Donald Trump

Open Thread

Mark Noonan35 Comments

I do have to point out that Donald Trump has been fairly ridiculous of late. Some of his statements and actions have been downright absurd. Thus far it hasn’t made a dent in his GOP Primary support…but my bet is that if he doesn’t get hold of this stuff it will. OTOH, DeSantis has also had some miscues. This is why a Primary is a good thing; whoever emerges with the prize will have earned it.

My position remains the same: I will support the nominee. There is no GOPer who is in any way the moral or intellectual inferior of any Democrat. Even supposing every bad thing said about Trump is true – and further stating that supposing every bad thing said about Biden is false – it is still no contest. Somewhere in Trump’s heart is the understanding that such things as abortion to birth, transition of minors and open borders are objectively evil and must be stopped. In Biden’s heart there is no such understanding – nor is there such understanding in the heart of any Democrat. The Democrat party proposes to push us into a world of complete lunacy where obvious facts are denied in service of ideological goals. It is the moral duty not of Republicans and not even of Americans to vote GOP…it the the moral duty of every human, as such. There is no evading this one: if the Democrats retain power for much longer, this nation will be destroyed. The stakes are that high. There can’t be any compromise…and no faltering of our will. Nominate Romney and I’ll vote for him. Anyone is better than any Democrat.

There has been a surprisingly large amount of pushback against “Pride” this year. In previous years we just laughed at it and moved on but this year there is a sharper edge to it. People are tired of it – and angry that everyone is being told to fall in line.

Bottom line: gay is boring. We don’t care. Be gay. Have fun. But we don’t need to know you’re gay. And it is perceived that the sort of gay people most of us know – regular, rather boring folks who just live, work and pay taxes like anyone else – aren’t being celebrated. The celebrations are always of the most absurd and/or disgusting people. So much so that I’m starting to wonder if a bunch of weirdos have de-facto hijacked homosexuality because it allows them to be freaks without any fear of censure? Crazy people crave attention and approval…and if you’ll do something disgusting in public and call it gay, you’ll not only not get arrested, you’ll be called a hero. That sort of thing is an irresistible attraction for the narcissistic lunatic. They simply wouldn’t pass on the opportunity.

NYPD had their cop cars painted up in “Pride” colors and it looks like the artist managed to sneak in the anti-cop “ACAB” logo. This is enormously funny. Leftists never forgive.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers will apparently argue that the gun laws Hunter violated were unconstitutional. And, to be sure, they are: as I’ve noted before, “Shall not be infringed” is pretty straightforward. It doesn’t have any wiggle room. Any law restricting any person – and that is citizen or not – from keeping and bearing any arm they choose is a violation of the Constitution. But it is annoying that Liberals are such complete hypocrites.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

My view on the GOP Primary is: I will support the nominee. I will not engage in nasty fights with fellow GOPers or GOP-leaning voters.

With RDS now officially in, the shape of the race is clear; it is mostly Trump vs DeSantis with Trump enjoying a huge amount of loyal Trumpster support while RDS is looking for a way to draw some of that vote over to himself. The rest of the pack is probably kidding itself about getting the nomination and, on balance, they probably help Trump by splitting up the anti-Trump vote. Of course, some of these also-rans likely won’t make it to January…the money battle is important right now. Not for Trump and RDS who functionally have unlimited amounts, but for the rest…any of them who want to be around past South Carolina had better come up with some hefty bucks. Those who can’t will likely bow out before the Iowa caucuses.

Do keep in mind that the Democrats are very likely paying for GOP division. We have seen over and over again how relative peanuts will get people to alter their views. It would cost only, say, $100,000 to get a prominent Trumpster pundit to start going “only Trump” as a means of keeping Trumpsters home if Trump doesn’t get the nomination. It wouldn’t cost any more to pay a DeSantis pundit to start going “only DeSantis” for the same reason. The Democrats very much need a divided and weakened GOP for 2024 because that is the only way they drag Biden’s senile carcass into a second term.

As I’ve said for a while, I’m not at all confident of GOP victory in 2024 – because of those divisions being diligently fostered. But I have had a little bit of a mental shift; there is a chance. What I see is that Biden – who has never been loved – is losing what popularity he had. Inflation continues to bite as does overall economic anxiety. We’re already in a recession which is being hidden by number juggling. And now the Culture War has taken an interesting turn. From Biden on down, they are all-in on the transgender thing especially for kids…but outside a few lunatic Blue enclaves, parents are rejecting this. What we might have is a perfect storm brewing where Democrats are set to become unpopular both on economics and social issues…hammering on abortion just barely scraped them by in 2022…that issue is a lot less salient for 2024 while other social issues are coming to the forefront. It could be a very interesting year.

CNN Headline: “Minorities, immigrants and now members of the LGBTQ community are being warned of the risks of visiting Florida after the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group issued a travel advisory following newly passed laws and policies”

Reminder: this lie is not pitched at you. They don’t care about you. They know you’ll never vote Democrat. This lie is for Democrats. And it doesn’t require them to actually believe there’s tyranny in Florida…but what it does tell them is that this is what they have to say is happening in Florida. This is to keep the conversation within the Party Line. That is, to keep them voting Democrat no matter how bad it gets.

Trump and MAGA Won’t Go Away

Mark Noonan60 Comments

I didn’t watch the Trump town hall on CNN because, well, it was on CNN and I’ll be dead and in the cold, cold ground before I give them any ratings. But I did monitor the reactions on Twitter.

The MAGA folks were, of course, entirely thrilled with Trump’s performance. Discount that: that could easily be just partisan confirmation bias.

Never Trump: from the first minute were calling it an unmitigated disaster. Discount that: just as easily confirmation bias. But I did notice something…as the night wore on, the later Never Trump comments about it were “well, he talked too much about the 2020 election and nobody cares about that” and “Trump is doomed because everyone cares about January 6th.”

That was all extreme wish-casting. I don’t know how many people actually care about the 2020 vote…but even those who don’t care, if they aren’t committed anti-Trumpers, all pretty much agree that there was quite a lot of illegality and impropriety in the vote. People believe this because it was obvious. As I’ve asked people (and never get a response on), “they covered up the windows in the counting rooms because ____?”. They can’t answer it. They never will answer it. Because the only answer to “why did you hide the count?” is “because we were stuffing the ballot boxes”.

Nobody cares about January 6th. The Democrats and their MSM lapdogs (seconded by the chihuahua-like yapping of Never Trump types) tried to make the J6 hearings into another Watergate and nobody cared. Mostly nobody cares because nothing really happened that day save for the unfortunate shooting of an unarmed and peaceful demonstrator (which, of course, the J6 boosters never talk about). At the end of the day, with a little bit of rowdiness early on, the Establishment got what they wanted on J6: Pudding Brain certified as the winner. You’re not allowed to complain about things going your way: and the complaints they make about J6 merely seem like pathetic whining.

But it was the Left comments which were most telling: they were ballistic over it. I mean completely unhinged. It was like their world was coming to an end…because Trump, to all appearances, was calm, cool, collected, funny and made some really telling points in response to the gotcha questions of the host.

Pay attention to that: if the Left is pissed off about it, then it worked out well for Trump.

I’ve said for a while now – and it remains true – and plenty of Trump voters are willing to move on. DeSantis is the obvious first choice with Vivek Ramaswamy being the surprising second choice. There is a rational case to make for dropping Trump in favor of some other tool we think may be better suited to break down the Establishment and restore America. But as I’ve also been saying – and I’ve said it since 2015 when I was opposing Trump for the nomination – that the only way to beat Trump is to out-Trump him.

One very particular thing came up in that town hall which is getting little play is Trump’s proposal to pardon most J6 detainees. This has caused monkey-screeches from the Left, of course, while the DeSantis people are (very reasonably) pointing out that Trump could have done that January 7th. But the really crucial thing about it is Trump rising to the defense of the J6 detainees. If DeSantis really wants to break down Trump’s core support – and DeSantis will have to do this to beat Trump – then it should have been DeSantis calling for this first. And that, in my view, is the breakdown in the DeSantis effort: for all the good things he’s doing (and they are fantastic, with the education reforms holding the most long-term potential for us), he’s yet to show to the Trumpsters that he will go to war with the Establishment. Going after Disney: Great. Going after Drag Queen Story Time: Wonderful. But these are fairly run-of-the-mill GOP positions now (being anti-Corporate has actually been taking hold on the right for about ten years). DeSantis needs to pick out a position which is so Trump-y that Trump hasn’t got there yet. The J6 people were the easiest. Now he’ll have to find something else.

What can DeSantis do? That will be up to him but if I were in his position, I’d announce that if elected, every person who illegally crossed the border after January 20th, 2021 will be deported regardless of circumstances. No refugees, no Dreamers: no nothing. I’d announce it as the only means to tell these people that they can’t take advantage of an Administration too corrupt to control the border. That no matter how well they try to blend in before January 20th, 2025, they will be deported. Alternately, DeSantis can call for a suspension of American aid to Ukraine by X Date unless Ukraine agrees to peace talks with Russia. The main thing here is to take something that the Establishment wants very badly (open borders, endless war, etc) and propose to take it away. That demonstrates a willingness to fight: and that is what DeSantis must do if he wants to transfer the love the Trumpsters feel over to himself.

Because that is the key to it all and so far nobody gets it. They call the Trumpsters “MAGAts” or “Trump Cultists” or what have you. They don’t realize that for these people, supporting Trump is an act of love. A pledge to America and to future greatness. You’ll only get them over to you if you give them a reason to love you more. And, hey, maybe they are misguided. Maybe they’re not seeing some crucial things. But anyone who has ever experienced love knows that you can’t talk someone out of it…you bend with it. But it is also important to understand that love – real love – is a matter of loving the beloved before they are lovable. The anti-Trump people keep trying to make Trump seem hateful when all that does is make those who love him love him even more. They see the flaws. They are not blind. But that doesn’t deter the lover. In fact, it makes the true lover even more devoted. You can’t break that by shouting insults. You can only break it by loving even more than they do.

This is why I pointed out to various people who have recently been calling for Trump to back out over his legal troubles that they are making a huge mistake. They aren’t helping their cause, at all. They are, in fact, shooting themselves in the foot. And in two ways:

  1. First off, they are essentially going along with a Democrat op. A “get Trump” effort which has entirely divorced itself from law or any sense of decency as it seeks to destroy Trump by any means necessary. Calling for Trump to back out is merely to play along with a smear. And if it actually worked, then that smear would then be turned on the next guy and the next and the next and the next.
  2. It is alienating Trump supporters. Every time a Never Trump Conservative calls for Trump to back out or be pushed out, it simply tightens up Trump’s support. It makes his supporters ever more willing to stick with him. The proper tactic to take here is to relentlessly attack the Democrat effort as the illegal, unjust and cruel effort it is. That way when you talk to Trumpsters, they’ll listen.

I don’t know how this will come out. I’m still very certain that we’re going to lose next year. But this is primarily because I see the divisions in the Right. They are fostered by the Left and they are setting MAGA and anti-Trump at each other’s throats and convincing them to take Only Trump or Never Trump positions, respectively. Blood is getting up and heads are getting down and whomever emerges with the GOP nomination will find a fractured GOP going up against a united Democrat Party with endless supplies of money, the MSM and a paid army of influencers at every level. I think it will still end up a close race (Pudding Brain is monumentally unpopular), but I do believe that they shove him over the finish line…even if it once again takes some manufactured votes in key States (there will be less of this in 2024 than in 2020 because no Covid and some law changes…but there’s still just enough wiggle room in just enough States to allow some last-minute vote creation to tip the scales).

But however it comes out, the key to victory in 2024 or any future race will have to be the anti-Trump people making their peace with MAGA. This means ditching entirely all MSM talking points about Trump (after all, what the Trump haters hate about Trump is all stuff the MSM told them without having a shred of evidence to back it up). It means talking positively about MAGA. It means acknowledging – without any hedging – the good things Trump accomplished while at the same time agreeing with the obvious: he would have been able to do to a lot more if the GOP leadership and pundit classes had backed him up, as they were morally obligated to do.

Trump isn’t going away. His supporters aren’t going way. You can’t win without Trump and MAGA. It is just the plain facts of life. You can’t “move on” from Trump in the sense of ditching him and pretending he didn’t happen and that his voters will get back into the Neo-Con, Globalist loser fold. You have to show MAGA that you love them; that you want them; that you care about them and will do your best for them. This will require the adoption by everyone in the GOP of large aspects of Trumpist policy and attitudes. Or you can cope and seethe about it as you lose.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan20 Comments

Twitter started a “Community Notes” function which allows third parties to attach a statement to Tweets making certain claims of fact. As far as I know, any account can be subjected to such notes and there is a process for doing so…and then everyone can comment and vote on the Community Note. The main thing is that its beautiful – after years of Right Twitter getting banned for posting facts, Left Twitter is now finding that when they make the egregious lie, someone puts a Community Note on it – and the best are when they quote back to the Lefty their own previous words! The Left is, of course, going ballistic about this; often with the usual threat of leaving Twitter but as we on the Right found over the years, there’s nothing better than Twitter for fast-paced commentary with a big reach. It is still a relatively small thing – it doesn’t stop them from lying – but it does put out there the fact that they are, indeed, liars.

The newest St George Floyd of Fentanyl has dropped – a lunatic named Jordan Neely. He was, as per usual in such, a bum and drug addict with a long rap sheet (42 priors and when he was killed he was wanted for assault). On the NYC subway he started acting like an aggressive, lunatic drug addict and so a former Marine did what any decent man would do – he took him down. Because Neely was a drug addict this ended up killing him. Naturally, the Usual Suspects are all out there shouting “racism” and “no justice, no peace” while the MSM – pretty much all of it, including the parts you might think aren’t far Left fanatics – are trying to paint Neely as some sort of street artist beloved by all; failing that, they are trying to work up sympathy over the fact that Neely’s mother was quite brutally murdered some years back – as if that excuses being a violent, drug addicted lunatic. We’re all waiting for the Manhattan DA to charge the Marine with murder…and its 50/50 on conviction. A lot of Manhattanites are getting fed up with the rampant crime and disorder in NYC but they also know that if the Powers That Be want to punish a jury for coming to the “wrong” verdict, it will be done; their names and addresses would be “leaked” so that lunatics could hound them.

Joe Manchin looks ever more like electoral toast next year in West Virginia. He’s nobody to blame but himself. He could have triangulated himself into a life seat by ditching the Democrats to become an independent who caucuses with the GOP. He’d have had to do this some years back, but if he had done it the Senate would still be split and none of Biden’s legislative agenda would have passed. But instead he stuck with the Party and in return for just some really small time pork nobody in WV cares about, he empowered the far Left in the Biden Admin to totally screw over blue collar West Virginia.

Joe Biden is monumentally unpopular. I’m starting to wonder if now so unpopular that even a weak and divided GOP might have a shot next year? I’m still doubtful – especially as the MSM will prop Biden’s corpse up if they have to. I’ll use as my marker this: if RFK stays in and score 20% or more in the NH primary, then Joe is done. And it would be funny as heck if its a like father, like son replay of 1968.

Jesse Kelly has been ringing the alarm bell on what the Establishment plans for Trump – the Manhattan indictment is just the start. They are going to go nuclear on him with all the really bad stuff pouring on if he wins the GOP nomination. Now, if Trump fails in the primary, nothing to really worry about but if he emerges then its a problem. And not just an electoral math problem: if they can really destroy Trump with a series of bogus indictments, then they will destroy everyone who challenges them. Hate Trump all you want, but you must stand up for him in this matter…the charges are all lies. He’s being persecuted, not prosecuted. And it may come down to we have to nominate and elect him just to make sure their effort fails.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan44 Comments

Happy Indictment Day to all those who celebrate.

Supposedly the judge will issue a gag order…which, if nothing else has, proves this is political. On what possible grounds would any judge demand silence on this case? It isn’t a matter of national security. All of the parties to it are public. Indeed, with leaks we’re already learning what the case is (as an aside, all leaks are felonies…think about that: the people charging Trump with felonies are committing felonies as they try to control the Narrative). I guess we’ll find out if that is the case.

The whole thing is stupid and destructive. But it is also our fault – that is, it is the Right’s fault. Why is there a commie DA charging Trump? Because for decades the Left worked hard in the trenches to take over the Institutions. They now have people who are committed to the Left. Not to America. Not to the people. Not to truth or the law – just to the Left. Trump is being charged because the Left wants him charged, and they’ve got a DA – indeed, a whole city government in NYC – which will knock down every law in place to get him. It took a long time to get here.

And it will take us a long time to get back. We’ve already discussed it a bit but there is nothing more important than things like school boards, county commissions and sheriff’s offices. Secondary importance are State legislatures. Least in importance right now are federal offices…all we need do is retain enough federal power to prevent a packing of the Court and hamstring efforts to legislate the Left into power. Sure, they’ll still just do whatever they can, but without a Court to ratify it as constitutional and without the ability to make it into law, it is really just something the Executive branch is doing…and that can be undone if we get that back.

But down in the cities and counties, that is where the action is. That is where you really shape the legal system and the culture. There is Drag Queen Story Time because we let the cities and counties fall to the Left. Take them back and we replace Drag Queen Story time with Veteran Story Time. We teach the kids to be healthy, sane patriots. We protect the rights of the people against Federal encroachment. We build the power base which will eventually allow us to recapture all of government and destroy the Left. We never give up the fight at the federal level…but we understand that until our States and localities are sending patriots to Congress, we can’t do much with the Federal government. If we build the power then one day we’ll find we’ve got a trifecta of America First in DC…and then the Revolution.

Indict This Open Thread

Mark Noonan64 Comments

Mindless Biden Drone 1: “We’re getting killed over that massacre of Christians in that school! What do we do?”

Mindless Biden Drone 2: “Tell everyone that our hearts go out to the transgender community?”

MBD1: “That’s already in the script.”

MBD2: “Trans day of visibility?”

MBD1: “We scheduled that yesterday.”

MBD2: “I’m out of ideas.”

Mindless Biden Drone 3: “I got it!”

MBD1/2: “What?”

MBD3: “We get the DA in NY to charge Trump!”

MBD1: “But its bullsh**.”

MBD2: “And?”

MBD1: “Run with it!”

And that is how we get to a Trump indictment. Apparently not just about the alleged payoff to Stormy…they’ve got him nailed on multiple counts of…filling out paperwork incorrectly!

((Cue that ‘dun dun’ sound from Law and Order))

Look, guys; it is all BS – but they got their indictment and they’ll get their Trump mugshot and that will keep the Democrat base happy for months…and maybe even take the sting away when the charges collapse. But most importantly they got six murdered victims off the news. That was the crucial thing here.

Because the backlash is coming. I’m sure the DNC has internal polling showing that the issue is a loser for them: they know they have to keep talking up the issue as if its great because their base simply wouldn’t know what to do with any shift on it…but they had to get it off the TV.

Presto: gone.

Everyone other than the most wet noodle GOPers was out right away condemning the move. Everyone who isn’t a dyed in the wool Democrat knows its bogus (and according to polling, even 30% of the Democrats know its bogus). Some are saying the Dems long term plan is to have this help Trump (you can only imagine the amount of money he’ll fund-raise off it and the Trump story for a while now will suck up all the air in the room) by generating GOP base sympathy. I’m not so sure – the Democrats are still as ruthless as they’ve ever been, and when its time to get 2,000 votes together to flip an election their way, cracker jack…but of late I’ve noticed an increasing level of sheer stupid among them. Like when the SecDef went to Congress and said he had no regrets about how the Afghanistan withdrawal went…seriously, all the moron had to do was express pro-forma regret for the lost lives and move on…”no regrets!”. Idiot. Something ready made for the GOP 2024 campaign reel. They might be floundering badly here. It’ll be up to the GOP to see if they can capitalize on it. Do keep in mind that we’re not called The Stupid Party for no reason!

Open Thread

Mark Noonan88 Comments

Senator Kennedy asked a Biden judicial nominee a pretty basic legal question (the sort you’d expect to be learned in pre-law) and the nominee had no idea what Kennedy was asking about. A lot of people are all, “what in heck are they teaching?” about it…but all with the assumption that law schools are still, well, law schools.

Now, to be fair, I have been set a little bit straight by a Twitter friend who stoutly asserts that in the law schools there are professors who vigorously teach law even if they, themselves, are far Left nutjobs. I trust the guy who told me this so I have to assume a blanket assertion I made on Twitter wasn’t true – that being that they don’t teach law, at all, in law school. So, I take my correction: they still do teach some law. That said, as we can see from this Biden nominee, they don’t teach much law…and I still vigorously assert that there is a negative selection in people brought into the government to ensure against any possibility of a real lawyer being appointed to a senior law enforcement or judicial position.

There are two factors as work here. The first is the need for “diversity”. The race hustlers are insisting that we have vast numbers of non-male, non-white lawyers. Whether or not there is a sufficiently large pool of such is irrelevant and I’m certain that its racist to even ask. They are going to get their diversity, folks: that is baked in. And not just diversity in admission, but diversity in result. No law school out there is going to have their graduating class be less than, say, 20 percent black…and if this means they have to graduate people who aren’t capable, they’ll do it. And, yes, I’m quite confident that when it comes to grading bar exams, the people doing so are also going to make certain that the “right” percentage of each diversity quota makes it (anyways, I understand from a lawyer friend that the bar has never been a straight up pass or fail: there has always been a little fudging in deciding just what constitutes passing and failing: easy, then, to rig the system to get the result you want). So, what we’ve got is a built in system which will ensure that a certain percentage of people will have no business at all being lawyers, but lawyers they shall be.

And that brings us to the second factor: the need for certainty. This is something which stems from Leninist legal practice – and it would amaze even many Conservatives to find out how much of Progressive legal and social policy is based on Leninism. It really has taken over the Left in the United States. Took decades to get it done, but it has been accomplished. In this instance, Leninist legal principle is that there is no “both sides” in the law – the law is to advance the cause or it isn’t law. In Lenin’s parlance it would be to advance the cause of the Working Class…but our modern Leninists don’t really like workers (Lenin didn’t either, of course) and so the cause now is the Victim…the racial, sexual, gender, what have you victim of the Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, Imperialist, Genocidal AmeriKKKa. The law is to advance the cause of the Victim or it isn’t law. Whatever happens, the designated victim must prevail in court – and as the victim is always pre-determined by the DNC Narrative of the moment, the Progressive lawyers and judges know how to rule. This is why law isn’t really taught, or at least isn’t taught to those being groomed for senior judicial positions: the Left needs certainty. The absolute assurance that when their legal cases are brought forth, everyone involved will follow the Party Line on who is the Victim. Can’t get that out of anyone who really knows the law or has an ounce of self respect: you can only get certainty out of mindless, Party hacks. And, so, that is what we get…and so Biden’s nominee who doesn’t know a basic aspect of law. But he’ll be confirmed and for decades he’ll be ruling however the Progressives tell him to.

As of this moment, nobody has a clue about Trump’s indictment. Which shows, if nothing else has, how flimsy it all is. As I said a long while ago: if Trump had really broken any law, they could have got him on it long ago. Say whatever you want about the man, but he keeps his legal affairs in order. And as I also observed, this makes sense: working the New York real estate market is a minefield of legal hazard and anyone who is successful at it gets first rate legal advice on just what can and can’t be done within the law. Trump’s been at this for decades…I’ll bet he’s one of the few rich people in the world who can stand up to legal scrutiny.

Uganda voted to ban homosexuality. The Left is still trying to figure out what to do about a bunch of black people who are victims of colonialism not going along with white Progressives. Of course the Left wants to hammer them over this – and the Left is also chock full of neo-imperialists trying to impose Western morals on Africa – but this was a democratic vote in the Ugandan parliament…they’re going to have a rough time with this one.

I’m just going to laugh about it, myself.

Mexico’s President condemns Biden and the USA on human rights grounds – including pointing out how wrong it is for the Democrats to seek the indictment of their political opponent. He’s right. And we look absurd. It is a moment of national humiliation that I’m not only lectured to by the President of Mexico, but I can’t punch back because I have no grounds.

DeSantis after a very good run has now backtracked on Ukraine and is taking a more neo-con line. To me, this is an unforced error for RDS – the base is pacifist and, also, this is the Democrat’s war and they are going to lose it. All GOPers should stay the heck away so that when this blows up, it blows up only in Democrat faces. The last thing we need is for the GOP to take ownership of this war…especially as the moment we do, the Democrats will go back to being anti-war, accusing us of war crimes and they’ll suddenly discover that their darling Zelensky is a corrupt thug. I hope that RDS backtracks on his backtrack.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan43 Comments

The Trump Indictment has turned into a horrible proxy fight between Trump and DeSantis supporters – which shows the real reason Trump is to be indicted. As I noted before, we do have to stop being suckers. Trump, in my view, is a bit more sinning in this than anyone else. I can sympathize as he’s the guy under the indictment gun…but he should be leading the way in making this a fight against the Democrats, as such, rather than taking swipes at DeSantis. We’ll just have to see how this plays out – but even with all the drama, I do believe this one will backfire on the Democrats as badly as their pushes to defund the cops and medically transition minors are starting to backfire on them.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is issuing an emergency regulation advising the medical profession that under Missouri law experimental medical procedures cannot be performed on children outside of very specific controls. This will almost entirely shut down medical transition of minors in Missouri. That’s the thing the Progressives don’t want anyone to notice: nobody has the first clue what these procedures will actually do to children long term – it only started a couple years ago base on “studies” which don’t rise to the level of junk science. We’re giving kids hormones and cutting off healthy parts not as a best practice medical procedure, but on a guess enforced by Progressive tyrants. The hope is that Missouri (and other States) will soon ban transitions for minors – as Bailey points out, plenty of European governments have already put a stop to the practice or severely restricted it. But until such time, Red State officials can and should use the laws on the books – and I’ll bet all 50 States have some species of law which hems in doing anything medical to a child outside of strict guidelines.

And this is how we do it – we should be using the power we have to the maximum extent possible. We can’t stop it in California and can only have limited effect on federal laws and regulations right now…but in the States we control, we can largely stop this savagery against defenseless children.

There is a horrific video out there which shows two people mercilessly beating a man in broad daylight – one armed with a bat, the other with a knife. Like all such videos it lacks full content: we don’t know what transpired before the video picks up with the lady holding the bat brutally swinging it at the victim’s head. But it doesn’t really matter: whatever the man may have done, he was down and surrendering and the thugs beating him could have just walked away (though I’ve heard the argument was over a parking spot). These people are savages – I do not consider them my social or political equals. Barbarians may never have the rights of civilized people. Barbarians are to be controlled by whatever means prove necessary. We will soon get to the point where all civilized people agree with me on this view; even quite liberal people. We simply can’t allow people to be mercilessly beaten without intervention.

But right now we are at the point where the civilized are simply too frightened to act. They still believe it will somehow get better on its own. Or that our increasingly incompetent and cowed police departments will get hold of the situation. It will not get better on its own: by the time you’ve got a bat-swinging maniac beating someone in broad daylight, you’re way past any easy cure. It will just get worse and worse and spread to any area where people are not armed and willing to shoot in self defense. The cure is to treat barbarians like barbarians – to understand that mercy requires that barbarians be compelled to good behavior even if by the whip and the branding iron. There’s a reason punishments a thousand years ago were brutal – they had to be in order to control a semi-barbaric population. That polite society you may remember from 50 years ago was the result of centuries of breaking people at the wheel, having them run the knout, hanging, drawing and quartering. Barbarians are not very good at calculating risks and rewards. They are driven entirely by appetite. They do whatever their impulses say and they keep doing it until stopped by superior force. Eventually, and I believe fairly soon, the people will have had enough.

How are the banks doing? Well, J P Morgan thought they had $1.3 million in nickel stored…turns out they have bags of rocks. Rocks. Like in your garden: rocks. These are the people in charge of our financial destiny. And its getting bad…kinda surprised at how low key everyone is being about Credit Suisse going under with $17 billion in their bonds just, poof!, declared to be worthless. This is a financial crisis which is already making 2008 look like nothing…but its all still being papered over with fiat money, unacknowledged defaults and banks moving money around to pretend there’s enough cash to cover everything (several major US banks have quietly started making big deposits in regional banks hoping that the word will get out just enough to prevent runs on those banks). Can they keep it up? Time will tell.

There’s this freaky dude out there who has pretended to be a woman for a year. A very creepy caricature of a woman…I won’t link to any of the videos but its like if you thought up the most insulting way to exaggerate some female mannerisms, that is what this guy has done. Naturally, the Vice President sent a letter congratulating this creep on being a woman for a year. Specifically, for “living authentically”. I know some women – trust me, I really do – none of them are happy with this sort of thing. The backlash on this is going to be astonishing…and may actually provide the leverage for a big GOP win as women make up such a crucially large segment of the Democrat vote.

Dear GOP: Stop Being Losers

Mark Noonan35 Comments

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

The primary reason we lose is because we’re losers. And we really need to stop being losers.

As the potential Trump indictment started to dominate the conversation did we see a fully unified GOP/Right condemning what would be an obvious act of merciless injustice? No: what we saw is Trumpsters and DeSantistans getting into a pissing match about who should be doing and saying what. For heaven’s sake, this was a golden opportunity to unite the party and fire up the base…and it so far is being wasted in internecine battles. And I do blame both sides.

To be sure, my bet is that the fight originated among people in the pay of the DNC – I am quite confident (because Democrats are really good at politics) that they have co-opted some of ours. People who might seem the most fervent Conservatives/GOPers who are nonetheless getting paid to sow division. To take any issue and make it a “you must back my guy or you’re a loser Commie” moment. From there, other voices just pick up the propaganda and run with it…before you know it, you’ve got people on the Right bitterly fighting it out on a matter of internal political purity while the Democrats are busily advancing their agenda. I would not at all be surprised to find out that the leak of a looming Trump indictment was done with just this sort of thing in mind…I’ll be certain of it if the indictment doesn’t happen (there are rumors that it won’t).

This isn’t about Trump. It isn’t about DeSantis. It isn’t about any particular policy prescription: it is about our ability to govern ourselves. The Democrats propose to take that away. Do you think they’ve dropped the idea of packing the Court and taking over State and local elections? They haven’t. Democrats never retreat from a position. They sometimes for tactical reasons put an issue on the backburner, but even there they still try to advance it. And they never forget it or give it up. If the Democrats secure enough power – and a divided GOP would hand it to them – they will pack the Courts, rule our liberties as unconstitutional and take over the election process to ensure we can never win again. They will do this. It isn’t a guess. It isn’t a worry. It is precisely what they’ll do because Democrats – and this has been true of them since Van Buren created the party – always believe that the survival of the United States requires Democrats to win all elections. Any election not won by Democrats was via evil machinations…all elections won by Democrats are forever. If we lose we lose forever; our choices will then be to submit, or break up the country.

What has happened to Trump since 2015 has been sheer evil. And none of it was his fault. Lots of anti-Trump GOPers like to say that if Trump wasn’t Trump then it would all have been different. No, it would not have. Trump has had 10,000 liars in government and the MSM out to get him since he came down the escalator. They never let any lies go and they always add new lies (most Democrats remain convinced that Trump is a Russian asset installed in 2016 via Putin switching votes from Hillary to Trump). The will do to anyone else what they did to Trump. They are already working up the lies to be used against DeSantis. So, when a partisan hack of a Democrat DA proposes to so much as investigate Trump, let alone charge him, the duty of all Conservatives/GOPers is to condemn the effort and stand shoulder to shoulder against it. The Democrats are the enemy.

But, we seem to prefer to fight each other. Perhaps because we’re too chicken to fight Democrats? They play dirty, GOPers don’t. But we must stop it. We must never punch right. Always punch left. Everyone needs to get on board. Sure, battle for your guy but once the guy is chosen, everyone gets on board. And while the battle to pick a guy is ongoing, any and all Democrat attacks against any of the candidates are to be met with ferocious scorn by all of us…not sotto-voiced agreed to in the hopes that that it’ll place our guy in a better position for the primaries.

The life of our nation is at risk. In the old saw: now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their country. Now is most emphatically not the time to rip each other to shreds.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan29 Comments

With bank after bank failing and pretty clear proof of Biden Family profiteering in China, you know what is on the agenda: Distraction!

So, the rumor mill is now filled with predictions that Trump will be indicted next week. The more excited claiming that he’ll be arrested and frog marched into custody…not sure how the NYPD will manage that unless Trump happens to be in NYC next week, and his Secret Service detail will also have something to say along those lines.

I’m fairly confident, though, that they will indict Trump on some bogus charges. They pretty much have to at this point: if you listen to the Left, they have been screaming for it ever louder over the past year. They seem to think there’s 25 to life just waiting there for Trump…rather than, at most, a process crime which has a max sentence of six months. And a process crime without basis. Don’t get me wrong, Trump goes on trial in NYC and he will be found guilty – there’s no way a Manhattan jury would go the other way against Trump. Its why all hopes are pinned in NYC…they’d love to do it in DC and the jury pool there is just as hostile to Trump and obedient to Dems as Manhattan, but there is GOP House oversight in DC. In NYC, everyone is on the same team and no matter what laws the prosecutors break to get a conviction of Trump, none of them will ever be charged with a crime. But Trump has not broken the law – if he ever had, he would have been arrested ages ago. He’s legally clean as a whistle. So, whatever they charge will be drivel and it will be thrown out on appeal – but appeal is after conviction and it is the conviction the Dems want.

How does this affect 2024? Plenty of Dems seem to think that a conviction bars a person from office. This is because they’re stupid and ignorant. For the GOP base, there will be a huge upsurge of sympathy for Trump…but whether that carries on or is replaced with a “maybe he’d better bow out” feeling remains to be seen. And make no mistake about it: they don’t want Trump in 2024. They say they do, and that means you know they don’t. An indictment of Trump is proof positive that the Dems internal polling shows Pudding Brain coming up short in a rematch.

But the fun part comes later – eventually, we do get the White House back and the pressure to arrest the previous Democrat President will be unstoppable. This is Late Republic stuff, but it is what the Democrats want.

Elon Musk is claiming he’s got a nifty AI program which is going to detect and track social media manipulation. We’ll see! Not that I doubt Musk’s sincerity here, I’m just not sure a computer program can snoop it out. They just do what their biased programmers tell them to do, after all. I mean, I can snoop it out and I offer my services to Elon for no more than $1,983.943.56 per year. But my results also wouldn’t be accepted by the manipulators. Maybe that’s why Elon is trying AI…give it a sense of neutrality. Anyways, if it does work it will be very revealing not so much on the manipulation (I think we on the Right can sniff that out pretty fast these days), but on just who is pushing it – which will, I bet, turn out to include lots of people and institutions allegedly on our side.

This weirdo wrote a letter to his family saying that if they vote GOP, he’s done with them – he being gay and his assertion is that the GOP is trying to eliminate homosexuality. Specifically, he said he can’t be part of a family voting for people who want to murder him. Lots of people scorched the guy as the utter loon that he is, but I saw it for what it was: very effective propaganda. Even if not entirely conscious from the letter writer. You see, the Democrats lie. They lie about everything and all the time. They do this because lying works. Lying has always worked – from getting Eve to eat the apple to getting a bailout for SVB: lies always fall on fertile ground. What this loon was doing was reinforcing the Democrat propaganda that the GOP is filled with hate-filled, cruel people out to kill. Now, maybe this guy was paid to write his letter or maybe he’s just your basic Progressive moron who believes what he sees on TV. It doesn’t matter: what matters is that Democrat voters will hear about it and their “GOP Bad” beliefs will be reinforced. And Democrats must put this on steroids going into 2024: Joe is held in contempt. Nobody likes him. Not even his own family (if they liked him, they wouldn’t have let him run in 2020). The economy is in tatters and looks to get worse. A lot worse. So, what to do? Change policy? ROFL!!! No: just get your base fired up with fear and hatred so they’ll stick with you no matter what happens. I expect the main base-motivators for the Dems will be claims that the GOP wants to kill gay people and execute women for having an abortion…and do look for GOPers who feed into this propaganda. That supposedly far-right guy you think was ok? Well, just a few thousand bucks and he’s making a sound byte for the MSM which feeds the DNC Narrative.