Covid

Open Thread

Mark Noonan109 Comments

I was at an impasse in Book VIII – mostly how to deal with a character who, it turns out, does have to die in order to build a really good story line for another character – the other day and so I sat myself in front of the idiot box to drop thinking for a bit (it does help; a clear mind can suddenly solve a riddle that has bothered you all day) and just absorb passively. As I clicked through the available product – mostly dreck, it goes without saying – I came across an interesting documentary. Produced by the BBC in 2015, it is called 1945: The Savage Peace.

The story it tells is what happened to the Germans of eastern Europe after WWII. Spoiler: it was bad. Like really, really bad. For a lot of people it will come as a revelation because it is something not covered in depth in Western histories of WWII and its aftermath. To nutshell it, after WWII the German territories of East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia were transferred to other nations – most to Poland with a slice of East Prussia going to the Soviet Union (and still part of Russia today – you can see it on the map as a small exclave between Lithuania and Poland). The German population of these territories was forced out – ethnically cleansed as we would put it today. Additionally, the German population of the Sudetenland in today’s Czech Republic as well as long-established German communities in Hungary and Romania were also sent off to Germany. It was many millions of people. Nobody knows exactly how many because in the chaos of the time nobody bothered to count how many were left in these Soviet-occupied areas of post-WWII Europe (quite a large number of them had, of course, fled ahead of the Soviet advance at the end of the war).

And it wasn’t done gently; the people who exiled the Germans were Poles, Czechs and others who had just spent years under very brutal Nazi German occupation and once they got on top of the Germans they very cruelly extracted their pound of flesh. Not only did these Germans lose their land, they lost pretty much everything but the clothes on their backs and while in transit to Germany they were subjected to beatings, rapes and murders. The documentary interviews several Germans who endured it – all very old by 2015 and between 10 and 15 years old or so when it happened. So, it is designed to evoke sympathy for the Germans and while the documentary does make passing reference to the immediately prior Nazi brutality, the whole thing is pitched to make out that the Germans were mere victims. And, to be sure, the people they interviewed – all kids at the time – were specifically innocent. They couldn’t interview their parents because by 2015 all those who were adults in 1945 were dead. But by doing this, it really wrecked the context. While little Helga was innocent her mom and dad were probably participants – or approved of – the equally brutal relocation of Poles in 1939-40. And like all German adults, they knew about the Holocaust and did nothing about it. And like the Russians who threw themselves upon the German population at the end of the war, the Poles and Czech almost to a man and woman had someone close murdered or otherwise brutalized by the Germans during the war. Two wrongs do not make a right…but you can’t lord it over people and treat them like despised slaves for 5 years and not expect some payback. That Helga had to watch in terror as her family was brutally exiled is sad…but Helga’s family should have considered that possibility while they were going Sieg Heil for all those years (East Prussia, for instance, voted overwhelmingly Nazi in the last free election).

I bring this up because this documentary works out to a re-write of history and coming off very badly in it are the Poles. Jews and Czechs also not looking all too kind. It is a white-wash of Nazi history and an attempt to slander people who are clearly out of favor in the European Establishment; the Poles, especially, not knuckling under to EU dictates about Woke policies and immigration. Germans, of course, are the pillar of the EU Establishment…so I guess they’ve decided to kinda gloss over that 1939-45 unpleasantness. I do perceive that we’re getting a lot more of this sort of thing…not just the “black people did everything wonderful” drivel, but attempts to reassign within European/Western history who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The bad guys are, of course, you; this started actually back in the 1980’s when people accused Ike of being a war criminal because some number of German POWs died in American captivity post-WWII. Some did; but people are always dying. An in-depth study showed that the German POW death rate was in line with everyone else in the area…all higher than normal but it was the immediate aftermath of WWII with Germany an entire wreck. But that didn’t stop the “bad Ike” stories…and in spite of being debunked, the myth persists to this day. The past is being edited just as in 1984 in order to control the present and future.

In a ridiculous attempt to cover up the side effects of the Covid vaccine they are now claiming that the common cold, all along, causes heart problems. They are really desperate to hide the truth.

The former CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch is accused of sexual abuse. I do admit to being entirely creeped out by the picture of the guy. Our world is run by degenerates.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan40 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Open Thread

Mark Noonan20 Comments

The very phrases “gender affirming care” and “assigned at birth” have to be banned and those in official positions who use them should be jailed.

So, Mark, why bring that up?

Because I saw yet another of those RINO statements we see about, “we’re better than that” and “you know, if we use government to coerce, it’ll be used against us!”.

As if it wasn’t already – and, no, we can’t be “better than that.”

The fundamental problem we have – and I’m not the only one seeing it – is that our side doesn’t realize that it is a fight to the finish. Either our dogmas will prevail or theirs will. And the losing side loses everything. There is no mid-point between “there are two genders” and “there are three (or more) genders”. There is no possible compromise between those who think that children should attend drag shows and those who think they shouldn’t. There is no way to reconcile “all men are created equal and are endowed with certain unalienable rights” and “abortion to birth, and maybe even for a few hours after”. We either become all that they demand, or they become all what we demand.

Now, because we aren’t Leftists – and thus not rat bastards – we’re never going to massacre those who hate us. But we must remove them from all positions of power and influence. They must be forced out of office. Terminated from their positions in the bureaucracy, corporations and educational institutions. Their tax free NGO’s shuttered and the funds confiscated.

There is no other way – a house divided against itself cannot stand. It must become all one thing, or all the other.

And Ron DeSantis is doing it. Trump issued a statement as well on this subject. There are more and more people coming to the understanding – shocking as it may be – that those who call us Nazis and who think the USA is inherently racist don’t wish us well.

They did a show called Velma – a spin off of the Scooby Doo franchise – and it has bombed. I guess they made Velma a woke lesbian and made the show a bunch of woke preaching. The insidious part of this is the attempt to rewrite everything to fit the modern Left’s vision of the world – there is no room for non-Left; everything must be converted to the new religion. The pathetic part of this is that the show isn’t pitched at 6 year olds – you know, the target audience of Scooby Doo. I loved the show – when I was a little kid. I wouldn’t bother with it today (or, indeed, any time after, say, my 10th birthday) because it is a silly and childish show not suited for even teenage intellects, let alone adult. What sort of adult cares about Scooby Doo? Only pyschos, in my view. That any adult looked at the Scooby Doo material and said, “hey, we need a lesbian Velma spinoff for adults” is someone fit only for the loony bin. What’s next, Yosemite Sam comes out as gay and opens up a flower shop?

Nothing is more funny than the Woke putting up illegal immigrants at high end hotels and then, when its time to leave, finding that those illegals don’t want to leave their swell digs.

Hey, guys: masks don’t work. And I mean, at all. Here’s the report proving it…but the fact that we needed a report shows how far gone we are. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of biology knew that masks don’t stop viruses. They can’t stop viruses. Viruses are too small. It was with mask mandates that I realized we were being conned – and that medical professionals (who know better) eagerly pushed masks demonstrated just how degraded our supposedly neutral professionals are.

The Trump vs DeSantis battle heats up. I’ll support the nominee no matter, but there is great rancor growing between supporters of the two…and I suspect grifters paid by the DNC are fanning the flames. I am unsure if the GOP can united in 2024.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan12 Comments

Feeling better! Covid does take it out of you. But, now I’m down to a cough and some general tiredness – sense of taste and smell is back.

That said…

The Democrat insanity on abortion has been on display all week and I think for many people it is their first real look at how Democrats – or at least their fanatic base – views the matter: they actually held a useless vote in the Senate to write Roe on steroids into law…it failed but their plan was to federally fund it on demand to the moment of birth with no conscience exemptions for medical providers. Thing would have been ripped to shreds at the Supreme Court had it passed. But that they even tried this useless thing – on a platform that, at best, has about 20% support – shows how insane they are about it. They’ve spent 50 years defending a Court ruling which, even if you’re pro-choice, is clearly unconstitutional and just horribly immoral…even liberal countries like France only allow abortion up to 14 weeks…and then only after two medical consults.

Meanwhile, China Joe and the Democrats continue to sink in the polls…and we’re starting to see that in primary voting, GOP enthusiasm is massively outpacing Democrat. We could be on the run up to a very large GOP victory.

Not that the GOP won’t do their best to blow it. I get people being sympathetic to Ukraine and disliking Putin’s Russia. I understand a desire to help them out – but for the majority of House GOPers to vote in favor of $40 billion no-strings-attached to Ukraine is just stupid. We know huge amounts of it will be siphoned off in graft. Meanwhile, here at home we’ve got an invasion at the southern border and our supply chains are so jacked up that in some areas there are shortages of baby formula.

Our domestic problems are large enough. And our foreign problems are China and drug cartels…even Islamist extremism simply isn’t worth our while to concentrate on at the moment. We have to get our house in order…not send billions to a Ukraine war which at any moment could drag us into open conflict with Russia. But there goes the Congressional GOP, nodding along with a Democrat/MSM Narrative. Wouldn’t be so bad if we could find a principal, but you just know they’re so in the Beltway that they’re seriously afraid we’ll think they’re Putin Puppets if they don’t go along with this boondoggle.

People are furiously fighting over Oz and, now, Barnette in the Pennsylvania Senate race. Lots of ostensibly pro-Trump voices being raised against them – in both cases over statements they made or may have made in the past. As I said regarding Oz, I won’t hold anyone to statements made in the past: especially if the statements are pre-2018 or so. We’ve all had a massive education these past few years and all of us view things a bit differently. As I pointed out on Twitter – what’s worse: a person who made ant-MAGA statements in the past, or a person who talks MAGA all day long and then knifes us? Plenty of the GOPers who voted for Ukraine aid probably have impeccable Conservative GOP credentials. I take everyone at face value these days: what do you propose right now? And sure I know that con artists will try to take advantage of this…but I’m at no more risk, and maybe a lot less risk, rolling the dice on a newly-minted MAGA than I am on the GOPe which has betrayed me for decades.

In the end, it is up to the votes of Pennsylvania to sort it out – but my advice to everyone is don’t take anyone’s word for it. Look it up yourself. We know that the most fierce voices are raised against those who fight for us – Trump, Greene, etc. And that tells me something: somebody doesn’t want me to have a champion. So, my first inclination when someone is attacked from the right is to question the attacker’s motives.

Court ruled that California’s ban on gun sales to under-21 is unconstitutional. Which, of course, is “no duh”. And I hate to break it to you, but as soon as someone sues on the cigarette and booze bans, they’ll go down as well. An adult is an adult. Period. Personally, I think we should never have lowered the age to 18 – stupid mistake. But if you make 18 the age where you can vote and enter into contracts, then that covers everything an adult is able to do…so, if you want your ban on booze to 19 year olds to stick, better amend the Constitution to return the voting age to 21.

Team Pudding Brain wants to turn American health care over to WHO – in the name of fighting the pandemic, but actually because (a) they hate the American people and (b) would love to be able to shrug and say “hey, we understand your anger here, but this is a WHO decision” whenever the global elite decides it is time to crush us under useless medical mandates.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan18 Comments

At a rally on Saturday, President Trump said that the President should have the power to fire all Executive branch employees. This is crucial to the survival of the Republic.

Civil Service reform in the 19th century was in response to what was known as the Spoils System – to the victor goes, ya know? It was under Andrew Jackson that the Spoils System became the rule. Often at the change of an Administration there would be massive turnover in the bureaucracy as the new guy replaced everyone with his cronies. The system was used to garner and retain political support and it often led to a well-connected dimwit being in charge of some particular part of the government apparatus. It was also, of course, massively corrupt, with the jobs often going to whomever gave the most. The idea behind Civil Service reform was to institute competitive exams to ensure only highly qualified people were hired and then to insulate them from being fired at the whim of the President. It was, ultimately, part of the Progressive program to place Experts in charge who would ensure good, honest government no matter how corrupt or stupid the elected officials were.

What happened, of course, is that the bureaucracy became self-perpetuating and mostly interested in protecting itself. The worst example of this was Hoover and his FBI – taking a small part of of the Justice Department and turning it practically into an independent branch of government with its finger in every pie. This is just normal for human nature: people want more and always find ways to justify getting more. The trouble with this appetite is that if it is government, it can only get more by taking away from the people. Having a set of people who can’t be fired means you’ve got yourself what amounts to a colonial occupier always looking to protect itself by taking away ever more of what you have.

Oh, and as an aside, the competitive exam part of it? You know, the bit where we’re supposed to ensure that only smart people are in charge? Yeah, that bit ended in 1981. Class action lawsuit claimed that the exams adversely impacted minority applicants – a consent decree ending the exam requirement was entered into. No vote. No law change. So, now we’ve got bureaucrats who can’t be fired and to get hired they’re not required to be high quality. In case you were wondering why our government agencies seem increasingly stupid year by year.

The harsh reality is that government is force – the power to kill and to jail. We try to keep control of this power by putting into the hands of people who must face the voters. The Civil Service reforms practically placed the power of the Executive in the hands of people who are un-elected. Trump found out that this means when the Executive is held by someone the civil service doesn’t like, the civil service will attack the Executive. You know: the sole person empowered by the Constitution to hold Executive power. There are risks in the ending of civil service protections – but the greater risk is continuing to allow un-elected bureaucrats to rule us.

The war in the Ukraine grinds on. What is amazing me is that the Ukrainians, the MSM and the government all admit that they are engaged in a propaganda effort to boost Ukraine and suppress Russian views and yet it seems that most people believe they are getting the truth.

Here’s the reality: the amount of money well-connected Americans have made in Ukraine is the primary reason to oppose involvement.

As the polls cause Democrats to lift mask mandates, a lot of people are confused. This is because they were suckered by a very stupid story…and now that the truth is obvious, they have two choices: either willfully remain blind, or become Republicans. Most will remain willfully blind.

Guys, the biggest worry about a nuclear war is how it will effect climate change.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan33 Comments

Justin Trudeau announced today that the state of emergency would continue even though the trucker protest has been ended – people who start using jackbooted thugs and unconstitutional punishments usually don’t like to give up such things. Among his statements is an assertion that any MP who doesn’t vote to approve dictatorship is opposed to Democracy. All of this brought to mind a Tweet I did a while ago: Progressives are not nice people. They are mean, nasty, self-loathing psychopaths. They are mere appetite for power and money and they despise those of us who have normal lives.

Only the United States is free in 2022, and we’re barely hanging on to it. Only the tattered threads of our Constitution and our federal system keeps us from falling into the dark night of tyranny. And day by day the minions of Pudding Brain are working to undermine both things – they hate us. They hate the United States and they want us to be on our knees to them. They do it in a hundred different ways from things like refusing to enforce immigration law to pressing auto companies to go all electric in their products. Anything they can do to take choice away from us and give it to faceless, Progressive bureaucrats.

If we win in 2022 and 2024, we have to go war against the State. Even if you won’t go as far as I do in wanting to abolish the police, you simply must agree that police powers, especially at the federal level, need to be curbed. We need specific laws prohibiting federal agents from doing certain actions- things like no regulation takes affect until approved by both houses of Congress in a stand-alone, up or down vote; no collecting of identifying data on American citizens without a warrant; banning asset forfeiture prior to conviction and even then only for assets which are proven in court to come from illegal activities; banning banks from reporting financial transactions to the government without a warrant (no more of that “if they deposit 10 grand, let Uncle Sam know”, which they want to change to a $600.00 threshold). We must dismantle the ability of government to know our activities or do anything to us prior to the issue of a warrant and/or a conviction in court.

They’re still fussing about Ukraine. I guess I’m supposed to care that Putin is trying to detach the predominantly ethnic-Russian areas of Ukraine. I do see the issue – especially as Putin also considers Ukrainians to be Russian – but I still don’t see why I’m supposed to care more than the Europeans do. I’m willing to help – provide all kinds of a support for a Franco-German army fighting to keep the Russians out of the Donbas. But if there isn’t a NATO army to support there, don’t see any reason to send an American army…which will be called “allied” because while we send, say, an Army corps the French send a regiment and the Germans a battalion.

Global warming got snow in the Chinese city of Xiamen for the first time since 1893. Apparently, a really arctic blast is hitting east Asia and it might be heading our way. I did check and in a couple days we’ll be dropping from balmly 60’s and 70’s down into the 50’s for high temps in Vegas.

Israel preps for Pudding Brain’s surrender to Iran on the nuke issue. Why are they doing this? Because Trump didn’t surrender and kept the mullahs in a strategic cage – and Team Pudding Brain’s main thing is to do the exact opposite of whatever Trump did.

As mask mandates are lifted, people are noting that some people just will not let the fear go. A Twitter friend points out that we were subjected to a military-grade psy-op on Covid and it worked very well. Some people were made so terrified of this 98%+ survivable disease that they are psychologically scarred. Maybe for life. My view: it all depends of if you watch TV. Those who watch TV got the full dose of the psy-op and so are wrecked. I’ve lost friends over this: and those I’ve lost are all avid consumers of TV.

Our Matt is sort of on Trump’s Truth Social platform – he’s gotten farther than I have. I figure demand for it is overwhelming, so I’ll be patient. And I’ll see you there! No shirking this one, guys: get an account. When I have one, I’ll post my handle here. We’ve got to build this thing up as fast as possible for political reasons.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan57 Comments

Of course they spied on Trump. We all knew that pretty much from the get-go, but it is nice to get some additional confirmation on it. The real problem isn’t the spying but that nobody will really pay the price for it. They’ll protect each other. In fact, I suspect that this particular release was allowed because some Democrats want to put a veto on Clinton’s revived interest in Presidential politics: there are plenty of signs and rumors that she’s at least thinking about a 2024 run. Most Democrats don’t really want that – certainly Team Pudding Brain and Team Harris don’t want it.

Our only way out of this is to dismantle the National Security State. As I’ve said before, it has to go. Really, having things like an FBI and CIA are incompatible with a Republic. We can, perhaps, endure a very small group of intelligence operators who focus entirely on external threats and ferret out spies in the US, but I mean small. Like not more than a couple hundred in total, with US Special Forces troops providing on the ground muscle at need. Certainly there must be strict prohibitions against collecting any data on American citizens without a warrant and periodic outside audits to make sure they’re staying on the straight and narrow.

Meanwhile, the word is that Durham’s investigation is accelerating.

Trafalgar, one of the best pollsters of the past few cycles, has it R+12 in the generic Congressional ballot. Nobody has ever seen anything like that. Everyone is (wisely) taking it with a grain of salt. This is wipe-out territory even if it is R+6. The real kicker in the poll: it was a D+3 sample. Under Pudding Brain, we may test the irreducible minimum of Democrat support.

Canada went under de-facto martial law today – never thought I’d see anything like that. It is very strange – all they have to do is end the absurd mandates and it all goes away. Its not like Trudeau was ever all that popular to begin with. He, in fact, got less votes than the Opposition last time out (though his party ended up gaining a few seats given the weirdness of Canadian politics). He’s pretty much already at the irreducible minimum for a Liberal Prime Minister and the next election is years away. But he’s calling out the big guns. Tactically, the truckers should retreat – just go home. And stay there. Let Canadians find out how dependent they are on truckers. Already there is increasing pressure within Canada to end the mandates, so what amounts to a strike by the truckers would be highly effective.

In the US, the mask mandates are dropping like rocks: our Democrat governor here in Nevada, who apparently can read the polls showing a Red Wave building here, decided that The Science called for an end to mask mandates. But here’s the weird thing: in some Democrat areas, the general mask mandates are being dropped but the mandates for masks in schools are being extended. That is just bizarre as kids are least at risk for catching and transmitting the disease. The teacher’s unions are naturally behind that, but I don’t see the upside for them on it. Could just be Progressive pigheadedness.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan18 Comments

The provincial government of Alberta is dropping the Covid restrictions. Seems like pressure works. Though, have a care: the announcement was rather surly and you can bet that if they think they can reimpose the restrictions, they will. And this doesn’t do anything to stop federal mandates in Canada.

The Army is working on Climate Change. We’re doomed.

Ron DeSantis has this to say about Rogan – he shouldn’t have apologized. Looks like someone combed through old Rogan podcasts and found that he said The Bad Words. Rogan apologized and that had the normal result: renewed calls to cancel his show. Never give in to the mob.

There’s a restaurant in NYC which is Castro-Che themed. I know you’re not surprised about that. Here’s the surprising bit: the owners decided to expand to new territory. Specifically, they decided to open a place up in Miami.

New Yorkers just don’t get out much, do they?:

I have a semi-viral Tweet. As of this moment about 2,900 retweets and more than 12,000 likes. This is many orders of magnitude more reaction than I normally get. Seems that the Washington Post printed an article with the title – and I’m not kidding – ACLU Challenges Youngkin Order Mandating Choice on School Masks. Emphsis added. My only comment was that it belonged in a museum…some weird, Orwellian museum. I just couldn’t imagine that someone could write that. These people are tying themselves into pretzels trying to keep up the Narrative. Later I found an article claiming that we on the right are weaponizing freedom to destroy Democracy. Are they stupid, or do they think we are?

Open Thread

Mark Noonan20 Comments

One of the sure signs of an impending political disaster for a political party is a series of articles explaining why in spite of everything going to heck in a hand basket, this time everything will be different. Getting a lot of these articles about the Democrats. The best so far was one which asserted that even in an R+1 environment, the Democrats can hold the House. Its like they’re ignoring that the GOP only needs a net gain of 6 to take the House. If it was D+4 this GOP takeover is likely to happen…but with Pudding Brain sitting at around 42% in the polling aggregates, the best outcome for the Democrats right now is a net loss of about 30.

And the really curious thing is that the Democrats don’t seem to fully realize what’s coming for them – I mean the stalwarts and the pundits. The Democrat leadership does, its why we’re up to something like 28 or 29 House Democrats calling it quits: who wants to fight a hard battle only to wind up in a very powerless House minority in 2023? And that minority gets more powerless all the time – both parties guilty (though Democrats far more guilty) of reducing the minority’s ability to affect legislation. And now in 2023 will come the tit for tat removal of Democrats from committees. I really can’t explain the Democrats on this – with a razor thin majority, the time was to try to co-opt at least some GOPers…nothing doing: it has been all hard left. Could be, of course, that with the narrow majority the far Left Democrats are insisting and Nancy really can’t do anything else.

We’ll see how it comes out – but I don’t think Democrats can talk their way out of bare shelves and high gas prices.

We did some sort of raid into Syria. Supposedly to kill some terrorist mastermind – they say we got him, and also got some kids. I think the bad guys are making sure they’re always around kids and other non-combatants. Seems to me that we should pay a hitman to take these guys out – less expensive and less chance of killing kids when we do it. It is probably illegal for us to do that – but Congress has the power to grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal (though some treaties we’ve engaged in limit that), and I think we should go that route – even if it means denouncing some treaties. Let our intel agencies name the guys we want dead, put a price on it and then grant a Letter of Marque to anyone who wants to give it a shot – bring us proof the target is dead, collect the money. You’re on your own – get caught or killed, nothing will be done for you. Plenty of people would take us up on the offer.

Facebook is losing users. It is the most irritating social media platform I’m on. I only retain my account because it allows me to keep track of family and friends. But I have been suspended for the most mild political jokes posted. And my account is small, which means some narc who knows me – or knows someone who knows me – is monitoring my posts and reporting me. Others are even more irritated than I am. Facebook has a choice: be a platform which allows people to talk, or die. Personally, I think they’re going to die: like the MSM, their cultural imperatives are such that they can’t change.

Think of Joe Rogan: he gets 11 million views for his podcast (I’ve never listened to it, myself). This is more than the top three cable news programs combined (all of which are on Fox). Listening to people who talk about him, he seems a left-of-center guy who just invites people on who he thinks have something interesting to say – you know, keep the show topical and interesting to draw and retain an audience. The rather “no duh” media model. All the MSM has to do to restore its viewership is do the same thing – stop being DNC lapdogs and just talk openly about things people might want to hear. Presto: eyeballs on screens. But they can’t seem to do it – they’ve gone with their usual method: trying to get Rogan banned. They managed to snooker (very easily, because they’re stupid) some aged, has-been recording artists to pull their music from Spotify (which carries Rogan) with a demand that Rogan goes, or they go. The funniest bit about this is David Crosby who made a fuss after Neil Young did…but it seems that neither Crosby nor Young own their music rights, having sold them in the past (presumptively after blowing all their money). But even if they could get their stuff off, Spotify is telling them to take a leap – Rogan is getting 11 million hits a show…Crosby is probably getting a few thousand hits a month.

Canadians have had it with Trudeau’s Covid restrictions and massive protests by Truckers are causing all sorts of trouble for the Canadian Ruling Class. With the workers uniting to resist oppression, the Socialists know what to do: take down the Truckers Go Fun Me account.

Meanwhile, Team Pudding Brain put out its latest Covid plan and it says…to pretty much keep on doing what we’re doing: useless mask and vaccine mandates. These mandates will only be followed by the Democrat governors already following them…GOP governors will continue to ignore them. The math here is very strange: to be sure, a segment of the population is still terrified of Covid. This is the Democrat base – especially white, upper class college educated females. You’ll still find them talking about being triple vaxxed and never stirring from home except at great need. But, seriously, how big a political constituency is this? It can’t be more than 15% of the population, tops. Everyone else is really getting rather done with it: as has been pointed out, if masks worked, then they would have worked a long time ago. After two years of wearing a face diaper everywhere if we still have Covid, then we ain’t getting rid of it. All the mandates do is please the cowardly and piss everyone else off.

And that is before you add in the hypocrisy – mask mandated California is about to host a maskless Super Bowl. You know, we can all see this – and see the politicians not wearing a mask (the LA Mayor was caught without one and seriously tried to sell us “I held my breath as I took the picture”). We know its all BS. We can’t imagine why some people are still living in a world where we have to “fight Covid”…and my bet is that when vote-counting time comes around, the number of people who will punish mandates will vastly exceed those thankful for them.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan29 Comments

Team Pudding Brain has been caught transporting around the USA large numbers of single, fit male illegal immigrants. This is actually against the law – as Rep Dan Crenshaw pointed out, an impeachable offense.

I’m not sure how serious Crenshaw is – he may just be putting out some boilerplate in an election year. And I think a lot of people would say that Biden should be impeached for breaking the law. But, that would be wrong. And our Amazona gonna love this:

Joe Biden should be impeached for failure to see that the laws are faithfully enforced. That is right there in the Constitution. It isn’t ambiguous: the President shall take care that the laws are faithfully enforced. In short, we’d be impeaching him for violating his oath of office. Cool, huh?

And to me it is a crucial point of principal: our government is increasingly lawless. Officials of it do whatever it is they think they can get away with. This is destroying the very fabric of our nation and so it is necessary for us to fight it out on the issue of rule of law. Of course, it is usually difficult to do this because most of the time you don’t have a handy case easily understood. We do now. The American people are aware of illegal immigration. They are aware that when Joe came in there was a huge surge in border crossings…what they don’t know is that Team Biden is refusing to enforce the law. That these people are not just being cut lose but are being transported by the government to their illegal release point. The issue is tailor made for us – and it can be made even more dramatic by highlighting what some of these people will end up doing over the next year (you know a percentage of them are mere criminals).

We impeach Biden on the accusation that he didn’t enforce the laws per his oath of office, we’ll win the PR battle – and then watch Democrats immolate themselves asserting that the President doesn’t have to enforce the law. Mark my words on it: they will lash themselves to the mast on this. They are committed to lawlessness. They will die on that hill. So, let’s help them do so.

War for Ukraine? Not interested. Neither, I think, are most people – and here the old line GOP (McConnell, eg) is entirely out of step with the base. This does surprise me as Mitch is usually pretty sensitive to where the political wind is blowing. There is no rally ’round the flag here. We are not in any sense of the word a unified nation: we are at each other’s throats and until we resolve our domestic conflicts we’d better walk small on the world stage…but it seems as if bureaucratic inertia is moving us to a risk of war. Our real hope is that Putin sees it isn’t worth it…that a dying American Ruling Class may end up doing something very stupid and so he’d better give it a rest. Fingers crossed on this one.

Niel Young, whom you are surprised to find still alive, demanded that Spotify remove his music. And most of his fans went, “what the heck is Spotify?”. Young was upset that Spotify carries Rogan’s show, which dares to cast doubt on the official Covid narrative. So, the man who once sung about facing off against Nixon’s soldiers is now an Establishment shill. Pathetic – but hippies always tend to be that, don’t they?

There is probably no liquid water on Mars. They thought they had detected some, but Mars is simply too cold. I really don’t expect us to find much on Mars – certainly no life. It has the materials for us to live, but only if we can resolve the gravity and radiation issues.