Dr Oz

Open Thread

Mark Noonan44 Comments

Here is Kari Lake hammering the MSM on “election denier” accusations. It is how it is done – and we need ever more of this. She takes their stupid lies and just shoves them right back in their faces.

It is crucial that we understand the MSM is nothing but propaganda for the DNC. It is all Pravda, all the time. Everything they say which in any way relates to politics is a lie. It is either a complete fabrication or so twisted in presentation that the kernel of truth in there is entirely obscured and you can’t from their report connect it to the actual situation. They don’t make mistakes – everything they say is off a script provided by the DNC. Some day the full truth will come out and it will be shown that those who set the tone for the MSM – the movers and shakers of it who decide what is a story and how it will be covered – received direct orders on it from DNC operatives. Rely on it: I am absolutely right about this.

But how can you be sure?

Because they are always on the same page – at most a word or two is changed. They all say the exact same thing – and such uniformity is only possible on command, it cannot develop spontaneously.

I’m confident of an Oz victory in Pennsylvania mostly on the fact that there’s been no recent polling on it – which means the pollsters, even with D-heavy samples, are finding an Oz surge and they don’t want that to get out this late in the game as it would crush Democrat fundraising down the stretch.

As I’ve said for years, none of us can know the future – it is all up for grabs and in an infinite universe, literally anything is possible. But the fundamentals of 2022 started with the fact that Pudding Brain is in the White House. Depending on who you ask and how it is calculated, the President’s party loses an average of about 30 seats in the first mid-term when the incumbent is having popularity problems – and they usually are because even people who were popular when elected suffer a bit of buyer’s remorse. This is just the natural ebb and flow of politics, guys. W bucked the trend in 2002 because that was a year after 9/11 and we were all happy and united at the time – Bush’s popularity was still sky high. Given that the GOP only needs 6 seats to win a majority, the House was gone pretty much the minute they installed Uncle Grandpa into the Oval Office.

There was an outside chance for the Democrats in the Senate. With a 50/50 tie going in and a friendly map for the Democrats, if Biden maintained about a 46% average popularity and if nothing bad happened, the Democrats might have come out even or maybe even got a net gain of 1. But Biden sits around 42% (and it is likely 38% when you account for, once again, D-heavy samples) and we’ve got inflation and shortages and crime and border problems and a general feeling that everything sucks. A good Democrat candidate who runs a great campaign can probably run 4 points or so ahead of Biden’s approval…so, if this was a good year, Biden at 46 means some Democrats can make it. Biden at 42…they’re doomed. Biden at 38 – extra doomed.

Given the fundamentals, we can expect a pretty good November 8th for the GOP – the only question is, how good? We talking a solid night of, say, 30 House and 3 Senate seats, or a wipe out with a net GOP gain of 50 in the House and 5 in the Senate? That is the only question – I think there’s a larger chance of the wipe out: Democrats are already engaging in triage and abandoning various races…while GOP groups are looking for long-shots (I saw an ad against Dina Titus here in Las Vegas – she sits on a D+12 House district: that’s a stretch, but that someone is willing to spend some GOP money on it means it is in the realm of the possible).

The next thing to consider is, what next? With a GOP Congress being likely come January, what do we do with it? It is pretty clear that at the moment, McConnell doesn’t want to have a MAGA fight against the Democrats. McCarthy, over in the House, is making some noises like he’s willing to have that battle. But that is the crucial thing – we aren’t electing a GOP Congress to work across the aisle…we’re electing a GOP Congress to engage in unrelenting war on the Democrat party. We’ve learned that all bi-partisanship gets us is slightly slower surrender. We do want Hunter indicted, Biden impeached, the government shut down until the 87,000 IRS agents are gone and the border is secured. We know that the GOP leadership largely lacks the stomach for such a fight…but the incoming Congress will be more MAGA than any past Congress: we might successfully hold some feet to the fire.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan46 Comments

The assertion about the mid-terms is that the Dobbs decision is motivating female voters to turn out for Democrats. Is there any truth to this claim? Only in polling. But, as I’ve pointed out before, polling is the political metric most open to manipulation.

This also leaves out the fact that not all women back abortion. I know the the MSM will never cover such a thing, but the bottom line is that women have been leading the charge against Roe ever since the decision was handed down. Would not their victory against overwhelming odds and after so many years of struggle motivate them to cement their achievement into a pro-life Congress?

For me, I just don’t see abortion as being that great a motivator for the Democrats outside of the urban and suburban upper class white women who were going to vote for them anyway. Might get a few more of them to actually show up in November, but not in any numbers necessary to save Democrat bacon.

I stand by my prediction – made months ago – that the GOP is heading for a blowout win on November 8th. Could I be wrong? Of course I could. I’m human! But we’re in a recession. Food prices are high. Crime is rising. Foreign affairs are a mess. Its the first midterm for the Democrats since their victory. The GOP gained House seats in 2020. They only need a few to claim a majority. Voter registration and primary participation numbers (even after Dobbs) clearly favor the GOP all around the country (it won’t matter because the State is so Democrat, but in Hawaii the GOP primary turnout was up like 125% or some such).

And lets think about something – if you’re a Democrat you sure in heck don’t want to talk about the economy or crime or foreign affairs. But you have to talk about something. Sure, you’re talking Trump…but you can’t just talk about him, right? So, what? How about abortion? That’s the ticket – talk abortion. Maybe frame it to scare our halfwit female voters (something like 36% of college educated white women agree with the sentence “some men can get pregnant”; rely on it, the number of GOP women included in that 36% is next to zero)? Goose that turnout and maybe turn a few narrow, suburban losses into holds? And then, hey preseto, here comes a bunch of polls saying that women are talking 24/7 about abortion and, buddy let me tell you, they’re gonna make the GOP pay for it! Convenient how everything in the Establishment comes together just the way the Democrats would want, right?

Now, maybe women are fired up to save Roe? Could be. I guess. If so, then we on the right have a far larger problem than we suspected. We’ll find out for sure on November 8th…but I’m sticking with my prediction.

Over in Pennsylvania Dr Oz is doing all he can to win – he’s barnstorming the State while Fetterman apparently still has a long way to go on recovery from his recent stroke. As I’ve been saying for a while, Pennsylvania is the next Florida. Voter registration trends have been massive for the GOP year after year. It might seem like the State is still favorable to Democrats, but that is an illusion mostly brought about by habit and really, really bad polling. Remember, in 2018 4 of the last 5 polls in Florida showed a substantial lead in the governors race for Gillum…only to have DeSantis win. And it wasn’t like the polls were close – the day before the election Quinninpiac had Gillum up by 7. So, I take those polls showing Fetterman (who can barely speak) up by 10 over Oz with a truckload of salt. Same, too, with the governors race in PA. Some people got mad the other day when Oz said he would have voted to certify the 2020 results…but I didn’t. I pointed out early on that Oz will have to go off-MAGA on at least some issues to be electorally viable in a State trending Red but not quite there yet. Taking a contrary position on the 2020 election result is the most meaningless off-MAGA gesture he could make.

Latinos are trending GOP. Hard. And Democrats are starting to notice and it is really pissing them off. So, what do you think they’re doing about it? Reassessing how they approach the community? Reconsidering things like Latinx and telling school kids they can change gender? Maybe concentrate on policies which will provide the sort of well-paid, blue collar jobs which sustain most Latino families these days? Oh, heck no! What made you think they’d do anything like that?

What they’re doing in response to the GOP gains in the Latino community is figuring that the GOP is lying to them and that Latinos are too stupid to figure this out:

There is nobody quite so racist as a white liberal – they simply cannot believe that any POC would disagree with them and if they do, it is because they’re stupid…and so need white liberals to speak for them.

I do believe – and it is one of the reasons for my prediction of a GOP blowout win – that Latinos will show that they want something different in November. This vote will not necessarily be an endorsement of the GOP: it will be far more, in my view, a rejection of the Left than anything else. To secure the long term loyalty of Latino voters, the GOP will have to do the concrete things necessary to show them we’re serious – a strong economy; low crime; good schools. That sort of thing. As for the Democrats, their party strength is in upper class white women and black women in general. This is not enough to sustain them in power. If they lose Latinos (and they are) and if support among black males starts to crumble (there is some indication of this) then Democrats will be reduced to an urban rump incapable of winning national power.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan15 Comments

As of a little while ago as I write, Oz clings to about a 1,200 vote lead in the PA GOP primary – nobody really knows how it will come out. I get the sense that Oz might pull it off, but McCormick could certainly get the win. Either is acceptable to me and would be immediately favored to win in November – the Democrats having nominate a leftist lunatic who thinks Catholic teaching is “gross”. That won’t play well in Western PA where the Democrats have to come back from the politically dead if they want to win Statewide.

GOP turnout in these primaries is so far vastly better than Democrat – and in North Carolina, very much so. A lot of punditry doesn’t like to read too much into that, but one thing we learn every election cycle is that political pundits don’t know the first thing about politics…they got some hobby-horse theory about how it works and they cherry pick data which confirms their bias. And when they get it wrong, they either ignore it completely, or explain it away. To me, people taking the time to go vote – especially in a primary – is a key indicator of how things are going. The other thing is voter registration patterns, which are also favorable to the GOP just about everywhere.

Musk announced that he intends to vote GOP – because Democrats are insane. And that, right there, pretty much nutshells 2022: Democrats are about to get a scorching rebuke not because of a sudden love for the GOP, but because they, the Democrats, have become so bad that they simply have to go. The political pundit class is, as I said before, clueless. At best you’re starting to see some of them hedge a bit and say the GOP may have a good year but even that with caveats about how if this, that and the other thing happens, the Democrats could do well. But, they all know. They have to know. It is the first mid-term of a President’s party: almost always that party does badly. The House is already gone for the Democrats. It was gone the minute 2020 was called for Biden. Especially since the Democrat majority was so thin. There was, early on, a better shot for the Democrats to hold on in the Senate. Democrats only had 14 seats to defend while the GOP has 21 and most of the Democrat seats are in States Biden carried. But that was before Biden took office.

A guy Tweeted out earlier that if gasoline was $2.50 a gallon, Biden would probably be doing ok. Even if not terribly popular, at least not toxic and we’d be looking at a normal midterm rather than a wave election. There is some truth to that – Biden has screwed up lots of things, but gas prices are something you can’t get around. People see it every time they fill up their tank. They might have let Afghanistan slip out of mind. The invasion at the border might pass to the side. But you can’t forget what you paid when you gas up. Nor can you forget food shortages and price hikes. It rather sticks with you. Here’s the kicker: all Biden had to do to keep gas at $2.50 is nothing. If he had just left Trump energy policies in place, then we’d still be energy independent. And this might have also protected us against recession…because the supply disruptions which are contributing to high oil prices would have benefited the United States…we would have been pumping record amounts of oil.

But the Democrats weather god had to be appeased, and here we are.

Saw a clip of a Clark County (NV) school district meeting where a parent, shocked at a dirty assignment her 15 year old was given in school, decided to read the assignment to the school board…which promptly cut off her mic, saying they couldn’t allow someone to use dirty words in a public hearing. That, in a nutshell, is the whole problem with public schools. The good news is that at last GOPers are taking an interest in such things – and are starting to win school board seats. The importance of this can’t be emphasized enough. While having the White House and Congress is very important, controlling the school boards, sheriff’s office and District Attorney is vastly more important…it is such offices which translate policy proposals into action. They are where the rubber meets the road. Control them, then even when the Left controls the national apparatus, we can effectively block their actions.

Never heard of monkey pox before, but it is being reported…and I think all of us can smell the bull**** a mile away here. Especially as the Democrats are trying to re-stoke Covid fears just in time for Fall. As noted before, I have had Covid. It sucks very badly. Certainly a person with underlying conditions should take care. But, I’m a 57 year old smoker and I’m getting through it just fine. I’ve still got a bit of the cough, but mostly it is all gone. Worst cold I ever had by a long stretch. But, nothing to be terrified about.

Man does a DNA test on himself, finds out he’s got a huge family he never knew about. It is a cool story.

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.

The Blizzard of Oz

Mark Noonan14 Comments

I can’t recall a political endorsement in a primary causing such an immediate and heated firestorm. When Trump endorsed Oz, it caused very large numbers of prominent Trump supporters to go absolutely ballistic. They hate the endorsement. To hear many of them speak, this endorsement tears it with Trump: they are done! Going to back DeSantis in 2024. Trump is an embarrassment! He’s always picking terrible people! If he wins in 2024, it’ll be as bad or worse than it was in 2016!

For a moment there, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were listening to Never Trump. I mean, this was astonishing.

And it also lets you know just how very bad at politics our side is. I mean, we are just terrible at it. We don’t understand how it works. We routinely step on our own crank. We hand the Democrats the weapons to attack us with.

Aside: by “we” I mean “everyone but me”. And probably Trump, as well.

First and foremost, in our internal conflicts we have to be careful that in trying to push our preferred person forward, we don’t create a toxic environment. In other words, don’t shred your own side. This is true for any Party primary. Vigorous attack and debate is good – but your primary purpose is to sell your candidate and do it in a way that the supporters of the loser swing enthusiastically behind your guy. Torching Oz as a horribly bad choice is not quite the best way to go. It should be like, “I understand Trump has endorsed Doctor Oz. As we all know, any of our fine candidates will be better than the Democrat. I’m disappointed he didn’t endorse Candidate X instead, but I still believe that Candidate X is our best option and here’s why.” See the difference?

Beyond that sort of tactical operation, there is more to consider here.

I do get the doubts about Oz. Yes, he’s taken pro-choice and anti-gun positions and he has, to put the best face on it, been open to medically transitioning children. He has taken these positions. In the past. That is kinda important because in the past, Trump took some pretty Left positions. And I’ve seen over the past 14 months some very far Left people starting to rethink their views. We’ve all had an education of late, haven’t we? Trump busted down the doors and exposed the rot in the heart of our institutions. Everyone is dealing with that. The Left and Never Trump by sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting “I can’t hear you!”. Everyone else…by thinking it over. And very often coming to conclusions very different from before.

I used to be a stalwart defender of the FBI. I believed the CIA was dedicated to defending America. I thought that large corporations were by and large beneficial. But here in 2022, I want both the FBI and the CIA abolished and I’m in favor of breaking up the large, monopolistic corporations. I’ve had an education. It started for me before Trump, but it was the Trump years that showed me how bad it was and how far I had to be prepared to go to fix it. What I’m saying here is that the past is not the present: things change. If you could go back to the our old blog you’d find me vigorously defending the FBI, CIA…Wal Mart, for crying out loud. Are you going to hold me to that? Tell me that because I once held a particular view I can’t hold a different view now that I’ve obtained different information?

But that is the standard we’re being told to judge Oz on – in the days of being in Oprah World, anything he said is permanently binding on him and it all makes him unacceptable. Forever.

Sorry: that is just a stupid, unjust attitude. If the Muslim Oz will pardon, it is also un-Christian. We all get not just second chances, but buckets and buckets of chances. I will not deny Oz a seat at the table because he once said something I don’t like.

So, what is Oz saying now? On the trans issue, nothing: at least, nothing that I have found. He will have to address that directly, I think. That’s up to him. But he now claims to be pro-life. He isn’t running on a gun control platform. His policy positions are secure borders, energy independence, curbing corporate power, school choice. Not a bad list, if you ask me.

To be sure, Doctor Oz translated into Senator Oz could betray us. Like Romney and Murkowski have (Collins hasn’t – she does what she needs to do to stay viable in Purple Maine; she must at times vote against us). But he could also betray us like Barr or like Sessions did. Remember them? Rock ribbed Conservatives. Honest and brave men we could count on. Except they both folded like cheap suits at the first bit of Leftist pressure. And, sure, a Senator Oz could fold just as readily – like, for instance, current Senator Toomey did…he of Tea Party Conservative fame…but when the real test came, he went along with the Democrat’s 1/6 fantasy.

The bottom line is that Oz, no matter how badly he could betray us, cannot do worse than some of those we trusted the most.

And then there’s the chance he won’t betray us. Could happen. Every now and again a person of courage manages to navigate their way into politics. Doesn’t happen often as politics attracts the greedy and the cowardly (the stupid, too: in freaking spades), but it does happen. Right now we’ve got Rand Paul and Ted Cruz in there – both men, I think, we can rely on to stick to their guns no matter. Could Oz be another one? No way to know until it happens. But consider this: the GOP Establishment already hates him. The Donor Class isn’t on his side. His own Liberal media friends are soon to turn quite viciously on him. He only wins and only stays in office – let alone aspires to a different office – if he keeps us on his side.

Oz is worth about $100 million. He’s not just famous: he’s got nearly universal name recognition. So, he isn’t in this for the money and he isn’t in it for the fame. He could have pretty much sat on his a** for the rest of his life raking in money and being on TV any time he wanted. You know, just like Trump in 2015. There is a chance that Oz is running for office – which will impact his money making ability and turn him from universally beloved American personality into a partisan figure – just so once he gets in there he can sell us out to the Democrats. But figure the odds, guys. Unless Oz is the most spineless sort of man, the chances of that happening are billions to one against.

This is not to say that a Senator Oz will always vote the way you want. Pennsylvania is heading towards Red State status, but its a ways away and anyone running Statewide there will have to trim their sails this or that way to retain electoral viability. In short, you can expect a Senator Oz to sometimes go contrary on us – but betray us? Like Toomey did with the impeachment vote? I just don’t see that in the cards. In fact, I see what I believe Trump sees in the man: an ally. Someone who is willing to bite the bullet and enter the sewer of politics because he wants something better for others. He doesn’t need to do this for himself – so, unless he’s some sort of psychopath, he’s doing it for someone else…and the only realistic party that can be is, well, you and me.

It is time, my friends, that we all grow up and start understanding that politics isn’t neat and tidy. It is a mess; mostly because it is run by people…but, worse than that, it is often run by the worst sort of people. But who are the heroes of politics? Those who bucked the trend. The people who stood forth in glorious contradiction of the age. Those who went in it to do something rather than be somebody. People like Lincoln and Churchill at the heights…people like Reagan and Trump on the lower level. Maybe Oz – and a lot of other normal people stepping forward – are just what we need? Maybe it is time for us to think about what we want and how we might get it?

I’m always reminded these days of something my father said to me about 1982 or so. I was 17 and dad was explaining to me how liberty is fought for. One thing really stuck: “I’m telling you, Mark, that when it becomes a real, final fight for liberty in America, some of your best allies will be people you can’t stand. Don’t reject anyone who is willing to stand with you.”

Open Thread

Mark Noonan22 Comments

You read about the Great Terror during the French Revolution and from your safe, prosperous American home you wonder how people could act like that? I mean, you understand that there was injustice and even cruelty in the Ancien Régime, but you still look upon it in shock. And then you read a piece in Bloomberg opinion which has an upper class twit telling us to eat lentils and let the dog die to deal with inflation.

And then you understand.

Cruelty and injustice can be dealt with – it is having people treat you with contempt that gets the blood boiling and makes cheering as a noble’s head comes off something understandable.

And there is monumental contempt for us.

When the Hunter Biden story was actively suppressed by the MSM and the Tech Giants in 2020, do recall that 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter stating that the Hunter story was Russian disinformation. It was this letter which allowed Team Pudding Brain, the DNC and the MSM to justify spiking the story. People actually got banned from social media for bringing the story up! The MSM and Tech efforts were bad enough, but the crucial thing was the bald-faced lie by the intelligence officials…without that, the rest wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. But really grasp that: the organizations charged with protecting American national security produced 50 people to lie in print. When you add in the fact that the FBI knew all about this months before it broke and not a single person there blew the whistle you really see our problem: they are against us. They hate us. They hold us in contempt.

I pointed out on Twitter earlier that the same MSM and government agencies who assure us the 2020 vote was legit are the same people who lied about Hunter Biden.

And, yet, you still can’t get through to Never Trump on this. I’m not talking about those Never Trump who have morphed into Never Republican…I’m talking about those who remain Republican and are already largely lining up behind DeSantis for 2024: they remain impervious. One of the more famous said today that he’s backing DeSantis because he doesn’t have the character flaws of Trump. Which is a sort of reverse lie: what character flaws does Trump have? The only one’s we know about are those told to us by government and MSM sources which are proven liars. I mean, seriously: maybe Trump is an immoral man, but nobody can really know. He’s been so consistently lied about that no outsider can sift it and determine what might be true or false (though we can rely on it that Trump has never broken a law – if he had, even in the most trivial manner, he’d already have been tried for it). But, also, for all we know, he’s a moral man. Sure, he had his divorces and his playboy days when young…but young billionaires tend to do that sort of thing and in the year when we have drag queen story time, I’m going to place getting busy with a super model rather low on the moral outrage scale. And rely on this: were Trump still playing around on the side, we’d know about it…I’m sure the MSM has people watching him 24/7. So if he was a bit of a cad from 25-50, he’s not today.

Dr Oz is still rolling along in the Pennsylvania Senate race. I get the doubts about him – he’s from Oprah Universe, something I hold in utter contempt. Over the years, as part of the price of being part of that universe, he staked out positions which are pretty much anathema to anyone on the right, especially on issues like “red flag” laws for gun ownership. But, I also don’t automatically condemn him for that. Lets face it: we’ve all had an education the past 7 years. Perhaps Oz has looked around and figured a few things out? He’s presenting himself as the Trumpist candidate. So far, Trump hasn’t endorsed him – but the rumor from Trump World is that Melania, who apparently is a good friend of Oz, is pushing for him. We’ll see how it comes out – to me, the most important thing is getting the (R) to victory. Is Oz that guy? Don’t know. But I can’t see how he’d be worse than Toomey…who took our Tea Party movement to get into office and then became a colorless GOPe Establishment guy once in, going as far down as to vote to convict Trump in the second trial (and that vote sunk his career in the GOP).

The war with the Ukraine continues to drag on – and Putin, so far, shows no sign of quitting. Ukraine still stands firm and there are even reports of local Ukrainian counter-attacks. OTOH, a recent video of Zelensky in Kiev looked a little photo-shopped. Like they had him in front of a green screen that they projected Kiev on to. I still hold it isn’t our fight – but it does affect the world. In one case, over food supply. The Ukraine is one of the world’s bread baskets. The Ukrainian farmers should be starting to plant their crops right about now. If they aren’t – and it looks like they’re not – then the world is going to have some serious problems in the Fall.

In other news on that front, China and India are working deals with Putin – China and India do need Russian oil and other raw materials, after all. From a geo-political standpoint, our obsession with Putin is taking us out of the global equation while a should-be ally (India) and our definite rival (India) are cutting deals which undermine America’s overall position. My view: we should have declared absolute neutrality in the Russo-Ukrainian war, holding ourselves willing to host peace talks and providing humanitarian aid to both sides.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan47 Comments

They had the oral arguments for the challenge to Mississippi’s 15 week abortion ban. I read a lot of very smart takes on it, and some raving lunacy from the Left as well. Bottom line is that no one can say for certain how the Court will rule. Strike down? Narrowly uphold? Revoke Roe? Until the ruling comes down, we’re all guessing. Justice Thomas asked what is, to me, the key question: where is this in the Constitution? It isn’t, of course, and the Court’s decision to invent a right to abortion out of thin air was horrible…and it is a very key cause to the hatred in American politics these days. I do hope the Justices lance this boil. And some smart people think they might – that the lines of questioning have some thinking it will be 6-3 to strike Roe down…with Roberts merely going along with the majority. If it is struck down, I hope Thomas is the decision author. It will be his legacy to the United States.

Bank of America execs advise their staffers to “dress down” when they come into the office in NYC…to avoid being targeted by violent crime. This won’t, of course, stop BofA from being a reliable defender of the Ruling Class. The younger people don’t remember the crime wave of the 60’s to the 90’s…and this one is going to be vastly worse than the first because at least during the earlier crime wave, cops were trying to stop it. Now? A cop would be a fool to try and stop it…make the slightest mistake in making an arrest, and you’re life is ruined. The criminals know this. Criminals are cowards and they aren’t very bright – but they also know when it is open season.

Dr Oz announced he is running for Senate in Pennsylvania as a Conservative Republican…which is quite a surprise for a guy who got his start with Oprah. The bottom line is that he’s taken a large number of far Left positions over the years, most notably on gun control. This, naturally, caused the right to drop on him like a ton of bricks. Except for me: we’ve all had an education this past five years. All of us, no matter how knowledgeable or perceptive, have found that things we used to believe were false in whole or in part. Perhaps Dr Oz has had a bit of an awakening? I put it like this: I don’t care if you were wearing a Che shirt at an Antifa rally yesterday – if today you are saying the Left has to go: welcome to the party. I think we should listen to what Oz has to say and make the call on that…not hang him out to dry because of positions he took in the past.

Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio likened China disappearing people to being “a strict parent”. The video is nauseating – and if you still wonder why I stopped being a supporter of Capitalism, here it is. For every Elon Musk – who seems a decent enough fellow – there are a score of Dalios: amoral, money-mad creeps who don’t give a damn what happens to people as long as they can make money. The only way to stop them – the only way – is to confiscate their money. People like this warp our debate and prevent a clean, clear view of the world. They keep us shackled to China as we slip ever further down into a deindustrialized, drug-addled dependency. In the end, they go or we do.