Obama equates the danger from Syrian refugees with that of tourists

The New Neo Posted on by

Sometimes it seems as though there are so many outrages occurring, and so many lies/misrepresentations told, that some of the most important get lost in the shuffle and start blending in with the rest of the din. For example, about five weeks ago President gave forth a comforting message meant to soothe the silly frightened children known as The American Public, and to belittle the Republican position:

Speaking to reporters with his usual impatience, Obama said Republicans are ginning up unsubstantiated fear when it comes to our new neighbors [the Middle Eastern refugees].

“The idea that somehow they pose a more significant threat than all the tourists who pour into the United States every single day just doesn’t jive with reality,” Mr. Obama said. “So my expectation is after the initial spasm of rhetoric, the people will settle down, take a look at the facts, and we’ll be able to proceed.”

This is interesting on a number of levels. If you think about it, there’s no reason a tourist couldn’t commit a terrorist act. The same is true of those coming here on visas, whether those visas are overstayed or not (many Republicans candidates are suggesting finding a better way of vetting and/or tracking people here on visas of all types), as was well-demonstrated by the carnage in San Bernardino—where one of the perpetrators was here on a fiance visa—not long after Obama’s remarks.

But even before that, there was an interesting little historical fact that Obama was ignoring when he made his remarks, which is that most of the 9/11 hijackers were here on visas. Actually, they were here—wait for it—on tourist visas and business visas:

The fact is, only one of the 19 9/11 hijackers came to the U.S. on a student visa, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. That one was Hani Hanjour, a Saudi Arabian terrorist who piloted the plane that was flown into the Pentagon, according to a 2004 staff report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. In his student visa application, Hanjour provided paperwork showing that he was enrolled in an English as a second language program in Oakland, Calif., but he never attended after arriving in America (a fact that would draw scrutiny today [sic?]). He did not, however, overstay his student visa.

Of the other 18 9/11 hijackers, 14 came to the United States on six-month tourist visas and four came on business visas, according to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Once in the U.S., two of the hijack pilots applied to have their immigration status changed to vocational student, but neither used such a visa on their subsequent re-entry into the country.

So President Obama may indeed be correct that the danger from Syrian refugees is similar to that from tourist visa holders. Unfortunately, that’s not really a great argument for the case he’s trying to make—which is that no one should worry about either phenomenon.

Naturally, terrorists who are here longer and who have time to plan and to recruit can probably do more damage. But there is little question that those who come here as refugees, or on tourist visas, or on student visas, or on business visas, could be terrorists. And of course, terrorists would always be a tiny tiny percentage of the whole of each group. But it only takes a very small number of terrorists to do damage: in many cases, just one.

Or two, as in the case of the Tsarnaev brothers. They weren’t Syrian refugees, but this is their initial history. Note the role played by tourist visas:

In April 2002, the Tsarnaev parents and Dzhokhar went to the United States on a 90-day tourist visa. Anzor Tsarnaev applied for asylum, citing fears of deadly persecution due to his ties to Chechnya.

The story of the Tsarnaevs illustrates several principles. One is that actual or potential terrorists can come here many ways, including (of course) as refugees on on visas of various kinds, including tourist visas initially. Another is that the Muslim immigrant population in this country—and all Western countries—constitutes a reservoir of potential recruits for jihadists, either through the influence of radical mosques, acquaintances, or online. The longer a person lives here the more assimilated that person would be, and the less vulnerable to this—theoretically. But in practice, it is most definitely possible for a long-term resident or even someone born here to become radicalized. As we see from the Tsarnaev brothers, as well as in San Bernardino and the pattern of attacks in Europe, those who have been born here or lived here from childhood are hardly immune.

That does not mean that refugees from a country such as Syria, which is loaded with terrorists, are not also potentially dangerous. Obama would have us draw a false conclusion from his equivalence, whose main purpose is to mock and/or condescend to those who question his judgment.

Does Trump own the media or does the media own Trump?

The New Neo Posted on by

So who’s using whom?

Rush Limbaugh says that Trump has the media frustrated and wrapped around his little finger:

…[T]hey can’t take him out. They can’t stop covering him. They can’t humiliate him. They can’t embarrass him. They can’t diminish his support. They’re powerless, and this has them in a panic. The media that can make-or-break anybody cannot touch Trump, and every time they try, all they do is make him bigger. They can’t explain this. They are frustrated to no end, and so are both political parties who rely on the media to be the great equalizer in all of this.

Nothing’s working. No matter what Trump says, the media is there, and every member of the media is there. Every network, every camera, every microphone is there.

There’s no question Trump is getting more coverage than anyone else, by a huge margin. YUUUGE! So perhaps Limbaugh is right, and Trump is having a good laugh on a media that can’t do a thing about him except his bidding, and is instrumental in getting him more and more attention even though they don’t want to do it.

But here’s an alternate theory, one I happen to ascribe to.

I think the media knows that Trump is the story of the election. He’s exciting, people are entertained by watching him. So they get something out of covering him—readers and viewers. Remember, though, that the vast majority of the MSM is on the left, so much of what they do is with the goal of directing their readers and viewers to what’s so dreadful about Trump, and of energizing Democratic voters so that, if Trump’s the nominee, voters feel they must vote for the sane person—who would be Hillary—even if they don’t much like her.

I have believed from the very start of Trump’s campaign that the MSM (except for the MSM on the right, which is a very small group compared to the liberal MSM) would very much like Trump to be the Republican nominee. They believe very strongly that, if nominated, he will lose, and that his chances of losing are greater than that of certain other candidates such as Rubio (polls bear that out).

I think they are correct, although of course I don’t know for sure. But more importantly, they think they’re correct. So for them, covering Trump is win/win. They get ratings. And although they’re not trying to destroy him—not for now—they dearly want him to be the nominee, and they’re confident they can destroy him later, or that he will self-destruct with the majority of Americans.

They might be right or they might be wrong. But they think they own him in the sense of using him to fit their purposes, not the other way around.

Transformations: queen into swan

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post. It highlights one of my favorites moments in the ballet repertory.]

Ballet specializes in transformations. After all, it changes the human body from a lumbering earthbound thing into an ethereal yet steely and gravity-defying, lighter-than-air, transporter of the audience into realms of beauty and transcendence.

Yes, it can be corny, especially the old warhorse ballets such as “Swan Lake” and “Giselle,” featuring doomed maidens and supernatural spells—and in the case of the former a princess who is half-swan half-human.

But that’s part of the fun of it all—going past the schmaltz and the drama and creating something Other. The abominable film “Black Swan” traded at least partly on this mystique.

One of my favorite moments in dance occurs at the end of the second act of the ballet “Swan Lake.” I’ve seen it countless times. To those of you who don’t know the story, it sounds quite absurd, and it is: the prince has been out hunting, sees a swan he’s about to shoot, but before he does so the bird transforms before his eyes into a swan-maiden (whatever that is). They fall in love, and she explains that an evil magician has put her under a spell. After he plights his troth (which occurs in dance when a person touches his/her heart and then holds two fingers aloft; it’s a mime thing) the magician comes out and changes her back into a swan again and she flies off, as he watches helplessly and longingly.

That transformation is the moment I’m talking about. On the stage, when it’s well-done, it never fails to give me chills. You can see the moment the spell starts taking hold, then her struggles to fight against it, and then the instant when the spell totally overwhelms her and she is transformed into a flying bird.

Here are a number of versions of the same moment, all with somewhat different choreography. None of them, of course, have anything like the same magic and illusion they convey on the stage. But they’ll do. Here’s the Kirov-trained Natalia Makarova, in a production I saw many times:

Here’s the American (although born in England) Gillian Murphy:

This next one is the great Bolshoi dancer Plisetskaya (see this):

And here, for variety, is the much more restrained British dancer, Margot Fonteyn:

The best explanation of Trump vs. Cruz I’ve ever seen

The New Neo Posted on by

Here it is. It’s written by Mark Krikorian, and it crystallizes something that I’ve been struggling to articulate about what’s going on at the top of the Republican race this election cycle, at least for some conservative voters (hardly all).

I wrote “Trump vs. Cruz” in the title of this post. But that’s not really accurate. It’s more “Trump voters vs. Cruz voters.” Or better yet, “Trump voters vs. the Republican establishment and Obama, and what those voters see as the possible remedy” vs. “Cruz voters vs. the Republican establishment and Obama, and what those voters see as the possible remedy.”

That’s too big a mouthful. But here’s Krikorian to make it more clear:

The fight…seems more like the Republican nomination fight is between the anti-establishment Cruz and the anti-system Trump. In other words, Cruz believes our constitutional arrangements are basically sound but that the leadership class that manages those arrangements has got to go. Trump, on the other hand, seems to reject those arrangements altogether…Trump’s support comes from people who have given up on our existing “regime,” in the political science sense of the word…[C]onstitutionalism “has been found lacking” ”“ Obama, and the Supreme Court, have pursued extra-constitutional (i.e., illegal) tactics and prevailed. Repeatedly. On momentous issues that immediately affect every American.

So the Left has ignored the strictures of the Constitution, and succeeded in imposing its will on the rest of the country. It’s no surprise that a large share of that rest of the country is going to conclude that adhering to the Constitution’s strictures is a form of unilateral disarmament, like following Marquis of Queensbury rules in a knife fight.

…if we don’t want the November election to be between two post-constitutionalists, where we vote simply on which Duce will rule over us for the next four years, we need to persuade first GOP primary voters, then the broader electorate, why the preservation of our republican norms is vital to America’s liberty, independence, and prosperity. We can’t do that simply by pointing out what a nitwit Trump is.

There’s one more paragraph, but it contains further description of the situation. Leaving aside the question of whether Trump is a “nitwit” (I don’t think he is), it doesn’t offer a suggestion on how to perform that act of persuasion. In fact, teaching “why the preservation of our republican norms is vital to America’s liberty, independence, and prosperity” has traditionally been the function of the educational system in our republic, but that system has also failed, and way too many people in “the broader electorate” haven’t a clue what Krikorian is talking about or why it’s important. If the people get the government they deserve, I suppose it would be a sort of justice if we end up “voting simply on which Duce will rule over us.”

Paul Ryan explains

The New Neo Posted on by

For years I’ve wondered about the Republican leadership in Congress. Not just the obvious—what they’re doing and what their motivations might be for doing it—but also about why we generally have heard so little from them about it. Generally, when they’ve done something that angers the conservative electorate, they haven’t even seemed to feel that they owed their constituents an explanation. At least, if they did, I often couldn’t find that explanation.

Why was it missing? Was it their outright contempt for their public? Or were they just inarticulate boobs? Or were they trying to get the word out, issuing statements and the like, and the MSM was purposely making it difficult for them by not reporting on it, knowing that the lack of explanation would be sure to foster more resentment on the part of conservative voters towards the GOP leaders in Congress?

I don’t have an answer to the question, although I think it’s some combination of the three. So when Paul Ryan took over the speakership of the House, I had no illusions that it would be all that different. And when he allowed the recent Omnibus bill to pass, and conservative voters erupted in rage, there was little reason to be surprised. The only explanation from him I managed to find was a single sentence in a blog somewhere (I no longer remember where it appeared) saying that he’d said something about inheriting a bad series of decisions from Boehner on the budget fight, was not able to do anything to change it this year, but was planning to start from scratch next year and things would be different.

But now, long after I’d stopped looking, I found this audio [hat tip: Powerline], which is Ryan’s explanation of what happened and of his future plans.

After you listen to it, you may still think it’s malarky, or worse. Plenty of the commenters at Powerline did. However, some were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

For example:

Ryan hesitated to take the speakership precisely because he knew that his options would be limited in this round of budgeting, and that he would find himself carrying the can for the inevitably flawed outcome. He knew, also, that the critics would forget — if they ever paid attention to — his singlehanded effort in the 2012 election cycle to educate Americans about restoring sanity to federal spending. He’s one of the best men we have, and deserves more patience than he’s getting.

What do I think? I have no reason to trust the Republican leadership at this point, but I think it’s at least a possibility that Ryan is speaking truth, or at least some partial truth. It will be easy enough to find out, though. Next year’s actions by Ryan will tell us more about his true intent than any speculation, or any statement.

And all through the house…

The New Neo Posted on by

…a creature was stirring.

Last night was Christmas Eve. I was expecting a visit from my son, who was flying in as a rare treat. I had tidied up, and was putting on the finishing touches while waiting for him to arrive from the airport. As I was poised at the top of the staircase on my way down from the second floor, I saw a movement on one of the lower steps.

A dark shape. A small dark shape—very still, and then in motion again. With tiny little ears, and a long tail.

A mouse. Very much stirring.

I let out a shriek, like in the cartoons. Yes, I know that mice do not hurt people. But yes, they give me the willies when they startle me and scurry around—like—mice. The few times when this has happened before, they’ve always sought the little opening from whence they’d come and scurried away, hardly ever to be seen again.

But this mouse seemed to be lost and disoriented. Maybe because it was almost midnight on Christmas Eve, and no creature was supposed to be scurrying. In the midst of my unreasonable fear was a sort of amusement. What was it doing here, this evening of all evenings?

The mouse was still on the staircase landing, and although I assumed that somehow it had managed to climb the three stairs to where it was, it appeared to be perplexed about how to get up or down from there. I watched it from what I considered a safe distance at the top of the stairs, and I could see it moving back and forth, back and forth, first towards the wall and then towards the edge of the step, but it could not seem to get the courage to make a break for it.

What did I do? I called my son and asked how far away he was. Forty-five minutes. And then I settled in, not for a long winter’s nap but for a long viewing from a good vantage point to monitor the mouse’s position till he arrived. For the moment, the mouse seemed quite well-contained on the stairs, but I didn’t trust that—and sure enough, slowly but surely, with many fits and starts, it managed to get back down those three stairs to the ground floor.

Now, it turns out that watching a mouse is actually sort of interesting. This one darted from stair-bottom to hall to bathroom to bedroom and back again (my place is built upside-down, with the bedroom and bathroom downstairs and living room and kitchen upstairs). I had a special horror of the mouse being in the bedroom—so after its one foray into the bedroom for five minutes and then out again, I slammed the bedroom door shut and placed a thick towel to block the crack at the bottom. The towel seemed to act as an effective barrier, like a small mountain range, and the mouse didn’t venture into that room again.

But back and forth it went—along the wall in the hall, into the bathroom, up a few stairs and then back down them again. I noticed that it seemed to get smarter and smarter; each time it climbed the stairs it was better at it, until it seemed as though it had been doing this all its little life.

And then by trial and error it found the molding along the side of the stairs, which then acted as a sort of ramp by which the mouse could easily climb all the way to the top. This filled me with dread. I was conceding the downstairs for now, but the upstairs was my territory! But what to do? That molding-ramp made it so easy; the mouse was coming up in a determined sort of way, till I could look into its beady little eyes and it could look into mine. I let out another involuntary yelp, stamping my feet and clapping my hands, trying to make enough noise to frighten it off.

I looked and sounded completely and utterly ridiculous.

And yet it was effective; the little thing stopped in its tracks, then turned and went back downstairs again, to my great relief. Then a few minutes later it came up the ramp-molding again, and I re-enacted the same stupid pantomime I had before. The mouse kept coming—up up up, light and fleet of foot, relentless and implacable. I actually thought of throwing something at it to head it off—perhaps my shoe, like Clara in “The Nutcracker.” But oh, for a platoon of tin soldiers like hers! (I’ve cued up the video to start at the right spot):

But alas, we were alone, just the two of us, mousie and me. And I didn’t really want to hurt it, which I thought might happen if I threw my shoe, so I reached for a pillow—and at that moment I heard the key turn in the lock and my son walked in.

I’m always happy to see him, but perhaps never so happy as this time, as I stood at the top of the stairs in a semi-crouch, clutching a small pillow and making silly-yet-hopefully-scary noises at a mouse that was climbing a molding-ramp on the edge of the staircase.

My son managed to keep his disdain under control long enough to catch the mouse in a plastic container and escort it outside to be released, but not before we took a photo though the plastic. Yes, the mouse is cute. But no, I don’t want him in my house, not on Christmas Eve or any other time.

Mouse 2

Mouse 1

Merry Christmas!

The New Neo Posted on by

holiday-cheer-christmas-tree.gif

On Christmas Day—blog?
I’d rather have grog,
Or maybe eggnog,
Then go walk the dog.
Or watch a Yule Log,
And eat like a hog,
Then go for a jog.
Blogging’s a bog.
My mind’s in a fog,
Or maybe agog
From much dialogue.
I’ll return to the slog
Tomorrow, and blog.

[NOTE: This is another recycled poetic effort of mine. By the way, on the words “the dog,” that’s a picture of the actual dog we had when my son was growing up.]

‘Twas the Blogger’s Night Before Christmas

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This small poetic effort of mine has become somewhat of a holiday tradition at neo-neocon. So here it comes again—just like the holiday itself. Merry Christmas Eve to you all!]

‘TWAS THE BLOGGER’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ”˜sphere
Bloggers were glad to see Christmas draw near.
Their laptops were turned off and all put away
The bloggers were swearing to take off the day.

Their children were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of extra time danced in their heads
With a father or mom not distracted by writing
No posts to compose, and no links to be citing.

But we all know that vows were just meant to be broken
And the vows of a blogger can be a mere token.
There’s always a chance that some sort of temptation
Will rise up to make them of fleeting duration.

For instance, there might be found under the tree
A sleek Mac; well, what better sight could there be?
And who could neglect it and wait the whole day?
It cries to be tried out, one just can’t delay.

Or maybe somewhere there’s a fast-breaking story
Important, and possibly leading to glory.
It can’t be ignored, there’s really no choice,
So add to the din every blogger’s small voice.

And then there are some who may just like to rhyme
(I’m one who at times must confess to this crime),
And it’s been quite a while since Clement Clarke Moore
Wrote his opus (though authorship’s been claimed by Gore)””

So it seems about time it was newly updated
And here’s my attempt””aren’t you glad you all waited?
Forgive if it sounds a bit awkward to read.
In writing, I set a new record for speed.

I had to get under the wire and compose it
Before Christmas Day. Now it’s time that I close it.
But let me exclaim (or, rather, I’ll write)
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!

Here’s a video of the original, with some 50s-type nostalgia for those who remember. There are a few odd anomalies (“safe in their beds” instead of “snug in their beds”). But it brought back memories of pincurls, and the days when parents were assumed to sleep in twin beds (even though I don’t recall that most people did).

I think I had the book on which this is based. The illustrations look very familiar:

Is the administration going to deport some illegal refugee families?

The New Neo Posted on by

Your guess is as good as mine as to whether the Obama administration will actually go about deporting some illegal refugee families, as rumored in this WaPo report based on the word of “officials familiar with the undertaking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because planning is ongoing and the operation has not been given final approval by DHS.”

My hunch at the moment is that it’s being floated out there to see what the reaction would be, and that it may never happen. Also, in typical MSM fashion, the headline—“U.S. plans raids to deport families who surged across border”—is somewhat misleading although not strictly inaccurate.

Let’s see what the article actually says:

(1) Yes, there are plans, but it might not happen.
(2) These tentative plans that might not happen involve “hundreds” of the more than 100,000 families that have come here since last year, according to the article.
(3) And even these “hundreds” of families only involve those “who have already been ordered removed from the United States by an immigration judge.”
(4) It appears that it would not affect any of the unaccompanied minor children who have also come here in great numbers.

The article goes on to describe the fact that officials in the administration have been arguing about whether to do this or not. It doesn’t name names except that of Secretary Jeh Johnson, who is supposedly for it. As far as I can tell, even if it actually ends up happening it would be mere window-dressing designed to give an appearance of something being done when in fact virtually nothing is being done.

Notice, also, the truth embedded in the news but not highlighted: at present, even a judge ordering deportation (something that doesn’t happen to the majority of the new arrivals who go to court, and many of whom don’t even appear in court when ordered to do so) has absolutely no effect on these families, who instead have so far been allowed to stay. Our court system, inadequate as it is in the first place to deal with the numbers involved, is meaningless without enforcement.

Liberal columnist Greg Sargent sees this deportation development as a possible trap for Hillary. If it ever occurs, she will be forced to comment on it. Her approval would make the immigration activists condemn her, her disapproval would place her way to the left of most Americans.

Political ennui—or is it Weltschmerz?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been writing about politics for eleven years now, and never have I felt such a sense of dread about it. Dread mixed with a certain lassitude caused by overload.

The slowly-approaching and already nearly endless-seeming election campaign of 2016 has made it worse, but it really started in November of 2012. It was then, with the re-election of Barack Obama after what I considered an obviously disastrous first term, that it truly sunk in that the American voting public had changed in an even more fundamental way than I had previously thought, and I hadn’t been sanguine about things before.

This year is even worse. Forget the Republican field for a moment (if you can), and just look at the fact that Hillary Clinton is considered a competitive candidate by nearly half of America and may indeed win not only the Democratic nomination but the presidency. And yet, in almost every arena around the world, things have gotten worse during the administration of Barack Obama and his enabler, Hillary, and that’s before you even look at her own personal character and history.

When I was deciding on the title of this post and chose the word “ennui” to describe my feelings, I thought to look it up just to make sure I had the right word. When I did, I saw that the definition seemed to include the idea of lack of excitement: “a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom.” That doesn’t quite seem to be right, though— “satiety” maybe; lack of interest, no.

But then I found this helpful page entitled, “How to tell whether you’ve got angst, ennui, or Weltschmerz.” Note that the first and third words have German origins (although “angst” is also found in Dutch and Danish, and has passed into common English usage as well) whereas the second comes from the French. Ah, those world-weary Europeans!

I’ve got some of all of those three feelings, but I’ve concluded that the term with which I’m least familiar, Weltschmerz, fits the bill most exactly:

Weltschmerz, German for “world pain,” was also coined during the Romantic Era and is in many ways the German version of ennui. It describes a world weariness felt from a perceived mismatch between the ideal image of how the world should be with how it really is.

Wiki mentions “the feeling of anxiety caused by the ills of the world.”

Now, I realize this runs counter to the holiday spirit I should be exhibiting, and often do exhibit. Maybe a contributing factor is the exceptionally warm-but-gloomy (foggy, rainy, cloudy) weather we’ve been having in New England lately, the equivalent of a gray rather than a white Christmas. I figured, though, that I’d devote this post to the feeling and hope to purge it—angst, ennui, Weltschmerz—from my system.

Last chance for Amazon Christmas orders

The New Neo Posted on by

[BUMPED UP]

There’s no longer plenty of time to order from Amazon through the neo-neocon portal. But it’s still possible, and if you’re a procrastinator, it may be just the thing. And hey, if the gift gets there the day after Christmas, it’s the thought that counts, right?

And if you use those widgets on my right sidebar to click through for all your Amazon purchases (now and at any other time of year) you will also be giving a small but still not insignificant gift to neo-neocon (it adds up, folks), and all without spending any extra money yourself. What could be more wonderful?

I thank you all in advance, and I thank all of you who’ve already done your shopping through my blog.

[NOTE: In case you have ad blocker or something of that sort, and the Amazon widgets don’t show up on your computer, go here. You can also click on any Amazon book link within a post and anything you order during that click-through gets credited to me. I believe it’s true even for things you put in your cart but don’t order till a bit later, although there’s a time limit on how long they can be there and still get credited when ordered (I’m not sure what that limit is, though, so best to order sooner rather than later).]