Latest terrorist attack in Israel kills four rabbis

The New Neo Posted on by

Three of the dead are Americans (one with Boston ties), and one is British. All had dual citizenship.

According to police, the two suspected Palestinian terrorists, armed with a gun and axes, attacked worshipers after entering the “Kehilat Yaakov” synagogue on Agasi Street in the capital’s Har Nof neighborhood. Two police officers quickly arrived to the scene and exchanged fire with the suspects, killing them.

Palestinian sources reported that the two suspects from the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukabaer were cousins.

So, the perpetrators were local Palestinians. I wonder whether they targeted these victims because of their nationalities, or whether that was a random occurrence. Note, also, the use of axes as one of the weapons. This may indicate the influence of ISIS’s methods on the terrorist sensibility. The may figure that, the more bloody and grisly the death, the more terror it sows, and the more violence it inspires in those sympathetic to their cause.

In other news, Obama goes on being Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama gives Jonathan Gruber the Wright-Ayers treatment: what was that guy’s name again?

And Obama was sort of against illegal immigration before he was for it. At least, that’s what he said in The Audacity of Hope:

“The number of immigrants added to the labor force every year is of a magnitude not seen in this country for over a century,” Obama noted. “If this huge influx of mostly low-skill workers provides some benefits to the economy as a whole””especially by keeping our workforce young, in contrast to an increasingly geriatric Europe and Japan””it also threatens to depress further the wages of blue-collar Americans and put strains on an already overburdened safety net.”

Another thing I thought about recently—although this has little to do with Obama, the subject matter of this post—is that if Hillary Clinton runs in 2016, her opponent should create a series of ads leaning heavily on excerpts from these audiotapes.

Matt Taylor and his shirt

The New Neo Posted on by

I have a lot more to say about the furor over Matt Taylor’s shirt, but I don’t have time for a longer post at the moment, although I might write one later.

But for now I’ll just say that I agree with this guy (except for the fact that I didn’t watch the clip; but I’ve followed the story):

I watched that clip of Dr Taylor’s apology ”“ at the moment of his supreme professional triumph ”“ and I felt the red mist come down. It was like something from the show trials of Stalin, or from the sobbing testimony of the enemies of Kim Il-sung, before they were taken away and shot. It was like a scene from Mao’s cultural revolution when weeping intellectuals were forced to confess their crimes against the people.

Why was he forced into this humiliation? Because he was subjected to an unrelenting tweetstorm of abuse. He was bombarded across the internet with a hurtling dustcloud of hate, orchestrated by lobby groups and politically correct media organisations.

Boris Johnson, the author, is presently the mayor of London, by the way. He’s a conservative who replaced the abominable Ken Livingstone, and Johnson has a very interesting history, to say the least.

But I digress.

One thing Johnson leaves out—but I’m a blogger, so I can say it—is that the firestorm against Taylor was orchestrated by feminist women and those of either gender (or should I say “any gender”?) who sympathize with them. Let it also be said that I, who am old enough to remember the actual discrimination women used to sometimes face in the workplace, am in favor of the non-discriminatory goal of feminism (although not the preference for woman that constitutes an overreach) but am almost completely alienated from the rest of its agenda.

And I am also well aware of the left’s enormous role in feminism, both historically and presently. That’s why it’s no accident that Boris Johnson’s three analogies were from Communist countries. That totalitarian thought-control impulse is strong among those feminists who would have there be nothing in the world that runs counter to their vision of what it should be, and who are feeling their own power more and more.

Ebola news: Salia, Hickox

The New Neo Posted on by

Last night when I heard that Dr. Martin Salia, a Sierra Leone native who is married to a US citizen and who contacted ebola while treating patients in his native country, had been flown here for treatment and was in “very critical” condition, I thought “boy, if we can cure him, then American medicine is really onto something in the treatment of ebola.”

Sadly, it was not to be: Dr. Salia has died of the disease. He was very very far gone when he arrived:

“He was placed on dialysis, a ventilator and multiple medications to support his organ systems in an effort to help his body fight the disease. He also received a dose of convalescent plasma and ZMapp therapy was initiated on Saturday,” the hospital said in a statement.

“We used every possible treatment available to give Dr. Salia every possible opportunity for survival,” Smith said. “As we have learned, early treatment with these patients is essential. In Dr. Salia’s case, his disease was already extremely advanced by the time he came here for treatment.”

Regular readers here know that I’ve written a great deal about ebola and in the process I’ve learned quite a bit about it. So based on that prior research I’m highlighting two very salient facts about Dr. Salia. The first is that he never knew how he got ebola; he was a general surgeon in Sierra Leone and was not specifically treating ebola patients. This reflects something I learned a while ago and have written about before: that ebola is not always easy to spot, even for medical personnel who are well-versed in its diagnosis and are treating patients in areas where it is endemic, and therefore would be on high alert for it. That is one of the many many dangers of the disease, and you may recall that the same thing happened with Dr. Rick Sacra, who was treated here much earlier in the disease’s course than Salia and has survived.

The second thing I’d like to highlight is that it took four (or five; I’ve read differing accounts) full days after Dr. Salia first showed ebola symptoms for his blood test to become positive for the disease. By that time he was extremely sick indeed. The loss of those days of possible treatment here may have made a big difference. Here is the story:

When Martin Salia’s Ebola test came back negative, his friends and colleagues threw their arms around him. They shook his hand. They patted him on the back. They removed their protective gear and cried.

But when his symptoms remained nearly a week later, Salia took another test, on Nov. 10. This one came back positive, sending the Sierra Leonean doctor with ties to Maryland on a desperate, belated quest for treatment and forcing the colleagues who had embraced him into quarantine.

We were celebrating. If the test says you are Ebola-free, we assume you are Ebola-free,” said Komba Songu M’Briwa, who cared for Salia at the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center in Freetown. “Then everything fell apart.”…

The doctors who tended to him in Freetown appeared to be unaware that an early Ebola test ”” taken within the first three days of the illness ”” is often inconclusive. In a country where information about the disease continues to move slowly, it was another potentially tragic mistake.

In many cases, a negative test at that stage means nothing because “there aren’t enough copies of the virus in the blood for the test to pick up,” said Ermias Belay, the head of the CDC’s Ebola response team in Sierra Leone.

As Dr.Salia worsened, he assumed he had malaria, as many with ebola in Africa do (think again of Thomas Duncan, who thought the woman he helped had either malaria or pregnancy complications, and relied on that—and he was just a layman). Dr. Salia prescribed malaria medication for himself, but it didn’t help:

He [then] called his colleague Alhali Osman Smith, who worked with him at Freetown’s Kissy United Methodist Hospital.

“He told me he thought he still might have Ebola,” Smith said, “in spite of what the test said.”

RIP, Dr. Salia.

Which brings us to the latest from the arrogant, offensive Kaci Hickox, who asks us to stop calling her “the ebola nurse”:

I never had Ebola. I never had symptoms of Ebola. I tested negative for Ebola the first night I stayed in New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s private prison in Newark. I am now past the incubation period ”“ meaning that I will not develop symptoms of Ebola.

I never had Ebola, so please stop calling me “the Ebola Nurse” ”“ now!

Love that tone, don’t you? I, for one, never called Hickox the ebola nurse. In fact, I went so far as to call her “America’s sweetheart,” but do I get any thanks? No!

I’ve already pointed out many things about Ms. Hickox, one of them being that it’s surprising that, although she’s a public health nurse, she doesn’t seem to understand the very concept of quarantine. Nor does she seem to understand that (a) she initially appeared to have a major symptom of early ebola, a fever; (b) she had just returned from treating ebola patients; and (c) her negative blood test that night was meaningless, as the story of Dr. Salia demonstrates all too graphically.

Hickox really isn’t the ebola nurse; for one thing, she hasn’t demonstrated that much knowledge about the disease. But she just might be the most detested nurse in America right now.

ISIS has beheaded another American

The New Neo Posted on by

A video has been released by ISIS proclaiming the beheading of an American, aid worker Peter Kassig. Kassig’s murder had been threatened in the most recent video prior to this.

The murder seems almost an afterthought, because, “The video also showed the gruesome simultaneous beheadings of at least 18 men described as Syrian military personnel, the latest in a series of mass executions and other atrocities carried out by IS in Syria and Iraq.” I believe that’s the main target; ISIS is well aware that Kassig’s murder wouldn’t stop the US from sending whatever troops it wants to send. They beheaded Kassig just to show how tough they are, and also to goad Obama, to show that they can, and because they get a kick out of the violence they perpetrate.

Everything I’ve said before about these beheadings applies to this one.

I notice, however, something a bit different:

Kassig was not shown alive in the footage, and no direct threats were made against other Western hostages.

That may mean they have no plans for the next beheading of a Westerner. Or maybe they do, and just aren’t talking about it.

By the way, Kassig was a Muslim convert, although of course that doesn’t matter much to ISIS, whose members appear just as eager to kill Muslims they’ve in disagreement with, as well as Christians and Yazidis and pretty much anyone that isn’t an ISIS member (for all I know, they are eager to kill each other as well).

Obama was moved to some strong rhetoric this time:

“Abdul-Rahman was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity,” Obama said in a statement released aboard Air Force One as he flew back to the United States from an Asia tour.

Condolences to Kassig’s family, who must be suffering terribly. RIP, Peter Kassig.

[ADDENDUM: Looking at some of the comments, I see that I had missed the fact that Obama called Peter Kassig by his Muslim name. Here’s the quote:

“Today we offer our prayers and condolences to the parents and family of Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known to us as Peter,” Mr. Obama’s statement said. The president used the Muslim name Mr. Kassig had adopted, making the point that the Islamic State had killed one of its own. He acknowledged the “anguish at this painful time” felt by Mr. Kassig’s family.

I can’t find the full text, but I’m curious about it. When I heard Obama had used Kassig’s Muslim name, I had several somewhat contradictory thoughts:
(1) It shows how respectful of Islam and how Islam-oriented Obama’s thought process is.
(2) It was done to emphasize that ISIS is killing Muslims, too.
(3) It was done at the request of Kassign’s family.

I don’t know which, if any, is (are) true.]

Gruber certainly got around, didn’t he?

The New Neo Posted on by

So many Gruber videos surfacing, so much Obamacare deception.

So little MSM coverage.

However, if Romney ever decides to run in 2016 (which I do not think he will, nor do I think he should), you better believe Gruber’s admission of Obamacare lies will be pinned on Romney by the Democrats. That’s because Gruber (who is from MIT) was also involved in the construction of Romneycare. Not to mention health care reform in Vermont; the guy certainly gets around.

One big difference between Obamacare and the situation in Massachusetts, though, is that Romneycare didn’t need to involve any deception to be passed. The bills were different, the constituency was different, the problems that Romneycare was designed to solve was different, and the push to publicize it was different. In overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts, there was no need to obfuscate anything about the bill’s design in order to sell it to anyone, because legislators were in favor of something similar, although even more to the left.

As Ann Coulter once wrote:

One difference between the healthcare bills is that RomneyCare is constitutional and ObamaCare is not…What went wrong with “RomneyCare” wasn’t a problem in the law, but a problem in Massachusetts: Democrats.

Gruber has demonstrated his willingness—nay eagerness—to lie. But that doesn’t mean he always lies. To automatically assume he was involved in similar lies about Romneycare is to possibly commit what I believe is called the fallacy of false equivalence:

False equivalence is a common result when an anecdotal similarity is pointed out as equal, but the claim of equivalence doesn’t bear because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors.

The logic would go something like this:

(1) Gruber was instrumental in the design of Obamacare and its promotion, and he describes the Democrats as having lied about what was in it in order to pass it, because if they hadn’t lied Congress would not have passed it.
(2) Gruber was instrumental in the design of Romneycare.
(3) Therefore Romney must have used Gruber in the same way: to lie about what was in Romneycare.

Numbers 1 and 2 are correct, but number 3 does not necessarily follow, although of course it could be true. But it would need some independent evidence. There was absolutely no need to lie about Romneycare in order for it to be passed by the Massachusetts legislature. In fact, here are some numbers, which are pretty overwhelming: “The bill passed by 154-2 in the Massachusetts House and unanimously, 37-0, in the Massachusetts Senate.” That’s quite a contrast to Obamacare.

It’s interesting that Gruber’s fingerprints are on so many pieces of health care legislation, isn’t it? I hope that now some of his contributions will be looked at—and questioned—in more depth (that includes his efforts regarding Romneycare, of course). No wonder the MSM doesn’t want to talk about him.

The stuff of nightmares

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t know about you, but to me these bridges are not my idea of a rollicking good time.

And I’ve actually been on one of them, the Capilano. But not all the way. For me, it was a bridge too far.

This is how I like to enjoy it, from the comfort of home (I chose this particular video because it gives you the proper shaky feel, which my older brother liked to augment):

Obama and Honduras, 2009: portent of things to come

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “kcom” wrote yesterday:

What I’ve been thinking about lately is something that happened early in Barack Obama’s administration and that Neo talked a lot about, and that was his efforts to back the (wannabe) despot in Honduras. The guy was trying to grab permanent power through an illegal referendum and, when he was duly removed by the other branches of government in accordance with their constitution, who did Obama support? The wannabe dictator, of course. I’m not saying Obama’s going to try that here, but it is a good illustration of his lack of respect for constitutional controls on executive power. Keep that in mind in the coming months.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Honduras lately, too. In fact, I’ve thought about it quite often over the years. Obama’s actions re Honduras occurred early in his presidency, and what he did was largely ignored or defended by the MSM. Even though I suspected that Obama aspired to leftist tyranny, I was surprised at how early on he showed his hand, and how little anyone seemed to pay attention.

I said, in a post from last June:

The subject was the attempt by Honduras’ President Zeleya to seize more power, and the battle against him. I was deeply alarmed when it happened because Obama’s support for Zeleya solidified—nay, proved—what I’d strongly suspected and feared about him prior to that.

At the time of the events in Honduras I had written [emphasis mine, added now]:

Regular readers of this blog know that I have written quite a bit about Obama’s policy on Zeleya and Honduras. This isn’t just because I am concerned for the people of Honduras””although I am that””but for what Obama’s support of Zeleya’s attempt to expand his power in these time-honored ways tells us about Obama himself, and his own propensities and possible plans.

It’s not a mere question of Obama looking on and doing nothing while a Chavez-inspired Zelaya grabs more power; I could understand non-intervention in the Honduran process. But Obama has gone out of his way””in a manner that contradicts his own stated preference for the autonomy of other nations””to actively intervene in Honduran affairs in order to protect Zeleya and his undermining of Honduran due process and its constitution.

There is no benign explanation for this policy of Obama’s. If the American people don’t understand what it tells us about him, it would mean that we have failed to understand history and learn from it.

Chilling then, and even more chilling now. Have enough people finally learned the lesson that must be learned again and again? Or is it too late?

In that same post from September of 2009 I also wrote [emphasis mine, added now]:

…I have observed that every single step of the way [Obama] has shown his propensity for consolidating government and his own power, stomping on or eliminating the opposition…, affiliation with figures of the far Left, lying and misrepresenting himself in a host of ways, secrecy about his past, and cozying up to dictators such as Hugo Chavez.

At present, it’s Chavez whom I see as closest to Obama, both in goals and in modus operandi.

It’s interesting, too, and perhaps fitting, that the big issue on which Obama is attempting to extend his power grab involves illegal immigration, mostly from Latin America. His devotion to this cause is multiply-determined. It will increase the rolls of voters on the left, as well as those who are dependent on government largesse. It will anger the right. It shows contempt for the rule of law, and should increase that contempt in society at large. And of course it’s a demonstration of his own power and a way of thumbing his nose at those who would oppose him, and who voted against him and his party.

In the quote with which I began this post, kcom wrote, in reference to Honduran dictator Zelaya’s attempt to seize more power through an illegal referendum, “I’m not saying Obama’s going to try that here.” Well, I’m saying, “he would if he thought he could get away with it.” I have little doubt on that score.

This is refreshing

The New Neo Posted on by

Refreshing, and rare.

But it shouldn’t be.

What’s so refreshing? What’s so rare? A columnist who supports the president’s policy position on immigration—but deplores his doing it by executive action.

Meet Linda Chavez:

President Obama is expected to act in the next few days to grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, fulfilling a promise he made before the election.

Giving legal status to people who have lived and worked in the United States for a decade or more ”” paid taxes, kept out of trouble, contributed to their local economies and raised children who are US citizens ”” is the right and moral thing to do.

But the right thing to do isn’t necessarily legal when it means bypassing Congress ”” and Obama’s decision has as much to do with politics as it does morality…

It’s a terrible law ”” and one that is routinely flouted by ordinary Americans and that creates intrusive federal interference in the employment process for businesses.

Nonetheless, it remains the law of the land. The president may drag his feet on enforcing its provisions, but he can’t willy-nilly rewrite it on his own.

The president knows this. He’s stated so numerous times.

This is the sort of thing that used to be (at least, if memory serves me, and if I’m not just looking back on the past with a glow of warm nostalgia), if not common, then at least not all that unusual to hear from liberals. There might be disagreement with conservatives about specific policies, but agreement on the broad outlines of the way government should function if it is to follow the Constitution, and agreement that it should follow the Constitution.

Now such voices are so seldom heard that I feel the need to remark on one when I encounter it (Jonathan Turley, for example).

[ADDENDUM: See the comments section for a discussion of whether Chavez’s policy position on immigration should really be characterized as a “liberal” view or not.]

Great ballet story: from Sierra Leone to the US

The New Neo Posted on by

This young woman has seen enough upheaval to last ten lifetimes, and yet what a triumphant story. I don’t know about you, but it brings tears to my eyes:

And here’s her autobiography. I haven’t read it, but the Amazon reviewers like it. It appears to be geared to preteens and teenagers.

Which reminds me: Christmas and Chanukah coming! Amazon portal! Buy! (You’ll hear that again before the holidays are through.)

Getting Obama and not getting Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been monitoring Peggy Noonan’s Obama journey over the years, from admiration to a sort of puzzled and regretful dislike. Noonan is interesting to me because she sometimes is so sharp and sometimes seems almost dull, and I think her wavering, confused reaction to Obama is not atypical of a certain sort of Republican who was initially wowed by him.

Here’s a recent piece of Noonan’s in which she really really gets in it—in a sense. In another sense, she really really does not.

Let’s take the “gets it” part first, written with grace, perception, and bite (love her choice of “beady” for Reid’s eyes):

The Republicans don’t like [Obama], for reasons both usual and particular: They have had no good experiences with him. The Democrats don’t like him, for their own reasons plus the election loss. Before his post-election lunch with congressional leaders, he told the press that he will judiciously consider any legislation, whoever sends it to him, Republicans or Democrats. His words implied that in this he was less partisan and more public-spirited than the hacks arrayed around him. It is for these grace notes that he is loved. No one at the table looked at him with colder, beadier eyes than outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who clearly doesn’t like him at all. The press doesn’t especially like the president; in conversation they evince no residual warmth. This week at the Beijing summit there was no sign the leaders of the world had any particular regard for him. They can read election returns. They respect power and see it leaking out of him. If Mr. Obama had won the election they would have faked respect and affection.

Vladimir Putin delivered the unkindest cut, patting Mr. Obama’s shoulder reassuringly. Normally that’s Mr. Obama’s move, putting his hand on your back or shoulder as if to bestow gracious encouragement, needy little shrimp that you are. It’s a dominance move. He’s been doing it six years. This time it was Mr. Putin doing it to him. The president didn’t like it

Let’s take the “doesn’t get it” part now.

In the piece, Noonan thinks Obama can’t change because he only knows one mode of operation, and also because he can’t cope with failure because he’s never experienced it before as an adult. She’s right, as far as that goes. What she doesn’t seem to get is that Obama has no interest in changing; doesn’t see the need. He is pushing on alone because he can, and because he sees it as the best way to reach his goal now that he’s lost the new Congress. He will not let others’ growing dislike get in the way of his goals, although of course he’d rather be liked and even worshiped than disliked; being liked would mean that people have perceived his wonderfulness, and it also would make his job far easier. He’d also rather a majority in Congress shared his goals rather than opposed them. But if neither is the case, he’s not going to worry overmuch about it, or about how to convince them otherwise.

He’s said goodbye to all that. He no longer needs votes, and he is free.

If the voters of Louisiana are fooled by this ploy…

The New Neo Posted on by

…maybe we’re really really stupid after all.

The Keystone pipeline bill just passed the House. That’s not the ploy to which I’m referring; the Republican House has long supported Keystone and has passed similar bills before, with a small number of Democrats joining. The ploy is the next step: a vote on Keystone in the Senate, which has never occurred before in the six years of the Obama administration, because the president and a great many Democrats are against it, and Democrats control that legislative body and Reid has blocked it.

So why now? What’s the big rush? It’s no secret that the move is designed to burnish the resume of its sponsor, one Mary Landrieu, the senator from Louisiana who is facing a runoff election in just a couple of weeks. So if Harry Reid suddenly has an epiphany and gets Keystone religion, it will be because of a calculation that Louisiana voters won’t put two and two together to get four.

It won’t help Landrieu that her opponent in the runoff, Bill Cassidy, was the sponsor of the House bill.

Why would Democrats calculate that the voters won’t catch on to the naked political calculation and hypocrisy of allowing this vote now (and by the way, Obama will probably veto it, so it’s all just theater anyway)? Well, Obama has used the tactic of timing announcements and changes around elections time and again in recent years, and voters re-elected him, didn’t they?