Social Media

Open Thread

Mark Noonan30 Comments

I don’t actually trust Elon Musk. Maybe he’s a nice guy and that’s cool. If I ever hang out at places billionaires gather, I’ll let you know. Absent that, all I know about the guy is that he is a billionaire…a class not noted for their friendliness to, well, me. Donald Trump being one of the rare exceptions which prove the rule – and maybe Musk is another of those exceptions. But don’t go setting him up as some sort of icon. He appears to be committed to free speech and that is great – but he’s also decisively left of center in most of his views and we still might find that his idea of free speech isn’t the same as ours.

That said, the Meltdown of the Liberals when word came of Musk’s purchase of Twitter was glorious. The only event topping it was Trump’s 2016 win (and that event could only be topped by a 2024 win for Trump). It was hilarious for them to suddenly realize that they had set the standard at “private companies can do whatever they want”. They set that standard because they were confident that the private companies they cared about would always be run by their ideological allies. Now they’re rather caught in a bind – but, hypocrisy is their middle name so they’re already shifting over to demands to regulate social media.

Here’s some alleged audio of a Twitter meeting after the Musk news came out.

As it turns out, I am still in favor of regulation of social media. No matter the private aspect of their ownership, the bottom line is that social media is becoming the primary means whereby public debate is carried on. To me, if a platform does not ban all political/controversial speech, then it has voluntarily entered the public square and become part of it – and the public square is for all, especially those we hate the most.

In their renewed love of regulation on this, the Left hopes to ban “hate speech” and “misinformation”, which we know will amount to banning anyone who disagrees with the Left. To get out in front of it, we need a law (which may end up having to be an Amendment) along the lines of:

No free to use public media platform shall deny access to any person or entity who wishes to comment on matters of public controversy.

Nothing in this law shall be construed as permitting sexual indecency, slander, incitement to violence or the promotion of activities illegal under US law.

That pretty much covers it – though it can be refined as we like. But we dare not let anyone start to place into law anything related to the content of speech. Nothing about “hate speech” or “disinformation”. Because that is a slippery slope.

Democrats, ruthlessly exercising their State legislative power rammed through some of the most amazing Gerrymanders in history…all the while suing GOP States for far less offense. But, it looks like the Democrats went too far – in New York, their ridiculous map was tossed and the judges will find some people to draw new ones. Because Democrats are Democrats, you can expect this new map to still be favorable to Democrats…but not by the lopsided amount the rejected map had. Here’s a sample of how ridiculous the Democrat map was:

Zoom in on that a bit to see that in areas it literally goes down a street to connect parts of the district together. Democrats felt they had to do this to try to save their bacon in November…now, they won’t save as much. But, in the end, I don’t think it was really going to matter…they might be heading for such a blowout in November that all they’ll have accomplished was to lose seats they could have won, but they shifted too many Democrats out of them to try to shore up weaker seats.

Related: Pudding Brain’s approval is underwater in 40 States….in a poll historically Democrat-friendly.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan20 Comments

One of the sure signs of an impending political disaster for a political party is a series of articles explaining why in spite of everything going to heck in a hand basket, this time everything will be different. Getting a lot of these articles about the Democrats. The best so far was one which asserted that even in an R+1 environment, the Democrats can hold the House. Its like they’re ignoring that the GOP only needs a net gain of 6 to take the House. If it was D+4 this GOP takeover is likely to happen…but with Pudding Brain sitting at around 42% in the polling aggregates, the best outcome for the Democrats right now is a net loss of about 30.

And the really curious thing is that the Democrats don’t seem to fully realize what’s coming for them – I mean the stalwarts and the pundits. The Democrat leadership does, its why we’re up to something like 28 or 29 House Democrats calling it quits: who wants to fight a hard battle only to wind up in a very powerless House minority in 2023? And that minority gets more powerless all the time – both parties guilty (though Democrats far more guilty) of reducing the minority’s ability to affect legislation. And now in 2023 will come the tit for tat removal of Democrats from committees. I really can’t explain the Democrats on this – with a razor thin majority, the time was to try to co-opt at least some GOPers…nothing doing: it has been all hard left. Could be, of course, that with the narrow majority the far Left Democrats are insisting and Nancy really can’t do anything else.

We’ll see how it comes out – but I don’t think Democrats can talk their way out of bare shelves and high gas prices.

We did some sort of raid into Syria. Supposedly to kill some terrorist mastermind – they say we got him, and also got some kids. I think the bad guys are making sure they’re always around kids and other non-combatants. Seems to me that we should pay a hitman to take these guys out – less expensive and less chance of killing kids when we do it. It is probably illegal for us to do that – but Congress has the power to grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal (though some treaties we’ve engaged in limit that), and I think we should go that route – even if it means denouncing some treaties. Let our intel agencies name the guys we want dead, put a price on it and then grant a Letter of Marque to anyone who wants to give it a shot – bring us proof the target is dead, collect the money. You’re on your own – get caught or killed, nothing will be done for you. Plenty of people would take us up on the offer.

Facebook is losing users. It is the most irritating social media platform I’m on. I only retain my account because it allows me to keep track of family and friends. But I have been suspended for the most mild political jokes posted. And my account is small, which means some narc who knows me – or knows someone who knows me – is monitoring my posts and reporting me. Others are even more irritated than I am. Facebook has a choice: be a platform which allows people to talk, or die. Personally, I think they’re going to die: like the MSM, their cultural imperatives are such that they can’t change.

Think of Joe Rogan: he gets 11 million views for his podcast (I’ve never listened to it, myself). This is more than the top three cable news programs combined (all of which are on Fox). Listening to people who talk about him, he seems a left-of-center guy who just invites people on who he thinks have something interesting to say – you know, keep the show topical and interesting to draw and retain an audience. The rather “no duh” media model. All the MSM has to do to restore its viewership is do the same thing – stop being DNC lapdogs and just talk openly about things people might want to hear. Presto: eyeballs on screens. But they can’t seem to do it – they’ve gone with their usual method: trying to get Rogan banned. They managed to snooker (very easily, because they’re stupid) some aged, has-been recording artists to pull their music from Spotify (which carries Rogan) with a demand that Rogan goes, or they go. The funniest bit about this is David Crosby who made a fuss after Neil Young did…but it seems that neither Crosby nor Young own their music rights, having sold them in the past (presumptively after blowing all their money). But even if they could get their stuff off, Spotify is telling them to take a leap – Rogan is getting 11 million hits a show…Crosby is probably getting a few thousand hits a month.

Canadians have had it with Trudeau’s Covid restrictions and massive protests by Truckers are causing all sorts of trouble for the Canadian Ruling Class. With the workers uniting to resist oppression, the Socialists know what to do: take down the Truckers Go Fun Me account.

Meanwhile, Team Pudding Brain put out its latest Covid plan and it says…to pretty much keep on doing what we’re doing: useless mask and vaccine mandates. These mandates will only be followed by the Democrat governors already following them…GOP governors will continue to ignore them. The math here is very strange: to be sure, a segment of the population is still terrified of Covid. This is the Democrat base – especially white, upper class college educated females. You’ll still find them talking about being triple vaxxed and never stirring from home except at great need. But, seriously, how big a political constituency is this? It can’t be more than 15% of the population, tops. Everyone else is really getting rather done with it: as has been pointed out, if masks worked, then they would have worked a long time ago. After two years of wearing a face diaper everywhere if we still have Covid, then we ain’t getting rid of it. All the mandates do is please the cowardly and piss everyone else off.

And that is before you add in the hypocrisy – mask mandated California is about to host a maskless Super Bowl. You know, we can all see this – and see the politicians not wearing a mask (the LA Mayor was caught without one and seriously tried to sell us “I held my breath as I took the picture”). We know its all BS. We can’t imagine why some people are still living in a world where we have to “fight Covid”…and my bet is that when vote-counting time comes around, the number of people who will punish mandates will vastly exceed those thankful for them.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan28 Comments

Gas prices are up 40% under Pudding Brain. It just gets worse from here – because the way to choke off this inflation is to stop spending and/or jack up interest rates, neither of which Team Senile can do as either or both would tumble the economy into steep recession just in front of the 2022 mid-terms. OTOH, rising prices might do as much damage to them as a recession. There’s nothing we can do about it because we have no control over any lever of power here – all we can do is endure it and at least know that the difficulties the Democrats get into here are richly deserved.

For years, we’ve been angry and frustrated as corrupt and incompetent teacher’s unions parlayed the respect people have for teachers into ever more money for a totally useless public education system. The pandemic may have changed that. The unions proved corrupt and many of the teacher’s revealed themselves as time servers. Parents are at long last starting to push back…and some are even trying to take over the local school boards. The bottom line, though, is that public education is the problem of public education. It can’t be other than an indoctrination system – it is just a matter of which ideology will turn the crank and indoctrinate the kids. The only way to get quality education in line with parental expectations is to let the money follow the students. Absolute school choice – the parents get a sum per kid which can be used in any education facility they deem proper. Sure, you’ll get some weird stuff in there on that…but what you’ll mostly get is kids learning to read and write. And only being taught what the parents want. There isn’t a huge market out there for having your kids taught they are evil because they are white.

China uses social media to control it’s citizens – and is now using it to control everyone. It can’t be emphasized enough that a lot of what drives debate these days are social media trends which are almost entirely manufactured by interested parties. If you’ve got the money and the manpower (xir-power, I guess these days) you can get anything trending on social media. China does this – and then gets the global MSM to tout it (that’s the easy part – the parent companies of the MSM are so invested in China that they’ll get their news actors to say whatever is demanded). We must break up the big social media platforms and we must also regulate them: forbidding them from blocking or banning speech except for specific incitement to physical violence. The days when we on the right could defend corporate independence are over – especially when what we’ve got in social media is government censorship one step removed.

Related: Facebook will ban criticism of institutions if the criticism is intended to cause harm. In practice, this will mean that if you say something bad but true about Islam, you’ll get banned – if you say the most monstrous lie against the Catholic Church, you’ll be fine. Just watch and see.

Haiti’s President was assassinated. You really do feel for that poor country – ever since independence, it has endured tyranny and chaos in succession. It isn’t the people, as such: Haitians in the United States are some of the most successful and law-abiding people we have. But something in that land just brings out the worst in some people. The only thing I can think of is making it a Trust Territory – of the US, of – heck, I don’t know – Brazil. Someone, anyone, has to take charge of the place and govern it in the interests of the Haitian people and likely for a century or so. Until, that is, several generations can be raised up to live under law. They do in the United States – they will in Haiti, if they are compelled to do so.

The Mars helicopter had an amazing flight. This is something that does surprise me – I figured with the very thin atmosphere, they could never get anything off the ground. So, impressed with the engineers who figured this out.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan29 Comments

Ace rips into a new, Feminist hero brought forth by the MSM for Pride Month – she left her husband and kids to become a lesbian. She was 36 when she made the discovery. Ace has a few words to say:

Today’s Feminism-Forward Woman

She can be anything she wants to be — including an irresponsible tweener girl, when she feels the pangs of young romance moving through her.

Which is pretty much it. I’ll say something that is probably pretty unpopular: no one is born gay. Not in the sense that it is meant these days – that it is something so integral to your personality that you must express your desire for same-sex attraction. That some people have a very deep-seated attraction to members of the same sex cannot be doubted. Given what we know of genetics, there probably is some genetic role in such an attraction. But, you’re still human: you only must be born and die. Other than that, its all a choice. And this particular lady choose to break her promise and make her life an almost inevitable train wreck.

Lest anyone think I’m merely picking on the lesbian lady, another story along these lines caught my eye. It was recently announced that Father Morris – a long time commentator on Fox News – is leaving the priesthood so that he can get married. Which immediately made me wonder just how galactically stupid his future bride must be. The man is proposing to break a promise he made to God in order that he make a promise to a woman. How likely is it he’ll keep his second promise?

The lady wasn’t born to be lesbian, Morris wasn’t born to be married. They are each making a choice: and a wrong, wicked, evil choice as their choice starts with breaking a promise. Such is the sad state of our world that both of them will be accepted as normal, upstanding members of the society even though they are both demonstrating they can’t be trusted.

Donald Trump decided to name his Mrs “Melania T”, our replacement for “Jackie O”. Naturally, the left melted down. And that’s a good thing.

Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) has a new book out about Social Media and how lousy it is. I’m going to get it because Reynolds does pay much more attention to tech stuff than I do.

Something interesting:

Progressivism’s perversion of our ruling class’s ideas about war and peace began at the turn of the 20th century. It prevailed in the winter of 1950-51 when this class, having committed the armed forces to war in Korea, decided to order them not to defeat an enemy that had already killed some 15,000 of their number, but rather to kill and die to “avoid a wider war,” and to foster an international environment pleasing to itself and allied governments. Since then, the U.S. government has won no wars. More important, it has not sought to win wars. Instead, our foreign policy establishment has spent some 100,000 American lives and trillions of dollars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in pursuit of world order, multilateralism, or collective security. It has cited as a badge of superior wisdom its trashing of Aristotle’s notion that victory is war’s natural objective.

Read the whole thing.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan10 Comments

The caravan arrived at the border and got it’s photo ops which are now being used to try to convince us that we’re rotten, evil people for not having open borders.

None of us are buying that, though.

We need to fix our mistake: in the aftermath of WWII, we failed to make Marxist thought as vile in the public mind as Nazi and Fascist thought is. Oh, to be sure, we made some small efforts…but we didn’t hammer it mercilessly, as we should have. We allowed it to live…and to eventually argue in favor of “Free Speech” as a means to gain a foothold in our institutions. Over time, we’ve got what we have now: various flavors of Marxists working diligently to suppress all non-Leftist speech. The poison that was defeated in the USSR is now thriving in the United States. We have to make an end of it.

I realize this will eventually require amending the Constitution – but if we are, long term, to remain a free people it is necessary for us to make sure that those who argue in favor of tyranny cannot gain access to the public square.

It has to be kept in mind that our American system of government is based upon dogmatic assertions – dogmas as incapable of scientific proof as the dogma of the Trinity. “All men are created equal” is something that you take on faith, because you can’t prove it. And if you want to be free, you have to believe it. Waver even a bit from that dogma, and you’re quickly on the path to tyranny. The Marxists among us don’t believe it for a minute – don’t believe them when they say they do. If they did, they’d never be able to work out a system where people are judged by their class and that some classes of people have to be destroyed. No one who believes in the equality of human beings could do anything like that. You must believe that people are unequal in order to be willing to destroy some people. Let these Marxists advance long enough, and we’ll eventually find that not enough people believe in the American dogmas to sustain a free America.

Mark my words on this: the ultimate, final political battle is to be over whether or not anti-freedom ideology is to be allowed in the United States.

Putin is rolling the dice in Ukraine, again. Likely, he’s testing to see how far he can go. He knows we won’t be at the forefront in defending Ukraine simply because making an argument for an American army in the Donbas is not one Trump can make. What he’s likely doing is testing to see if any European power wants to do anything about it. And it may well be misdirection as he’s planning some offensive action either in the Baltics or the Caucasus. Everything old is new, again. This is pretty much the situation Europe found itself in back in 1854 – an aggressive Russia but a Russia which is moving step by step. Which step is the intolerable one? Back then, Britain, France and Turkey combined to thwart Russian ambitions. Will anyone is Europe do it, again? I doubt it.

Roger Simon talks about the left’s alliance with Islam (and resulting anti-Semitism):

This alliance between the left and Islam, exemplified – although far from exclusively – by Linda Sarsour, who refuses to abjure the notoriously anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan while telling Jews she is “sorry,” leads to mind-bending behavior by “feminists” like support for the hijab and patriarchal Sharia law. What next? Clitoridectomies? Evidently

I’ve said for years that the left would convert to Islam – and be lead there by feminists. It must always be remembered that one of the great appeals of Islam is its magnificent simplicity. It is an excellent religion for anyone who doesn’t want to think too hard. And can you just guess who, in our modern West, is most opposed to thinking, at all? That doing this requires a bow to anti-Semitism doesn’t cause our leftists any worry. They were long ago tired of defending Israel. Allah is everything and everything that happens is Allah’s will. You have no free will (the left despises the very idea of free will) and everything you do is to be run from a script (sound familiar?).

The only real question is: how long will the majority of gays and Jews (stalwart Democrat voting blocs) remain on board? I’m figuring by 2028, a majority of such votes start going GOP…provided it remains a Trumpist GOP.

Instapundit took himself off Twitter because Twitter is now a cesspool of Stalinist persecution. I’m pondering when I’ll terminate my account – that I will terminate it is a given. Though I may have some fun, first, and get Twitter to ban me.

Small Thread Because I’ve Nothing Specific to Write About

Mark Noonan48 Comments

Lot of violent and/or eliminationist rhetoric these days – almost all from the Left. Which is “as usual”, of course; it has just become so ubiquitous that no one can ignore it. And, I think, the regular folks – those who don’t spend their days in flame wars on social media – are starting to notice; and not liking what they see. No one can actually predict the future, but I’m laying my money on the Democrats increasing political radicalism turning off casual voters who will either stay home or vote GOP come November…and come 2020, unless there is a sea-change in Democrat attitudes. And I don’t expect that change until after a crushing loss in 2020.

I’m a bit serious about that. I was running things through my head and using 270 to Win and I’m expecting Trump to win 37 States with 356 Electoral votes in ’20…and if the Democrats keep the insanity up to 11, it might end up being 42 States and 391 Electoral Votes. Time will tell, of course – lots of things to happen between now and then, but I don’t see a trajectory which has the Democrats backing off and coming up with policies that appeal to people outside the true-blue, Progressive believers.

But, also, there is success for the GOP – things are going pretty well in the country right now. People might be feeling so good by 2020 that they decide they want four more years of it, regardless.

Related: Democrat governor candidate Cynthia Nixon calls ICE a terrorist organization. To be sure, she’s going to be crushed in the NY primary as she’s running against a sitting Democrat governor, but make no mistake about it: at least 40% of the Democrat base agrees and they are the people who will be driving the train in 2020.

It has been HOT in Southern Nevada. Got up to 112 on Thursday. Our Progressive friends will say this is Global Warming…but as I’ve lived out here 25 years, it is just par for the course. Now, 112 is a bit toasty…but I think my blood has thinned or something because below 80, I feel cold. Anything up to 105 and I barely feel it. And, yes, it is a dry heat – current humidity is 4%…which is murderous on the vegetable garden.

Melania Trump has visited 100% more children detention centers than Michelle Obama ever did.

Do you ever check out Powerline’s “The Week in Pictures“? You should.

I’ve Been Busy Open Thread

Mark Noonan37 Comments

Sorry about not much posting of late – but I’ve got a lot on my plate! Got the 2nd draft of the novel done and off to be reviewed by a publisher. We’ll see how that goes. Have I mentioned the title? Mirrors, it will be. I’m writing up the outline of Book II…prospectively to be titled Secrets. I’ve also started some research on another political book, and came up with a smashing idea for a science fiction book series. In addition, lots of other things going on in the personal life: all good, but taking a lot of time.

So, what have you guys been up to?

The American economy is now the most competitive in the world, according to the IMD World Competitiveness Center. The bottom line is that tax and regulatory reform is freeing up our economy after 8 years of Obama shackles. I think we’re about to have a boom like that of the early 80’s, and maybe a lot better.

I got on Gab back in November, but really didn’t do too much with it until recently. Just be prepared to mute one heck of a lot of Nazis…but once you’ve got that done, you’ve got a platform like Twitter was before the SJW’s took over. You can find me listed under @Mark_Noonan. I’ve also joined the Ace of Spades Moron Horde…which is already beating most Twitter for fun, and looks to become ever better. You can actually speak your mind there without worrying about some snowflake taking offense and getting all huffy.

Don Surber points out that the Republicans just might not blow it. Of course, give them time! But, seriously, things are flowing the GOP’s way, mostly because of Trump. The anti-Trump element in the GOP is still there, but I think if the GOP comes out on top this November, that will pretty much end it. The GOP will learn that Conservatism tinged with full-throated patriotism, disdain for Political Correctness and making a few bows to Populism is the way to go.

Byron York neatly encapsulates the entire Mueller Probe.

Have you heard of Tommy Robinson? I have – though I don’t know too much about him. Fundamentally, I don’t care about him, as a person. Lots of people – everyone on the left, but with some hand-wringing Fredocons as well – hate him; but that isn’t important. What is important is that he’s in a British jail, apparently for the crime of reporting about a trial the British government would rather keep quiet. There’s not much we can do about Britain – the so-called “Conservative” government there just congratulated Ireland for voting in favor of abortion – but the object lesson should sink in: what is going on in Britain is precisely what the Left wants to do here.

As regards that Irish vote – seems that only about 1/3 of the Irish remain Christian. The whole program of Irish independence has been shown to be a waste of time. Why be independent from Britain when you’re just going to go on and do what they do? The problem with Europe is that they seem to want to die.

Coverage of President Trump’s Memorial Day speech. He’s really starting to get this whole Presidenting thing.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan38 Comments

So, Trump set social media afire – apparently making comments about sh**hole countries. Vulgar – but my take is that he’s merely pointing out that there isn’t much wisdom in just willy-nilly taking in everyone. A judicious selection has to be taken. We don’t actually need any immigrants…so, if we’re going to take some in, might as well take the best of the best. Progressives and NeverTrump are up in arms about it…but, no one really cares what they think.

Twitter “shadow bans” Conservative voices – this is where they just don’t allow a Conservative’s comments to be easily noticed. I’ve seen it going on for a while…and what trends on Twitter isn’t what is trending, but what Twitter chooses to have trend…invariably whatever it is that Progressives are yammering on about.

Chrysler is building a new factory in Michigan, it would seem. This is just proving my point that manufacturing is entirely viable in the United States and it has mostly been tax and regulatory policy keeping it down. There isn’t that much of a plus in cheap labor, which is all any foreign nation can offer us. When you relieve the tax and regulatory burden and combine that with our superior infrastructure and rule of law, we just can’t be beat.

The crime lab – useful; but like all things government these days, it seems that our crime labs are often just making it up…and sending innocent people to jail. We’ve discussed this many times before – those who are charged with enforcing our laws are often not doing their jobs and we need to find a mechanism to force them to do so, and punish them when they don’t.

Senator Feinstein leaked some Fusion GPS transcripts and has now come up with several, equally absurd excuses as to why she did it. I go with the obvious: she released them as a cheat sheet for everyone who will be called to testify about it in the future: “make sure your lies square with these!”. The Trump/Russia Collusion scandal is rapidly morphing into the biggest political scandal in American history…and its all about Democrats.