The Wall

Open Thread

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Been getting a lot of Progressives Christiansplaining to me about how God’s command to welcome the stranger means I’m wrong about immigration. I’m not buying it – I will welcome the stranger to my front door…I’ll be less welcoming to a guy I find in my backyard uninvited. Any stranger who wishes to knock on my door in the daytime will find me all full of welcome…just as I believe that we, as a people, should graciously welcome any stranger who presents him or herself at a US Consulate, Embassy or Port of Entry. Meanwhile, strangers trying to sneak in should be greeted differently.

Schumer wants Trump to nominate Garland to heal the national divide – Instapundit noted that all such calls to unify involve the GOP giving the Democrats whatever it is they want. Outside the idiocy of Schumer’s suggestion, it illustrates just how whacked out the left is these days. You might not know it if you are wise enough to stay off Social Media, but the left is obsessive about Garland. Of course, 99 out of 100 of them probably couldn’t pick him out of a lineup – but that doesn’t stop them from feeling psychic pain over the fact that they didn’t get to replace Scalia with a liberal. They had been waiting for the happy situation to arise where one of the Court’s real Conservatives retired or died while a Democrat was President. McConnell took that away from them and they are incensed!

Meanwhile, in keeping with the Left’s sole purpose of getting everyone non-left to wear a MAGA hat by 2020, the left seems to want a fight over Barrett’s Catholicism. If Trump nominates her, he’ll have to report the Democrat reaction as an in-kind donation to his 2020 re-election effort. According to exit polls, 52% of Catholics went Trump in 2016: a fight like this would get Trump to 65% of the Catholic vote in 2020.

Pruitt is out at EPA – he was doing a bang up job reigning in that out of control agency, but his personal actions as Director ensured that as Progressives smelled blood in the water, there was no one around to defend him. It is unfair and yet inescapably true that a GOPer trying to reform anything in DC must not make stupid mistakes…Pruitt should be an object lesson for the future.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan5 Comments

Democrats have started a pre-emptive campaign against possible Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Their choice of tactic seems to be vicious, anti-Catholic bigotry. I don’t think this will work out for them as well as they think.

Their real worry is that on the matter of jurisprudence, Barrett seems unimpressed with the legal reasoning behind Roe and other such decisions. This is natural as the reasoning was specious, at best. Democrats are trying to fire up their base – and scare off a few hand-wringing GOP Senators – by raising the specter of a ban on abortion. Thing is, they are lying, as usual. Even if Roe is overturned entirely (doubtful: Justices like to keep precedent going), all it would do is return the issue to the States, or to the people (you know, where the 10th Amendment left it). My bet is that all but a few States would keep it legal, at least in the first trimester. I’d still be pleased by this because any move towards ending it is a good thing…but we’re a long, long way from any sort of political coalition which would outright ban abortion nationwide. More than likely, all any future Court will do, however, is allow States to impose various regulatory requirements on abortion – bans on late-term abortions; requirements for fully informed consent; that sort of thing.

The Experts are still uniformly predicting a good mid-term for the Democrats – from moderate Democrat gains to a gigantic, Democrat wave. They’ve got their polls and analysis of the off-year elections we’ve had coupled with historic trends. It is all very impressive…but, I just don’t see it. I’m fully prepared to be absolutely wrong, but I just don’t see it happening. All I can say is that primary turnout doesn’t indicate a massively large and enthusiastic Democrat base; it also doesn’t indicate a complacent or dispirited GOP base. The RNC is awash in money while the DNC is effectively broke. True, the Democrat House and Senate campaign committees are in good shape, but so are the GOP committees…on balance, the amount of money the RNC has to throw at races places the money advantage squarely with the GOP…and it makes me wonder: if the GOP is doomed and dispirited and Democrats are all fired up, why this money gap? I’ve read stories claiming big GOP donors are done with Trump’s GOP…and I believe them; but, still, the GOP has more money, overall. Where’s it coming from? Is it from people who didn’t used to be GOP donors, thus indicating that there’s a new infusion of supporters for the GOP? Is the DNC being broke an indicator that many long-term Democrats are moving away from the Democrats? Time will tell – personally, I think the GOP will win in November, perhaps win big. But, we can really only wait and see.

Mexico has elected an idiot President in a landslide. He’s like a caricature of the Third World socialist we’re all familiar with…everything is the fault of American Imperialism and if he’s just given full power, everyone will get rich. I get why Mexicans voted for him: if you think our Ruling Class is corrupt and out of touch, then let’s just say that compared to Mexico’s, our nitwits are verily reincarnations of Cincinnatus. For 100 years, Mexico has been ruled by corrupt politicians. Frustration led to the election of the one guy who seemed to be against it – except that some of his team are clearly involved in it. I predict utter disaster for Mexico…the good news it that Mexico’s Constitution says a person can only serve one term as President. The bad news is that leftists like this guy never pay much attention to what a Constitution says. Now is really the time to build the wall.

Don Surber has been keeping track of those who crossed Trump and then had their lives go south. It is a long list.

Robert Stacy McCain’s brother is having medical and insurance troubles – if you can spare a bit, maybe kick in a couple bucks?

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.

Laws (Even Immigration Laws) are Laws

Mark Noonan75 Comments

The DNC ordered the MSM to make the detention of people at the border an issue, and now the MSM is full of stories of the heartless, cruel Trump separating families. First, for Amazona (our, “it’s the law, dammit” person…who is correct in all respects on this), we’ll bring this up:

Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both. – 8 USC 1325

So, you can see, entering our country illegally is, well, illegal. And there’s no carve out for people fleeing persecution. If you want in, you have to come in legally…and, of course, you can just present yourself at the border and claim refugee status and your case will be judged according to law (and we have a host of carefully crafted laws and regulations just for that). There is no carve-out for someone caught illegally here – or attempting to illegally enter – who says, upon arrest, that he or she is a refugee (though, even here, after detention such a person can still claim refugee status and that case will be judged on its merits, no prejudice attached for the illegal entry). And the bottom line is that neither Mexico nor Canada is a dystopian hellscape…once in either country, it is no problem to go to the closest US consulate and claim refugee status. But, that isn’t what is wanted here. What is wanted is easy entry – and then the chance to disappear into the illegal alien underground, where there are plenty of people willing to help you skirt US law in the matter of your residency.

The use of kids, I think, results from the fact that until just recently, we went very easy on people who showed up with kids. Which astonishes me – we should have been even more strict about that given the amount of trafficking going on across the border. Without a blood test, how in heck would we know if any particular kid presented at the border is the child of the adult with them? New orders from the government have us enforcing the law listed above – if you enter illegally, you’ve broken the law and are held over for trial. Just as if you had broken any other law. Naturally, we won’t imprison kids with adults awaiting trial (for obvious reasons), and thus comes the “ripping families apart” drivel.

There are plenty of countries in the world where, if a person from there showed up here claiming asylum, I’d pretty much automatically give it to them. North Korea; Syria; Somalia; Myanmar; Cuba; Afghanistan; Venezuela; South Sudan; Libya. There are others where I’d be inclined to give the benefit of the doubt. But south of the Rio Grande, there’s only one – Venezuela. How much you want to bet not one in a thousand of those crossing are from a place you have to flee from? What we’re getting is people who simply want to move, and who don’t want to wait in line. As for me, I see no good coming out of rewarding people for ruthlessly exploiting children to get a jump on the entry line. Such people seem to me to be the people we’d least like in our country. I mean, think about it: it’s a very long journey through an underground system controlled by some of the most vicious gangsters the world has ever seen. Who would put their child through that?

President Trump is doing the right thing – by enforcing the law, he’s discouraging this cruel practice of exploiting children. Those who are opposing him are de-facto encouraging criminality – in effect, they are lobbying for the criminal gangs who exploit these people trying to come here illegally. I’ve spent the last few days on Social Media with Progressives and Never Trump trying to shame me over this…and nothing has more convinced me of the moral collapse of the Progressives and Never Trump than their bizarre desire to have criminality rewarded in the name of having a talking point against Trump.

Another Open Thread Because I’m Working on a Prequel to the Novel

Mark Noonan33 Comments

Everyone has to die. I think all of us go through periods where we wonder why we bother living, at all. Most of us get over it – some don’t, and we have seen the results today. We also saw in Charles Krauthammer the other side of the picture: if there’s anyone who was justified in wallowing in self pity and perhaps eventually deciding to end it all, it was him…but, he never did: and now that he’s facing a known end in just a few weeks, he’s carrying on with grace and courage. I also recall a lady I worked with – dead about ten years now – who was also wheelchair-bound and in really bad shape…but, she kept working, even though she didn’t have to, and was always bright and cheerful. I’ve never known anyone personally who committed suicide, so I don’t really know what that whole situation is like…but it just strikes me as so odd. I can see it, but I don’t really understand it…after all, even the worst day has air to breath, people to see, things to think about and read.

As were were very correctly doing tributes to the heroes of Normandy, it once again occurred to me what a bad general Eisenhower was. The bottom line was that the allied material superiority was so great by the start of 1944 that there was no practical chance of the Germans stopping us – at best, they could slow us down; but the end was inevitable. Choosing Normandy over Calais was a mistake – sure, Calais was better defended, but not that much better…and Normandy only lead to Paris, while Calais lead straight into the heart of Germany…a sort of reverse of what the Germans did in 1940. Add in things like getting caught with his pants down in the Battle of the Bulge, and I get a picture of man who lucked out in being supreme commander of an army which couldn’t lose, and so gained glory he never really earned.

Soros backed a bunch of District Attorney candidates in California and they didn’t fare too well. The larger picture I see is Democrats simply not getting the votes or the money they need to win big in November. Lots of time between now and then, but absent something horribly bad going wrong for Trump or the nation, I’m expecting November to be at worst a draw in the House and a win in the Senate for the GOP…with a slight chance of a mini-red wave showing up.

More to that: California Democrats are pushing a tax break for illegal immigrants. We know how liberal California is…but there has to be a breaking point. Some point where even Californians go, “this is nuts: I’ll vote Republican”. That point may be closer than we suspect.

Trump says he’s willing to back a law which will make the Feds obey state marijuana laws. I’ve long figured the War on Drugs was lost…don’t like it, but the ultimate source of the drug problem isn’t that drugs exist, but that people lack the moral strength to refuse the temptation. Even with that, though, I’d agree to keep them illegal if the attempts to catch drug dealers hadn’t created a surveillance State where we, the people, are watched in all our doings on the theory that one of us may one day decide to become a drug lord. End it – spend the money on treatment.

Iran appears to admit they facilitated the travel of some of the 9/11 conspirators.

There are more job-openings than job-seekers in America. TruCon Muh Principles solution: import more foreigners! Actual Conservative solution: hey, maybe pay the workers a little more.