Happy Thanksgiving!!

The New Neo Posted on by

freedomfromwant

I happen to like Thanksgiving. Always have. It’s a holiday for anyone and everyone in this country—except, of course, people who hate turkey. There are quite a few of those curmudgeonly folks, but I’m happy to report I’m not one of them. Even if the turkey ends up dry and overcooked, it’s nothing that a little gravy and cranberry sauce can’t fix. And although the turkey is the centerpiece, it’s the accompaniments that make the meal.

My theory on turkeys is that they’re like children: you coax them along and just do the best you can, but as long as you don’t utterly ruin or abuse them, they have their own innate characteristics that will manifest in the end. A dry and tough bird will be a dry and tough bird despite all that draping in fat-soaked cheesecloth, a tender and tasty one will withstand a certain amount of abuse.

One year my brother and I were cooking at my parents’ house and somehow we set the oven on “broil,” an error that was only discovered an hour before the turkey was due to be done. It was one of the best turkeys ever. Another time the turkey had turned deep bluish-purple on defrosting and was so hideous and dangerous-looking it had to be abandoned. Another terrible time, that has lived in infamy ever since, my mother decided turkey was passe and that we’d have steak on Thanksgiving.

Since I like to eat, I am drawn to the fact that Thanksgiving is a food-oriented holiday with a basic obligatory theme (turkey plus seasonal autumnal food) and almost infinite variations on that theme. Sweet potatoes? Absolutely—but oh, the myriad ways to make them, some revolting, some sublime. Pie? Of course, but what kind? And what to put on it, ice cream, whipped cream, or both?

For me, there are three traditional requirements—besides the turkey, of course. There has to be at least one pecan pie, although eating it in all its sickening sweetness can put an already-sated person right over the top. The cranberry sauce has to be made from fresh cranberries (it’s easy: cranberries, water, and sugar to taste, simmered on top of the stove till mushy and a bright deep red), and lots of it (it’s good on turkey sandwiches the next day, too).

The traditional stuffing in my family is non-traditional: a large quantity of cut-up Granny Smith apples cooked in fair amount of sherry as well as a ton of butter till a bit soft; and then mixed with prunes, almonds, and one Sara Lee poundcake reduced to crumbs by crushing with the hands.

Thanksgiving is one of the few holidays that has a theme that is vaguely religious—giving thanks—but has no specific religious affiliation. So it’s a holiday that unites. It’s one of the least commercial holidays as well, because it involves no presents. It’s a home-based holiday, which is good, too, except for those who don’t have relatives or friends to be with. One drawback is the terribly compressed travel time; I solve that by not usually traveling very far if I can possibly help it.

The main advantage to hosting the day is having leftovers left over. The main disadvantage to hosting the day is having leftovers left over.

This year I’m thankful for many things. The fact that I’m still alive and not too decrepit. Family and friends. America’s chance to take a deep breath and set itself on a better course, if we can.

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, filled with friends and/or family of your choice, and just the right amount of leftovers!

[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post, somewhat edited.]

Thank you, readers!!!!

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, this season’s pledge drive is over at neo-neocon (although donations are accepted at any time!), and I want to give a huge and heartfelt thank-you to everyone who donated. You really can’t imagine how grateful and touched I am by your generosity, which helps keep this blog going.

thanks

How to talk politics on Thanksgiving

The New Neo Posted on by

Ah yes. Here we go again.

My suggestions this year are simplicity itself.

(1) Try to avoid the topic entirely.

(2) If a liberal brings it up, just use a pleasant tone and say something like, “I think the best thing to do is to wait and see, and give Trump a chance (you could add “like I did when Obama came into office,” but that has the danger of sparking an angry retort from the listener, so you might do well to desist from adding it).

(3) If you’re on the right but had spoken out against Trump during the campaign, and a fervent Trump supporter starts ragging you about how you were wrong to not support him, just use a pleasant tone and say, “I think the best thing to do is to wait and see, and give Trump a chance—and I’m really really glad Hillary didn’t get elected.”

Then dig into that pumpkin pie. You can’t talk with a full mouth.

Just a bit more about those polls

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve already written about how the polls, particularly the national polls, weren’t all that bad this year. But I’m going to add just a bit more.

As of this writing, Clinton is ahead in the popular vote by about 2 million. This amounts to a 1.5% margin, and it could get even larger. It’s not relevant in terms of the election, because the Electoral College still determines the winner. But it is relevant in terms of the national polls, which only deal with the popular vote, and the average of which (according to the person I consider the best poll analyst, Nate Silver, writing two days before the election) predicted a 1.9 margin for Clinton.

Not so far off at all. In fact, quite close.

What this illustrates is several things:

(1) Polls change many times during the campaign year. You can see how much they changed during the 2016 campaign year in a chart here, with the lead changing several times over the twelve months before the election. Clinton was more consistently ahead, though, and was ahead right before the election—and she won the popular vote.

(2) Although national polls seem quite accurate in predicting the winner of the popular vote (especially the closer it gets to Election Day), they are not especially useful in a race that’s at all close, because the Electoral College is the determining factor.

Another important element in this election (and in the difficulty predicting the outcome) was late-deciding voters. Let’s have some figures for how those “undecideds” broke:

Some of the polls were wrong to a degree, yes, but there was also something at work in the final days of the election: People who decided late broke strongly for Donald Trump in the states that mattered, according to exit polls. And without this apparent late surge, Hillary Clinton would be our president-elect ”” not Trump.

In fact, if you look at the four closest states where Clinton lost ”” or, in the case of Michigan, where she’s expected to lose ”” exit polls show late-deciding voters in each of them went strongly for Trump in the final days. In Florida and Pennsylvania, late-deciders favored Trump by 17 points. In Michigan, they went for Trump by 11 points. In Wisconsin, they broke for Trump by a whopping 29 points, 59-30…

And these weren’t small groups of voters. The number of undecided and third-party-supporting voters who were still free agents in the final week was as many as 1 in 8 voters nationally — an uncharacteristically high number for the eve of an election. (As Nate Silver noted, it was just 3 percent in 2012.)

In Florida, 11 percent said they decided in the final week. In Pennsylvania, it was 15 percent. And in Michigan and Wisconsin ”” states where Trump made a late push ”” fully 20 percent of voters said they arrived at their choice in the last seven days.

That’s a lot of people breaking for Trump, and in battleground states it helped turned the tide.

I find these things interesting, and what’s more the subject of polling is bound to come up in the next election (next election? Ugh!) As always, polling is flawed. But not necessarily as flawed as people think.

But what I’m really looking forward to at this point is putting this tedious, stressful election (and its polls) behind me, and hoping that the future is much brighter.

Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t that be great?

And now it’s the Hillary camp…

The New Neo Posted on by

…that thinks the election might have been rigged, and is suggesting a recount in several close states.

I will go out on a limb and say I don’t think it’s going to happen, in part because so much time has passed since the election. But the myth of the election stolen from Hillary Clinton will go on to have a long, long life of its own.

In other news today, Trump is reported to have appointed Nikki Haley as UN ambassador, despite her lack of foreign policy experience and her merely-lukewarm support of him. But the Secretary of State job remains open, with several hot contenders, including supposed leaders Giuliani and Romney.

Mike Huckabee, one of Trump’s early supporters, says that appointing Romney to that job would be an insult to Trump’s supporters, and Newt Gingrich, another Trump promoter, was not a happy camper either, saying:

I can think of 20 other people who would be more naturally compatible with the Trump vision of foreign policy”…

My guess is that one of them would be Newt Gingrich, although Gingrich was modest enough not to list himself:

Gingrich said that Trump would have to consider whether Romney would be a secretary of state “in the John Kerry tradition” and whether the 2012 Republican presidential nominee would “represent the kind of tough-minded, America-first policies that Trump has campaigned on.”

Gingrich added that his preferred choices for secretary of state over Romney included former Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Hewlett-Packard CEO and Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina.

So, what’s all this anti-Romney talk from Huckabee and Gingrich? Are they speaking only for themselves, or are they saying this at Trump’s behest? And if the latter, what’s the underlying message? That Romney won’t be chosen? Or that Trump is his own man?:

However, the former Speaker [Gingrich] added that if Trump nominated Romney to be America’s top diplomat, “I’m going to support him. But President-elect Trump deserves to have the team he wants.”

I very much doubt Trump would choose Bolton, who is seemingly more hardline and interventionist than Trump. Giuliani is a strong possibility, and would be pleasing to Trump’s supporters because he’s been a Trump loyalist. But isn’t Trump trying to reach out to non-loyalists in the interest of uniting the country? Romney would be perfect for that. And wouldn’t Romney be a lot more likely to sail through his Senate confirmation that Giuliani, who has some possible conflicts of interest?

[ADDENDUM: Nate Silver says the “hacked” claim from the Hillary camp “doesn’t check out”:

We’ve looked into the claim ”” or at least, our best guess of what’s being claimed based on what has been reported ”” and statistically, it doesn’t check out.

There’s no clear evidence that the voting method used in a county ”” by machine or by paper ”” had an effect on the vote. Anyone making allegations of a possible massive electoral hack should provide proof, and we can’t find any. But it’s not even clear the group of computer scientists and election lawyers are making these claims.]

Trump and the Times

The New Neo Posted on by

Seem to be the best of friends now.

The whole interview is well worth reading, as a glimpse into Trump’s mindset at the moment (he’s looking into this and that), and his ability to work the room. For example:

TRUMP: And by the way, if you see something or get something where you feel that I’m wrong, and you have some info ”” I would love to hear it. You can call me, Arthur can call me, I would love to hear. The only one who can’t call me is Maureen [Dowd, opinion columnist]. She treats me too rough.

I don’t know what happened to Maureen! She was so good, Gail [Collins, opinion columnist]. For years she was so good.

[cross talk]

SULZBERGER: As we all say about Maureen, it’s not your fault, it’s just your turn.

[laughter]

Trump won’t pursue charges against Clinton

The New Neo Posted on by

Is anyone surprised at this newest iteration of the kinder, gentler Trump?:

President-elect Donald Trump won’t subject Hillary Clinton to a criminal inquiry ”” instead, he’ll help her heal, his spokeswoman said Tuesday.

“I think when the president-elect who’s also the head of your party ”¦ tells you before he’s even inaugurated he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content, to the members,” Kellyanne Conway told the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” who first reported that the president-elect would not pursue his campaign pledge to “lock up” Clinton, his Democratic opponent.

“Look, I think, he’s thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign are not among them,” Conway, who is now on the Trump transition team, said in her interview.

I also think that Trump is probably correct if he calculates that the vast majority of his supporters will forgive him for not pushing the prosecution of Clinton. They are too happy right now about his victory, and the prospects for the future.

At least the Trump administration is admitting Trump lied during the campaign (although they don’t use the l-word). I suppose, if you want to look at it in a good light, that admission of the obvious is somewhat refreshing, compared to denying it.

As for me, I already knew that Trump lies a lot. Most of you—even many of his supporters—were well aware of it, too. The real question is what was he lying about, and when is he telling the truth. It never seemed to me as though he was serious about pursuing Clinton, and I suspect that at least a certain proportion of his supporters just felt it was a fun game to shout “Lock her up!” during the campaign, a kind of cheerleading hyperbole before the Big Game.

I don’t like this business of lying—but hey, I’m not a politician. At least, since Trump was elected, he seems to be jettisoning some of his worst posturing and adopting a more reasonable tone. So he’s been discarding many of the things I wasn’t in favor of, and adopting some I was. Of course, we don’t know if this more reasonable Trump tone is just another pose by a poseur extraordinaire. But time will tell, as action (or inaction, or contrary action) follows words.

[NOTE: Could there be some relation between not prosecuting Clinton and news like this?]

More on Steve Bannon

The New Neo Posted on by

I confess that I haven’t had time to read this presentation from 2014 by Steve Bannon, which was sent me by a reader. But I thought it might be good to mention it, since it at least gives us some information about what Steve Bannon says while in public. Since he’s the big mystery man, it might be of interest.

So, why did Trump have a meeting with the press and then excoriate them?

The New Neo Posted on by

By now you probably have read the stories about how Trump called a meeting with the press, only to give them a dressing down. If you don’t care much—well, the press certainly does.

Just as an example, see this from David Remnick of the New Yorker:

The fantasy of the normalization of Donald Trump””the idea that a demagogic candidate would somehow be transformed into a statesman of poise and deliberation after his Election Day victory””should now be a distant memory, an illusion shattered.

First came the obsessive Twitter rants directed at “Hamilton” and “Saturday Night Live.” Then came Monday’s astonishing aria of invective and resentment aimed at the media, delivered in a conference room on the twenty-fifth floor of Trump Tower. In the presence of television executives and anchors, Trump whined about everything from NBC News reporter Katy Tur’s coverage of him to a photograph the news network has used that shows him with a double chin. Why didn’t they use “nicer” pictures?

For more than twenty minutes, Trump railed about “outrageous” and “dishonest” coverage…

This is where we are. The President-elect does not care who knows how unforgiving or vain or distracted he is. This is who he is, and this is who will be running the executive branch of the United States government for four years.

The over-all impression of the meeting from the attendees I spoke with was that Trump showed no signs of having been sobered or changed by his elevation to the country’s highest office. Rather, said one, “He is the same kind of blustering, bluffing blowhard as he was during the campaign.”

Another participant at the meeting said that Trump’s behavior was “totally inappropriate” and “fucking outrageous.” …

“I have to tell you, I am emotionally fucking pissed,” another participant said. “How can this not influence coverage? I am being totally honest with you. Toward the end of the campaign, it got to a point where I thought that the coverage was all about [Trump’s] flaws and problems. And that’s legit. But, I thought, O.K., let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. After the meeting today, though””and I am being human with you here””I think, Fuck him! I know I am being emotional about it. And I know I will get over it in a couple of days after Thanksgiving. But I really am offended. This was unprecedented. Outrageous!”

I keep waiting for the punch line.

Seriously, who sounds more like blustering blowhards, Trump or the quoted press (quoted by the sympathetic Remnick)? Who sounds more unforgiving, vain, and distracted, Trump or the quoted press? Who sounds more full of invective and resentment, Trump or the quoted press? Who sounds more outrageous and out of line (not to mention biased), Trump or the quoted press?

And who outside of the press thinks the press was fair to Trump after his nomination? It was pretty clear during his campaign that—after the first month or two of their unfavorable coverage didn’t hurt him, and it became apparent he wasn’t just a joke but had a chance for the nomination—that they were essentially fattening him up for the kill (in the metaphoric sense), promoting him till he was nominated and then portraying him unfavorably afterward so that their favored one, Hillary, could beat him.

It didn’t work out quite that way.

You wouldn’t put me in the category of “Trump fan,” and yet it’s clear to me that the press lies about him with some regularity. I’ve been chronicling press bias on a host of issues for many many years; it’s nothing new and nothing unexpected.

I think the more interesting question right now is why Trump called the meeting in the first place only to excoriate them during it. So I’ve prepared a little survey for you, with a choice of answers:

(1) He didn’t excoriate them; the press lied about how he behaved in order to smear him.

(2) He didn’t plan to criticize them so strongly, but he’s emotionally impulsive and lost control of himself.

(3) He purposely did it because he was angry with them, but thought they’d keep it off the record, as he’d requested of them.

(4) He purposely did it because he thought it would intimidate them into covering him more fairly in the future.

(5) He purposely did it and knew it would be leaked, because he wanted to play to the majority of Americans who happen to agree with him that the press is a bunch of no-good liars.

(6) He purposely did it and knew it would be leaked, because he figured it would cause the public to discount future bad press for Trump as a spiteful and retaliative backlash on the part of the press.

(7) He purposely did it and he knew that articles such as Remnick’s, quoting the over-the-top nearly-hysterical reaction of the press, would be written, and that those articles would end up reflecting poorly on the press. In other words, he set a trap for the press, and they fell right into it.

(8) None of the above.

You can choose more than one answer.

I know what I think, but I’ll tell you later.

About that “Hamilton” thing

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m not so very interested in an incident that seems to be absorbing people so heavily this days, in which an actor in the Broadway show “Hamilton” made a condescending speech from the stage around curtain call time suggesting that Mike Pence—who was in the audience—should respect diversity, yada yada yada.

Everyone else seems to be highly interested in it, though, so I’ll say my piece.

No, this wasn’t about “an actor deign[ing] to speak respectfully about his concerns and the concerns (as he saw them) of non-white Americans to an elected official.” If actor Brandon Victor Dixon had met Pence at a party and spoken of those concerns, or run into him on the street or at a rally or even in the theater lobby or at the stage door: great, fine, no problem. Speak of any concern you want. Freedom of speech, yay!

If Dixon had said it on his Facebook page—likewise, fine. Or written a Letter to the Editor that was published in the Times—great, more power to him. Or even written a play with that theme and performed it—no problem.

The issue for me is that he did this in his role as actor on the stage in an altogether different play, albeit an actor taking a bow, and blindsided Pence who was sitting in the audience (a captive audience, you might say) as the theater’s paying guest.

Inappropriate and wrong. And that would be true no matter what the political persuasion of the actor and the elected official. I’d say exactly the same thing if the actor had been on the right and the politician were Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.

The talented creator of “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda, tweeted out how proud he was of Dixon for “leading with love.” Miranda added, “And proud to remind you that ALL are welcome at the theater.” Gee, even our terrible VP-elect? Are ALL welcome to attend without being lectured to from the stage about how they should run their affairs, before they’ve even taken office? It makes me wonder what the word “welcome” means.

The left is at war with science, not the right

The New Neo Posted on by

An interesting premise:

I’ve read the Left’s indictments, including Chris Mooney’s bestseller, The Republican War on Science. I finished it with the same question about this war that I had at the outset: Where are the casualties?

Where are the scientists who lost their jobs or their funding? What vital research has been corrupted or suppressed? What scientific debate has been silenced?…

Mooney rails at scientists and politicians who oppose government policies favored by progressives like himself, but if you’re looking for serious damage to the enterprise of science, he offers only three examples.

All three are in his first chapter, during Mooney’s brief acknowledgment that leftists “here and there” have been guilty of “science abuse.” First, there’s the Left’s opposition to genetically modified foods, which stifled research into what could have been a second Green Revolution to feed Africa. Second, there’s the campaign by animal-rights activists against medical researchers, whose work has already been hampered and would be devastated if the activists succeeded in banning animal experimentation. Third, there’s the resistance in academia to studying the genetic underpinnings of human behavior, which has cut off many social scientists from the recent revolutions in genetics and neuroscience. Each of these abuses is far more significant than anything done by conservatives, and there are plenty of others. The only successful war on science is the one waged by the Left…

… two huge threats to science are peculiar to the Left””and they’re getting worse.

The first threat is confirmation bias, the well-documented tendency of people to seek out and accept information that confirms their beliefs and prejudices…

Scientists try to avoid confirmation bias by exposing their work to peer review by critics with different views, but it’s increasingly difficult for liberals to find such critics…

…the second great threat from the Left…[is]… its long tradition of mixing science and politics. To conservatives, the fundamental problem with the Left is what Friedrich Hayek called the fatal conceit: the delusion that experts are wise enough to redesign society.

The article is long, but please read the whole thing. If you’re into sending friends links to articles, it might be one to send to those on your list who think the right is the group that is impeding the objectivity and progress of science.