Is cigarette smoking making a comeback?

The New Neo Posted on by

I certainly hope not.

It seems it’s not a big comeback. But maybe a little bit:

“I’ve definitely seen an uptick in singles describing themselves as ‘sometimes’ smokers — not pack-a-day smokers, but occasional, where it’s tied to nightlife, travel, aesthetic and intimacy,” Ashleigh Rodosta, a Gotham-based matchmaker and relationship coach, told The Post. “The post-sex cigarette is also making a comeback.” …

“What’s ironic is that many of these same people are otherwise intensely wellness-oriented — cold plunges, peptides, clean eating, the whole thing,” she continued. “So cigarettes are showing up less as a real lifestyle and more as an occasional indulgence tied to image, mood and social setting.”

I have to say that, back when smoking was far more popular, it often was indeed “tied to image, mood, and social setting.”

I smoked cigarettes during my first two years of college and then never again. My smoking was very situational: to look cool, or because I was bored. Or both. I smoked while sitting around with friends in the cafeteria after meals, in boring lecture classes, while writing term papers, and at parties. I never inhaled because I actually hated that. But I was a whiz at blowing smoke rings.

[NOTE: I’m taking a day-long break from writing about the Iran war.]

MeToo has come for Cesar Chavez, rather late in the game

The New Neo Posted on by

Chavez used to be the darling of the left, back when I was in law school. Now he’s apparently a pariah after being accused – long after his death – of having sexually abused young girls many years ago:

The public shaming over that leftist labor hero, the late United Farm Workers Union co-founder César Chávez, has continued apace as detestable allegations of child sexual abuse and even rape have been making the rounds following a New York Times exposé published on Wednesday.

The accusations by his former ally, Dolores Huerta, are horrific and have caused celebrations of the planned March 31st “César Chávez Day” in multiple states to be altered or canceled outright.

I admit to being somewhat puzzled as to why this is being revealed now. Whether it’s true or not is unknown and will almost certainly never be known, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s probably true. Even though one might have thought these women would have come out with their stories back when MeToo had its heyday, the delay can be at least partly explained by Chavez’s longtime status as leftist icon. Who wants to point out his feet of clay?

I’ve read several people on the right who said that Chavez’s cancellation comes now because of his history of being against illegal immigration. That’s his real crime against the left of today, and the reason he’s being exposed. I think that’s as good an explanation as any and probably better than most. But it’s not as though his anti-illegals position has been a secret all this time. From 2015:

For every positive image of Chavez, though, there’s another one that paints a different picture, as Miriam Pawel brings to light in her meticulously researched, NEH-funded biography, The Crusades of Cesar Chavez. The union organizer was vehemently opposed to undocumented immigrant workers, looked with disdain upon the material comforts his own union members yearned for, and slipped into despotic isolation at his California mountain compound, La Paz, purging the UFW of many of his closest friends, allies, and mentors.

Well, now they’re purging him.

Mamdani delivered a St. Patrick’s Day message – about the Palestinians

The New Neo Posted on by

Of course he did (my emphasis):

“Who can better understand those who weep than those who have been made to weep for so long?” asked Mamdani, referencing his view of the Irish experience in America and comparing it to the plight of the Palestinians.

“The story of the Irish, both in Ireland and in New York City, is at one time a story of oppression, of subjugation, and of discrimination,” the mayor told attendees at the traditional St. Patrick’s Day breakfast at Gracie Mansion.

The special guest of the Mayor at the breakfast was Mary Robinson, former Irish president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Her solidarity is many things: unwavering, sincere, and chief among them Irish,” gushed Mamdani. …

“I say this as over the past few years, as we’ve witnessed a genocide unfold before our eyes, there has been deafening silence from so many,” Mamdani said. “For those who have long cared about universal human rights and the extension of them to Palestinians, silence, however, is nothing new – for Palestinians are so often left to weep alone. Yet former President Robinson has never been silent.”

Robinson has been one of the most controversial High Commissioners for Human Rights in recent memory. She is frequently accused of a disproportionate focus on Israel’s actions while remaining relatively “silent” on human rights abuses by other regimes or Palestinian militant groups. Critics argue she often creates a false equivalence between the actions of a democratic state’s military and the tactics of terrorist organizations like Hamas.

Talk about “disproportionate focus on Israel’s actions” – plus distorted lies about them. Mamdani himself fits the description quite well. Among other things – such as his oft-repeated lie that it is Israel committing genocide when in fact it is Israelis who have been the target of Hamas’ desire for genocide against them – do the Palestinians “weep alone”? I don’t think there’s a people on earth with more MSM coverage for their weeping. The Palestinian people are not very good at many things other than hatred and violence, but propaganda is most definitely one of them.

However, Mamdani wasn’t completely out of line mentioning the Palestinians at the St. Patrick’s Day event, because these days Ireland is one of the most anti-Israel countries in the Western world. I wrote a post about it two years ago entitled, “Why Ireland hates Israel.”

And speaking of people who have wept for so long, there’s this:

RIP Chuck Norris

The New Neo Posted on by

Norris has died at 86. It sounds as though he was quite healthy and active until an extremely recent hospitalization:

Norris, who had just turned 86 earlier this month, is best remembered for his martial arts and action movie roles in the 1980s as well as for his role on the TV show “Walker, Texas Ranger,” which was one of my mother’s favorite shows. He served in the Air Force, which was where he learned karate and became a karate teacher. That’s how he met people like Steve McQueen, who encouraged him to get into the movies. He had a critical role in Bruce Lee’s “Way of the Dragon,” and his career was off and running.

I confess that Norris’ films and TV work weren’t the genre I generally watch, and so I’m not really familiar with him although I certainly knew who he was. But I thought I’d put up this thread for those of you who were fans of his – he certainly had many.

RIP.

Joe Kent casts his lot with the Carlson/Owens wing of …

The New Neo Posted on by

… of some group or other. I don’t know exactly what to call them, because they’re certainly not conservative. “Far right” indicates they actually are on the right, and I think they really merit their own designation because the actual right disowns them (rightly). We could call them neo-Nazis, but they don’t have the tattoos or other regalia.

At any rate, Joe Kent, who’s enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame, appeared on Carlson’s show yesterday. That’s no surprise; he’s been allied with Carlson for years and appeared on his show as early as the Fox News days (see this).

Some tidbits from the interview; it’s astounding this guy was in US government intelligence till just the other day. And I bet he’s not alone in these sentiments:

After resigning this week over what he said was Israel’s manipulation of President Donald Trump into war with Iran, former national counterterrorism director Joe Kent is now insinuating Israel may have also killed Charlie Kirk as part of its pressure campaign.

Kent made the comments on a Wednesday evening appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, as the FBI launched an investigation into whether Kent shared classified material. He is also scheduled to appear Thursday evening at a “Catholics for Catholics” gala featuring podcaster Candace Owens, who has promulgated antisemitic conspiracy theories and praised Kent.

“When one of President Trump’s closest advisers, who is vocally advocating for us to not go to war with Iran and for us to rethink, at least, our relationship with the Israelis, and then he’s suddenly publicly assassinated and we’re not allowed to ask any questions about that, it’s a data point,” Kent told Carlson about the 2025 murder of the right-wing pundit. “It’s a data point that we need to look into.”

He’s going to be appearing with Owens, too, which makes perfect sense considering his views.

Carlson has also taken it upon himself to defend the British Fascist Oswald Moseley. I think one of the things he’s doing is exploiting the historical ignorance of the young.

Lastly, I wonder – with zero evidence, so this is truly just a thought – whether the investigation of Kent for leaking (an investigation which started prior to his resignation) has to do with leaking information to Carlson or Owens or both.

Somaliland corroborates the charges against Ilhan Omar

The New Neo Posted on by

Let’s see – it’s been close to seven years since I wrote my first post on the subject of Omar’s marriage to her alleged brother. I deemed the evidence very plausible although unproven. The Powerline bloggers had already been on the case for quite some time and were quite convincing. But it was still treated as a wild and nasty slur.

Now we have the breakaway country of Somaliland saying that yes, it’s true – and also that her father was one of the oppressors, not the oppressed. I had started hearing that charge more recently; maybe a year or two ago?

I don’t think anything will come of this. One reason is that, even if there was fraud involved on Omar’s immigration application, it would have been on the part of her family, since she was about thirteen when she came to this country (at least according to Wiki). Even if proven, her immigration fraud in marrying her brother to help him would not invalidate her own status, according to my understanding of the law.

Nevertheless, it’s not a good look. Somaliland posts some documents here:

There’s also this. Somaliland has some scores to settle with Omar’s father:

Between 1981 and 1991, the Somali military in which Colonel Nur Omar Mohamed, Ilhan Omar’s father, served as a senior officer executed a brutal and systematic campaign of genocide targeting the Isaaq people of the modern day Republic of Somaliland.

This dark chapter in Africa’s history, which was known as the Isaaq Genocide, was a merciless military campaign that resulted in the killing of over 200,000 Isaaq civilians. It also involved widespread forced displacement, scorched?earth destruction of the second and third largest cities (Hargeisa and Burao), aerial bombardement of almost every other single city, town and village in Somaliland, and two decades of large?scale red-terror style tactics against the civilian population of Somaliland.

It was carried out through relentless aerial bombardments – planes repeatedly strafed fleeing refugees – summary executions, burning of entire villages, deportations, land?mining of water sources and homes, Holodomor style government enforced man-made famines (the Dabadheer Drought) and the use of paramilitary units such as the Somali Armed Forces’ “Dabar Goynta Isaaqa” (The Isaaq Exterminators), composed exclusively of non-ethnically Isaaq soldiers, to enact mass killings under Somalia’s military direction.

Unless they can pin the carnage on the Jews, most of the world doesn’t care.

Governor Hochul pleads with the former “captives” to return to NY so they can have their assets confiscated

The New Neo Posted on by

Quotes from Hochul:

I need people who are high net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state. Now, there are some patriotic millionaires who stepped up. OK, cut me the checks if you want to be supportive, but maybe the first step should be go down to Palm Beach and see who you can bring back home.”

I think many “high net worth” people are immune to Hochul’s guilt-tripping. If you make taxes too high for the wealthy, a significant number will leave. They are rich, and it’s relatively easy for them to do. Why not try to attract them instead? It might even raise more revenue if you more of them at a lower tax rate rather than fewer at a higher tax rate.

More from Hochul:

There were people who could only work in an office in Manhattan and work in New York state. And they were captives to our state, they were going to stay. We saw that that’s not the case. Wall Street businesses looking at Texas, they’re not going there because they have a nicer governor. They’re going there because of the tax rate.

Love that word: “captives.” And what freed the captives from their chains? The extreme response to COVID and the accommodations to it are what made going to the office less necessary. So Hochul is at least partly responsible for that, too – she became governor in August of 2021 after Cuomo left; prior to that she’d been Lieutenant Governor since 2014.

As far as “nice” governors go – who cares? Plus, she thinks she’s “nice”? I seem to recall this from Hochul in August of 2022:

“Trump and Zeldin and Molinaro – just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong. OK? Get out of town. Because you don’t represent our values,” added Hochul, who raised eyebrows last week for a dig against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a Manhattan event commemorating the Holocaust. …

… [T]he first female governor in state history has a message for political opponents who don’t share her believes on issues like abortion rights have no place in the Empire State.

“You’re not New Yorkers, because we come from a long line of people who fought for women’s rights that happened here first,” she said Monday.

You kept telling people to leave, and now you want them back because you want their money for the special interest groups of the Democrat Party. And you’re not even hiding it.

Who is Joe Kent and why was he the director of the National Counterterrorism Center?

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s been some chatter about Joe Kent’s resignation letter:

Joe Kent, a top aide to Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, took to X Tuesday morning to announce his resignation as director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), writing, “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.”

Kent, an Army veteran who has two failed congressional runs on his resume, also posted his official resignation letter, and tweeted, “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

I don’t think the Kent letter means much to anyone who didn’t already agree with it – such as the left and the Tucker wing of the ex-right. In it, Kent parrots the Tucker line. The government and the military disagree, as does Trump:

Trump was more than happy to show Kent the exit. “When somebody is working with us that says they didn’t think Iran was a threat, we don’t want those people,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office. “There are some people, I guess, that would say that, but they’re not smart people or they’re not savvy people. Iran was a tremendous threat.”

Who is Kent, and why was he appointed in the first place?:

Joseph Clay Kent (born April 11, 1980) is an American politician, former United States Army warrant officer, and former Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary officer who served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center from 2025 to 2026. …
Kent enlisted in the 75th Ranger Regiment and applied for the Special Forces before the September 11 attacks. He served eleven combat tours, primarily in Iraq, and retired in 2018, becoming a paramilitary officer with the CIA. In January 2019, Kent’s wife, Shannon, was killed in a suicide bombing in Manbij, Syria. He became involved in political advocacy after Shannon’s death.

In 2022, Kent was the Republican nominee for Washington’s third congressional district.

He wasn’t elected, but he supported Trump back then because Trump said he didn’t want to start wars. Later, Trump chose him for the intelligence job in February 2025, very early in his second term.

Kent claimed in his resignation note that Israel had pressured the US into starting the Iraq War, although Kent wasn’t in the government then and had no special knowledge of what happened. In addition, those who did have such knowledge say that the Israeli government at the time warned the US not to start the war because Iran should be the focus instead.

More about Kent’s run for office in 2021 [emphasis mine]:

In September, Trump endorsed Kent. His prominence was bolstered by Tucker Carlson, who had frequently had Kent as guest on the Fox News program Tucker Carlson Tonight (2016–2023).

So – surprise, surprise – Kent was a Tucker Carlson protege. I wonder whether Tucker recommended him for the government position in 2025.

Kent didn’t last long in the administration’s good graces. For months before his departure there were problems:

In October, The New York Times reported Kent had obtained access to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s files on the assassination of Charlie Kirk, alarming the bureau’s director, Kash Patel. According to The Wall Street Journal, Kent had been sidelined from the team responsible for producing and delivering the President’s Daily Brief in the final months of his tenure.

Kent has been against military intervention in general after his Iraq deployment:

Kent is a non-interventionist, citing his military experience and the death of his wife. He began to question the management of the U.S. military during the Iraq War, when officials sought to eliminate members of Saddam Hussein’s government. According to Mother Jones, Kent read David Hackworth’s memoir About Face (1990), a book critical of the “clerks at the top” directing the U.S.’s involvement in the Vietnam War. He defended Trump’s pardons of two Army officers convicted of Uniform Code of Military Justice offenses, Mathew L. Golsteyn and Clint Lorance, and his intervention in the case of Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL involved in a high-profile war crimes case; in an interview with The New York Times in November 2019, Kent compared Gallagher’s case with that of Chelsea Manning.

During the early days of the Ukraine War Kent quickly aligned with the pro-Russia anti-Ukraine wing such as Carlson:

He stated Russian president Vladimir Putin’s demands for Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts were “very reasonable”. His comments on Tucker Carlson Tonight denouncing support for Ukraine as deterring a peace deal were repeated by TASS, a Russian state-owned news agency. In September 2023, Kent described the Biden administration’s strategy as immoral, arguing that the U.S. is fueling a prolonged war that is “unsustainable” for Ukraine. Kent has specifically stated that the policy uses the Ukrainian civilian population as “cannon fodder”, describing drafted Ukrainian soldiers—whom he characterizes as formerly everyday workers and students—as being sent to die in a “muddy ditch” in a war he believes they cannot win. He has argued that by providing continuous aid, the U.S. prevents a necessary, albeit likely painful, peace deal from being brokered.[

So he’s consistent on this. He doesn’t have any special or new information, nor has he experienced some sort of soul-searching political change. Au contraire.

The real question isn’t about Kent’s resignation – it’s about why he was appointed in the first place, and why he stayed in his position as long as he did.

David Boies on the Iran War: the way we were

The New Neo Posted on by

Five days ago I read this piece. It was in support of Trump’s actions in Iran, and because it was published in The New York Post – which is a paper on the right – it didn’t seem surprising.

But when I noticed the author’s name – David Boies – I was very surprised indeed. I immediately recognized the name as that of a prominent Democrat attorney. But the content was so unlike what I would expect these days from any Democrat not named Fetterman that I looked Boies’ history up, just to make sure. Yes, he had represented Gore in Bush v. Gore, and represented the plaintiff’s side in the case that successfully invalidated California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage.

But now he’s written this:

Every past president since Bill Clinton, Republican and Democrat alike, has declared that Iran couldn’t be permitted to develop nuclear weapons. Not one acted to prevent it.

Every president since Ronald Reagan has condemned Iran’s role in terrorism against American citizens, interests and allies. Not one acted to stop it.

Instead each president left his successor with a more dangerous Iran and a more complicated threat to address. …

I understand some of the hostility to Trump’s action. The isolationist wing of the Republican Party and the pacifist wing of the Democratic Party each are wrapped in the fantasy that we can afford to ignore the capabilities and intentions of enemies because they are thousands of miles away. Two hundred years ago that view was credible. One hundred years ago it was plausible. Today it takes only one missile carrying a nuclear or dirty bomb to get through our defenses, or one such device smuggled into this country, to devastate a city.

I also understand — and deplore — the fringes of both parties that apparently hate Israel and Jews so much that they oppose any action to neutralize Israel’s enemies.

What is harder to understand, and particularly troubling for our country, is opposition rooted simply in antipathy toward Trump himself. We used to say that politics stops at the water’s edge. …

Those of us who generally oppose Trump but who recognize the threat Iran poses need to support the military action not because we owe anything to Trump but because we owe it to ourselves, our country and our children.

If we opposed the war and succeeded in pressuring Trump to curtail it before the mission is accomplished, we would have the satisfaction of defeating someone we generally oppose, which might help ourselves politically.

But America would be worse for it.

The whole thing is worth reading.

Boies is eighty-five years old, so I see him as a throwback to an earlier time when many Democrats would have been willing to support such a war despite a Republican president being in charge. Now there are few.

The New Yorker interviewed Boies on the subject; the text of the interview seems to be available although TNY is usually behind a paywall. To get the tenor of some of the questions asked of Boies, take a look at this one, which seems designed to tell the reader just how wrong Boies is:

This war was started by a President who frequently seems unstable, who can’t lay out a clear reason for the war, and who makes vague threats against our allies. We have a Secretary of War who seems to delight in death and destruction. The White House X feed is putting out fascistic video edits of military attacks that delight in violence. How do you synthesize all that with the point you’re trying to make?

The questioner assumes the New Yorker readership is naturally in agreement with such propositions as that Trump is “unstable,” has not laid out a clear reason (although he’s laid out many, actually), that Hegseth “delights” in death and destruction, and that videos of the war are “fascistic” ones that also “delight” in violence.

Boies answers that question by basically ignoring all that editorializing and sticking with logic:

I think you’ve got to begin by asking yourself, Do you believe that this war is necessary or not? And I think you’ve got to begin by asking yourself, first, Do you believe it’s acceptable for the Iranian regime to have nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them? If you believe that, then the next question you have to ask yourself is: Could we have achieved that goal of eliminating the threat that Iran poses by some other means?

Ah, but that’s absolutely not where most people on the left begin. They begin by hating Trump and Hegseth and automatically opposing everything the administration does; their “logic” is retrofitted to conform with that conviction.

A bit later in the interview Boies reveals he was not a fan of Obama’s Iran deal when it was negotiated because he doesn’t trust the Iranian leaders. So this goes back quite a ways with him; he is consistent. He also says the following when the interviewer tries to point out inconsistencies in what Trump has said:

But see — my view is I don’t support [Trump] in this conflict because he says it’s the right thing to do. I support him because I think it’s the right thing to do.

The interviewer cites the girls’ school bombing as though it’s been proven the US did it, although it has not been, and then asks another question more to guide the reader than for Boies:

Sir, you’re a very, very smart guy. You don’t think Donald Trump actually cares about casualties, do you?

He simply can’t believe the answer can be “yes.” That disbelief is astounding and shows the strength of TDS, considering the war’s focus on the Iranian leadership rather than civilians, the inevitability of collateral damage in any war, and Trump’s longstanding opposition to most wars.

Boies’ answer:

Look, I actually do, O.K.? In his first Administration, in 2019, when he turned back the bombers from hitting Iran, I think he did that because I do think he genuinely cares about human life. Now that doesn’t mean that he respects human life the way I would.

He had to add that last sentence, but I forgive him, considering the “Look, I actually do, O.K.?”

And he adds, for good measure:

I do understand that in wartime people say a lot of things that are untrue to support their side. We’ve done that repeatedly in every war we fought. Now, with respect to civilian casualties, it is a terrible cost of war, and it is an inevitable cost of war. And, by my count, the civilian casualties that have been incurred are far less than the civilian casualties that this Iranian regime caused in suppressing the protests.

Later in the interview Boies gives another hint at why he’s willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt – in other words, why he seems relatively free of TDS [emphasis mine]:

Well, I don’t know. I do know Donald Trump some. I’ve known him for decades. And I think that he would be better served by being willing to recognize some of the costs here, but I believe he respects human life. And I think this is a President who, despite renaming the Department of Defense, really doesn’t like war.

Boies is to be lauded for refusing to demonize someone he knows is not a demon. It takes some courage these days for a Democrat to take such a position. Yes, he’s old, and that may help. But probably many of his friends and associates will now shun him.