Never Trump Never was Conservative

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Ace takes Jonah Goldberg to task over an article Goldberg wrote in 2013 – an article arguing that GOP voters should ignore Mark Sanford’s adultery and vote for him, anyway, because the Democrat candidate was so liberal that it wasn’t worth, in 2013, standing by an absolute condemnation of adultery to the detriment of the overall political cause. There are, of course, strengths and weaknesses to such an argument, but Ace’s main point is that for some, weird reason in the middle of 2015, Goldberg (and the rest of Never Trump) suddenly decided adultery was such a hideous sin that it’d be better if Hillary were elected President. Because the lady who helped cover up her husband’s adultery is morally superior to a guy who committed adultery, or something.

And the “or something” is this, in my view: the people who make up Never Trump never wanted Conservatism to win. What such people wanted was the entirely of liberal social policy combined with low taxes (especially on corporations, and especially in the form of so-called “free trade” agreements). Oh, and drop a few bombs every now and again on poor foreigners and send Flyover Americans out to fight from time to time – always on the understanding they’d never be allowed to win and they could face criminal charges if their actions upset some DoD lawyer.

What we have to do here is to realize we were suckers. Conned. Yokels who were taken in by city slickers. No shame in it, because the con artist is still the bad guy. But, we were stupid: we paid and we voted and we waited and waited and waited for decades for the Great Conservative Victory…and even when we had power (including total power under Bush from 2003 to 2007) nothing Conservative ever happened. Even after that, we still didn’t put two and two together. It wasn’t until Trump came along that the mask was ripped off – and it was ripped off because Trump not only said he’d do conservative things, but he actually started doing them.

Now, to be sure, the original Never Trump objections to Trump had some validity. I know people who were Trumpsters from Day One (my brother is one of them) but there were a lot – a lot – of people, like me, who went for Anybody But Trump until there was no one left but Trump. I even know some people who, faced with the choice between Hillary and Trump, decided to not vote for President, or vote for some Third Party candidate as a protest. The bottom line is that in 2016, there were plenty of solid reasons to not want Trump – not least of which was what I feared the most: that if he got in, he’d strike a deal with the left and leave us high and dry. But, still, I voted for Trump – because I saw clearly that there was a moral issue at stake here and no matter what Trump had done, it wasn’t remotely as bad as Hillary had done and in policy, with Trump, I might at least get something I wanted from time to time. But then Trump won and started to govern. Lo and behold, within months of taking office, he was accomplishing more solid, conservative things than even Reagan had done. In short, by about July of 2017, if you were conservative, you made your peace with Trump because, as it turns out, his victory was a good thing.

Now it became crunch time, as it were. I wrote, I think shortly after the election, that anyone who remained Never Trump for a long period of time would eventually become left. I was a bit wrong about that. They didn’t become, they already were. There is plenty of evidence of this – most notably in how so many Never Trump people have jettisoned their beliefs nearly entirely. They no longer offer conservative criticism of Trump because you can’t conservatively oppose the conservative policies of Trump’s Administration (small exception is on trade: you can be a conservative free trader…I’ll disagree with you on that, but because you want Free Trade and I want Protection doesn’t mean either of us are liberal). To me, this just isn’t really possible, outside of a religious conversion. And while liberalism is like a religion (more like a cult, these days), it isn’t exactly like that. But we do have people who are becoming liberal and just baldly asserting things as truth which yesterday they said were lies.

I can only work from the assumption that they never believed a word of what they said before. I don’t know (and don’t care) if they believe what they are saying, now. But that rapid a 180 by such a large number of people – supposedly educated people – is just too unlikely except as a result of cynical dishonesty. They were dishonestly and cynically parroting Conservatism when it punched the ticket (and had no chance of winning and thus no chance of forcing them to do something they didn’t want to do) and are now parroting Liberalism because that is now punching the ticket. I wish the liberals a lot of luck with them (and some liberals are on to the scam and are disgusted by the embrace of these people by the left…no decent person likes a traitor. Ever.). As for me, I’m just glad we are rid of them – we still might lose, but at least now we’ll lose after a fight, and that allows you to rest easy, no matter what the outcome.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan38 Comments

RBG, where are you?

NATO will increase defense spending by $100 billion. Amazing what you can get when you have a President who asks.

The former Starbucks CEO (some rich dude; could care less who he really is) is rumored to be planning an Independent, moderate liberal campaign for President. And this, naturally, scares the bejabbers out of the Democrats. Can you imagine their tears if Trump wins New Jersey with 43% of the vote? Anyways, typical for modern liberal fascism, they are trying to intimidate him into not running.

Meanwhile, to make liberals even happier: rumors persist that Hillary may yet run again.

Don Surber gives you some idea about what a loss to journalism the death of Buzzfeed would be.

RSM goes over a recent murder case: poor, little girl is killed in a drive by. She’s black and, in the initial confusion, her family says the suspect is a white man. Cue the MSM to scream “hate crime” all over the place. The case quietly dropped out of the news when two black men were arrested for the crime. The family appears mortified by what happened – and, I would be, too. Not only the unbearable pain of losing a family member, but also being made the focus of a false MSM Narrative. This sort of thing is getting out of hand – liberals (and Never Trump, but I repeat myself) are ginning up hatred and division for mere partisan advantage…but when you feed hate, hate is what you’ll get.

Victor Davis Hanson goes over this sort of thing in relation to the Covington boys. What must be kept in mind is that racism – real racism – is almost non-existent in America in 2019. So, too, with homophobia and sexism. This is why the left insists there are “dog whistles” and “white privilege”. You can’t find anything remotely approaching Bull Connor, so you have to make up things to fill the role. And part of making up things is to make up racial incidents. And, so, they make them up – the more I hear about the Convington case, the more convinced I am that people went there to do it…and merely looked around until they found targets they thought they could frame (with the help of an MSM which would accept the Narrative and try to suppress the facts). The problem is that if you treat people like dirt – and the Convington boys were treated like dirt – then eventually the people you spit on are going to strike back. Hard.

A Cave or a Tactical Retreat?

Mark Noonan50 Comments

Did Trump cave? Time will tell. But, let’s look it over:

We were at an entire impasse. The Trumpist base was delighted with the shutdown and fully prepared to wait forever for the government to reopen. The Democrats were also delighted with the shutdown and fully prepared to wait until Trump agreed to a permanent spending bill with no wall. Neither side felt any desire to move – and, in fact, both sides faced the wrath of their own base if they did move. What was the end game on this?

Sure, Trump could have just continued with the shutdown and used emergency powers to build the wall. But, he said very clearly that he still may do that. Meanwhile, there are other things to do, none of them getting done if the shutdown goes on and on. Someone needed to take the Base Hit and move. Trump decided to move. He has said that he’ll give it a few weeks to see what the Democrats do, and then either return to a shutdown or just build the wall. Our real trouble here is that we don’t know what Trump fully has in mind, and as I’ve noted before, in the really crucial policy moves, there are no leaks from Team Trump.

There are things moving in the world, and while we all do feel delighted with the shutdown, there are things that we want done which are hampered by the shutdown. Then there is the thing of foreign and defense policy which can’t sit in suspension forever. The fast-moving situation in Venezuela once again informs us that we have to be nimble. Trump has a grave responsibility as President and I don’t think it would have been wise to just keep going and going and going. He showed that he’s ok with it – longest shutdown in US history, after all – but, in the end, when you’ve reached an impasse, you have to do something different if you want to break it.

I’m in the position of trusting Trump’s instincts on this. If it was a mistake, then that will just have to be endured. But if Trump has something up his sleeve (perhaps inside knowledge of coming events which will make the shutdown moot?), then we all might wind up very pleased after all is said and done.

We’ll just have to wait.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan63 Comments

Act Blue is supposedly a small-donor organization allowing Democrats to give small amounts which are then passed out to various causes and candidates. In my view, the actuality is that it is a money-laundering operation taking in big donor cash in small increments and then passing it out to various causes and candidates. Be that as it may, it is a powerful fundraising tool for the Democrats, as we saw in 2018. The GOP seeks to counter it with an organization which will genuinely take in small donor cash. It is important to counter the Democrats – not that the money is all too important, but donations to such groups are considered a barometer of political health with the grassroots.

Nathan Phillips, the leftist Native American activist who caused the ruckus with the Catholic boys is not a Vietnam Vet – and if a DD-214 I saw earlier is correct, he’s a former USMC reservist with only a little more than two years active service and a lot of AWOL in there. In short, he’s just like all leftwing activists: a dishonest grifter.

Related: Covington kids are going to the White House.

Ace has been on fire about the Covington case – if you’re not a regular reader of the blog, you’re missing out. Come on: go over there and become the Moron you were always meant to be (look it up: you’ll find out in the archives why you’re a Moron). Anyways, he’s had a lot of choice words of late:

…maybe donate to American Greatness. Or to the American Mind. Or to The Federalist — so when FusionGPS’ paid ops sh** out the twitter hashtag #WhoFundsTheFederalist?, you can say, “I fund them, motherf***er.”

Or donate to this here blog.

Should we continue funding failure? What do we expect will come out of our continuing investment in failure?

We asked them to take our concerns to the establishment, to act as our tribunes to the actual decision-makers, so that our concerns would be addressed.

They mostly refused, and mostly delivered the establishment’s concerns to us.

We asked them to take our side against the media’s constant attacks.

They mostly refused. People like David French have a nice little cottage industry going of calling conservatives racists in The Atlantic.

We asked them to score a political victory for us once in a while.

They completely failed. This may be our fault, for wrongly assuming they had any efficacy or influence to begin with.

Now we’re down to the very most minimal request: Please don’t scalp-hunt our children just because Jezebel and the HuffPo are doing it and you don’t want to feel like a left-out Nazi.

Kurt Schlichter: everyone who takes on Trump gets crushed. It really does seem that way, doesn’t it? I think it is because he’s the first GOPer in a very, very long while who really takes on the left. Reagan did it a bit, but never with the knee-to-groin ruthlessness necessary. I note, with great care, that Trump never starts these fights…but when he punches back, he punches to knock out. And usually does.

Never been a particular fan of Jeanine Pirro – and these days I just don’t watch much TV (its more of a device to watch DVD’s on, now; and I’m wondering why I pay for cable, at all) – but she let rip on Pelosi:

“So let me see if I understand this: An American mother shows a picture of a child murdered by an illegal, and Chuck Schumer and his gang they come out and show pictures of federal employees. Is there a moral equivalency here? Are you folks, schizo?”

“Are you working for Americans or illegals? Or is it that you just don’t give a damn? You vacation in Hawaii. Your buddies vacation in Puerto Rico during a shutdown and you plan a jaunt to Europe while federal employees are trying to save every dollar to buy groceries. Admit it — you don’t give a damn.”

It is an important point – but do keep in mind that our liberals don’t view it like that. I know: I’ve got deep blue friends. They are convinced that Pelosi spends her whole life caring and only wants to help everyone and only us mean, racist, sexist, homophobic Republicans stand in the way. Even back in 2009 when the had the White House and overwhelming Congressional majorities.

Stalinism Comes to America

Mark Noonan27 Comments

I’m sure you’ve all heard by now of the Covington Catholic blow up so I won’t go over the specific details. Suffice it to say that it was clearly a planned operation designed to elicit a specific result: Catholics are bad. Outside of the general hatred of Christianity on the left, I think it is all part of a plan (the attacks on Mrs. Pence being part of this) to so denigrate Christianity that when RBG’s replacement is named, the left will feel safe in attacking the nominee on purely religious grounds. But there is more to it than that.

Carried along by their conviction that they are on “the right side of history”, the left has decided to go full Stalinist. They are identifying certain segments of our society as the enemy solely responsible for all of the ills of society – and they are suggesting ever more violent remedies to remove these malefactors from society. That is Stalinism in a nutshell. Unable to provide the Socialist utopia promised – and not particularly interested in providing it in the first place – Stalin hit upon the clever scheme of finding someone to blame for all problems, and then mercilessly going after them. That is what the American left is now engaged in.

In America, the “wreckers and Kulaks” of Stalin’s Russia are now the straight, white Christians – mostly male, but they’ll lump in any woman who doesn’t pledge allegiance to feminism: they are the source of all ills. They have made every problem, on purpose, because they are simply bad and wish to do evil at every opportunity. And we can’t make a prosperous, safe and just society as long as these straight, white Christians are in power. And, furthermore, all they are doing is upholding White Supremacy…so, getting rid of them by any means, fair of foul, is legitimate.

Those Catholic school kids could have been anybody – it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that they can be identified as the enemy. In this case, the identity was created by putting out a short clip of a video which was claimed to show certain, bad actions. That the alleged bad actions didn’t happen – and the larger video clearly shows they didn’t happen – was irrelevant. They only needed their small video clip as proof…and what appears to have been a well-coordinated series of social media sock puppet accounts and previously prepared MSM coverage, immediately took over. In an instant, the boys were evil Catholic racists worthy of having their lives destroyed. That it is all proven false, now, is actually quite irrelevant. The footsoldiers of the left believe 100% in the original Narrative (they won’t even look at the evidence showing it false) while a thrill of fear went through all non-left hearts: if they can do this in an instant to a random group of kids, they can do it to anyone.

We’re going to see more and more of this – a blatant, naked attempt to rile up their troops while at the same time frightening us into silence. They will get their troops riled up – but I’m not sure that they are going to get the silence they expected. When it first came up, I pretty much ignored it – figuring it was just another race hoax of the sort we’ve seen so often lately. But as it unfolded, it became clear that it was more than that. And, at first, most right voices remained silent (while the Never Trump immediately took the left’s side in the fight). It was only after the proof came out that right voices started to rise…and as the monstrosity became fully revealed, people got ever more angry.

Get ready for the most intense, hate-filled political period in American history since the Civil War. This is going to get very ugly, very fast. At stake is all the marbles: either they win, and we’re done for, or we win.

Trump the Good

Mark Noonan39 Comments

After the latest WE GOT HIM, NOW!!! in the MSM about Trump failed, it started to occur to me that the problem our Liberals and Never Trump have is that they are working from the assumption that Trump is just like them. Meaning, that Trump is as much a garbage person as they are, or at least as much garbage as those they prefer to have in power.

Think about it: all of these people who really go after Trump, can you name anything constructive they’ve ever done in their lives? They are pundits and activists and consultants and think tank denizens…but have they, in any real sense, ever had a real job? Lived the real life?

Now, to be sure, Trump is rich, and he was born rich. I think and wonder what I might have been like at 30 with an essentially unlimited supply of money. Unlimited supply of money and also famous. All that money and fame and beautiful women always circling around. I don’t know what I would have been like – but the temptation to at least take advantage of certain things offered would have been mighty hard to resist. And, it seems, that at times Trump didn’t resist the temptation. But, that he sinned merely means he’s human. And there’s a huge difference between a good man who sins (the Bible says that even the righteous man falls seven times a day, after all), and a bad person who positively enjoys sinning.

The reason we’ve got things like the Mafia is because some people simply like to do bad. They consider it fun. They also consider it far more worthwhile to get via screwing over someone else than it is to get by work. It is just part of the run of humanity. Most people resign themselves – in joy or sorrow – to merely doing what needs to be done and assuming that the proper reward will come of that. But some, and it isn’t a small number, are forever seeking the angle – the con which will get them what they want without all that tedious necessity of earning it. Some of the people like that – the more “successful” ones – are rich. But not all of them are; and not all people who are rich are like that. Some rich people are actually quite decent. And I think Trump is one of them.

Trump, from what I can see, doesn’t seek ill for anyone. He’ll punish anyone who crosses him (though he should, at times, turn the other cheek), but he doesn’t seek the destruction of others. He’s one of those people – my grandfather was another – who are entirely ok with other people doing well. My grandfather’s mot was “better to have 10% of something than 100% of nothing”. Meaning, if you can help others win while you’re winning, it is all to the good. Trump seems to be like that. But think about the people who essentially run things in America: it is a gigantic, vicious competition to see who gets on top and the way you get to the top is by crawling over the lives of those you destroyed. Matt and I experienced this when we were blogging and trying to break into writing for money: outside a few gems, no one would help us. They were fearful that if we got, they’d lose. They didn’t see it as something where if we all teamed up, all of us would do well. They didn’t want that – they all wanted themselves to be Number One…and in their minds, that meant keeping people like me out and down.

But, as I said, Trump doesn’t seem to be like that. The Democrats and Never Trump are going to keep on tripping over themselves because they keep looking for the evidence that Trump is just like they are, and he’s not. They’ve found out he’s not perfect – but that didn’t take much effort as it was in the news all along. But they will not, I suspect, ever find the kind of evidence to prove he’s like the Clintons, or Pelosi or any one of a hundred Establishment grifters. He’s not on the take. He hasn’t destroyed anyone. He hasn’t abused anyone. He’s just a normal man – meaning, he’s a good man (who sins).

Shortest Congressional Junket, Ever

Mark Noonan36 Comments

So Pelosi and her Congressional minions were on their way to a Congressional junket and while they were on the bus heading towards the airport, Trump cancelled the trip and they were forced to turn around and return to the Capitol.

This is the most glorious thing I’ve ever seen in politics.

Sure, the Never Trump people are in lockstep outrage with the Democrats/MSM, but no one cares what any of them think.

Tit for tat – no more letting the Democrats be nasty and no counter-fire.

Shutdown Open Thread

Mark Noonan36 Comments

Day 24 of the Government Shutdown and I still don’t care…its a challenge to see if it goes on long enough to make me care.

A lady shoots a mugger and a liberal complains about it – eventually, he boils it down: he just wants a world without violence. Count me out of such a world. Outside of Heaven, you’d only get such a world by draining out of the human race every semblance of courage, honor and willingness to take risks. Because we want people to bravely go and do things, we need courage – because we have courage, we will have people who will misuse courage. That is just human nature: some people will go bad. Only mindless, spineless slaves could live in a world without violence.

LA teachers are out on strike, demanding more money. Of course, they are always getting more and more and more money. In fact, they are awash in money. And its not like anyone is seriously demanding they produce educated children. Been decades since any parent in LA actually demanded that sort of outcome. Naturally, the liberals who govern LA are in full accord with the teachers – all they need is for the liberals who run California to extract more tax money from the ever shrinking number of middle class Californians. And, that will be done.

It is only 167 feet, but the problem is we didn’t detect this asteroid which came very close until a couple weeks before it arrived. We need a bigger budget to track these things. Of course if a really big one comes, not much we can do…but, also, we’ll pick up a really big one fairly far out. But a smaller one, big enough to kill thousands to millions, might not show up on our screens until it is far too late.

The Brexit deal failed in Parliament. I’m with those who think it deliberate – make such a bad deal that everyone unites against it…and then call for a new referendum and count on overwhelming Establishment hostility to convince a bare majority of Britons to reject Brexit.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

Robert Stacy McCain offers some sage advice for any young men out there seeking female companionship.

I’ll add a small note: I definitely fall into the bottom 15% (read it, you’ll understand), but if there are any youngsters out there reading this, I’ll double down on McCain’s advice about having a self-deprecating sense of humor. It is very useful! When you really do it right, a lady will think you’re charming. That goes a long way.

Seal the deal by learning how to cook.

Democrats are already lining up to run against Trump. Illustrative of how this will go is Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). She’s as liberal as the day is long but deep in her background was a time when she wasn’t full-blown liberal. Because of these past heresies, she’s being mercilessly savaged in the liberal world. Mark my words: for 2020, the left – which controls who gets the Democrat nomination – will not settle for anything less than an Absolute Not Trump. Their nominee will have to sign off on the very latest iteration of whatever it is the left is hating Trump about, no matter how obscure or silly it is. If someone on the left makes an accusation against Trump, everyone who wants to be the Democrat nominee will have to subscribe to it. It’ll get really interesting.

In re the Wall and Shutdown, Don Surber notes that Trump Hatred has trapped the Democrats – they hate him so much they are fighting over an amount of money that is so small, it works out to a rounding error. Earlier, I happened to overhear someone conversing with another about the mess – the person doing most of the talking was apparently married to a furloughed worker and went on and on and on about what a bad man Trump was, how stupid the wall was, blah, blah, blah. What was remarkable, to me, was that the other party – while clearly having no love for Trump – kept pushing back and insisting that the wall was necessary because the border does have to be controlled. I think we’re seeing that dynamic play out nationwide: the Democrats just keep repeating their talking points, but it is blowing right past non-Democrats because everyone can see the fight is about nearly nothing and, what the heck, why not build the wall? I think Trump will win this – only a craven surrender by the Senate GOP could derail us, and I don’t think Cocaine Mitch is in the mood to surrender.

It’s a poll from a Libertarian outfit (and, so, probably skewed anti-war), but it shows that the American people largely back Trump’s withdrawal from Syria. I’d have to look it up for how long ago I wanted us to withdraw from the Middle East, entirely: but it was a while back ago. Long before Trump. I did, of course, back the war in Iraq but I thought at the time – given Bush’s “axis of evil” bit – that it was a mere precursor to war with the actual source of the Middle East problem: Iran. I would have had it – Iraq, then Syria/Lebanon…and, then, if Iran hadn’t collapse, on to Tehran to finish the job. A swift moving series of military actions, with no fussing about nation building (I’d prefer we just find local strongmen and let them rule the locals, backed by our force), would have rocked the enemy on his heels and, also, prevented an anti-war left from really coalescing. Bush decided to do it differently, likely on the advice of people at State and Defense. I don’t think the American people are anti-war, as such, but they are anti-war-forever. They are anti-no-victory. They are anti-wasting-time-and-lives. If we go to war, we should go all the way. And if we can’t see our way to that, we should just stay home.

The Wall Open Thread

Mark Noonan33 Comments

Rumor has it that Trump may yet declare a national emergency to ensure the wall gets built. This is, naturally, getting our Never Trump Fredocons in an uproar. Their basic line is that if Trump does this, then the Democrats will turn around and declare a national emergency in the future to impose things like socialized medicine. Of course they will. But they’ll do that regardless of what we do. The Democrats hate law and custom – all they seek is the swiftest means available to impose their views. If we refuse to use our power just as ruthlessly as they do, all they do is laugh at us for being such fools.

We are backs-to-the-wall, folks. Constitutional norms went out the window a very long time ago. Right around the time the Supreme Court found a “right” to an abortion in a document which doesn’t even mention a subject remotely related to a medical procedure. Sure, I’d like it very much if the Constitution and our laws and customs were adhered to by all – but, they’re not. And as the law, as written, appears to give the President the power to declare such an emergency, Trump should go right on and do it, if that is what proves necessary.

And that’s another thing that is burning me up, lately: Trump is doing everything he can to keep to his proper, Constitutional powers. He very much wants to keep everything neat as a pin in law. And he’d get that – if everyone on our side would just get on board and provide a completely united front, rather than writing articles which give Democrats hope we’ll cave, then the Democrats would collapse. They are already a bit messed up because the normal script – immediate GOP surrender – isn’t happening here. They are nothing and nobodies – all we have to do is treat them as such, and so it will be.

Judicial rumor mill is that RBG will quit, soon. We’ll see. But she will have to soon voluntarily leave the Court, or she’ll have to leave it perforce. She’s rather old, you know?

So, they say that space travel won’t turn germs into super bugs. But that is just what They would want you to believe, right?

Bit of a legal note: being found not guilty in court does not work out to being declared innocent. I’ll add a note of my own: we’re finding out, all too often, that just because a person plead guilty to something in court, it doesn’t mean he did anything wrong.

NBC is saying that you can cut through Trump’s proposed border wall with common tools. There is an argument over whether the tools used were all that common. But, to me, that is all irrelevant. Of course a human being, given time and tools, will be able to get through any barrier. We’re rather clever – been so since we first banged those rocks together, ya dig? But the purpose of a wall is not to be an impervious barrier, but to be a barrier which takes a lot of time and effort to get past…thus giving those guarding the barrier a better chance to stop you.