North Korea

Open Thread Futures at -$1.79

Mark Noonan65 Comments

We were supposed to be hoarding oil, I guess.

I supported the lockdowns when they were announced – but I’m starting to think that we might have made a mistake. Perhaps we should have made it a matter of personal choice? Do as much social distancing as possible. Wear masks and gloves. Work from home if possible – but let everyone assess the risk for themselves? As we see Democrats trying to force us into a Great Depression over this, it is clear that we didn’t think this all the way through at the start. At all events, it is time to start easing up. We do have to get back to work.

President Trump is going to suspend immigration – which makes sense. Until we’re back to full employment, we simply don’t need more people here. Liberal heads will explode over this – they will step on this rake. They have to. Orange Man Bad, right? So they’ll be out there telling us to stay in our homes but we must welcome new immigrants.

The Experts are still telling us that Biden has it in the bag – which sounds familiar. Almost like I heard this four years ago, or something. But, be that as it may, Steven Hayward has a contrarian view – mostly because Trump isn’t afraid to hit back and the Democrats are a targe-rich environment.

North Korea’s dictator is said to be in bad health.

What I expected to find: Russia didn’t want to help Trump in 2016. Of all the absurdities these past few years, this is the most egregious: that Russia wanted Trump. Its stupid – they owned Hillary. And even if they didn’t own her, they knew her policies were tailor-made to let Russia do whatever it damned well pleased in the world. Russia always wants to sow confusion because that’s just the way Russia is…but to think they’d want to roll the dice on Trump when they had a sure thing in Hillary is ridiculous.

Happy New Years!

Mark Noonan49 Comments

Some folks are wondering what we should bring back from the previous 20’s. I’m going with Cab Calloway:

Iranians tried to attack our embassy in Baghdad. Trump sent Marines. All is calm, now. Marines are good at that. Democrats – proving they are monumentally stupid – are trying to make this out as “Trump’s Benghazi”. They wish. I can’t be emphasized enough (and count on it: Team Trump will emphasize this all through the campaign) the difference between Benghazi and Baghdad. Obama was nowhere to be seen while Americans were left to die and then a bullsh** story was cooked up to cover it up…Trump was front and center and got the Marines rolling right away. This is basic Executive competence, and Obama did not have it.

Even CNN is pointing out that the Democrat’s impeachment thing is absurd.

Biden suggests that the miner’s his policies will throw out of work should learn to code. There goes PA and Michigan if Biden is the nominee. Of course, not sure Biden will drag his was through…I’m starting to pay attention to Buttigieg; he might be about to pull a Carter: win the IA contest and then just roll to the nomination against a bunch of old guard has-beens.

I’m sure you’ve by now heard of Based Grandpa who blew away a guy working up a church massacre. The Left hates this – they mostly hate that its on video and can’t be denied. Totally blows their anti-gun Narrative.

The North Korea situation is still murky – in the end, it will come down to what the NK leadership wants…to continue to preside over a dead society armed with nuclear weapons, or cut a deal with us and come alive? We’ll see what they pick.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan49 Comments

Trump came back from Vietnam empty handed – seems that the North Korean’s tried to pull a fast one and Trump walked. Neither Trump nor the North Koreans are saying this is the end. I figure the North Koreans were testing to see how far Trump would go to get a deal. They found out: not too far.

Here’s the thing that our Experts are missing: the proper goal for American foreign policy vis a vis North Korea is to detach North Korea from China. I’m starting to see some hints that Chinese realizes this might be Trump’s goal, and they don’t like it one bit. China likes having a crazy North Korea around to muck up things in east Asia. Makes it easier for China to do things…at least they aren’t crazy, right? That Trump went to Vietnam to meet Kim is also interesting: in relation to China, we need the Vietnamese as allies. I’m wondering if Trump is working on a grand realignment in Asia? Hope so. It is long overdue.

Now, if we could just get everyone to see that our proper policy in Syria is to detach it from Iran…even if this means making a deal with Assad.

In a very quiet way on a Friday night, the Washington Post issued a correction regarding its original reporting on the Covington Catholic boys. I don’t think this will be good enough. I do think that they’ll eventually settle out of court for a large sum of money in order to avoid a crushing loss in Court. Either way, the MSM is being instructed that they must not slander regular folks. I like this.

Seems that religious believers don’t like it when their parish or synagogue gets all SJW. My parish is mostly free of overt Progressivism, but there is still the jarring note from time to time. I understand that in some parishes, it is quite SJW…one friend of mine going to a Church for Mass and the first thing she noticed was no crucifix. If you’ve ever been to a Catholic Church, you know the most prominent thing is usually a gigantic statue of Christ crucified right over the altar. I can’t imagine why anyone calling themselves Catholic would find such a thing inappropriate, but apparently some do. The bottom line is that when religious bodies seek to become part of the world, they die. The end. I know the Catholic Church is in sorry shape right now, but I also know plenty of young Catholic men and women are rising up to rebuild the Church. This Progressive drivel shall pass. Don’t know about the old mainline Protestant congregations…they seem to be gone for good.

The Tru Cons sent a pro-choice liberal to cover CPAC. That’s all you really need to know about the Tru Cons. As Glenn Reynolds points out:

“Conservatism conserved?” They haven’t even conserved women’s sports without penises. And, more tellingly, they haven’t even tried.

Governor Northam’s (D-Minstrel Show) wife handed out cotton balls to African-American children.

No, I did not make that up.

Worst President Re-Release Open Thread

Mark Noonan22 Comments

The Worst President in History has been re-released. It has been updated! We’re very proud of this book and are pleased that it has done so well. Just to tip you off, Matt and I just got another idea for a book, so stay tuned. And buy this one, if you haven’t!

So, there’s this anti-ICE camp and, get this, they’ve set up borders for the camp and they strictly control who is allowed inside. I’d accuse them of hypocrisy, but there’s just no point because they are shameless.

California, since 1968, has been granted waivers to go beyond the national clean air standards – and the liberals of California have used these waivers to leverage the rest of the nation to subscribe to California’s clean air standards. Looks like the EPA may end that practice. On one hand, this is good as it prevents California from effectively dictating national auto emission standards…on the other hand, the more unlivable the liberals make California, the closer we get to the day the liberals are crushed in California. I’m distressed that we might be helping the liberals get rid of some of their own stupid mistakes.

Looks like the North Korean are dismantling at least some of their nuclear infrastructure. The MSM has been relentless in not covering this.

There was yet another in the series of “waiter gets racist note” events. Naturally, the MSM ran with the story…and just as naturally, it has now proved false. You might be thinking: why do they keep doing this? Well, the reason is that the retraction never gets much notice, at all, and zero notice on the left. Rely on it, most people of the left firmly believe that each of these events actually happened, just as they still believe “hands up, don’t shoot” is true. These stories aren’t for you and me: they are for the true believers of the Left, to keep them at a fever pitch.

Have any of you seen Interstellar? Every time I hear people talking about it, they are saying it is the very worst Sci-Fi movie ever made. I think it the best. If you’ve seen it, what do you think?

President Trump and a Sane Foreign Policy

Mark Noonan62 Comments

Compare and contrast: Donald Trump, called ignorant, stupid and crude by the Expert Class, manages to at least get the ball rolling on a settlement of the Korean War and the de-nuclearization of Korea. The Expert Class (Conservative and Progressive, makes no matter in this case) is the same sort of people who got us into the Korean War without a declaration of war, expended 33,000 American lives – along with many hundreds of thousands of Korean and Chinese lives (as well as blowing everything above a hut in North Korea to pieces) – and then said, “ah, heck with it: lets just settle for a stalemate.” A stalemate which has now gone on for 65 years, continues to cost lives and, until just yesterday, carried a real threat of renewed fighting at any time.

Who is actually dumb? Heck: who is actually insane?

Reading the comments from Expert Class people on social media after Trump concluded the summit, I kept getting angrier and angrier. These people clearly wished that Trump had failed – and are hoping against hope that it will still fail at some future point. I got the distinct impression (and I’m not the only one) that they’d prefer a bloody war to result in Korea, as long as we lost it and they could pin the blame on Trump. Look, I despise the North Korean regime as much as anyone – just as I despise all tyranny, and especially tyranny of the Communist variety, because it is so invariably anti-human. But I also don’t want the sons and daughters of America to die in war unless it is necessary – and I sure as heck don’t want them shoved into another war to bleed and die and then not be allowed to win. I tend to think this is a rather sane way to view things.

Trump is trying to get something better. Maybe the North Korean regime also wants something better? Sure, we can count on it that they will try to wring every advantage they can out of this and you can rely on it that they’re plans don’t include the creation of a pluralist democracy. What can we do here?

1. Nothing and hope that the North Korean regime merely dies, and doesn’t decide to take out South Korea in it’s death throes.

2. Go to war and expend a lot of lives destroying the North Korean regime, and then spend a couple decades rebuilding the place.

3. Try to work a deal where they become a non-immediate threat and are able to slowly build themselves up over time (which does carry a risk that a richer North Korea might eventually become more militarily powerful than a poor North Korea…but, ultimately, that is more South Korea’s problem than ours, and as long as South Korea maintains their first-rate military, such a problem is contained).

I think Option 3 is best. Others can have a different view; I understand and respect that…but what we’re getting from the Expert Class is a clear hope that everything goes to heck in a hand basket, just so they can blame Trump. So, heck with them. They’ve pushed a foreign policy for decades which has proven not just a failure, but an insane failure. Time to move on.

And that, I think, is what President Trump is doing: moving on from the framework of the past. The President is abandoning the post-WWII settlement in favor of a new idea that if we strenuously pursue American interests, good things will follow not just for us, but for the whole world. The Expert Class hates this idea, mostly because they hate the idea of the United States going forward and carrying the world in it’s train. But for those of us who believe we’re the good guys, then we see it is a logical that if we do things to sustain ourselves, that will help us and all the other good guys in the world.

Who benefits from a weak America? Not us. Not the forces of freedom and decency. Who benefits from a powerful America? Us, and the forces of freedom and decency. We’ve tended to go weak ever since WWII. Even under supposedly Conservative governments, we have bent the knee to such things as the UN and have deliberately refused to flex our full power on the world stage. This hasn’t been done for any rational reason – it as been done for the insane reason that our Expert Class doesn’t believe we should be too powerful (you should look into Expert Class commentary after the fall of the USSR…they were worried that without the USSR to keep us in check, we’d destroy the world, because we’re stupid redneck deplorables). As the Expert Class can’t actually make us non-powerful, they have set up a system of treaties, organizations and agreements which says we can’t do things unless the rest of the world agrees we should. We’ve been hobbled and made unable to stay completely out of foreign entanglements while also not being able to finish conflicts once they come up.

We’ve been forbidden to be either Isolationist or Empire. And what have we got for this? Well, the aforementioned Korean War. But, also, Vietnam War. The ongoing Global War on Terrorism (which will hit its seventeenth anniversary this September; keep going and a couple years from now young American men and women who weren’t even alive when the war started will get the privilege of being killed in it). Various other small wars for our own involvement but let’s not forget things like the Bosnian War; the Rwandan genocide; the mass migration of people; the various failed States around the world; the destruction of our own morality (done primarily to crush our spirit and make us docile)…it has all been wrong, and insanely wrong, at that. We’ve really done nothing right. And the people who have done it all wrong are now standing up and telling us we must not follow Trump on this. Nuts to that.

I’m fully aware that Trump might fail. Anyone who attempts anything risks failure – it is in the nature of things. But one thing I can’t see me agreeing to is to keep going on with the same, old insanity. We’ve tried it. We given the smart guys who are supposed Experts their chance…and we’ve got piles of corpses and a demoralized world now prey to the worst among us as a result. No, thanks. I can’t say what, exactly, will work to fix on this, but it will be something other than the insane Experts are prescribing. Maybe Trump has got it figured out? We’ll find out over the next couple years and I’m willing to give him time. And if he fails, I’ll agree to try something else…but not what we’ve been doing. That is over and done with and only Progressives and Never Trump haven’t figured that out.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan23 Comments

I don’t put much stock in polls, but it is interesting that this poll shows Millenials moving away from the Democrats. Makes sense – when all you offer is identity politics and outragey outrage, kinda gets dull. Now, I know a lot of my fellow Conservatives will attack me on this, but let’s nail these kids down for our side for a generation: annul the student loan debt. Or, at least allow kids to go bankrupt on it. The whole thing was merely a scam to get utra-liberal Colleges rolling in dough which they would then use against us. Get rid of it – and get the kids out of debt.

The Israeli Mossad apparently carried out the intelligence coup of all time – getting a massive amount of documents detailing Iran’s nuclear program. The most important thing about it is that it shows Obama was either a fool or an idiot to enter the Iran Deal (but, you already knew that).

Seems that FDR was also looking for a settlement of the “Jewish Question.” Now, to be sure, FDR didn’t even imagine anything along the lines of Hitler’s settlement, but it is interesting to note just how Progressives viewed (and continue to view) things…how eerily akin it all is to the worst aspects of fascist and Communist thinking. For those of us on the right, there never was a “Jewish Question”. Jews are people and are entitled to all the rights and privileges of everyone else…the only “settlement” is to ensure that Jews, and everyone else, enjoys their God-given rights. What they do with them, after that, is up to them. But Progressives don’t look at it like that – people are a “problem” that needs solution. Naturally, they are the only people equipped to solve the problem.

With the possibility of peace looming in Korea, it is important that you get to North Korea before Capitalism ruins it: Kim Jong-un wants a McDonald’s in Pyongyang. To me, this is a disastrously bad idea that only a Communist tyrant could think of. McDonald’s being just terrible! Joking aside, I don’t know how this Korea peace move will work out. I’ve just gotta figure that the North Korean’s are working an angle. But in and among that angle there just might be a desire to no longer be poor and miserable. Reports over the past couple years indicate that even the elites are not getting as much as they used to. Kim Jong-un may believe he can pull off what Deng Xiaoping did in China back in the 70s: keep his regime firmly in control while allowing sufficient economic openness to allow for real growth. South Korea, on the other hand, would be willing to give up a lot, I think, to permanently remove the North Korean threat to their own prosperity. As an America, I’m willing to also give up quite a lot if it really means no nuclear weapons in North Korea. Let’s hope for the best.

Donald Surber takes a look at the upcoming West Virginia Senate battle…and notes that Manchin may end up having trouble against a GOP candidate who was blamed for the deaths of 29 miners. If so, it would indicate the Democrat party is dead in West Virginia.

Ace looks at Jake Tapper’s new novel and it is rather brutal. I hope mine comes off better. Doing the second draft, now, with some extremely valuable input from some people I highly respect. To me, its a good story about to become a great story. But, we’ll see. Hope Ace likes it.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan28 Comments

I finished the first draft of the novel – will be working on revisions to it for a while, maybe weeks, perhaps a few months. It has been a lot of fun writing it.

Meanwhile, Matt notes that Hogg got himself a book deal:

Just how much fame can one person milk simply for witnessing a tragic event? As if countless television interviews, a nationwide rally, and a highly publicized boycott effort weren’t enough to satisfy the apparently inflated ego of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg, he has now scored himself a book deal. The book, titled #NeverAgain, will be published in June by Penguin Random House—one of the biggest publishers in the world.

A lot of people go gleeful when Hannity’s name came up in the wake of the Cohen raid – and nothing better illustrates how stupid our opponents are than this. First off, in thinking there would be anything legally incriminating about Trump in that office and, secondly, in their blind inability to see that if the attorney-client privileged can be violated in one case, it can be in others. It’s like they don’t realize that carefully filed away in law offices across the nation is enough information to destroy the entire Ruling Class.

Luntz did a focus group on Comey and found that a lot of people don’t like his actions. This is the difference, guys: 20 years ago, the MSM – as much a tool of the DNC then as now – would be able to drive a Narrative and make it stick. If this were 1988, Comey would have 75% approval ratings and everyone would consider him a national hero. But that just doesn’t work any longer. The ability of the non-left to get the word out if vastly superior…and the MSM squandered its credibility defending the indefensible. The MSM is still able to have a large effect, of course…but it doesn’t dominate like it used to, and it is getting weaker all the time.

Looks like Trump and Pompeo may have an shot of bringing a semblance of actual peace to the Korean peninsula. Naturally, the left and Never Trump is giving Trump no credit for this – in fact, some are condemning it outright. But, to me, it is a good thing…maybe it doesn’t work and, of course, North Korea will try to cheat. But if something could be done to take down the nuke threat and allow a sense of long-term security there, I’m for it. I’ll even say an agreement to withdraw our forces in return for verified termination of NK’s nuke program will be a good deal. At all events, our foreign policy under Trump is going in a very different direction from Obama…and even from previous Republican Administrations. I don’t know if it will all work – but it can’t possibly be worse than what we’ve done in foreign policy for a century.

Along these lines, David Goldman has an interesting analysis of the foreign policy issues we face vis a vis Russia, Iran, China and the Middle East. It is a good read.

Don Surber notes that in keeping with the rule that if you clash with Trump, you lose, erstwhile Trump opponent Evan McMullin is in some hot water:

McMullin is more qualified to run a McDonald’s than he is to be president.

His campaign for president may be his undoing.

“The Federal Election Commission sent numerous letters to the McMullin For President Committee over the last year warning that the organization risks fines for failing to file and for making errors on financial statements it did manage to submit,” the Daily Caller reported.

Wanted to save us from Trump, can’t even keep his books in order…

Regarding Asia’s Mini Me.

Leo Pusateri6 Comments
Image
The linked article below from Stratfor.com gives an interesting perspective as to the history of the relationship between Beijing and North Korea-One possibility missing in this article is that of North Korea being a puppet and proxy government under Beijing’s control, via which Beijing can assert plausible deniability for actions it takes via its North Korean sock puppet.In an effort to ‘diffuse’ tensions, John Kerry sojourned to Beijing the other day, and offered, in exchange for China’s willingness to call off its ‘attack dog,’ concessions on U.S. missile defense in Asia.Could it be that Beijing is rattling North Korea’s saber, just to see how the West reacts and/or cowers? We arguably have the least cogent, most feckless foreign policy since the dawn of Jimmy Carter. It would appear plausible that China is exploiting the Obama Administration’s/Washington’s newfound affinity for “global test” pacifism and Chamberlain-esque knee-jerk appeasement, and will try to obtain more and more concessions while the gettin’s good.My guess is that China will continue to play the West via North Korea like a fiddle, as long as the current feckless leadership remains in Washington, and that Beijing will seize every opportunity to effect the West’s strategic weakening and further a lack of resolve.

Read further here:

Dealing With China

Mark Noonan3 Comments

James Traub over at Foreign Policy has an interesting article about how the United States should deal with China.  While acknowledging that China is rapidly becoming powerful, Traub downplays any aggressive intent on China’s part, while also discounting any muscular, American response to China.  The only really good thing I can say about the article is that it at least is an acknowledgment that China has to be dealt with in some fashion…for too long we’ve been blinded by an idea that all China wishes to do is make money, or that they were in some manner a strategic partner of the United States.  But I do believe that Traub is not quite understanding what the Chinese government will do.

Tyrants cannot hold still – they must continually advance, or they will fall.  In Churchill’s trenchant phrase, they ride to and fro on the backs of tigers, and the tigers are getting hungry.  The tyrants of China made a de-facto deal with the Chinese people post-1989:  let us be in power, and we’ll let you get rich.  This has, in fact, worked out to only a select few getting rich, mostly by ripping off the broad mass of the Chinese people…but the growing prosperity has kept dissent down in the cities while the army and security forces have proven capable of keeping dissent down in the countryside (though there are plenty of tales of riot and rebellion in the backwaters of China).  The problem for China is that they have advanced about as far as they can under their current system.  They can advance further – but only by bringing rural China in to the economic mainstream, and by freeing up the political system so that corrupt (which eats like a cancer at the Chinese economy) can be fought.  Neither course of action appeals to China’s Ruling Class.

But they can’t stand still – they can’t do what is necessary to make the next step forward economically, but they also can’t just let things stagnate…what is already bound to be a Chinese recession will become a very hard landing unless China changes internally…or finds some external means of deflecting attention.  The recently aggressive behavior of China in foreign affairs is not a reflection of China’s actual might – they don’t have that sort of power as of yet.  Won’t have it, really, for 20-30 years, if ever (China’s coming demographic decline may rob China of the sinews of power just when the infrastructure if finally there).  They are blustering…hoping to grab what they can, and preparing for a foreign confrontation which will (in the Ruling Class’ view, at least) cement the loyalty of the Chinese people and serve as the excuse for the coming bad economic times.

The bottom line for us is to get prepared for this – by forging a rock-solid alliance with India, making a defense arrangement with Vietnam, and re-founding our alliances with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines.  It is a certainty that China will try something – what it will be remains to be seen.  I suspect a move against Taiwan in conjunction with a Chinese-inspired, North Korean attack on South Korea and/or Japan (ie, draw off American power to northeast Asia while China moves in the South China Sea…we can’t be everywhere at once, and Taiwan for most Americans would be a doubtful proposition for a full scale war…it shouldn’t be, but it would be).  But as we can’t know for certain, better to be prepared for all eventualities…and if this takes some increases in naval and aerial strength, then we’re going to have to bite the bullet and do it (as an aside, the really good thing about alliances and agreements with India and Vietnam is they provide ample land power without the United States having to deploy millions of troops).

The most important first step is to recognize that China is an enemy State…that we must not have close economic and military relationships with the Chinese.  That we must inform them that any attempt to change the status quo in Asia and the Pacific will be met with a forceful American response.

 

UN Idiocy

Mark Noonan2 Comments

From the PJ Tatler:

Did someone secretly swap reality with what the Onion writes as a parody of reality? There’s this little story about Maxine Waters apologizing to Castro (but the Tea Party can still “go to hell” since they’re the real enemy), and now this story about the UN’s nuclear watchdog swapping hands from Kim Jong-Il to the the world’s other rogue Communist family dynasty.

A top House lawmaker ridiculed the United Nations after Cuba assumed the rotating presidency of a nuclear arms control panel, replacing North Korea at the helm of the group.

Cuba succeeded North Korea on the 65-member U.N. Disarmament Conference in Geneva.

“It’s hard to fathom a more ludicrous image than Kim Jong Il passing the chair of the Conference on Disarmament to the Castro brothers, but that’s what passes for change at the U.N.,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee…

In reality there is no place in a global body for any nation not governed under American principals of government – most importantly that government obtains its power by the consent of the governed.  If a nation doesn’t have that, then it isn’t a real nation…the government isn’t a real government; such a ruling body is nothing more than a group of armed thugs latched upon a body of slaves.  Such ruling bodies have no moral authority whatsoever…not to even issue a parking ticket, let alone dealing with armament issues.

The whole concept of the UN is a fraud – cooked up by rather short-sighted bureaucrats in the waning days of World War Two where the four pillars of the global order were to be the United States, Great Britain, Chiang’s China and Stalin’s Russia – with France added in as an afterthought.  It was absurd from the get-go, and all that perpetuating it has done is create a gigantic amount of hypocrisy and lies regarding international affairs.  The actions of decent players in world affairs are hamstrung by a UN at the beck and call of tyrants.

That is not a world body for a nation with a sense of honor to belong to – get U.S. out of UN and have done with it.