World’s oldest man

The New Neo Posted on by

Can you imagine the strength of this man’s constitution? Phenomenal:

A 112-year-old Holocaust survivor has officially been named the oldest living man in the world.

Israel Kristal was born on September 15, 1903, and became the record holder today, at the age of 112 years and 178 days, Guinness World Records confirmed to ABC News.

“I don’t know the secret for long life,” Kristal said upon achieving the title. “I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why. There have been smarter, stronger and better looking men then me who are no longer alive. All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost.”…

After the Nazis invaded Poland, Kristal was moved into the Lé³dz ghetto with his family in 1939. Four years later, he was sent to Auschwitz.

Kristal survived the camp, but lost his wife, Chaja Feige Frucht and their two children.

He remarried, had more children, moved to Israel, and this is his family today:

family

Rebuilding.

No-poo

The New Neo Posted on by

Say it isn’t so—the no-poo trend isn’t the panacea for curly hair that it was cracked up to be?

As a curly-headed woman myself, I have a dog in this race. I gave up on no-poo quite a while ago because it just didn’t feel right, and the shampoo I currently use is this one, although who knows whether it matters or not. At least it smells good enough to eat.

My hair is a wonderful thing and a difficult thing. It has a tendency to be frizzy, to actually resolve into some sort of ‘fro just a couple of days after washing, and even the day I wash it if I don’t load it down with several “products.” That shampoo is just the beginning; I’ve got an arsenal of things I’ve bought and discarded, and although I’m constantly changing, my current regimen involves these two weapons, as well: conditioner and styler.

The dirty little secret about curly hair like mine is that it tends to remain very clean in terms of oil. Simply put, my hair does not seem to produce it. In fact, I would have to roll my head in dirt or sand to actually get it dirty, and I could go for weeks without washing it although I usually do wash it every week or a bit more frequently (and I don’t roll around in dirt), just to recondition it.

Curly hair is sort of strange in other ways, too. When you’re feeling in a certain mood, you can just take random curls and snip them a bit to change the shape of the whole edifice and no one’s much the wiser. The hair is very forgiving in that way, and doesn’t require any sort of precision.

It occurs to me that I’ve written quite a bit about my hair products lately. Perhaps this is to escape from the constant preoccupation with a political scene that seems designed to make one’s hair stand on end.

The Hillary email saga continues

The New Neo Posted on by

Fox reports that Hillary’s IT specialist could become a very damaging witness to her:

The source said Pagliano told the FBI who had access to the former secretary of state’s system ”“ as well as when ”“ and what devices were used, amounting to a roadmap for investigators.

“Bryan Pagliano is a devastating witness and, as the webmaster, knows exactly who had access to [Clinton’s] computer and devices at specific times. His importance to this case cannot be over-emphasized,” the intelligence source said…

A source close to Pagliano did not dispute the basic details of what was provided to the FBI, but said the highly skilled former State Department IT specialist had met with the bureau on a “limited basis” and was at best a “peripheral” player in the investigation.

I have long predicted that Hillary Clinton will not be indicted, unless for some reason the Obama administration decides that there is a more viable candidate that could replace her as the Democratic nominee (which I also don’t think is likely to happen). I strongly suspect that it doesn’t matter what evidence emerges or how “devastating” it is.

Update on the Michelle Fields story

The New Neo Posted on by

[UPDATED further below]

Trump has made a statement, and a lot of video has emerged, on the incident where Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is alleged to have grabbed Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields by the arm and thrown her to the floor.

As usual, Trump has accused the accuser:

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump accused Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields of fabricating her accusation that his campaign manager grabbed her hard enough to leave a bruise during a campaign event.

“Perhaps she made the story up. I think that’s what happened,” Trump told reporters after Thursday night’s GOP debate in Miami of Tuesday night’s alleged incident.

In a later statement issued Friday morning, the Trump campaign said the accusation is “entirely false” and that the staff had “no knowledge of said situation.”…

The Jupiter Police Department confirmed to NBC News on Friday that a police report about the incident has been filed and that an investigation is ongoing.

…The Trump campaign manager attacked Fields in a series of tweets, calling her an “attention” seeker ”” which prompted the journalist to tweet a picture of her bruised arm.

Lewandowski later continued to tweet about Fields, calling her an “attention seeker” and questioning her journalistic integrity.

Trump’s campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks also cast aspersions on Fields’ reporting, saying in a statement that the Breitbart reporter had “never met” Lewandowski.

After that statement, Breitbart said it was “disappointed” in the campaign’s response and “in particular their effort to demean” Fields’ previous reporting.

This despite the evidence of a bruise on Fields’ arm, and an audio that supports her charge (it’s of Fields and a WaPo reporter witness talking immediately afterwards).

Today there are also multiple videos emerging. None show a crystal clear view of the exact moment the incident occurred, but they show enough that the following seems clear:

(1) Some incident of the sort occurred; Fields does not seem to be making anything up in that regard.

(2) It was either at the hands of Lewandowski (most likely) or possibly a security guard right next to him, or both:

More video airing at The Daily Beast. Ben Terris [the WaPo reporter witness] followed along and maintained an excellent vantage point (I always check the position of the refs during these endless booth reviews). C Lewandowski clearly reached for Fields’ arm as the group passed behind the same damn obstacle. Possible remaining spin – the security guy, presumably Secret Service, finished the job that C Lew ineffectually began.

Well. The call on the field is that C Lew grabbed her. Pending more video, there is nowhere near enough to overturn that.

This incident reflects on Trump in two ways. The first is that, if Fields is correct in the identification of Lewandowski as the person who grabbed her arm and threw her down, Trump’s contention about choosing “the best people” is suspect. Of course, I suppose it depends on how he would answer the question “best at what?” And the other way it matters is (as I contended in my first post on the subject) what is shows about Trump’s reactions and instincts.

His first reaction (and usually his second, third, fourth, and fifth, and on and on) is to blame the other person. And not just to blame the person for error (that would not be so bad on Trump’s part), but to cast aspersions on the person’s veracity, motives, and character. Now, some may think this is just an example of Trump’s ability to fight. I’d say it’s just another in many examples of his thin skin, poor character, ability to fight dirty, and vengeful retaliatory nature. This may have worked for him quite nicely as celebrity and builder but it bodes ill for the rest of us in terms of his behavior if he were to gain the enormous power of the highest office in the land.

Another interesting thing is to see Trump’s followers make excuses for him and jump on the bandwagon to attack Fields and/or to say the media deserves it anyway (which is pretty weird, since Breitbart has been Trump’s greatest booster). Go to any blog that attracts a lot of Trump supporters and you’ll have no trouble seeing what I’m talking about.

It seems that no one—including the Big Guy—would ever say something like, “I stand behind my campaign manager and believe he is innocent and Fields mistaken, but if evidence comes out that such a thing did happen then I would of course condemn it.” I realize that Trump would consider such a statement a sign of weakness, and against his usual strategy of denial and character assassination. I’m wondering whether he’s ever tracked back anything in his life.

[ADDENDUM: More video emerges.]

[ADDENDUM II: Ace has an excellent post on the subject, and in another post of his about it he writes, “I didn’t join the conservative movement to become a fascist.” Ace, by the way, is another changer.]

[UPDATE 3/14: Even more video has surfaced which purports to show the moment of contact involved, and does not involve a push of the magnitude alleged. Since there were supposedly two moments of contact (at least that’s what I read earlier) shown on other videos, I’m not sure what this new video proves or disproves, or where it fits into the sequence. Nor was I sure what the previous videos showed, either.

Again, just to sum up what we know: there was some sort of touching, or perhaps two touchings. Did either involve a squeeze hard enough to bruise? Or to almost push Fields down? Certainly nothing of that sort is shown on any of the videos, but Trump’s campaign manager does seem to have touched Fields.

I’ve never been able to figure out what happened, and I still am not, but my primary interest in the entire thing is Trump’s reaction. Earlier in this post I suggested what I think he should have said, a response which would have denied any wrongdoing on the part of Lewandowski but would have caused scarcely a ripple of controversy. I repeat it here: “I stand behind my campaign manager and believe he is innocent and Fields mistaken, but if evidence comes out that such a thing did happen then I would of course condemn it.”]

Ace explains why he went from Trump-curious to anti-Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

A good post by Ace.

Ace’s blog is one of the few I follow regularly, and for a while I’ve noticed that Ace (who has for a long time been very angry at the GOP establishment) was amenable to Trump’s candidacy, although never completely all-in for him. And then—I seem to recall it was around the time that Trump repeated his “Bush lied” message during a debate—I saw that Ace’s posts became more negative about Trump.

Here’s his explanation:

You can read Trump in two different ways. You can see his bluster and lack of any policy knowledge as refreshing. You can see his hyperpersonal style and enormous ego as somehow “authentic.”

On the other hand, you can see a guy who’s entire life is devoted to persuading people to get into business with him. A salesman, trying to make a sale. And you can start to see that the salesman really has no interest in his actual product, and no real intent to abide by the terms of the contract. A salesman who is just willing to say whatever he needs you to say to sign the dotted line — and who will decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not to abide by those contract terms, should they become inconvenient later.

The thing is, while I can’t make anyone see this way, I can tell you I went from being a Type 1 person to a Type 2 person. I would waver between these views of Trump, but then eventually I was won to the Type 2 way of seeing things, and now that I see it, I can’t not see it.

Please read the whole thing.

I agree with every word of it, except that I’ve been a Trump-opponent right along. I also have a bunch of additional criticisms of Trump which I’ve already described ad nauseam in close to 100 posts and have no need to reiterate here.

I think a lot of people who support Trump are mired in Ace’s Type 1 view of Trump, and they can’t or won’t change their minds because (1) a mind is a very difficult thing to change; and (2) it would make them lose hope, a hope Trump has given them.

However, note that I said “a lot.” That doesn’t mean “all.” I think a lot of other Trump supporters actually don’t care what Trump turns out to be, as long as his candidacy wreaks havoc with the GOP—and he’s already fulfilled that mission.

Why won’t Rubio quit?

The New Neo Posted on by

Back when Rubio and Cruz were neck and neck and there was no clear frontrunner between them, I lamented that fact and pointed out that they were playing a game of Chicken that could be destructive to both and was helpful to Donald Trump’s candidacy.

But more recently the writing has been on the wall for Rubio, particularly since his abysmal showing in the March 8 primaries. I said subsequently that he should drop out but probably won’t, and now the calls for him to drop out have escalated and include most of his previous boosters.

His campaign is insisting he’s in it through Florida. But why? Here are some possibilities:

(1) He’s a delusional megalomaniac.
(2) He lives in an alternate universe where he has access to secret polling that runs counter to most of the other polls.
(3) He actually wants Trump to win the nomination, or at least wants Cruz to lose it.
(4) He continues to think if he can force a brokered convention he’ll be the winner, and is ignoring how bad he looks right now.
(5) He thinks Cruz has no chance to win even if he (Rubio) drops out, and therefore is staying in because he thinks that although it’s a longshot, it’s the only way that Trump might be defeated in the state.

I’ll go with Door 4. If it’s #5, I think it’s a short-sighted, self-serving misjudgment.

I am angry at Rubio. He was never my favored candidate (that was Walker, then Fiorina, then Cruz), but I was willing to support him when I thought he could be the frontrunner. Now I think he’s acting as a spoiler.

Did Trump’s campaign manager assault a Breitbart reporter ?

The New Neo Posted on by

Trump’s campaign has been dogged by violence and accusations of violence. For example, a black protester was apparently sucker-punched at a Trump rally. And a Trump supporter was threatened at gunpoint at his home by a trio of men over a pro-Trump sign.

Feelings are high, and I don’t think Trump is necessarily responsible for either incident.

But there are things for which he is responsible. For example, I’ve already written about one incident where Trump advocated violence against protesters at one of his rallies. He said:

…he’d like to punch a protester in the face and fondly recalled the “old days” when “guys like that” who disrupted a political rally would “be carried out on a stretcher.””¦

Those are “mere words,” but uttered by a presidential candidate at a rally such words certainly constitute encouragement, although not technically “incitement.”

And Trump is also responsible for his reaction to the behavior of his own campaign manager. This latest incident where Trump’s manager is alleged to have used physical force against Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields is highly disturbing and is the story du jour. You can read a lot about it at that link and decide for yourself.

Here’s the reporter’s statement, and here’s an article that attempts to describe what happened, according to witnesses. Here is one of those witnesses—Ben Terris, a reporter for the WaPo who corroborates Fields’ story.

My best guess is that campaign manager Corey Lewandowski did in fact jerk reporter Fields (a woman, by the way, although I think the offense does not depend on her gender and would still exist as an offense were it a man) away with excessive and unwarranted force, and that he did not know she was from Breitbart, a fact which complicated things for both Trump and Breitbart because the latter is one of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders. So the whole incident is being under-reacted to by Breitbart.

The official reaction from Trump’s spokesperson Hope Hicks is highly characteristic—insinuate that the reporter is lying and trying to get attention, and a denial that anything happened or that there were any witnesses (ignoring that WaPo story by Ferris, as well as this one, and the bruise on Fields’ arm). Hicks also insinuated that Fields may have “a larger pattern of exaggerating incidents” and that readers should “recall she also claimed to have been beaten by a New York City Police officer with a baton.”

Fields’ boyfriend tweeted back this photo, saying, “Michelle getting pushed down by police during the Occupy Wall Street protests. Trump campaign serial liars”:

fieldspolice

Sure doesn’t look fabricated to me.

[ADDENDUM: Breitbart (which, remember, has been one of Trump’s biggest supporters) has issued a new and stronger statement:

The Washington Post just published a very detailed, first-hand account from their senior reporter Ben Terris who is familiar with the campaign, the personalities involved, and was an eyewitness to the incident. We are disappointed in the campaign’s response, in particular their effort to demean Michelle’s previous reporting. Michelle Fields is an intrepid reporter who has covered tough and dangerous stories. We stand behind her reporting, her techniques, and call again on Corey Lewandowski to apologize.”

There’s also this commentary from Ace:

Breitbart.com obviously likes Trump a heck of a lot. And look how Trump is repaying that — by essentially humiliating them, not acknowledging at all the goodwill that Breitbart should have amassed with Trump.

Breitbart asked for the most minor of concessions that would save its own face (they have a responsibility to protect their reporters), and Trump responded by calling the reporter’s truthfulness into question, and calling into question a previous claim of having been hit with a police baton.

This requires Breitbart, in return, to issue another press release.

I imagine Team Trump’s next move will be to demand Michelle Fields apologize to “Mr. Trump.”

Trump doesn’t seem to care about how he treats his strong allies. Humiliating them, making them appear impotent.

Something to keep in mind, going forward. It’s not just his opponents he treats contemptuously — it’s his allies, too…

Anything that could hurt “Mr. Trump’s” brand must be destroyed.

I’ve been studying Trump’s life and his favorite m.o.’s from long before this campaign season, and this is exactly how I’ve noticed that Trump has rolled for many decades. Probably for his entire life.

Don’t ever expect it don’t change.]

Obama and the shaky red line

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “sdferr.”]

I actually have come to the point of such skepticism about the press that I take nearly everything I read there with a grain of salt. But with that caveat, here’s an extremely lengthy article (and this post will only scratch the surface of what’s in there) that describes Obama’s second-term Middle Eastern foreign policy.

The first thing I see is an attempt by writer Jeffrey Goldberg to disassociate potential Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton from what Obama did while she was his Secretary of State, and the second thing I see is how juvenile and simplistic Obama, his advisers, and their motto seem to be:

Obama’s reticence [to intervene in Syria after drawing a red line] frustrated Power and others on his national-security team who had a preference for action. Hillary Clinton, when she was Obama’s secretary of state, argued for an early and assertive response to Assad’s violence. In 2014, after she left office, Clinton told me that “the failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad ”¦ left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.” When The Atlantic published this statement, and also published Clinton’s assessment that “great nations need organizing principles, and”‰”˜Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle,” Obama became “rip-shit angry,” according to one of his senior advisers. The president did not understand how “Don’t do stupid shit” could be considered a controversial slogan. Ben Rhodes recalls that “the questions we were asking in the White House were ”˜Who exactly is in the stupid-shit caucus? Who is pro”“stupid shit?’”‰” The Iraq invasion, Obama believed, should have taught Democratic interventionists like Clinton, who had voted for its authorization, the dangers of doing stupid shit. (Clinton quickly apologized to Obama for her comments, and a Clinton spokesman announced that the two would “hug it out” on Martha’s Vineyard when they crossed paths there later.)

Later on, Goldberg also seems to be trying to rehabilitate Biden, too, from his association with Obama.

Here’s what happened when Obama changed his mind and decided not to intervene:

…[T]he president told his national-security aides that he planned to stand down. There would be no attack the next day; he wanted to refer the matter to Congress for a vote. Aides in the room were shocked. Susan Rice, now Obama’s national-security adviser, argued that the damage to America’s credibility would be serious and lasting. Others had difficulty fathoming how the president could reverse himself the day before a planned strike. Obama, however, was completely calm. “If you’ve been around him, you know when he’s ambivalent about something, when it’s a 51”“49 decision,” Ben Rhodes told me. “But he was completely at ease.”

Not long ago, I asked Obama to describe his thinking on that day. He listed the practical worries that had preoccupied him. “We had UN inspectors on the ground who were completing their work, and we could not risk taking a shot while they were there. A second major factor was the failure of Cameron to obtain the consent of his parliament.”

The third, and most important, factor, he told me, was “our assessment that while we could inflict some damage on Assad, we could not, through a missile strike, eliminate the chemical weapons themselves, and what I would then face was the prospect of Assad having survived the strike and claiming he had successfully defied the United States, that the United States had acted unlawfully in the absence of a UN mandate, and that that would have potentially strengthened his hand rather than weakened it.”

The fourth factor, he said, was of deeper philosophical importance. “This falls in the category of something that I had been brooding on for some time,” he said. “I had come into office with the strong belief that the scope of executive power in national-security issues is very broad, but not limitless.”

Obama knew his decision not to bomb Syria would likely upset America’s allies. It did. The prime minister of France, Manuel Valls, told me that his government was already worried about the consequences of earlier inaction in Syria when word came of the stand-down. “By not intervening early, we have created a monster,” Valls told me. “We were absolutely certain that the U.S. administration would say yes. Working with the Americans, we had already seen the targets. It was a great surprise. If we had bombed as was planned, I think things would be different today.” The crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who was already upset with Obama for “abandoning” Hosni Mubarak, the former president of Egypt, fumed to American visitors that the U.S. was led by an “untrustworthy” president. The king of Jordan, Abdullah II””already dismayed by what he saw as Obama’s illogical desire to distance the U.S. from its traditional Sunni Arab allies and create a new alliance with Iran, Assad’s Shia sponsor””complained privately, “I think I believe in American power more than Obama does.”

There’s much much more.

My own analysis of what happened is a bit different. I think that Obama never meant what he said when he drew that red line, because I think that he is constitutionally (in the personal, and not the Constitutional, sense) incapable of acting in an aggressive military manner with any real force. It goes against his entire approach to foreign policy, which is that he is the withdrawal president. He is here to decrease our military involvement, not to increase it. Bombings must be antiseptic and have almost no chance of collateral damage (or any real success), with the single exception of drone attacks on a terrorist here and there. It is perfectly okay to betray allies; he’s done it many times before. Maybe it’s even good; after all, they shouldn’t rely on us.

What he hadn’t done before was to draw a red line, and my guess is that almost as soon as it was drawn he regretted it and was looking for an out. He found one.

In addition, the king of Jordan was spot on: Obama does not believe in American power, or in using it. Obama is also determined to make sure that, as a result of his presidency, the American people and the world don’t believe in it, either.

Bernie Sanders wins in Michigan

The New Neo Posted on by

I haven’t covered the Democratic race much, because I continue to assume that Hillary will be the nominee.

But last night’s Michigan win by Bernie Sanders is very much worth commenting on:

He won the Michigan primary over Hillary Clinton, 50 percent to 48 percent, when not a single poll taken over the last month had Clinton leading by less than 5 percentage points. In fact, many had her lead at 20 percentage points or higher. Sanders’s win in Michigan was one of the greatest upsets in modern political history.

Both the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus and polls-only forecast gave Clinton a greater than 99 percent chance of winning. That’s because polling averages for primaries, while inexact, are usually not 25 percentage points off.

So there are two “interesting” things going on here. The first is that Sanders won, and the second is how far off the polls were, and in particular how consistently they were off. The polls being off is far less upsetting than the fact that a socialist could do so well.

But in a way I understand it. I agree with everyone who says that, although Sanders is a socialist—and it’s astounding that a socialist can do that well at this point in America and shows how far the Gramscian march has advanced even since Obama had to hide his socialism just a few short years ago—Sanders is a relatively honest broker compared to Hillary. That probably accounts for at least some of his support. But not enough to explain its extent.

It also does not account for the fact that in a match-up against any of the GOP candidates (at least at this point) Sanders does quite well. A sobering look at what this country has become.

The terrorist stabbings in Israel continue

The New Neo Posted on by

Horrific violence continues in Israel as part of the stabbing intifada:

American veteran and Vanderbilt University student Taylor Force was stabbed to death, and his wife seriously injured.

Force, a graduate student in management, was on a trip to Israel with a university group. He was also a graduate of West Point who had served multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is highly and bitterly ironic.

The perpetrator was shot dead by police, but only after he had injured ten people. The attack on Force was one of several occurring on the same day. Another attack featured this grisly detail:

An Israeli man who was stabbed multiple times Tuesday afternoon in a terror attack in Petah Tikva managed to remove the knife from his neck and use it to stab and neutralize his attacker, aided by the store owner, police said.

The attacker, a Palestinian, died a few minutes later, police said.

The victim, later named as Yonatan Azarihab, an ultra-Orthodox man of about 40 who suffered multiple stab wounds to his upper body, was hospitalized in moderate condition.

A headline in CNN about the attacks puts scare quotes around “terrorist.” But at least that’s an improvement on the one in the International Business Times, which reads: “Israel: Three Palestinians shot dead as US vice president Joe Biden arrives for talks.”

Those nasty, vicious Israelis, shooting Palestinians for no reason.