My trusty rusty old car

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, now it’s my car.

I love my car. I’ve had it about fifteen years, though, and driven it mostly in New England, land of the salty roads.

The other day I saw an ominous sign: some rust way down under the rear door on the right. There wasn’t a lot of it, but I know this is dangerous. I took it to a body shop and they said, “Oh, no one does rust anymore.”

Someone else in the body shop piped up that there was one place that still did rust, and he gave me the name. I went over there and they put it up on the lift and studied it. Then they gave me the verdict, which wasn’t pretty: it would cost $8500 to fix it. Plus, the fix wouldn’t last long because there were other areas that would probably rust, too, and it would be hard to prevent it.

Well, the car’s value isn’t more than about $6,500. So it seems a no-brainer to get a new car (probably used). But that’s not easy for me because I have orthopedic problems (such as a bad back) that mean I have to sit for about an hour in each car I contemplate, and drive it a few times. Most cars aren’t all that comfortable for me. It takes me a lot of time to find a car that works for me.

Of course, I can try to get a lower-mileage version of the car I already have. I’ve looked, though, and there aren’t many for sale anywhere and none nearby. Plus, of course, even with low mileage it would be an old car subject to the same problems.

ARGHHH!

If you don’t vote because you’re tired of voting for the lesser of two evils, you get the greater of two evils

The New Neo Posted on by

A good example of the greater of two evils is this:

I have previously referred to many on the left as “ghouls.” They celebrate the death of those they think are enemies – even someone as relatively non-extreme as Kirk was – and are out to drink their blood. This clip also gives the lie to any idea that women are the kinder gentler sex, something to which I don’t subscribe anyway from what I’ve observed in life.

These podcasters are very popular. According to Google AI they have 1.3 million YouTube subscribers, for example. They’re hardly alone, either. For a long time I’ve noticed even among garden-variety Democrats I know this desire to make political opponents – such as Trump, of course – die. Not just to defeat them, but to kill them. And to laugh about it.

Welch and Sullivan also followed up with a claim that Kirk’s killer was MAGA. Totally untrue, but it’s a common assertion on the left. I’ve often thought that Kirk’s death was a watershed moment that disclosed just how far many seemingly-ordinary Democrats have gone in hatefulness, and it simultaneously unleashed Jew-hating forces on the right (or so-called right) that Kirk had managed to hold in check.

In many places I’m reading that a great many Republicans seem to have sat this election out. In this case, perfect is not only the enemy of the good but the enabler of evil. I can’t imagine that will turn out well.

Today I read this article by Mark Tapscott that says a great many evangelicals stayed home because – wait for it – the GOP wasn’t tough enough on abortion:

As my Washington Stand colleague Joshua Arnold reports, turnout among conservative Evangelical Christians was way down this past Tuesday, representing 22 percent of the voters in 2024 but just 17 percent in 2026. That precipitous decline represents a stark decline, compared to previous elections stretching back to 2008. Conservative Evangelical Christians have been utterly reliable GOP supporters for nearly two decades, so what happened to change this reality?

The Iran War didn’t help, thanks to Trumps’ month-after-month promises that a deal was right around corner, nor did the gas prices that soared after the initial combined U.S./Israeli air attacks in February 2026. …

in 2024, every shred of the pro-life position was removed from the platform by the Trump campaign that controlled the GOP convention. And it was done without a shred of diplomacy, negotiation or compromise. As Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins described it, “we were railroaded.” …

The Trump administration in 2025 and 2026 had little to say about the pro-life issue other than taking credit for Dobbs. Otherwise, the administration did nothing as the owners, operators and advocates for the blood-soaked abortion mills turned the U.S. Post office, the Internet, and private sector home delivery systems into the crucial conduits for chemically induced abortions.

Other than taking credit for Dobbs? Excuse me? Was Dobbs not a big big deal, something they’d tried to do for a half-century and finally succeeded in doing thanks to Trump’s SCOTUS appointments? Am I missing something here?

Or is Tapscott missing something – such as these actions by the administration, according to Google AI?:

FDA & HHS Re-Evaluation: Under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Makary, the administration launched a review of FDA regulations surrounding mifepristone. … The DOJ indicated in court filings that the administration’s internal review of mifepristone regulations is expected to take under a year to complete.

Republicans in general have launched many legal challenges to the dissemination of the drug through the mail. Staying home does zero to support those people and those actions and in fact helps elect those who celebrate abortion and want it to be on-demand at any gestational age.

I have never been able to understand the thought processes that would lead someone to stay home to punish those who are generally on that person’s side and enable those who want to destroy whatever policy that person is advocating.

On fraud: New Hampshire turns blue with a tiny purple spot

The New Neo Posted on by

New Hampshire is a very small state both geographically and in terms of population, and not much attention has been paid to it this cycle. But I think it’s very instructive to take a look, especially for those who believe that fraud was a significant element in this year’s election results. Simply put, New Hampshire has an unusually reliable voting system and its swing to the left mirrored that of many other states and even exceeded it. When there’s a widespread voting pattern like that, even in states with fairly tight voting laws, the chance of fraud being a big factor diminishes and something else is operating.

This year about 640K people voted in New Hampshire; that’s what I mean by “small.” Voter ID is required and paper ballots used. There is no early in-person voting and there are quite strict controls on absentee voting and on who can bring in ballots from a disabled person. Although scanners count the votes, there is also this check:

After ballots are initially counted, election officials must sign a post-election certificate that includes a variety of records, including polling place records that show the number of voters who checked in and number of ballots issued.

New Hampshire state law requires the secretary of state to conduct an audit after state primary and general elections and presidential primaries of randomly selected precincts. Two percent of ballots or 50 ballots, whichever is greater, must be counted by hand.

They all know there is a decent chance that they will be checked, and it doesn’t take a challenge or a close election to do it. The paper ballots are all saved and a hand count recount can easily be done if there is any kind of close election or suspicion of problems. It really is an unusually well-controlled situation and yet this time the state legislature flipped enormously.

The previous legislature was controlled by the GOP: in the NH House it was 207-184 and in the Senate it was 14-10. But as a result of Tuesday’s election, see this:

Paul Smith, the House clerk, announced Wednesday that Democrats may hold a 292-107 advantage over Republicans, with one Independent. He cautioned that there are likely to be recounts and other tight races with vote tallies still trickling in that could alter the final balance of power.

In the state Senate, the Associated Press is forecasting a 15-9 margin for Democrats, just shy of a veto-proof majority, though several races there also remain uncalled.

Talk about tsunamis! It’s an extraordinary change. Plus, something called the Executive Council went from 4-1 Republican to 5-0 Democrat.

Looking at all of that, it’s amazing that New Hampshire’s Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte was re-elected. But that fact also underscores that the election results in New Hampshire were not fraudulent. She got 51.38% to her Democrat opponent’s 47.1%. Ayotte’s vote margin was about 27K; not a landslide, but certainly a victory.

How did she do it? I don’t know. There must have been a lot of split ballots, too, because the total number of votes cast in the governor’s race (about 631K) was very close to the total cast in the US Senate race (636K) in New Hampshire. The latter was won by the Democrat by about a 14-point margin.

Note that those numbers – in a state so recently Republican-led in its legislature – now resemble California’s recent legislature. In California, the Senate has been 30-10 Democrat to Republican. The California Assembly (its lower house) has had much the same ratio. Because California takes so long to count its votes it’s not yet clear what the final tally will be for the next session, but you can see that the NH House approaches that same kind of ratio. It is a stunning change.

[NOTE: As a result of this election, New Hampshire has also come to resemble Vermont. Vermont’s Democrats recaptured two-thirds majorities in both houses. In Vermont, this means the Democrats have veto-proof majorities whereas in New Hampshire they are one Senate seat shy of a veto-proof majority (that apparently could change, according to the article I quoted, and I haven’t seen a more recent update on it so I assume it hasn’t been resolved). The veto-proof majority in both states matter, because both states have Republican governors.

Go figure. Vermont’s Republican governor is very popular:

Scott was first elected governor of Vermont in 2016, and was reelected in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024, and 2026. Scott’s 2024 margin of victory is the largest in any Vermont gubernatorial election since 1946. Beginning in 2027, Scott will be the longest-serving incumbent governor in the United States. If Scott finishes his sixth term in January 2029, he will also be the longest-serving governor in Vermont history.

Scott is often described as a moderate Republican or a liberal Republican. While according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, Vermont is the most Democratic-leaning U.S. state (D+17), Scott has consistently ranked as the nation’s most popular governor.

Ayotte is fairly moderate as well, as was her predecessor (also a Republican).]

So, why am I renewing my passport?

The New Neo Posted on by

That question was asked in yesterday’s thread about the stapler.

So I’ll answer.

No, I’m not planning to become an expat.

The truth is that my passport expired a while ago and I always like to keep it current even if I don’t have travel plans. It can be used for an impromptu trip to Canada, for example, and once in a blue moon I’ve done that. It helps with any kind of international travel to keep it at the ready, because there can be quite a wait to renew a passport and quite a surcharge if you want to expedite the process.

But it’s also the case that for about three years I’ve had a short trip to Europe planned for this summer. The plan was to travel there with my ex-husband for a certain event. Back when I first planned this, his Parkinson’s wasn’t so very bad, and although it got worse over the years I still thought we could do it.

I was wrong, of course. I did get “cancel for any reason” insurance, which is quite pricy, because I worried about his health. Now, with his death, I can activate that insurance (for our particular trip, even if someone dies you don’t necessarily get a refund unless you have insurance – and of course even with insurance the insurance payment is non-refundable).

I probably could also go on the trip with someone else, but that’s tricky. It has to be a person who is healthy enough (most of my friends are not), who wants to go, and with whom I get along well enough to share a room. And I don’t know if I still even want to go, although I suppose I should.

Needless to say, the whole thing is part of what makes me very very sad these days. Very.

Speaking of which – yesterday I made a doctor’s appointment and when I was done the person on the line asked me if my ex-husband was still my emergency contact. I just about burst into tears at the unexpected question. I had to answer that no, he died. She said she was sorry and asked me if I had a replacement. I couldn’t think of a single local one, so I gave my son’s name. He lives extremely far away.

Susie Wiles is out

The New Neo Posted on by

One of those post-election shakeups is at hand:

Susie Wiles, the chief of staff who helped steer Trump back into the Oval Office, is leaving the job. Her replacement is Stephen Miller, the longtime advisor who has been at Trump’s side since his first campaign.

Wiles will be going to something called the Trump Political Operation. As far as I can tell, that has to do with fundraising.

Also, Harmeet Dhillon has resigned as head of the DOJ’s civil rights division. I’ve long been an admirer of hers:

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon is resigning as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, telling Fox News Digital exclusively that she made the decision weeks before Republicans’ midterm losses and was asked by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles to delay her departure until after the election. …

Dhillon said she informed Wiles three weeks before Election Day that she believed she had “accomplished everything” she came to Washington to do and wanted to return to private practice.

Is that true? I don’t know; perhaps. I’ve seen speculation on the right that she’s trying to avoid retaliatory lawfare against her. I also have no idea whether that’s part of her motive. But if it is, it won’t stop them if they are determined to get her. I think their main target right now is Musk, although I also think there are plenty of other targets like Hegseth.

Speaking of Hegseth, remember David French? What a guy:

On the other hand Trump says he’s keeping Hegseth, despite rumors to the contrary.

More post-election blah blah

The New Neo Posted on by

Most post-election analysis is an attempt to understand why a defeat happened and how to overcome those factors next time. A lot of it is hot air, although some is useful. But this time I’m not sure how useful; it depends what the Democrats end up doing in the next two years and how the public takes it.

And by the phrase “what the Democrats end up doing,” I don’t just mean on the national level although I do mean that. But on the national level – as I wrote recently – the Democrats in Congress will blame any failure of theirs to make things more “affordable” (to take one example) on Trump’s veto. Get rid of a Republican president and all will be well. So they won’t have to face many of the consequences of their actions at the national level and will be well-positioned to win the trifecta in 2028.

I hope I’m wrong about that. But that’s the way I see it.

It’s at the state level that the Democrats will be able to implement a lot of their dream agenda. And it’s at the state level that people might feel the negative consequences. Of course, once Democrats institute their usual voting “reforms,” it may make it harder to change things even at the state level even if voters would like to do so.

But I’m nevertheless curious to know exactly what happened this past Tuesday. I doubt fraud was much of a factor at all; the blue wave was too widespread and affected too many previously red areas and ones in which cheating was made more difficult. No, something very real was happening. And no analysis I’ve read so far seems to explain its intensity. That probably is because it was due to a great many factors rather than just one or two.

The biggest one is the perception of hard economic times. I’ve read over and over again that exit polls indicate that.

Another is Iran, but my guess is that affected people mostly for two reasons. The first is high gas prices and the second is that people on the right, and Independents who might have otherwise been leaning right and did so in 2024, were annoyed with the indeterminate conduct of the war rather than the war aims themselves or the initial weeks of the conflict.

Another is that Tucker et al did make inroads on the right, especially among young men, and I suspect those people stayed home or voted for Democrats (like Tucker told them to).

Another is something I’ve written about over and over again: as more cohorts of young people reach voting age, more leftist-indoctrinated people make up higher percentages of the voting population. The same is true of immigrants-turned citizens from Muslim countries, and their natural born citizen children – obviously important in states such as Michigan and Minnesota. This combination fuels the red-green alliance. Nor is it just the Muslim demographic; it’s other blue-voting demographics as well that have increased (such as, for example, East Indian).

Then of course there’s Trump fatigue, which I’ve written about before.

I’m probably leaving something out, but I’ll leave it to you to fill in the blanks.

I’ve long thought that despite moments when the leftward direction of the nation seems to have been halted or even reversed, that it feels like a finger has been put in the dike only for a bit and that some day soon the water will be rushing in. Was that day last Tuesday, November 3, 2026? I freely admit I don’t know. I suspect it was, although I strongly hope it wasn’t.

NOTE: One small ray of light is that even in states where voters put Democrats in power those same voters were more conservative on certain social and economic issues on the ballot, such as whether female-identifying biological men should be able to play in women’s sports, or concerning the so-called the billionaires’ tax.

There is a sort of split-personality quality to that sort of voting. But I think it can be explained by saying that in 2024 the trans issue was up front and center and helped the GOP win, whereas because they improved things in that regard in the interim, present-day voters aren’t as driven to elect Republicans to deal with it. As for the billionaire’s tax, I guess enough people in California didn’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden leftist egg.

The stapler

The New Neo Posted on by

In my continuing and frustrating efforts to renew my passport, I finally resorted to trying to do it by mail. I had to get still another photo taken; will this one pass muster? The instructions were to staple it with four staples (placed in a certain required configuration) to the application.

That made me wonder whether I even possess a stapler anymore. The last time I used it might have been twenty years ago. It might have been longer ago. I have no idea, but it seemed a quaint thing, like paper money.

But there it was, in a desk drawer exactly where it should be. A box of staples was there, too, but it turns out the stapler was already loaded – which was a good thing because I’ve probably forgotten how to load one, too.

And it worked just fine. Nice.

Vance: the election was about the war and Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

J. D. Vance is intent on putting daylight between himself and the policies that led to Tuesday’s results. He’s been hinting for a long time at being Tucker lite, and his comments were in line with that: he blames the Iran war for the loss.

As discussed at Legal Insurrection, he conveniently leaves his own role out:

I would argue that Vance’s overriding faith in diplomacy left him naive about the terrorists who run Iran. The administration pursued negotiations with people who either had no intention of honoring their commitments or lacked the authority to speak for the IRGC leaders calling the shots.

I believe that had the U.S. and Israel stayed the course militarily, the war would have ended by now. Instead, the diplomatic approach Vance championed has, in my judgment, prolonged the conflict.

I would agree with that analysis.

Plus, from what I’ve seen regarding exit polls, the economy was a far more important factor than the Iran war in driving the dismal results of the election. Now, it’s true that gas prices – which affect other prices – rose as a result of the war (although not solely the war). But that’s not really upset about the war itself, although that exists too especially in those who consider that Trump promised that even a military action such as the one against Iran would not be happening.

Vance also said we need to “change our relationship to Israel.” He certainly doesn’t mean to get closer to Israel. I see this as a winning proposition with the Buchanan-esque Tucker-esque part of the right as well as the left, but Vance certainly isn’t going to win elections by appealing to leftists. He seems to think this is his best approach, however.

I can only imagine that the mullahs and the IRGC are as happy as clams over this election and over Vance’s remarks. Some people think Trump has some sort of mop-up operation in mind before the new Congress is installed. I tend to doubt it, but it’s certainly possible.

It seems to me that another message Vance gives is that the US isn’t going to fight any wars. The Iran war isn’t like any other US war of which I’m aware: virtually no troops and almost no casualties. If we can’t tolerate a “war” like that, we have become a fangless nation.

I suppose if there were to be an actual literal invasion of the US, or if a nuclear weapon destroyed a US city, we’d fight. But I don’t think that sort of “invasion” or war is likely. No, I think we’re seeing the invasion already and we will continue to see it. The border will become permeable again. And we will have more elected officials like El-Sayed and the leftists who are united with him.

First up on the Democrats’ agenda: revenge

The New Neo Posted on by

I said “first up,” but it’s perhaps second and third and fourth up, too. It’s what a great many voters want, and the Democrats will do their best to deliver it.

Something similar was true with the Biden victory in 2020, and J6 was used to justify it. Don’t forget that it was reasonable to think that, instead of being elected president in 2024, Trump would be wearing an orange jumpsuit by that time.

But I think the potential for damage is worse now and probably far worse. Back then – even though the Democrats also had the presidency – their Senate margin was small enough that moderates such as Sinema and Manchin were still able to stop the drive for permanent power. I think some people forget that back then Congress tried (and narrowly failed) to pass the same things people on the right are worried about now: packing the Court, nationalizing relaxed rules for voting, statehood for DC and Puerto Rico.

But now, nothing stands in their way except Trump, and the idea is that he’ll be gone in two years at most and a Democrat president will be giving the green light to those measures.

At this point, much of the electorate has become even more vicious and filled with hatred – witness the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder as well as that of Brian Thompson and several others who had aroused the ire of the leftist social media crew and therefore deserved to die. Their deaths were openly celebrated by the left and even by many “ordinary” Democrats.

I’ve written before (can’t find it at the moment) that the Trump near-assassination and the Kirk assassination were bookends of a sort. Trump’s close call seemed to start a good cycle for him and the right that culminated in his 2024 election. But Kirk’s death started a different and much darker cycle that persists to this day, a time in which violence and hatred on the left flourish and are flaunted and celebrated and rewarded electorally, and the right is riven by discord and to a certain extent even by Jew-hatred (that latter sentiment is legion on the left).

All of that has led to these election results, and the Democrats’ plan is to fully vent their spleen and gain permanent power rather than lose it in 2028 or ever again. The “burn it down” folks on the right don’t seem to mind.

There’s also – as I wrote in this recent post – the phenomenon of Trump fatigue, which I feel is widespread and even affects many of his previous supporters:

As for the right, why does it appear that a great many people are turning on Trump? After all, much of what he’s done in his second term has been effective, and the Democrats seem so very very much worse.

Some of it is objection to certain policies like the Iran war (in which very very few Americans have been killed or hurt), and of course the problem with “affordability.” But I believe a fair amount of it is from what I’ll call Trump fatigue. What was once fresh and new is neither anymore.

Think about it – Trump first was elected ten years ago, and if all goes well there are two more years to go. That’s twelve years. Yes, Biden was president for four years in between. But Trump was nevertheless a huge presence and even an obsession during those four years. The pause has actually lengthened the amount of time Trump has dominated the scene. People are fickle.

Apparently much of the vote was driven not just by general anger but by anger and frustration at something very specific which the Democrats recognized early on and relentlessly hammered home their message on it: lack of “affordability.” For now let’s leave aside the question of just how much people are truly suffering economically and assume that they are suffering and that it hits younger people harder. I can understand that, if that’s your perception and your experience, you might be angry at the GOP for not fixing things. But why would you think that Democrats would? Or is rhetoric enough?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this election reminds me of the 2024 election in Britain in which the populace threw the ineffectual Tories out and installed the left. How’s that working out?