Kamala’s CBS editors made her sound semi-coherent

The New Neo Posted on by

We now have have the unedited footage of Kamala Harris’ 60 Minutes interview.

It’s about what you’d except. Instead of relatively succinct – although nevertheless vague – answers, we have meandering, lengthy, vague and often meaningless responses. Plus, some of the worst ones were left out. CBS edited the interview to make her look better, but even then she didn’t look good.

Here’s an article that describes some of the cuts.

And here’s the original:

Here’s an example of her answering the “why do you want to be president?” question:

A few more details on Trump’s Gaza plan

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t think the word “plan” is exactly correct. Vision? Suggestion? Proposal? Fantasy? Negotiating tactic?

At any rate, here are more details:

Writing on the Truth Social platform, President Trump announced that no U.S. troops would be needed to implement the plan. …

“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” President Trump said on Truth Social.

“The Palestinians … would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region. They would actually have a chance to be happy, safe, and free,” he said. “The U.S., working with great development teams from all over the World, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth.”

Move over, Marshall Plan. Say hello to Gaza-by-the-sea.

Note the “no US troops” statement, which should placate the worst fears of those who voted for Trump to greatly limit troop commitments abroad. I never thought he had any intention of involving US troops, even though he had left it open when he made his announcement. Note also that this assumes an Israeli victory. Plus, unspecified “development teams from all over the world” would be part of it. Trump’s greatest real estate project.

As I wrote earlier, no one knows whether any of this will happen, and there’s an excellent chance it will not. But it certainly has changed the conversation, and one of the most important elements of that change is that it makes it clear there is no 2-state solution in the sense that it’s been used in the past. If this is a 2-state solution, it’s a completely different one.

When Arabs have moved to European countries – or when Palestinians have moved from Gaza or the West Bank to Egypt or Jordan or Lebanon – in the past many have kept to their murderous and destructive ways. If the Gazans move now, will this be the case once again, especially when united with their leftist champions in Europe? Or, with the near-destruction of Gaza, are at least some of them ready to just live their lives in a better place, not continually thinking they have a right to return to Israel itself? I think it’s a longshot. But it’s an intriguing thought. And no one seems to have a better one.

Trump’s second term so far: I guess this is what “draining the swamp” looks like

The New Neo Posted on by

It may have been the most basic and early of Trump’s campaign promises, back when he was first running for president: to drain the swamp. Making illegal immigration less easy was another, of course, and the more general Make America Great Again, which seemed to me to primarily be referring to making the country economically more independent and prosperous, and making us more respected as a superpower abroad that meant what it said and said what it meant and was willing to back it up.

But draining the swamp was, as Trump would say, YUGE. And in his first term he lost that battle, YUGELY. In fact, the swamp came very close to draining him. Meanwhile, he had learned more of the perils of the swamp: where the quicksand is, where the most dangerous creatures dwell. And now he’s fighting them as best he can, with a group of capable people, many of whom have learned firsthand up close and personal how dangerous the swamp can be.

The swamp is bigger than he ever thought, but he has more help this time. The swamp, of course, is fighting back. So far his attack has been a blitzkreig type, very fast. But don’t underestimate the power of the swamp to regroup and fight back very very hard.

The USAID is an especially hidden area of the swamp, and shining a light in there has caused a great deal of turmoil among those who have benefited from its largesse. And the FBI and the DOJ have been attempted agents of Trump’s (and the J6ers) destruction – not everyone in those agencies by any means, but some portion of the higher-ups who decided to twist the law into a pretzel to get those on the right they perceived as enemies.

We on the right used to complain that there were no consequences for any of the wrongdoing we saw. Well, now the attempt is to bring those consequences at last.

I believe there only will be legal prosecution for a few, and that’s okay with me. There also will be many legal challenges from the swamp, and judges on the left (and perhaps even on the right, if the case is sound) may find for the plaintiffs. But nevertheless, an enormous and sweeping effort is being made and I believe a significant portion of it will be successful.

There’s so much going on that I can’t cover everything in depth. What I’ve been doing, and what I plan to keep doing, is concentrating on the efforts I find most interesting or important, and also providing overviews such as this one. And of course links such as these:

From Ace, “USAID and the CIA Funded Trump’s First Impeachment.”

At Legal Insurrection, “US State Department Recalls All USAID Staffers from Foreign Assignments.”

From The Federalist, “The Constitution Vindicates Trump’s Firing Of 17 Inspectors General.”

From The Federalist, “If Presidents Can’t Control Executive Agencies, Elections Are Fake.”

There’s much, much more.

It’s also one thing to make light of the reaction of the left, such as “heads are exploding.” But there’s really nothing light about this. The press and the left are labeling it a coup, a dictatorship, an illegal takeover. The grounds for believing that – even on the part of relatively moderate Democrats – have been prepared for many many years. This is an extremely volatile situation.

Interesting times.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

My attempt to keep up with the incredible pace of the news – another roundup:

(1) Netanyahu has reportedly gifted Trump a golden pager to commemorate the pager explosions that harmed Hezbollah operatives. But would you accept a gift of a pager from this man?

(2) Pam Bondi is the new AG. She’s got her work cut out for her. She hasn’t wasted any time in issuing this directive:

“The discretion afforded Justice Department attorneys with respect to those responsibilities does not include latitude to substitute their personal political views or judgments for those that prevailed in the election.

… “any Justice Department attorney who declines to sign a brief, refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Trump administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the Justice Department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination.”

This seems reasonable to me. DOJ employees are under the direction of the executive branch and the AG.

(3) Next up on the chopping block: the Department of Education. This is no surprise; it was one of Trump’s campaign promises. Most of my Democrat friends will probably assume this means that Republicans are against education.

(4) About the FBI and J6:

FBI employees who “simply followed orders” with respect to their investigations into Jan. 6 defendants will not be fired or face any other penalties, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove confirmed in an internal memo.

This is about the higher-ups, apparently.

(5) The EU is destroying Europe.

Well, it’s certainly not helping it.

It turns out that many media sites favoring Democrats have been on the USAID payroll

The New Neo Posted on by

Wow.

No wonder Democrats are so incensed at Musk and his Musketeers and their efforts to expose the nuts and bolts of who receives USAID money. It turns out that Politico – the site that broke the story of the 51 “intelligence experts” saying the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation – has been on the taxpayer payroll to the tune of many millions. As has the Democrat-favoring AP.

We assumed that websites such as Politico had private benefactors. But USAID? I can’t say the thought ever crossed my mind, skeptical and distrustful as I am of the left.

See this:

And here’s the scoop on Politico:

Also the NY Times and the BBC. Hey, the more the merrier. Much of this – or at least some – seems to have been in the form of paid premium subscriptions.

Much more here, including this about the legality of what DOGE is doing:

As for Musk and usurpation, attorney and activist Tom Renz points out that the Trump administration planned carefully for this effort. Trump took an existing agency from the Obama era that focused on software development and tasked it instead to do a deep data dive on federal spending. He then made Musk a partner to the US DOGE Service — told you it would be important — to facilitate the effort …

… [T]he real lesson from this is that the executive branch has too much authority over too-huge amounts of discretionary spending. That also means that the executive branch can rescind those spending decisions unilaterally, however. So far, it appears that the USDS has been careful to avoid spending that Congress specifically directs in statute or in budget line items, and instead is taking aim at everything else. That has been the case in every single department that DOGE has touched, especially at USAID, where spending is not only discretionary but has never been effectively checked by executives at State or the White House.

Update on the bot attacks and the solutions

The New Neo Posted on by

Obviously, my new plugin wasn’t sufficient to stop the problem, because the blog went down for quite a while today due to brute force bot attacks. This time, my host put up a block of some kind that has worked for now, but might not be enough in the future. If I continue to have the problem, they’ll put up something stronger, but there are some drawbacks to that, which is why I opted to see if the weaker solution will be enough.

Please bear with me, and let me know if you have further problems getting on the blog.

Trump’s wild and crazy Gaza proposal

The New Neo Posted on by

Did you see it coming? I did’t see it coming. The “it” I’m talking about is, of course, Trump’s announcement yesterday that the US plans to take over Gaza, evacuate its people to some Arab country or countries, and rebuild it into a fabulous place. This is not only a total surprise, but it’s especially a surprise from Trump, given his devotion to the US not getting all that involved abroad.

So, what gives? The consensus on the right – a consensus I share – is that it’s Trump thinking so far outside the box that he’s on another planet. Why would he do that? In order to point out some truths. These are those truths:

– There is no 2-state solution possible.
– Gaza is physically a wasteland and must be rebuilt by someone.
– The Gazans are really part of the Arab world and not a separate entity.
– The Gazans are incapable of having a peaceful state alongside their neighbor – actually, neighbors, because neither Egypt nor Jordan want any part of them. Nor does anyone else on earth.
– The UN has been worse than useless and is actually part of the problem.
– If the Gazans go back to Gaza there will be an endless cycle of war.

What to do? I haven’t a clue. But I do think that Trump’s goal is to get a conversation going in which at least some people around the world acknowledge those hard truths and stop pretending otherwise. We’ll see what happens.

Meanwhile, of course, the usual suspects are very very very upset, as you can see by the world’s condemnation of Trump’s proposal. Apparently they’d rather keep the Palesinians as perpetual refugees and perpetual Jew-murderers, in a wasteland of ruin.

Here’s what Alan Dershowitz had to say last night about it:

Israel/Palestine is an exceptionally difficult problem and has been for my entire lifetime. No matter how much I’ve thought about it, I’ve never come up with a solution. Trump’s “we’ll take over Gaza and rebuild it while relocating the Gazans” seems stark raving mad at first. But again, I remind myself that’s it’s one of those wild opening bids that may end up merely sparking Egypt and Jordan and some other Arab nations to help deal with the intractable problem of Gaza/Hamas and not just kick the can down the road as before, business as usual.