Graham Platner: Susan Collins made me do it!

The New Neo Posted on by

Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

Platner claims that Susan Collins voted to send him to Iraq; he says that explicitly in the video at the link. He also says the US “destroyed” Iraq, but when I last checked, Iraq was still a functioning country and doing at least somewhat better than it was before the war. As for Afghanistan – which he also says the US “destroyed,” it’s about the same as it was before the war, with the Taliban in charge.

But about Collins:

Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner said Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins made a mistake when she voted to “send him to Iraq.”

“We destroyed Iraq and we destroyed Afghanistan, and all the suffering, all the killing, all the dying, all the displacement — we, the United States, did that. And that I’m ashamed of.”

“The anger that I feel is for the people that sent me,” he said.

Sounds a bit John Kerry-esque, doesn’t he?

Collins replies:

“The fact is, that was Platner’s decision to serve,” Collins told The Maine Wire on Thursday, adding, “He was not drafted.”

Additionally, the GOP senator cited Platner’s decision to work for the security company Blackwater, which was investigated by the U.S. government over allegations that it violated international law.

He signed up after the war began, and he re-upped. It was entirely voluntary.

His reply? She made me do it anyway:

Now all these years later, instead of acknowledging that she was wrong, she’s decided that she’s going to blame all of us who — in our late teens and early twenties — signed up to serve our country,” he continued. “That somehow it’s our fault that she and establishment politicians like her, wanted to abuse our willingness to serve, to go send us off to fight in stupid wars that did nothing but make some people very, very rich at the expense of American taxpayer dollars.”

Some facts on Platner’s service – and recall that the Iraq War began in March of 2003:

Platner enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after graduating from high school in 2003. He attended the Marine Corps School of Infantry, then deployed to Iraq in 2005. He served a total of eight years in the military, including three combat tours in Iraq, in areas including Ramadi and Fallujah. Asked why he served in the Iraq War after protesting it, Platner said, “I thought I could do some good. And I wanted to play soldier. I might have read too much Hemingway.”

After four years in the military, Platner enrolled at George Washington University, funded by the G.I. Bill. Shortly after starting school, he enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard and served an additional tour of duty in the war in Afghanistan. He returned to Washington in 2011, resuming classes at GWU and working as a bartender at the Tune Inn on Capitol Hill. From 2011 to 2016 he alternated between living in DC and military deployments, before withdrawing from GWU and returning to Maine in 2016 for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and other military-related injuries.

In 2018, Platner returned to Kabul, Afghanistan, for about six months as a State Department security contractor with Constellis, where he provided diplomatic security to the US Ambassador to Afghanistan.

By 2016 Platner would have been 31-32 years old.

NOTE: Here’s one of my previous posts about Platner.

See also this post by Ace about Platner.

Trump as long-form master

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an interesting take on Trump:

Trump is the only major American politician of the last forty years who was professionally formed in the long-form unstructured format before he ever entered politics. That is the entire answer. Everything else is downstream of that fact.

The standard explanations (charismatic, natural performer, good instincts) are descriptions of the result rather than explanations of the cause.

Well, sort of. He’s actually a natural at it, and then he also has honed his skills over time. It’s not either/or. But yes, he’s got more experience in the long-form interview, both hostile and friendly, than almost anyone on earth. That’s not an accident. He’s sought celebrity, and been comfortable with it, for pretty much his whole life.

I agree with a great deal of the article – for example, this:

Widely misunderstood. Trump does not actually have no filter. He has a very specific filter, calibrated over decades, that allows him to say things that sound spontaneous and unfiltered while actually being controlled performance. He says transgressive things on purpose, knowing they will land. He floats trial balloons, watches the reaction, and either commits to the position or walks it back depending on the response. The persona of being unfiltered is itself a filter.

Also this:

The credentialed class is the class of people who have internalized the institutional consequences of saying the wrong thing, and who have organized their public speech to avoid those consequences. Trump did not come up through any of those institutions. He came up in New York real estate and tabloid culture, both of which are environments where shame is a vulnerability rather than a discipline, and where the operators who succeed are the ones who have learned to act without it. He says things the credentialed class would be unable to say, not because the things are necessarily wrong, but because the credentialed class has been trained to feel an autonomic flinch before the words leave the mouth. Trump does not have the flinch.

The absence of the flinch is read by the audience as authenticity, and is read by the opposing class as proof of monstrousness.

Yes indeed. But the author follows it with this:

Both readings miss the structural fact: the flinch is a learned behavior of a specific institutional formation, and Trump did not undergo that formation.

Here’s where I have the same objection I had at the beginning: it’s not just a learned behavior, it’s in sync with Trump’s personality, although it’s also a behavior that’s been honed and refined through practice.

It occurs to me that Spencer Pratt has had some of this type of practice. Not as much as Trump but more than most, having been on reality TV a great deal. And he also didn’t come up through the normal political paths, so he didn’t learn the pussy-footing obfuscation and the art of talking while saying nothing. Here’s an example of Pratt’s skills:

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether people without X can access these tweets and videos. If you can’t see the second one, this might help:

It’s LA, and I doubt Pratt can win. But it would be astounding if he did.

Mamdani won’t deign to attend the Israel parade in New York: the origin and spread of the “genocide” charge

The New Neo Posted on by

And really, why would he?

The story:

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani won’t be attending the city’s annual Israel Day Parade on Sunday, a break from decades-long tradition, despite attending other events celebrating the city’s diverse cultural landscape.

Since 1964, every mayor in the city has attended the Jewish celebration, which comes amid record levels of antisemitism …

Which his election has aided and abetted.

More:

Mamdani indicated that he would not attend as a matter of political principle. …

Despite his stance against Israel, the mayor has participated in other celebrations, including this year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration, during which he compared the historic plight of the Irish to the “genocide” in Palestine amid Israel’s war with Hamas.

That’s a very popular stance in Ireland itself – the Orwellian confusion/inversion about who’s really seeking genocide, and about who really is the “colonizer.” It’s classic stuff which has caught on tremendously in recent years, as decades of propaganda launched by the USSR (see this), decades of academic indoctrination, recent increases in Muslim immigration to Western countries, constant lies in the MSM, and post-10/7 internet anti-Semitic smears have all combined to create a perfect storm. This has allowed someone like Mamdani to be elected the mayor of New York in the first place.

Israel-haters claim they’re not anti-Semitic, only anti-Israel. “Can’t we even criticize Israel?” they ask disingenuously, because of course they can. Israelis criticize Israel. But when “criticism” is over-the-top Orwellian lies and reversals of the truth, and when similar logic is applied to no other nation on earth – then anti-Israel sentiment is actually Jew-hatred. Mamdani normalizes it, but why would that be surprising, because it originated on the left in Soviet Russia.

In this 2024 post I quoted this article, and that quote bears repeating now:

The claim that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians is among the longest-running lies told about Israel. “Genocide Israeli style”; “Zionist-engineered genocide”; “the ‘final solution’ of the Palestinian question”—these may look like snippets from some recent campus proclamation, but they are not. They appeared in a Soviet pamphlet titled “Zionists Count on Terror.” Published in 1984 by Novosti, a Soviet foreign propaganda arm masquerading as a news agency, this pocket-sized brochure was meant to promote the Soviet view of Israel and Zionism to English-language audiences.

You can read more of the history in this post. Suffice to say the lessons the Soviets taught have been well-learned, and are now rampant among younger Americans and even with some who supposedly used to be on the right (Tucker, I’m talking about you).

Meanwhile, from yesterday:

Jewish New Yorkers, beware.

The same rabid anti-Israel activists who have harassed Jews at synagogues in recent weeks in violent protests, flown the flag of Hamas and Hezbollah and stomped on the Israeli flag are returning to the streets tonight at Time Square in midtown Manhattan to rage-bait Israelis and Jews attending a “Jerusalem Real Estate Expo” at Times Square.

The protest underscores how anti-Israel activist groups are continuing to escalate their pressure campaigns against pro-Israel and Jewish events across the city, despite mounting criticisms of antisemitism. Earlier this week, Jewish and Muslim leaders led a protest at Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s residence at Gracie Mansion, asking that he address the growing antisemitism in the city.

Note that at least some Muslims are against the anti-Jewish anti-Israel harassment. I assume those Muslims will be targeted as well.

More:

Community leaders say these protests put more pressure on Mamdani who joined anti-Israel protests many times before he ran for the mayor’s office. In college, he was a founding member of his school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which also seeks “the return” of Palestinians to modern-day Israel and a one-state solution that claims modern-day Israel for Palestinians, essentially destroying the state of Israel.

Exactly.

And in Brooklyn, there’s trouble in yuppie enclave Park Slope [emphasis mine]:

Israeli-made products were ripped from the shelves of the lefty Park Slope Food Coop just hours after being banned in a historic vote — prompting scores of Jewish shoppers to threaten to quit the member-run market in revolt.

Tuesday’s boycott vote — which drew over 7,000 members and passed with an overwhelming 67% in favor — went into effect immediately, with the Israeli products vanishing from the shelves by Wednesday morning. …

The nasty food fight — over about 10 goods like hummus, herbs, matzo and peanut puffs — drew condemnation from even the most liberal residents in the leafy Brooklyn enclave. …

Coop member Ramon Maislen told The Post that an informal survey prior to the vote suggested up to 1,000 members would leave if the ban passed. The market has about 15,000 members total. …

The controversy has been brewing at the Union Street coop for years, with BDS supporters claiming Israel was committing genocide in Gaza and demanding all products from the country be barred.

Sound familiar? It should.

And this ploy should feel familiar, too [emphasis mine]:

And Tuesday’s vote meeting only compounded the controversy, as it was immediately preceded by a successful vote to lower the threshold required to ban coop products from 75% in favor to 51%.

Without that threshold vote, the ban would not have passed — leaving Jewish members feeling cheated, a feeling which was also reinforced by the alleged lack of public discussion ahead of the final vote.

You may think this is a tempest in a teapot. But it’s not. It’s part of the death of a thousand cuts, proceeding apace in many countries.

Did Trump say he doesn’t care about the midterms?

The New Neo Posted on by

Yes indeed, he did say that. As commenter “huxley” writes:

Trump had better know what he is doing. Maybe he’s got it worked out that Iran collapses economically real soon. Still, it seems he is cutting it pretty close. He may say he doesn’t care about the midterms, but a lot of Americans care more about the economy than Iran.

Indeed they do, although a lot of people care about both. But gas prices are certainly more up close and personal.

What did Trump actually say, in context? This:

President Donald Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that he isn’t concerned about making a deal soon with Iran, adding that he doesn’t “care about the midterms” in what he said he thinks is the regime’s calculation that he has to negotiate a deal before what are expected to be highly-competitive elections in November.

“They thought they were going to out-wait me, you know. ‘We’ll out-wait him. He’s got the midterms.’ I don’t care about the midterms. Look what happened last night, that was a prelude to the midterms. People understand it,” Trump said, likely referencing his endorsed candidate, Ken Paxton, winning the Senate Republican runoff in Texas. …

“Mr. President, you’ve said that you’re in no rush to make a deal, but with gas prices that are still high across the country, people are paying more for travel. Does that give you more urgency to make a deal? Why doesn’t it?” ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott asked Trump during the Cabinet meeting.

“Well, I’ll tell you, the primary urgency, I’ve said this, it wasn’t covered properly, but the primary urgency is that we can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump responded.

It’s very clearly a message to Iran that they shouldn’t believe he’s under pressure to cave because of concerns about the midterms. The press and the Trump opposition are eager to convey the message as one that says “he doesn’t care about you, he doesn’t care that you have to pay more for gas, he simply doesn’t care.” But clearly he cares; he just prioritizing the message to the Iranian leadership that they shouldn’t believe he will cave because of the midterms. Note the eagerness of questioner Rachel Scott of ABC (although she’s harely alone) to indicate that he must cave.

Trump also said this:

…[W]e’re not talking about any easing of sanctions or giving money. No sanctions, no money, no nothing,” Trump said. “We have control of money that they claim is theirs. We’ll keep control of that money. And when they behave properly and when they do what’s right, we’ll let them have their money. But right now, we’re not doing that … One thing is not contingent on the other.” …

On the status of negotiations, Trump said on Wednesday he’s “not satisfied” and that Iran is “negotiating on fumes.”

“We’re not satisfied with it, but we will be. We will be. Either that or we’ll have to just finish the job,” Trump said.

The question I would like to see answered is: so why continue to negotiate? Haven’t you given this enough time? I don’t know the true answer, but I listed my guesses in this recent post.

E. Jean Carroll is being investigated by the DOJ

The New Neo Posted on by

Why is Carroll being investigated at this late date? Apparently it’s for conspiracy and perjury about who funded her:

According to [Byron] York, the probe appears to zero in on the very origins of Carroll’s case – a story that traces back to a swanky Manhattan ‘Resistance party’ where anti-Trump operatives, deep-pocketed donors, and eager lawyers cooked up the defamation lawsuit that later ballooned into a full-blown battery claim under New York’s specially tailored Adult Survivors Act.

Carroll’s story of rape never passed the smell test, for a host of reasons I and many others have written about before. You can read York’s own effort from 2023 here. In summary: her accusations against Trump were incredibly weak and both politically and financially motivated, in addition to being a reflection of Carroll’s quest for notoriety.

But her accusations aren’t the issue now except tangentially. The issue is her funding:

If you don’t have access to X:

There’s also this, which downplays the perjury aspect and focuses on other irregularities and possible charges:

The probe is focused on a trust founded by billionaire Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, whose nonprofit helped pay some of Carroll’s legal costs, two sources said. Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, is an outspoken critic of Trump.

The crimes under investigation are possible money laundering, obstruction, and conspiracy, one of the sources said. Investigators are also looking into a possible perjury charge against Carroll related to her testimony in the lawsuits, the source said, but it’s not the main focus of the probe.

Will a prosecution come from this? I doubt it, but it’s possible.

“You can’t go back” – the fall of Constantinopole

The New Neo Posted on by

I just learned that tomorrow is the 573rd anniversary of the fall of Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire was no more, and the great city was now in the hands of the Ottoman Empire, as a result of military conquest after a siege of close to two months. It was both a religious turning point and a more general historical turning point:

The attacking Ottoman Army, significantly outnumbered Constantinople’s defenders …

The fall of Constantinople and of the Byzantine Empire was a watershed moment of the Late Middle Ages, marking the effective end of the Roman Empire, a state which began in roughly 27 BC and had lasted nearly 1,500 years. For many modern historians, the fall of Constantinople marks the end of the medieval period and the beginning of the early modern period. The city’s fall also stood as a turning point in military history. Since ancient times, cities and castles had depended upon ramparts and walls to repel invaders. The walls of Constantinople, especially the Theodosian walls, protected Constantinople from attack for 800 years and were noted as some of the most advanced defensive systems in the world at the time. However, these fortifications were overcome by Ottoman infantry with the support of gunpowder, specifically from cannons and bombards, heralding a change in siege warfare.

But I first learned about this as a child through a rather silly song, popular in 1953. I was exceedingly young, but popular music nevertheless still seeped down to me, and the song was very catchy:

“Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” is a 1953 novelty song, with lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy and music by Nat Simon. It was written on the 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. The lyrics humorously refer to the official renaming of the city of Constantinople to Istanbul. The song’s original release, performed by The Four Lads, was certified as a gold record.

The lyrics can be found here, and they treat the whole thing like a light joke. Back in 1953 it must have seemed that way to most of the Western world. But who’s laughing now? An excerpt:

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it’s Turkish delight on a moonlit night
(Oh) every gal in Constantinople
(Oh) lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
(Oh) so if you’ve a date in Constantinople
(Oh) she’ll be waiting in Istanbul …

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can’t go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks’

Actually, it’s everybody’s business these days – and by “it” we’re not talking about Constantinople/Istanbul per se. We’re talking about the Muslim world versus the Christian world (and the Jews, of course). We’re talking about various kinds of conquest and not just the military kind – perhaps not even primarily the military kind. The siege involves the human mind, and it’s been going on far longer than two months. The main fronts are academia, the press, and politics.

NOTE: Here’s the original song:

Somaliland vs. Somalia

The New Neo Posted on by

Somaliland is in the news lately:

The new breakaway country of Somaliland is proving to be a thorn in the side of Iran and its Houthi proxies. And here’s the interesting bit; even as negotiations with the United States are underway to try to bring an end to hostilities, Somaliland’s friendliness towards the United States and Israel, and their willingness to allow U.S. basing of military assets, including at the deep-water port of Berbera, is reportedly making Iran and the Houthis feel somewhat maladjusted.

“Iran is said to be ‘deeply threatened’ by the small African breakaway state, Somaliland, because of the potential for U.S., Israeli and Western powers to use its deep water port and airbase.

“Such moves would severely disrupt Iran’s plan to use their proxy, Yemen’s Houthi terror group, to attack Red Sea shipping.”

I’ve written this previous post about Somaliland. Since then, I’ve been wondering what makes Somaliland so different from its neighbor, Somalia, and so many other states in the region. I think the answer is probably complicated and probably contains many elements of which I’m unaware. But one is probably its different colonial history; Somaliland was a British colony and Somalia was an Italian colony. This can make a world of difference.

Here’s the history; the two areas actually diverged a long time ago:

Somaliland has been a distinct region from Somalia since the late 1800s. It was a British protectorate until 1960 (meaning a dependent territory, over which the British government exercised limited jurisdiction).

It then became independent for just five days.

At this point it merged with present-day Somalia, which was then under Italian rule, beginning a long and often violent struggle.

A rebel group, the Somali National Movement (SNM), emerged in Somaliland in the 1980s. In 1991 they declared Somaliland’s independence following the ousting of the military dictator Siad Barre, whose forces had killed tens of thousands of people during civil war along ethnic, clan-based lines.

The article also says the two regions are “culturally and ethnically distinct.” But Somaliland is also extremely poor and suffering from drought.

This is from a Somaliland website:

1 July 1960, Somaliland chose to unite with Somalia with the aim of creating a “Greater Somalia” that would unite all Somalis in five countries in the Horn of Africa including Northern Kenya, Italian Somalia, French Somaliland (Djibouti), and Eastern Ethiopia.

1961: Somalia betrayed the treaty that joined it with Somaliland by passing a different Act of Union in its National Assembly. …

The people of Somaliland had no say in the making of the constitution of the new Somali Republic. In a majority of Somaliland districts the 1961 referendum on the constitution was boycotted and the constitution rejected. One legal expert commented that the legal validity of the legislative instruments establishing the union were “questionable.”

?The early years of the union saw the steady political and economic isolation of former Somaliland. Political and military positions were awarded disproportionately to “southern” Somalis. The 1961 attempted coup by a group of highly qualified Somaliland military officers was an indication of the disenchantment with the union that Somaliland had entered into.

The whole thing led to a bloody civil war, with the Somali dictatorship killing many Somalilanders. Ultimately, though, Somaliland broke away and has been fairly stable since. It’s a completely Muslim country and yet – as I wrote in my previous post – very pro-Israel.

Al Green loses his primary

The New Neo Posted on by

No great loss – except to Al Green.

This is an example of the effect of redistricting. Green would have almost certainly been a shoe-in if he was running in his old district. But he can’t do that, because his old district doesn’t exist. So he switched to another district, and was defeated in the runoff:

The race for Texas’ solidly Democratic 18th Congressional District was an incumbent-on-incumbent Democratic clash, with Green and Menefee both trying to preserve their places in Congress after redistricting altered the congressional districts around Houston.

Green has been among President Donald Trump’s fiercest critics in Congress, pursuing impeachment charges on multiple occasions against him during both of Trump’s terms. Green has been kicked out of Trump’s State of the Union addresses multiple times as well for standing up and protesting amid the speech.

The new district is not competitive for the GOP, so Menefee will almost certainly win in the general.

The Trumpian primaries and Trump’s influence

The New Neo Posted on by

The recent primaries in several states have been framed as a test of Trump’s power. But it’s a test he would be failing no matter what happened, according to the MSM, the Democrats, and other assorted Trump-haters. If his picks hadn’t won, it would have been, “Trump’s now a eunuch, a powerless has-been.” Now that they’ve won, it’s,”Trump’s a dangerously tyrannical bully, controlling everything and everybody through threats and fear.”

In reality, I don’t think it’s either. Trump is as much a reflection and result of opinions on the right as he is a shaper of those opinions. For example, I’ve been seeing significant complaints about Cornyn for quite a while online, Trump tapped into that and also probably escalated it, but it already existed.

Longer excerpt from the tweet:

Coming on top of a string of similar events, [Paxton’s win] is very bad news for anybody who wants to think MAGA is declining in influence or Trump is a spent force. …

There have been a lot of very determined attempts to fragment the MAGA base and attempt to drive a wedge between them and the Trumpster. I see this on X and other social media – lots of indignant blithering about Israel and the Iran war that seems very light on substance and very heavy on attempting to fracture the Republican coalition.

I don’t think it’s working. [Last night] is evidence that Trump’s endorsement matters, and the base is not kindly disposed towards any Republican pol who’s perceived as not being on his team.

Again, I think the emphasis is wrong there. Yes, there are people who don’t like GOP office-holders who are disloyal to Trump himself, and who consider Team Trump the important thing. But I think the majority of voters support Trump because of what he has done and what he plans to do – that is, his policies – rather than thinking his policies are good because they’re his. Of course,Trump’s personality isn’t separate from his actions, but it’s the latter that most MAGA people emphasize and if he started doing things that were perceived as out of line with those policies he’d be losing their support.

And yes, there are people who want to take over the MAGA movement for various nefarious reasons, including Israel-hatred and Jew-hatred. But there are others who are turning on Trump merely because they are isolationists who perceived him as promising no more wars forever, not just “no forever wars.” But I think that most people on the right understood Trump to be a Jacksonian rather than an isolationist, and see the Iran war as a Jacksonian conflict that is not only necessary but long overdue. In line with that, though, if he ends the Iran war with a bad deal, one perceived as giving away too much to Iran, many of those who have stuck with him so far may become at least somewhat disillusioned.

Also – contrary to the scare propaganda of the left – Trump isn’t going to be running for a third term. If his health holds up, which I sincerely hope it does, he’ll be in office for a little over two and a half more years. Trump’s 80th birthday is only a couple of weeks away, and if all goes well he’ll be 82 and a half on leaving the presidency. At that point, Trump will have a successor or successors. But Trump is sui generis, and there won’t be anyone quite like him again, for good or ill.