Open Thread

Now that the whole football thing is over with, we can fully concentrate on the sport that matters: Hockey!

We here in Vegas fell in love with our Golden Knights during the inaugural season 7 years ago and the love affair has just grown since then. Going from Misfits to Champions in 6 years just cemented it. I had never watched more than a couple minutes of hockey in my life until that first season…but as the Knights started to shock the world by winning and getting into playoff contention, I started to watch. It took a little while to grasp the rules and tactics of the game but I’m pretty well grounded now…periodically shouting at the TV “shoot, dammit, there’s a lane open” and “for crying out loud, don’t turn it over at the blue line” and other such hocky-fan things. It is the last, remaining un-woke sport, anyways. And I like the element of luck in it. In all major sports the worst can beat the best but in hockey just a little more so…because you’re trying to get a little black thing to go into a net off ice. The skills are there, the shot is there and its perfect…but it hits a post or goes just slightly wide. You never know how a game can go…how at times you’ll go 40 minutes of play without anyone scoring, and then in five minutes 4 goals are scored collectively. So, hoping my Knights repeat! To make up for the national humiliation of the Chiefs repeating.

Everyone in Pudding Brain’s world is out there asserting that Biden is vigorous and sharp as a tack…while he’s got no official actions scheduled for the next three days. You know: the middle of the work week. That presser he gave was a catastrophe…and his Super Bowl rant about potato chips didn’t help. Everyone knows: he’s senile. He’s probably lucid no more than a few hours a day and can’t possibly map out a strategy. We’re now governed by a collection of West Wing staffers and Jill who try to work the Joe Oracle to get a decision…its why everything is a mess right now. The only way out, now, is a Trump vote in November.

And that is why with very few exceptions I’m getting harsh with Never Trump. To be fair, I know a few who have consistently opposed Trump on policy grounds since 2015. That’s fine. I disagree but if someone is giving me an honest opinion based on facts and their interpretation of same, I can’t really complain. But the broad mass of Never Trump are just mind-numbed Orange Man Bad cretins. There is no moral or intellectual world where Biden is better than Trump. Getting Biden out is crucial to the basic safety of the United States. And these Never Trump guys are on and on about how they have to keep Biden in because Trump is worse. That isn’t just dishonest, it is stupid. It isn’t about Trump. It is not even about Republican or Democrat – it is about getting a clearly, mentally incompetent man out of office. Even Kamala would be better in that at least she’s not senile (other than that: disaster). Right now, if the 3 am call comes, we have no idea who will make the actual decision…and we might get no decision (which is vastly worse than even a bad decision) because nobody wants to take responsibility for it. Biden must go.

The Senate GOP is backing the Ukraine aid bill (naturally) but Senator Vance (R-OH) found within the text a requirement that the money remain available for Ukraine until September, 2025. Meaning that if Trump wins and carries out his pledge to end US support for the Ukraine war, he can be impeached. Rely on it, the Ruling Class knows it is at least even money that Trump wins in November and they’re trying to hamstring him in advance. The border bill was like that, too; all sorts of provisions which would de-facto tie Trump’s hands on border security.

Of course, poison pill or no, I think Trump should go for it. It is unlikely that there are 67 Senate votes to remove Trump. Just let impeachment after impeachment fail, if that is what it takes. Trump’s main task, if he wins, is to clear out the bureaucracy, anyways – that is where the danger really lies to himself and to any future GOP President. We now know that various officials of the Executive branch were not only refusing direct, legal Presidential orders, they were actively breaking the law to take down Trump. Massive housecleaning is necessary. An end to Civil Service protections, at least in all senior Executive Branch positions. Executive Branch people have no power – the President is the only person vested by the Constitution with Executive power. Anyone who exercises Executive power does so at the discretion of the President and simply cannot, except in cases of obviously illegal orders, refuse a Presidential order.

Canadian Leftist groups in cooperation with the Canadian government cooked up a story about how Catholic Church schools in Canada had mass graves for Native children murdered by Catholic Church schools. It was quite a big issue in Canada and they even got the Pope to issue an apology about it. Trouble is, there were and are no mass graves. Of course there weren’t: hey, the Church has a lot of faults but they don’t mass murder people. It was just a ridiculous accusation…but the Ruling Class ran with it because it was an attack on the Church and they’ll always go for that. It has all been exposed as a hoax but that doesn’t matter: to the Leftist, to original, flaming headline is always the dogma. “Hands up, don’t shoot”, “was just buying skittles” and “I can’t breath” are obligatory beliefs even though there isn’t the least bit of truth to them. So, too, with the “Church mass graves” story – the Left still asserts it is true, and so very often these days Leftist terrorists are burning down Catholic churches. Naturally, the police don’t get them: they’re busy looking for people who are misgendering.

So a perhaps-trans shooter with “free Palestine” on Xir gun tried to do a mass shooting, fortunately stopped. But you’ll be pleased to know the shooter is an illegal immigrant in country for 19 years and voted in the 2020 election.

Volkswagon has their Super Bowl ad and it was pretty good…left out something, though.

Open Thread

The now-former head of the Arizona GOP was caught on tape trying to bribe Kari Lake to quit the Senate race. He’s former because Lake said she’d release the rest of the tape if he didn’t quit and he bailed out.

In case you were wondering the real reason we lost in 2022.

I’ve been pretty sure for a while that they cheated Lake out of a victory in 2022, now I’m very sure of it. Clearly, the Establishment GOP (still mostly owned by McCain people, though not for long, it would seem) worked with Democrats to sabotage Populist/MAGA candidates in Arizona all up and down the ballot. And when sabotage wasn’t enough to do it, they turned a blind eye to (and maybe helped?) Democrats do some last-minute box stuffing. It can’t be emphasized enough that most of our recent defeats have been because of treason.

The good news is that the old GOP fades away ever more rapidly. Most GOPers now signing on for Trump is proof of this. They still might not like the Populist/MAGA base, but they’re afraid of it. Sure, they also still hope for a miracle turning back the clock, but the smarter among them know that isn’t happening. It is either go Left and work to transition minors, or go MAGA and resign oneself to no longer being able to rake it in from corporations. We’ve already lost most of the GOPers we’re going to lose – the last bits of Never Trump will become Only Democrat over the next 10 months as they find that all along they wanted to be disarmed soyboys with a strange love for Hamas. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

We are not 100% sure what we’re gaining in return…but there are some hints that as the old line GOPers move left, black and Latino people are starting to move our way. Who knew that getting rid of some officious jerks would work out like that? I know of plenty of hard working black and Latino people who are ready for a GOP vote; and now we can talk to them because we’re not longer committed to lower corporate taxes, forever wars and figuring out how to lower labor costs for the Chamber of Commerce. In this, guys, Abbott’s busloads of illegals to blue cities has been a stroke of genius. It is really opening some black and Latino eyes as they see these guys get off the bus and into hotels, free food and free phones. They say the “Great Replacement Theory” is a bit of rightwing, racist conspiracy-mongering…maybe, but right now black and Latino Americans can see it in the flesh.

Speaking of Abbott, his defiance on the border issue is also beautiful. It is the perfect set up for us – either the border remains closed by the Texas National Guard, or Biden forces it open so that illegals can flood through. Either way it is a political win for us – and a massive political win.

To be sure, some are convinced that the damage is already done. That is, Democrats are willing to take the loss on immigration in 2024 knowing that these illegals will never be forced out and they, and their children, will become reliable Democrat votes. This supposition is based on the idea that as soon as the MSM shows one family of crying illegals being sent back, there will be a groundswell of opposition to deportations and that will be that. I’m not sure – in fact, I’m pretty sure it won’t go like that at all.

Oh, make no mistake about it – if a future GOP President starts to deport, the crying illegals will be on TV. All over the TV. It’ll be 24/7 Crying Illegals. All of whom were all set to become brilliant doctors who will cure cancer as they pilot the first ship to Mars. But I just don’t think it’ll work. CNN is getting beaten in the ratings by the History Channel. The Los Angeles Times just had to axe more than a hundred employees. The MSM just doesn’t have the oomph it used to have – and even the people still watching/reading it don’t really trust it. And at the end of the day, everyone outside the fever swamps of the Left knows we can’t take in 20 million people. It just isn’t possible. We don’t have the money, space or jobs for them. They have to go back.

So, if we get a GOP President and deportations start up, I expect to hear the shrieks from the Left…but the busses heading down south, as well. And the majority of the American people grimly determined to see it done.

Trump, 2024

With DeSantis out, that’s pretty much it for the primaries. Haley is still in but it is shaping up to be a blowout win by Trump in New Hampshire and I imagine she’ll bow out before she gets humiliated in South Carolina. So, we’ve got Trump. For the third time.

Can he win? As I said the other day: sure he can. Make no mistake about it that this will be a high hill to climb. He has a lot of strikes against him.

Even accounting for fraud, the fact is that he’s been rejected once. It isn’t impossible to get accepted in politics after rejection, but it isn’t easy. The two most famous cases are Cleveland and Nixon. Keep in mind that in both cases, the people felt that the other guy, the initial winners, didn’t measure up and so were primed to flop back the other way. Without a doubt, Biden isn’t living up to expectations, especially since expectations were for peace, prosperity and no political problems here at home. We’ve got war, spreading poverty and more and more people are broaching the subject of civil war these days. Trump can very much say, “I told you so”.

It won’t be hostile press: it is hostile every American – and, indeed, global – institution. Especially after Argentina, the Global Ruling Class will not want Trump to get in. For goodness sake, it is bad enough that Argentina – if it can but stay the course for 3 years or so – is about to prove that the post-WWII Social Democratic order is a failure, if the USA proves it between 2025 and 2029 then that is all she wrote…everywhere in the West people will start to wonder why they have to keep the Progressives around. They will go after Trump with everything they’ve got. They will lie and break every law on the book. There is no cost to them higher than Trump winning. Can Trump survive that? We’d like to say he definitely will, but the purpose of the exercise is to convince moderate voters to stay away from Trump even as they can’t afford gas and groceries. Will it work? Only time will tell.

The Never Trump Right is already going ballistic – showing that they also never really were DeSantis supporters but were using him as a cat’s paw to scratch Trump. DeSantis swallowed his pride and endorsed Trump. Trump then said kind words about DeSantis. Everyone who is interested in defeating Democrats accepts this at face value and prepares to unite for November. You can absolutely rely on it that almost every last person who is still on the Never Trump side would have turned viciously on DeSantis had he got the nomination. They aren’t Never Trump – they are Never Rebels. They are Always Ruling Class. The Ruling Class hates DeSantis, too. But, while the Never Trump Right retains a semblance of being GOPers/Conservatives, they will be able to muddy the waters…and that is their purpose right now. To get moderates to mistrust the GOP before Never Trump announces it is voting for Biden. As for me, DeSantis is my guy for 2028. Obviously that is a long way away and things can change…but all else being equal, it is going to be hard to get me to switch to someone else next time around.

To me, 2024 has always been about GOP No Matter Who. The particular candidates are irrelevant. Sure, we all have our favorites and we all want the perfect person…but any GOPer is better than any Democrat. The objectively evil policies being advanced by Democrats must be stopped by whatever means we can find. Right now, for the Presidency, our only means to the end is Donald Trump. I will be enthusiastically supporting him going forward.

Open Thread

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

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

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

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

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

“But Mark, they would never do that!”

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

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

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

Open Thread

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Open Thread

Word is that Pudding Brain has a fake e mail address. Oddly, it is a .gov address…which means he was helped in getting it by employees of the government. Like spending half his time in Delaware, this is a means whereby he avoids FOIA requests…if it doesn’t happen in the White House or in Biden’s official communications, then it doesn’t show up in oversight. To be sure, some of this is to make sure Biden is just out of the public eye – he can barely do an hour of work a day – but most of it is just to hide what is going on. From you. As Joe said, he doesn’t work for us.

Lot of argument about whether or not Trump should drop the 2020 vote issue. Maybe he should: but I’d like to point out that the GOP’s best chance of an easy move-on from Trump was for it to loudly proclaim 2020 as filled with questions and pledging to vindicate Trump’s assertion. Trump is mad – he had the White House stolen from him. It doesn’t matter if you believe that; he does. And the anger is doubled by all the GOPers he helped out dropping dime on him. This, I think, is the reason he’s running: he wants vindication.

Seems an IRS agent killed another IRS agent in a shoot out – which leaves us with the question: why are IRS agents armed?

Ninth Circuit has ruled that Idaho’s ban on biological males competing in women’s sports is unconstitutional…on what possible grounds I can’t imagine. I’m sure they dressed it up under equal protection but for heaven’s sake this issue has only existed even in theory since the 1970’s and we have no legal consensus on how all this works. Just because someone says it is so doesn’t make it so – this will go to the Supreme Court where I view it’s future as murky. There could be 2 sorta-Right Justices who want to make a name for themselves on the left on this issue as Kennedy did on SSM. The real problem here is the Courts refusing to hold themselves bound by the law – whatever is in the Constitution, this issue isn’t covered by it, plus or minus. It is therefore a matter for the States or the people to decide.

We do have in the Constitution the power to regular how federal courts operate – the right to appeal to the federal judiciary is not absolute…and as the Courts are selective in what cases they take, we can be selective in what cases they can hear. I’d hold that for a federal court to even hear a case they’d have to quote chapter and verse where the case is covered under the Constitution before they even start. I’d also work on a bit of State nullification: that is, a State going ahead and enforcing the law even if a federal court strikes it down on the grounds that the federal courts have no power over the issue. Depending on who is in the White House this could get interesting…but to me it is a fight worth having. That is: making it clear that there are issues the federal government simply has zero authority over. And lets see a President try to arrest the government of a State for not obeying a court order. Sometimes to get change you have to provoke a crisis.

Main thing: there isn’t supposed to be a final word under our system of government: it was certainly never meant to be 9 judges making the final call.

Open Thread

Normally, I never condemn anyone for their vote but for 2024 a GOP vote has become a moral obligation on all decent people. Regardless of what anyone thinks of any particular GOP candidate and in spite of the manifest weakness, corruption and folly of the GOP, itself, the Democrats have become so overwhelmingly bad – anti-human, evil in policy – that anyone with the least moral sense has to vote for the one alternative likely to eject the Democrats from power: and that is the GOP.

They are using the Department of Justice as a Gestapo. They are selling us out to the Green Lobby while China builds coal-fired power plants. They favor abortion to birth and the medical transition of children. They are conniving at the new slave trade along our southern border. They are making policy based on bribes and kickbacks. They are feeding the flames of internal hatred and division merely to keep selected demographic voting blocs on their side. It is all just horrible and if it goes on America is lost. They must be stopped – and the only way to stop them (God help us!) is the GOP.

As I’ve said many times, I will back the eventual GOP nominee regardless of who that person is – and I am no longer engaging in internal debate about which candidate is best. They are all better than any Democrat. From the most Trumpy to the most RINO among them, they are all miles above any Democrat. I urge all on our side to cease sniping at each other – sure, battle for your candidate, but don’t spend any time attacking the supporters of someone else. Save that fire for the Democrats. There is simply too much at stake for us to waste our effort on internal battles.

The latest Trump indictment is the same flaming garbage as the other two – they are charging him for speech. The only reason they can do this is the charges are being filed in DC and the federal judiciary there is under the control of frothing-at-the-mouth Leftwing fanatics imposed by Obama. The case should be tossed, but it won’t be – even the DC court of appeals is a no-go as a majority of it is Democrats. Eventually the Supreme Court will toss the case, but that could be years from now. The only question here is do Democrats feel an advantage for a quick trial and conviction (there is no doubt a DC jury will follow Party orders and convict no matter what the facts are), or have it hang over Trump especially if he’s the nominee? They might not know themselves, so you may see a bit of confusion in how they proceed. And they’re not done – they’re working on more charges in various venues and I would suspect if Trump is the nominee then in September of next year he’ll be charged with sedition.

But, does it matter? Right now, Trump is riding high for the GOP nomination and there are worried rumbles among the Left: a concern that even if Biden remains ahead, he’s not enough ahead to win. Remember, 3 or less points in the popular vote likely means a GOP Electoral College victory. And one recent poll actually had them tied – which would work out to a catastrophic Democrat defeat, probably costing them the Senate. I don’t care too much for polls…but the people who control the money in politics (on both sides) live and die by them. That is why we’re also hearing rumbles that people want Joe off the ticket…that, in fact, the recent revelations about Hunter originate in Democrats trying to force a change on the ticket. Who can really know?

The basic problem the Democrats have is that for the first time, they don’t have a smart person in charge. Much as we all despise Obama and the Clintons, they knew how to operate political machinery. Biden is senile and barely able to function more than a few hours a day. The Executive decisions likely depend on who talks to him last, and most of the time that would be Jill, who has never shown any political talent. The really bad thing for Democrats is there is nobody to ride herd on the most kook Left parts of the coalition. They are now rather regularly saying the quiet part out loud…including in front of people who aren’t emotionally committed to them. It could make for a wild ride next year.

Open Thread

Little follow up to my post from two days ago: after discussing what is brave and so forth, got into a similar debate about what are rights. It was rather heated for a while and I think I’ve identified why: I thought after a while that we were talking past each other because I realized I hadn’t pointed out that with rights come responsibilities…and that’s when it all really fell apart and I found out that lots of people don’t even have a mental conception of responsibilities. And, guys, this was me arguing with the Right. The Left never even showed up.

To nutshell it, I pointed out that we are under no obligation to allow bad and/or insane people to occupy the public square. That among the rights we as citizens hold is the right to a peaceful, polite, orderly society so that we may conduct our lawful business without let or hindrance. This caused the explosion – one guy considering me a fascist over it. The bottom line is that those opposing me do not believe that we have a right to decency and neither do people have a responsibility to be decent. Sure, they conceded that someone causing direct harm could be arrested…but only in very narrow circumstances and if I didn’t like the way things we, too bad: we can only be free if lousy people are allowed to be lousy.

This shows how far the rot has gone – first that people believe a bum or a gangster is someone exercising freedom rather than representing the mentality of a slave. Secondly that decent people have to put up with the lousy…that if we don’t do that, we can’t be free. The truth, of course, is that if you don’t have an orderly, polite society you can’t be free…because a disordered, rude society is swiftly run by the most barbaric among us and barbarians do not respect the rights of anyone. This is why we have people waltzing into stores and just swiping everything. You can say the changes to the law caused it and I’d agree that it was a proximate cause of the event, but the bottom line is that you and I – even if absolutely assured we wouldn’t get prosecuted – simply would not go and steal stuff. We know its wrong and we don’t have a right to take what belongs to others. Barbarians don’t know its wrong and figure anything they can grab is theirs by right.

And how are we supposed to survive like that? The answer is that we can’t. It is already starting to fall apart (and the suburban people who figure they can just shop on line are gonna love it when their Amazon delivery trucks start to get hijacked in droves). Eventually those who produce or who have goods to sell will retreat behind walls and only allow select people in…and they’ll only produce in small amounts for fear that goods available for sale are also readily available for theft. Shortages, lack of access, rising prices are going to come unless this is stopped.

And they way you stop a barbarian is to hit him. Very hard. So that it hurts a lot. And you keep hitting him until he stops. It is the only way. It isn’t fascist; not even akin to fascism. It is saving civilization and thus freedom.

So, Hunter had his plea deal and the judge tossed it because it absurdly granted Hunter immunity from future charges…in case anyone following up on his actions found even more crimes (spoiler: there are more crimes. A lot more crimes). So, he plead guilty. Now, don’t get your hopes up: Team Pudding Brain isn’t going to allow Joe’s spawn to go to jail and they will want all possible charges wrapped up before election day, 2024, for fear that if a GOPer – or even a hostile or indifferent Democrat – gets in for 2025 the jig will be up. Rely on it that they are already working on a modified slap on the wrist. And the Biden’s are too arrogant to understand that the way out – the way to make this all go away – is for Hunter to see the inside of a jail cell. Say a 3 year rap, out in 18 months. Be good for Hunter: his best chance to get clean before he overdoses. It would still be a wrist slap, but everyone is going to figure “at least he went to jail” and stop looking into it. The hope is the nitwits keep screwing it up and a GOP President gets to have his team look into it.

DeSantis said something mildly approving of RFK (who is a nut) and the world went mad – and mostly is was DeSantis supporters who went mad. They’re busy writing his political obituary over it. But I do detect something: some RDS supporters clearly only backed RDS as the non-Trump without much hope he’d actually win the nomination and thus provide these people with an excuse to vote Biden in 2024. As for me: it wasn’t that bad and RDS has plenty of time to repair whatever damage was done. What I’ve been advising people is to not get committed to any particular candidate too early. The Trumpsters and the DeSantis-stans are both making the mistake of getting too deeply invested when the first primary is still months away (though I suspect DNC pot-stirring is playing a role here). I’ve committed to vote for the GOP nominee – of late I’m not even saying who I prefer. Any GOPer is the moral and intellectual superior of every Democrat.

In line with that, do you feel the shift? After the 2022 midterms I think most of us expected rather resounding defeat in 2024. I sure did. But Dobbs fades and Pudding Brain’s utter nastiness comes ever more to the fore. I think people are disgusted with him. A lot. Sure, Trump has his negatives – and rely on it that if RDS or someone else gets it, their negatives will be driven sky high by the MSM – but Trump didn’t abandon a grandchild. Isn’t talking about “gender affirming care” for minors as if the very concept weren’t an abomination. Without getting too deep here, for the first time in a while I do think we can win next year. Steep hill to climb. We still have to win outside the margin of fraud (which will be a lot lower than in 2020), but I think we can do it. Stay tuned.

Open Thread

Today’s prime example of why I want to burn it all to the ground is this thread. Do read it, but to nutshell it a couple of gay guys rented out a woman’s womb to produce their designer child and when the mother came up with breast cancer they essentially ordered the child killed. The mother was willing to take the child as her own – she just needed it born premie so she could get cancer treatment. Nothing doing: kill the kid! And when she gave birth anyway, they (under the power provided to them by California law) refused any medical treatment for the premature boy, and so he died.

Hate to break it to everyone, but gay and straight are not the same thing. “Love is love” is an absurdity. We are what we are – and if you are a person who has a deep-seated sexual attraction to the same sex and you decide that that is how you will live your life then having kids is precluded. It just is what it is. I’m not condemning anyone for being gay, but I am going to insist that you don’t try to twist life to fit some bizarre desire you may have to engage in gay sex and be a father. Pick one. Stick with it. Don’t bring kids into a mix where they can only happen via the rather disgusting act of renting a human body for breeding purposes.

Another example is the Michigan AG indicting a group of elderly GOPers who produced a slate of Trump 2020 Electors. They’re seriously going to criminal charge these people – with the real “crime” being, “you supported Trump.

Hung Cao is running as a GOPer for Senate in Virginia – gotta say that this web ad of his is rock solid. He’s the son of Vietnamese refugees so he knows – and emphasizes – that he knows what our domestic Communists are up to. Aside from the “kid of immigrants makes good” story line, he’s also an American warrior – naval officer with lots of combat experience. Youngkin as Governor is trying to change Virginia’s blue trajectory and I think he’s having some success. Getting Cao into the Senate would cement it.

Word is that they’ll indict Trump. Again. This time for speeches he gave in the run up to January 6th. I think the Left is simply insane on this now – or they are looking at some polling indicating that Trump is at least on par with Biden and they are panicking. Whatever their motivations, this is yet more Death of the Republic stuff. Once Trump-Russia was proven to be a fraud, any official action against Trump will be seen by his supports as just more Trump-Russia. Even if you can prove that something Trump did was a crime, it won’t matter at this point. You had your shot and you burned it on a transparent lie. If we keep going down this route, then civil war is at the end of it. Maybe not today. Maybe not even for some years, but it will come. People who feel like they can’t get a fair shake will eventually resort to violence. It is as certain as night following day.

Open Thread

The White House won’t emphatically state that the coke isn’t Hunter’s. It is a fairly simple thing – it either is, or it isn’t his. And as I’ve said before, don’t buy any story claiming they have no idea…they know exactly who the coke belongs to. That they won’t forthrightly state it isn’t Hunter’s means they know it is his. And, yes, coke-heads are like that – very irresponsible to the point of sheer idiocy. He really did leave his laptop filled with incriminating evidence at the repair shop. Because he’s a stupid drug addict. You don’t have to overthink this. More than likely, he brought a little blow into the White House (it seems that 53 year old Hunter has taken up residence there as being there is bullet-proof as far as getting a summons goes)…he probably took it out to give himself a little boost and simply forgot about it. End of story.

But the thing is that simple possession is 3 years in jail – in other words, if it is Hunter’s coke (and it is) then he has to go to jail. So, the White House will continue to spin this thing with the most absurd lies and rely on it that DOJ has been told to keep hands off on it.

I just want it noted at this point that bringing decency back to the White House has involved a lot more hookers, blow and abandoned grandchildren than I thought it would.

And about that grandchild – I guess the case has now been settled but the fact of the matter is that Joe Biden refuses to acknowledge the child. Some rumors exist that Hunter pressured the mother to get an abortion; it is in keeping with the sort of low-life Hunter is and I could easily see him and his garbage father being pissed off that she didn’t agree to that expedient. Not that I’m calling her a pillar of virtue – it could well have been a set up by a clever girl looking for a payday. That does happen – normally with sports stars and the like, but any moron with access to cash is a target of such things. But regardless what sort of people mom and dad are, the child isn’t responsible…and that child is Joe’s flesh and blood. Family. And he’s rejected her. That right there shows what a lousy creep Joe Biden is.

But we already knew that – when his first wife was killed Joe showed up at the hospital with cameras in tow…so that they could get dramatic, heart-wrenching shots of Joe’s reaction. Think about it: at a time when his wife was dead and his child injured, Joe spared thought for how to wring some political advantage out of it. Joe Biden has been trash as far as we can determine all his adult life – some time after he rose to adulthood, and it seems early, he decided that being a lying, backstabbing grifter was the way to go.

More and more people are thinking that Trump has the nomination in the bag. I’m not one of them. Mostly because I’ve given up making any sort of hard and fast political predictions. Been burned too many times when what is obvious turned out to be wrong. Things are just strange out there and anyone telling you that they know what will happen is trying to make a sucker out of you.

But speaking of the upcoming election – that is another wrinkle in the coke story; at least for a time, the White House was trying to imply that Team Harris might be responsible for the coke. They dropped that – my bet because someone Team Harris knows for certain who’s coke it is and threatened to spill it – but it brought to mind that Gavin Newsom has been acting a lot like a guy who wants to run for President…and not in 2028. As California continues to crash and burn, Newsom has been out on the hustings helping State Democrat parties and politicians. You know: laying the groundwork. To be sure, it could just be groundwork for 2028 but if he was laying the foundation just for that, he’d be front and center stumping for Joe and Kamala. He isn’t. What’s going on?

Once again, nobody knows – even the people doing it might not know. Might just be keeping irons in the fire. But there is that chance that Team Democrat is planning on scratching both Joe and Kamala…and that means they’d need a new guy and Newsom is the major Democrat doing the preliminary work to be that guy.

I guess we’re sending cluster bombs to Ukraine – lot of people upset about that because of the type of ordnance. I’m meh on it: the only reason cluster bombs are rated as bad is because when we used them in the past, the American Left worked up the accusation that use of such munitions counted as a war crime. That was ridiculous then and it remain ridiculous today. They are just bombs…and they are excellent for anti-personnel and for making runways at least temporarily unusable. As I’ve said before: there really aren’t war crimes. There are crimes, of course – the Holocaust being the worst. But war crimes? You’re engaged in mass slaughter and you’re going to try to parse this type of slaughter as good while that type is bad? Attempts to humanize war are attempts to humanize hell; the thing just can’t be done. Additionally, no enemy of the USA will ever adhere to any rules – if they think it will give them an advantage against us, they’ll do it. The reason we, as a people, should not engage in brutality (rapine, slaughter and the like) is for our own sake…and because clemency towards enemies is the mightiest engine of war. But just get stuffed about “war crimes” when we’re blowing the enemy up…the purpose of the war action is to kill the enemy. How he’s killed is irrelevant.

Speaking of Ukraine – we’re sending the bombs because they’re said to be out of ammo. The Ukrainians have been on the offensive for some while now and they’ve only advanced a few miles and are now out of ammunition. This doesn’t look like raging success to me.