For Memorial Day: on nationalism and patriotism

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: The following is a repeat of a previous post.]

The story “The Man Without a Country” used to be standard reading matter for seventh graders. In fact, it was the first “real” book – as opposed to those tedious Dick and Jane readers – that I was assigned in school.

It was exciting compared to Dick and Jane and the rest, since it dealt with an actual story with some actual drama to it. It struck me as terribly sad – and unfair, too – that Philip Nolan was forced to wander the world, exiled, for one moment of cursing the United States. “The Man Without a Country” was the sort of paean to patriotism that I would guess is rarely or never assigned nowadays to students – au contraire.

Patriotism has gotten a very bad name during the last few decades.

I think this feeling gathered more adherents (at least in this country) during the Vietnam era, and certainly the same is true lately. But patriotism and nationalism seem to have been rejected by a large segment of Europeans even earlier, as a result of the devastation both sentiments were thought to have wrought on that continent during WWI and WWII. Of course, WWII in Europe was a result mainly of German nationalism run amok, coupled with a lot more than nationalism itself. But the experience seemed to have given nationalism as a whole a very bad name.

Here’s author Thomas Mann on the subject, writing in 1947 in the introduction to the American edition of Herman Hesse’s Demian:

If today, when national individualism lies dying, when no single problem can any longer be solved from a purely national point of view, when everything connected with the “fatherland” has become stifling provincialism and no spirit that does not represent the European tradition as a whole any longer merits consideration…

A strong statement of the post-WWII idea of nationalism as a dangerous force, mercifully dead or dying, to be replaced (hopefully) by a pan-national (or, rather, anational) Europeanism. Mann was a German exile from his own country who had learned to his bitter regret the excesses to which a particular type of amoral nationalism can lead. His was an understandable and common response at the time, one that many decades later helped lead to the formation of the EU. The waning but still relatively strong nationalism of the US (as shown by the election of Donald Trump, for example) has been seen by those who agree with Mann as a relic of those dangerous days of nationalism gone mad without any curb of morality or consideration for others.

But the US is not Nazi Germany or anything like it, however much the far left may try to make that analogy. There’s a place for nationalism, and for love of country. Not a nationalism that ignores or tramples on human rights (like that of the Nazis), but one that embraces and strives for and tries to preserve them here and abroad, keeping in mind that – human nature being what it is – no nation on earth can be perfect or anywhere near perfect. The US is far from perfect, but has been a good country nevertheless, always working to be better, with a nationalism that traditionally recognizes that sometimes liberty must be fought for, and that the struggle involves some sacrifice.

So, I’ll echo the verse that figured so prominently in “The Man Without a Country,” and say (corny, but true): …this is my own, my native land. And I’ll also echo Francis Scott Key and add: …the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave. Those lines from the anthem express a hope that has been fading. But even though things had been looking dim for both liberty and courage in recent years, it is not over.

When I looked back at my original, longer version of this post, I saw that it was written on Memorial Day in 2005, not that long after I began blogging. Seems longer ago than that. This is another portion of what I wrote then, and although I was describing my post-9/11 thoughts, I think it’s especially appropriate now [updates in brackets]:

I’d known the words to [our national anthem] for [over sixty years], and even had to learn about Francis Scott Key and the circumstances under which he wrote them. But I never really thought much about those words. It was just a song that was difficult to sing, and not as pretty as America the Beautiful or God Bless America (the latter, in those very un-PC days of my youth, we used to sing as we marched out of assembly).

The whole first stanza of the national anthem is a protracted version of a question: does the American flag still wave over the fort? Has the US been successful in the battle? As a child, the answer seemed to me to have been a foregone conclusion – of course it waved, of course the US prevailed in the battle; how could it be otherwise? America rah-rah. America always was the winner. Even our withdrawal from Vietnam, so many years later, seemed to me to be an act of choice. Our very existence as a nation had never for a moment felt threatened.

The only threat I’d ever faced to this country was the nightmarish threat of nuclear war. But that seemed more a threat to the entire planet, to humankind itself, rather than to this country specifically. And so I never really heard or felt the vulnerability and fear expressed in Key’s question, which he asked during the War of 1812, so shortly after the birth of the country itself: does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

But now I heard his doubt, and I felt it, too. I saw quite suddenly that there was no “given” in the existence of this country – its continuance, and its preciousness, began to seem to me to be as important and as precarious as they must have seemed to Key during that night in 1814.

And then other memorized writings came to me as well–the Gettysburg Address, whose words those crabby old teachers of mine had made us memorize in their entirety: and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Here it was again, the sense of the nation as an experiment in democracy and freedom, and inherently special but vulnerable to destruction, an idea I had never until that moment grasped. But now I did, on a visceral level.

Insane man decides to commit suicide by Secret Service near the White House

The New Neo Posted on by

Here we go again:

A crazed gunman who belived he was Jesus Christ pulled out a revolver and opened fire outside the White House Saturday night, before he was quckly taken down by a barrage shots from the Secret Service, sources said.

Nasire Best, 21, fired at a checkpoint at about 6:10 p.m. after being seen pacing in a strange manner up and down 17th St. Northwest, sources told The Post. He only got off a few shots before he was shot and killed in a hail of bullets from federal officers.

At least one bystander was hit and seriously wounded in the fusillade, the sources said.

While a motive for the attack hasn’t been confirmed, sources said Best is a mentally troubled individual who was well-known to the Secret Service for repeatedly loitering around various entry posts and who has violated a previous court order to stay away from the White House.

In case you’re wondering why this guy was wandering around at liberty, it’s really hard to involuntarily commit someone for long. This is what had happened with Best:

Best … had previously been involuntarily committed on June 26, 2025, for obstructing vehicular traffic at 15th Street and E Street NW, before being arrested again on July 10, 2025, for Unlawful Entry. …

In that incident, Best bypassed a restricted White House pedestrian control post by walking through an exit turnstile lane — and made crazed statements when D.C. police and Secret Service agents detained him.

“[Best] claimed he was Jesus Christ and that he wanted to get arrested,” court records of the incident said.

My guess is that he was involuntarily committed, stayed a few days and got slightly stabilized on meds, and refused to stay after that. Then he got out and stopped taking any medication, and now one person is seriously wounded (another has been reported slightly wounded) and Best himself is dead.

At least he didn’t get close to the White House. But it’s not as though there wasn’t plenty of warning with this guy. I wonder whether he was armed in his previous encounters; perhaps not, or he might have been charged with something serious and detained longer. But there’s a limit to how long that can go on involuntarily.

I find it hard to believe he possessed the firearm legally.

Running in ballet

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I was going to put up a bunch of smaller posts, after my post earlier today on Iran. But the news of a possible deal – and the nervousness about its terms and whether they will amount to a concession to the Iranian regime – has unnerved me. So far I’ve thought Trump won’t cave, but it’s not as though I have some sort of certainty on that, because he’s a mercurial character who has always been in love with the deal. So I’m extremely nervous about this, although I’m waiting to see the details. I figure I”ll be updating later tonight or tomorrow.

In the meantime, I think I’m just going to post something that has nothing to do with politics, and then go take a walk.]

Walk like an Egyptian and run like a ballerina:

The greatest practitioner of the ballet run was Galina Ulanova, whose ballet heyday with the Kirov and then the Bolshoi was during the 1940s and 1950s. She was the child of two ballet dancers and felt she never had a choice about ballet, but she certainly made the best of it. She was unique as a dancer and as an actress, earning praise such as these statements:

Sergei Eisenstein: “Ulanova — cannot be grouped together with, compared to other dancers. In terms of what is most cherished, By the very nature of her secret…She belongs to a different dimension.” …

Margot Fonteyn: “I cannot even begin to talk about Ulanova’s dancing, it is so marvelous, I am left speechless. It is magic. Now we know what we lack.”

But it is this comment by dance critic Arnold Haskell with which I most agree:

My memories of Ulanova are, to me, a part of life itself, bringing a total enrichment of experience. To me, hers are not theatrical miracles but triumphs of human spirit. Where Pavlova was supremely conscious of her audience and could play upon its emotions as upon an instrument, Ulanova is remote in a world of her own, which we are privileged to penetrate. She is so completely identified with the character she impersonates that nothing outside exists.

But it’s running we’re talking about here. Ulanova originated the role of Juliet in the Prokofiev ballet, and it featured this famous run. Here Ulanova is running to Friar Lawrence’s cell in desperation. I believe she’s in her forties in this clip:

Iran watch: does the administration understand what they’re dealing with? [scroll down for UPDATES]

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Oldflyer” wrote a little while ago about Iran:

We have very smart people running this show. I worry that smart people can be dangerous if they do not understand the fight they are in. Robert McNamara and his Whiz Kids were smart. Too damn smart to listen to people in uniform apparently. Likewise, Colin Powell and Richard Armitage were presumably smart, as was Gen Petraeus. They all underestimated the enemy’s resilience and the complexity of the environment.

It makes sense to be concerned. What’s going on in terms of tactics and strategy? Is Trump feinting, is he bluffing, is he confused, is he flailing? What you see isn’t necessarily what you get. But maybe it is. One of the drawbacks of his desire to not telegraph his plans to the Iranians is that he doesn’t telegraph them to the American people, either.

There are certain constants in the message, however. One is that Iran can’t be allowed to have a nuclear bomb and must surrender its highly-enriched uranium. Another is that traffic must flow through the Strait of Hormuz without game-playing and toll-taking. Yet for this entire time, the administration has not said the Iranian government must fall, although they’ve made it clear they would like for that to happen.

I pay a lot of attention to what Marco Rubio says, even more than what Trump says. It’s not that Rubio is in control – he’s not. But his messages are more clear. For example, here’s what Rubio is saying today:

Talking about whether an imminent strike on Iran is possible in an exclusive conversation with NDTV’s Vishnu Som, Rubio said he would not “characterise it in terms of a timeframe.”

“I would say that what’s happening now cannot become the status quo and it cannot go on forever. At some point, there has to be a resolution to this problem,” he told NDTV.

The top US official reiterated that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon”. …

Speaking on the issue [of the enriched uranium], he claimed that it can be removed easily from a technical point of view but Iran has “refused to even discuss it”. …

This problem needs to be solved one way or the other. We would prefer it be through diplomacy, but it will be solved one way or the other,” the US Secretary of State said.

We all yearn for regime change, but the administration isn’t focusing on that and never has. My guess, for what it’s worth – and I’ve said this quite consistently – is that Trump and company don’t think regime change will happen as a result of the war unless it was some sort of totally destructive war that would wreck the possibility of the people of Iran having any sort of foreseeable viable future, and the US doesn’t want to go that far. The idea seems to be to let Israel try to work on that after the pressing problems of the uranium and the Strait are solved, if in fact they can be solved. If not, there will be an escalation of the war. And still another idea is that regime change, if it does happen, will not happen soon even if these things do happen.

I’ve seen people also question whether this administration is aware of the apocalyptic vision of the Iranian leaders, their fanaticism, and their desire to cause chaos and conflagration in order to bring about the Mahdi’s return. My answer is “yes.” At least, it’s “yes” regarding Rubio, and I think we can safely say he has communicated this perception to the rest of the people in charge, if in fact they didn’t know it already.

Rubio referred to this even before the war began. Remember back in February, when people were getting frustrated that nothing seemed to be happening, and peace talks were occurring? Here’s Rubio back on February 16, 2026:

“Doing a deal with Iran is not easy. I said it yesterday, I’ll repeat it again today,” he said. “We have to understand that Iran ultimately is governed, and its decisions are governed, by Shia clerics, radical Shia clerics. There people make policy decisions on the basis of pure theology.

He added that while Washington long acknowledged the difficulty of negotiations with Tehran, the United States would continue to try.

What’s more, Rubio has been very aware of the situation since as far back as 2015, when he made the following speech. I’ve cued up a very short but telling excerpt:

That’s pretty unequivocal. Rubio gets it, and he got it over ten years ago.

UPDATE 5:40 PM:

Legal Insurrection has posted this message entitled “BREAKING: Trump Says Iran Deal Near, Hormuz to Reopen.” As I read it, there are two points. The first is that nothing has been settled, and it may indeed be that, like so many other supposed agreements, this one won’t be finalized. The second is that it seems to involve opening the Strait of Hormuz but nothing else has been specifically mentioned. The supposed agreement could include more, but that’s not at all clear. Trump lists a bunch of countries involved in the negotiations.

This makes me very very nervous. I am trying to be patient and ignore rumors – rumors of a type we’ve heard before, which include the idea that Trump is giving the Iranians all sorts of concessions. But we just don’t know, and we don’t even know if this deal is really going to go through or not. It’s very nerve-wracking.

UPDATE 12:20:

Here’s a NY Post story reporting that Iran has agreed, as part of the deal, to give up the enriched nuclear material. No way to know whether this is true or not, but here’s what it’s based on:

Tehran has agreed to a statement pledging to relinquish its cache of highly enriched uranium — believed to be enough to build 11 nuclear bombs — the New York Times reported, citing two American officials.

That nuclear material has been a major sticking point. Time will tell if this report is accurate, and what the details might be.

The San Diego Islamic Center shooters: another dark duo

The New Neo Posted on by

You may have noticed that I haven’t written about the San Diego Islamic Center shootings yet. That doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about the event; I have. From the start, I had a hunch about the killers, but I didn’t want to write about the topic until I knew more. Now we know more, although the subject has started to depart from the news.

The day of the killings, one of the first statements of authorities was that the perps had written “Hate crime” on the weapons they used, and that they were teenagers who had committed suicide afterward in their car. This immediately made me think “Columbine.”

Now, for those who only vaguely remember Columbine – did it have to do with school bullying, as the early reporting (erroneously, it turns out) said? – the connection may seem obscure. But for those who have delved into it more deeply, the connection is obvious. Harris and Kelbold were extremely hate-filled and nihilistic, their hatred went in many directions, they meant to kill a great many more people than they ended up killing, and they were also suicidal. They shot themselves in the school library.

I’ve written a great deal about the Columbine killers; you can find a list of posts here. I have also written about what I call “dark duos,” which is the synergistic effect that sometimes occurs when two people (usually young men) with psychopathic and depressive tendencies get together. Here is a relevant post about dark duos.

The Islamic Center killers seem to have been another dark duo. That was my sense from the start, and nothing I’ve seen so far has convinced me otherwise.

But there are some elements of this crime that make it an updated version of an old story. The two met online in some sort of chatroom or discussion board; that’s a relatively new phenomenon for such killers, as far as I know, but quite appropriate for the current young generation, many of whom seem to live their emotional lives online and get their viewpoints there.

Another thing I noticed immediately – and which is very unusual – is that one of the perpetrators was given the first name “Cain.” That particular spelling of the name, which is the name of the first murderer in the Bible, is very uncommon and to me it would tend to indicate something unusual or tone deaf in a parent. Even if it’s a family surname, it’s very odd to spell it that way as a first name. Names can help shape a person’s identity, and although I think it would be ridiculous to put too much emphasis on this element, it still strikes me as highly negative.

When I read a bit more about the killers, I wrote in my draft notes: “I bet online radicalization of a groyper type.” And that also turns out to have been correct.

For example:

Investigators said they recovered a manifesto, as well as writings outlining religious and racial beliefs “of how the world they envision should look,” according to FBI Special Agent in Charge Mark Remily.

“These subjects did not discriminate in who they hated, and let me be very clear to anyone who thinks they can end the world through violence: They’re sorely mistaken,” Remily said. “The FBI, our law enforcement partners and our community are much stronger than you think.”

Mark Remily of the FBI said during a news conference that authorities have uncovered writings by the suspects. Authorities declined to specify what ideologies or views were expressed by the shooters, only that they met online and shared a “broad hatred” toward different religions and races.

There was no specific threat against the Islamic center, which is the largest mosque in San Diego, but authorities found that the suspects engaged in “generalized hate rhetoric,” [San Diego Police Department Chief Scott] Wahl said.

That’s the way it’s been covered. But it’s not exactly the case. I will get to that in a moment. First, about the suicides, which they apparently livestreamed:

San Diego mosque killer Caleb Vasquez urged his accomplice to shoot him in the head in a twisted exchange captured on a livestream broadcast after the pair murdered three people.

Vasquez, 18, is seen in the passenger seat of the white BMW he and 17-year-old Cain Clark used to flee the Islamic Center of San Diego, in footage captured by a camera the pair placed on the car’s dashcam while the vehicle was stopped.

Vasquez grabs the barrel of Clark’s rifle and brings it to his own forehead at multiple points in the livestream clip. The video, circulating on social media, did not have audio.

Finally, the camera turns to include only Clark — sitting in the driver’s seat — who uses his pistol to shoot Vasquez in the head twice and then turn the gun on himself.

About their manifesto:

The teenage San Diego mosque gunmen appear to have left behind a shocking, hate-filled manifesto, which praised Adolf Hitler and a slew of mass murderers, before the attack, The California Post has learned.

Authorities are investigating whether 17-year-old Cain Clark and 19-year-old Caleb Vasquez wrote the nihilistic missive before killing three people and then each other, according to law enforcement sources.

The document espouses a desire to spark a race war and bring about the end of civilization.

That is very much the Columbine impulse; they wanted a huge conflagration to follow. Also, it is somewhat similar to the Manson “Helter Skelter” motive, which was to spark a race war in a convoluted fantasy of what would follow the Tate and LaBianca murders.

I said that the San Diego Islamic Center killers seemed to hate just about everyone, and this is true. But there was one hatred they placed about all others: Jews. That fact is not being widely reported, as far as I can see. One would think that, because their targets were Muslims, hatred of Muslims would be their paramount motive. But no; it was Jew-hatred.

There’s coverage of that fact in some Jewish publications [emphasis mine]:

The shooters’ deepest resentment seemed reserved for Jewish people.

The manifesto listed previous antisemitic shootings at the Tree of Life synagogue and Chabad of Poway among the teens’ many sources of inspiration, calling the assailant in the latter incident a “saint.” It called the Jews “the children of Satan.” It denied the Holocaust as a “complete fabrication.” Vazquez called Adolf Hitler his hero; in his section, Clark wrote out the Fourteen Words, a neo-Nazi declaration.

“Everyone has their own idea of who is to blame for all the wrong in the world” Vazquez wrote in a section titled “The Universal Enemy.”

He printed his answer to the question four times in a row in all capital letters: “It’s the Jews.” …

Atomwaffen members are part of a network of mostly online extremist groups that subscribe to “accelerationism,” the idea that forcing societal collapse through an all-out race war is the only way to restore white supremacy and save civilization. The idea is propounded by a white nationalist named James Mason, author of a book called Siege that both shooters cited.

“Though officially I was not a part of any groups or organizations there are many I support, I would even go so far as to say I did it for Atomwaffen Division, Terrorgram, The Base, and North Korea,” Vazquez wrote….

Whereas the shooters were unsparing toward Jews in the manifesto, with Vazquez calling them the “most evil creature in the world,” they espoused mixed feelings about Muslims in the document before they killed three. “I don’t hate Muslims, at least not really,” Vazquez wrote. “What I hate is the religion of Islam itself and them invading my country.”

He added that Islam “is completely contradictory to both Western morals and values and Christianity.”

But he wrote only three paragraphs about Islam and Muslims — about one page — before the section ends with the word “unfinished” in brackets.

Clark appeared more committed to the eradication of Islam in his writing. Muslims and Jews, he said, “must be isolated and exterminated.” Yet he, like Vazquez, wrote several pages denigrating Jewish people.

The shooters did not state why they ultimately targeted a mosque. Vazquez wrote their plan was to “cause as much death and destruction” as fast as possible with a “diverse” selection of targets.

Here’s more, from the Times of Israel; they also hated women [my emphasis]:

The writings, some of which were circulating online in the days after the attack, glorified other terrorists and included hateful rhetoric toward Jews, Muslims, LGBT people, African-Americans, and both the political left and right.

They were also vitriolically sexist, asserting that “after the Jew the most evil creature in this world is the woman.” At least one of the shooters identified as an “incel,” a term used by men online to refer to their failure to have sex with women.

In a lengthy manifesto, which police said they believed to be authentic, the shooter declared Jews “the universal enemy,” responsible for war, famine, child abuse and various social ills, and wrote that the only solution is “to just kill them all.”

The document heaped praise on Adolf Hitler, yet denied the Holocaust.

It also bore the trademarks of more recent antisemitic conspiracy theories, claiming that Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes were religiously motivated, and fixating on supposed Jewish hatred for “goyim,” or non-Jews. ...

The shooters expressed beliefs that white people are being eliminated, explicitly citing the “Great Replacement” theory that Jews are facilitating mass migration to the West in order to wipe out white people.

Muslims were described as one such “invading” force, who must be “exterminated.”

So they blame the influx of Muslims on – the Jew.

Why have I gone into this in such detail? It’s simple: I see all of that online at many sites, and have for many years. It’s easy to find, not difficult at all, and almost mainstream these days. Fuentes didn’t invent it, nor did Carlson or Owens, but it’s the stuff they and others spew every single day. Of course some people saying this sort of thing are bots, and some are people in countries such as Pakistan. But I am convinced, and have been for quite some time, that many are Americans – especially young ones. There are more men than women, but there are women too (without the incel part).

Jew-hatred is like an entry drug to a whole world of nihilistic hatred. Which comes first, the philosophy or the rage? I don’t know the answer, and maybe it’s a meaningless question. But I think it’s far more widespread in this generation in the West than in previous ones in my lifetime. And that is very very dangerous to all of us.

[NOTE: RIP to the victims.]

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Tulsi Gabbard has resigned. In her resignation statement she says it’s because her husband has a very rare form of bone cancer. This sounds horrendous, and I wish them both well. Gabbard is only 45 years old, and I thought perhaps her husband was an older man. But no; he’s actually seven years younger than she.

(2) The DNC “autopsy” of the 2024 election is out, and it’s quite a document. The Ruthless podcast guys make very humorous mincemeat of it here (if you have trouble with the occasional obscenity I suggest you skip it, but I think they’re both insightful and funny):

(3) Tucker Carlson is not a happy camper about Massie’s political defeat. Yesterday I predicted that Massie would go on the interview circuit and probably land one with Carlson, and Carlson’s remarks about the election only deepen that possibility in my mind. From the link:

For [Carlson], [Massie’s loss] means that the Republican Party is dead, MAGA is dead, and America is a conquered nation controlled by evil Jews in Israel. …

Taqiyya Qatarlson also claims the election was stolen by “mail in” ballots. He says he has no evidence of this, but invites the Nazi losers who watch him to do their own “sleuthing” and prove his conspiracy for him.

Plus, Carlson now has no idea what Islamic Jihad is:

The entire “woke right” anti-Israel wing of the right (or supposed right; I really don’t think they’re on the right) is extremely upset at Massie’s loss, as is the left.

(4) Why is Wisconsin trying to avoid federal scrutiny of its voting rolls? I think that’s mostly a rhetorical question:

The [Wisconsin] judge ruled that Wisconsin’s “voter registration lists are not documents subject to production under [federal law]. That makes it unnecessary to decide whether the government has complied with the other statutory requirements to demand records.”

Gov. Tony Evers cheered the ruling.

“The Trump Administration only wants this info so they can prevent eligible Wisconsinites from voting, sow doubt in our secure elections, make it harder for our clerks and administrators to do their jobs, and claim there’s fraud when they lose elections,” Evers wrote in a post on X. “This is great news.”

Sure thing, they want to prevent eligible voters from voting, and they want to “sow doubt” in elections. Nothing spreads trust in the validity of elections like secret voter rolls.

But Dan Lennington with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty said the Trump Administration is not “sowing doubt.” Instead, he said the Trump Administration simply wants to make sure Wisconsin is doing what it has promised it would do for years.

“The Wisconsin Elections Commission has received about $77 million over the last two decades from the federal government to maintain its computer systems, which includes the statewide voter registration database. The feds now just want the opportunity to inspect what they are largely paying for,” Lennington told The Center Square. “They do this all the time in other areas like Medicaid, unemployment, and other federally funded areas.”

(5) Crime has gone down under this administration’s watch:

The FBI released preliminary crime data for 2025, and the numbers are stunning. Violent crime fell at a rate not seen in nearly a century, and the man overseeing the bureau is the same one the left has been trying to torch for months.

Murder and non-negligent manslaughter dropped more than 18% nationwide last year. Aggravated assault fell more than 7%. Rape declined nearly 8%. Robbery cratered by about 18.5%. All told, violent crime dropped about 9.3% overall; there were roughly 1.1 million fewer violent crimes than in 2024.

“The 2025 crime data in this report shows the single largest decrease in violent crime and murder since 1937 — as well as huge decreases across the board in terms of aggravated assault, rape, and robbery,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement.

Property crime wasn’t far behind. It dropped by about 12.4%, translating to approximately 5.2 million fewer property offenses than the year before. The data comes from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, which pulled information from more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies — covering roughly 96% of policing across the country.

Could be that the FBI has gotten tougher on crime. Could also be that Trump intervened in DC, as well. And could be something about the deportation of illegal alien violent criminals.

41-year sentence for Minnesota fraud perp, and more arrests

The New Neo Posted on by

The linchpin of the “Feeding Our Future” fraud in Minnesota, Aimee Bock, has received a 41-year sentence:

Aimee Bock, 45, was handed the stiff sentence on Tuesday after being convicted of all counts last March – prosecutors describing her as the “ringleader” of the biggest pandemic-era fraud schemes in the country.

Most of the other defendants in the case are Somali immigrants, and the recipients of the aid were meant to be members of the Somali community in Minnesota.

Bock and her convicted co-defendant, Salim Said, falsely claimed to have served 91 million meals, and used the quarter-billion dollars in federal funds to bankroll their lavish lifestyles, Acting US Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick said at the time of their convictions.

Bock used the ill-gotten funds to buy opulent cars, including a Porsche Panamera, which range in price from around $110,000 to over $230,000, as well as some 60 laptops, iPads and iPhones, a diamond necklace, bracelet and earrings and designer handbags.

I originally wrote about the case in March of 2025. As far as I can determine, Salim Said has yet to be sentenced.

In related news, fifteen more people are charged with fraud in Minnesota:

Colin McDonald, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, said:

“… Our cases today involve seven different state managed Medicaid programs that have been systematically pilfered by fraudsters who treated Minnesota-run programs as their personal piggy bank.

“One of the programs has been completely shut down because there’s no money left. It’s all gone. That was Minnesota state-run housing stabilization services program designed to help the homeless find and maintain housing. It was estimated in 2020 that it would cost only about $2.5 million a year to fund this program, but it ended up costing almost 50 times that much, over $104 million by 2024 due to fraud. And because of all the fraud, Minnesota had to shut the program ,,,”

Fifty times as much as expected, and it took them all this time to indict the culprits despite the obvious nature of the fraud.

None of the articles I found listed more than a few names of those charged (for example, this), but the ones listed seemed to be of Somalis. This is in accord with earlier reports, which stated that Somalis were very heavily represented among the fraudsters.

[NOTE: Before her sentencing, Bock said of Ilhan Omar:

“I struggle to believe that she wouldn’t have known.”

I consider that fairly cryptic and I take it to mean she had nothing specific to implicate Omar, and if she did have it she would have revealed it. She went on to say more:

Bock has consistently denied knowingly participating in the fraud and insisted she tried to warn state officials. Her group would review the reimbursement paperwork sent by the local restaurants supposed to provide meals, send them out and then distribute the federal funds to them.

“The notion that I’m personally responsible for all of it . . . is so frustrating. I’m the only white person out of 80 or 90 individuals [charged in the fraud]. I’m the only one that doesn’t speak the language,” she added.

Omar was instrumental in loosening the laws that set the stage for the scheme — first by introducing the MEALS Act to Congress in March 2020, which allowed the US Department of Agriculture to issue waivers of school-meal requirements during the pandemic.

I don’t know the details of the evidence against Bock, but my guess is that it was pretty strong, including the luxury items she purchased.

The Massie/Gallrein race and the youth vote

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I heard a discussion of the Massie defeat in Kentucky’s 4th, and I was alarmed to hear that the only age group Massie didn’t win was those over 65, who turned out in great numbers. I also heard that the young voted overwhelmingly for Massie to the tune of +30.

Usually numbers about age groups rest on exit polling. But today, when I tried to document the age-group results, I couldn’t find any exit polls at all. I did find this Daily Caller post on Facebook entitled, “Ed Gallrein Has Boomers To Thank For Defeating Thomas Massie.”

It began like this:

The Baby Boomer generation overwhelmingly voted for Trump-backed candidate Ed Gallrein, who ousted seven-term incumbent Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie in a GOP primary Tuesday night.

Seventy-two percent of voters between the ages of 26 and 35 supported Massie, while 16.2% backed Gallrein, according to a Quantus Insight poll from May 13. A majority of voters ages 66 to 75, 61.8%, supported Gallrein and 27.1% of that age group supported Massie.

What’s wrong with this picture? The poll’s date was May 13, not an exit poll at all and perhaps not reflecting the actual vote. The piece went on to state:

KY-04 GOP Primary: Results by Age Group

Age 17-25: Massie +25
Age 26-35: Massie +56
Age 36-45: Massie +38
Age 46-55: Massie +17
——
Age 56-65: Gallrein +18
Age 66-75: Gallrein +35
Age 76+: Gallrein +33@QuantusInsights | 5/11-12 | 908 LV https://t.co/H7juBRgxXr pic.twitter.com/pjcRguiF4a

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) May 13, 2026

Those younger age groups look disturbing, considering that it could reflect an anti-Israel antisemitic turn among young voters on the right. But when you look more carefully at the samples, the youngest groups are small – in some cases extremely small, so small that it makes the results meaningless or nearly so.

For example, there were 4 people in the 17-25 age group., In the 26-35 age group, the sample was bigger but still quite small: 67 people. In the 36-45 age group there were 125 people and in the 46-55 group there were 136. Those numbers over 100 increase the validity but still have a fairly large margin of error (couldn’t find that figure, though). And in the 46-55 group there were also 12.5% undecided, which could have nearly evened the vote if all of the undecideds went for Gallrein. In addition, in general, “undecideds” in the poll leaned toward Gallrein.

In the older age groups of 56-65 and 66-75 the samples were decent-sized: in the 240s. And those groups went strongly for Gallrein.

So it’s difficult to tell what it all means. Not only are the numbers flawed but they don’t say what actually happened in the voting booths (I assume there are still voting booths in Kentucky?). You might ask why I pay attention to polls, but my answer is that they’re pretty much all we have to go on in trying to understand election results, despite their many flaws.

Massie himself is claiming that despite his win, he’s the wave of the future:

The Kentucky congressman claimed in his speech after his defeat that young voters were still on his side.

“People that want somebody that will go along to get along, I’ve never heard of that strategy but that seems to be what the voters want,” Massie said. “But not the young voters.”

The crowd was still energetic despite Massie’s loss, and started a chant of “No more wars!” that the congressman joined in on. Massie’s speech meandered through different topics and touched on other politicians before another chant started of “America First!”

I think Massie’s future will involve a lot of talk show and podcast appearances, bragging about his success with youth. Maybe he’ll even score an appearance with Tucker Carlson, so they can rant about Jewish influence and the new wink/wink term for Jews, the “Epstein class.”