Kavanaugh

Open Thread

Mark Noonan48 Comments

Fox News ran a report about a family with a transgender child and this caused some controversy – but what struck me as most important was Andrew Sullivan stating that, as Conservatives, it is our job to accept this reality and work it into the system. But, that is just absurd – it is also, though, how these social issue debates work. An assertion is made and we are required to accept the underlying assumptions without question. Love is love, right? But, it can’t work that way – and now that it involves children, we must not allow it to work that way.

The reality is that no child knows they are trans – they can’t. They lack the relevant knowledge to even conceptualize it. Children never have anything in their heads outside of what adults put into them. There is no latent knowledge – what we know was imparted to us. Outside of the rare genius, it is only as we get to adulthood – and really, not until we’re in our 30’s – that we develop the capacity to really think on our own…to take the knowledge imparted to us and reconfigure it via our own reason. Certainly, a child under the age of 12 simply has no capacity to determine if they aren’t their biological gender. The story Fox broadcast asserted that the child before speech was already informing the parents of trans status…this is patently ridiculous. The parents made a conscious choice for their child and then imposed it. To the objection that no parent would do such a thing I respond: are you stupid? Have you not seen what parents will do to gain vicarious fame through their children? Insane and evil people will do all sorts of things – and that they might appear to be nice people on the surface doesn’t alter their insanity or their evil…psychopaths are great at pretending to be other than themselves.

We must draw the line: and not just on surgery and drugs. No child under the age of 12 – which is what we used to call the age of reason – can be allowed to live in other than their biological gender and any person suggesting they should do otherwise needs to be jailed. There is zero chance that any person telling a 10 year old they’re trans is doing it for the benefit of the child.

The attempted assassination of Justice Kavanaugh has been successfully suppressed by the MSM – they had to as it was something which shot the Narrative to pieces. The MSM is nothing more than a propaganda arm of the DNC – and we do have to response to this. We can’t allow a purportedly neutral entity to act without restraint when their real goal is to advance Democrats to power. Freedom of the press shall not be abridged…but lying partisanship can’t just be allowed to go on without a response. Legal means must be found to at least force the MSM to acknowledge in a very public way that what the report is mere DNC propaganda.

The Democrats put their January 6th hearings on prime time and nobody watched. Because nobody cares. Because everyone outside dyed-in-the-wool Democrats know the whole thing is just a hatched job.

Biden is cratering in the polls – and as Varad Mehta (whom you should follow on Twitter), points out there is a huge difference between improving from 42 to 47 and improving from 37 to 42…getting to 47 would be helpful, getting to 42 doesn’t really matter. Pudding Brain is getting into the 30’s so even if things turn around for him over the next four months, it won’t really matter. I don’t think the Democrats really understand the catastrophe heading their way – and fudging the inflation number to 8.6% when its really above 15% won’t help. We can see the prices. I went out and bought some soda, water and a few items at the store today and it cost me $75. This wasn’t my weekly grocery shopping trip…I wasn’t buying steak and lobster. I just bought a few items…thing which would have put me back $40 a year ago. Gasoline is now $5 a gallon nationally and no sign the price will ease before $6. When people start paying $100 to gas up, it’ll cross a psychological line which will be just awful for the Democrats.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Still lots of predictions out there about how the mid-terms will go – I was fiddling around with an interactive prediction site and as I ran thru it, I realized what was wrong: the Experts are rating a huge number of very Red districts as toss-ups. I realized it was the only way they could make out that the House is in play…by pretending there’s this massive Blue wave coming which will convince Red (not purple – bright Red) district voters (who almost certainly voted overwhelmingly for Trump) to place Pelosi back in control of the House. I’m sorry, but that’s stupid. There’s no indication that the GOP is abandoning Trump as it essentially did with Bush in 2006 (and continued to abandon the GOP in 2008 when McCain ran). To be sure, anything is possible – but I think the most unlikely thing in politics right now is Trump 2016 voters turning to the Democrats. Once I figured that out, I can through the prospects with my perception and I get the GOP to 220 House seats, at least…that is, if the Democrats have a good night. If the GOP has a good night, 236 GOPers come January. A one seat gain (getting gains above the current 235 is difficult because the districts are all so carefully drawn for maximum partisan advantage).

On the Senate side, I can’t see us coming away with less than 53 GOP Senators if the Democrats have a good night – that’s if they win FL, AZ and NV (with AZ and NV being two seats flipped from GOP to Dem). Now, if the GOP has a good night…well, let’s just say it can be good, great or gosh darned phenomenal, depending on the breaks. 59 is Great. Gosh darned phenomenal isn’t to be spoken out loud…it would be too good to be true. But there is a non-zero chance of gosh darned phenomenal happening.

Do remember to vote next month. Its pretty important.

In case you were wondering, Democrats are assessing their loss in the Kavanaugh fight and they seem determined on a change in tactics. They are promising to start getting aggressive and mean. No, seriously: they are whining on social media about how they were too nice during the Kavanaugh battle. Get ready for one heck of a poop storm – and if the Democrats have a bad night in November, board up your windows.

There were rumors Trump was getting ready to fire Rosenstein but Trump scotched those and now says he and Rosenstein are best buddies. Which leads me to believe that Rosenstein was told by Trump that Trump was the boss (a completely correct statement) and Rosenstein agreed with that assertion. Rosenstein is swamp through and through…but the thing about draining a swamp is that you need the cooperation of at least some swamp dwellers (they know where the drains are, after all). We’ll see how this pans out. I’ve learned enough this past couple years to trust Trump’s judgement.

Allahpundit has fallen very far in the Trump era – now he’s rehashing biased polls to make what he thinks is a point. He’s slobbering in the link over a CNN poll of 1,009 adults (not registered voters, not likely voters, but adults…nearly half of whom won’t even vote in November). It naturally over-samples Democrats and under-samples Republicans. But, that is the old line of Conservatism all over…looking for reasons to surrender. A poll like this is designed to give a squish a reason for surrendering. “Look! There’s a poll saying we’re unpopular! Abandon ship! Ahoy!”. Yadda, yadda, yadda. As if any of that means anything. I’m so glad we’re giving these people the boot. It was long overdue.

A memo apparently went out saying that it is just wrong for the GOP to gloat over the Kavanaugh victory. It was all over the MSM and Social Media…naturally with the Never Trump weenies joining. We’re not supposed to win and when we do win, we’re not supposed to feel joy. Think about this – the left tried to win by claiming a boring, married judge was some sort of serial monster and they lost. And we’re supposed to bow our heads and be ashamed. Seriously: why did we put up with this garbage for so long?

Don Surber notes that Trump did the right thing – he apologized on behalf of the United States to Kavanaugh and his family.

51-49 Open Thread

Mark Noonan21 Comments

I’d like to see #PopAColdOne trending on Twitter by the time they vote tomorrow. I saw that a group of GOPers showed up at Cocaine Mitch’s house this morning to drink PBR in favor of Kavanaugh. And I have floated the idea of having a National Kegger for Liberty in DC at some future date.

Jokes aside, it is still a bit up in the air. I do rate Kavanaugh’s chances as very good, but we’ve got a day for the left to go to work on the squishes. I doubt they’ll move Manchin because a vote for Kavanaugh is crucial to his re-election chances. But they still could find two GOPers willing to knife us in the back on this. We’ll just have to wait and see. But, come what may, the GOP is on fire over this – and, maybe, a Kavanaugh defeat would just energize the base even more. GOP fundraising has skyrocketed since this began, Trump hit 50% in Rasmussen and one generic ballot shows that the Democrat advantage among women has dropped from +22 to +1 (which, given polling bias, works out to the GOP having a polling advantage). The Democrats may have only awakened a sleeping giant.

Getting into the details of the mess, we’re starting to see the outlines of how it was created…and that those who did so might have placed themselves in legal jeopardy. Democrats have been acting over the past two years as if the levers of power weren’t in our hands. I think they are about to have a rude awakening.

The Chinese appear to have inserted a hacker chip into phones and computers shipped to the United States. This surprises no one with any sense, at all. Of course they’ll do that. They are a totalitarian dictatorship and nothing happens in China without the government being involved…and it would have been insane of the Chinese government to not avail themselves of this fantastic opportunity to spy on all of us with ease. There is no doubt in my mind that every phone and computer manufactured in China can be accessed immediately by the Chinese government at will. And this is likely just the one we caught – they are sure to have installed backup hacks in case one fails. I’ve been saying it for years: do not trade with tyrannical regimes. Do not have relations with them. All you do is weaken yourself when you do.

I’m going to wait for the votes over a couple election cycles, but there are some indications that African-Americans are questioning their long time support for the Democrat Party. I’ve always said it will happen – but I thought we’d have to do far more for it to occur. But, you know, maybe massively improving prospects combined with clear attempt by white liberals to tell black people how they have to think are doing the thing for us?

Open Thread

Mark Noonan28 Comments

Some SJW types painted nauseating graffiti all over a GOP office in Illinois. Not at all surprising. This is what the left is building – on purpose and maliciously. They want people at a fever pitch of hate. And they are hoping for confrontations – I’ve seen the comments all over social media, including from “respectable” people on the Left. Trouble is, eventually someone is going to shoot back (we’re already past the “someone is going to get shot” phase, as Congressman Scalise can testify). To be sure, the MSM will try to paint the first bit of return fire as some unique outrage…but no one is really listening to the MSM any longer. I hope it doesn’t come out like that – but if you get in people’s faces enough, you will get a direct reaction.

Meanwhile, Cocaine Mitch says he’ll hold a vote on Kavanaugh this week.

Georgetown University says it is committed to Social Justice. This is what Social Justice is, in practice:

C. Christine Fair, an associate professor at Georgetown in the School of Foreign Service, tweeted Saturday, saying white Republican men should die and an added bonus would be if women “castrate their corpses and feed them to swine.”

The University blew off complaints about this by saying they like free speech…which someone should test by holding a pro-life vigil on campus with the participants wearing MAGA hats.

Professor produces a study showing that, just perhaps, the lack of women in physics is based on something other than sexism…and, of course, promptly gets un-personed and his research consigned to the nearest Memory Hole.

Don Surber: smart guy:

The Marxist Mob’s attack on Judge Brett Kavanaugh is part of a multi-decadal plan to eliminate the Constitution — which Marxists slander as a a slave document.

Yep.

Trump should make this his 2020 theme song:

Some Thoughts on the Left

Mark Noonan24 Comments

What we’re dealing with in the Left is a few things, all mixed together in a bad way.

First and foremost, the Long Peace. Even though we’ve engaged in near-continuous warfare since 1941, the American people haven’t really felt the affects of war save for the 9/11 attacks, which were limited in area affected. Our homes have not been bombed; our women and children murdered; our farms and factories destroyed, by foreign invaders. All of us are, to a certain extent, a bit blind to the some times cruel realities of the world. But the people of the left have plain forgotten that the barbarians are right out there, waiting for their chance, and only eternal vigilance keeps us safe.

Secondly, the gigantic prosperity of the United States. This not only means that Americans don’t know real want – real privation – but we actually have so much extra wealth lying around that we can support millions who do nothing and many more millions who do nothing useful. When you look at leftists, you’ll find a gigantic portion of them either work in fields where concrete results are not expected, or don’t work at all. Sure, you can find some who do work…but usually on the lower end of the leftist movement and almost always as union workers who think that the left still cares about working people (and I think that more and more such people are becoming disillusioned with the left; I’m not talking about government employees, but people like those in the SEIU). We’re so rich that we can afford massive waste – especially the sort of waste which essentially pays the left to tear down our civilization. But, trouble is, you know when you’re doing something useful and when you’re not. A plumber comes home at the end of the day knowing he fixed some leaking pipes…but what does a Gender Studies Professor think about at the end of the day? “I wrote another screed against the Patriarchy!”? People who don’t do useful things, tend to get defensive and want to justify themselves…getting mad and hateful is the easiest way to do so.

Third, we’re in a moral crisis in this nation. Remember the people who pushed to have us pass out condoms in middle school? They are the same people marching in the #MeToo movement. The left sold people on the idea of complete immorality (predicted, I should note, by Chesterton a century ago when he said the next great heresy would be an attack on morality, as such, and especially sexual morality) and when people tried to live immorally, they found out why the priests and philosophers had been saying for 2,000 years that you can’t do that. In short, people got suckered into living lives of hedonistic dissipation, found that it sucked, and then got mad about it…but without repenting what they had done. What we’re seeing is very often someone pissed off that they didn’t have a nice life after they lived like dogs in heat and they are blaming the elements of society which said, “don’t do that” for the failure of their experiment.

All of this has been mixed together and what we have are bitter, spiteful people who have become merciless, shameless liars. And I mean really shameless. Over the past couple days the accusations and insinuations against Kavanaugh have actually gotten worse. Avenatti’s accusations are now getting too tame for the left to pursue! By Wednesday, Georgetown Prep will probably be accused of holding demonic sex orgies…and the shameless liars of the left will just eat it up.

A bit ago a Twitter friend and I engaged – a moderate to the core, he was delighted that Flake had, supposedly, tried to cool things off. I pointed out that while Flake may, personally, be a good man, he promoted sheer evil by going along with the Democrats demand. And not just evil to us, but evil to the left, themselves. You see, by indulging them this way, we’re allowing them to get worse…and no decent human being should set up a situation where our fellow people are able to wallow in filth. We can’t stop such things, but we certainly must do all we can to limit them, if at all possible. Flake didn’t see his duty – and I don’t know if it was cowardice or stupidity which moved him, but it doesn’t really matter: the damage was done.

What we have to keep in mind is that we’re in a fight of Right v Wrong – there’s no compromise. Any concession we make from this point forward will merely be seized upon by the shameless liars to indulge in yet more shameless lying. Our duty to ourselves – and to them – is to stand firm and give them not an inch. We’re not like them – meaning, we’re not shameless liars; nor are we merciless – so we won’t do to them what they very much want to do to us, but we must do all we can to stop them and remove them from power. Only once they are completely bereft of power will some of them, at least, wake up from their nightmare, see what they have done, and repent. They could still remain liberals, but they’ll at least have learned not to be evil. And that is important. Being wrong is fine: we’re all wrong on some things, frequently…but as long as we’re not evil, we’re at least not subtracting from the overall civilization.

Stand firm. There is not much reason to engage them in debate (it just allows them more opportunity to shamelessly lie, after all) and work as hard as you can for your side. We have a real chance over the next two years to win a revolutionary amount of power. So much power that we can impose a settlement on the political debate (meaning, not that there won’t be debate, but that we’ll be back to where we were from 1865 to 1965: conducting our debates in an agreed framework and with a sense of fair play for each side). Or, perhaps, we’ll be the side which is crushed. So be it: but let’s not help them crush us.

Some Thoughts on Kavanaugh

Mark Noonan50 Comments

I watched Ford’s statement and then the questioning (well, a good portion of it, anyways; did have some work around the yard to get done today). Her statement added nothing to what we know. She contradicted earlier statements. It was let slide by everyone, but she says she gave a friendly hello to Judge (you know: one of her attackers) 6-8 weeks after the alleged attack. She was clearly working from a script, repeatedly had to refer to her notes to answer basic questions about recent events and gave (to me, at least) a cringe-worthy attempt at coming off as an outraged victim. I ended up being nauseated by it all.

And then Kavanaugh happened: Democrats immediately (on social media) went ballistic about it, but that is an indicator of how effective it was. He was genuinely outraged. The contrast between his real, raw emotions on display with Ford was astonishing. On the questioning, Kavanaugh did well, but had a few weak moments (the answer to “why don’t you ask for an FBI investigation?” is “because there’s no point: it’d just give you guys time to dredge up some more ridiculous accusations”) – until Graham came on. Wow! He’s a Conservative hero, now. And the thing is, it is people like Graham whom the Democrats had to convince…but all they did was anger him. And that is what is key about this: the Democrats have made everyone non-Democrat very, very mad.

Short term, this may very well cost the Democrats a lot in November. But, long term, is foreshadows a worsening political situation in the United States. We’re very nearly at each other’s throats. And the Left won’t dial is back and we on the Right can’t back down. The next few years may end up getting very rough.

With Kavanaugh, We’ve Reached the Crisis

Mark Noonan52 Comments

So, the Michael Avenatti, the day after claiming (in a legally deniable way) that Kavanaugh was a vile beast, has taken his Twitter account private. He claims it was because of Trump trolls…but, he’s been dealing with that for a year. I’ll leave everyone to judge for themselves the matter.

That was just a small thing in the overall Kavanaugh story, of course: more important is the fact that the accusations keep getting worse while also getting more flimsy. And the shrieking SJW left is shrieking ever louder. They are convinced that Kavanaugh is a drunken, serial rapist (I’m not kidding: I’ve read their comments). Meanwhile, Cocaine Mitch and The Donald are standing firm…and word is that even the GOP squishes (with the possible exception of Flake) are getting outraged over this mess. I sure know that I am. Yeah, I’m a veteran…but I’m not a tough guy. In fact, I’m just about un-tough. I’m a pretty calm and relaxed person who is broadly tolerant of all human frailties, because I am fully aware of my own failures. But, man oh man, am I fit to be tied, now. I’ve never been so angry. A howling mob of SJW fascists chased Ted Cruz and his wife out of restaurant last night…Cruz, given his position, could do no other than flee.

I will never flee.

Lost in the shuffle is that reality isn’t matching up to DNC/MSM Narratives. It isn’t just things like the Gallup poll which shows the GOP more popular than the Democrats (you know how I feel about polls): but it’s also things like CNN being low-rated; Michael Moore’s anti-Trump hit job “documentary” failing at the box office; the RNC being flush with cash while the DNC is effectively bankrupt. I’m suspecting that part of the reason the Democrats turned it up to 11 on Kavanaugh (and it was the Democrat leadership, not the base, leading the way here) is because their own estimates of their November chances are looking bad…and they are firing up the base to get them to vote. A party on the cusp of winning takes a calm, middle-of-the-road line to pull in all wavering voters…a party afraid of being blown out acts like the world is coming to an end.

I don’t know how the rest of this week is going to go – I’m highly doubtful that Ford will testify on Thursday. Unless she can come up with someone or something to verify her story, she’d look a complete idiot testifying in front of the Senate on national TV. And if she’s not telling the truth – and I don’t think she is – she’ll open herself up to legal jeopardy. But, we’ll see: maybe she does play her hand out to the end? Stranger things have happened. I was getting doubtful about Kavanaugh’s chances a couple days ago, but not I’m starting to have confidence return. But, in the end, even if a few GOPers knife us in the back over this, I think that more and more people are coming to realize that the Democrats must be kept out of power…they are completely irresponsible and will wreck the nation to spite Trump, if given the chance.

It is very, very sad what we’re seeing – the Democrats, by inviting the SJW left into politics, have injected a poison into the body politic we’ll be a long time getting rid of. Our job, as patriots, is to stand firm…and vote like your life depended on it. Because it does.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan39 Comments

As I write this, Ford won’t testify and Grassley is giving her until Friday to agree to testify. The only thing which could keep this alive would be a new accuser…and don’t think the Dems aren’t gaming that out to see if they could make it work, at least to the point where Kavanaugh’s confirmation is pushed past the mid-terms.

What has impressed me most over the past 48 hours is:

1. Aside from a few cowards, most non-left people have stood firm. For once, the non-Democrat part of the country is not running for the hills when the Democrats lob a grenade into the body politic. We’ve got to get into the mindset that we have to jump on the grenade. No more fear: fight back, every time.

2. I’m hearing from and about Average Joe’s and Jane’s – people who don’t follow politics closely and who don’t have strong loyalty to either party – who are furious over this. I’ve even heard such state that even if they could prove Kavanaugh did it, it shouldn’t stop him from being on the Court. As I’ve said before, the one thing Americans tend to unite on is that they don’t like unfairness. It is simply unfair to accuse a person of a horrible act and not only refuse all cross-examination of the accuser, but to make the accusation in such a way that the accused really has no way to even try to disprove the allegation.

How all this will work out in the near and long term, I don’t know: but I’m starting to suspect that this is going to cost the Democrats some Senate seats in November. There is a theory out there that it is all a case of mistaken identity – that it happened, but someone else was the perpetrator. This is possible…but I doubt it was “mistaken” identity…

Muckraking journalist James O’Keefe got a video of Justice Department officials admitting they use their official powers to help the political left. So, here’s the Deep State, guys: a collection of bureaucrats who view their primary loyalty as being to a political party – or movement – rather than to the people of the United States. They brag in the videos about how they can’t be fired – they are relying on the protections built into law so that people can’t be fired for political reasons: but such laws were also written on the assumption that the bureaucrats would remain carefully neutral in the political battles of the United States. It is time to clean house – and if it means changing the civil service laws, it’ll have to be done.

Interesting article on the prospect of microbial life in some briney lakes under the Martian ice…my view: life is probably very rare in the Universe. The conditions necessary for any life like we have on Earth are so narrow that the chances of any particular planet having them are small. One only need look at Mars and Venus to see…here are three planets, Venus, Mars and Earth, that all seem to have the necessary pre-conditions for life, but only one of them has it. My guess is that we’ll search a very long time, out to very far distances, and never detect anything alive.

The Air Force Secretary has mapped out a plan for the Space Force. A lot of people, including many on the right, have heaped ridicule on the President’s proposal…much as many did with Reagan’s proposal for SDI. But, folks, Space is important – I’ve held for 30 years that eventually Space will become as dominant as the Sea in human life. Whomever controls Space will control their own national destiny.

Kavanaugh Must Be Confirmed

Mark Noonan13 Comments

I don’t think I’ve ever been made so angry by political events. At least in the case of Moore they had the yearbook: thin, but at least it was a contemporary document which verified that Moore had some contact with his accuser. All we’ve got in Kavanaugh’s case is a letter which doesn’t even state clearly when and where it happened. And, now, word is his accuser is pushing back against the idea of testifying before the Senate and her lawyer is claiming the accuser has no burden of proof. I’d say this was Soviet-style slandering, but the Soviets weren’t this dishonorable.

Kavanaugh completely denies any such event took place – not just with the accuser, but at all. The other person claimed to be there also denies it happened. There is no way to actually investigate the matter because we don’t know when and where it happened – which is just terribly convenient for the accuser because if she gave a specific date, then Kavanaugh might be able to prove he was elsewhere at the time. Rather astonishing that such a searing event in her life doesn’t come with the date within a week of the event and a place at least within a few blocks of where it might have happened.

Meanwhile, some – but not all – of the Never Trumpers are all “this is serious and we have to listen”. As if that is what the Democrats want. They don’t want that: they want Kavanaugh to be axed. And, then, if they win the Senate, they’ll just keep that seat vacant for two years hoping that a Democrat wins in 2020. This is all about the exercise of raw, political power. The Democrats want to win – and this is their last, desperate gambit to do that. If we let them win, then we’re cooked. If mere accusation is enough to kill Kavanaugh’s nomination, then no one is safe…and very many people will refuse to even get involved in politics for fear that someone will just make something up about them.

The only way we win this is to put Kavanaugh on the Court – no other outcome works. If we fail, we’re doomed. They’ll just keep doing this and keep doing this and keep doing this until the only “dissenting” voices in politics are those who will never actually challenge the left. This is the hill we must fight on: there is no tomorrow. We either win and get Kavanaugh on the Court, or our political future is finished.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan46 Comments

The Democrats are proving there is no bottom to the gutter – Senator Feinstein, in a desperate and downright evil attempt to last-minute derail Kavanaugh, has said she received an anonymous denunciation of Kavanaugh and has referred it to Justice…where she’s likely relying on some Deep State malefactors to run with it, at least enough to lend this disgusting hit job some legitimacy.

This is the utter sh** of the left, folks – and it is what the Never Trumpers say we must vote for this November because Trump is so bad. F all these people! Get out and vote GOP as if your life depended on this November. Let’s take this garbage and shove it right up their a**.

Yes, as a matter of fact, this did piss me off. A lot.

Latest in liberal stupidity: Men’s preference for young women is a sign that masculinity is in crisis. Anyone want to break it to them that men find young women attractive because, well, sexual attraction has as its purpose procreation: you know, it’s rather biologically baked in for us to have a preference for sexual partners who can fulfill the biological purpose of sex?

So, a police force hires a man after determining he’s unable to handle stress…and then, in a stressful situation, he shoots a person. Now, why was he hired? Because he’s a Somali Muslim and diversity is our strength…

I see a Red Wave coming – because four separate forecasts have the Democrats winning the House.