Ron DeSantis

Open Thread

Mark Noonan103 Comments

Tucker’s interview with Trump has been up (as this point) a bit more than an hour and it has more than 81 million views. This is going to far outpace whatever audience the Fox GOP debate will get. I didn’t watch the debate as I tend not to watch such things this early on, especially with that many people on stage. It is a bit silly. But I did watch the Trump interview with my Mrs – he’s still engaging and fun to watch. Clearly a little older but he seems in good shape. The usual run of Trump thinking out loud…but also, as per usual, did nail point after point. The Mrs was entertained – and she’s never particularly warmed up to Trump.

Trump is still a major political factor. To try to dismiss him is folly.

Now: we’ll see what happens when votes start being cast.

Do any of you remember the Eddy Grant song Electric Avenue? Lately a line in it has been rolling around in my head:

Who is to blame in what country?
Never can get to the one

Does seem like that, doesn’t it? Because we were all good, little GOPers back in 2001 – and patriots, always – we kinda let it slide that nobody in official circles went to jail over the attack. It was massive fail in intelligence, law enforcement and military…nobody paid a price (except for the 3,000 who died, of course). I think that’s when things really started to fall apart…when our Ruling Class found out that no matter how bad the failure, if they just scripted it right, they could breeze right past it…and maybe even get a commendation and promotion.

You know the song Putting on the Ritz where the line goes, “trying hard to look like Gary Cooper”? I never really got that because, for me, Gary Cooper was an older cowboy actor. But here’s a picture of him from a 1926 silent film. I get it, now.

The limit is 13. I repeat, the limit is 13!

Open Thread

Mark Noonan49 Comments

Proterra just filed for bankruptcy.

They’re an Electric Vehicle company much-touted (and subsidized) but Team Pudding Brain.

Energy Secretary Granholm cashed out $1.6 million in Proterra stock just before it went belly up.

Now, you can be stupid and say this was all just a coincidence…or you can see the obvious: a grift company set up to drain money from the Treasury tipped off the Energy Secretary – who must have been in on the scam – so she can get her pile of money, ultimately courtesy of the taxpayers.

They’re not even really hiding that they are corrupt. They keep the details secret, but the fact that they are corrupt is obvious and they are laughing at us. With the revelation that foreign oligarchs and gangsters have funneled $20 million into various Biden Family shell companies, the MSM position (so far) is that there is no proof that any of this money was directly given to Joe Biden. They know that’s a stupid thing to say. They don’t care. They know nothing will happen; they are even confident that if a GOPer wins the White House nothing will happen – likely because too many senior GOPers are hip deep in the overall Ruling Class corruption. Like this:

Senator Tim Scott – who is not a bad guy – had his campaign books looked into and it seems that huge amounts of money are being spent on brand new companies. We’re talking millions of dollars going from Scott’s campaign chest (which is huge) into these companies for…well, not for a whole heck of a lot. And make no mistake about it, what Scott is doing here is legal. But it is almost certainly what Matt and I found in Caucus of Corruption back in 2006: politicians essentially paying themselves out of campaign donations. You know: hire your wife as a consultant for half a million dollars. With this being relatively clean – legal and not actually hidden – can you imagine what we’d find if we really dug into the bowels of government? As of a minute ago, in FY 2023 (which started October 1st, 2022) Uncle Sam has spent $4,805,159,571,246.00 – $455 million more than they had spent by this time last year! Who the heck is keeping track of all that?

Suppose you had just a billion dollars and someone was stealing ten thousand dollars a day from you…you have a billion. It’ll be ages before you really notice it. And that is just you with your own billion dollars. Now imagine nearly five trillion dollars being shoveled out and millions of people coming and going…how hard would it be to steal a million dollars every day? That would only be 365 million by the end of the year. That is 0.007% of the money. that is like someone slightly shaving some metal of a penny. How would you notice? What I’m saying: rely on it, huge amounts of money are being stolen. probably at least a trillion every year of late. Often legally: but only as long as the people don’t find out about it and so demand reforms. Protecting that pile of stolen money is crucial to those stealing it: there is literally nothing they won’t do to keep you from finding out about it and stopping it.

Like, for instance, indicting Trump for saying things…which ultimately stems from Trump wanting to look into a big part of the corruption, what was going on in Ukraine.

RDS booted a Soros-backed, Commie State Attorney. And this is sure to warm Amazona’s heart – not just on a Commie getting the boot, by why she got it: DeSantis determined she was violating her oath of office by allowing violent felons to skate. This is wonderful stuff; and definitely the way to go. We can no longer tolerate people getting into official positions to undermine what those positions are for.

As we pretty much already knew, the FBI was targeting Catholics as domestic terrorists. Like the Traditional Latin Mass? Dude: the FBI wants to know all about it. Hey, I get it – the Trad Catholics can be a bit tiresome (I actually lean a bit left theologically; that whole Divine Mercy thing has sunk deep into me), but they aren’t terrorists. Unlike, you know, Antifa/BLM who are…and are also crooks and con artists, into the bargain. The sort of people the FBI might want to look into before they tackle the lady on her way to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. And I would like to remind one and all that while we Catholics are pretty easy going…we can become Cristeros at need.

The World Bank is cutting off funding to Uganda because of a recently passed law restricting homosexuality. Now, to be sure, I don’t think Uganda should have passed this law. I don’t think the government should be in the business of policing the personal relationships of the citizens. But here’s the thing: I’m not Ugandan. Not my country. The people of Uganda are perfectly capable of exercising their own judgement about what is best for themselves and while I can offer my opinion on it, I in no way have the right to try to force a people to live as I think best. The purpose of The World Bank is to provide funding to poor nations so they can rise out of poverty. Uganda has a Per Capita Income of about a grand a year. That’s pretty poor, if you ask me. They could probably use some economic development…but what they don’t need is rich, white foreigners telling them how to live. The old Imperialism sought to bring Christian truth and material advancement…the new Imperialism seeks to make the world like San Francisco.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan25 Comments

Little follow up to my post from two days ago: after discussing what is brave and so forth, got into a similar debate about what are rights. It was rather heated for a while and I think I’ve identified why: I thought after a while that we were talking past each other because I realized I hadn’t pointed out that with rights come responsibilities…and that’s when it all really fell apart and I found out that lots of people don’t even have a mental conception of responsibilities. And, guys, this was me arguing with the Right. The Left never even showed up.

To nutshell it, I pointed out that we are under no obligation to allow bad and/or insane people to occupy the public square. That among the rights we as citizens hold is the right to a peaceful, polite, orderly society so that we may conduct our lawful business without let or hindrance. This caused the explosion – one guy considering me a fascist over it. The bottom line is that those opposing me do not believe that we have a right to decency and neither do people have a responsibility to be decent. Sure, they conceded that someone causing direct harm could be arrested…but only in very narrow circumstances and if I didn’t like the way things we, too bad: we can only be free if lousy people are allowed to be lousy.

This shows how far the rot has gone – first that people believe a bum or a gangster is someone exercising freedom rather than representing the mentality of a slave. Secondly that decent people have to put up with the lousy…that if we don’t do that, we can’t be free. The truth, of course, is that if you don’t have an orderly, polite society you can’t be free…because a disordered, rude society is swiftly run by the most barbaric among us and barbarians do not respect the rights of anyone. This is why we have people waltzing into stores and just swiping everything. You can say the changes to the law caused it and I’d agree that it was a proximate cause of the event, but the bottom line is that you and I – even if absolutely assured we wouldn’t get prosecuted – simply would not go and steal stuff. We know its wrong and we don’t have a right to take what belongs to others. Barbarians don’t know its wrong and figure anything they can grab is theirs by right.

And how are we supposed to survive like that? The answer is that we can’t. It is already starting to fall apart (and the suburban people who figure they can just shop on line are gonna love it when their Amazon delivery trucks start to get hijacked in droves). Eventually those who produce or who have goods to sell will retreat behind walls and only allow select people in…and they’ll only produce in small amounts for fear that goods available for sale are also readily available for theft. Shortages, lack of access, rising prices are going to come unless this is stopped.

And they way you stop a barbarian is to hit him. Very hard. So that it hurts a lot. And you keep hitting him until he stops. It is the only way. It isn’t fascist; not even akin to fascism. It is saving civilization and thus freedom.

So, Hunter had his plea deal and the judge tossed it because it absurdly granted Hunter immunity from future charges…in case anyone following up on his actions found even more crimes (spoiler: there are more crimes. A lot more crimes). So, he plead guilty. Now, don’t get your hopes up: Team Pudding Brain isn’t going to allow Joe’s spawn to go to jail and they will want all possible charges wrapped up before election day, 2024, for fear that if a GOPer – or even a hostile or indifferent Democrat – gets in for 2025 the jig will be up. Rely on it that they are already working on a modified slap on the wrist. And the Biden’s are too arrogant to understand that the way out – the way to make this all go away – is for Hunter to see the inside of a jail cell. Say a 3 year rap, out in 18 months. Be good for Hunter: his best chance to get clean before he overdoses. It would still be a wrist slap, but everyone is going to figure “at least he went to jail” and stop looking into it. The hope is the nitwits keep screwing it up and a GOP President gets to have his team look into it.

DeSantis said something mildly approving of RFK (who is a nut) and the world went mad – and mostly is was DeSantis supporters who went mad. They’re busy writing his political obituary over it. But I do detect something: some RDS supporters clearly only backed RDS as the non-Trump without much hope he’d actually win the nomination and thus provide these people with an excuse to vote Biden in 2024. As for me: it wasn’t that bad and RDS has plenty of time to repair whatever damage was done. What I’ve been advising people is to not get committed to any particular candidate too early. The Trumpsters and the DeSantis-stans are both making the mistake of getting too deeply invested when the first primary is still months away (though I suspect DNC pot-stirring is playing a role here). I’ve committed to vote for the GOP nominee – of late I’m not even saying who I prefer. Any GOPer is the moral and intellectual superior of every Democrat.

In line with that, do you feel the shift? After the 2022 midterms I think most of us expected rather resounding defeat in 2024. I sure did. But Dobbs fades and Pudding Brain’s utter nastiness comes ever more to the fore. I think people are disgusted with him. A lot. Sure, Trump has his negatives – and rely on it that if RDS or someone else gets it, their negatives will be driven sky high by the MSM – but Trump didn’t abandon a grandchild. Isn’t talking about “gender affirming care” for minors as if the very concept weren’t an abomination. Without getting too deep here, for the first time in a while I do think we can win next year. Steep hill to climb. We still have to win outside the margin of fraud (which will be a lot lower than in 2020), but I think we can do it. Stay tuned.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan14 Comments

So they had a whole bunch of “Pride” parades this past weekend and the usual suspects among the Democrats were out there with their social media posts holding up a “Pride” flag and saying how happy they were to attend. But this year things went a bit different – given that Twitter, especially, isn’t as subjected to censorship as it used to be, when people posted the other photographs from “Pride”, it got into a lot of places…so many places that the Left went nuts. Not over the naked guys flashing their dangly bits in front of kids…no; they were mad that we noticed naked guys (and enormously fat, old and ugly guys, into the bargain) were waving the short arm.

Of course, we’ve known this all along – and, indeed, a few old degenerates showing off their privates is actually fairly tame for a “Pride” parade. The actual sex acts are a bit more grotesque. I’m sure that was posted as well but I’ve a fairly decent “follow” count on Twitter and so none of that got Tweeted into my time line.

It did get me thinking that a lot of the real freaks at these things aren’t so much gay as, well, freaks. Sure, they talk up the gay aspect of it, but they’re mostly about the freakiness. What “Pride” really means to this type is the ability to engage in their perverted kink without censure. I’m very firm on this because none of the gay guys I know and have known – including some really good looking guys – ever felt the urge to whip it out in public.

But, that aside, the Left had a meltdown about it. And rightly so – most people simply do not know what is going on. What they’ve seen of “Pride” is highly sanitized by the MSM. Just as what most of them have seen of transgenderism is some nice, soft spoken person who isn’t threatening…the six foot two weirdo in a pink miniskirt is a bit more off-putting and so not shown (yes, I’ve really seen this; the Left likes to think nobody on the Right gets around – but, for instance, I’ve been the only white guy at a Mexican bar and the only white guy at a black house party. Heck, I once hitched a ride at 2 am from a gangbanger. I like people; I get along with them. I’m not afraid of people, not even the weird ones. I can shift in an instant from biker bar to classical music concert). A lot more of this stuff gets out – if people actually see it – then the game is up for the Left. The way they get what they want is slow, incremental change until the Far Left is implemented – the guy with the fake breasts and three foot dildo strapped around his waist kinda kills that plan.

Both Trump and DeSantis are campaigning on ending birthright citizenship – it has become the price of entry into the GOP field. Oh, sure; some of the candidates will reject it, but anyone who wants a serious shot at the nomination will embrace it.

And it has to be done. I’m of the position that birthright citizenship does not cover persons born to non-citizens and certainly not those born to non-citizens illegally in the country. I know the arguments saying the 14th says anyone born in the USA, but one has to place things in their historic context, and that is precisely what the Left – and part of the Right – refuses to do; to them, it is a “living document”. Except for this one thing. They are only literalists in this tiny area – which happens to be the area where GOP moneybags and Marxist Democrats agree on the outcome. In the time it was enacted, what was intended by the 14th was a complete shutdown of any ex-Confederate attempt to refuse citizenship to any freed slave or their descendants. It was ratified in direct response to Southern States attempts to write their citizenship laws in a manner with de-facto excluded black Americans from citizenship.

Now, this won’t be easy! And eventually it may take an Amendment. But we start with what we can: in this case, Trump and DeSantis promising Executive Orders. This will naturally generate lawsuits. That is good. It gets the issue into the public square and it will force Democrats to take what is bound to be the unpopular opinion: just get across the border and your kid is as American as apple pie! Most Americans probably don’t even realize this is an issue…it isn’t something the MSM talks about. Just by getting it into the debate, we gain the advantage…and a fight over this means other things like border walls and strict deportation for adult illegals will become easier.

The MSM is busy trying to downplay the Hunter Biden scandal – seriously saying it is all about a father’s desire to help his addict son. Yeah, sure…every addict son gets $10 million from foreign entities funneled through a raft of offshore shell companies. They’re caught and they know it – but there’s also nothing anyone can really do about it. Its all Federal and Pudding Brain’s people simply won’t allow anything to happen.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan35 Comments

I do have to point out that Donald Trump has been fairly ridiculous of late. Some of his statements and actions have been downright absurd. Thus far it hasn’t made a dent in his GOP Primary support…but my bet is that if he doesn’t get hold of this stuff it will. OTOH, DeSantis has also had some miscues. This is why a Primary is a good thing; whoever emerges with the prize will have earned it.

My position remains the same: I will support the nominee. There is no GOPer who is in any way the moral or intellectual inferior of any Democrat. Even supposing every bad thing said about Trump is true – and further stating that supposing every bad thing said about Biden is false – it is still no contest. Somewhere in Trump’s heart is the understanding that such things as abortion to birth, transition of minors and open borders are objectively evil and must be stopped. In Biden’s heart there is no such understanding – nor is there such understanding in the heart of any Democrat. The Democrat party proposes to push us into a world of complete lunacy where obvious facts are denied in service of ideological goals. It is the moral duty not of Republicans and not even of Americans to vote GOP…it the the moral duty of every human, as such. There is no evading this one: if the Democrats retain power for much longer, this nation will be destroyed. The stakes are that high. There can’t be any compromise…and no faltering of our will. Nominate Romney and I’ll vote for him. Anyone is better than any Democrat.

There has been a surprisingly large amount of pushback against “Pride” this year. In previous years we just laughed at it and moved on but this year there is a sharper edge to it. People are tired of it – and angry that everyone is being told to fall in line.

Bottom line: gay is boring. We don’t care. Be gay. Have fun. But we don’t need to know you’re gay. And it is perceived that the sort of gay people most of us know – regular, rather boring folks who just live, work and pay taxes like anyone else – aren’t being celebrated. The celebrations are always of the most absurd and/or disgusting people. So much so that I’m starting to wonder if a bunch of weirdos have de-facto hijacked homosexuality because it allows them to be freaks without any fear of censure? Crazy people crave attention and approval…and if you’ll do something disgusting in public and call it gay, you’ll not only not get arrested, you’ll be called a hero. That sort of thing is an irresistible attraction for the narcissistic lunatic. They simply wouldn’t pass on the opportunity.

NYPD had their cop cars painted up in “Pride” colors and it looks like the artist managed to sneak in the anti-cop “ACAB” logo. This is enormously funny. Leftists never forgive.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers will apparently argue that the gun laws Hunter violated were unconstitutional. And, to be sure, they are: as I’ve noted before, “Shall not be infringed” is pretty straightforward. It doesn’t have any wiggle room. Any law restricting any person – and that is citizen or not – from keeping and bearing any arm they choose is a violation of the Constitution. But it is annoying that Liberals are such complete hypocrites.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

My view on the GOP Primary is: I will support the nominee. I will not engage in nasty fights with fellow GOPers or GOP-leaning voters.

With RDS now officially in, the shape of the race is clear; it is mostly Trump vs DeSantis with Trump enjoying a huge amount of loyal Trumpster support while RDS is looking for a way to draw some of that vote over to himself. The rest of the pack is probably kidding itself about getting the nomination and, on balance, they probably help Trump by splitting up the anti-Trump vote. Of course, some of these also-rans likely won’t make it to January…the money battle is important right now. Not for Trump and RDS who functionally have unlimited amounts, but for the rest…any of them who want to be around past South Carolina had better come up with some hefty bucks. Those who can’t will likely bow out before the Iowa caucuses.

Do keep in mind that the Democrats are very likely paying for GOP division. We have seen over and over again how relative peanuts will get people to alter their views. It would cost only, say, $100,000 to get a prominent Trumpster pundit to start going “only Trump” as a means of keeping Trumpsters home if Trump doesn’t get the nomination. It wouldn’t cost any more to pay a DeSantis pundit to start going “only DeSantis” for the same reason. The Democrats very much need a divided and weakened GOP for 2024 because that is the only way they drag Biden’s senile carcass into a second term.

As I’ve said for a while, I’m not at all confident of GOP victory in 2024 – because of those divisions being diligently fostered. But I have had a little bit of a mental shift; there is a chance. What I see is that Biden – who has never been loved – is losing what popularity he had. Inflation continues to bite as does overall economic anxiety. We’re already in a recession which is being hidden by number juggling. And now the Culture War has taken an interesting turn. From Biden on down, they are all-in on the transgender thing especially for kids…but outside a few lunatic Blue enclaves, parents are rejecting this. What we might have is a perfect storm brewing where Democrats are set to become unpopular both on economics and social issues…hammering on abortion just barely scraped them by in 2022…that issue is a lot less salient for 2024 while other social issues are coming to the forefront. It could be a very interesting year.

CNN Headline: “Minorities, immigrants and now members of the LGBTQ community are being warned of the risks of visiting Florida after the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group issued a travel advisory following newly passed laws and policies”

Reminder: this lie is not pitched at you. They don’t care about you. They know you’ll never vote Democrat. This lie is for Democrats. And it doesn’t require them to actually believe there’s tyranny in Florida…but what it does tell them is that this is what they have to say is happening in Florida. This is to keep the conversation within the Party Line. That is, to keep them voting Democrat no matter how bad it gets.

Trump and MAGA Won’t Go Away

Mark Noonan60 Comments

I didn’t watch the Trump town hall on CNN because, well, it was on CNN and I’ll be dead and in the cold, cold ground before I give them any ratings. But I did monitor the reactions on Twitter.

The MAGA folks were, of course, entirely thrilled with Trump’s performance. Discount that: that could easily be just partisan confirmation bias.

Never Trump: from the first minute were calling it an unmitigated disaster. Discount that: just as easily confirmation bias. But I did notice something…as the night wore on, the later Never Trump comments about it were “well, he talked too much about the 2020 election and nobody cares about that” and “Trump is doomed because everyone cares about January 6th.”

That was all extreme wish-casting. I don’t know how many people actually care about the 2020 vote…but even those who don’t care, if they aren’t committed anti-Trumpers, all pretty much agree that there was quite a lot of illegality and impropriety in the vote. People believe this because it was obvious. As I’ve asked people (and never get a response on), “they covered up the windows in the counting rooms because ____?”. They can’t answer it. They never will answer it. Because the only answer to “why did you hide the count?” is “because we were stuffing the ballot boxes”.

Nobody cares about January 6th. The Democrats and their MSM lapdogs (seconded by the chihuahua-like yapping of Never Trump types) tried to make the J6 hearings into another Watergate and nobody cared. Mostly nobody cares because nothing really happened that day save for the unfortunate shooting of an unarmed and peaceful demonstrator (which, of course, the J6 boosters never talk about). At the end of the day, with a little bit of rowdiness early on, the Establishment got what they wanted on J6: Pudding Brain certified as the winner. You’re not allowed to complain about things going your way: and the complaints they make about J6 merely seem like pathetic whining.

But it was the Left comments which were most telling: they were ballistic over it. I mean completely unhinged. It was like their world was coming to an end…because Trump, to all appearances, was calm, cool, collected, funny and made some really telling points in response to the gotcha questions of the host.

Pay attention to that: if the Left is pissed off about it, then it worked out well for Trump.

I’ve said for a while now – and it remains true – and plenty of Trump voters are willing to move on. DeSantis is the obvious first choice with Vivek Ramaswamy being the surprising second choice. There is a rational case to make for dropping Trump in favor of some other tool we think may be better suited to break down the Establishment and restore America. But as I’ve also been saying – and I’ve said it since 2015 when I was opposing Trump for the nomination – that the only way to beat Trump is to out-Trump him.

One very particular thing came up in that town hall which is getting little play is Trump’s proposal to pardon most J6 detainees. This has caused monkey-screeches from the Left, of course, while the DeSantis people are (very reasonably) pointing out that Trump could have done that January 7th. But the really crucial thing about it is Trump rising to the defense of the J6 detainees. If DeSantis really wants to break down Trump’s core support – and DeSantis will have to do this to beat Trump – then it should have been DeSantis calling for this first. And that, in my view, is the breakdown in the DeSantis effort: for all the good things he’s doing (and they are fantastic, with the education reforms holding the most long-term potential for us), he’s yet to show to the Trumpsters that he will go to war with the Establishment. Going after Disney: Great. Going after Drag Queen Story Time: Wonderful. But these are fairly run-of-the-mill GOP positions now (being anti-Corporate has actually been taking hold on the right for about ten years). DeSantis needs to pick out a position which is so Trump-y that Trump hasn’t got there yet. The J6 people were the easiest. Now he’ll have to find something else.

What can DeSantis do? That will be up to him but if I were in his position, I’d announce that if elected, every person who illegally crossed the border after January 20th, 2021 will be deported regardless of circumstances. No refugees, no Dreamers: no nothing. I’d announce it as the only means to tell these people that they can’t take advantage of an Administration too corrupt to control the border. That no matter how well they try to blend in before January 20th, 2025, they will be deported. Alternately, DeSantis can call for a suspension of American aid to Ukraine by X Date unless Ukraine agrees to peace talks with Russia. The main thing here is to take something that the Establishment wants very badly (open borders, endless war, etc) and propose to take it away. That demonstrates a willingness to fight: and that is what DeSantis must do if he wants to transfer the love the Trumpsters feel over to himself.

Because that is the key to it all and so far nobody gets it. They call the Trumpsters “MAGAts” or “Trump Cultists” or what have you. They don’t realize that for these people, supporting Trump is an act of love. A pledge to America and to future greatness. You’ll only get them over to you if you give them a reason to love you more. And, hey, maybe they are misguided. Maybe they’re not seeing some crucial things. But anyone who has ever experienced love knows that you can’t talk someone out of it…you bend with it. But it is also important to understand that love – real love – is a matter of loving the beloved before they are lovable. The anti-Trump people keep trying to make Trump seem hateful when all that does is make those who love him love him even more. They see the flaws. They are not blind. But that doesn’t deter the lover. In fact, it makes the true lover even more devoted. You can’t break that by shouting insults. You can only break it by loving even more than they do.

This is why I pointed out to various people who have recently been calling for Trump to back out over his legal troubles that they are making a huge mistake. They aren’t helping their cause, at all. They are, in fact, shooting themselves in the foot. And in two ways:

  1. First off, they are essentially going along with a Democrat op. A “get Trump” effort which has entirely divorced itself from law or any sense of decency as it seeks to destroy Trump by any means necessary. Calling for Trump to back out is merely to play along with a smear. And if it actually worked, then that smear would then be turned on the next guy and the next and the next and the next.
  2. It is alienating Trump supporters. Every time a Never Trump Conservative calls for Trump to back out or be pushed out, it simply tightens up Trump’s support. It makes his supporters ever more willing to stick with him. The proper tactic to take here is to relentlessly attack the Democrat effort as the illegal, unjust and cruel effort it is. That way when you talk to Trumpsters, they’ll listen.

I don’t know how this will come out. I’m still very certain that we’re going to lose next year. But this is primarily because I see the divisions in the Right. They are fostered by the Left and they are setting MAGA and anti-Trump at each other’s throats and convincing them to take Only Trump or Never Trump positions, respectively. Blood is getting up and heads are getting down and whomever emerges with the GOP nomination will find a fractured GOP going up against a united Democrat Party with endless supplies of money, the MSM and a paid army of influencers at every level. I think it will still end up a close race (Pudding Brain is monumentally unpopular), but I do believe that they shove him over the finish line…even if it once again takes some manufactured votes in key States (there will be less of this in 2024 than in 2020 because no Covid and some law changes…but there’s still just enough wiggle room in just enough States to allow some last-minute vote creation to tip the scales).

But however it comes out, the key to victory in 2024 or any future race will have to be the anti-Trump people making their peace with MAGA. This means ditching entirely all MSM talking points about Trump (after all, what the Trump haters hate about Trump is all stuff the MSM told them without having a shred of evidence to back it up). It means talking positively about MAGA. It means acknowledging – without any hedging – the good things Trump accomplished while at the same time agreeing with the obvious: he would have been able to do to a lot more if the GOP leadership and pundit classes had backed him up, as they were morally obligated to do.

Trump isn’t going away. His supporters aren’t going way. You can’t win without Trump and MAGA. It is just the plain facts of life. You can’t “move on” from Trump in the sense of ditching him and pretending he didn’t happen and that his voters will get back into the Neo-Con, Globalist loser fold. You have to show MAGA that you love them; that you want them; that you care about them and will do your best for them. This will require the adoption by everyone in the GOP of large aspects of Trumpist policy and attitudes. Or you can cope and seethe about it as you lose.

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 Noonan107 Comments

Yet another school shooting – this one they are having a little trouble with as the school is Christian and the shooter is Trans – one line they’re tying out – and I think they’ll settle on – is that this was provoked by GOP efforts to “ban transgender people”. Which, of course, is nothing of the sort. We GOPers are the most overly-tolerant people in the world. Vastly more so than any of those Left of center. We’re just kinda hung up on that whole mutilate minors with surgery and hormones thing. Sticks in the craw a bit.

But that is the Left: sheer evil. In response to one of their own who went off on shooting spree based on lies about us, they’re going to demand that we give up our guns and allow 12 year olds to have permanent, life-altering surgery. Nothing doing: fortunately, I’ve seen a lot of backbones today of people not sitting still for this drivel. But I also perceive that we’re still not pushing back all the way.

We need to start really calling these people out – Congresswoman Jayapal yesterday was on the House floor to condemn “MAGA extremist” attacks on LGBTQ youth. I Tweeted on top of that the fact that we’re not attacking LGBTQ youth: we’re attacking Jayapal and her sick and disgusting desire to mutilate minors and have perverts twerk in front of them. To pat myself on the back, that is the sort of line we have to start taking. These people aren’t merely wrong. They aren’t making mistakes. They aren’t doing good with unintended consequences: they are evil. They are bad. They are doing wrong things because they like wrong things and they get off on ruining lives.

We’ve talked for decades now about school shootings and it all comes back to the same thing: we allow lunatics free range. But now we must take it the next step back: the reason we have so many lunatics is because we have allowed the Left to deliberately and maliciously create an insane society…and they created this insane society by destroying morality. As I’ve said many times before – 80 years ago you could buy a machine gun by mail. Also back then you couldn’t even form the concept of “drag queen story time”. Fast forward to today and you have to jump though hoops to buy a semi-automatic weapon but we have drag queen story time. There is a connection, folks. We’re getting what the Left wanted – increasing restrictions on liberty along with government-subsidized license.

To nutshell it: don’t call them mistaken. Call them evil. They are wicked people trying to destroy. We push back on it that way and every time one of these horrors emerge, they’ll eventually be placed on the defensive…and then we can destroy them.

Fox News cut away to Pudding Brain expecting to see some comment about the school shooting and got some bizarre, senile ramble about ice cream. Now, he did eventually get around to spending a few seconds talking about the shooting, but then was back to yucking it up. The man is flat out senile and they clearly didn’t get his meds right today. The destiny of our nation is the feeble hands of a man who has gone gaga.

DeSantis is taking advantage of the fact that he holds executive power and has signed universal school choice in Florida. This will be a problem for Trump in the primary…all Trump can do is talk about doing things. RDS can do them.

One of Rand Paul’s staffers was brutally attacked in DC – no word yet on whether it was political or just Democrat City Life. Horrible all the same.

Matt Taibbi – the center-left journalist Musk has been allowing to write up the Twitter Files – got a sudden visit by IRS agents when he testified in Congress about the government orchestrated censorship and propaganda under the old Twitter ownership. Pardon me, guys: have you ever heard of an IRS agent making a visit? Senator Jordan wants some answers about it: spoiler, he won’t get them. This is bizarre and extremely frightening…and shows that Democrats have polling which shows this is something which could be turned on them devastatingly during an election year.

The Population Bomb didn’t go off – even far Left environmentalist whackos are now admitting the population will peak around 8.8 billion at midcentury and then rapidly decline. My bet – it’ll peak lower than that and decline much more rapidly than expected. My guesstimate is that it peaks around 2040 at a little over 8.5 billion. Birth rates are dropping like rocks everywhere…with the exception being among Mormons, ultra-Orthodox Jews and a few traditionalist Christian groups (which can range from Catholic to Protestant). So the really funny thing will be a new civilization arising starting around 2100 when, turns out, the only people alive at the time are believers because their parents decided to have kids.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan88 Comments

Senator Kennedy asked a Biden judicial nominee a pretty basic legal question (the sort you’d expect to be learned in pre-law) and the nominee had no idea what Kennedy was asking about. A lot of people are all, “what in heck are they teaching?” about it…but all with the assumption that law schools are still, well, law schools.

Now, to be fair, I have been set a little bit straight by a Twitter friend who stoutly asserts that in the law schools there are professors who vigorously teach law even if they, themselves, are far Left nutjobs. I trust the guy who told me this so I have to assume a blanket assertion I made on Twitter wasn’t true – that being that they don’t teach law, at all, in law school. So, I take my correction: they still do teach some law. That said, as we can see from this Biden nominee, they don’t teach much law…and I still vigorously assert that there is a negative selection in people brought into the government to ensure against any possibility of a real lawyer being appointed to a senior law enforcement or judicial position.

There are two factors as work here. The first is the need for “diversity”. The race hustlers are insisting that we have vast numbers of non-male, non-white lawyers. Whether or not there is a sufficiently large pool of such is irrelevant and I’m certain that its racist to even ask. They are going to get their diversity, folks: that is baked in. And not just diversity in admission, but diversity in result. No law school out there is going to have their graduating class be less than, say, 20 percent black…and if this means they have to graduate people who aren’t capable, they’ll do it. And, yes, I’m quite confident that when it comes to grading bar exams, the people doing so are also going to make certain that the “right” percentage of each diversity quota makes it (anyways, I understand from a lawyer friend that the bar has never been a straight up pass or fail: there has always been a little fudging in deciding just what constitutes passing and failing: easy, then, to rig the system to get the result you want). So, what we’ve got is a built in system which will ensure that a certain percentage of people will have no business at all being lawyers, but lawyers they shall be.

And that brings us to the second factor: the need for certainty. This is something which stems from Leninist legal practice – and it would amaze even many Conservatives to find out how much of Progressive legal and social policy is based on Leninism. It really has taken over the Left in the United States. Took decades to get it done, but it has been accomplished. In this instance, Leninist legal principle is that there is no “both sides” in the law – the law is to advance the cause or it isn’t law. In Lenin’s parlance it would be to advance the cause of the Working Class…but our modern Leninists don’t really like workers (Lenin didn’t either, of course) and so the cause now is the Victim…the racial, sexual, gender, what have you victim of the Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, Imperialist, Genocidal AmeriKKKa. The law is to advance the cause of the Victim or it isn’t law. Whatever happens, the designated victim must prevail in court – and as the victim is always pre-determined by the DNC Narrative of the moment, the Progressive lawyers and judges know how to rule. This is why law isn’t really taught, or at least isn’t taught to those being groomed for senior judicial positions: the Left needs certainty. The absolute assurance that when their legal cases are brought forth, everyone involved will follow the Party Line on who is the Victim. Can’t get that out of anyone who really knows the law or has an ounce of self respect: you can only get certainty out of mindless, Party hacks. And, so, that is what we get…and so Biden’s nominee who doesn’t know a basic aspect of law. But he’ll be confirmed and for decades he’ll be ruling however the Progressives tell him to.

As of this moment, nobody has a clue about Trump’s indictment. Which shows, if nothing else has, how flimsy it all is. As I said a long while ago: if Trump had really broken any law, they could have got him on it long ago. Say whatever you want about the man, but he keeps his legal affairs in order. And as I also observed, this makes sense: working the New York real estate market is a minefield of legal hazard and anyone who is successful at it gets first rate legal advice on just what can and can’t be done within the law. Trump’s been at this for decades…I’ll bet he’s one of the few rich people in the world who can stand up to legal scrutiny.

Uganda voted to ban homosexuality. The Left is still trying to figure out what to do about a bunch of black people who are victims of colonialism not going along with white Progressives. Of course the Left wants to hammer them over this – and the Left is also chock full of neo-imperialists trying to impose Western morals on Africa – but this was a democratic vote in the Ugandan parliament…they’re going to have a rough time with this one.

I’m just going to laugh about it, myself.

Mexico’s President condemns Biden and the USA on human rights grounds – including pointing out how wrong it is for the Democrats to seek the indictment of their political opponent. He’s right. And we look absurd. It is a moment of national humiliation that I’m not only lectured to by the President of Mexico, but I can’t punch back because I have no grounds.

DeSantis after a very good run has now backtracked on Ukraine and is taking a more neo-con line. To me, this is an unforced error for RDS – the base is pacifist and, also, this is the Democrat’s war and they are going to lose it. All GOPers should stay the heck away so that when this blows up, it blows up only in Democrat faces. The last thing we need is for the GOP to take ownership of this war…especially as the moment we do, the Democrats will go back to being anti-war, accusing us of war crimes and they’ll suddenly discover that their darling Zelensky is a corrupt thug. I hope that RDS backtracks on his backtrack.