Jeffrey Epstein

Open Thread

Mark Noonan36 Comments

So, the IG report came out – and after spending hundreds of pages revealing how many things were done wrong, it concluded with an essentially, “hey, sorry; my bad” statement. This is drivel – no one is that incompetent; what was done to engineer the spying on Trump was obviously criminal…and downright un-American. I hope that Barr and his crew will go after these people. Some statements made after the release of the report indicate he might. We’ll have to wait and see. As for me, I’m more convinced than ever that the FBI has to go. It simply can’t be trusted.

Rumor has it that the House will settle on two articles of impeachment: Obstructing Congress and Abuse of Power. Which is garbage. The Executive can’t obstruct Congress no more than Congress and obstruct the President. They are co-equal branches of government and neither has to bend the knee to the other. As for Abuse of Power…it sounds like something, but it isn’t. Note that colluding and bribery and so forth won’t make an appearance. Which means even after the Democrats rigged hearings to ensure something bad about Trump came out, they still came up with nothing.

Will they vote on them? Remains to be seen. Could be that they went with two very nebulous articles so that if a vote is held, the trial in the Senate is over quickly. Those two articles can be done in a day because there’s not much to say about them, on either side…and it is at least a chance that things like the Bidens won’t even be brought up in such a trial.

Its polls, but as our Experts still seem to live and die by them, this poll has to be giving them fits: it shows Trump surging in the battleground States. Make of it what you will – and even if we start to see lots of Trump-positive polls, don’t take them to heart. Work next year like we’re down by ten and only a miracle of effort will scrape Trump through.

Seems that Prince Andrew invited both Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein to his daughter’s 18th birthday party back in 2006. That grosses you out because of what you know, now…but what really nauseated me was the description of the party. A little girl’s 18th birthday – it cost 400,000 pounds. They were awash in champagne and food and had an orchestra. Who the heck are these people? Where did they come from? Why are we allowing them to keep living like that?

Open Thread

Mark Noonan46 Comments

No, as it turns out, I don’t trust Vindman – of course, I have a general distrust for our military officers these days, to begin with. I somehow doubt that Obama’s DoD was promoting people based on military merit. I suspect your promotion was based upon how well you mouthed words about “diversity”, “overseas contingency operations” and “global warming is a national security threat”. Not that I trust all that much those promoted during the Bush Administration, either. It was under Bush that we started allowing JAG REMFs to charge our boys and girls with war crimes, after all. So, nope: don’t trust the guy. In addition to the mistrust, I think he’s the leaker and very likely a liar. At all events, it isn’t for a light colonel to set foreign policy under any circumstances. I’m hoping that in a 2nd Trump Administration we’ll get a thorough housecleaning in our military forces. Lets pretty much retire everyone Major General and above and seek out hard charging, combat-orientated colonels and majors for rapid advancement.

Still don’t quite know where the Democrats are going with this charade. There is nothing to this. Certainly not anything that even a compliant MSM can puff up into something the American people will consider impeachment-worthy. But if the Democrats do go forward, I hope that McConnell spins it out to the Convention and then allows a motion to dismiss to pass.

Warren’s Medicare for All plan would require rationing. You already knew this. She’ll deny it, of course; call it something else. But the bottom line is that there are not, will not and cannot be enough medical providers to ensure everyone who wants/needs care at a particular time will get it at the time requested. Rationing, by one means or another, is inherent in any market where there is a scarcity – wisdom dictates that, in most instances, we let price ration. It is understandable that in something as crucial as healthcare, people don’t want price to dictate…but if it isn’t going to be price, then it will be a faceless bureaucrat who is far more interested in pleasing other bureaucrats who will decide how much care, and when you get it.

The latest woke reboot – Charlie’s Angels – tanked at the box office and the director is blaming sexism for it. Nope. Sorry; that ain’t it. Everyone actually likes strong female characters. Celeste and Rossalyn in Mirrors are very much bad-asses. In Secrets I’m introducing two more major female characters; a wicked one and a good one. Both, bad-asses. But when it is time in the story for a bad guy’s face to be caved in, rely on it: it will be a male character administering the beat down. Because duh. People don’t want to see a movie where a 110 pound woman takes down a 200 pound man. It is just ridiculous. But even that isn’t the worst part: when you add to that absurdity a lecture on how bad men are, it just turns everyone off. Want to make money? Then have your book or movie have really good, fun male and female characters doing all sorts of really cool things…but keep the men, men and the women, women.

Burglar brings an axe to a shotgun fight.

The House tried to get Trump’s tax returns but the Chief Justice has swatted them down. It is silly. You can rely on it that if there wasn’t anything in there, some Deep Stater would have leaked them already. But, also, it is unfair to demand the President’s tax returns and let everyone else off the hook. Once Nancy agrees to have her full financial life exposed to public scrutiny, then I might agree to do the same for Trump.

Focus group claims people like Trump’s policies, don’t like his Tweets. I can see that – but, how else is Trump to intervene in the national debate? He can’t go via the MSM as they’ll just lie about what he said. Has to do something.

Heh:

“Christmas ornaments, drywall and Jeffrey Epstein – name three things that don’t hang themselves. That’s what the American people think…and they deserve some answers.”

It would be nice to find out what really happened. My view: Epstein did likely kill himself, but was helped along…if not in the physical sense, then in someone presenting the hemlock in the form of “you better kill yourself or Horrible Things will happen to you and anyone you care about”. Remember, even if it was just jail for Epstein, there’s jail and then there’s JAIL. What sort of prison, what sort of safety, who you’re lodged with…these are crucial things which can determine life or very painful torment and death for a flabby, middle-aged pedophile in prison. But I’m doubtful any investigation can get to the bottom of things: too many very powerful people are deeply compromised.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Looks like Hurricane Dorian may miss the USA…this after liberals went all gleeful at the prospect of it hitting Trump properties. Seems that MAGA has been granted a special dispensation.

Greece is seeing a new surge of migrants from the Muslim world – a lot from Afghanistan. By land from Kabul to Athens is 3,591 miles. That is quite a trip. It took Alexander the Great years to make it…and somehow I don’t think most Afghans own an SUV to make that trip go faster. Someone is organizing and supplying this migration. And government must be involved as before they get to Greece, they’ve crossed at least two international borders.

And here’s the sort of upstanding citizens Greece and Europe are getting:

A … asylum-seeker was arrested in Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon, France, on Saturday after he allegedly killed a 19-year-old and wounded nine others at a subway stop.

The suspect, armed with a knife and a “skewer” of some sort, was arrested at the scene. He is reportedly a 33-year-old Afghan citizen who was hoping to gain asylum in France.

The bad news: I bet his attack will probably not be held against him at his asylum hearing.

Mickey Kaus talks Epstein:

We’re in the middle of a global populist surge. There’s a sense that elites are not playing by the same rules as everyone else. They might not even be playing the same game. It’s pretty clear that Epstein was running some kind of a sex ring for the rich and well connected. How big a ring? We don’t know until we try to find out. But there are reports out there [click if you dare] that it’s bigger than we might think — bigger than old, familiar Prince Andrew, involving a non-trivial cross-section of business and entertainment leaders, plus some prominent Anglo-American families and maybe a handful of nation states.

Read the whole thing – there are circles within circles going on here. I started out figuring someone handed him the hemlock (as it were) to protect some other interest of his…but I’m starting to wonder if he was killed? We don’t really know what he was doing all those years when the very top of the global elite were at his beck and call; even after his conviction. And sure in heck the global elite doesn’t want us to find out. But, we must: we have to know. We need to know how Epstein got his money; how he got his connections; who protected him; who was involved on all levels. Chips fall where they may – we need to find out every last detail…and then start arresting everyone who committed even the least crime related to it all.

Still lots of talk about the Hong Kong protests – but, in the end, the people of Hong Kong have no weapons. They are doomed, unless the rest of China rises…and from all accounts, the people of China don’t want to rise.

There was some renewed talk of the way the CIA backed modern art stuff in the middle of the 20th century. The official word is that the CIA felt we needed to have some cool, new art to show the world that we were hip and with it…what I think actually happened is that the CIA was penetrated from the beginning and the USSR used the CIA to push cultural garbage (like modern art) as a means of tearing down the West.

Yeah, I Guess I’m a Revolutionary

Mark Noonan132 Comments

I got into a slight Twitter tiff with a friend – and no hard feelings, at all. Just a short exchange which made me realize something: we need to have a Revolution.

It had to do with a discussion surrounding Prince Andrew’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein – which seem rather extensive and continued long after Epstein’s first conviction. Andrew, of course, being the second son of Queen Elizabeth…which means you can’t get more social or economic elite than he is. As the discussion went on, I blurted out (as it were) a desire to confiscate the wealth of people like Andrew and distribute it (via lottery) among the people. This rather upset my friend – being as we’re both Conservative and thus defenders of Property. And I do defend Property…but I also despise a traitor. And that is, first and foremost, what Prince Andrew is: a traitor. A traitor to civilization.

And he’s not alone: he is legion among the Ruling Class. Think of all the people who had connections with Epstein for decades, and continued after his conviction. There is a story in the Daily Mail – British papers still engaging in actual journalism from time to time – about a party at Epstein’s after his conviction which included among the guests Prince Andrew, Woody Allen, Katie Couric, Chelsea Handler and the daughter of a former Australian Prime Minister. This was, as I said, after Epstein’s conviction. From the story, it seems that Epstein has pornographic pictures on the wall and liked to blurt out astonishing sexual crudities during conversation. And this is where the son of the Queen of Great Britain said, “hey, bro, cool place to hang out”.

Prince Andrew lives a life of extreme luxury. He’s worth an estimated 75 million dollars and he’s never had to earn a penny of it – and, remember, he’s the second son of the Queen. As soon as Diana pushed out William in 1982, the chances that Andrew or anyone descended from him would ever sit on the British throne became nil. He’s a biological dead end, as far as royalty goes. But, he’s got 75 million dollars…and all of it, ultimately, because a distant ancestor built a castle in Milan in the 11th century and so became the founder of a dynasty which eventually produced George I. Now, one should never fuss about the good fortune of others – envy is a sin, after all. But you’d think that someone sitting on a vast fortune of unearned wealth who has no particular purpose in life would at least try to sustain the civilization which provided and protects his gigantic privileges. But, no: he’s hanging around with the Pimp to the Stars. And so were lots of other people just as rich and privileged (but most not having the lineage).

And I think that is what has been gnawing at me, unspoken, for many years, now: that those who are in charge of our civilization are traitors to it. Not all of them, of course. There are rich people who do try to live decent lives – even some of the old noble houses (the Hapsburgs, long dethroned, do seem to keep their act together); the Koch family (whom I mostly disagree with, politically) seem to be upstanding as well as generous. But time and again we find that the rich are living lives of gross immorality – and if not directly participating in it, keeping their mouths shut about it. They defend nothing which the common people hold dear – not God; not family; nothing…except their own wealth and position, of course; they are fierce in defense of their money…and their private, secluded, heavily guarded playgrounds where, it would seem, quite a lot of the sons and daughters of the poor are brought in to be abused by the layabout sons and daughters of the rich.

But here’s the thing – if they were just destroying themselves, it wouldn’t be any concern of ours. But people with vast fortunes and social prestige have a gigantic effect on everything and everyone else. If I drop $10 into a collection plate, it is only a ripple…a rich person dropping a million dollars is a tidal wave. And if the money is dropped into the plate of a group out to destroy us (you and me, I mean), then it is horribly destructive. That its dropped to keep the anti-Civilization dogs off the backs of the rich just makes such things an insult on top of an injury. What this tells me is that we can’t just let matters be: we’ve got our billionaire on our side in Donald Trump and he’s one heck of a fighter for us…but he’s one guy, and no later than January of 2025, he’s gone. Meanwhile, these malefactors of great wealth (Teddy Roosevelt’s exquisite phrasing) will still be around…being nauseating and still providing money and prestige for interests which want us destroyed. What do we do? Just let it keep on going?

I can’t say that I agree with that – I can’t say, that is, that my defense of private property extends to the defense of private property being used to destroy what I hold dear (which includes property…it isn’t poor people demanding that zoning laws be changed and property seized by government for transfer to rich developers). It is, in short, time for a Revolution – and kicking over the tables and a chasing of the money-changers out of the Temple. We can no longer endure a Ruling Class which is working directly against our interests…they either have to get on board with us, or be removed. And we won’t get rid of the current Ruling Class if they are able to retain their money…money is power; it is, really, the ultimate power, in any form of government. Whomever commands it has absolute power, unless there’s an equally large sum of money opposed…but we see it that, in general, our entire Ruling Class is on the same side, even if they call themselves variously Liberal or Conservative; all of them are at war with us…with what we want. Which is things like common decency; the Rule of Law; equality under the Law; a defense of faith, family and property.

I can’t see how we win the battle if we leave the Ruling Class in possession of their money. If you’ve got a way to leave Soros and his heirs with billions of dollars without their being able to wreck us, then I’m all ears…but unless someone has a way to do just that, then self defense requires us to relieve quite a large number of rich people of their wealth.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan24 Comments

This is certainly interesting:

In Washington state, where his approval rating is 28 points underwater, Trump has still racked up far more donations, big and small, than any of the Democratic candidates — in fact more than the top six Democrats combined.

I’m not talking about total dollars raised — though on that front Trump is a juggernaut, too. But the total number of donations reflects how many people are inspired enough by a candidate to send any amount of money, sometimes repeatedly.

This is Blue Washington. Where you often have to think twice about the risk to your job and social standing if you support the wrong candidate or party. Does this mean Trump will win Washington. No. It’d take a miracle. But, it does show that Trump is not just gaining support, but gaining support which is willing to take a public stand. I’ve been thinking that public opinion polling for this cycle is off because the pollsters simply don’t know about the country they’re living in – that we’re actually very much a populist, center/right nation and that a large part of the populist, center/right people are (now former) Democrats. We’ll find out next year if my theory is correct…but unless the vote comes out that way, I refuse to believe that even a large minority of my fellow Americans are Antifa-loving, open borders trans rights activists.

The Ninth Circuit (yes, that Ninth Circuit) seems to have a struck a blow against the Left’s tactic of finding a judge in Hawaii to issue nationwide injunctions against Trump Administration policies. We’ll see how it plays out – but the higher Courts do have to gain a measure of control here if they don’t want to get crushed under politics. It is ridiculous that some obscure federal judge out there can stop the policy of the duly elected President on a whim. To me, it should be only the Supreme Court able to issue nationwide injunctions.

The New York Times is framing slavery as being central to our existence as a nation. And Beto was out there saying that our nation was founded on racism. Don’t look for any logic behind this view: there isn’t any. It is entirely stupid – but I’ve been pondering this and I recalled the first time I heard this theory. I had watched Farrakhan’s speech at his so-called “million man march” and that is exactly what he was on about: that white people are inherently racist and America is, thus, inherently racist. To call America a racist nation is to assert that everything which has happened in this nation up until just now was evil. I’m not quite sure what the Left’s thinking here is – it could be that hatred has just made them stupid. I don’t know how many people are going to rush out and vote a party which considers your nation evil.

Epstien’s attorneys are not entirely on board with the suicide ruling. I don’t think anyone – left or right – is. But, I also don’t think there’s any way to resolve this: the institutions of government have poisoned the well. Too often caught in flat out lies to be trusted: there’s no way to investigate something like Epstein’s death and remove all doubts.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan31 Comments

With Epstein’s death, a gigantic sigh of relief was heard throughout Manhattan, DC and Hollywood…but there are still a lot of lose ends, and the Ruling Class is diligently trying to tie things up:

On Friday, unsealed court documents named former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and former Clinton cabinet official and ex-New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as among those who allegedly had sex with an underage victim of Jeffrey Epstein. But while all three evening news broadcasts covered the case, one thing was missing: any hint that those two men are Democrats.

If you check anything about Epstein in the MSM or Wikipedia, you’ll see that Trump is mentioned all over the place – that is also a bit of lose-end-tying. Trump really never had much to do with the guy, and certainly not in the last dozen years or so. But, the MSM must protect their masters! And that means downplaying all the prominent Dems in Epstein’s orbit and overemphasizing any Republican involvement. And they wonder why we hold them in contempt? Aside from that, I don’t know where this goes – but you can rely on it, the full truth won’t come out for a long, long time unless Trump and Barr really press the matter. Side note: I’m pretty sure he offed himself, but there were so many “mistakes” the prison had to make to allow him time to do it that I can only assume his death was greatly desired…and I’m wondering if anyone got word to him that his timely exit would result in something he cared about being protected?

Germany provides free college – and you’ll find our domestic leftists all happy about that. But, free college leads to pretty much what you’d expect:

The problem is that every pupil who has passed the school-leaving exam, the Abitur, has the constitutional right to a place at university, even if he or she has to wait some semesters and has no real academic inclinations or talents. The result is a proliferation of abstruse and socially irrelevant courses, a drop-out rate of about 30% (a shocking waste of human and financial resources) and the lack of skilled workers you mentioned.

Free college isn’t to provide educated people – free college is to provide make-work jobs for people in education who will then have a vested interest in preserving the Ruling Class which provides their sinecures. A follow-on benefit is the ability to propagandize to youth for four additional years so they are really solidly in line with Ruling Class desires. The end result is an uneducated population of drones who do as they are told.

Looks like China is about to crush all resistance in Hong Kong. Lots of people are huffing and puffing with righteous indignation over it. It is times like these where I like to remind people that righteous indignation hurts nobody. There is a case to be made for intervening in Hong Kong…but the only meaningful intervention would mean war with China. By all means: China poses a gigantic threat to the United States and the sooner we have it out with them, the less costly it will be. But that is not what these people demanding we “do something” mean…what they mean is “I want to demand we ‘do something’ so I can say I stood with the people of Hong Kong, but if you think I’d risk my life – or, even worse, my investment portfolio – to defend the people of Hong Kong, you’re nuts.” Hong Kong only gets out of its jam if the revolt spreads to the rest of China; so far, there’s no indication of that happening. Side note: this is the long term result of our refusal to unleash the Nationalist Chinese during the Korean War. We were stupid and cowardly then, and now we get to watch while a free people is destroyed.

The new and increasingly non-racist South is becoming ever more Republican. It is a Democrat lie that the old, racist Democrats of yore switched to the GOP. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1965. As late as 2002, Democrats had complete control of the Alabama government. It was only after the 2010 elections that the GOP gained control of the Alabama legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. That was 45 years after the Civil Rights Act which infuriated, particularly, racist Alabama Democrats…who were then supposed to go GOP because the GOP is racist, and yet somehow all these racists forgot to vote GOP until 2010. The reality: the racist Democrats remained Democrats and only with the rise of a new, non-racist white electorate in Alabama did the GOP gain control.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan22 Comments

Have you bought your copy of Mirrors, yet? A fairly good number have – don’t be left out!

Also, don’t be left out of Matt’s new offering: Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us from Barack Obama’s Legacy.

We’ve been busy little authors, haven’t we? Meanwhile, I’ve already started on Part II of my fiction series, to be titled Secrets. Hope – and I really will work on it – to have it out in January.

The Left is now pointing out that 2 of McConnell’s 8 great-great-grandfathers owned slaves. I guess they are really going to run on this reparations thing. I think it’ll be disastrous for them, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Perhaps there is a majority who think we have to shell out because 150 years ago, some people did bad things.

FredoCon David French is wringing his hands and getting all, “well, I never!” over a survey which claims that Christians – especially white Evangelicals – feel little or no obligation to take in refugees. But, do we have such an obligation? Meaning, does our Christian faith require us to take in everyone who lives in a lousy country? I can’t see how – welcoming the stranger is a requirement, but does this extend to essentially whole nations wishing to leave their homelands? I can’t see how – mainly because it is impossible for us to do so. The lousy nations of the world are lousy – and the good nations of the world are getting lousy – because of a moral failure which goes far beyond whether or not we’ll let a refugee in. Right after WWII the Ruling Class of the world made the determination that lousy people shall be allowed to flourish. That the West – the moral leader of the world – would not exercise its power to force barbarians to be civilized. The result has been very predictable: the barbarians have asserted themselves. We can fix the world – but it would require us to be the world’s overlords. Unless you want to do that, don’t try to sell me the notion that I have a moral obligation to take in each and every victim of barbarism.

Yes, I have heard about the Epstein arrest – hadn’t really paid much attention to that saga. My guess – with limited knowledge – is that he’s a pimp. A procurer of certain products for rich degenerates who then trades on that to obtain great wealth. I’m pretty sure not much will come of it – too many highly placed people are tied up in this. The Left is trying to work it up as an anti-Trump thing but I fully expect Trump to be clean on this as he has been on everything else they’ve tried on him. Trump does like pretty women – but women, not girls. Melania is younger than Trump, of course, but she married the man when she was 35 and is now 49. If Trump was into very young, this would not be what he did.

Barr says he’ll get the citizenship question on the census. I think that Trump should just do it, Courts be damned. It is clearly not something the Courts have any authority over – there is no case to be made that anyone suffers harm by the government asking someone if they are a citizen. People get asked this every time they seek employment, for crying out loud.

99.99% of Americans have no idea who Chandra Bose was – but, he was an Indian nationalist who made common cause with Hitler and Japan during WWII. He is considered a hero among parts of the Indian population. Be that as it may, he did buddy up to Hitler…and AOC’s chief of staff has been wearing a shirt with Bose’s image on it. Not cool.