The immigration status of the Boulder flamethrower and his family

The New Neo Posted on by

Mohamed Soliman, the man in custody for the attack on the pro-Israel crowd in Boulder, Colorado, came here during the Biden administration:

Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, posted on X early Monday that Mohamed Soliman had entered the U.S. on a B2 visa that expired in February 2023. He had also applied for asylum in September 2022.

A B2 visa is a tourist visa that allows foreign citizens to enter the country for a temporary stay. It’s usually granted after a background check and interview. Then, the person receives a 10-year permit to visit the country. Typically, each stay is limited to six months.

So, the person gets his or her foot in the door through a tourist visa and then switches to asking for asylum, which confers enormous advantages:

Jimenez [an immigration attorney] said that many people here on visas file applications for asylum, sometimes even after their permit has expired. He said it’s often a lengthy process, and he knows of people who are waiting eight to 10 years for an interview. While that claim is pending, applicants are allowed to stay in the U.S.

I assume that the enormous length of the process results from the fact that many more people are asking for asylum, having learnd the ropes online. It’s stated that he was born in Egypt but lived in Kuwait for seventeen years, before coming here. So, what’s illegal about his residence here? It seems his original tourist visa expired in August of 2023 and it was never renewed, although I’m not sure how the asylum request enters into it.

Meanwhile, he’s been living here with his wife and four children, all of whom have been taken into ICE custody:

The Department of Homeland Security is investigating “to what extent” the family of suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, “knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote separately on X.

If so, they could be deported expeditiously – unless a district judge rules against it, I suppose. Even if they didn’t know, it seems to me they could be deported after a more lengthy process. Interestingly enough, his daughter recently graduated from high school and was featured in this article in the Denver Gazette. Here’s an especially fascinating passage:

When she was young her father underwent a difficult surgery that restored his ability to walk. Habiba wrote that she considered the medical procedure nothing short of “magic.” She realized the importance of medicine and knew it was something she wanted to pursue. Habiba was born in Egypt but lived in Kuwait for 14 years. Because she was not Kuwaiti, the prospect of attending medical school there was not an option. The move to the United States provides a chance to fulfill her dream.

So, even though the family had resided in Kuwait and were Egyptian Muslims, the children wouldn’t have been allowed to attend medical school there? In the US, apparently no problem.

ADDENDUM: I’ve got a more recent post here with some updated information.

The media spreads the massacre hoax

The New Neo Posted on by

The media is poisonous in its propensity to spread Hamas’ lies about Israel. Actually, the media is poisonous in its propensity to spread lies about a lot of things. One wonders what the world would be like if that weren’t true.

One of the media’s specialties is the blood libel against Jews and Israel. Towards the beginning of Israel’s action against Hamas post-10/7, there was the infamous hospital bombing that never was. The hallmark of the media’s role is to spread the lies Hamas tells about the number of casualties and the source of those casualties, making sure that the lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its boots on.

Once again.

This time it was a report on a supposed Israeli massacre of people waiting in line for food in Gaza:

… [M]ajor news outlets, including Fox News, CNN, the Associated Press, and the BBC, rushed to publish a fake news story about a supposed “massacre” at an Israeli-allied Gaza aid distribution site. According to the Hamas-run “Gaza Ministry of Health,” Israeli “warships, tanks, and drones” randomly opened fire on thousands of people, killing 31 and injuring over 200 more.

Why would Israel do that when their entire strategy is to neuter Hamas’ power structure by not allowing the terrorist group to control the distribution of aid? The answer is that they wouldn’t, which should have been enough for these supposed unbiased press outlets to pause and do some actual research. Sure enough, within hours, surveillance video had been released showing that no such attack ever took place.

In fact, it’s Hamas firing on Gazans trying to get aid; the motive of Hamas appears to be that Hamas is no longer in charge of the aid and can’t earn money and power from its usual methods of controlling crucial supplies for the population. This is an Orwellian twist, which is also a feature of the MSM reporting on the Gaza War (and so many other things).

What’s the media’s game? Why do they do this? Why do they make the same “mistake” over and over? We have to conclude the reason is that it’s no mistake. If it were, not only would they be skeptical next time, but they would be extremely apologetic and do some soul-searching every time the error is found out. But nothing of the sort happens. Instead, the pattern repeats over and over.

The deeper “why” is that they have demonized Israel and made pets out of the Gazans. It would be “bigoted” to question Hamas’ word, after all. It would help the bloodthirsty Israeli “colonizers.” It would make the reporter who sympathized with Israelis persona non-grata in the MSM establishment.

Michael Oren writes:

The media’s message is, simply, that Jews are an inherently bloodthirsty people who enjoy slaughtering innocent people.

He describes some of the incendiary coverage. Seems to me it has probably contributed to some of the recent attacks on Jews in this country, but the MSM will never own up to that.

NOTE: The BBC issued a tepid withdrawal of the story, after the damage was done.

The story of the non-reporting on Biden’s decline is really rather simple

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s been so much verbiage on this subject lately, one would be forgiven for thinking it’s complex. It’s not. The heart of the matter is this: they needed him.

They needed Biden to run in 2020 because they calculated – probably correctly – that he would get the most votes versus Trump of all the Democrat contenders.

They needed him to stay in office because of the disaster that Kamala Harris turned out to be.

They needed him to run again in 2024 for the very same reason, once it became clear that their efforts to imprison Trump weren’t working and that he would be the GOP nominee. The debate foiled those plans and left them scrambling.

The “they” in all of this isn’t just the Democrat Party. It includes the MSM, which is the Democrats’ mouthpiece, and whose members will lie about and/or cover up anything that might hurt Democrats.

And now that the press and the Democrats feel the need to explain why they supposedly didn’t know Biden was so cognitively challenged, they have developed the myth that it wasn’t apparent until the debate because Biden, his family, and his aides covered it up. Of course, that makes the press look stupid, but they’d rather that than admit they were complicit.

Now the new message is that it’s Trump who is cognitively challenged, and the stalwart press will be on top of it this time.

You can’t make this stuff up. But they can.

NOTE: I’ve watched some videos of the Tapper & Thompson tour promoting their book on the subject. Why have I spent even a moment doing this? Well, it’s interesting to me to see how people can justify and spin. Plus, there are some details that I believe might even be true, such as the following segment which I’ve cued up. It’s only about a minute long, although the interview itself is a lengthy one:

Poland has a new president – and he was endorsed by Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

A Polish president isn’t like a US president. He doesn’t run the country; there’s also a prime minister, and the Polish prime minister right now is Donald Tusk, the pro-EU leftist/liberal head of state. But the new Polish president, Karol Nawrocki, will have enough power to put the brakes on some of Tusk’s agenda:

Europe’s Liberal elites woke up to a shock on Monday morning as Poland’s Conservative candidate Karol Nawrocki defeated his left-wing rival in a nail-biting finish.

“Nawrocki won 50.9% percent of the votes – ahead of Warsaw’s liberal mayor Rafal Trzaskowski on 49.1% percent,” the BBC reported. …

Nawrocki is expected to promote Christian values and push back against wokism, media fears. Leftist candidate “Trzaskowski, a pro-EU progressive, backed abortion law liberalisation and civil partnerships for LGBTQ+ couples,” British newspaper The Guardian reported. “Nawrocki, who espouses conservative Catholic values, would probably veto any government attempt to implement such moves.”

It’s a curious system; at least, I find it curious. Here’s an explanation of the powers of a Polish president:

The president jointly exercises the executive power together with the Council of Ministers headed by the prime minister. The president has a right to dissolve both chambers of parliament in certain cases determined by the constitution, can veto legislation, represents the Republic on the international stage, and is the commander-in-chief of the nation’s Armed Forces.

Vetoes can be overturned by a 3/5 vote of parliament.

And the prime minister? What’s left for him to do?:

Article 148 of the constitution stipulates that the prime minister shall act as the representative of the cabinet as a whole, delegate its agendas, coordinate the work of ministers, ensure the implementation of policy adopted by the cabinet, and issue regulations. Additionally, the prime minister acts as the superior of all civil servants.

But then this article says Nawrocki’s role will be largely ceremonial. Of course, it’s the BBC, but that doesn’t mean they’re incorrect:

Poland’s president-elect Karol Nawrocki is taking up a largely ceremonial role, but his impact on the country’s politics in the next five years may be profound. …

Poland’s president has limited influence on foreign and defence policy, but can propose and veto bills. Tusk’s government lacks a big enough parliamentary majority to overturn a presidential veto.

The outgoing conservative president, Andrzej Duda, has used his blocking powers and the threat of using them to prevent the prime minister from delivering on many of his key campaign promises.

If you can fully understand that, I’m impressed. I don’t see how someone can have a “largely ceremonial” role and also a big impact on politics and a veto power, as well as being commander-in-chief.

What a difference an FBI head makes

The New Neo Posted on by

Patel versus McCabe:

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe criticized FBI Director Kash Patel Sunday during a CNN appearance, claiming Patel prematurely described an incident in Boulder, Colorado, as terrorism.

Patel posted on X that the FBI was investigating a “targeted terror attack” in Boulder after Mohamed Sabry Soliman allegedly used Molotov cocktails and a jury-rigged flamethrower when he attacked an event supporting hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by the radical Islamic terrorist group Hamas that killed over 1,200 people in Israel. McCabe said that local officials, who he claimed had “better information,” had not called it terrorism. …

“They [local authorities] don’t have a clear idea that they’re willing to communicate to the rest of the world yet of even exactly what happened, who was there, how they were attacked with fire, and what the purpose or the motive of that attack might have been,” McCabe told CNN host Jessica Dean.

Let’s see; let’s see. The perp was an:

… Egyptian illegal immigrant who used a flamethrower and molotov cocktails to set a group of Jewish people on fire Sunday at a pro-Israel demonstration in Boulder, Colorado.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, told authorities he planned the attack for a year and admitted to targeting the “Zionist group” in Boulder after doing research, according to court documents obtained by Fox News.

Soliman admitted to police that he wanted to kill Zionists and said he would repeat the attack if he could. He repeatedly expressed his hatred for the Zionist group and said he needed to prevent them from taking “our land,” referring to Palestine, the court documents show.

He was witnessed yelling “Free Palestine” as he hurled the incendiary devices at the group at the demonstration. What part of this does McCabe, and the Boulder police, not understand? The part that doesn’t want to offend a group favored by the left.

The drone attack: “Russia’s Pearl Harbor”

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s mostly Russians who are calling the recent drone attack by Ukraine “Russia’s Pearl Harbor,” because that would make Russia seem the innocent victim of a sneak attack that was unprovoked. Russia, of course, started this war, which makes the analogy absurd. However, Russia apparently did sustain quite a blow.

What it does to the peace talks is anybody’s guess.

More:

On Sunday, the Russian Ministry of Defense issued an official statement that a coordinated Ukrainian drone swarm attack targeted and damaged military aircraft across several airbases located deep within Russian territory. …

Multiple U.S. media outlets—including Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and CBS News—have independently confirmed the Ukrainian drone swarm operation targeted and destroyed approximately 40 Russian military aircraft across four airbases.

According to Ukrainian intelligence officials cited by CBS News, the aircraft destroyed include Tu-95MS and Tu-22M3 bombers, which play a central role in Russia’s strategic and nuclear-capable long-range aviation forces.

These are aircraft that have been used to launch attacks on Ukraine. Ukraine says it informed Washington; the Trump administration denies this.

More details here.

The larger picture is that drone attacks seem to be the new face of warfare and probably will necessitate a huge adjustment in strategy and tactics. We’ve known about this need for quite some time; let’s hope we’re preparing quickly. Here’s an article with some details:

[Gen. Randy George, chief of staff of the Army] noted that technology is changing too rapidly on the modern battlefield to be wedded to these large procurement programs that historically have taken years to develop and once fielded, can be largely obsolete.

He wants to shrink the timeline it takes to develop systems and get them in the hands of soldiers, especially given much of these capabilities, such as drones, communications gear and electronic warfare tools, are increasingly available on the commercial market.
…
The Army has been experimenting with this approach through what it calls transforming-in-contact, which aims to speed up how the service buys technologies and designs its forces by injecting emerging capabilities into units and letting them experiment with them during exercises and deployments. …

He also noted that Ukraine’s drone attack over the weekend flips the cost curve. Kyiv used relatively cheap systems to destroy millions to billions of dollars worth of Russian combat power.

“Look at how cheap those systems were compared to what they took out. We have to be thinking about that [with] everything we’re doing,” George said.

The attack, furthermore, exemplified how transparent battlefields are becoming, meaning there is nowhere to hide.

“We talk a lot about you can’t really hide anymore on the modern battlefield. You’re going to have to be dispersed, lower signature, all of those things, which we talk a lot about with our troops and with our commanders,” George said.

Our military needs to scramble to figure out a way to defend against this sort of thing, and I hope they’ve been working on it for quite some time because the threat has been obvious for a while.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Musk left government at the end of the statutory period, and of course there was spin.

Musk and Trump had a presser for the occasion.

(2) Chatbots don’t have First Amendment rights, says the court. What a tragic case – I don’t mean the ruling; I mean the fact situation:

One case involved a Florida mother, Megan Garcia, who had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Character Technologies, the company behind the AI chatbot platform Character AI. …

The lawsuit claimed that [14-year=old] Sewell, who began using Character.AI in April of the previous year, became emotionally and sexually involved with a chatbot modeled after the “Game of Thrones” character Daenerys Targaryen. Over several months, Sewell grew increasingly isolated, engaging in explicit and emotionally charged conversations with the bot, during which he discussed his suicidal thoughts and wishes for a pain-free death.

According to the legal filing, the chatbot not only failed to intervene but also encouraged Sewell’s suicidal ideation. In his final exchange, the bot told him, “Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love,” to which Sewell replied he could “come home right now.” The bot responded, “Please do, my sweet king.” Shortly after this conversation, Sewell died by suicide.

The firms involved in the case asserted protections under First Amendment rights to free speech. The judge in the case ruled against them.

(3) The Biden administration tried to foist a consent decree on the Minneapolis police department in the waning days of Biden’s term. The Trump administration didn’t defend it, and a judge ruled against the consent degree’s implementation.

However (a quote from the linked article – not the judge):

Minneapolis will surely implement, through its socialist/communist City Council, the restraints the consent decree would have imposed on the MPD, giving law-abiding Minneapolis residents perhaps a final reason to engage the services of U-Haul.

The judge in this case, by the way, is 88 years old and a Reagan appointee.

(4) Actress Loretta Swit, who played the MASH role of Hot Lips Houlihan, has died at 87. RIP.

(5) This is how North Korea controls the cellphone use of its population.:

Nineteen Eighty-Four, eat your heart out.

So much of modern technology facilitates propaganda and surveillance.

No true Scotsman: is MAGA no true conservative?

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Bauxite” writes:

What I also see, however, is that MAGA is willing to throw overboard everything that we all professed to believe until about 10 minutes ago now that it is inconvenient to Trump.

I don’t know what MAGA is, but conservative it ain’t.

Bauxite make a point that I think is central to the confusion and disagreement about the value of Trump and the MAGA movement. It hinges on the definition of “conservative.”

The word has a meaning in the vernacular, and by that definition Trump is not conservative. For example, we’ve got these definitions:

… marked by moderation or caution …

marked by or relating to traditional norms of taste, elegance, style, or manners : tending to avoid qualities or elements that are novel, showy, etc.

Trump is the antithesis of those things.

“Conservative” – in the US anyway; the definition in Europe is somewhat different – also has a political meaning. Back when I was in school, I was taught this meaning or something approximating it:

… tending or inclined to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions …

a person who adheres to traditional methods or views

Here’s where it gets really complex. What existing views? Existing when? And, in particular, what is “conservative” after many years in which the left has been in ascendance and has transformed what for a long time had been “existing views” so that today’s “existing views” are very different – at least among the bureaucrats who run our government these days, plus great deal of the judiciary? Today’s conservatives wouldn’t be upholding what’s been put into place by Obama and the Biden crew, for example. How far back should today’s conservatives go, and how far forward into newer views? Because the term “conservative” has also come to be a synonym for a smaller federal government, the preservation of individual liberties, and long-held social values involving the family and who is male and female. MAGA stands for those principles, which used to be called – just to make matters more complex – classical liberalism.

Once the left has been in charge for a while, it’s not conservative to preserve what they’ve put in place. Perhaps we now have the need for terms like “reactionary” – which you seldom hear these days, and which has a pejorative ring. Or, as Victor Davis Hanson says, counter-revolutionary – that is, undoing the Obama-Biden revolution, or perhaps even the FDR revolution if you want to go back further into smaller federal government. But one never goes back, not exactly. It will always look different

Counter-revolution is not conservative in the sense of conserving what is, or of being restrained in nature. It’s bold. How bold is too bold? At what point do we lose the point and become something else, something dangerous in its negation of traditional avenues such as courts? Trump dances around the edges of such things, and that’s why some conservatives disapprove. But he must approach those edges in order to be effective. Therein lies the dilemma.