shower. They had used it year after year after year with it getting increasingly coated with soap and oil and dead skin particles and it never occurred to them that it might be time to hit the thing with a bit of a cleanser. Just absolutely nauseating. And it took me the better part of an hour to get all that gunk off.

But here’s why I’m telling you about this: that person who used that filthy, disgusting, unsanitary shower gets to vote. Just like I do. Just as much power as I have…and, like me, he’s voting for a government which has – or at least wants to have – total power over everyone. The guy who is so lazy he won’t even clean his darned shower gets to decide if I get to live, ultimately. Because that is what government power ultimately is, guys: the power to kill. We’re deciding who gets to kill and under what circumstances. Might not seem like that, but that is what it is. Filthy shower guy/Me = same/same. No, sorry; it ain’t. Filthy shower guy shouldn’t be deciding anything…for heaven’s sake, he can’t even decide to clean his shower.

We’re going to have to limit things, my friends. The only path to a limited government which secures our rights is a government which is under the control of people with some sense and responsibility. Unlimited voting just means unlimited power and power corrupts. Always.

We need a series of laws which restrict the franchise. Everyone can come up with their preferences here and we can debate and then enact, but some limitation on what the people can do is necessary if we are to have a government limited in what it can do. I would start with a basic literacy and civics test – to register to vote you have to write out the preamble to the Constitution and then answer some pretty simple questions about the government: name 3 Justices of the Supreme Court, name the current Speaker of the House, how many States are there…I’m not talking genius level stuff here, guys. Just something that lets us know you’re literate and have some concept of the government you are voting to empower. After that, I’d also remove the franchise for all fit, adult persons between the ages of 18 and 67 who receive 50% or more of their income from government (active duty military would be excluded from this restriction). Basically, if you live off government – even (and especially) by working for government – you have a vested interest in government power and thus a conflict of interest in your vote…so you don’t get to vote. And by “living off government” I do mean even if you work for a State-supported school, NGO, etc. And anyone can restore their voting rights by getting off the government dime. It is a matter of personal choice – because remember that I said “fit”…if you can work and choose to be on welfare well, that is your choice…and you’ve chosen disenfranchised dependency.

It will have to be. Civilization cannot survive without this. It is only a matter of time before this happens – and it would be better if we controlled it rather than waiting for someone else, perhaps hostile to us, to make it happen.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

So, Ukraine managed to whack Russia pretty hard. Gotta say, I’m impressed…big, deep strikes right at the heart of Russia’s strategic power. They claim they did it all on their lonesome but I just have to figure they had US intel help…and probably some tech support on it, too. Trump probably does want to send a message to Putin that it is time to bring this adventure to a close…and with Putin digging in his heels, this is a necessary push.

Naturally, Putin will feel that he has to strike back, hard. That will come before any peace deal is made. It is a matter of prestige for Putin and the Russians that they make Ukraine pay for this. So, get ready for that. I do hope the Ukrainians are because if they can thwart or even just significantly blunt the Russian response then that will be just more pressure on Putin to throw in the towel.

This whole mess could have been avoided if we had a good deal maker in DC when it started with the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2012. The bottom line, as I’ve said all along, is that the Crimea and the Donbas were added to Ukraine by Stalin for domestic, Soviet political purposes. Never in the past had that territory been considered Ukrainian even in theory. The whole purpose of US and Western diplomacy should have been figuring out how to un-draw the lines drawn by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin probably after a few too many vodkas. I’m hopeful this will end with that recognition of reality.

The nut who threw firebombs at mostly elderly Jews in Boulder is in the country illegally. Because of course. We now have two iconic photos from the past 12 months – and together they define the political divide.

MAGA world:

Democrat world:

It is so beautiful, isn’t it? The shirtless, raving lunatic holding a Molotov cocktail and that Pride flag in the background…about to set fire to Jews in a liberal city where refugees are welcome.

Someone linked today on X to a video of Jasmine Crockett (D-Looney Bin) – and along with her cosplaying as ghetto (she’s actually the product of elite, private education and has perfect diction), she was asserting that once the Democrats retake the House, they will impeach Trump. Of course we all know this – because of course they will.

If they get back the House. That is the fly in the Democrat ointment: they have to win. Winning requires building a coalition around some set of actions. We’ve all wondered why the Democrats aren’t toning down the lunatic Leftist rhetoric and we can now see why: they don’t think they have to. Crockett and her like think that because they are being insanely Left they will win the House in 2026. There are older and wiser heads in the Democrat party (Schumer knows this garbage is political suicide but as an elderly Jew he’s got to walk soft in Democrat councils these days) but they can’t call the shots – they can’t get people like Crockett to shut up, that is.

We can’t know what will happen. Mid-terms are notoriously difficult for the party holding the White House. But with voter registration trends still favoring the GOP, with Trump having already raised $600 million for the 2026 effort and with the economy starting to perk up….I’ve got to start thinking that this against Democrat insanity might give us a favorable 2026.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan14 Comments

One of the problems with the Third World is that infrastructure is deliberately destroyed when not merely allowed to decay. Copper theft from power lines and such is a massive problem. So, let’s see how the Third World is doing on that:

Oh, sorry, I’m being told this is not the Third World but Minneapolis, MN…

Import the Third World, get the Third World. The bottom line here is that the people stealing this didn’t build it – didn’t build anything that exists. They just were willy-nilly shipped in and they’ve brought their habits from home with them. Things exist in order for them to be stolen – and you don’t care if things don’t work because never in your whole life have things ever worked.

I’m kinda tired of being told that my nation – my people – are bad. That the settlers who built Minneapolis are inferior to the “migrants” who are now stealing the copper wire of Minneapolis. Only an idiot destroys infrastructure…but here it is, being destroyed. It is sort of like pictures I’ve seen of South African hospitals…filthy, garbage literally sitting on the floor. Everyone knows that a hospital isn’t supposed to be like that but its like that…because nobody gives a damn. They didn’t build it. It is just something to be stolen, and vandalized if it can’t be carted off.

No people are better than any other people. We are all human beings, children of God. But some people behave a heck of a lot better than others…and the problem of the Third World isn’t the legacy of colonialism or any other excuse being offered up. The problem is the people of the Third World who seem content to live badly. That’s fine. Their life. Their country. Do whatever you want to do. But I’m done with thinking we should continue to import these people – anyone coming in gets vetted and they should be 18 to 30, unmarried, no kids, fluent in English and have $10,000 in cash on them. That way I know they’re people who can reasonably integrate into my society rather than stealing copper wire.

There’s some TV show out there which decided to open up this season where a nun played by Rosie O’Donnell gets it on with another female character.

And the entertainment industry wonders why they’re losing audience. I mean, just in practical terms, if you want to have something vulgar, at least have the vulgarity portrayed by good looking people. Nobody wants to see a 60-something getting it on.

It is just insults, of course. Not even avant-garde. It is boring. To be truly transgressive these days you’d have to respectfully portray a nuclear family having a good life, or a man who works hard and plays by the rules. A distinctly feminine woman who likes and gets along with men. Heck, even just two gay guys who run a bait shop. Something like that. What entertainment does is insult us…not just our morals, but our intelligence. There is a place for the risque in entertainment…but if you’re doing to do it, it is supposed to be subtle and interesting…not a sledgehammer like using Rosie as a lesbian nun.

Thomas Massie seems determine to burn all bridges on the right – his latest effort being a demand we cut off military aid to Israel because “Nothing can justify the number of civilian casualties (tens of thousands of women and children) inflicted by Israel in Gaza in the last two years.” Just absurd.

First off, nobody knows how many people have died in Gaza. The only reports we get are from Hamas or Hamas-allied organizations and we know they lie with wild abandon. Secondly, if there were tens of thousands, there would be pictures of that. You can’t individually bury huge numbers of bodies – once you get past a few hundred, you have to get them into the ground – or burn them – quickly because of health risks. We would have video of mass graves and piles of corpses if even hundreds were being killed at a time, let alone tens of thousands. My bet is that once this is over, we’ll find that the total number of dead in Gaza is no more than a few thousands, almost all of which will be armed fighters with only incidental killings of civilians due to Hamas’ tactic of using civilians as human shields.

As I’ve said before, I think Israel has already lost this war – lost it within 90 days of the start. I could see how this would go: any length of time and public opinion would turn against Israel as the global Establishment geared up to make Israel’s response the problem rather than the Palestinians rapes and murders on 10/7. So it has happened – and I can’t see this ending without Hamas remaining in charge of Gaza. In other words, total Israeli defeat. Israel should have imposed a regular siege – after a legal declaration of war – and compelled the Gazans to surrender unconditionally. They would have. Sure, Hamas would have kept all the food for themselves and let the people starve…but eventually even in that system the food runs out and no human being can resist hunger pangs. After a while, almost everyone will do just about anything just to get a bite to eat. They would have stacked arms and come out with their hands above their heads.

But Israel did not go that route – for fear of offending global opinion, they decided to go slow and soft. Hasn’t worked, of course; the world already hated Israel. There was no upside for Israel to go soft. But softly they went…carefully and methodically targeting only confirmed armed opponents. They have had some major coups in this – the exploding pagers the most notable – but they haven’t had victory. But for our purposes here, the main thing is that Israel is not indiscriminately killing. It isn’t that bad in Gaza. Lot of stuff blown up, but not a lot of death…and nobody is starving or lacking medical care. For Massie to mindlessly repeat the Hamas lies about Israel is astonishing and disgusting. I don’t know what brain disease is affecting some people but it might be that some have just been waiting for their excuse to hate Jews…just as some wait for their excuse to hate Christians. Could be that when you alienate yourself from God, you feel compelled to hate Jews? Don’t know – but it seems that way.

The Last Chance

Mark Noonan19 Comments

In poll after poll and in vote after vote what is happening all across the West is that youth is turning away from the Establishment. It is most marked among young Western men but it is also happening with women. Meanwhile, it is getting to be that the older the voter, the more likely to be Left…including among older voters who used to vote for ostensible Right parties in the past. None of this is too shocking – the youngsters see a dying world and don’t like it – and young white people especially don’t like the part they are being assigned in it: the evil ones who must be punished for the alleged sins of their elders and ancestors. For the older folks (call it 60 and up), it also makes sense they are going Left – the Left is defending the system the old folks grew up in and in which they became well off. They still watch TV news, of course, and sincerely believe the drivel put out there. But it is to youth that we look – because the future belongs to whoever is there. That ain’t you and me, fellow old folks!

Today I saw a video clip where King Charles III of Great Britain, visiting Canada, issued a “land acknowledgement” before his speech before the Canadian parliament. Basically, this was the King asserting that Britain and all her works were a crime. If he had an ounce of courage he would have abdicated before making such a hateful statement. But, he’s old and this is what the Ruling Class told him he has to say and that its an evil statement is neither here nor there…it is how he gets to remain King. Nothing quite so typifies the Boomer, does it? But one thinks about the heroic people of Britain’s past and you almost weep over it all – whatever one might wish to say about Sir Garnet Wolseley, when he burned Kumasi it was to clear out a nest of slave-traders. Today Charles would probably go there and apologize for that.

Another thing I saw today was a news report that 80% of Britain’s Down Syndrome babies are being aborted. One of the great achievements of Christianity was to end the practice of killing “unfit” children…but with the destruction of the Christian character of the West the barbarism has returned. Putting these two things together made be rather disgusted with quite a lot of things. I don’t want to be allied, for instance, with people who kill their children or insult their own past. And I don’t want the domestic versions of these people to have a say in how we’re governed. You see, I quite like living in a world where I have rights and I carry out my responsibilities and my property is protected, criminals are punished and weirdos aren’t allow to destroy the public square. Basically, I’ll see how Trump does: if he’s able to push through the necessary reforms, then I’ll be ok. But if the Establishment manages to stop him, then I’m seriously looking for a Sulla or Caesar.

And in that, I’ll be siding with youth – because youth has very little patience with or respect for the “norms” or the Establishment. They see through the scam. They are also, though, badly educated so they do, from time to time, fall for other cons as long as they are anti-Establishment cons. This is a problem and I’ll see my goal – if it comes to it – to guide youth away from these aberrations. And they can be guided it: I know it because I’ve already done it. They do listen to reason. You’d better have it all down pat! Answer for every objection! But if you do have knowledge and some patience you can reach this discontented youth…which is filled with a desire for freedom and is generous to a fault. But I won’t fight them on things I view as non-critical. They are youth and it is their world they are building. I offer my advice and my encouragement, but I do not offer myself as a leader. They’ll have to find their own.

I do see this as a time future historians will view as the breaking point – the end of one era and the start of another.

Ancient: European and Near-Eastern civilization to the Muslim conquest of Syria (638).

Medieval: Muslim conquest of Syria to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).

Modern: Treaty of Westphalia until today.

But the Modern Era is rather done. Nobody believes in the basic assumptions any longer. Too many lies and too many crimes…and, in the end, it didn’t even work. We see outrages against basic human decency and civil rights and we joke that the Constitution (the highest human expression of the Modern Era) will break out of its case any minute now and save us…but those charged with applying the Constitution are too stupid and corrupt to defend it. So youth sees it as useless and seeks something else…just as they seek for something else regarding all major issues and events. I don’t envy them their task if we do ultimately fail – and let us hope that this last, desperate hope we elected last November turns the tide.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

The judicial orders against Trump are getting ever more absurd – to the point now there Judges are maliciously ignoring the written law and Supreme Court orders. Why are they doing this? Are they just insane?

No.

Well, ok, fine; they are insane. But there is also a plan here. It seems pretty obvious to me that they are now hoping they make rulings so absurd that Trump is force to openly defy them. Their theory then goes that the American people will reject this defiance and turn against Trump, thus ensuring he’s hamstrung for the next two years as Democrats hope to take back the House in 2026 whereupon the Trump agenda dies. Could they be right? That is, would the American people choose the judges over Trump? It is a possibility. I don’t think it would come out that way, but it is something that might happen. It is basically a hail Mary move – there is absolutely nothing else in the Democrats’ arsenal to stop or even slow down Trump. And Trump II is a much graver threat than Trump I…the new Trump is determined to fix the problems. Trouble for Democrats is that they made the problems on purpose to sustain their power and wealth. Fixing them means the effective end of the Democrat party.

So, there’s this long shot – and the longer shot of, well, a shot. Trump’s people better keep their heads on a swivel.

The latest effort to keep the immigration spigot open has been pushed by the Libertarians: their objections are that we can’t allow the government to decide who a college admits or an employer hires. Also, Trump is deporting Albert Einstein when he kicks a Palestinian activist out. Hey, they are Libertarians: they are by nature pretty dumb. Keeping in mind that most Libertarians are just Leftists who want low taxes and gun rights.

But, nobody is buying it. We know who’s being kicked out – totally useless people when not actually wicked. And here’s my challenge – if these people are so great then ten years from now they’ll have made their homelands a paradise for Americans to envy. So I say to the Libertarians, let this happen so you can tell me “I told you so”. So far, none have taken me up on my offer…almost like they know we’re not deporting great people.

Actually useful polling shows Trump about where he was on Election Day. Anecdotal evidence – that is, me talking to people in real life – indicates that his support is growing. Non-anecdotal is that the GOP continues to win the voter registration battle. Been a little blip of late in PA as the Democrats have a hotly contested primary but even that wasn’t much…and the overall trend still favors the GOP. Even in deep Blue bastions like California the GOP is winning the registration battle (though CA is so Blue that it’ll take a decade or more to make the State competitive). People are, by and large, liking what they see. And, guys, the Democrats know this. Nobody told Harris but her own pollsters showed her a sure loser from Day One to Election Day (rumor has it that until about 11pm Eastern on Election Day she thought she was going to win…this is why the calls on the Battlegrounds came in so slow…once again, the MSM will not call a race until the Democrats give them permission to do so…had Harris been told she was a sure loser, they would have called the race as soon as California closed). Democrats have their own polls and they are likely showing Trump as popular…and this once again gets us back to their desperate judicial attempts to slow it down.

Lies Kill Two…and Millions

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Vice President Vance posted this picture of the two kids who were murdered yesterday by a radical Leftist from Chicago:

I do hope this picture gets spread as far as possible. Really look at it. Study their faces. Burn it into your memory. Look at them!

They’re just kids. Starting out in life. They’re not even all-Jewish as I understand the young man, Yaron Lischinsky, was Christian. As Sarah Milgrim was Jewish, that shows the actual cultural diversity of Israel. People of different backgrounds coming together in love – for one another, for their families, for their nation.

They were killed for two reasons:

  1. The shooter knew they were Israeli and thus assumed both were Jews.
  2. Lies.

For decades now, but on overdrive since 10/7, the world has been flooded with lies about Israel. The shooter believes he was taking a stand against “the genocide in Gaza”. One problem with that, there is no such thing. In fact, recent reports indicate that since 10/7, the population of Gaza has actually increased. I’ve long stated my views on the matter: I do believe that Israel has lost the war in Gaza because they didn’t do what was necessary after 10/7: total siege. Nobody and nothing in or out. Endless artillery bombardment with aerial attacks on precise military targets. The Palestinians are to surrender unconditionally, come out with their hands in the air and then be exiled to some other place outside of missile range of Israel (I have suggested Socotra). The Israelis have not done this out of a foolish concern about global opinion (as if that matters or as if anything Israel does will meet with global approval) – they have gone extremely soft on the Gaza population. This has not only resulted in what amounts to Israeli defeat, but it has cost Israeli lives. But that was all Israel’s call – they are the people who determine their fate, not me. But the bottom line here is that there is no cause for any reasonable person to have the least complaint about Israel in the matter. Yet “stop the genocide” is a regular Leftwing statement all around the globe.

Last night, a radical Leftist who believes the lies acted upon them. After all, if you sincerely believe that Israel is engaged in genocide, you strike against them wherever you can. If you were suddenly sent back in time to 1940, what measures would you refuse to take in stopping Hitler’s regime? Perhaps you’d stop at cannibalism, but not much else – just about any action is justified if it is to stop genocide.

Yaron and Sarah are two of millions. Untold millions. Dead here and there and all around the world because we have been told – and most of us firmly believe – that if we don’t allow liars to lie then we won’t be able to speak the truth. There’s some demonic perversion if you ask me! I am told and I used to even believe that if I don’t allow some ignorant Leftist halfwit shout “stop the genocide” then I won’t be able to say there is no genocide.

No.

Just no.

It doesn’t work that way. If liars are allowed to lie then things will be done based on those lies. Like the man who murdered two completely innocent people last night. They are dead. They aren’t coming back. Everything they might have had in life is gone. Taken away by a man who will now be afforded legal counsel and a fair trial and might even see the outside of a jail cell before he dies. And who will likely become a folk hero among the radical Islamists and the global Left. Because of lies. Had we stopped the first liar in his tracks, then the millionth liar wouldn’t have got two kids killed last night.

Lies must be punished. Severely. If you’re worried about how you might end up punished for lying then I suggest you keep your trap shut unless you’re sure its true. It isn’t a big ask. Not lying, that is. Nobody has a right to lie and nobody ever fought a war to secure a right to lie.

We must make lies illegal.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan5 Comments

Over in the UK a mother of a 12 year old was sentence to 31 months for a social media post. Meanwhile, the government is starting a new campaign called “Let’s be blunt”…lauding the use of blunt-tipped knives.

Just what the heck are we allied with Britain for? They don’t share our values. They aren’t a free people. They are cowardly in the face of foreign invasion. What are we defending Over There these days? Because what is happening in Britain is pretty much what’s happening all over Europe…more controls of speech, more and more disarming the population, more and more sheep-like acceptance of tyranny by the people. A Russian conquest of Europe at this point would make it freer (Putin doesn’t care if you’ve got a pointy knife or put up a harsh post on X – as long as its not about him, of course).

I mean, we know why the British and other European governments are doing this – they see what happened over here with actual free speech among an armed population: Trump. All over Europe there are parties committed to saving their respective countries and the European Ruling Class is determined to stamp them out. I believe they will be successful at this – the being disarmed thing is the worst position for European patriots to be in. They all agreed to give up their arms because lunatics might use some other weapons to kill…the very stupidest thing a person can do, but they did it. Now that they’re facing tyranny and invasion they’ve got nothing…all the complaints in the world won’t change a thing. The European Ruling Class has the guns and so no ultimate fear. But the question remains: what are we doing allied with such people?

To be fair, the only free nation in the world is the United States. Since 1787 this has been so because only our governing document secures our arms and our speech while also saying “Congress shall make no law”. As I’ve mentioned before, no other nation has this – every enumerated right, every restriction on government power has a “but” in it somewhere. Every right can be suspended and every power exercised and on the say-so of the mere parliamentary majority leader. Its not even a King robed in history making the call…just some half-wit politician who managed to climb to the top of the greased pole. But at least in times past Europe made a play at being free…there was a time when you could say what you wanted, you could be armed (even with restrictions) and the Europeans had some guts. Those days are long past and I’ve no interest in defending Europe. A foreign conqueror is welcome to the place as far as I’m concerned.

As we’ve noted many times, polls are a weak reed but yesterday a fairly respectable pollster came out with a Trump 55% approval poll. A lot of people discounted it and it is the outlier…on the other hand, the polls showing him at 42% are clearly bogus. So, backing them out and keeping the polls which actually got 2024 reasonably correct and Trump’s approval sits around 50%…so, while 55% is still an outlier, it ain’t much of one. And what I’ve found talking to people is that they are warming up to Trump fast. They see what he’s trying to do – and they can see his opposition is merely upset that their game is being messed with. Shouts of “he’s killing kids in Africa!” are a mask for “I’m not getting my kickback from USAID!”; nobody doubts this. And it is how it was.

There is also the sheer fun of it all. A judge, mayor and Congresscritter getting arrested is a delight. It is funny. And about time. Arrest more of them! Including a lot of Republicans! Trump being able to off-the-cuff spend an hour in front of the MSM – and making them look like fools – is another fun thing to watch. And we can see the prices of food and gasoline coming down. There is a real chance that 55% is correct.

Cancer-gate is going to have more legs than some suspect. Especially now after Trump posted yesterday that he’s not blaming Joe for what happened…stating that Joe would never have gone along with open borders and such and so it was traitors taking advantage of a senile man. That is a shot across the bow – and the entry point right now for exposing the whole thing is the alleged cancer. Is it real? Was Biden really not checked for it at Walter Reed? And in all this, what was his cognitive ability? Do remember that a couple months ago Trump posted that he considered the pardons null and void. Not much happened after that but by that time Trump had listened to the Hur tapes I’m sure…plus had conversations with the White House staff (I’m talking maids and butlers and such – these are rock-solid American patriots and the most discrete people in the world…but Trump is a guy who can talk to such people and get them to open up about things). He knows now as well as anyone outside of it can what was going on during Biden’s term…and he’s laying the groundwork for basically annulling the last part of Biden’s actions.