House passes resolution saying Obama didn’t comply with the law

The New Neo Posted on by

The House is able to do what the Senate cannot, because the House has no filibuster or cloture to allow the minority to block a vote even if the majority wants one. And so we have this:

The House on Thursday approved a resolution aimed at laying the legal groundwork to prevent President Obama from lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran until lawmakers get to see the full text of the “roadmap” that governs how Tehran accounts for its past nuclear work.

In a party-line 245-186 vote, members passed the resolution by Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, and Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y. The non-binding measure declares that Obama has not met the requirements of a law enacted in May giving Congress the opportunity to review any nuclear deal with Iran.

The significance of this is unclear, but at least it’s something. The Senate cannot vote on a similar measure without changing the filibuster/cloture rule to make it possible for a simple majority to move to a vote. Even without that, though, this apparently could “be the basis of a lawsuit against the Obama administration, something House Speaker John Boehner said is a possible option.”

Tomorrow the House is planning to go ahead with a vote on a resolution to approve the deal, which will fail to win a majority. My prediction is that this will be mostly along party lines, although some Democrats will join the Republicans in failing to approve. The idea is to get the House Democrats to actually go on record as affirmatively approving the deal, rather than hide from making an official public commitment on the issue.

Iran deal disapproval vote is blocked by Democrats in Senate: this is what they call a “victory”

The New Neo Posted on by

As completely expected, the Iran deal disapproval measure failed to win the requisite 60+ votes to invoke cloture in the Senate and allow a vote on the merits.

We’ve known for quite some time that this would happen. But this article (and no doubt many others in the MSM) frames it as both “improbable” and a big victory for Obama and the Democrats.

That’s not surprising either; that’s the way the MSM rolls.

For example, there’s this from the article, describing the Congressional Democrats as: “overcoming ferocious Republican opposition and delivering President Barack Obama a legacy-making victory on his top foreign policy priority.” The reality is that Obama’s deal not only did not get a single Republican vote, it failed to get all the Democratic votes, either. So this was another bipartisan vote—but as usual with Obama, the bipartisanship was all on the side of the opposition to the president.

This “victory” of Obama’s, so “legacy-making,” therefore consisted of Obama getting just enough Democrats on his side to block a vote on the merits (that vote to invoke cloture failed by a margin of two). Even had cloture gotten the necessary 60+, and the disapproval bill come to a vote and been passed, Obama would have vetoed it and there would not have been enough votes to override that veto.

This “victory” consists of Obama’s managing to use a minority vote to allow him to get away with making a deplorable bargain conceding an enormous amoumt to one of our worst enemies, and against the will of a large majority of the American people. It’s the mullahs who are the real victors here. Some legacy.

[NOTE: Personally, I think the Republicans should have changed the rules on cloture for this (not that they were ever going to do that). However, I realize that’s just my emotion talking, because even had they done so and thus been able to vote for disapproval, Obama would have vetoed it. Because Obama has veto power, and because the Democrats are dedicated to Party First, the entire enterprise was doomed no matter what the approach.

Even had the Senate decided to vote on this as a treaty, which needs 2/3 for approval, they would have run into the same exact roadblock involving the 60-vote cloture threshold. They could not have voted on the deal as though it were a treaty without getting 60 votes to allow it to come to a vote, and the Democrats would never have given them that opportunity. Even if the Senate somehow had managed to vote on it (which was always unlikely), then Obama would simply have ignored the failure to ratify the treaty, saying that the deal was not a treaty but instead an executive agreement, and the courts would have almost certainly backed him up (if it went to the courts at all).

In fact, that scenario might still play out, because as I understand it, nothing stops the GOP from trying to vote on it as a treaty at this point. I predict they won’t even try, because of the aforementioned likelihood that it could never come to a vote for similar reasons to what happened with today’s Senate events.

It might have mattered to have been able to at least debate the disapproval bill, pass it, and force Obama to use his veto. But how many people even pay attention to that sort of thing, when the measure itself would not have stood, and the Iran deal would not have been blocked in the end?

What a sad, sad day.]

[NOTE II: Here’s an article by Steven Hayward on the limitations of the Congressional GOP majority.]

The mysterious Homo naledi

The New Neo Posted on by

A new human fossil has been found, and it has some intriguing and unusual characteristics:

The researchers suggest that the fossils represent a previously unknown species in our genus, Homo, one that had a peculiar mix of physical traits and engaged in surprisingly sophisticated behavior for its brain size. But the age of the fossils has yet to be determined, leaving other scientists unsure of what to make of them.

The fossils exhibit a combination of primitive features that bring to mind our ancient australopithecine predecessors (including Lucy and her ilk) and features that are associated with Homo. For instance, the pelvis has a flared shape like that seen in Australopithecus, whereas the leg and foot resemble those of Homo sapiens. Likewise, the skull combines a small braincase with a cranium that is otherwise built like that of early Homo. The teeth, meanwhile, are small like those of modern humans, yet the third molar is larger than the other molars””a pattern associated with australopithecines. And the upper limb pairs an Australopithecus-like shoulder and fingers with a Homo-like wrist and palm. “All that combined leaves us with a really, really strange creature,” Berger remarks.

What’s more, there are lots and lots of them:

Cavers collected the bones from a difficult-to-reach chamber 30 meters below ground within the Rising Star cave system in South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind region, which is famous for its human fossils. In their paper describing the new remains, published today in the journal eLife, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and his colleagues report that the remains include multiples of nearly every element of the skeleton and represent at least 15 individuals. For a field in which even an isolated bone can constitute a major discovery, this find is an absolute windfall.

That’s absolutely incredible, from what I know of early human fossils from my long-ago physical anthropology courses (I was an anthro minor).

The combination of traits that have been found in these fossils reminds me of the famous hoax Piltdown man, which was a sensation when it was first “discovered” because it combined an apelike jaw with a brain case that resemble a modern human’s, a sort of chimera. Well, that’s because it was composed of an ape’s jaw and a modern human cranium, a fact that was exposed about 40 years after its 1912 “discovery.”

Let me be clear that I’m not accusing the scientists who discovered Homo naledi of perpetrating a hoax. For one thing, it would have to be an awfully elaborate conspiracy, and for another, modern science makes it much tougher to fool anyone about this sort of thing. I’m trying to emphasize the somewhat unusual mixture of traits in these fossils.

Scientists have so far been unable to date the bones because the conditions in the cave did not favor the preservation of DNA. Age can tell you a lot; for example:

If the remains are young, then scientists will have to come to terms with the fact that a small-brained human species with tool-wielding hands managed to persist alongside larger-brained human species””possibly including H. sapiens””for an amazingly long time. In that case, says team member John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin, perhaps H. naledi was among the archaic human species that interbred with H. sapiens and thereby contributed DNA to the modern human gene pool, like Neandertals did.

There is also this:

At other fossil sites in the Cradle of Humankind, fossils are encased in sediment and animal bones are found mixed in with the human remains. The bones of humans and animals alike accumulate in the caves there through catastrophic events such as falling down a hole in the ground into an underground cave and getting trapped, or becoming dinner for the large carnivores that denned in the caves. But the Rising Star bones are not encased in sediment, nor do any remains of any vertebrate animals, apart from a few rodents and birds, accompany them. Given the absence of any evidence to indicate that Homo naledi fell or washed into the underground chamber or was transported there by a predator, the discovery team suggests that this small-brained human deliberately disposed of its dead. Furthermore, the location of the H. naledi bones in a chamber that appears to have always been lightless and difficult to access suggests that the humans went to great lengths to deliver the bodies there, and possibly needed an artificial light source (perhaps a simple torch) to do so. The behavior is important because it implies that H. naledi had, as Hawks puts is, “a shared cultural knowledge of mortality.”

Wow.

More here.

Trump the loose cannon

The New Neo Posted on by

Trump’s Carly Fiorina “face” remark has highlighted and accentuated something about him that was already clear: he is a loose cannon, and he gets off on that and thinks many of his followers will get off on it, as well.

I think he is correct in that estimation. But I don’t think it’s true of quite as many of his followers as he thinks, and I think it repels at least as many if not more. I guess we’ll see.

There are a lot of people on the right (I use the word “right” because it’s the best one I have, but that doesn’t exactly describe it) who are so fed up with the GOP and Obama and PC-thinking and the downward slide of America that they want a loose cannon, they revel in a loose cannon. What does a cannon do, after all? Well, I’m no military expert, but I know that one of the main things cannons do is to knock down fortified defenses. The GOP is a fortified defense (in the metaphoric sense, of course), and the die-hard Trump supporters want a cannon to knock it down. And they don’t really care what else it might destroy, because the “boom!” feels so good when it’s on your side, aiming at what you see are the right targets for a change.

I see Trump as mostly “boom;” smoke and hot air and puffery. I agree that he’s said a lot of things that need saying, but that’s his entire value for me. Perhaps he’s more of a battering ram than a cannon, but a battering ram just gets you inside, it doesn’t fix anything.

That’s why I’m drawn to someone like Carson, for example. I’ve been listening to him more lately. He also has never held public office, but his quietness is the perfect foil for Trump’s bombast. Between the lines, though, you can also see an immensely strong resolve and an ability to say the hard, non-PC things. Carson just says them quietly, and somewhat slowly. The slowness and calm of Carson’s voice have an interesting effect, at least on me: he makes me hang on his words, waiting and eagerly anticipating what he might say next. It’s usually something insightful and worthwhile, as well as sensible.

As time goes on, candidates reveal themselves. That’s one of the benefits of a long campaign season (I can’t really think of another). Part of it is about that old-fashioned word: character. Trump has revealed his character to be that of a self-absorbed, vindictive, immature braggart. We’ve never had a president like that before—except—except for Obama.

I’m sick of it. I was sick of it before Obama’s presidency even started.

You might ask: why write so much about Trump? It’s a good question; after all, this is the second post today! But I don’t really see this as being about Trump. He’s just the jumping-off point. It’s about the American people and the presidency, what they want and what they need. We are at a crossroads that just might be the most important one in our history. We need to choose wisely, and well.

Donald Trump: at face value

The New Neo Posted on by

Is it really such a good idea to make fun of a rival candidate’s looks?

It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman being mocked, or a man or a woman doing the mocking. It’s always an extremely juvenile way to go.

And yet Donald Trump went there, about Carly Fiorina:

The [Rolling Stone] profile contains Trump saying of Fiorina, while watching her on TV, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?! I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”

Silly, mean-spirited, petulant, sophomoric (and that’s high school sophomore, not college). I’m not even sure what he’s referring to, since I happen to think Fiorina’s an attractive, well-groomed, well-dressed 61-year-old woman. I’d guess she’s had some “work” done on her face, but certainly not enough to be grotesque in any way. Here’s her response to Trump’s comments:

Trump himself is a 69-year old man whose face has seen better days (as have the faces of all of us of “a certain age”). All the more reason he shouldn’t go there. He’s had his share of ribbing about his supposed toupee, too, although not from me. I couldn’t care less if he wears a toupee or not, but I’ve never perceived him as wearing one. I’ve always thought he just has an unusual head of hair or sports an odd combover.

One thing I do think is that Trump, who appears to be another narcissist (I’m a bit tired of that these days, after all the years of Obama), is getting more and more full of himself now that his campaign has been so successful. Always confident and brash, he’s even more confident and brash than before. Flush with his own cleverness and PC-flaunting brilliance, he could be tempted to be just a little more outrageous as time goes on. Trump will either get hold of himself and rein it back a bit (just a bit, because if he reined it back too much, Trump wouldn’t be Trump), or this sort of juvenile trash-talking will escalate until he alienates more and more people.

All this talk about faces, though, makes me think of these songs, all of which are about reacting to a person’s face. They all have the word “face” in the title, too.

Enjoy:

I think maybe I wrote the part of the post about Trump and Fiorina just to have an excuse for the songs.

[ADDENDUM: Trump tries to walk back his comment by saying that when he said “Look at that face!” he didn’t actually mean Fiorina’s face, he meant her persona.

I don’t know about you, but to me there’s no way that “face” means “persona.” And “Look at that face!” means “look at that face.” There’s nothing metaphorical there.]

“Interesting” times

The New Neo Posted on by

There has been so much news lately that it’s hard to keep up with it, much less write about every topic that I consider vitally important and/or entertaining and/or amusing and/or inspiring and on which I have something to say.

I can’t chain myself to my computer 24 hours a day—or even 12, although some days I do just that (minus the chains, that is). Today I could write on and on, but I’m going to have to arbitrarily stop at the moment without the new immigration post or the one on Chrissie Hynde, rock music today, and Allan Bloom (yes, Alan Bloom; maybe tomorrow I’ll get it done), or the twenty other topics I would like to address.

And that’s just today.

However, gotta go for now. So feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

[NOTE: Meanwhile, just as I was about to press “publish,” this news on Boehner’s Obamacare lawsuit comes from left field. Remember Obamacare? Remember the lawsuit? Remember Boehner’s fighting words on that? Yes? No? Mere rhetoric, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? I guess we’ll see at some point.]

[ADDENDUM: Meanwhile, our trusted partner in peace Khamenei chimes in with some reassuring thoughts:

We negotiated with the U.S. on the nuclear issue for specific reasons. (The Americans) behaved well in the talks, but we didn’t and we won’t allow negotiation with the Americans on other issues…

God willing there will be nothing left of the Zionist regime in 25 years. Meanwhile, the heroic jihadi Islamic spirit will not leave the Zionists in peace for a second.

What could possibly go wrong?]

Anti-establishment stirrings in the House…

The New Neo Posted on by

[see UPDATE in ADDENDUM II]

…on whether to proceed with the vote on the Iran deal.

As has often been the case in the past, Ted Cruz is leading the way in the Senate, along with several conservatives in the House (Roskam of Illinois; Pompeo of Kansas and the rest of the House Freedom Caucus). The House doesn’t have a cloture or filibuster rule, so it is much easier to bring something to a vote there over minority opposition than it is in the Senate.

I haven’t seen any definitive statement coming down one way or the other from Boehner (just a general one about “healthy conversation”), although I doubt he’s on the side of the rebels—after all, he’s what they’re rebelling against.

In the Senate, quite a few people take the establishment tack. They are no surprise whatsoever—McConnell, Corker, and Pete Sessions (note: not Jeff Sessions, as I had originally and mistakenly thought, although his supposed inclusion had puzzled me):

“As I understand law, once Sept. 17 passes is it not the case that the president will take the view that he is free to go forward,” to lift sanctions [sic], Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said, rejecting the proposal.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) also dismissed the proposal…

“You know what, I think it’s pretty clear that a month and a half ago we understood that Sept. 17 would be the drop-dead date. And the week we’re doing it is a little bit late to bring up the argument,” said House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas).

Here’s more of Corker’s reasoning about it. I can’t find more background to the Sessions quote, in which I assume that he explains why it’s “too late.” But when last I checked, September 9th was more than a week before September 17th.

Or perhaps the “too late” he’s talking about is a generic “too late”—meaning there just isn’t enough will among enough Republicans to stop Obama. For that, it was always too late.

[ADDENDUM: Andrew McCarthy writes that John Kerry’s letter to Congress on the Iran deal effectively admits that the deal supports terrorism:

Obviously, there is no disputing the Obama administration’s patent knowledge that much of the material support its deal will provide to the terror-sponsoring regime in Tehran will be funneled to these and other designated foreign terrorist organizations. This means yet another criminal statute prohibiting material support to terrorism is implicated (Section 2339B of the federal penal code).

That law states:

Whoever knowingly provides material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and, if the death of any person results, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life.

The statute goes on to require proof that an accused person knows:

”¦ that the organization is a designated terrorist organization[,] ”¦ that the organization has engaged or engages in terrorist activity[,] ”¦ or that the organization has engaged or engages in terrorism[.]

It is incontestable that President Obama, Secretary Kerry, and their subordinates know all three things about Hezbollah and Hamas, even though the statute requires knowledge of only one of them to establish guilt.

It bears emphasizing that for all their absurd claims about how the president’s Iran deal reins in Iran’s nuclear program, even Obama administration officials feel compelled to admit that Iran will step up its material support to terrorism while it is receiving the windfall from the deal.

That is not just unconscionable; it is criminal.

How can Obama’s Iran deal conceivably be supported by anyone who claims to oppose international terrorism or support Israel?

I assume that last question of McCarthy’s is rhetorical. But just in case McCarthy wants an answer, here’s mine: the left specializes in saying that 2 + 2 = 5 if need be.]

[ADDENDUM II: There’s a report that Boehner is giving in to conservatives on this issue, postponing the vote and substituting a series of votes on three other resolutions in the House:

The first would declare that President Obama violated Corker-Cardin by failing to provide the side deals to Congress. The second will bar President Obama from lifting sanctions against Iran. The third will be a resolution outside of Corker-Cardin to “approve” the Iran deal that all Republicans will vote no on. Most Democrats will vote yes.

We don’t know whether this report is true; at the moment it’s just a report from anonymous sources. Even if it comes to pass, in the Senate all three could be filibustered, or vetoed if they do manage to get to a vote. But they have the advantage of putting Democratic members of Congress on the record as having supported Obama’s Iran deal.]

The Iran deal: when does 41 out of 100 votes become a big victory?

The New Neo Posted on by

When it’s Obama’s, and signifies a sellout of Israel, the world, and 35 years of unified and unquestioned US policy.

That’s when.

This development is one of the many problems with Corker-Menendez. If there never was a chance of getting a veto-proof majority to block Obama, then passing that bill only affords him and the MSM an opportunity to crow about victory when he fails to get a single Republican vote, loses many influential members of his own party, and yet manages to stymie his opposition anyway by twisting arms (and who knows what else) in order to squeak by with enough of a minority to thwart the opposition’s efforts. All that Obama’s forces needed to block even a vote on the subject were 41 votes, and they now seem to have them.

Of course, Republicans could probably figure out some way to jettison the filibuster rule and vote on the Iran deal even without those 41 votes. The disapproval vote would then pass with a simple majority, but not enough to even come close to overriding a veto. So why bother? And I ask that question even though I am well aware that the GOP leadership lacks the intestinal fortitude to even consider it. But although I’m not sure it would be worth it even if we had a party and leadership willing to do it, I still think that something must be done.

Harry Reid offers his usual sterling thoughts:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said Tuesday he will insist that 60 Senate votes are required to pass a resolution of disapproval.

“There is no precedent in recent history for an issue of this magnitude getting consideration in the Senate without having to secure 60 votes,” Reid said during a speech before the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

That would be humorous if the issue weren’t so very very serious. Let me correct you, Sen. Reid. You are right that “There is no precedent in recent history for an issue of this magnitude getting consideration in the Senate without having to secure 60 votes.” Actually, there is also no precedent in recent history (or perhaps American history) for a minority party to force “an issue of this magnitude” (Obama’s deal with Iran) onto a strongly opposed American public as well as the majority party in Congress. And that’s not just because the present-day Republicans in Congress are feckless. In fact—although we on the right are reluctant to face it—the Republican majority would be powerless to stop Obama without the cooperation of very significant numbers on the minority side in order to reach the requisite 60 and then 67 votes, and that cooperation has not been forthcoming even on an issue where the danger to America and the world is crystal clear, and the break with previous bilateral policy profound.

Listen to what Democratic support for Obama’s position sounds like, and weep. Here’s Michigan Democratic Senator Gary Peters voicing his “support”:

Peters said in a statement, “Despite my serious reservations, I will reluctantly vote against a motion of disapproval because I believe that doing so will protect the credibility of the United States to hold Iran accountable to adhere to every single obligation”…

‘Tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church-door, but ’tis enough, ’twill serve.

And lest you think it would have been just hunky dory had Congress not passed Corker-Menendez, think again. These same 41 Democratic senators (and perhaps even more) would have blocked a vote on the Iran deal as a treaty, too.

Why has this sort of thing never happened before? One reason is that, in the past, very basic issues of national defense did not engender a similar magnitude of disagreement; the sides tended to be on the same page on them for the most part. In addition, if a president wanted to do an about-face on a huge matter of foreign policy, he would not have done so in the past without major support. Nor would he have done so against public opinion (see NOTE below for a discussion of Nixon and China), because he feared the consequences.

Obama is sui generis in being audacious enough to even think of doing such a thing, and confident enough that he could get away with it. And I believe he is correct; he will get away with it.

Andrew McCarthy and Paul Mirengoff have some suggestions for how next to proceed in order to even have a chance of stopping this. Again, it seems that the GOP Congressional leadership is loathe to take them to heart. At this point, who can profess surprise at this? But the GOP leadership’s reaction (or rather, lack of reaction) is still unconscionable.

Here’s Powerline’s Scott Johnson on the subject:

I wrote a spokesman for Senator McConnell yesterday on this point. I posed the question whether Senator McConnell was aware that the administration had not complied with the requirement for submission of side deals set forth in Corker-Cardin. If so, I asked, what is he going to do about it? Senator McConnell’s spokesman responded: “He’s called the administration out on not handing over these deals. He’s going to oppose the deal and get a vote on the resolution of disapproval. I’m not sure there’s much that can be done beyond that, unfortunately.”

Not only is the letter’s tone of mild regret offensive and deplorable, but the reply doesn’t make much sense in view of the 41 Democratic votes to block any vote in the Senate. McConnell is “going to oppose the deal and get a vote on the resolution of disapproval”? How’s he going to do that? Is he going to do away with the need for cloture in order to vote? That would at least be interesting, although ultimately ineffective in terms of overriding a veto. But I very much doubt that’s what McConnell contemplates. No, his office probably just hasn’t updated its form letters yet to reflect the new “unfortunate” reality. And when the vote is blocked, he will just declare that to be “unfortunate,” too, and claim his hands are tied.

[NOTE: On Nixon and China, I will reproduce something I wrote last month.

Nixon’s trip to China is not a good analogy with Obama and Iran, although the left is very fond of making it. Among other things, Nixon’s well-known history of anti-Communism defused criticism to a large extent, but Obama has no such hardline history on Iran. Au contraire.

Nixon faced very little criticism from either party in a Democratic-dominated Senate (it was 54/44 D/R and the House was 255 to 180).

This rather obscure piece is the only article I’ve found online so far that deals in any detail with the amount of Congressional or popular opposition Nixon faced. Basically, any serious opposition was limited to William Loeb, who had been the editor of the very conservative Manchester Union Leader, and just a few others. Similarly, the MSM was almost universally approving and optimistic about his overtures, as was most of the public. Taiwan was understandably negative about the US rapprochement with China, but that seemed a minor problem on the US domestic scene.

But the huge differences between Nixon/China and Obama/Iran are hardly limited to the differences in US public opinion, although that’s important. There are large substantive and strategic differences as well. Also important was the fact that Nixon was not negotiating a nuclear arms deal, but rather beginning diplomatic relations and opening trade, a far less controversial process (although at this point we see that it has had major repercussions, some of them negative for the US). But China already was a nuclear power at the time of Nixon’s trip, and had been for several years.]

John Hinderaker has a question about the tsunami of “refugees” arriving in Europe

The New Neo Posted on by

Hinderaker asks some questions I’ve been wondering and wondering and wondering about, too—why this surge of refugees in Europe now? And who are they?

These are obvious questions, but a great many articles on the subject fail to ask them or answer them. For the most part they’re either ignored, or more often glossed over with a boilerplate version of “these people are leaving in large numbers due to the war-torn strife of the civil war in Syria or Libya or any of several other places.” No doubt that’s true for a certain percentage of the newcomers. But these wars have been going on for quite some time and nothing like these enormous and overwhelming numbers were coming to Europe before. And no one has alleged (at least as far as I’ve seen) that things have suddenly gotten catastrophically worse.

Hinderaker correctly points out that the welfare states and benefits available in many nations in Europe have something to do with the “why?” question in the general sense. But still, it doesn’t explain the sudden explosion of numbers. Nor does it explain another phenomenon he and many others on the right (including me) have wondered about:

…[W]hy is it that the migrants are overwhelmingly young men? There are a few women, children and families; but numerically, young men predominate. This is not what one would normally expect from a group of refugees fleeing a war zone.

My question exactly, and so far I’ve seen no answer, because no one seems to know, or if they do know they are reluctant to say. I can come up with plenty of possibilities—as you no doubt can, too. But all of that is mere educated guessing.

Hinderaker quotes a letter from a reader of his:

The current wave is just the beginning and the response just encourages more. Oh, sure, it will stop just as soon as the 14 century old Sunni-Shia conflict and the various middle eastern tribal hatreds and rivalries abate and the entire African continent, soon to have 2 billion people, ceases to be fundamentally dysfunctional.

That means that the situation is utterly intractable. An intractable situation is not a “problem” that can be “solved”: it is a fact which must be reckoned with.

This is why so many actual citizens of these countries (as opposed to their elites) are growing more and more alarmed at the failure of their own government to either see what seems very plain, or to acknowledge it if they do see it.

Pam Geller has an idea of what’s going on:

If these were real refugees, where are the women? Where are the elderly people? Where are the weak and the sick? It is increasingly clear that what I have said is true: this is not a refugee crisis. This is a hijrah, a migration to Islamize a new land.

It’s hard to reject that as a working theory. A commenter at Powerline has another somewhat related theory [spelling is the original]:

This is merely the vanguard, the ones who establish a foothold and a foreward line. There’s a reason they are mainly young males: they are most likely to find work and can ‘make do’ with their living accomodations. But back home, there are parents, wives, children, unmarried siblings, and any number of family members waiting for their papers to arrive in the mail.

Steyn is right: the West is commiting suicide.

Again, I would like to disagree. I want to disagree. But I cannot.

Spengler attempts an answer, too:

The horror [resulting from the West’s reluctance to offer help in fighting ISIS or intervening in Syria] has now piled up on Europe’s doorstep, thanks evidently to the skill of Turkish gangs who have turned the Turkey-to-Balkans smuggling route into a superhighway. Europe said and did nothing while the global refugee count exploded from 40 million in 2010 to 60 million in 2014, according to the UN High Commission on Refugees, but was shocked, shocked to find such people on its doorstep.

Here’s another opinion, from a Welsh MP:

We are already providing sanctuary and shelter to people in over 20 refugee camps in Turkey and also further in Jordan so nobody is actually fleeing because of war, everyone is taking an economic decision.

“That is why these are mostly young men, mostly with mobile phones, who are chancing their luck. I fully understand why. I would probably do the same if I was them. I don’t blame them for having a go.”…

And by the way, most Arab countries won’t take them without a visa:

This comes as part of wider obstacles facing Syrians, who are required to obtain rarely granted visas to enter almost all Arab countries.

Without a visa, Syrians are not currently allowed to enter Arab countries except for Algeria, Mauritania, Sudan and Yemen.

Spengler explains:

The Arab Gulf States accept very few Syrian refugees out of security concerns which are entirely legitimate. Thousands of Syrian migrants fought either with the Assad regime (allied to Iran, the nemesis of the Sunni Gulf States) or ISIS and al-Qaeda (which want to overthrow the Saudi monarchy).

The social pathologies that this brutal and brutalized population bring Europe will change Germany in a predictably nasty way. Even worse, the open door policy will attract an order of magnitude more such refugees, as the Interior Minister of the State of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann, warned yesterday. To no avail: Germans have spent the past seventy years feeling bady about themselves and are determined to take this opportunity to feel good about themselves.

Precisely.

This young “refugee” isn’t exactly economically typical in that his family has enough money to buy him safe passage to Sweden as well as false papers. But he may be extremely typical in his motivation for leaving, which is economic:

Central Damascus has escaped the worst of the Syrian civil war but young men still face being called up. Even if they don’t have to fight, jobs are scarce in the shattered economy.

“I found myself having to choose between living on handouts from my family or taking a risk, hoping that once you cross the sea, you will have a chance for a better life,” the tall, bearded young man told Reuters by Skype from the northern Swedish town of Boliden.

For 18 months the marketing graduate, who did not want his family name to be given, scanned head-hunters’ websites and attended countless interviews without success. Then he went to the UAE on a business visa in 2012, early in the Syrian conflict, to join a venture run by relatives.

He was one of thousands of Syrians, and Palestinians with Syrian documents, who have joined family members and friends already resident in the UAE during the war. But the enterprise faltered and Tareq’s efforts to find work in Lebanon and Algeria also failed. And so his thoughts turned to Europe…

Tareq could reach Sweden unhindered, traveling through Europe’s Schengen area, where border controls are no longer routinely made.

Sweden has a long tradition of welcoming refugees. Paperwork can be minimal and arrivals are given a medical test before being moved on to temporary homes. Tareq was one of 81,000 people who sought asylum there last year, second in Europe only to Germany, with Syrians making up the biggest group.

After a tranquil night at his new home in Boliden, Tareq applied for permanent residency.

“In a few years, I will be able to return to the Middle East with my Swedish passport,” he said.

As the Welsh MP said, I can’t fault the guy in terms of looking out for himself. He sounds savvy, and doesn’t appear to be a terrorist (although as we know, appearances can deceive). It seems to me that the formation of the EU and its open borders (which seemed like a crazy step to me even before this) represented an attempt by those in charge to convince the people of Europe that they have no nationhoods or borders to protect. What began as an interchangeability of residence within Europe for Europeans now effectively includes a welcome mat to the entire world. Coupled with a welfare state, that’s a recipe for disaster.

[ADDENDUM 9/9: I see that today Steven Hayward of Powerline asks much the same question. He thinks this is being orchestrated, but doesn’t know exactly who is doing it.

See also this comment from “Ann.”]

Black voters and Donald Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

A recent poll has shown that Donald Trump has an astounding amount of support among African-Americans: 25%.

Astounding, that is, for a Republican in this era. Of course, the poll could be an outlier. But for the sake of discussion let’s assume it’s accurate.

If true, it would be both extraordinary and significant for the 2016 election, because in the last few elections the electorate has included about 11-13% black voters, and that bloc has gone Democratic somewhere in the 90-plus percentage realm. Therefore, we’re talking about the potential switch of a lot of votes.

So, why might this be happening? Name recognition for Trump has got to be a part of it—that, and the fact that Hillary Clinton is not a natural fit for these voters despite her Democrat status and her service in the Obama administration. Trump isn’t black, but he’s also an urban New Yorker who comes across as outspoken, street-smart, and tough, which probably adds to his appeal for the urban-dwelling segment of the black population.

But most of all, Trump probably appeals because he is addressing an issue that resonates with many African-Americans: illegal immigration. The black population is a group that is particularly threatened by the arrival of so many illegal immigrants in terms of job competition. Democrats have been catering to the Hispanic vote in championing “undocumented workers,” but that could backfire on them with black voters if the right Republican candidate were to come along.

I’m made no secret of the fact that I’m not a Trump fan. But I do think his emphasis on the problems with illegal immigration is mega-important and very appealing to a huge number of Americans who feel they’ve not only not been heard, but who feel that politicians of both parties are ignoring and purposely sabotaging their concerns.

Trump speaks for those people who feel that way, and he speaks in a very loud voice. So why should anyone be surprised if a significant number of black people support him?

Happy Labor Day!

The New Neo Posted on by

[BUMPED UP]

Labor Day is the bookend on the opposite end of summer from its holiday beginning, Memorial Day.

July Fourth is its early peak, with the promise of many long light-filled days ahead. But Labor Day is summer’s last gasp, the moment I dreaded as a child because it marked the finish of vacation and the start of the school year. Spiffy new clothes, a shiny bookbag, freshly sharpened pencils, and the promise of beautiful autumn leaves’ arrival were nice. But they couldn’t make up for the fact that a new school year was beginning. Where oh where had the summer gone?

Now let’s celebrate the fact that we don’t have to worry about that anymore—except, perhaps, for the teachers among you.

As for politics—Obama will celebrate the holiday by extending paid leave for federal contractors:

The White House wouldn’t specify the cost to federal contractors to implement the executive order, which Obama was to address at a major union rally and breakfast in Boston. The Labor Department said any costs would be offset by savings that contractors would see as a result of lower attrition rates and increased worker loyalty, but produced nothing to back that up.

But let’s forget about Obama for the moment. I’m with friends and family, it’s a beautiful day, last night we had grilled steak steak and salmon (and corn and blueberry pie). Today we’re about to eat lunch, and then maybe swim.

Here’s wishing you all a Happy Labor Day! Barbecues, picnics, parades, beach, just hanging out in your yard, whatever you desire. And for the historically-minded among you, here’s some information the origins of the holiday.

[ADDENDUM: I just noticed that, seemingly by coincidence, all three posts today have something to do with the topic of labor.]

These evil British colonizers of Africa and the institution of slavery

The New Neo Posted on by

So, why don’t our history books teach us much about this aspect of the history of slavery in Africa? Mine certainly didn’t touch on it at all, and in all the years since then, when I’ve about the evils of the institution of slavery I never heard a word about the role of Christian missionaries in ending slavery within Africa itself.

In fact, ending slavery seems to have been one of the main reasons that missionaries were there, and a rather significant force in the European colonization of Africa in general, although of course it was hardly the only factor. And the campaign was relatively effective, although there is still some slavery there:

Patrick Manning explains that “if there is any time when one can speak of African societies being organized around a slave mode production, [1850-1900] was it.”

The continuing anti-slavery movement in Europe became an excuse and a casus belli for the European conquest and colonisation of much of the African continent. It was the central theme of the Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889-90. In the late 19th century, the Scramble for Africa saw the continent rapidly divided between Imperialistic European powers, and an early but secondary focus of all colonial regimes was the suppression of slavery and the slave trade. In response to this pressure, Ethiopia officially abolished slavery in 1932, Sokoto Caliphate abolished slavery in 1900, and the rest of the Sahel in 1911. By the end of the colonial period they were mostly successful in this aim, though slavery is still very active in Africa even though it has gradually moved to a wage economy. Slavery has never been eradicated in Africa, and it commonly appears in African states, such as Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Niger, and Sudan, in places where law and order have collapsed.

Then today, after I’d already prepared the above draft, I saw this offering in the comments section from “Dennis”:

In the mid 19th century Islamic jihad against black Africans was in full force. The Muslims had invaded central Africa and were killing and enslaving Africans on a massive scale. They would march the newly minted African slaves out to the coast in chain gangs. These poor sick undernourished Africans were forced to march with elephant tusks on their heads. Many of the men were castrated out in the field…

The Britisher who was most influential missionary in fighting Muslim depredations in Africa was a Scottish missionary named David Livingstone (19 March 1813 ”“ 1 May 187). The primary mission of the early British missionaries to Africa was to protect the Africans from Islamic jihad. David Livingstone and the other missionaries fought Islamic jihad against Africans primarily through education both in England where the English were alerted to the tragedy which was unfolding in Africa and in Africa where the Africans received the education necessary to enable them to repel the Muslim invaders. It is ironic that leftists accuse missionaries of destroying traditional African society and to some extent they did however since Christian missionaries relied on education and persuasion to win converts rather than by force they ended up saving much of what is uniquely African from the impending destruction by Islamic jihad.

The name of the modern day Islamic jihadis in central Africa, Boko Harem (roughly translated ”“ Western education is a fraud which is forbidden in Islam) is not a fluke. The Islamists know exactly what the missionaries hoped to accomplish by establishing schools and hospitals throughout Africa and they hate them because they stand as bulwark against their violent jihad.

It’s a never-ending struggle, isn’t it?

Ultimately, after European influence, some anti-slavery feeling developed within the Muslim world, although it was met with resistance:

Bernard Lewis writes: “In one of the sad paradoxes of human history, it was the humanitarian reforms brought by Islam that resulted in a vast development of the slave trade inside, and still more outside, the Islamic empire.” He notes that the Islamic injunctions against the enslavement of Muslims led to massive importation of slaves from the outside. According to Patrick Manning, Islam by recognizing and codifying the slavery seems to have done more to protect and expand slavery than the reverse…

Arab or Islamic slave trade lasted much longer than Atlantic or European slave trade: “It began in the middle of the seventh century and survives today in Mauritania and Sudan. With the Islamic slave trade, we’re talking of 14 centuries rather than four.”…

Earlier in the 20th century, prior to the “reopening” of slavery by Salafi scholars like Shaykh al-Fawzan, Islamist authors declared slavery outdated without actually clearly supporting its abolition. This has caused at least one scholar (William Clarence-Smith) to bemoan the “dogged refusal of Mawlana Mawdudi to give up on slavery” and the notable “evasions and silences of Muhammad Qutb”.

Muhammad Qutb, brother and promoter, of the famous Sayyid Qutb, vigorously defended Islamic slavery from Western criticism, telling his audience that “Islam gave spiritual enfranchisement to slaves” and “in the early period of Islam the slave was exalted to such a noble state of humanity as was never before witnessed in any other part of the world.” He contrasted the adultery, prostitution, and (what he called) “that most odious form of animalism” casual sex, found in Europe, with (what he called) “that clean and spiritual bond that ties a maid [i.e. slave girl] to her master in Islam.”

ISIS and Boko Harum are firmly in that tradition, although much of the Islamic world now opposes them:

ISIL appealed to apocalyptic beliefs and “claimed justification by a Hadith that they interpret as portraying the revival of slavery as a precursor to the end of the world.” In late September 2014, 126 Islamic scholars from around the Muslim world signed an open letter to the Islamic State’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, rejecting his group’s interpretations of the Qur’an and hadith to justify its actions. The letter accuses the group of instigating fitna””sedition””by instituting slavery under its rule in contravention of the anti-slavery consensus of the Islamic scholarly community.

Who will win that battle?