Polls

Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

Polls is polls, of course; always grain of salt them. But this does reflect the reality of voter registration trends, which have almost all favored the GOP for years now. A few hiccups here and there but for the most part State after State – especially Battlegrounds and the light Blue States – are showing GOP voter registration increases. And even deep Blue like California are showing a GOP trend, though Democrat strength there is so dominant it’ll be years before it matters.

The Official Narrative remains that the GOP will certainly lose the House in 2026. Likely hold the Senate; though we’re already getting the “is Red State X about to turn Blue?” that we get all the time with some new Democrat hope being polished up for the MSM…and about to rake in untold millions for what will prove another futile campaign (though I wonder: with the cutoff of money to NGOs, maybe there won’t be $70 million for a useless Democrat Senate race in Texas next year? We’ll see; these things are done to get the GOP to spend money in Red States and thus have less resources for prospects…and you’ll note that the GOP still hasn’t figured out that its time to find some Great GOP Hope for deep Blue states, finance them out the wazoo and force Democrats to spend money). But the House is considered a goner for the GOP. And, normally, this would be so – the GOP majority is razor thin and just the normal mid-term snap back would propel Democrats to a majority. But voter registration trends and things like this recent poll are putting a fly in that ointment.

The Democrats are staking out the 20 in the 80/20 issues. They are doing this because they are convinced that they are on the popular side. They honestly believe – because they tell themselves endlessly – that the American people don’t want mass deportations, want boys in girls sports and are furious that we’re no longer providing funding for NGO’s. They believe that the federal judges issuing ridiculous rulings against Trump are in line with the people’s will. That rioting against ICE is the spontaneous expression of the people.

Could it be like this? I guess anything is possible. But my sense of the matter is that the Democrats are being simply insane and the American people perceive this. Given this, even if things aren’t perfect in 2026 and even if there are some serious complaints about Trump or GOP policies, they’re going to stick with Trump and the GOP. That the 2026 midterms will be akin to the 1934 midterms…in that election, the first for FDR, there should have been a snap back in favor of the GOP. There wasn’t because the GOP spent two years reminding everyone why they hated them.

The View announced they are going on hiatus. Can’t emphasize enough how important this is. It is part of the Democrat information ecosystem…even though they don’t have massive viewership, they reinforce the Democrat Narrative. Much like Colbert does with his show. Without this continual reinforcement of Democrat bigotry it will become increasingly difficult to sustain it. Can’t forget how propaganda works: it isn’t just the lie, it is the endlessly and universally repeated lie. A lie so pervasive that even skeptical people start to think there’s something to it…after all, it was on the daytime talk show, the evening news and the late night show! How can it not be true? They wouldn’t all lie…would they? Make no mistake about it, the people who run the MSM are still almost all Democrats…but they also are getting pounded in ratings as more and more people switch off while lying is becoming costly…Trump’s Presidential library will be gold plated if things keep going as they are! At the end of the day, the purpose is to make money – and shows like Colbert’s and The View aren’t money makers – or if they do squeeze out a profit, it isn’t worth the risk that a host of the show will go off on some anti-Trump rant, lie and cost the company 20 million dollars.

Lindsey Graham is asking that a Special Counsel be appointed to look into the Trump-Russia scandal – and that’s gonna be a hard No from all sensible people. This is a last, desperate attempt to cover up what Obama, et al did. To bury it under an investigation that will take at least two years…plenty for time to sandbag the whole thing and come out at the end with some lying report saying that while there were improprieties, no laws were broken. Laws were obviously broken: the only question here is can we sufficiently prove who broke them to get indictments and convictions? Indicting Obama is pretty much pie in the sky – one in a million shot – but the last thing we want is someone who starts out not wanting to indict. We want Bondi – someone who wants to indict because that’s what the records indicate should happen. The high hurdle here is the protections Presidents have in carrying out the duties of their office…this doesn’t protect actual criminal behavior, but it makes for murky legal ground that defense attorneys and judges will be happy to latch on to in order to protect Obama and their class. What I’m saying here is that we need to find out if there is such indisputable evidence that we really can indict…a special counsel will not get us there. Ever. And even if we can’t get Obama, there are probably a couple hundred people we can get…and we need an investigation which will make people want to turn State’s evidence, not work out a statement that obscures things in exchange for immunity.

The latest social media sensation is the Door Kick Challenge: it involves youngsters going up to random doors and kicking them very hard. Police are urging parents to talk to their kids and let them know this is foolish and dangerous. Most people are treating it as described – just a youthful (if rather dumb) lark. It ain’t that, guys.

It is gang recruitment.

It’s a test: will you do as you’re told? Will you, quite especially, do as you’re told when it is wrong and dangerous? The gangs are finding out who in the neighborhood will do something violently stupid. This is the perfect ground to develop young gang members you can use for hits and intimidation.

And right now the gangs need new blood – they are losing quite a lot of their foot soldiers via deportations. Enforcement via people brought in illegally is going to become increasingly difficult – but the gangs still need their enforcers to make sure the money keeps coming in. What better than to have a 16 year old true blue American citizen do it? Can’t be deported. If arrested, tried as a juvenile in most jurisdictions. At all events, totally expendable. You get that young man a nice car and some cool clothes for doing it, he’ll do any thing you ask him to. I do believe the gangs are going to hit back, hard. There are billions of dollars at stake here. They need an army to intimidate us into giving up the fight. This is the recruitment of that army. They essentially did this in all the Latin American countries they dominate…for relative peanuts, get a mass of ignorant but strong youth to do your bidding no matter how horrific it is…but you never start with having them chop someone to pieces. It is always the smaller, easier step that comes first…as part of the winnowing process to find the hard core.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan5 Comments

Over in the UK a mother of a 12 year old was sentence to 31 months for a social media post. Meanwhile, the government is starting a new campaign called “Let’s be blunt”…lauding the use of blunt-tipped knives.

Just what the heck are we allied with Britain for? They don’t share our values. They aren’t a free people. They are cowardly in the face of foreign invasion. What are we defending Over There these days? Because what is happening in Britain is pretty much what’s happening all over Europe…more controls of speech, more and more disarming the population, more and more sheep-like acceptance of tyranny by the people. A Russian conquest of Europe at this point would make it freer (Putin doesn’t care if you’ve got a pointy knife or put up a harsh post on X – as long as its not about him, of course).

I mean, we know why the British and other European governments are doing this – they see what happened over here with actual free speech among an armed population: Trump. All over Europe there are parties committed to saving their respective countries and the European Ruling Class is determined to stamp them out. I believe they will be successful at this – the being disarmed thing is the worst position for European patriots to be in. They all agreed to give up their arms because lunatics might use some other weapons to kill…the very stupidest thing a person can do, but they did it. Now that they’re facing tyranny and invasion they’ve got nothing…all the complaints in the world won’t change a thing. The European Ruling Class has the guns and so no ultimate fear. But the question remains: what are we doing allied with such people?

To be fair, the only free nation in the world is the United States. Since 1787 this has been so because only our governing document secures our arms and our speech while also saying “Congress shall make no law”. As I’ve mentioned before, no other nation has this – every enumerated right, every restriction on government power has a “but” in it somewhere. Every right can be suspended and every power exercised and on the say-so of the mere parliamentary majority leader. Its not even a King robed in history making the call…just some half-wit politician who managed to climb to the top of the greased pole. But at least in times past Europe made a play at being free…there was a time when you could say what you wanted, you could be armed (even with restrictions) and the Europeans had some guts. Those days are long past and I’ve no interest in defending Europe. A foreign conqueror is welcome to the place as far as I’m concerned.

As we’ve noted many times, polls are a weak reed but yesterday a fairly respectable pollster came out with a Trump 55% approval poll. A lot of people discounted it and it is the outlier…on the other hand, the polls showing him at 42% are clearly bogus. So, backing them out and keeping the polls which actually got 2024 reasonably correct and Trump’s approval sits around 50%…so, while 55% is still an outlier, it ain’t much of one. And what I’ve found talking to people is that they are warming up to Trump fast. They see what he’s trying to do – and they can see his opposition is merely upset that their game is being messed with. Shouts of “he’s killing kids in Africa!” are a mask for “I’m not getting my kickback from USAID!”; nobody doubts this. And it is how it was.

There is also the sheer fun of it all. A judge, mayor and Congresscritter getting arrested is a delight. It is funny. And about time. Arrest more of them! Including a lot of Republicans! Trump being able to off-the-cuff spend an hour in front of the MSM – and making them look like fools – is another fun thing to watch. And we can see the prices of food and gasoline coming down. There is a real chance that 55% is correct.

Cancer-gate is going to have more legs than some suspect. Especially now after Trump posted yesterday that he’s not blaming Joe for what happened…stating that Joe would never have gone along with open borders and such and so it was traitors taking advantage of a senile man. That is a shot across the bow – and the entry point right now for exposing the whole thing is the alleged cancer. Is it real? Was Biden really not checked for it at Walter Reed? And in all this, what was his cognitive ability? Do remember that a couple months ago Trump posted that he considered the pardons null and void. Not much happened after that but by that time Trump had listened to the Hur tapes I’m sure…plus had conversations with the White House staff (I’m talking maids and butlers and such – these are rock-solid American patriots and the most discrete people in the world…but Trump is a guy who can talk to such people and get them to open up about things). He knows now as well as anyone outside of it can what was going on during Biden’s term…and he’s laying the groundwork for basically annulling the last part of Biden’s actions.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan37 Comments

Polling, as we know, is mostly useless – probably more useless now than its ever been. In the Trump vs DeSantis fight, they show Trump up big nationally, but DeSantis running neck and neck in State polling, especially Iowa. My thoughts: we’re being fed polls designed to please Trumpsters and DeSantis-stans so that internal bickering will increase and get people to stake out “Only Trump” or “Never Trump” positions which would help Pudding Brain next year.

Remember: it is always an op. What is put out for public consumption is designed to get you to believe what isn’t true and act against your own best interests. They are never telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Nothing is for free – and if the product is free, then you are actually the product. Someone paying for a poll and handing it to you “free” means they want you to believe a certain way…nobody puts up money just for the heck of it.

RFK, Jr got into the race. He’s got no chance. Not even if Pudding Brain kicks the bucket. He is far Left loon on a lot of a positions, but not on all of them and as the rich and corporations have gone ever more Woke, they are now key elements of the Democrat coalition – RFK does take stabs at them and they’ll never forgive him for doing that. He’s also in bad repute because he is a traditional Left anti-war Democrat, taking up the mantle of his father…while the Democrats are all pro-war over Ukraine and speak nary a word against the Military-Industrial Complex these days. His anti-vax ideology is also mostly absurd – but it worked out to be spot-on with the Covid vaccine so that will garner him some support among the more Libertarian parts of the Left. Not nearly enough to make a difference in the Democrat primaries.

OTOH hand, Newsom is making all sorts of moves which are clearly preparing for a White House run. Mostly low key but doing things like ripping on RDS and donating money to the Tennessee Democrat party are things you only do if you want support from Democrats in Florida and Tennessee…States Pudding Brain is catastrophically unpopular in and which a solid challenger might do some damage in a Democrat primary. Remember: LBJ was all set to run again in 1968 until he merely did worse than expected in New Hampshire. It wouldn’t take much to get the Democrat power people (who are all largely owned by either the Clinton or Obama machines) to dump China Joe. On the other, other hand Newsom might just be keeping an iron in the fire in case Joe goes so gaga or dies that the Democrats have to run others…and worse comes to worst, Newsom is positioning himself for 2028. He will definitely run for President – do not doubt that. He’s confident he can win (and he’s got a lot of reason to be confident – the MSM will puff him up like the Second Coming).

The most recent spate of shootings are clearly the result of Democrats pumping up apocalyptic rhetoric and just waiting for one of their deranged followers to explode. They’ll keep doing this. Oh, you think they wouldn’t do that? Rely on it, guys: people who favor abortion to birth don’t care about human life. They don’t have to order anyone to do it…they know, they’ve got a huge and growing crop of followers who are insane and who are driven to depression by unrelenting “the world is dying” and “GOP is Nazi” rhetoric.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan36 Comments

I hope you guys like my fiction more than my non-fiction…because I’m definitely liking fiction more! Nearly done with Battles, the sequel to Secrets (last night I did a big bit on the final battle between the good guys and the bad guys; its quite exciting!) and I’m already way into Shadow Army, which takes our heroes six years after Battles and continues the story. Shadow Army came up because the Mrs invented the evil creatures in it…she just suddenly thought about them and before I knew it, I had 25,000 words down.

The Democrats and the MSM (but I repeat myself) are sticking to the 2016 script relentlessly. They are even now on “GOP insiders say Trump is looking for a graceful exit and a symbolic win”. Hey, who knows? Maybe they’re on to something this time…but I suspect they are just churning out what they are told to churn out by the DNC.

I’m thinking we need to ban political polling: just get rid of it. It doesn’t inform any more, if it ever did. It is now a mere tool to drive a Narrative and try to convince people that reality is different from what they can see right in front of them. If we did that, then the Experts would actually have to go out and see what’s happening before they could tell us what they think is going on. Now, they just refer to the polls and call it a day – and call you an idiot if you don’t respect the Holy Polls.

Trump’s White House speech as called a “peaceful protest in favor of law and order”…and as we know peaceful protests can’t spread the ‘Rona, it was all good. And it was also pretty amazing: mostly because of the number of “Blexit” people involved (Black Exit: black people leaving the Democrats. We’ll see how that comes out: there are some indicators that Trump will score pretty high in minority communities. But, unlike the Experts, I think I’ll wait for the votes to be cast and counted before deciding what will happen.

Joe says we voters “don’t deserve” to know his views on court packing. Which, of course, means we know: he’ll pack it in an instant if given the chance. But, it doesn’t poll well: it really is just a tiny minority of really butt hurt liberals upset that Trump got to appoint 3, so they want to appoint 4. Joking aside, it is a danger to the Republic because if they did pack it to a 7/6 liberal majority, that Court would rule any way the Democrats wanted at the moment. Better to avoid that by keeping Trump in the White House and Cocaine Mitch running the Senate. This issue is causing some heartburn for Democrats – in both the AZ and CO Senate races, the GOP incumbents scored pretty heavily in debate by getting both their Democrat opponents to refuse to answer the question. I just have to think that voters aren’t going to like this “you don’t deserve to know” attitude. Could make some tight races flip our way.

Seems like the kooks set up by the FBI in the “kidnap Whitmer” scheme have one thing in common: they don’t like Trump. No surprise: real 2A, Conservative militia types are law-abiding patriots. We will fight if our lives and liberty depend on it, but we’re not lunatics…you know, like liberals are. My view of this is that the FBI got wind of these losers and then egged them on until they broke a law…all so they could blame Trump. As far as that goes, it worked: to the end of time, liberals will assert that MAGA-hatted Trumpsters plotted to kidnap Whitmer.

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 Noonan95 Comments

Polls are meh, but there is a poll which says that Trump’s approval among Hispanics is at 37% and African-Americans at 26%. If so, the Democrats are doomed. But, once again, it is a poll. On the other hand, I’ve seen various news stories indicating that Team Trump is rolling out a very sophisticated voter outreach program…not just designed to do the usual stuff, but do things like bring people into voting who haven’t voted before or not very often. If they can really pull off something like that, then the 2020 results might be the shocker of all shocks…and other than a few bits and pieces fed to MSMers (some of which will be deliberate misdirection), most people won’t see it until it happens.

Beto decided to hand the GOP a gift in the form of admitting that liberals like him are after gun confiscation. Beto knows he won’t be the nominee – and he also knows that he has no real future in Texas politics. So, he’s just setting fire to things because it will generate attention and money and allow him to live well. But the bottom line is that a Democrat President for candidate has called for confiscation…and you can rely on it that none of the others will really dissent from that view. They can’t: they’ve told their mostly-mindless base that guns are bad and for a Progressive, all bad things must be utterly destroyed. Just that one assertion might get Trump two or three million more votes in 2020.

Democrats want to impeach Trump – because they’ve been told that Orange Man Bad and, once again, all bad things must be destroyed. However, the Democrat leaders know that doing such a thing absent a half dozen GOP Senators willing to vote with them is political suicide…and that wouldn’t happen unless Trump’s approval among GOP voters drops below, say, 75% (latest poll shows him at about 94% approval among GOP voters). So, they are trying to have it both ways – telling their base that they are super serial gonna get that guy Trump, but behind the scenes not actually doing anything. Well, Trump’s DOJ is calling them out on it – essentially telling them to sh** or get off the pot; which boxes the Democrats in nicely. They’ll eventually either have to drop it or drive forward…either way it would be a political disaster for them.

Abortion “doctor” kept body parts of his victims…you know, like serial killers do. This is not at all surprising – no decent doctor would perform an elective abortion. Only the dregs of the medical field would go into that as a primary means of making money…and the dregs tend to be low caliber people. Like this house of horrors abortionist.

China has some food problems:

…lifting the tariffs, China has just admitted it cannot produce enough protein for national consumption, both as a staple or as a preferred meat. Imagine a US shortage of wheat and chicken, with no real access to corn or beef, and a couple dozen urban areas of 20 millions or more with just a third arable land as now. That’s China.

So, what’s the problem with China’s agricultural industry? Basically, they simply do not have enough land to grow the volume of soy they need; and, their pork production is highly diffused and is ravaged by a massive and seemingly uncontrollable swine flu epidemic. In fact, it is estimated that up to 60% of China’s pigs are infected with the flu.

To compound a bad situation to worse, Chinese officials are both incapable of enforcing a quarantine and too corrupt to stop the spread of the flu.

China is a giant on spindly legs. We have far more leverage over them than we suspect – and we’ve never used it, until just recently. We’ll see how Trump does.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan17 Comments

Ace went off on a bit of a rant about the fact that both US and Brit intel people were passing messages back and forth wondering if both Brexit and Trump were the result of Russian interference:

These people are literally insane, and were in the grips of a hysterical delusion — “without evidence,” as the hysterical leftwing media might say — and they run the f***ing world without our consent and in secrecy.

These “intelligence officials” are so completely out-of-touch they cannot fathom even the possibility that the wider public might deviate from the BBC/MSM line that defines their reality, and immediately suspect RUSSIAN AGENTS must be behind any deviation from the expected left-liberal upper middle class consensus that they believe is the only mode of thought or possibility in the world.

Ace goes on to note that they are “pig-ignorant and stupid”. I fact checked that assertion and found it to be completely true. The people who run the world are mostly behind the scenes and man the corporate and government bureaucracies around the world. The all went to the same sort of schools and learned the same sort of things and are completely convinced they simply know better than everyone who isn’t in their clique. Trump, Brexit, Hungary, Poland…all these people and movements which propose to give regular folks a say are a terror to these people. They really do fear that if we secure power, we’ll immediately launch global nuclear war…that is, if we don’t immediately start committing genocide. They think we’re too stupid to be trusted with power…and so it came naturally to them to think that we dimwits were being fooled by someone into wanting Britain to be free or America to be great again. And we simply must get rid of them – the survival of our nation and civilization requires it. They have to go, by any means necessary.

Democrats are pretty much all-in on Medicare for All…but I don’t think it’ll play well with suburban voters. We’ll see.

Yes, the polls are biased:

While looking into this phenomenon in 2016, I contacted a number of polling groups. I knew that they “weight” and adjust their samples to make them reflect certain demographics of the U.S. population. In simple terms, if their sample ends up with too many young people, they assign greater weight to responses from older people. The methods they use to do so vary and are arcane, to say the least. For example, ABC states that it “adopted iterative weighting, also known as raking or rim weighting, in which the sample is weighted sequentially to Census targets one variable at a time, continuing until the optimum distribution is achieved.”

But one of the most interesting things I learned had to do with one big factor for which they typically don’t “weight” or adjust. It’s one that I think is arguably among the most important when it comes to polls measuring political issues: political affiliation. In other words, the national pollsters I spoke with told me that if they end up interviewing significantly more Democrats than Republicans — which is often the case — they don’t necessarily adjust the results to try to make the sample reflective of the U.S. voting population.

I also bet that, on the flip side, if they are finding significant numbers of Democrats who are going towards the Republicans, they toss that data out. It is how they missed PA and MI in 2016…they probably had somewhere in their data the indication that Trump was doing well in both States, but as it didn’t fit their pre-determined polling outcome, they just ignored it. Right now, except for a few outliers, all polling indicates that Trump is doomed – that there isn’t the slightest chance of him winning. They even have polling showing the Democrats are taking Texas. Now, I can’t say for certain, because I don’t have certain knowledge: but I will say I highly doubt all this polling. I doubt that Trump could raise the money and draw the crowds if he was in such bad shape that he was about to lose Texas. I also doubt that somewhat more than 25% of his 2016 Texas voters have suddenly discovered a desire for far-left Progressive policies. But, we’ll see…and what we’ll see, I’m guessing, will be a repeat of 2016.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan60 Comments

Our liberals are going nuts over Trump sending troops to the border…apparently working under the weird assumption that our army isn’t supposed to protect our borders. I guess that concept has gotten lost after 70 years of sending our troops into foreign shooting galleries under strict orders not to win.

President Trump is asking for $341,559.50 in legal fees from Team Stormy. No, I don’t know why they didn’t just round it up.

Its a small and very, very weird world:

In a really strange turn of events, it has been discovered that bombing suspect Cesar Sayoc worked at Ultra Gentleman’s Club in West Palm Beach, FL, the same strip club that Stormy Daniels performed at back in April, WPTV reported.

Jair Bolsonaro won the Presidency of Brazil with 56% of the vote and this is being described as a major blow against Democracy…because the people voted the wrong way, you see? The global elite is deathly afraid of that. Now, plenty of people on the right in the USA did laud the victory…but I’d hold off. Let’s see if he’s really the Tropical Trump he’s called, or if he’s a nut before we embrace him.

Victor Davis Hanson has an excellent article on the paradoxes of the immigrants – specifically, the caravan. Mostly centering around the oddity that they want to come here, but they don’t seem to particularly want to be American. I liken it to the barbarians outside Rome in the 5th century…they very much wanted to enjoy the good things of Rome, but they weren’t at all interested in preserving the social structures which produced the good things of Rome. The collapse of Western civilization (which was quite epic) from the 5th to the 10th centuries was simply because of this – and had the barbarians come in and humbly asked to be taught, it would have been a lot different. I’ve come around to the view that all immigration to the United States must cease for a period of at least 20 years. We need to kick out those who won’t assimilate and assimilate those who are willing. And only after that is accomplished can we afford to open the door again.

I didn’t know this – Don Surber notes that in order to get a poll response pool of 737 people, a total of 38,000 calls had to be made. That is a 1.94% response rate. Now, the pollsters tell you this doesn’t matter because those who hang up likely have the same overall opinions as those who don’t. Really? Seriously? I just can’t hold that to be credible – you might be missing some major trends out there. You know, like PA, MI and WI all breaking for Trump…

UPDATE: Trump secures Amazona’s vote for 2020:

President Donald Trump said in an interview that he plans to sign an executive order ending “birthright citizenship” for the children of non-American citizens who are born on U.S. soil, a move that would likely be challenged immediately in the courts over its constitutionality.

The first thing you think is that Democrats will challenge this in court…but, if they do, they have no assurance that the Supreme Court will back them. All they may end up doing is cementing Trump Administration policy. Also: my bet is that most Americans didn’t realize until just now that you can get citizenship merely by being born in the United States, even if of illegal immigrant parents. Democrats should be wary of fighting on this hill.

They won’t be, of course. Because they’re stupid.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan6 Comments

Well, Matt and I decided to write another book. Started working on it just yesterday and we hope to publish right around the 1st of November, 2019. Two guesses what the overall subject will be. Matt is actually doing double-duty as he’s also working a solo political book project. Meanwhile, I keep working on the third draft of the novel; which I think is getting to be a splendid story.

Bill Maher does the right thing: defend Alex Jones’ free speech rights. Most people on the left are simple partisans…but a few of them understand that unless all are free, none are free. Maher gets it.

Here’s a real problem:

Here’s the arithmetic: one in three potential recruits are disqualified from service because they’re overweight, one in four cannot meet minimal educational standards (a high school diploma or GED equivalent), and one in 10 have a criminal history. In plain terms, about 71 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds (the military’s target pool of potential recruits) are disqualified from the minute they enter a recruiting station: that’s 24 million out of 34 million Americans. The good news is that while the military takes pride in attracting those who are fit, educated, law abiding, and drug-free, they’re having difficulty finding them—manifestly because fewer of them actually exist.

Adding to the failure of many to meet requirements is the fact that in our now-booming economy, the military has less appeal to young men starting out in life.

But I’m not in a mood to despair over this. The overweight thing can be fixed, of course – and, in fact, 8 to 10 weeks of basic training would help just about anyone trim down to fighting weight. I’m also not too worried about the kids not having a high school diploma because having one doesn’t actually indicate being educated. The criminal history thing is a problem, but it is also not a 100% problem: in fact, a stint in the ranks might just be what the doctor ordered for a troubled youth who still hasn’t gone down the road to doing something truly horrible. We don’t want to lower standards, but I think that a revision of standards will allow us to get what we want…out of a nation of 317 million people with more than four million men reaching military age annually, we should be able to find the people to fill the services.

As long time readers know, I’m not in favor of conscription – not even in war time. If a nation can’t get volunteers to defend itself, then it isn’t worth defending. Revise the standards on weight to “what can a strict regime do for this kid’s weight in two months?”. Perhaps even start a pre-boot camp for the hefty kids: you can join if you drop X pounds by your induction date. Revise the high school diploma to a test to see if the kid can read, write and do basic sums. If he can, I don’t care if he failed to finish the third grade. Revise the criminal history thing to “as long as you weren’t convicted of a felony or ever charged with rape or murder”, you can join. Revise the drug use to “don’t care if you were high when you signed up, don’t do any more now that you’re in”. And then just train the hell out of the kids – push them, hard. All branches – everyone runs for miles, does lots and lots of pushups, learns how to use a rifle, how to fight hand to hand. Everyone, that is, becomes a warrior…or, they drop out of training and go home. No one is forced to stay: quit whenever you want. After they become lean, mean fighting machines, then they can learn their actual job in the military (be it remaining a lean, mean fighting machine in a Marine infantry battalion, or loading up missiles on the deck of a carrier. eg). And then keep the standards high – everyone has to requalify in physical fitness on a periodic basis…anyone who can’t cut the mustard: out. Do all this, and I think we’ll get just what we need.

The whole #MeToo thing ended just as soon as a senior Democrat got caught up in it during an election year. Always remember: Democrats don’t give a damn about people being harmed…all they care about is whether they can use something against a Republican.

As we’ve said for years, take all polls with a grain of salt – but there’s a poll out there saying Trump is more trusted than the Democrats. Here’s what I’ve been saying of late: if the MSM Narrative about Trump were true, CNN would be the highest rated cable news outfit.

Supreme Court, Etc Open Thread

Mark Noonan31 Comments

Never thought a Supreme Court vacancy could make so many people lose it – but if you were on Twitter yesterday, you watched the most epic leftwing meltdown, ever. Not excluding election night, 2016. However, as they say, there’s more! Or, at least, there may well be more…I saw a blurb on a recent poll showing that Millenial men have swung 23 points to the GOP since 2016…something like a 12 point Democrat advantage has now become an 11 point GOP advantage. If this holds true, then 2018 (and 2020) won’t be like anyone is expecting.

Another bit of polling supposedly shows a big jump in Latino support for Trump – which isn’t actually surprising. I think that Democrat Latino support is mostly concentrated among Latinos who are overtly Progressive plus immigrants/children of immigrants. By the time you get to the grandchildren of immigrants, you’re just dealing with everyday, average Americans for the most part. And such people have other concerns on their minds than what happens to illegal immigrants at the border.

Getting back to the vacancy: people who know seem to believe that any of the possible Justices on Trump’s list would be an excellent, strict Constitutionalist on the Court. You can’t know for certain, naturally: you never know when the itch for a legacy ruling will get hold of a judge. But, I think we can rely on it there’s a very good chance that whomever replaces Kennedy won’t have his talent for specious reasoning when it is time to ratify whatever the Progs are whining about in social issues (on things like the First and Second Amendments, on the other hand, Kennedy was pretty solid). The Democrats are all in a tizzy about losing Kennedy’s near-certain vote in favor of their social policy changes, but the real crisis will hit them when Ginsburg leaves the Court – which she is bound to do voluntarily or perforce before too many more years have passed. If she makes it to 2024, she’ll be 91.

But all that may become a moot point – remember, the Courts are only there (for our Progressives) as a last resort: what to do when they can’t get their policies through Congress. But if things go as they might, Democrats might be so bereft of power a couple years from now that the makeup of the Court won’t really matter too much…the real action will be in Congress. One of the rulings this week as the striking down of the requirement that government employees belong to – and pay for – government employee unions. This is what happened in Wisconsin now on a national scale. You can rely on it that a very large number of government employees will opt out of unionization. This will cause a gigantic loss of Democrat political funds – direct and indirect – and thus crimp their ability to influence politics. I note that Wisconsin went red in 2016 after Walker’s government employee reforms…it hadn’t gone red since 1984; and even then, only because it was the Reagan landslide.

We might be living in a very different political America as soon as January.