The IDF confirms it: Nasrallah was killed in Friday’s airstrike

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the story:

The underground command center was embedded beneath a residential building, the IDF noted in their report on Saturday, where Nasrallah and his top commanders were coordinating terrorist activities against Israel at the time of the attack.

During Nasrallah’s 32-year leadership of Hezbollah, he was responsible for planning and executing multiple terrorist operations, including attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers, as well as international attacks that killed other nationals worldwide.

He’d been a terrorist for a long, long time.

I read in one of the comments that Israel finally found a way to use the UN for its advantage; that’s a reference to the fact that Netanyahu’s speech at the UN was apparently designed to get Nasrallah to feel safe enough to hold a meeting of this sort.

Many Iranians seem happy:

Many Syrians seem happy, too (although one always has to be careful with videos; some are of older events).

And I have little doubt that some Lebanese people, especially Christians, are in a celebratory mood too – although I’m not sure whether they feel the freedom to express it openly.

Trump and Zelensky, together again

The New Neo Posted on by

Lots of the back-and-forth can be found here. As far as I can tell, it seemed quite cordial. Remember that they have a history and know each other.

Of course, we don’t know what they said behind closed doors. But I doubt Trump would change course and abandon Ukraine because of Zelensky’s trying to ingratiate himself with the Harris camp. After all, Biden-Harris have supported him, and he has to prepare for the possibility of working with either Harris or Trump post-election. Trump almost certainly would try to end the war if he could, and he might not arm Ukraine as freely as Harris would, but I believe he would try to work in the best interests of both Ukraine and the US.

Here’s more:

Kamala Harris as courtroom prosecutor

The New Neo Posted on by

Joel B. Pollack asks a question: “Say, Has Kamala Ever Led a Prosecution?”:

Former Trump administration Department of Justice official Jeff Clark said Wednesday that he cannot find evidence that Vice President Kamala Harris ever personally led the prosecution of a single case at the local or state level.

“I’m looking to see whether she actually ‘first-chaired’ a trial, ever,” Clark told The Charlie Kirk Show on the Real America’s Voice network. …

Clark notes that he might have to do some research in person at courthouses to get an answer to this, but do note that Harris has admittedly exaggerated the number of cases she handled in the past, too.

I leave it to him to do the courthouse digging. But I’ve done some online sleuthing about this question and a while back I discovered this ABC story on the subject. Unfortunately, it doesn’t answer the question either, but it certainly discusses it in some depth. An excerpt:

In 2003, during Kamala Harris’ run for San Francisco district attorney, her campaign sent out mailers promoting her candidacy that touted her record as a prosecutor with “thirteen years of courtroom experience.”

The mailers, copies of which ABC News has obtained, portrayed Harris as “the veteran prosecutor we need to turn around our District Attorney office” and claimed she had a “long track record of being an outstanding public prosecutor.”

“Kamala has tried hundreds of serious and violent felonies, including homicide, rape, and child sexual assault cases,” the mailer stated.

But in a debate with her opponent, who challenged her on that, she said she had tried “about fifty cases.” My guess is that that number is much closer to the number she’s actually tried, in terms of Clark’s current question. But it would be nice to know.

I also looked for articles from the time period when she would have been a trial prosecutor. I found this one from August of 2000, which doesn’t exactly answer the question either but has a lot of information that might be relevant, such as:

One of the top prosecutors who led a failed revolt in San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan’s office resigned yesterday, saying she was saddened and disenchanted by Hallinan’s administration.

“I’ve become disillusioned and disappointed with the top leadership of the district attorney’s office,” said Kamala Harris, who is among a small exodus of prosecutors angered by the management style of Hallinan’s second in command, Darrell Salomon.

“Based on my number of years as a prosecutor, the bulk of which came in a very well-managed district attorney’s office in Alameda County, I thought I would be able to come to San Francisco and add value to the work of the office,” said Harris, a 10-year prosecutor who headed the career criminal prosecution unit for Hallinan.

Especially relevant might be this:

Harris, 35, was praised by police, prosecutors and defense attorneys as an experienced lawyer who could handle complex cases as well as be a role model for younger prosecutors.

“She’s an incredible lawyer, with great courtroom skills and a sense of justice tempered by compassion,” said Jim Collins, a veteran defense attorney. …

Al Giannini, a longtime homicide prosecutor in Hallinan’s office, called Harris “a highly skilled professional, hard-working trial lawyer.”

Sounds like she certainly has had some trial experience.

Hezbollah, Lebanon, Iran, and Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

First, here’s Caroline Glick:

Today’s news is that Israel has struck an area said to be Hezbollah’s and leader Nasrallah’s headquarters. The former seems to be true, although the truth of the latter – and any resultant damage to Nasrallah himself – is unknown. Here is an article from Axios regarding Nasrallah and the attack:

Israel conducted an airstrike on Friday targeting Hezbollah’s central headquarters in Beirut in an apparent attempt to kill the group’s leadership. …

Israeli officials say senior Hezbollah officials were at the headquarters at the time of the attack. There has been no official response so far from Hezbollah on the attack or on Nasrallah’s status. The Israeli source said the Israel Defense Forces did not yet have confirmation of whether he was hit. …

IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari described the attack as a “precise strike on the central HQ of Hezbollah, which was intentionally built under residential buildings in Beirut in order to use them as human shields.” …

An Israeli official said Israel notified the U.S. minutes before the strike in Beirut, but two senior U.S. officials denied that, telling Axios they had no prior warning.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Israel was targeting the entire Hezbollah leadership and Nasrallah would be included in that. Note also that Hezbollah uses the same modus operandi as Hamas – that is, the use of headquarters and operations underneath civilian structures, the better to be able to talk about innocent casualties at Israel’s hands and/or to deter Israel from striking in the first place.

And of course Israel wouldn’t tell the US in advance, because of the risk of sabotage through leaks. This administration has made its opposition very clear. Not only that, but this announcement was made Wednesday by the US: “the U.S. military is not providing intelligence support to Israel for its operations in Lebanon.” So I see no reason Israel should provide any intelligence about the planned strike to the US.

The Axios article adds:

Friday’s attack is another clear escalation from Israel and suggests Netanyahu’s government has little interest in a ceasefire.

And yet there’s no mention in the article of just why that might be – nothing about the fact that Hezbollah has been sending rockets into Israel on a daily basis since October 8, has been “escalating” its own forces in readiness for a huge attack on Israel, and that between 60,000 and 100,000 Israelis have been forced out of their homes for nearly a year and many of those homes have been destroyed by Hezbollah.

What else is missing from the article? Why, it’s the word “Iran.”

Lastly, it becomes quite apparent that Israel could have done this sort of thing previously. It doesn’t seem to lack for intelligence on Hezbollah, to say the least. But it has desisted because of world opinion and its own desire for peace and not to “escalate” things. But now Israel and its leaders have been made well aware that this is no way out but preemptive actions of this nature, because this really is that sometimes-overused word: an existential battle.

Kamala gave an interview to a friendly MSNBC reporter …

The New Neo Posted on by

… and it was still awful. You can see many articles about it: for example this from Legal Insurrection, this at RedState, and this from Ace.

Ace quotes a NY Times: article:

Here are three takeaways from Ms. Harris’s interview.

Ms. Ruhle’s first question was about how Ms. Harris might respond to people who hear her proposals and say, “These policies aren’t for me.” The MSNBC host’s second was about why voters tend to tell pollsters that Mr. Trump is better equipped to handle the economy.

Ms. Harris responded to the fairly basic and predictable questions with roundabout responses that did not provide a substantive answer.

Instead of offering any explanation for why Mr. Trump polls better on the economy — a matter that has vexed Democrats as President Biden has overseen a steadily improving economy — Ms. Harris instead blasted Mr. Trump’s record. She blamed him for a loss of manufacturing and autoworker jobs and said his tariff proposals would serve as an added sales tax on American consumers.

She said nothing about why voters think Mr. Trump and Republicans would be better on the economy.

But she did say her policies are for everyone. …

A hard-hitting Harris interview is still yet to come.

Since Ms. Harris began granting more interviews in recent days, her media strategy has been to sit with friendly inquisitors who are not inclined to ask terribly thorny questions or press her when her responses are evasive.

Nothing about that changed during her interview with Ms. Ruhle before her audience on MSNBC, the liberal cable channel whose viewers overwhelmingly favor Democratic candidates.

It’s not quite clear what Ms. Harris gained, aside from giving her campaign aides the ability to say she held a one-on-one cable television interview.

For the vice president, speaking with Ms. Ruhle was roughly in the same ballpark as Mr. Trump having one of his regular chats with Sean Hannity of Fox News.

Remember, that’s from the NY Times. And no, the Times isn’t withdrawing any support from Harris; the writers there are probably just frustrated that she’s so bad at this. They may labor under the delusion (at least, I think it’s a delusion) that if she were to face more interviewers who actually challenge her, she’d give more persuasive and detailed answers that might sway more undecided voters. There is no indication that’s the case. If Harris had answers to the hard questions, she’d be giving them, instead of mouthing convoluted platitudes mixed with lies.

Those Harris supporters who hate Trump – and that’s most of them – could not care less in terms of their own votes for Harris, which are solid no matter how vapid or mendacious she is. Their excuse – which I’ve seen explicitly stated – is that Trump is worse. Period, end of discussion.

I got rid of the useless “preview” tab

The New Neo Posted on by

I kept the plugin for “preview” activated because I kept hoping it would kick in and function properly some day as the version of WordPress got updated. But time after time, updates had no effect. So I’ve de-activated preview – pulled the plug on the plugin – and you should no longer see the “preview” tab at all.

It’s independent of the “edit” function, which should still be working fine.

Why was Eric Adams indicted?

The New Neo Posted on by

I suppose it could be because he was corrupt. In the olden days, I would have thought that was the reason. But a great great many corrupt people in public life aren’t indicted. So why would the current DOJ indict Eric Adams, New York’s mayor?

My first thought – and my second and third – was that he ruffled the wrong feathers. That’s Adams’ contention as well: “the defiant chief executive claimed he was being persecuted by the federal government for speaking out about the city’s migrant crisis.” He also claims to be innocent. But both things – that he’s being prosecuted for speaking out against the migrant crisis, and that he’s guilty – can be possible.

As with many news stories in the US, the British papers seem to have a lot of information:

Adams has came under fire in the past for questionable donations to his 2021 campaign from associates of the Turkish government.

The New York Times reports that Adams’ dealings with Israel, China, Qatar, South Korea and Uzbekistan are also under the federal microscope.

His indictment on Wednesday comes after a turbulent month of investigations and subsequent resignations from senior members of the NYC government.

The article points out that the investigations started after Adams criticized the influx of “migrants” to the city. A host of resignations followed the investigations.

[Adams] also faces at least three challengers in the 2025 Democratic primary, if he plans to seek reelection.

More federal investigations and resignations have ensued since, spurring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to demand Adams to resign on Wednesday night.

Why, fancy that. AOC has an opinion.

More on the indictment’s details:

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted on five federal charges related to bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy and soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals, according to a 57-page indictment unsealed Thursday morning.
The indictment alleges illegal actions stretching back to 2014, from when he was Brooklyn Borough President.

“For nearly a decade, Adams sought and accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him,” the indictment reads.

Specifically, he received luxury travel and other benefits from a Turkish official and later pressured the NYC Fire Department to open a Turkish consular building without a fire inspection in exchange, the indictment says. …

In 2018, when Adams had announced his plans to run for New York City mayor, he allegedly accepted and sought illegal campaign contributions to his upcoming mayoral campaign, the indictment says.

Businesses also circumvented the city’s ban on corporate contributions “by funneling their donations through multiple employees,” according to the indictment.

This is the sort of thing I imagine is standard operating procedure with many government officials – and their families, including the Biden family, whose largesse from corruption is alleged to have included Joe Biden as a beneficiary (from the evidence of Hunter’s laptop as well as all those payments to distant family members).

Adams’ replacement would be “Jumaane Williams, a progressive Democrat.” In this case, “progressive” is code for “far far far left”:

NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, 48, who has protested against the police, is next in line for the mayor’s office – and exactly the kind of Democrat that far-left progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been dreaming of to run the nation’s biggest metropolis.

He would replace Adams temporarily, until there is a special election 80 days after the change of power, sparking fears among New Yorkers that things could go from bad to worse in the city.

‘A wounded Eric Adams, a weakened Eric Adams remaining in office, is better than the socialist Jumaane Williams,’ former mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa told DailyMail.com. ‘That will open up the floodgates to socialism, and we will become Chicago.’ …

During 15 years in public service, Williams has stoked anti-police sentiment and pushed for criminal reform, including to end solitary confinement in city prisons. He is also a prominent pro-Palestine activist. …

He also threatened to refuse to sign a warrant authorizing the collection of real estate taxes, which underpin the city’s budget.

Adams was elected as being the more moderate Democrat of several contenders, and a defender of the police (relatively speaking). But Williams most definitely is not. Will Adams resist the pressure to resign, at least until elections in June?