UK

Open Thread

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Saw another clip of a Tucker Carlson interview where the interviewee is suggesting that a case can be made for a US alliance with Hitler against Stalin. Naturally he does point out the horrific nature of the Stalinist regime and also notes that FDR was a relentlessly dishonest man (MacArthur, on hearing of his death, was alleged to have remarked words to the effect of, “he was a man who never let the truth get in the way of a good lie”). Of course, this does leave out the crucial fact that Hitler was horrifically evil – sure, Stalin was, too, but Stalin wasn’t combining homicide with global conquest (Hitler did have a genuine dream of conquering the USA). Our problem here is twofold:

  1. We don’t teach history any longer.
  2. The overall global Establishment has lied so much that it is easy to make anything that disputes the Establishment seem plausible.

I’m not quite sure how we get out of this – the only way out might be by limiting the franchise to people who can pass some basic literacy and history tests. The liars lie because lies work (as I’ve said!). But we can’t have people saying lies like that and allow them to have a say in how we’re governed.

British police recently arrested a man for shouting “we love bacon”. I can’t imagine on what actual charge – and how do you prosecute someone like that without laughing? The Brits are in a bad way – I do admire their “show the colors” campaign where regular folks are hanging out the Union Jack and St George’s banner…but it all comes down to the fact that the Brits gave up their guns but forgot to make sure the government gave up theirs.

The 9th Circuit has cleared the way for Trump to deport 60,000 people who had been under temporary protected status. Temporary. You know: for a little while. Of course, some of these people have been here for decades. It really is a matter nobody enforcing our immigration laws – not for decades. Perhaps not since the 1960’s. Some people might get deported here and there but the basic fact has been to let them all come in and only kick them out when something egregious happens…and under Biden even the egregious were allowed to stay. I keep thinking about how the American Establishment in the late 1800’s decided to import millions…because American labor costs have always been higher than the rest of the world’s and I guess Big Corporation decided to stop that. So, too, the wave since the 1960’s…mostly just a way to place downward pressure on American wages. Its morphed into other things since then, but that was and remains the prime motivator.

I’ve never been to a Cracker Barrel which wasn’t packed with people – and I have eaten there and it has been good, solid food…but now they’ve got some new Corporate Clone boss who took a look at success and decided to kill it. Step by step, going woke. Why? Because these sorts of people hate those who go to Cracker Barrel. You think the CEO wants to go to the Hamptons and tell her friends about how happy MAGAts are with her product? Nope. She wants to go and show them social media posts about how mad the MAGA people are.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan25 Comments

An indicator of how it’s going: Swalwell wants to reserve judgement on impeachment. I’m sure in the end if articles are brought forward he’ll vote for them…but that he’s even semi-hedging shows the Democrats have not made their case. And likely won’t. I haven’t watched today’s legal professor hearing because why should I? Its just some people offering opinions…and their opinions are no more valid on this than any random person dragged in off the street. The flavor is shown by the fact that one of the lawyers testifying called for Trump’s impeachment before he took office. I did see on Twitter a little blurb from an MSMer that the Democrats are having a caucus meeting and Nancy is making sure that only lawmakers are in the room – no aids – and that no one has a phone with them. Something is up…don’t know what; but I wonder if its Trump-district Democrats in a panic about next year?

Robert Stacy McCain has an interesting article on how we must defend our own – when the Left gets out there to smear an effective member of our coalition, we have to stand up and be counted. But one thing in the article rather struck me – how a Conservative was destroyed in the early 80’s with the assistance of other mainstream Conservatives. Bet its been like that. We all know of how Buckley famously purged the Birchers from the movement…and, to be sure, a lot of Birch ideas were kook…the water fluoridation thing being most famed. But, on the other hand, does the Left ever purge their kooks? Remember, it was some years ago that the Left asserted that gender was a social construct. Can’t remember how far back I first heard that, but it wasn’t beyond 1995. That was insane kookery…but no one on the Left denounced it, and now the major Democrat candidates for President are adhering to that notion. And the core contention of the Birchers – that nearly everyone is in on the scam to take away the self-governing aspect of the American people – has proved true. My goodness, it is really brazen these days…they aren’t even hiding it any longer. Perhaps if we hadn’t been in the business of purging our own – you know, trying to make the Left like us by pointing out that we, too, hate the Right – we wouldn’t have got so far into this hole?

Boris Johnson seems set for a remarkable victory in the upcoming British elections. We’ll see: you know how polls can be…but it is astonishing that all polls, even the most Left friendly, show him crushing it. His margins are +6 to +15. So, let’s split it and say his Tories win it by 10. If so, he’d have a sizeable majority in Parliament and be able to get whatever Brexit deal he wants. My view: even a lot of people who voted Remain during the referendum are probably tired of this and want it resolved…Johnson promises to resolve it, both Labour and Liberal-Democrats are essentially promising to drag it out indefinitely. I think that if Johnson wins, he only wins a mandate to Exit…after that, the Brit people will look at how things are going and judge him on the other merits of his stewardship. Don’t think that a Johnson win means an era of Tory dominance is dawning.

Related: Hugh Grant is stumping for a Liberal-Democrat and calling out Labour’s anti-Semitism. Good for Hugh Grant – who is a pinko – but it won’t matter. Labour has made the calculation that there’s far more money and votes in anti-Semitism than there is in opposing anti-Semitism. The Democrats have made the same calculation.

What do we do post-Trump? Its an important question – even if he wins, he’s out after the 2024 election. What then? Angelo Codevilla starts writing the answer. My short answer: More Trump. Meaning, we can’t let Trump’s successor be GHWB to Reagan. Whomever we select in 2024, it must be someone we can rely on to right…and fight actually even harder than Trump has. I do detect the weakness in Trump: he appears to assume people are on the level. Not that he’s naive, but he takes people as they present themselves…and how many shivs has he got in his back from supposedly Conservative and GOP people? We need a merciless housecleaning of the old hacks and Deep State loyalists.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan106 Comments

Been hearing – and not just from Never Trumpers – that people are simply growing tired of Trump and all the drama and will opt for Biden simply because they want someone dull. I don’t buy it – I mean, I can understand that the whole circus around Trump is abnormal and people can get frustrated with it, but I don’t feel like it makes we want to vote for Biden, nor anyone I know. What do you think?

PM Johnson has got the Queen to prorogue Parliament: ie, put it on ice for a period of time; in this case, until such time as the PM finishes extricating Britain from the EU. This is something Americans don’t know much about as it is outside our political experience. But in a Monarchy, sovereignty doesn’t reside with the people, but with the Monarch. That’s why they call it “Her Majesty’s Government”. It has been nearly two centuries since a British Monarch exercised any authority outside the advice of the Prime Minister, but the authority is still there under the British constitution and Boris advised the Queen to exercise it – to forestall Remain efforts to prevent the PM from carrying out the will of the people…and because we live in insane times, the PM is being criticized on grounds of being undemocratic in his insistence that the results of a democratic vote be implemented. I still doubt Johnson will pull it off – too much of the British Ruling Class is dead set against it; they really, really want faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who take their orders from Berlin to run things. But, he’s clearly got the brass to give it a try.

Laurence “Stop the Hammering” O’Donnell tried to revive the Trump-Russia debacle with a “scoop” claiming that Russian oligarch’s close to Putin co-signed some Trump loans. I didn’t pay much attention to it because, well, the Trump-Russia thing is drivel and I just don’t care about it…but this is interesting:

According to Harder’s demand letter, “The Program and Tweet make the false and defamatory statements that ‘Russian oligarchs’ co-signed loans provided to Mr. Trump by Deutsche Bank, and described these ‘co-signers’ as ‘Russian billionaires close to Vladimir Putin.’”

Harder is also warning others against republishing the allegedly false statement. (The Hollywood Reporter is doing so because it believes such republication is necessary to convey what is a matter of utmost public concern and protected by the First Amendment in connection with anticipated litigation.)

In a tweet following Harder’s letter, O’Donnell wrote, “Last night I made an error in judgment by reporting an item about the president’s finances that didn’t go through our rigorous verification and standards process. I shouldn’t have reported it and I was wrong to discuss it on the air. I will address the issue on my show tonight.”

Trump likely wouldn’t win any case – the judges would all rule that he’s the President and the MSM can say pretty much whatever it wants. But, the vigorous pushback shows that Team Trump feels, at least, that the facts are on their side.

More and more Democrats are latching on to the Wealth Tax, under various forms. Now, our Democrats are doing this simply because they want the money to shovel to their cronies…but it will be popular, boys and girls; and even if not particular popular, very hard to fight against. Who wants to stand up and defend a billionaire’s horde? We should be stealing a march on the Democrats…and making sure that any wealth tax hits heavily at constituencies favored by Democrats…tax free foundations; private college endowments (Harvard sits on $37 billion – the college is more of a tax dodge as far as the money goes); Soros-type Progressive moneybags. Like getting out in front of student loan debt, it will allow us to push Conservative policy while taking issues away from the Democrats.

Russia’s Attack on Britain

Mark Noonan14 Comments

You might have heard that Russians used a nerve agent to try to kill a guy in Britain:

British counterterrorism police say a former Russian double agent, whom Russian President Vladimir Putin had vowed to kill, was poisoned by a nerve agent.

The comments came after the British government’s high-level emergency committee known as COBRA was updated Wednesday on a probe into the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter.

“This is being treated as a major incident of involving attempted murder by the administration of a nerve agent,” assistant police commissioner Mark Rowley said. He said father and daughter remain critically ill. Rowley would not identify the exact substance used or how it was delivered.

Police also confirmed Wednesday that one officer who was part of the initial response to the incident was hospitalized in serious condition…

Much heart-ache and hand-wringing is going on over this – people making furious statements about Russia, others pledging support for Britain. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Color me unimpressed.

You see, this, if true (and it looks like it is) is an act of war. This is the kind of thing that you simply don’t let people do in your country – and if they are done by agents of foreign powers, you demand that foreign power surrender the miscreants or you go to war.

War? Yes, war. There’s a reason you go to war – one of the more traditional reasons is that someone has launched an attack on your soil. Using a nerve agent is a rather serious attack. If you are British, you want to make certain that such a thing is never repeated. That anyone contemplating doing such a thing will know it means war with Britain. Thing is, I don’t think there are any British any more. I think they’ve all died off and all we’ve got in Britain is a bunch of people who just happen to be living there. Oh, fine: yell at me about that. Let’s say there still are some – but they probably aren’t north of 20% of the population. I’m sticking with what I said, though, because I’ve yet to see anyone in Britain call for war with Russia over this.

And, yes, the Brits could fight Russia. In fact, Russia is in a seriously bad strategic situation right now. First off, they’ve really got no effective way to strike directly at Britain in a war. Their fleet is a bad joke. Britain could, of course, immediately go into alliance with Ukraine and aid their efforts to recapture the Crimea and the Donbass. Poland would likely lend a hand as they’d be relieved to get the Russians out of the Kaliningrad Oblast. The Baltic States, Finland and Sweden would likely start out strictly neutral, but if things started going bad for Russia, they’d all likely jump in for the kill. Also, Russia’s economy is in poor shape. This wouldn’t be a march on Moscow, but, instead, a campaign to defeat Russia in the periphery and force them to a peace which results in a drop in Russian prestige and an object lesson about not causing offense (think of it as Crimean War Two, as it were). No, the Russians would not use nukes because Britain has nukes, too.

But, nothing…just outrageously outraged words over the outrage. Complete fantasy-land stuff. The stuff of people who just want to live (often on the dole) and never make a sacrifice for anyone or anything. Sure, I’d like the United States to back Britain…but only if there is a Britain to back. Right now, it doesn’t look like there is.