Atlanta cheating scandal perpetrators sentenced

The New Neo Posted on by

I wrote about the Atlanta school cheating scandal several times (see the first three entries after this one on this list). It’s a shocking tale of widescale corruption within the public education system of the city, plus an attempted coverup:

A state investigation in 2011 found that educators gave answers to students or changed answers on tests after they were turned in. Evidence of cheating was found in 44 schools with nearly 180 educators involved, and investigators found teachers who tried to report it faced retaliation.

A grand jury indicted 35 educators in March 2013 on charges including racketeering, false statements and theft. Many reached plea agreements, and some testified at the trial.

Most of the convicted teachers were immediately taken into custody:

“I don’t like to send anybody to jail,” [Judge] Baxter said. “It’s not one of the things I get a kick out of, but they have made their bed, and they’re going to have to lie in it, and it starts today.”

Here’s some further background.

The Iran “deal”

The New Neo Posted on by

The more I think about the Iran deal announced yesterday, the stranger it gets.

One strange thing about it is that it’s not a deal at all; it’s certainly not a contract, a treaty, or an agreement. It’s an announcement of intent with some of the specifics of that intent spelled out and some akin to “a player to be named later.” Preliminary announcements like that either signify basic agreement between the parties and really pan out when the details are ironed out, or are mere hopes and wishes and have propaganda value for the moment but cover up a basic lack of agreement. So it’s odd that pundits are discussing its pros and cons as though it’s something real.

There are also large problems with the deal that make it suspect even if the parties do end up agreeing in June on what’s was announced yesterday by the Obama administration as the basics of the deal. Dennis Ross describes what he thinks is the background philosophy behind the deal:

At some point, the Obama administration changed its objective from one of transforming the Iranian nuclear program to one of ensuring that Iran could not have a breakout time of less than one year. The former was guided by our determination to press Iran to change its intent about pursuing or at least preserving the option of having a nuclear weapon. The latter clearly reflects a very different judgment: that we were not able to alter the Iranian intentions, so instead we needed to focus on constraining their capabilities.

…But if the measure of the negotiations is now about breakout time, then the administration needs to show convincingly that the verification regime will be far-reaching and capable of detecting whatever the Iranians are doing and whenever they do it. In fact, a one-year breakout time depends not just on the number and type of centrifuges, their output and the stockpile of enriched uranium””all of which can be calculated””but also on the administration’s ability to discover the moment at which the Iranians begin to sneak out, creep out or break out from the limitations placed on them.

Moreover, for those who say that one year is not enough time because even discovery of a violation does not ensure a response, the administration will need to explain why this agreement will not function like other arms control agreements, where questions related to noncompliance have historically bogged down in endless discussions…

I’d also recommend reading Duelfer on the deal, as well as the WaPo‘s editorial board, which continues to diverge from the attitude of the far more Obama-friendly NY Times. And here’s the reaction of the Times of Israel.

Obama said yesterday that the deal would “cut off Iran’s most likely paths” to the bomb. There’s a lot of technical information out there as to whether this could be true or not. But to me, as a layperson, the fact that the goal of the US, under the best of circumstances under this deal, is to limit Iran to a one-year breakout period certainly doesn’t sound to me like paths are cut off. The best you can say is that a few speed bumps have been placed in the way, and it’s not even clear that those speed bumps would be effective.

Here’s what the WaPo says:

The “key parameters” for an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program released Thursday fall well short of the goals originally set by the Obama administration. None of Iran’s nuclear facilities ”” including the Fordow center buried under a mountain ”” will be closed. Not one of the country’s 19,000 centrifuges will be dismantled. Tehran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium will be “reduced” but not necessarily shipped out of the country. In effect, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will remain intact, though some of it will be mothballed for 10 years. When the accord lapses, the Islamic republic will instantly become a threshold nuclear state.

That’s a long way from the standard set by President Obama in 2012 when he declared that “the deal we’ll accept” with Iran “is that they end their nuclear program” and “abide by the U.N. resolutions that have been in place.” Those resolutions call for Iran to suspend the enrichment of uranium. Instead, under the agreement announced Thursday, enrichment will continue with 5,000 centrifuges for a decade, and all restraints on it will end in 15 years…

The proposed accord will provide Iran a huge economic boost that will allow it to wage more aggressively the wars it is already fighting or sponsoring across the region. Whether that concession is worthwhile will depend in part on details that have yet to be agreed upon, or at least publicly explained. For example, the guidance released by the White House is vague in saying that U.S. and European Union sanctions “will be suspended after” international inspectors have “verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear related steps.” Exactly what steps would Iran have to complete, and what would the verification consist of?

The agreement is based on a theoretical benchmark: that Iran would need at least a year to produce fissile material sufficient for a weapon, compared with two months or less now. It remains to be seen whether the limits on enrichment and Iran’s stockpile will be judged by independent experts as sufficient to meet that standard.

The more one reads, the more it seems clear to me that the Obama administration has accepted Iran’s nuclear status and has given up deterring it and is now courting it.

Which brings us to the larger issue, which is the nature of Iran and what sort of relationship we can, or should, have with that country. That is as big an elephant in the room as is the question of Obama’s real intentions, which I’ll leave aside for now.

Analogies with the USSR during the Cold War are not very good, because although both Iran and the Cold War USSR have been our enemies (not that Obama thinks in those terms), they are enemies with very different natures. Both wage proxy wars with us all over the world, they desire domination, and they severely repress and control their populations. After that the comparisons fall down. The USSR had nuclear weapons by the time we were negotiating with them; I doubt that negotiations of any sort would have stopped them from obtaining them, even though the task of developing them was more difficult back then because the knowledge was secret rather than in the public domain (see this for a description of the Soviet efforts). The USSR was a ruthless regime, but our negotiations with the Soviets were based on their inherent rationality about survival, and the fact that both sides already had the capacity to destroy each other several times over.

Iran operates under a very different sort of philosophy, an apocalyptic religious one. Iran’s entire history with the US (and with Israel) since 1979 has been to call for the destruction of what it refers to as the Great and Little Satans. “Death to America” is a favorite chant to this day. How does one negotiate with such an adversary? The answer is “very very carefully and expertly, and from a position of great strength and pressure, and be willing to walk away if they don’t give you what you want.” Reagan’s adage “trust, but verify” has to be changed to “distrust, and verify to the nth degree, and carry a very big stick.”

Obama displays a different attitude (whatever his real attitude may be). It can be summed up as the notion that Iran wants to be a nation like any other, and if we treat them well they’ll be eager to “rejoin the international community, and we can begin to chip away at the mistrust between our two nations. This would provide Iran with a dignified path to forge a new beginning with the wider world based on mutual respect.”

This seems delusional to me (again, perhaps it’s not his real attitude, but let’s just take him at his word for the sake of this post). What indication has the post-1979 Iranian government ever given of such an interest? And what about its current aggressive behavior would lead anyone to think anything of the sort? The Iranian people are another thing; perhaps it’s what they (or at least many or some of them) want. But the people of Iran and the government of Iran are hardly the same thing.

Unfortunately, the same has become true in this country as well.

[ADDENDUM: This post hardly scratches the surface of the questions and problems raised by this deal and by the perception of Obama’s conceding to Iran. One, however, is the escalating arms race that probably will ensue in the Middle East. If this deal doesn’t reassure other nations like Saudi Arabia—and I see no reason why it should—those consequences could also be catastrophic.]

Iran: let’s make a deal

The New Neo Posted on by

Success! They’ve agreed to agree on something-or-other sometime or other, maybe by June 30:

International negotiators announced the framework for an Iranian nuclear deal Thursday, capping days of exhaustive and tense talks that blew past their original deadline.

The preliminary agreement allows all sides — the U.S., Iran and five other world powers — to continue working toward a final agreement by a June 30 deadline.

Speaking in the Rose Garden shortly after negotiators unveiled the plan in Switzerland, President Obama called the agreement a “historic understanding.”

“It is a good deal,” Obama said.

With the framework, Obama may soon face congressional critics concerned about the direction of talks. But the president urged Congress to consider it, and stressed that negotiations are not over yet. He claimed the framework, if fully implemented, would prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

“This framework would cut off every pathway Iran could take to obtain a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Secretary of State John Kerry, earlier, tweeted that all sides had the “parameters to resolve major issues” and will soon get back to work on a “final deal.”

“Big day,” he tweeted.

Oh, big big big day. Peace for our time. If you like your doctor you can keep it. Whatever could go wrong?

And the beauty of it is, since we have no knowledge of what a final deal would look like, we can’t really criticize it, can we? Sort of like a blank check, or picking one of Monty Hall’s curtained prizes, sight unseen.

Some details on the details—or the lack or details, or the disagreement over what the details are or will ultimately be—can be found here from Allahpundit.

My prediction, for what it’s worth: a big to-do will be made about the historic deal. But this is a cover for the fact that no real agreement was reached. Both sides have a huge interest in convincing their own public that they won great concessions and that the talks have been a success. They will be described that way by both sides, as will any agreement in June, if it is reached. Nothing important will be done to effectively stop Iran, which will be able to assemble a bomb in short order any time it wants. In fact, I suspect it already can do so pretty quickly, even without this agreement.

Obama wants to put Congress between a rock and a hard place. How can they react to a deal that is not a deal, but just a description of how wonderful the deal will be? But if they try to stop it, they will be blamed:

Obama warned leaders of Congress not to stop the deal. “If Congress kills this deal not based on expert analysis and without offering any reasonable alternative, then it’s the United States that will be blamed for the failure of diplomacy,” Obama said. “International unity will collapse.”

So, there you have it.

[ADDENDUM: More here.]

Attack in Kenya

The New Neo Posted on by

Meanwhile, of course, real religious wars are going on, and it’s Muslim extremists/terrorists who are driving them:

Islamist gunmen burst into a Kenyan university before dawn Thursday, shooting students and taking hostages in a terror attack that left 70 dead, Kenyan officials said.

Two attackers were killed in the ongoing security operation, and one was arrested, authorities said….

Joel Ayora, who was on the campus and witnessed the attack, said gunmen burst into a Christian service. Taking hostages from the service, they then “proceeded to the hostels, shooting anybody they came across except their fellows, the Muslims.”

The attackers separated students by religion, allowing Muslims to leave and keeping an unknown number of Christians hostage, Agence France-Presse reported…

The dangerously porous border between Somalia and Kenya has made it easy for Al-Shabaab militants to cross over and carry out attacks.

The deadliest assault by Al-Shabaab in Kenya was in September 2013 when the group attacked the Westgate shopping center in Nairobi, killing 67 people.

In a December attack on a quarry, Al-Shabaab militants separated Muslims and executed the non-Muslims, a spokesman for the group said.

The attack is now said to be over, with four terrorists killed and over 140 students murdered. Fifty or so held hostage (mostly females; you know what they probably were planning for them) have been freed.

Other articles about the attack have downplayed the anti-Christian element. This one from the Atlantic aims to place the attacks “in context,” for example, but the Christian part is dealt with in a sentence or two; they discuss the fact that the attack was on a school at much greater length. Compare and contrast to this one in the Guardian (of all places) that emphasizes the anti-Christian element:

When the gunmen arrived at his dormitory he could hear them opening doors and asking if the people who had hidden inside whether they were Muslims or Christians.

“If you were a Christian you were shot on the spot,” he said. “With each blast of the gun I thought I was going to die.”

The pattern for attacks by this group has been to separate Muslims from Christians and murder the latter. There’s nothing equivocal about it; it’s a religious war.

The New York Times, on the other hand, is mealy-mouthed in the extreme. The headline doesn’t mention religion, and it’s only in paragraph four that it comes up, and then very tepidly [emphasis mine]:

The Shabab, an extremist group based in Somalia and affiliated with Al Qaeda, issued a statement through a radio station it controls claiming responsibility for the attack. It said its fighters attacked the university early Thursday morning, began separating Muslims from non-Muslims and started an “operation against the infidels.” The group said in its statement that its fighters were still inside the university.

So we have an “extremist” group. Although the paper does manage to say it’s affiliated with Al Qaeda, it is not characterized as Muslim, which might just be one of its most salient characteristics. It “separates” Muslims from “non-Muslims” (Jews? Hindus? No: Christians, but the word is never mentioned, because the Times is just using a quote from the perpetrators as its description). They “start an operation” which is a euphemism for “kill many and hold the rest hostage.”

The article is long, very long, but not once does it use the word “Christian.” That’s quite a feat. In fact, it goes out of its way to emphasize that the “extremists” seem to target all who are not Muslims, and that this is some sort of mixed group. But the reports in the Guardian and other papers make it clear they were explicitly going after Christians. And by the way, the most-wanted leader of the terrorists is named Mohammed Mohamud, which I’m sure has nothing to do with Islam.

Pretty soon Memories Pizza may be just a memory

The New Neo Posted on by

It is no surprise that a campaign on social media sites has forced Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana to close down temporarily or perhaps permanently. The pizza establishment’s owners are not activists; they merely answered an inquiring reporter’s questions, saying that although they serve everyone who comes into the place, if they were ever asked to cater a gay wedding they would have to politely decline (although it’s moot and will never come up).

This unleashed a firestorm from activists, including death threats. It also sparked a fund-raising campaign by the owners’ supporters to raise money for them. In addition to the ramifications for this family and their business, and other business owners of like mind and faith, there is the fact that the rage against the state of Indiana has spooked its legislature into proposing added language to the recently-passed freedom of religion bill that expressly states it does not allow a business to refuse service to gay customers.

I have read several articles about the Indiana fix (such as this one, for example), and I have yet to understand whether it would protect actual wedding caterers and florists who are Christians and don’t want to work at gay weddings (as opposed to pizzeria owners answering hypothetical questions and being convicted of thoughtcrime) from having to do so or quit the business. The answer is: I don’t know.

What I do know is this: we are close to mob rule here. Unless there’s a rash of people denying service to gays—something no one seems to be alleging is occurring, although fear of it is the scare tactic being used—this is a restriction on liberty rather than an expansion of it.

Who are the people driving the campaign, and what do they want? I refer to them as “activists,” but I’d wager the group doesn’t represent all the people who have campaigned for expanded gay rights; it’s some unknown percentage of them. Also, some are probably not gay activists so much as people who hate Christianity; there certainly are plenty of those around.

Some members of the media were complicit in the stirring up of the anger, because the original statement of Memories’ owner was distorted by those who feed on this sort of thing (and I don’t mean on pizza):

Headline at Daily Kos: “Indiana pizza shop won’t serve gays, owner says ‘we’re not discriminating against anyone'”

Headline at Mother Jones: “Indiana Pizzeria Says It Will Deny Service to LGBT People”

The texts of both articles clarify that it was only about gay weddings, but the headlines are deliberately misleading and make it sound as though the proprietor won’t serve gays in general. Not that the distinction matters all that much to the more activist, to whom anything short of complete support of and participation in gay marriage is unconscionable. Also, expect a rash of gay activist couples to purposely go to florists, caterers, and bakeries known to be Christian, in order to get them on record and drive them out of business.

I have no problem with gay marriage, but I have a big problem with not respecting a mainstream religious belief that until a year or two ago was acceptable and accepted. Gay people who wish to get married in states where it’s legal to do so can choose from a vast multitude of people who will cater to them (literally) and would love to get their business. The rare person who will not because it is against their religion to be a participant in a gay marriage should not be forced into such participation against their will, or threatened for their beliefs, or forced out of business. Understand, also, that the war on devout Christians will not end with this. There is a great deal of rage out there.

Hope and change from Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

[Bumped up.]

We’ve seen a lot of change from Obama since he became president in 2008. After all, he ran on a promise of hope and change, and although he didn’t exactly specify what the change would be, people somehow trusted that it would be good. That was part of his aura as (in his own words) a “blank screen” on which people could project their own views of him.

Now the screen isn’t all that blank; we know much more about him compared to when he first burst on the scene. But Obama can still surprise us, and the news coming out of the White House today is startling: Obama is about to announce that he may be running for a third term.

You might well ask how on earth he can do that. After all, the Twenty-Second Amendment specifically prohibits it. Well, Obama has found a creative solution.

The text of the speech he is reported to be about to give later today goes like this:

In the six-plus years it has been my privilege to serve as your president, I’ve learned a lot and experienced a lot. You might say I’ve evolved. I’m older, wiser, more tested. As the historic first black president, I’ve been a trailblazer and a beacon to the African-American community and all of America, and I’ve been proud of that. In fact, you might say that it’s the first time in my adult life I’ve been proud of my country.

I know that there are other “firsts” that lie ahead for America, and I want to be part of them. I’ve done a lot of thinking about my next move, and I have decided that as part of my continuing evolution it is time for me to transition to becoming a woman. Thus, I can be not only the first black president, but the first female president as well.

Hillary, eat your heart out; you’re not even likeable enough any more. And Liz Warren, it’s not your time—not yet.

I have directed my legal team to explore the question of whether this act of mine would constitute enough of a change of identity that it would enable me to run for two more terms. I am fully confident that the answer will be in the affirmative, because I will effectively be a different person: Barika Obama.

I’m not just doing this for political reasons, though, but for personal reasons as well. The idea first occurred to me during the 2012 campaign, when Romney declared his war on women. I realized that I wanted to fully understand what it is that women go through at the hands of the likes of the Romneys of the world—what they suffer, and how they overcome the hurdles that a cruel patriarchy places in their way. I believe I can show by example how it should be done. What’s more, some have accused me of lacking compassion and of being cold. Although I believe that this is an unjustified slur, I am looking forward to the extra empathy that a hefty dose of estrogen will afford.

And from now on, all criticism of me will be not just racist, but sexist as well.

Twin announcements by the DOJ: protecting the administration’s friends, destroying its enemies

The New Neo Posted on by

Why, isn’t this what a nice Orwellian Department of Justice ought to be doing?

Protecting Obama’s friends:

The Justice Department will not seek criminal contempt charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner, the central figure in a scandal that erupted over whether the tax agency improperly targeted conservative political groups.

Ronald Machen, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a seven-page letter this week that he would not bring a criminal case to a grand jury over Lerner’s refusal to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in March 2014. The House approved a criminal contempt resolution against Lerner in May 2014, and Machen’s office has been reviewing the issue since then.

Destroying his enemies:

Senator Robert Menendez was indicted on federal corruption charges on Wednesday, according to The Associated Press, setting the stage for a bitter court fight and putting his political future in doubt.

The charges had long been expected and Mr. Menendez, a 61-year-old Democrat of New Jersey, has promised to fight them. He has offered no indication that he plans to step down or relinquish any power while he goes through that process.

Maybe Congress should hurry up and approve Lynch. She couldn’t be worse than Holder, and although I doubt she’s better it’s remotely possible. If they don’t confirm her, Holder just stays in office till someone else is appointed and confirmed, and if it’s not Lynch it will be another Obama lackey, perhaps a worse one.

[NOTE: I’ve written many previous posts about Lerner and Menendez, although this is the first post that discusses both of them together. Just do a search on the blog for either name and you will find them.]

About “The Second Coming”

The New Neo Posted on by

Recently I wrote a post that featured the Yeats poem “The Second Coming.” Today I decided to look up more about the poem’s background, and came up with this:

Modernists read the poem as a dirge for the decline of European civilisation in the mode of Eliot, but later critics have pointed out that it expresses Yeats’s apocalyptic mystical theories, and is thus the expression of a mind shaped by the 1890s.

Well, poems are written in a certain time and place by a certain person, but posterity can find additional meaning to add to the original. If a poem is good enough—and “The Second Coming” is most definitely good enough—it can continue to speak profoundly long after it was first written.

Yeats had “a life-long interest in mysticism, spiritualism, occultism and astrology” that was reflected in his work, and “The Second Coming” is no exception. The gyre, for example (“turning and turning in a widening gyre”) was his word for a historical cycle:

Yeats incorporates his ideas on the gyre – a historical cycle of about 2000 years. He first published this idea in his writing ‘a vision’ which predicted the expected anarchy that would be released around 2000 years after the birth of Christ. The gyre suggests the image of a world spinning outwardly such that it cannot recall its own origin.

I don’t share Yeats’ belief system; I doubt anyone does at this point. But I do think he may have been onto something nevertheless, in some intuitive way. By post-WWI 1919, the year “The Second Coming” was written, the modern age had begun, and I think something really did shift around the time of the new millennium in 2000, leading to increasing chaos throughout the world.

[NOTE: More about Yeats here.]

The most common defense of Obama…

The New Neo Posted on by

…is that he’s a fool rather than a knave. It’s come down to that.

There are still defenders (or at least partial defenders) of Obama’s Middle East policy, and they’re not even all liberals. Ross Douthat, one of those partial defenders, is a NY Times conservative, meaning that every now and then he actually writes something conservative but often occupies some in-between wavering zone instead.

Douthat summarizes what he thinks happened during the Bush years in Iraq, a description that serves as part of the build-up for his semi-apologia for Obama:

…[I]t took all the king’s horses and all of David Petraeus’s men just to hold Iraq together; a different bad actor, Iran, ended up empowered; and the old problem of repression led to the Arab Spring and the civil wars that followed.

Sticking to the Pax Americana model after these developments would have required keeping American troops in Iraq for decades.

Douthat is ignoring the hard-fought improvements that had been made in Iraq by the time Obama took office, so dramatic that even Obama declared the state relatively stable and successful. By the time Obama pulled the troops out entirely in 2011 it would not have taken “all the king’s horses and all of David Petraeus’s men just to hold Iraq together” any more, and the “American troops in Iraq for decades” would have been a relatively small force. We’ve had troops all around the world “for decades” (many of them since World War II and the Korean War) and this would have been a particularly cost-effective deployment. There was no need to pull out entirely as Obama did (except what he saw as his own political interest), and the result has been a much greater amount of influence over Iraq for that bad actor, Iran—a bad actor Obama is now actively rather than passively encouraging and empowering.

Douthat thinks the following overarching plan is what’s behind Obama’s foreign policy decisions:

Haltingly but persistently, this administration has pursued a paradigm shift in how the United States relates to the Middle East, a shift from a Pax Americana model toward a strategy its supporters call “offshore balancing.”

In a Pax Americana system, the United States enjoys a dominant position within a network of allies and clients; actors outside that network are considered rogues and threats, to be restrained and coerced by our overwhelming military might. Ideally, over time our clients become more prosperous and more democratic, the benefits of joining the network become obvious, and the military canopy both expands and becomes less necessary.

In an offshore balancing system, our clients are fewer, and our commitments are reduced. Regional powers bear the primary responsibility for dealing with crises on the ground, our military strategy is oriented toward policing the sea lanes and the skies, and direct intervention is contemplated only when the balance of power is dramatically upset.

I fail to see any “balancing” that’s being set up by Obama. Seems to be all Iran, all the time.

Douthat realizes this, but doesn’t understand that it’s purposeful on Obama’s part:

…[O]ffshore balancing offers the most benefits when your entanglements are truly minimal, but it’s very hard for a hegemon to simply sidle offstage, shedding expectations and leaving allies in the lurch.

And letting bad guys get even more powerful.

…[O]ffshoring American power and hoping that Iran, Iran’s Sunni neighbors and Israel will find some kind of balance on their own will probably increase the risk of arms races, cross-border invasions and full-scale regional war. The conflicts we have now are ugly enough, but absent the restraint still imposed by American military dominance, it’s easy to imagine something worse.

That’s kind of a no-brainer, isn’t it? I wonder how Douthat would explain Obama’s seeming failure to see something so elementary. But he doesn’t say; he doesn’t even try. The article pretty much ends there, with just some generalities to tie it up.

That’s the problem faced by those who would be the least bit kind to Obama at this point. They end up writing things that sound at best confused. I’m picking on Douthat, but I’m not really meaning to single him out; his is just the first article I happened to encounter.

The comments to Douthat’s article are the usual NY Times reader stuff. We’re in the Middle East only for oil, it’s all Bush and Cheney’s fault, etc.

Walter Russell Mead voted for Obama in 2008, and by November 2010 still thought it to have been a good move for reasons so strange and convoluted I cannot follow them (be my guest and try to understand what he’s saying here; suffice to say he was wrong, wrong, wrong and showed a profound lack of understanding of the man whose character and plans were already crystal clear.). Today, however, Mead is singing a different tune:

…[N]obody should miss the most important point here: even the President’s ideological fellow travelers can no longer mount a cogent defense of his Middle East policy. The MSM will still do all it can to avoid connecting the dots or drawing attention to the stark isolation in which the White House now finds itself as ally after ally drops away. It still doesn’t want to admit that the “smart diplomacy” crowd has been about as effective at making a foreign policy as the famous emperor’s smooth-talking tailors were at making a new suit of clothes. But it’s getting harder and harder to find anybody willing to gush about how snazzy the President looks in the sharp foreign policy outfit that he’s sporting around town.

Mead’s a smart man; I cannot understand why he was so fooled originally. But he’s not so fooled any more:

The shocked silence of the foreign policy establishment, the absence of any statements of support from European or Asian allies about our Middle East course, the evidence that the President and the “senior officials” whom he trusts continue to be blindsided by major developments they didn’t expect and haven’t provided for: all of this tells us that our Middle East policy is indeed in free fall.

Much like Douthat, though, Mead describes the president and his advisors as being “blindsided” by “major developments they didn’t expect and haven’t provided for.” In other words, Mead comes down firmly on the “fool” side of the “knave vs. fool” question. I’m not sure why, except I think that, for those who once supported Obama as both a smart and a good man, it’s easier and less threatening for them to think they were wrong about his brainpower than about his goodness.

[NOTE: I found an unintentionally funny comment to this article:

It’s suspicious how hard Nothinyahoo and the GOP are trying to stop a peace process. They seem like this is so urgent, like their lives depend on it…]

The libertarian approach to Indiana’s religious freedom law

The New Neo Posted on by

This is a good article on the subject, which pretty much summarizes my opinion, which is the basic “moderate libertarian” (is that an oxymoron?) point of view.

It doesn’t really deal with the issue I see as vital, however, which is this one: where to draw the line in terms of a business’s right to refuse a service. Must the decision be based on religious grounds, or can it be arbitrary prejudice? And how to decide which is which? How reasonably must it be related to a religious point of view, and must the religion be an accepted mainstream one?

No doubt there is quite a bit of case law on this, but I certainly haven’t kept up with it and I’m not going to write a long, in-depth post on it now; I’ll just state the questions and call it a day (although some of the legal history is summarized here, if you’re interested). But the issues are very important to those of us who value individual liberty, which sometimes seems to me to be a dwindling group.

[NOTE: Further reading on the libertarian POV towards anti-discrimination laws in general.]

No, impeachment was not “ruled out” by Boehner

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve seen the meme over and over and over on the right: stupid Boehner ruled out impeachment for Obama.

But as I see it, nothing of the sort was done, nor could it be done. Congress can’t waive its right to impeach, nor was Boehner trying to do that.

Remember the context: it was during the buildup to the 2014 Congressional election, and Democrats were saying that if the Republicans won control of both houses they would impeach Obama. It was in trying to counter that propaganda that Boehner said the following:

Talk of impeachment was cooked up by a White House desperate for something to rally Democrats ahead of November’s elections, House Speaker John A. Boehner said Tuesday, flatly ruling out any action on the controversial suggestion.

“We have no plans to impeach the president. We have no future plans,” Mr. Beohner said. “Listen, it’s all a scam started by Democrats at the White House.”

Democrats have acknowledged impeachment talk has been good for their fundraising, but also say there’s some fire behind all the smoke. On Tuesday, congressional Democrats circulated a list of GOP candidates and sitting lawmakers who have said they want to see President Obama be impeached.

So, as of July 2014 (the article’s dateline), the Republicans had no plans to impeach Obama, and no future plans to impeach Obama. Those are two non-statements meant to pacify the fears of imminent impeachment. They are neither promises nor sign-offs on making future plans someday.

That is separate, of course, from the question of whether Republicans would actually make those plans. We don’t know. But Boehner’s prior statements about it are evidence of absolutely nothing.

My opinion about what’s brewing now—and I’m sure many of you may disagree—is that the Republicans would consider impeachment/conviction if they thought enough Democrats would join them. Right now, they just don’t have the votes. They will not impeach Obama unless they think they can win a conviction, and I think that’s wise.

I actually think there’s a small chance that Obama’s actions on Iran could force their hand, depending on what he does and how awful it is. How likely do I think it is that enough Democrats would turn on Obama, and that the Republicans would then act? Highly unlikely.

But it has not been ruled out.

They’re in a hurry to indict Menendez

The New Neo Posted on by

Expect an indictment as early as Wednesday:

The FBI and the Justice Department have been investigating Menendez’s ties to Dr. Salomon Melgen, a close friend and financial backer of the New Jersey senator, for months. It’s not clear exactly what charges Menendez could face, although honest services fraud, receiving improper gifts, and misusing his office for personal gain are all possibilities, according to the sources. Both Menendez and Melgen have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Quite a few comments to the article suggest sarcastically that Menendez should have just used his own server and destroyed it. In this case, though, investigators probably could have followed the money trail even without emails. What’s more, since it’s Obama who has Menendez in his sights, I’m sure his creative team could dig up some charge/scandal or other no matter what the challenges.

I’ve been trying to discover whether Menendez would have to quit the Senate if he’s indicted. The gist of what I’ve found is that he can stay. My guess is that he’s highly motivated to stay. He’s gone on record as saying he’s innocent of the charges, and he seems dedicated to stopping Obama on Iran [from March 6]:

[Menendez said] that he had “always conducted [himself] appropriately and in accordance with the law. I fight for things I believe important ”¦ and for the people of our country,” he also said. “That’s who I am. I am not going anywhere.”

Perhaps Menendez will stay. But the idea of his prosecution is that it will undermine Menendez’s credibility as he attacks Obama, as well as (more importantly) serving notice to other Democrats that the administration will retaliate against any of them who choose to defy Obama on this or anything else. An indictment prior to any possible vote on sanctions is important, because Obama and Holder want to make sure that they get the message across to Democrats in Congress before any such vote occurs, and make them understand that the administration means business and that the threat is very real and will be followed through on. Understand, also, that Menendez is being indicted for activities that are pretty much standard for members of Congress, so any of them are vulnerable.

[NOTE: I’ve previously written about the Menendez case here.]