Trump

Open Thread

Mark Noonan14 Comments

Animal Farm was Orwell’s stinging parody of Stalin’s rule in Russia. The lies. The corruption. The secret police. The hypocrisy. Naturally, it is now being remade in a big budget film where the villain is – wait for it! – the Capitalist!

Yes, that’s it! The nice, wonderful Commies are doing a great job and it is all ruined by a Capitalist who subverts it.

It is a…well…rather Orwellian perversion of the story. And oh, so very 1984 in that it is a falsification of history. The kids ain’t reading, guys. And they won’t want to watch the old 1954 animated version (too stale in looks!) so going into the future if someone wants to find out about Orwell they’re going to find out he was a Communist who exposed how Capitalists ruin everything.

This is why the Right simply had to get into pop culture. We have to start writing books (doing my best!), songs, movies, TV shows…painting, sculpture. And we can’t just copy what was done before the Left ruined everything. It does have to be fresh and new – something that will appeal to people who are only barely literate in the traditional sense (they might be able to read words, but if you try to lay on them something as complex as, say, 1984, they won’t be able to fully understand it). This is where people like Musk have to step forth…we need money. Lots of it. We need to reward those who are right now in the infancy of an alternative pop culture.

Trump is going to address the nation – as of now, I don’t know for certain about what, but we’ve got quite a fleet off South America and Trump showing he’s rather upset with the corrupt, communist narco-terrorists down there. The Right is on the march down south – Chile being the latest nation to toss the Left out. But in Venezuela and Columbia as well as other places, the Left is too deeply entrenched (and is too willing to kill) to remove from power by normal means. I think Trump wants to give things a little shove. But, we’ll see! You never can tell what Trump has up his sleeve.

Trump caught a lot of flack over his post about Rob Reiner’s death. OTOH, Trump would catch a lot of flack if he posted, “I like apple pie”. TDS is widespread. But what was irritating was the number of people on the Right – not TDS-infected Never Trumpers – who took the opportunity to tut tut about it. As if they had just been waiting for their chance to show how morally superior they are. Like that is actually a morally correct thing to do…or that it is something that helps.

Look, I get that many have fond memories of Reiner as “Meathead” on All in the Family (a very conventionally Liberal , anti-American show in hindsight) as well as his movies Spinal Tap (mediocre with only one really funny scene) and The Princess Bride (cute enough, but it doesn’t hold up well – saw it for the first time in years a couple years back and it is definitely at the bottom of the re-watch list…its cuteness doesn’t sustain itself). Additionally, the manner in which he died was horrific – nobody should have to go like that. But none of this changes the fact that Reiner, for the last ten years of his life, voluntarily became a vicious liar for political purposes.

It wasn’t a mistake. He didn’t misinterpret the data. He set out to lie because, in his mind, Trump did the unforgivable thing of defeating Hillary. Reminder: all of these Hollywood types were good friends of Trump. Sought him out. Honored him. Couldn’t wait to be around him. Until Trump decided to challenge Hillary…whom the Hollywood types wanted as President because that is what the Script said. She had stood by Bill (as so many Hollywood types have stood by cheating spouses) and the payoff for that was supposed to be the White House (akin to a movie or book deal). Trump ruined all that. They had a whole host of TV shows and movies based upon the idea of a female President. Trump took it all away – and, so, when Hillary had her nervous breakdown about it, Hollywood took its cue and went to work. Knowingly. Voluntarily. Deciding that poisoning American politics was worth it if it could harm Trump.

Those lies are not funny. They have got people killed. They already sparked two attempts on Trump’s life (that we know of). They got Trump’s friends and allies ruined in Lawfare of the most foul, Stalinist sort. They have the USA today simmering on the edge with violence common and Civil War a possibility. Was Reiner the only person to do this? No. Was he even the most important? Again, no. But he was a willing participant in it and he never backed away. It was his own son who killed him – his now 32 year old son, who has a long history of drug addiction. Meaning that over the last ten years, when his son was 22 to 32 to years old and battling demons, Rob was taking the time out of his day to lie about Trump. This is just freaking bizarre – but it it was Rob chose to be.

So, no, we are not morally obligated to forget all that. In fact, it is far more morally important that we view things clearly than try to soften things up with pablum. Lives are at stake in our ability to fearlessly state the truth. And the truth is that whatever Reiner was in the past, for the last part of his life he decided to do very bad things. Trump called that out. And it should be called out. Yes, the evil that men do is interred with their bones – in that Reiner’s fate is really up to God now. But we have an obligation to not set up a system where a vicious liar is honored. Only a repentant liar may be honored.

The Left is trying to sweep the murders at Brown under the rug. Have to: if Jews and the few Conservatives at Brown were targeted, then all of higher education is going to feel the heat. The Left is hoping they can string things out and hope the news cycle changes (I think the fracas over the Reiner post was partially because of that – they wanted us to talk about anything else but Brown – especially after the pogrom in Australia). I’m hoping that Trump’s people are looking at it very closely…I want to find out just how deep the colleges are with antifa and Hamas.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan9 Comments

Leo XIV reaffirmed that marriage is between one man and one woman and that the unborn are humans with rights.

This is going to make a lot of Lefties and Progressive Catholics upset.

But, fret not! I’m sure he’ll also deplore the continuing war in Gaza before too long … OTOH he also spoke up for the persecuted Christian minority in the Arab world so maybe even that won’t be forthcoming in a manner pleasing to the Left.

Oh, well: Catholics gonna Catholic. And the Pope is Catholic.

The Trump Administration, by highlighting the increasing racism of the South African government, is clearly trying to force that government to climb down. I hope it works; because only death and poverty result on the current trajectory.

Keep in mind what happened in South Africa: after the end of Apartheid and the assumption of black majority rule, it was supposed to operate like magic in making everything peachy for the black population. Not kidding: the only thing that made life bad for blacks was Apartheid. This is what was asserted and firmly believed…especially in the larger West. Of course it didn’t work that way. It couldn’t work that way. While white South Africans were much better off than black South Africans, their per capita income would work out to pretty impoverished for Americans. Around the time Apartheid ended, South Africa’s per capita GDP was less than four grand a year. Sure, whites got more than that…but we’re still talking sub-Alabama money. There wasn’t enough money for everyone in South Africa to even be working class, let alone middle or upper. The only way South Africa was going to get rich – under any system – was via decades of hard work and frugal living. Apartheid actually held back South African wealth creation…once it was gone, if everyone got to work – especially given the massive foreign investment which would eagerly jump into a free and rule-of-law South Africa – then within 40 to 50 years, South Africa could easily have been on par with Europe in income.

But what happened was that the magic didn’t happen, nobody insisted that everyone get to work and it all became an increasingly strident blaming of white people while what money there was got looted and transferred to the bank accounts of the new, politically-connected black elite (and some of the old white elites who ran apartheid…don’t forget that; they cut their deal with the new leadership to keep rich and privileged…and do note that it is “kill the Boer, kill the farmer ” the race-baiters shout…not “kill the rich, white jerks who work with the ANC”). There have been increasing attacks on whites with little or no police response, political rhetoric designed to incite violence (and, man, I bet they want whites to respond; it would be all the excuse they need) while poverty and disease spread and South Africa’s infrastructure collapses towards Third World status. There would have been eventual massacres of whites. There still might be. Trump is trying to nip that in the bud.

All of this ties into the basic assumption that white people are inherently evil. We’re not native to any land. We are nothing but thieves and oppressors. Our lives mean nothing and nobody is to be upset if a white person is robbed, beaten, raped or murdered. This isn’t something we can allow to continue – not in any nation. A whole series of lies has been ingrained into the Western mind and we must cut it out – racism is wrong no matter how its done. Whites are not to blame for non-white poverty. The only way out and forward is for everyone to obey the laws and get to work. Together. As one humanity. Whatever happened in the past can’t be fixed and so it should just be moved on from.

Cancel That Pardon Open Thread

Mark Noonan22 Comments

I was going to write up a bit about Home World (Book IX of the Mirrors series) being released but we’ll pause that for this:

Absolutely impossible to see where this winds up. It has never happened before – that is, an Executive saying the previous Executive’s actions are invalid. But, also, we’ve never had such a slew of last-minute pardons from an Executive. Given the number, there is no possible way that mentally deficient Biden spent sufficient time reviewing the pardon documents to arrive at a valid decision. This is why some genuine bad guys were allowed to skate; people Biden would never have let off when his mind was functioning. In addition to that, Trump is saying – and there appears to be solid evidence of this – that an autopen was used to sign the documents. Is that valid? Can at least two or three people affirm under oath that Biden was even in the room when the pardons were signed? Maybe a case can be made that an autopen is a legal way to carry out Executive actions…but I can’t see any possible way to say an Executive action can happen if the Executive isn’t even present.

I guarantee you a thrill of fear just went down a lot of backs when Trump posted that. It is completely unknown territory…and a lot of people who were sure they had skated on multiple serious federal crimes now wonder just how safe they are?

Open Thread

Mark Noonan51 Comments

The Democrats – still in the Senate majority – have been holding Orange Man Bad hearings to finish off their term. Yesterday, the Orange Man was Bad because of this illegal immigrant he’d like to deport – Foday Turay – who is a prosecutor.

A prosecutor. Prosecuting American citizens. Democrats thought it would be a good idea to highlight that they gave a job in law enforcement to an illegal immigrant.

This is a strong indicator that our Democrats haven’t learned a darned thing. Trump ran an 18 month campaign with one of his major issues – front and center all the time – being that he was doing to deport the illegals. After hearing this argument – and the Democrat counter-argument, forcefully stated with a billion dollars of campaign funds and overwhelming MSM support for the Dem position – the American people elected Trump. That’s it. We’re done here. There might be some room for compromise here and there (we’re not rat bastards with no feelings, after all) but the basic thrust is going to be deportations and border security. That is what the American people want. It is what they will get.

Democrats are saying how mean it will be if illegals lose their jobs.

I don’t know what to say about such people – that is, people who can’t absorb simple facts like, say, a lost election. There’s no mind for me to reach. If after 11/5 you’re shouting BLM slogans, condemning Israel and rising in defense of illegal immigration you’re not just wrong, you’re an idiot. These ideas were rejected by the electorate…the only path forward for those who back such views is to rethink them, make adjustments and try different tactics. Democrats are acting like 11/5 didn’t happen.

Maybe its because after their news outfits finished up lying to them on 11/5, our Democrats continue to trust them? This would make them even stupider…but one of the excuses the MSM/Dems are making is that Trump didn’t win a landslide. To be sure, it wasn’t a 1980 result, but it was a close as we’re going to get any time soon. Let’s look at it:

In 2016, Trump received 62,984,828 votes. In 2024, 77,237,942. Little bit of math – even a Liberal could do this – and we see that over an 8 year period while under constant attack and lawfare, Trump increased his vote total by 14,253,114. That’s a 22.6% increase over his 2016 vote. That’s a pretty popular guy. And we must always keep in mind that in all three elections, Democrats stuffed ballot boxes. It is what they do – they insert as many fake ballots into the system as they can…this is especially prevalent in the Blue States where Democrats have consistently removed any vote security systems. My guess is that in any given national election, Democrat vote totals are probably 10% fake though it would take a very thorough investigation to get to an exact figure – it might be more (don’t get me wrong, even without fake votes, we were losing CA and NY…but we’d lose them by smaller margins in an honest system and we wouldn’t have the sheer magic of every late-decided House race in CA falling to the Dems weeks after the election).

And in this election, Trump’s coattails were sufficient to secure a Congressional majority. The Supreme Court is majority in favor of law. The Administrative State (Deep State) is going to be brought under control. We won, Democrats. You lost. You have no real power to alter the course for the next two years. Prepare for the mid-terms: they are traditionally favorable to the Party which lost the previous election. But, my goodness, you’re going to get wiped in 2026 if over the next two years you just keep going Resist drivel. There’s nothing to resist. The people have chosen. You have been rejected. The chances that in two years the people will be going, “wow, sorry I voted Trump: what I want is a return to the border invasion and more medical mutilation of kids!” is nil. If you want to win in 2026 and thus gain some actual leverage, you’re going to have to come up with something different.

Or don’t. I don’t care. The stupider you are, the better for us.

It looks increasingly like Hegseth and the rest of Trump’s picks will sail through. Joni Ernst was leading a charge against Hegseth – in cooperation with the MSM/DNC who worked up a series of increasingly stupid lies about Hegseth – but she’s cooling her jets now…there have been rumors of a primary challenge. There still might be one: her choice to make an issue out of Hegseth angered a lot of people (me, inlcuded). There was just no sense in it. Even if you dislike Trump, the place to fight him is not in cabinet picks…by and large, the American people accept that a President should get the cabinet of the President’s choice. To expend political capital fighting the guy chosen to clean up an obviously dysfunctional military was just stupid…and to lend credence to the Democrats’ serial slanders of the man was disgusting.

I’m sitting here getting ready to release Book IX of the Mirrors series (Home World) and I’m about 65% done with Book X (this will wrap up the series with possible different story lines available for later works – but I want to start working on my post-apocalyptic series Of the 15 as well as a sort of Hallmark movie story about a sailor and a princess) and here comes Hollywood with….Meet the Parents 4. Look, I get it: Meet the Parents was hilarious. The second installment was a credible sequel. The third installment dragged out a premise which was exhausted. What they heck are they going to do in a fourth movie? And, hey, its not just me putting out stuff that is new entertainment content…there are a host of indy writers out there, including some on the Left, who are putting out new stuff which has different takes on things. But our Entertainment Industry is a sick joke…just recycling the same old stuff over and over again. The reason? They figure an established franchise is at least sold money-maker…but they aren’t solid money-makers. Disney has just about killed the Star Wars franchise. The Narnia franchise is about to be destroyed in a woke version. The Tolkien universe is almost completely destroyed (this destruction starting, actually, with the total ruination of Faramir’s character in the third movie). Its not just that they are out of ideas: they are destroying what was once good ideas.

Post Iowa: Now, What?

Mark Noonan31 Comments

Over the past 48 hours I have seen enormous amounts of hurt feelings over the Iowa result. I don’t really know why – I mean, come on: a white, Evangelical State. That is Trump’s meat and potatoes. There was little chance anyone was going to gain traction against Trump in that electorate. I was a bit surprised that DeSantis staked so much on it: he’s a much better fit for the New Hampshire electorate. But, nobody calls me up for campaign advice.

But a lot of DeSantis supporters are very upset about it all – and not just the Never Trump plants who were paid to go on social media to talk up DeSantis as a means of harming Trump. I’m talking about some sensible people. I can only assume they just invested too much emotion in their guy. Never do that: no matter what, they’re all politicians. All politicians are at least a little bit insane and they all hedge a bit even when they don’t outright lie. The people running for office are the merest tools – and sure I’d always like to have a perfectly made hammer to drive the nail in, but the nail must be driven and if all I’ve got is a wrench, I’m still going to pound away at it.

But it was also a pretty big result for Trump. True, the turnout was lower but the weather wasn’t just bad, it was downright awful. But Trump’s 51% was astounding and probably would have carried through in a high turnout. To compare, the 2016 winner got 27%, 2012 24%, 2008, 34%, 2000 40%. You generally don’t get close to a majority because the field is usually very crowded and so the votes are split up. Bottom line is that the GOP base is still solidly behind Trump. There isn’t much chance of anyone knocking him off – they’d have to win NH and SC to have a shot and polling in both States is favorable to Trump and likely to go more favorable now. Nutshell: it is highly likely that Trump is the 2024 nominee.

That the base is so solid for Trump is, I think, another reason for the anger – people were talking themselves into believing that the Orange Man, being Bad, was done for. When the results came in for Iowa that theory was proved wrong. But do keep something in mind: everyone who hates Trump (this is different from someone who might not want Trump for policy reasons) does so because the TV told them to. Tell them this and they will hotly deny it. Usually claiming they’ve hated Trump since he first became famous. But that is absurd: why in heck would you invest in hating a real estate tycoon/television personality? Nobody would do that. Nobody hated Trump before he came down that escalator. It has become for many a negative feedback loop: they took the Orange Man Bad position, have diligently sought arguments supporting the Orange Man being Bad and are absolutely shocked to find that for a lot of people, the Orange Man ain’t all that Bad.

Make no mistake about it, there was a drift away from Trump in 2022. I saw it. I talked with ardent Trumpsters. They were ready to move on. They were casting eyes at DeSantis as RDS went his most Trumpy in fighting woke ideology. But then the Mar a Lago raid happened and the GOP, on the whole, did not rise to Trump’s defense in what was clearly a politically-motivated prosecution. On the sly – and it could be seen – they, too, hoped that this would sink Trump. At that moment, I started saying that the only way to beat Trump would be to out-Trump him: in this case, it would require people to get up and loudly condemn the raid, condemn 2020 as a fraud and call for the pardon of all J6ers. That would show the Trump base that you’re serious…and failure to do that makes you a RINO/Commie traitor. And so it is happening.

Some are saying that the indictments, etc of Trump are 4D chess where the Democrats are hoping to make Trump a martyr and so get the GOP to nominate the guy they think they can beat. No. They’re not that smart. They are, in fact, enormously stupid. They are indicting Trump not as 4D chess but because the TV told them to. Yes, I know that the TV was told to say that by the DNC, but the actions of the DOJ and others are motivated by what the TV said. They consider indicting Trump a righteous act and they are certain everyone wants them to do so…after all, everyone on TV says that is what everyone wants. Maybe Trump will lose in November and the Democrats will luck out…but it is just as likely that they needed Trump as much as they needed a hole in their head.

Can Trump win? Sure. There’s a non-zero chance he wins big but don’t make any plans on that. Right now, given polling, he’s well positioned to get past 270 outside the margin of fraud. A lot of people are harping on suburbanites and Independents hating Trump. True, they do. But at least the Independents also hate Biden. Stepping away from the fraud that actually installed Biden, he did do better among Independents in 2020 than Hillary did in 2016 – but at that time he was still a mostly unknown quantity and the MSM pumped him up as kindly Uncle Joe who was going to end the stress of the Trump Era and let America just move forward…we were supposed to get the late 1990’s and this time without even so much as a blue dress to disturb the peace.

Didn’t get that, did we?

The MSM is still relentlessly covering for Biden but what the MSM can’t do is make us not see the price of gasoline and butter. Can’t spin the Afghan defeat into a win. Can’t make us think that Ukraine is going well. Can’t shake us from seeing that under Trump the middle east was largely peaceful while under Biden it has exploded. Sure, the MSM will never talk about the border crisis…but it is a crisis and via non-traditional media, people are seeing it…and the GOP sending illegals to Blue cities is also making it more noticeable. The pragmatic facts of life is that the Independents now hate Biden at least as much as they hate Trump…and as Biden is the person currently making them mad, the jump ball for independents slightly favors Trump at the moment.

As for the respective party bases: who is going to be more motivated in November? My bet is on the GOP base. Democrats are trying to work up “democracy” and abortion as their key campaign messages but that is thin gruel…especially as a crucial part of their base, black voters, is very much angry when they see illegals getting free housing and phones while black Americans get nothing. Not saying these people will vote Trump…but staying home works out just the same.

It is a wide open race and there are so many variables that nobody can say what is going to happen. For goodness sake, Biden might keel over at any time now and that would just put a tornado into politics as Democrats scramble for a replacement. And imagine if that happens in, say, September? Buckle up, kiddos, we’re in for a wild ride.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan77 Comments

Outside of the mindless realm of the Democrat Party, everyone is condemning the Colorado Supreme Court ruling against Trump – and even a few Democrats are against it. This is because it is just plain and simple stupid. Here is the relevant part of the 14th Amendment:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

What the Democrats are saying is that it is a proven fact that January 6th was an insurrection and it was instigated by Donald Trump. This is just a stupid assertion to make. The purpose of the January 6th participants wasn’t to overthrow the government but to ensure the government followed the law. You can call them mistaken. You can call them the most stupid people the world has ever seen – but it doesn’t change the fact of why they were there. The Confederates of 1861 wanted to leave the nation – the participants of January 6th wanted their nation to obey the law. They are not in the same universe of action. There was no insurrection against lawful authority on January 6th.

It is purely evil what the Democrats are doing. They are all appetite for power, wealth and sex and they will do anything to ensure they get their desire. In making this ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court has struck a body blow against the rule of law in this nation. After all, if this is so, then the Florida Supreme Court can remove Biden from the ballot on grounds that he is not ensuring that the laws are faithfully enforced. This is a far more true assertion than those made about January 6th and as far as due process – Biden hasn’t been convicted of anything – it works out the same: Trump was not given any due process. The Colorado court issued a ruling based on federal law over events that occurred outside of Colorado’s jurisdiction. Point blank: it isn’t for any State or local government to decide if the 14th Amendment applies to any person seeking federal office. It is a federal matter and so reserved for the federal courts.

Now on to another but related thing: over the past few days I have seen some DeSantis supporters firmly state that they will not vote Trump if he’s the nominee. Previously, it had mostly been Trumpsters saying they wouldn’t vote DeSantis. That point is now moot as it looks like Trump will be the nominee – the Colorado ruling is going to cement Trumpster support for their guy. Either position – Never Trump or Only Trump – is stupid. Evil. Asinine. A betrayal of all things decent. We don’t have much time left. The Democrats are ignoring the law on a regular basis. They are pushing ahead with the most radical elements of their program (ie, massive invasion at the border and medical mutilation of kids) in spite of overwhelming majorities being against them on it. They are confident that power is theirs and cannot be taken away. They might be right – but that doesn’t excuse us from our duty. We have a moral responsibility as citizens of the Republic to do what we can to preserve, protect and defend the Republic. In this instance – in 2024 – the strongest effort we can make in service of this moral duty is to vote Republican.

Not because they’re any good – but because they are not objectively evil and engaged in the deliberate and malicious destruction of the Republic. Any power we can take away from Democrats and hand to Republicans is power which can be used to defend the Republic. Any power retained or obtained by Democrats will be used to destroy the Republic – and this is regardless of what the law says. Democrats don’t care what the law says. If they have the power to do a thing, they’ll do it, law be damned. If they can give the order, make the ruling or modify the regulation, they’ll do it and blithely sit back and laugh at anyone who says that is against the law. We probably only have one or two shots left to save a Constitutional Republic. Once they’re gone then our only hope will be in dictatorship by a Franco or Pinochet. This is preferable only as an alternative to Leftist totalitarian tyranny; ie, if our lives are forfeit otherwise. I don’t want us to go down that path. I want us to remain free – and we only do that in the Republic; and we only keep the Republic if the enemies of it are removed from power.

It is, bottom line, a moral obligation to vote Republican in 2024. Any vote for a different party works out to participation in evil.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan38 Comments

As per usual, celebrities are lining up to make their “I’m leaving” statements if the GOPer wins – in this case, its still all about Trump but we remember it from past elections. So far, Madonna, Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen have said they’re out if Trump wins. If only. Just one, little vote and we end the long, national nightmare of Born to Run? Sign me up!

The trouble is they never follow through, do they? They stay. And that is a monstrous injustice! Why do they think we vote GOP?

Speaking of the GOP: we do note that the Democrats impeached Trump multiple times and so far all we’ve got out of the GOP House majority is a couple toothless hearings. Some people do figure we could win the White House next year and lose the House. It wouldn’t surprise me if that happened: the GOP has given us no reason to vote GOP down ballot. Heck, in the recent budget deal all they did was cancel some unspent Covid money…they didn’t defund a single aspect of Pudding Brain’s weaponization of government. And there went the new Speaker’s resolve that we won’t have omnibus bills…just about the first he did was pass an omnibus bill. They don’t understand: we don’t want any of it. Just shut it down. We don’t care! Sure, the MSM will have a heart-attack…but we don’t watch the MSM so we wouldn’t even notice. The number of votes we might lose over a shut down are tiny compared to the number gained by having the shut down. But, they don’t see it. Gonna take years to clear out the GOP deadwood.

I guess that in Florida for your government shakedown operation (ie, government employee union) to be certified for bargaining, 60% of the workers have to belong to the union. Now, its been decades since the Supreme Court ruled that you can’t compel union membership but for the most part this has been calmly ignored and various dirty means have been used to keep government employees in the Union. But in Florida, the ability to leave the union has now been enshrined in law and there’s a government which actually enforces that law…and it looks like the teacher’s union in Florida has or will very soon fall below that 60% threshold. In other words, there won’t be a union for the government to deal with in education. Can you imagine the sorts of reforms which will be possible once you have that barnacle scraped off? My prediction: if the GOP shows some guts and retains control in Florida for another ten years, then the Ivy League will be finished as the only place in America to get really first-rate education will be Florida and any other Red States where the GOP has the courage to reform education.

And we do have to get on that education thing. Over the past few days the latest Tik Tok craze has been for youngsters to read Bin Laden’s Letter to America and then they react positively to it and are all, “this is legitimate resistance”. First thing to keep in mind is that a 20 year old college kid was born after 9/11. Time marches on! The rising generation has no memory of that day. My guess is that the Tik Tok craze is a Sino-Iranian intelligence op; they’re trying to undermine American support for Israel. By far, Iran values Hezbollah more than Hamas but it would be a major blow to Iranian prestige if Hamas is wiped out. There is simply nothing Iran can do directly because of distance and the fact that Israel almost certainly has nuclear-armed subs off the coast of Iran right now. But they’ve got to do something – and that “something” is get a ceasefire before the IDF clears Gaza.

Our problem is not the op, but that it is working. Our youth are so astonishingly ignorant that a screed – actually written by a renegade American college kid who converted to Islam and joined al-Qaeda – by a psychopath is considered good. As jokester David Burge put it on X, wait until the kids find out about this vegetarian former art school student who’s anti-Zionist tome ignited a world movement! Our kids are so ignorant they are falling for the most elementary propaganda…and propaganda in favor of anti-human evil. If we don’t fix this then if a real war comes, we’ll find at least a significant portion of our youth will believe the enemy rather than America.

But even beyond that, keep in mind that affirmative action doesn’t just end at some point. You have to affirmative-action them into school. And then into a degree. And then into a job. We’ve seen again and again highly credentialed Pudding Brain judicial nominees fail to correctly answer basic legal questions. We’re seeing doctors who assert that masks will stop a virus. On and on like that – if the education was at least engineering plus commie propaganda it would be bad, but not necessarily fatal…but the education is nothing but commie propaganda. They don’t know anything, really. And they are now starting to be placed in charge. We need a crop of our youth who actually know what they’re doing.

But, do keep in mind, if the Red States start to churn out first class doctors and engineers that won’t do the trick. The USSR could educate excellent engineers…who were then put under the thumb of party hacks. They were arrested as “wreckers” when the hacks loused everything up. It will be like that here in America if we don’t start enacting laws to put some teeth into civil rights. Laws which expressly prohibit law enforcement from doing certain things. Laws which punish oath-breakers. On and on like that.

As for the war in Gaza, the IDF is being very methodical in its approach – this is to keep casualties low; both IDF and Gazan. I worry this isn’t the way to do it. I’ve always favored celerity of movement in warfare. The longer it takes the more imponderables start to have their way. Of course, the IDF isn’t going to call me for advice and I do wish them success…but I worry that if this starts to take too long not only will global pressure for a ceasefire increase, but we may start to see domestic Israeli pressure grow to call it off.

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.

What the J6 Videos Tell Us

Mark Noonan53 Comments

To get the easy part out first: they tell us the DNC/MSM Narrative about J6 is false. But, we already knew that.

If you wish to put the worst possible spin on it, what you come away with is a riot. Certainly not something you want to happen and certainly something worth pursuing judicial action against the worst offenders. But it was not an insurrection. They were not trying to overthrow the government nor prevent the normal functions of government. They were just there to express their anger over a vote they felt was tainted and demand that Congress examine the vote before certifying the Presidential winner. Perhaps a forlorn hope. Perhaps even a silly hope. But it is what they wanted – not to end the American system of government, but to ensure that the American system of government functioned as designed.

That is what is really causing the fracture: the sense on the Right – and especially among normal, everyday people – that the system isn’t functioning as it is supposed to. Our Senators are supposed to represent our States. Our Congresspeople are supposed to represent us. The Executive Branch is supposed to see to it that the laws are faithfully enforced. The Judiciary is supposed to smack down with finality any attempt by government to act outside the Constitution. That’s all the protestors wanted – and maybe they did get far more rowdy than they should have, but the demand was for justice and transparency.

What they got was arrested and called domestic terrorists. People who are the very backbone of our nation – the people who do the actual work. Who serve in the military. Who pay their bills, pay their taxes, never steal…they were called domestic terrorists.

Not, it must be said, the people who looted the stores of small businesses. Not the people who burned down buildings. Not the people who set up “autonomous zones” where crime ran rampant. Not the people who attacked the White House. They aren’t the domestic terrorists. The people who live off the workers, who are mostly rich and privileged or welfare bums…they can commit horrific acts of violence and they are barely even arrested…but regular folks go to their government to demand redress of grievances…domestic terrorists.

So, even if you want to puff up J6 as a riot, there is still the massive disparity in treatment – one side gets the book thrown at them, the other side gets barely a slap on the wrist. The shaman guy was apparently escorted at least part of the way in by the police. Plenty of officers had opportunities to quietly arrest the loon, or at least escort him off the premises. They didn’t. And now this harmless kook gets four years…for nothing.

And that brings us to the more difficult aspect of this. Ever since the videos were released last night a growing chorus of voices on the Right have called for them to be ignored, to be denigrated. They demand we accept the Official Narrative (McConnell specifically urged this today) rather than what we can see with our own eyes. They are slandering Tucker Carlson every chance they get (you know I have no love for Carlson: to me, he’s just another MSMer…maybe better than most, but still not my ally). They are still insisting it was an insurrection and that the book needed to be thrown at the J6 protestors. I have never been more angry and disgusted in all my life. Rely on it, a part of me wants the Left to win now, just so I can see these cretins hauled before a tribunal they can’t defend themselves against.

And the GOP politicians and Conservative pundits did this on their own. It wasn’t Democrats or MSMers making their rote demands that the GOP condemn whatever the DNC has targeted for opprobrium…these people did it on their own. They volunteered to be water carriers for the Ruling Class. They are absolutely committed to the DNC Narrative.

And, so, the last fig leaf is off. We know. We can’t ignore it any longer: these people are not on our side. They weren’t fooled. They weren’t uncertain. They weren’t just misinterpreting the data: all along they were maliciously lying, just as the Democrats were. Oh, to be sure, they dressed it up a bit…making this or that complaint about the process and maybe making a barbed remark or two about this or that Democrat involved…but from the start they signed on for the cruise. The story agreed upon by the DNC after January 6th was that Trump incited an attempted coup: and plenty of our own GOPers and fellow Conservatives bought it and committed themselves to it. And they are sticking with it: and that can only mean they’re being paid to do it. No way anyone with a shred of decency sticks to the Narrative after the videos were released. Even if Carlson edited them to be as unfair as possible to the Narrative, the bottom line is that you can see, with your own eyes, that the cops didn’t act to stop people from coming in and, indeed, showed them around.

As of right now, I’m re-committed to Trump in 2024. I can’t vote for anyone else: he’s the only person who has demonstrated by word and deed that he’s on my side. Maybe DeSantis can still do it. We’ll see. But absent DeSantis or some other candidate conclusively proving that they are on my side, I have to stick with Trump. One thing is certain, we can’t go on like this – we must get a political party which is on our side. If we can’t force the GOP to do that, then we’ll have to start from scratch. We must bring an end to this corrupt, lying, murderous Ruling Class.

We Lost: Victory Beckons

Mark Noonan16 Comments

Nothing fails like success, you know? To take a couple examples from history:

Chancellorsville is rated as Lee’s greatest success as a general. Historians tend to use it as the justification for calling Lee a commander of genius and stand in awe of his decision to split his smaller army in the face of a larger enemy and slip around the Union flank to roll up a stunning victory. There’s only one problem with it: it was stupid.

It was only Hooker’s indecision which allowed Lee to pull it off. If the Union commander had pretty much just ordered his army forward any time during Lee’s movement to the flank, Lee would have been utterly crushed and his army totally destroyed. No really great commander gambles; great commanders rig the game so they can’t lose no matter what the enemy does. And if they can’t rig it at the moment, they don’t move. Lee’s move was daring – but reckless and no officer training school would ever teach a cadet to do that.

And it was also Lee’s eventual undoing: just two months later at Gettysburg, Lee, memory of Chancellorsville still fresh, sent his army into an attack which his primary subordinate told him was impossible. But his great victory gave him an entirely overinflated idea of what he and his army could do, and too high a level of contempt for what the Union army and its commanders were capable of. The doom of the Confederacy was sealed with Lee’s defeat: any chance of fighting the Union to a negotiated peace was lost when Lee’s foolhardy charge kicked the guts out of some of his best fighting units.

Next example: the German invasion of France in 1940. Once again, it is rated as a genius move by the Germans to send their main force through the Ardennes in a move to cut off the Anglo-French armies in Belgium. Manstein, the architect of it, is credited as a genius – and the fact that it worked tends to obscure the plain fact that it shouldn’t have worked. And I mean not at all. And while Manstein was the man who drew up the plan, he wasn’t the only general who noticed the Ardennes. In fact, nearly everyone did: German, French and English. And everyone discounted it: and not just because of the rough terrain. It also entailed sending a massive, mechanized force on a pencil thin drive supported by secondary roads. Any significant French of English drive against the flanks of such a force would quickly destroy it.

But, the Krauts got lucky. Very lucky. Half a dozen times. The French had plenty of opportunities, and forces in hand, to wreck the German plan. They unfortunately had generals who thought in terms of days rather than hours for response time. The German gamble worked only because a failure of French leadership. Especially in the first 48 hours of the breakthrough, just about any energetic French general at the Corps or Army level could have won the most stupendous French victory since Austerlitz had they just moved.

But it was also the German undoing. The success of their Ardennes gamble gave all of them, from Hitler down to the last Fritz, a massively overinflated idea of what they could accomplish. When Hitler turned his sights on Russia the following year, even the German generals who hated him figured six to eight weeks would be enough to finish off Russia. And it would have been – had the Russian leadership crumpled under pressure like the French leadership had. Stalin and his henchmen were rat bastards…but when the Germans were pounding at the gates, they stayed in Moscow and put up a fight rather than run away. And thus the Germans discovered that Luck isn’t on the side of the Master Race, but (as always) on the side with the biggest battalions.

So, why the history lesson?

Because our success was 1980 and 1984 and I think we sort of expect it to just happen again. That we have the right ideas and so we’ll just win if we get our ideas out there. We’re forever looking for the next Reagan to carry us to victory. We think that politics is just matter of finding the right message alchemy – instead of the hard work of getting voters to vote for us. Our too easy success against feckless opponents never prepared us for Clinton and Obama opponents…nor for the political machine they built and which elevated a senile degenerate to the White House in 2020.

To be sure, some get it: Scott Pressler is the most shining example of the youth of the GOP getting out there and doing the work. You should know: back around September when all of us were expecting a big win in 2022, he pointed out that while he was having some success in certain areas (most notably Florida), in lots of places there was little enthusiasm for the GOP…he was expecting what, in the end, we got: a small and incomplete GOP victory. We need more like Scott and we might just get them. People who are willing to do the hard work of registering voters and talking to them, to find out what might be on their minds.

We need to jettison Reagan. And it might be time to jettison Trump. Without for a moment elevating DeSantis or anyone else to demi-god status. Might RDS be our guy? He might. We’ll see. But if he turns out to not be the best tool to break down the Democrat door, then he gets discarded, quite ruthlessly, in favor of someone else. On and on like that – all the while working at the local level to shore up the real strength of the GOP. In each success is the seed of failure – but in each defeat there is the seed of victory. Our problem is that since 1984, we’ve only haltingly looked for the lessons our defeats are teaching us, and so we’ve lost all along…even during the times we officially came out on top of the vote. It is no good to simply get the office: we have to get all the offices, all at once, and with a firm commitment to certain actions. We can’t coast on Reagan, nor rely on a Trump to win our battle for us. It is time for us, all of us, to fight anew.