On Trump, snobbery, and the roller derby

The New Neo Posted on by

I was talking recently to the only person I’m close to who is also on the right, and the topic of Trump-hatred came up. I said that I thought a huge part of the intensity of that hatred was snobbery.

In other words, Trump is déclassé. He may have been born with a silver – or golden – spoon in his mouth, but his personality “reads” differently. He’s not an intellectual, which makes a lot of intellectuals think he’s dumb. He doesn’t speak in polite euphemisms, which makes them think – correctly – that he’s crass. He’s a braggart. He’s sometimes a bully.

Now you either find those things so repellent that you can see nothing else, or you don’t care all that much. I don’t care all that much, and I see a lot else that’s been good for the country and the world. Sometimes it pays to be a bully in the international arena.

Of course, it’s not as simple as that. But I think that snobbery is at the heart of the intense distaste so many people feel for Trump – including some on the right.

But this post isn’t really about Trump. It’s about snobbery, something I’ve never quite understood.

When I was a child my family was financially comfortable. We had a nice house, not big by today’s standards but more than adequate. Same for our food – unfancy but plentiful enough and tasty enough. Clothes? Again, their numbers fit quite nicely in my old-fashioned closet that was about three feet wide, but it seemed like an abundance to me.

I had friends who were richer and friends who were poorer. My parents – both of whom had been to college, and a father who was a lawyer – had friends who had college degrees and friends who had dropped out of high school because of the Depression. I found it merely sort of interesting to hear my mother tell stories of their personal histories – she’d known almost all of them since childhood – but it had no bearing whatsoever on whether I liked them or not.

In childhood I was envious of those friends who had more harmonious home lives than mine, not friends who had more money. I spent a lot of time in the homes of friends – observing, observing, observing, like some infant anthropologist.

And I had certain déclassé interests myself, although I didn’t think of them that way because I didn’t have the concept back then. When I was about eleven years old, for example, I wanted to grow up to be a hairdresser. My mother at first thought it amusing but then thought it needed to be discouraged as not a proper ambition.

And then there was my love for the roller derby. I suppose that’s where this essay was going from the start. From about the age of seven to ten, I was a huge roller derby fan. I watched it on TV every week – I think on Sunday afternoons? – and looked forward to it immensely. I knew the names of all the skaters, and their numbers. For my favorites, I even knew their birthdays. It was something, I suppose, like pro wrestling – which of course is part of Trump’s world, although I’ve never been keen on wrestling and lost my taste for roller derby in adolescence.

But for a while I found roller derby thrilling. It had that element of real athleticism and of good-versus-evil pageantry and showmanship. And even the women in the roller derby had to be aggressive and sometimes fought. My childhood had involved a certain amount of physical battling, as well, and so I was no stranger to the need to defend myself against more powerful forces (an older brother, for example).

I was not repelled by the roller derby. I was inspired.

I started nagging my parents to take me to see a roller derby game in person. That involved going to Manhattan’s 14th Street Armory. They refused, but our kindly housekeeper volunteered to be my escort, and that’s how I ended up having that wish fulfilled. It was a huge place with a huge crowd. I already knew that the roller derby tracks were banked, but in person the angle of the bank seemed far far greater than on TV. I was astounded that anyone could skate on that steep a track. But one thing was disappointing – the entire room was shrouded in a thick cloud of cigarette smoke. In those days, smoking seemed not only allowed but required.

And suddenly I wonder whether the vastness of YouTube includes some clips of the roller derby of my youth. Sure enough, it does. And although this is taken a few years earlier than my time, I recognize some of these players:

Mid-week roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

Some days there’s just a lot of news. Maybe every day, nowadays.

(1) This seem to have been a hit job. But why?:

The CEO of UnitedHealth’s insurance division was gunned down Wednesday morning outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown in what police called a “brazen, targeted” attack.

Brian Thompson, 50, was repeatedly shot by a masked gunman about 6:46 a.m. who had been lying in wait outside the Sixth Avenue hotel, said NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

“Many people passed the suspect, but he appeared to wait for his intended target,” she said. …

When Thompson – who had been staying at the nearby Marriott, according to sources – walked up to the hotel, the masked suspect struck, Kenny said.

“The shooter steps onto the sidewalk from behind the car, he ignores numerous other pedestrians, approaches the victim from behind and shoots him in the back,” Kenny said. “The shooter then walks toward the victim and continues to shoot.”

The shooter was a white man wearing a mask, and he escaped on a bicycle and is at large. It’s also reported that the Thompson family had received unspecified death threats.

(2) Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary, has been under attack and it’s unclear whether his confirmation will go through. Meanwhile, all sorts of rumors swirl about who might replace him, and Hegseth himself says he’s not backing out:

“I spoke to the president-elect this morning. He said, ‘Keep going, keep fighting. I’m behind you all the way.’” Hegseth told CBS News in the Capitol Wednesday. “Why would I back down? I’ve always been a fighter. I’m here for the fighters. This is personal and passionate for me.”

Time will tell.

(3) SCOTUS is hearing arguments on a Tennessee law banning medical transition of kids. At that link, Ace does not mince words. For example:

The ACLU and the corrupt liar Biden are arguing that “gender identity” is an “immutable” characteristic, which would then protect it at the highest level (“strict scrutiny”) under equal protection analysis.

Alito points out that “gender fluid” pyrsyns may change their gender rapidly from one day to the next.

Kind of the exact opposite of an “immutable” characteristic then, right?

(4) This author contends that Trump is already the de facto president. I think that’s the case – for a few things. However, it doesn’t matter that Joe is mostly nodding off and Kamala is in lala land as well; a lot of damage can still be done by the people running the show behind the scenes. They are in power for about six more weeks.

(5) So far, Argentina’s Milei seems to be doing pretty darn well against inflation.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams has a few things to say

The New Neo Posted on by

On immigration:

He suggested that he planned to work with Tom Homan, who Trump recently nominated to become his new border czar.

“Those who are here committing crimes, robberies, shooting at police officers, raping innocent people, have been a harm to our country, I want to sit down and hear the plan on how we’re going to address them,” Adams said. “Those are the people I am talking about, and I would love to sit down with the border czar to hear his thoughts on how we’re going to address those who are harming our citizens.”

A reporter asked about Adams’ stance on Trump’s plan to carry out mass deportations after taking office. The mayor brought up how previous Democratic presidents handled illegal immigration.

“I want you to all go back and Google Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Google what they said about those who commit crimes in our city and what they said in our country,” Adams responded. “They said, ‘Those who commit crimes need to get out right away.’ That was their position.”

Adams already has been the object of lawfare from the left (I submit that the charges would never have been brought had Adams been better at toeing the party line on illegal aliens), so I think that Adams feels he has nothing to lose by telling some hard truths. Plus, although the population of NYC voted strongly for Harris a month ago, it wasn’t quite as strongly as they did for Biden in 2020.

And Adams has never had any love for DA Alvin Bragg. For example, here’s an article from February of 2022:

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg were elected to their respective positions in November after running on radically different messages about policing.

Adams, the former NYPD captain, argued police officers should resume enforcing quality of life crimes such as graffiti and pushed a tough-on-crime message that helped him connect with voters in the outer boroughs. In Manhattan, home to progressive elites, Bragg vowed to pull back on prosecutions — even reducing some felony charges, including commercial robberies. …

Bragg, pressured by Adams in public and private, has now walked back some of his most controversial campaign plans.

So it may come as no surprise that Adams has expressed support for Daniel Penny, the man being tried in NY for murder for subduing a man threatening the passengers on a subway train with death, a man who died either from the effects of being held down by Penny and others or by the drugs he’d ingested:

“We’re now on the subway where we’re hearing someone talking about hurting people, killing people,” Adams said on the Nov. 30 episode of “The Rob Astorino Show.” “You have someone [Penny] on that subway who was responding, doing what we should have done as a city.”

“Those passengers were afraid,” the mayor added.

More:

“Based on all the facts that’s laid out, a jury of his peers will make the right decision. I don’t want to prejudge that,” Adams said of whether Penny should be found guilty of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

“That could have easily been a case where you saw three innocent people murdered on our street two weeks ago,” he added, referring to a recent deadly stabbing spree in Manhattan on Nov 18.

“We have to recognize we have a mental health crisis, and we’re not doing enough to solve it.”

Actually, people like Bragg – and Biden and Harris, with their border policy – have been adding to it. And Adams knows that.

RIP commenter “Mike K”

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m sorry to have to announce the death of commenter “Mike K” on October 25, 2024. Mike K began commenting here in 2007 but only very intermittently at that point, and became a regular and prolific part of the commenting community at this blog in 2016. I will miss him, and I know a lot of you share that sentiment.

In the real world as opposed to the virtual one, “Mike K” was Dr. Michael Thomas Kennedy of Mission Viejo and Tucson. He was 86 years old, and the author of a book about his years of practicing medicine called War Stories: 50 Years in Medicine. I’ve never read it, but Mike K had a way with words, and I bet it’s well worth the journey.

Mike K had a blog for many years, and it still can be found here. I don’t think I even knew it existed until now, but it has a wealth of information about Mike’s life and work. He seems to have also been an avid sailor, at least until recent years. And from his blog I also learned that in 2004 he had written another book entitled A Brief History of Disease, Science and Medicine: From the Ice Age to the Genome Project. It seems to have sold pretty well and gets good reviews on Amazon.

One of Mike K’s last comments here was about some books by Samuel Eliot Morrison that he owned:

I have both, including another volume. We are having to move to a smaller place and I will have to give them away. Golden Years, my ass.

The “Golden Years, my ass” comment got several approving dittos.

On September 6, Mike K wrote this

I have five kids. Two are conservative and two are lefties. One, a daughter, is a reasonable lefty. She and I have had conversations about politics. The other lefties just agree to disagree. Both are lawyers, of course. We don’t argue as we all know it would be uinseless. My moderate daughter has a child, now 5, and she says it has changed her life. Maybe she is saying what I want to hear, but I think it has had a huge effect on her.

And how about this one:

I operated on a 1 pound 10 ounce baby in 1969. She survived and thrived. I did not write it up. Too busy. Two guys in FL operated on a 2 pound 2 ounce baby the next year and got credit for youngest to survive.

And ah yes; it was Mike K who had a mother who lived in three centuries. He wrote this in July of 2024:

I am still a kid compared to my mother but I will be 87 next February. She died at 103 having lived in three centuries, 1898 to 2001. She kept all her marbles until the last 6 months. Speaking of hair, she never fixed her own after childhood. She had an unfrocked priest who lived in her building drive her to the beauty parlor every 2 weeks til she gave up her apartment at 100.

RIP Mike K, and all the commenters here who may have died but all we know is that they disappeared never to return.

Not your father’s pardon

The New Neo Posted on by

But it’s Hunter Biden’s father’s extraordinary pardon.

Because I never took Joe Biden’s promises not to pardon Hunter seriously, I didn’t really follow how many people on the left were saying he was some George-Washington-like figure for making the vow. And so I didn’t realize how much backpedaling they were going to have to do when he made the nearly-inevitable pardon announcement.

Here’s one, for example, who has been left wide-eyed and slack-jawed:

Joe’s pardon has several unusual characteristics that make it worse for the left than a simple lie. For those who peddled the “noble Joe” line, it’s hard to rationalize what Biden did – although they try. But for their following who bought the “noble” line, it’s disillusioning. There’s also the breadth of the pardon:

President Joe Biden’s grant of clemency on Sunday night — an extraordinary political act with extraordinary legal breadth — insulates his son from ever facing federal charges over any crimes he possibly could have committed over the past decade.

Experts on pardons said they could think of only one other person who has received a presidential pardon so sweeping in generations: Nixon, who was given a blanket pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974.

“I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon,” said Margaret Love, who served from 1990 to 1997 as the U.S. pardon attorney, a Justice Department position devoted to assisting the president on clemency issues.

“Even the broadest Trump pardons were specific as to what was being pardoned,” Love added.

But Joe had to protect his son, his family, and himself from any possible charges connected with the family corruption, influence-peddling, FARA violations, perjury, and what-have-you. That’s why the pardon had to start in 2014, when Hunter began his “work” with Burisma. That’s also why the pardon had to be so broad.

And you may recall that Hunter Biden’s original plea deal that was offered by the Biden-friendly DOJ had included an unusually broad immunity grant:

First son Hunter Biden was set to receive sweeping immunity protection under the terms of a plea deal negotiated with federal prosecutors — only for the Justice Department to backtrack under questioning from a Delaware judge during a Wednesday hearing.

Special Assistant US Attorney Leo Wise and Hunter’s lawyer Christopher Clark both signed a probation-only agreement to allow the 53-year-old first son to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and enter a diversion program for a felony charge of possessing a firearm while addicted to crack cocaine, according to a copy of the document obtained by Politico.

The memo stated that prosecutors would also not seek to charge Hunter Biden for any federal crimes attached to his case, which included millions of dollars in missed tax payments between 2016 and 2019.

The deal only left open the possibility of “prosecution for any future conduct” by the president’s son — ensuring that possible violations of foreign lobbying laws and money laundering would be forever uncharged.

That article is from July of 2023. This is what the original deal from the DOJ was. Far from being out to get Hunter (which is what Joe now asserts: selective prosecution from a hostile DOJ), they were out to make sure Hunter didn’t serve a day in prison and to immunize him from future prosecutions. The only reason it didn’t work was that the judge noticed it and put the kibosh on it.

So, far from being some act of defiance against an anti-Hunter weaponized DOJ, Joe Biden’s pardon is merely achieving what the DOJ originally tried to achieve, only through another route.

Anyone who has followed Joe’s career could not have believed the talk about how noble and rule of law he is. I’m surprised any sentient being seemed to believe it, actually.

But they are bold and they are shameless, and they are accustomed to wiggling out of anything.

Here’s a list of crimes for which Hunter might have been indicted but which are now off the table – except, I suppose, if any of them are state prosecutions. I don’t see it happening. And Hunter’s freedom seems a small price to pay in exchange for getting rid of the Biden or the Harris presidency.

From Brendan O’Neill:

This is the key thing about the Hunter pardon: it pulls the rug from under the feet of the woke elites. For months, especially as it became clear that their political fortunes were waning under a second Trump surge, the Dems and their media backers pointed to Biden’s principled position on Hunter as proof that they still enjoyed moral superiority over Trump. Biden categorically ruled out a pardon. ‘I abide by the jury decision… I will not pardon him’, he said in June. …

Look, we don’t have to be heartless bastards about it. Many among us would opt to save a child from jail, even if it meant backtracking on all our fine moral grandstanding. But the problem is the Dems tied their political rectitude to Biden’s acceptance of the jury’s democratic deliberations. They used the Hunter case to morally distinguish themselves from the allegedly lawless bruisers of the Trump set. They swore, endlessly, that they would abide by the rules and restore normalcy to the Trump-rattled republic. And they didn’t. They ended up exploiting presidential power for personal favour to a degree Trump never did. Their claims to moral distinction lie in tatters. Their delusion of righteousness stands exposed as just that: a delusion. This is why this pardon matters.

To some people, yes. But most people weren’t paying such close attention, and a lot of people will just shrug and say any father would do the same.

This is a good discussion of the pardon. These guys are sharp and funny:

What’s going on in South Korea?

The New Neo Posted on by

That’s one of those post titles that promises more than I can deliver. But I’ll do my best.

The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, gave a speech declaring martial law in the country. His explanation was something akin to “in order to save democracy.” From his speech:

Since the inauguration of our government, the National Assembly has initiated 22 impeachment motions against government officials, and since the inauguration of the 22nd National Assembly in June, it is pushing for the impeachment of 10 more. This is a situation that is not only unprecedented in any country in the world, but has never been seen since the founding of our country …

This trampling of the constitutional order of the free Republic of Korea and the disruption of legitimate state institutions established by the constitution and laws is an obvious anti-state act that plots insurrection. …

The National Assembly, which should be the foundation of liberal democracy, has become a monster that collapses the liberal democracy system. …

Dear citizens, I declare emergency martial law to defend the free Republic of Korea from the threats of North Korean communist forces and to eradicate the shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people and to protect the free constitutional order.

And the National Assembly countered by blocking the declaration of martial law, with the military standing down. And it seems that even Yoon’s own party isn’t backing his martial law move.

It’s hard to get any really in-depth analysis at this point. But it seems at the outset, anyway, that he’s not a popular guy and it’s not a popular move. My hunch is that North Korea doesn’t have all that much to do with it. And I guess that either it will blow over, or we’ll find out more.

Open thread 12/3/2024

The New Neo Posted on by

I haven’t followed ice skating for quite a few years, although I used to. Seems like it’s become a lot more daring and acrobatic – at least, this event has. I have no idea who these people are:

A president (or his administation) can do a lot of damage in the time between an election loss and an inauguration: Biden carries anti-Israel book

The New Neo Posted on by

A new president needs transition time to get his or her administration together prior to the transfer of power. But how much transition time is too much? I’m of the opinion that the current 2+ months is too much. Of course, a lot of damage can be done in less than two months, as well.

So, what are we to make of this?

Biden was spotted by the press leaving Nantucket Bookworks holding a copy of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017” by Columbia University professor emeritus Rashid Khalidi, the New York Post reported.

“I do not speak to the Post (or the Times for that matter), so this is not for publication, but my reaction is that this is four years too late,” Khalidi told the Post of Biden holding his book.

You may recall the name “Khalidi.” As I wrote back in 2016, while discussing Obama’s parting shots at Israel when he was in lame-duck-land much as Biden is now:

Did you hear a faint bell ringing in the background when you read the name “Rashid Khalidi”? You should have, because Khalidi was the subject of the famous but never-revealed 2003 video of Obama at a function honoring him, a video that the LA Times had possession of but refused to release.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single story about Biden carrying a book or reading a book, and it’s an odd time to start now. But it’s definitely a leaf from Obama’s book.

Musical interlude

The New Neo Posted on by

When I was a kid and the internet didn’t exist, I used to spend a lot of time listening to records. That’s why, to this day, my brain still has access to the entire scores of many Broadway musicals and Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. The mind of a child is a spongelike thing, and when I say entire scores I mean every single word.

And so, with the news of Biden’s pardon of son Hunter, this song started to enter earworm territory for me. Yes, I know it’s a different kind of pardon, but here it is anyway for your listening pleasure:

Of course Joe pardons Hunter

The New Neo Posted on by

And yet some people are surprised. Or are they pretending to be surprised? It’s the old fools/knaves puzzle.

There are so many fascinating aspects to this action of Biden’s, even though the thing itself was almost inevitable. If Joe Biden had merely pardoned Hunter, saying that it was because he’s his son, it wouldn’t be nearly so interesting although it would be a continuation of Joe’s enabling of Hunter. However, Joe used the ridiculous excuse that the pardon was issued because Hunter’s convictions represented selective prosecution – “ridiculous” because (1) actually authorities bent over backwards for quite some time to negotiate a sweetheart plea deal for Hunter instead, and it was only whistleblowers and the judge who made that impossible (2) the Biden administration has been selectively prosecuting its political opponents for years; and (3) Hunter actually is guilty of actual crimes (unlike the manufactured ones with which Trump was charged).

From Biden’s statement:

No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.

Whether or not Joe actually wrote that is somewhat irrelevant at this point. I don’t think he’s so far gone, however, that he doesn’t understand it and approve it.

And the J6 defendants and Trump and Steve Bannon and General Flynn? No selective prosecution there, no sirree.

What makes this case extra-special is the fact that Joe spent a lot of time in the last year or so promising not to pardon Hunter. It was always pretty clear that Biden would be likely to pardon him if necessary; as I wrote here when speaking of the sentencing date:

Sentencing is scheduled for December 16. That seems to me to be well-timed. It takes the case out of the campaign season, and yet it places sentencing early enough that his father can pardon him if needed.

And that has played out with Joe pardoning Hunter before sentence can be pronounced.

Here’s a great clip that highlights the way the left is spinning this:

Of course – as Scott Jennings indicates – a “selective prosecution” argument can’t justify a blanket pardon. And the biggest issue is that Biden promised over and over not to do this. The woman in that clip shrugs it off by saying Biden changed his mind and didn’t actually lie, which is a difference that doesn’t make a difference. When a person promises something over and over – such as to be faithful to a spouse – and then cheats, was the original vow not a lie because he/she meant it at the time and just had a change of mind?

You also might want to stroll down memory lane:

In addition, this obviously sets Trump up for pardoning most or all of the J6 defendants. Not that his critics will approve, of course.