Venezuela

Open Thread

Mark Noonan30 Comments

Harris is at the peak of her MSM-created glow…and according to the polling averages…she’s still losing.

We also know this, even without looking at polls, because she’s putting the word out that she won’t ban fracking, doesn’t support a mandatory gun “buy back” and no longer supports Medicare for All…at least, that is what aides are telling MSMers. To get Harris to actually state this publicly is probably an impossible task…it would infuriate the Democrat base. This is just done so the MSM can slander Trump for making “baseless” attacks.

Here in Nevada the only thing I’m seeing from Democrats on the regular is their abortion-all-the-time ads. These specifically trying to make Sam Brown politically toxic against Rosen in the Senate race. Will it work? We’ll see; the issue saved Democrat bacon here in Nevada in 2022…but that was because the GOP never refuted the ads. The apparent strategy was to ignore the issue and hope it went away. That didn’t work. Brown has put out some counter ads explaining his position…but I think to defeat the issue (that is, make it neutral) he’ll have to take on the pro-abortion referendum on the Nevada ballot. This was designed to drive up Democrat voting for November – it is totally un-necessary as abortion is secured in the Nevada Constitution up to six months. But the referendum the Democrats cooked up is extreme – it legalizes abortion to birth, allows non-doctors to perform abortions and doesn’t require parental notification if a minor seeks an abortion…so, you know, its the “Let’s Protect Degenerates Act of 2024”. It is being marketed as just “protecting reproductive freedom” but if Brown and the GOP can come up with a good program it can be exposed as the extremist bit of legislation that it is…and thus essentially take abortion off the table for 2024.

But the lack of ads attacking Trump or lauding Harris indicates that Team Harris is still getting its act together – they haven’t worked out their message and haven’t put together a strategy for the Fall. Do keep that very much in mind: Harris is nothing more than a stop-gap. A desperate ploy to get rid of Biden who was ushering in a down ballot meltdown for Democrats. So far, Harris is doing what she was supposed to do – stabilize the field. Going from there to 270 is a very tall order, though. Harris is still Harris; someone so bad that she didn’t even make it to Iowa in 2020 and who some were trying to boot from the VP slot earlier this year. And as Harris gets out there – and as the anti-Harris ads from Team Trump get repeated on a loop – we might find that Harris is as toxic as Biden.

Team Harris’ first bit of genius was to work up “White Women for Harris”…where a bunch of looney-tunes Karens talked up how white chicks gotta defer to black women…but also vote for Harris to make up for their support for racism. Not sure how well that will play with people outside the wine mom demographic. Their next step is the upcoming “White Dudes for Harris” which will apparently be headlined by David Hogg, Adam Schiff and Pete Buttigieg. Errr…not sure how this expands Harris’ support. This aside from the fact of the racial segregation. As a joke Trump should have a “Rednecks for Trump” Zoom call…in fact, maybe not as a joke. Heck, I’ll get into overalls and rent a hound dog for that. Team Harris is touting that 80,000 “dudes” have signed up for the event…”Rednecks” would get a million participants, easy.

Bottom line is that I don’t think Team Harris knows what to do here – or, worse for them, they think they do know and what they’re doing is playing Woke Team Intersectionality while asserting that Trump and Vance are the weirdos.

Meanwhile, Venezuela had an election. Why? Because the “deal” Team Pudding Brain made with Maduro was for us to lift sanctions on Maduro’s thug regime in return for an election. Maduro kept his word – he had an election. And after forcing his primary opponent off the ballot and using every manner of fraud in the book…he still lost. But then just announced he had won. He can do this because he has all the guns. It was a box checked off some years ago: confiscate all civilian firearms.

There is widespread unrest in Venezuela because the steal was so brazen but the bottom line is that if the people don’t have guns, they can’t win. There are some rumors that some army units are joining the people and if that is so, there is a chance…but no guns, no revolution. It is that simple: guns = liberty. In truth, there is only one free nation on Earth: the United States with our Second Amendment. Maybe Switzerland a bit but even there I doubt they secure a right to bear arms…it is more that you’re part of the militia and the government provides a weapon, revocable at will.

UPDATE:

“JD Vance and Trump are weird!” – Democrats

Also Democrats:

Open Thread

Mark Noonan34 Comments

Ok, so who had a Venezuela-Guyana War on their bingo card?

In the latest entry in our World Going to Hell scorecard, there is trouble brewing in South America between Venezuela and Guyana. They’re calling it a border dispute but what Venezuela is claiming is 60% of Guyana’s territory. Ostensibly the Venezuelans say they are trying to right a wrong done to them in 1899 when Guyana was a British colony and Venezuela was forced to agree to international arbitration on the territory in question. In reality, the backwater of Guyana was recently discovered to float on oil – Venezuela is broke because they’ve been Commie for some decades now and so they naturally want to steal some money so they can finance their Socialist Paradise for a little longer.

Guyana, alone, has no chance here – there are only about 750,000 people living in the country against 30 million in Venezuela. Guyana’s total military force – including reserves – is 7,600 troops. Venezuela has about 300,000 troops including Commie bully-boy groups. This would be a short war. Brazil is apparently taking exception to Venezuelan actions and is reportedly moving troops to the area. Here’s the kicker: we are treaty-bound to defend Guyana’s territorial integrity. So, yeah, this goes south and we might be involved.

But do not worry. Pudding Brain is on the job! Side note: he referred to Donald Trump as “Congressman Trump” today…

Israel continues its “pause” in military operations. Gotta say, by now it is no longer a pause…they’ve stopped and I doubt they’ll start up again. Listening to Israeli spokespeople over the last couple days and it becomes increasingly clear that all they want is their hostages back. Hamas will play that desire like a fiddle…and it will remain in Gaza. I hope I’m wrong, but as I suspected from the start – when Israel delayed the start of military action – I believe Israel is defeated. They just don’t have the will to go toe to toe with their enemies. They are, perhaps, too rich these days…the guys of 1948, given Israel’s current power, would not have stopped…their great-grand-children want to get back to the beach. I hope I’m wrong about this.

You might have seen Pudding Brain’s people and the MSM (but I repeat myself) going on and on about how the economy is actually great. This lie isn’t meant for you. They don’t care about you; they know you know what the economy is like. But what they are worried about is upper class, urban white voters. They are just about the only demographic which hasn’t swung away from the Democrats of late. Lies like this are designed to shore them up…to get them to nod along rather than get angry and vote GOP or something.

I guess a BLMer endorsed Trump for 2024 and social media had a heart attack about it. I’ve said all along that BLM has a point. I’ve also said all along that most of the BLM leadership were just paid Democrat operatives. You know: con artists. People getting paid by the DNC (via various plausibly deniable means) to rabble rouse for political purposes. These people are scum. But the rank and file, they have genuine complaints. They are the black version of MAGA – and just as MAGA has been betrayed by the GOPe, so the genuine BLM has been betrayed by the DNC. I think the heart attack stems from a deep fear that working and middle class people of all ages, religions and ethnicities will unite against the Establishment.

The government of Ireland is proposing to make it illegal to complain about immigrants killing Irish kids while the government of Spain arrested people for praying the Rosary outside socialist party headquarters.

Reminder: the Establishment all around the world hates you.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan31 Comments

Pudding Brain is set to surrender entirely to Iran on nuclear weapons and is now trying to curry favor or Venezuela. These guys will do anything other than pump American oil. Remember: their belief is that they must end oil to Save The Planet…and they are going to stick with that. OTOH, they are heading for a shellacking in November and so want gas prices down. Their solution is to buy the dirtiest oil in the world from two of the worst regimes in the world.

Yes, they are insane.

That’s the latest ISW map of Ukraine: the Russians have been forging ahead, but only in little bites, it would seem. The Russians, themselves, have a map showing much more Ukrainian territory under their control. I go with this as even if it is wrong, it is wrong out of caution. But you can see the Russians are clearly going for the territory east of the Dnieper River. Whether this is all Putin wants or just the prep for taking the rest remains to be seen.

Pro-Ukraine forces on social media get very mad at you if you point out that Ukraine is trying to start WWIII. I don’t think the Ukrainians want WWIII…but they are clearly willing to risk it. They pretty much have to: without outside intervention there is no way they can physically keep the Russians out: they simply don’t have sufficient weight of material for that. My bet is that they hope a bit of NATO vs Russia brinksmanship will bring Putin to the table as he won’t want a larger war. This may be correct. This may also end up in WWIII. There’s no shame in Ukraine trying this – the life of their nation is at stake. But everyone better understand what’s happening and not get all starry-eyed about Ukraine to the point where all common sense is lost.

At the University of North Texas the students (well, the idiot, Commie students) shouted down a speaker. Remember: this is Texas. Ever more Red Texas. But, its like that all over, isn’t it? No matter how Red the State, the Commies still control education and media at the bare minimum. And this is because the feckless GOP simply let it happen. Didn’t want to fight. Not the hill to die on! Well, turns out it was: and now we’re starting to see pushback against it. This is good, but it is also showing that many State GOPers are RINOs as bad as any Congressional GOPer.

This plus the Latino shift to the GOP is what terrifies the Ruling Class – and that includes the GOP part of the Ruling Class. Turns out, Latino voters are in favor of border security. This seems bizarre to Progressives, but that’s because Progressives are stupid. No sane person wants an unending flow of unvetted people coming in. And, sure, Pedro down there in south Texas doesn’t want cousin Julio deported…but he also wants good schools, well paid jobs and low crime…and he knows he can’t get that if the border isn’t secure. What do they fear? A GOP with increasingly strong working class support across racial lines starts enacting laws that working class people want: no more CRT, at least late-term abortion bans, no more teaching 3rd graders about transgender issues, secure borders, Made in America…the stuff of Establishment nightmares.

Gas here at my local Vegas gas station went from $4.09 a gallon on Monday to $4.69 a gallon today. And it was something like $3.79 a gallon about two weeks ago. This is an economic killer – we’re getting into a risk of hyperinflation. Still a low risk, but what is normally a 0.01% risk in the USA is now about a 10% risk. These prices (and the massive spikes in wheat and corn prices) are going to ripple through the economy over the next six months and I do expect a very sharp recession out of it.

Team Pudding Brain and the MSM are blaming Putin for this.

Gaddafi Quits?

Mark Noonan1 Comment

From the Telegraph:

…Following an emergency EU meeting of foreign ministers on the situation in Libya, Mr Hague was asked if Britain, or other Western countries, knew if Col. Gaddafi had left Tripoli.

“About whether Col. Gaddafi, is in Venezuela, I have no information that says he is although I have seen some information that suggests he is on his way there,” he said.

British officials stressed that Mr Hague was referring “not to media reports but information from other channels”. “This is credible information,” said a diplomat…

We’ll know in a day or two if this is the case – good riddance to bad rubbish.  But, also, quite a mess to be cleaned up…and one which would have been cleaned up months ago, at much lower cost in blood and treasure, if President Obama had acted with force and decision early on.

What our concern must be now, outside of humanitarian assistance to those injured and displaced by war, is what sort of government emerges.  Reasonably sane, sorta-democratic – good.  Screwball Islamist, not so good.  And I would discount all current information on those leading the rebels – we don’t really know what they are about, and there could be massive changes in that area as the spoils of victory get divvied up.