The Biden administration is trying to thwart Trump on its way out

The New Neo Posted on by

No surprise, really.

First we have the border wall materials that are being auctioned off. This not only hurts Trump, but it hurts all taxpayers, because it means to build the wall he’ll have to buy new materials at a higher price:

The Biden administration is using its final weeks to haul a massive amount of border wall materials away from the southern border to be sold off in a government auction, an apparent effort to hinder President-elect Donald Trump’s effort to secure the border, The Daily Wire has learned.

Videos obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire from a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent show unused sections of the wall being hauled away on the back of flatbed trucks from a section of the border just south of Tucson, a hotspot for illegal crossings during the Biden administration. The agent estimates that up to half a mile per day of unused border wall is being moved.

“They are taking it from three stations: Nogales, Tucson, and Three Points,” the border patrol agent, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told The Daily Wire. “The goal is to move all of it off the border before Christmas.”

Secondly we have the continuation of the prosecution of some of the remaining J6 defendants, and the re-definition of the meaning of a pardon by Merrick Garland’s DOJ, which now says acceptance of a pardon is an admission of guilt:

“[A] pardon at some unspecified date in the future … would not unring the bell of conviction,” federal prosecutors argued in a Jan. 6 case before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols. “In fact, quite the opposite. The defendant would first have to accept the pardon, which necessitates a confession of guilt.”

The pronouncement is the latest attempt by the Justice Department to salvage the legacy of its Jan. 6 investigation, which leaders say is the most sweeping criminal probe in American history. Trump has pledged to unravel that probe with the stroke of his pen by granting clemency to many of the nearly 1,600 people who have been charged for their roles in the attack on the Capitol four years ago.

The legal significance of presidential pardons, and whether they imply guilt, has been debated in courts for decades. The Supreme Court has opined that pardons often carry an “imputation of guilt” even if the consequences for that guilt are erased. And the Justice Department has previously concluded that even if pardons eliminate criminal consequences, those convicted of crimes can still face punishment in other forums, like professional ethics boards.

“A pardon … does not erase the conviction as a historical fact or justify the fiction that the pardoned individual did not engage in criminal conduct,” the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote in a 2006 opinion.

Do you see the difference? It is true that some of the J6 defendants pled guilty (often under threat of much greater sentences if they don’t, of course). And no, pardons don’t erase that in the legal sense. But pardons do not come with the necessity for “an admission of guilt” by those pardoned. The do imply guilt, or they can imply guilt, and they don’t legally wipe away the confiction, but that’s a far cry from a confession of guilt through the acceptance of a pardon.

And here’s the ramping up part:

Activity in the J6 investigation accelerated the month before the election. At least 16 individuals were arrested; home security camera footage obtained by RCI shows the heavily-armed pre-dawn FBI raid of a subject in California on October 17.

Shortly after the election, DOJ officials instructed attorneys working on J6 cases to carry on regardless of the pending change in leadership. “[Federal] prosecutors in the Justice Department’s Capitol Siege Section received guidance this week about how to proceed in pending Jan. 6 cases … including a directive to oppose any Jan. 6 defendant’s requests for delays,” Ryan J. Reilly of NBC News reported on Nov. 9. “Prosecutors are instructed to argue that there is a societal interest in the quick administration of justice and these cases should be handled in the normal order.”

Here’s one of these recent cases (emphasis mine):

On December 6, Lamberth not only sentenced Grillo to 12 months in federal prison but took the unusual move of remanding him into immediate custody; judges usually allow a defendant to report two to three months following sentencing. Lamberth’s decision appeared to make sure Grillo spent some time in jail before a presidential pardon spared him.

In a 13-page sentencing document explaining his reasons for imposing such a harsh move, Lamberth again criticized what he believes are attempts to “minimize the events of January 6.” Lamberth then erroneously claimed five police officers died as a result of the protest. “One can only wonder what further horrors might have transpired if our elected officials had not gotten out in time. No matter what ultimately becomes of the Capital Riots cases already concluded and still pending, the true story of what happened on January 6, 2021 will never change.”

The “true story” does not involve the death of any officers as a result of the protest. And yet the judge appears to think it does.

More on the left’s big slobbering love affair with Luigi Mangione

The New Neo Posted on by

It continues. More thoughts:

(1) The left loves the worst who are full of passionate intensity, as long as that passionate intensity has been aroused by leftist causes.

(2) The left has always had a special jones for young leftists who are violent and deemed attractive, such as Che.

(3) There’s also a contagion effect spread through social media.

(4) The left hates capitalism and especially American capitalism, and doesn’t think health insurance should be a business at all. Therefore, health insurance companies are evil. Brian Thompson was a successful capitalist who was CEO of a health insurance company. Therefore, evil.

(5) The left believes it must use violence because it knows it can’t ordinarily get its way trough the ballot box. Since the left believes that it is virtuous and its causes are just, violence is okay to get its way. They believe fear and intimidation are great tools – and those are the goals of Thompson’s murder.

(6) The left believes that health care is an entitlement, and that no claim should ever be denied. They also believe for the most part that government should be running the provision of health care, although people who believe this ignore the bitter complaints of those in Canada and Great Britain who are regularly denied health care that most people can get here. Perhaps the left believes that stinginess in health care is just fine as long as it’s government being stingy and not private businesses. The left also ignores the huge amount of government control of health care reimbursement that exist today. Obamacare, anyone?

(7) A smaller segment of the right applauds Mangione as well, but for slightly different reasons. I’m not 100% sure of their reasons, but I’ve seen such people on comment boards on the right and I don’t think they’re trolls. Some people on the right also believe health insurance companies and executives make obscene profits at people’s expense. Facts and figures don’t necessarily matter to them any more than they matter to the leftists. It seems visceral to me.

And this is late-night TV’s idea of a funny bit:

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Apparently Luigi Mangione never had any personal dealings with United Healthcare until he decided to murder Brian Thompson. This actually does not surprise me.

(2) Twenty-six FBI assets and informants (“confidential human sources”) attended the festivities on J/6, and some entered the Capitol while others entered the restricted area around the Capitol. This was all done without orders or permission for most of them. We don’t know for sure what they did while there, but the IG says they did not commit violence or urge others to do so, although they broke the same laws as the people charged with trespass and – surprise, surprise – the FBI assets were not charged.

(3) The UN is an Orwellian cesspool. Up is down, down is up, because the UN says so.

(4) Meanwhile, in Syria, meet the new guys on the block:

(5) And about those New Jersey drones:

White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told the media that the drones over New Jersey are not malicious or from a foreign country.

They don’t seem to know what they are, however. At least, they’re not saying.

(6) Democrats, hoist on their own petard.

I think they really believed the right would never come to power again.

Sinema and Manchin strike again

The New Neo Posted on by

Neither Arizona’s Sinema nor West Virginia’s Joe Manchin will be returning to the Senate after the end of this session. But I think insufficient attention has been paid to how instrumental they were in saving us all from some of the worst plans the Democrats had for Biden’s tenure: HR1, statehood for DC, packing the Court, ending the filibuster. For that, the Democrats detested them and both declined to run for office again.

You may be cynical about politics, I may be cynical about politics, but I thank them both, whatever their motives. And the duo wasn’t quite through yet:

Senators Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Joe Manchin (I-WV), both former Democrats who were savaged by their own party for not eliminating the filibuster, left President Joe Biden one final parting gift on Wednesday.

Biden nominated Lauren McFerran to a five-year term on the National Labor Relations Board, which is essentially a federal agency dedicated to protecting big unions, and her confirmation was set to hand Democrats control of the body for the entirety of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term.

But Manchin and Sinema were the only two Democrats who voted against confirming her, and so McFerran won’t be serving in that position.

More here:

Trump and Republicans will now have the ability to confirm two nominees to the board, giving them a one-seat advantage at that time.

The news will have major repercussions for big business and labor unions, as the board has a major say in settling disputes between those two parties.

How did Kamala and the Democrats raise so much money?

The New Neo Posted on by

We may get to find out.

There’s this possible method:

Watchdog group Americans for Public Trust (APT) has filed a campaign finance complaint against outdoor clothing company Patagonia’s tax-exempt arm for allegedly misrepresenting donations.

According to the complaint filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), a collective of climate-focused tax-exempt groups — which altogether hold 98% of Patagonia’s nonvoting shares worth nearly $1.8 billion — misidentified political contributions made to Democrat political action committees in 2022.

Such a misidentification, the complaint alleges, violates the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), which prohibits individuals from making contributions in the name of another and prohibits the use of one’s name to be used to make contributions in the name of another. As a result, APT requested the FEC conduct an investigation to determine, and impose appropriate sanctions for, any and all violations.

“With these tremendous resources, and the subsequent desire to pour this money into American politics, there should come great responsibility and transparency,” the complaint states, pointing to the Patagonia collective’s vast assets.

I doubt Patagonia is alone.

And then there’s a potentially bigger violation:

Steil [House Administration Chairman, a Republican from Wisconsin] disclosed earlier this fall that his committee is investigating whether four foreign powers — China, Russia, Venezuela and Iran — used ActBlue to route illicit foreign money into Democrat coffers.

His committee referred thousands of suspicious donations to state attorneys general in five state, prompting an investigation that has now expanded to 19 states.

In addition, a Wisconsin Republican strategist filed a lawsuit in October alleging his email identity was misused to make Democrat and liberal donations he did not authorize or pay for. The judge in the case recently approved a subpoena compelling ActBlue to disclose certain evidence in the case.

I seem to recall that there were accusations that Obama’s campaign had accepted foreign donations online. Looking it up just now, I see this:

The Government Accountability Institute, which is headed by Stanford University Professor Peter Schweizer, used sophisticated Internet investigative tools — including something called “spidering” software — to determine how the web is being used to raise political funds.

What it found should be of concern, since it suggests that many in Congress and, more importantly, the Obama campaign have systematically exploited loopholes in the law to raise millions of dollars overseas — a big chunk of it in the People’s Republic of China.

How is this done? Through the mundane use of what’s called in the credit-card world the Card Verification Value, or CVV. It’s the three-digit number on the back of a card that helps positively identify that the person using the card has it in his or her possession. It’s a key anti-fraud weapon, used by nearly all legitimate e-commerce businesses and charities.

Obama’s campaign doesn’t use it. Mitt Romney’s does. So why the particular concern over Obama?

As the report notes, letting a flood of money into the political system with no verification of its source is an invitation to fraud — especially from overseas.

Much much more at the link.

Ghosting and cutoff – political or otherwise

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterdays’s thread on the subject of cutoff because of political disagreement had so many interesting comments that I want to take up one of the issues raised.

I think there’s a huge difference between cutting off an acquaintance with whom you’ve already grown apart, and cutting off long-term friends or close family with whom you’ve previously had a good relationship. Cutoff, and even ghosting, might not be a big deal with the first and might even be mutually acceptable – although I wouldn’t recommend that anyone automatically assume it is. Relationships are not always symmetrical.

So if you ghost someone (and for anyone unfamiliar with the expression, it means to cut off communication without any sort of explanation or notice) – even if you think that person welcomes it or doesn’t care, and even if you never hear from the person again, which reinforces your assumption – it just might be that the person is hurt or even deeply hurt, confused, and shocked, and doesn’t know how to convey it to you.

When you ghost someone you simply don’t care – at least, not enough. Or maybe you care, but your main emotion is anger and you want to hurt the person’s feelings. He or she may not even know why you stopped communicating. And it’s far worse to do that to someone with whom you were close, and even worse if you previously had a good relationship except for politics.

I think it’s obvious by now that I’m not a fan of ghosting. Never have been, even before I ever heard the term.

Ghosting is at least somewhat cowardly, IMHO, especially if the person has never harangued you about politics but has merely politely disagreed, or if you don’t talk about politics with the person at all although you know you disagree. And of course politics isn’t the only reason for cutoff, not by a longshot.

I think it’s much better to have the courage to explain, which at least honors the depth of your past friendship or family tie by giving the person that much courtesy and that much respect. No need to act angry, either, and definitely no need to bring any third people into the mix.

I once experienced cutoff from a good friend but at least I knew why because she told me – and the reason wasn’t politics. But it was a misunderstanding I couldn’t seem to clear up although I tried. For five years we didn’t speak, but then slowly, with a series of steps, we became friends again and now (knock wood!) are very close friends again.

In contrast, I once was ghosted by an old and dear friend, and although I wrote her asking to please explain, she didn’t communicate at all for about seven years, until I saw her at a school reunion. I figured this was my chance – I went over and we chatted, and then I asked her point blank what had happened. She gave me a couple of reasons that didn’t make sense to me, but I didn’t argue with her. I knew it wouldn’t work, and I knew our friendship was over. But it was a tremendous relief just to see her and hear what she had to say.

Maybe that’s just me. But I don’t think I’m alone in wanting to know.

Christopher Wray will be going away and making way for Kash Patel

The New Neo Posted on by

Couldn’t resist that triple rhyme.

Here’s the story:

President-elect Trump said Christopher Wray’s resignation is a “great day for America,” telling Fox News Digital it “will end the weaponization” of the FBI, while touting his nominee Kash Patel as the “most qualified” to lead the bureau.

Wray announced Wednesday afternoon his plans to resign in January 2025. …

“After weeks of careful thought, I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down,” Wray said during the town hall. “My goal is to keep the focus on? our mission – the indispensable work you’re doing on behalf of the American people every day. In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work.”

The FBI director said the decision was not easy for him, adding he loves the FBI, its mission and people.

Wray is seven years into his 10-year term.

Trump appointed Wray in 2017 after he fired former Director James Comey from the post.

Both of them were dreadful.

I’ve been very impressed with Patel in the past. Let’s assume his nomination is approved by the Republican Senate – and then let’s take a moment to reflect not only how different things would be if Harris had been elected, but how different things would be even if Trump had been elected but the Senate had remained in Democrat hands.

Israel has taken advantage of the chaos in Syria to destroy much of that country’s military capability

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, that was quick:

Within the first 24 hours, air defense systems and numerous fighter jets were neutralized. This allowed 350 Israeli Air Force fighter jets to operate without interference in Syrian airspace, targeting 320 strategic objectives.

The targets were prioritized by their importance. Missile boats launched numerous simultaneous strikes on two Syrian naval bases – Al-Bayda and Latakia – causing significant damage and destroying 15 vessels. These vessels carried sea-to-sea missiles with ranges of 80–190 kilometers and explosive payloads of dozens of kilograms each. Anti-aircraft batteries, Syrian Air Force bases, and dozens of manufacturing facilities in Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Latakia, and Palmyra were also struck. These facilities housed Scud missiles, cruise missiles, coastal defense missiles, surface-to-air missiles, drones, fighter jets, combat helicopters, radar systems, tanks, hangars, and more.

These strikes followed years of intelligence gathering by the IDF, and the execution was described as flawless. The Defense Ministry estimates that 70-80% of the Syrian army’s strategic capabilities have been destroyed.

It helps to be prepared to take advantage of a change in circumstances. And it helps to have the will to do it.

One thing we’ve learned since the terrible events of October 7 and Israel’s unpreparedness for that day is that Israel has some remarkable capabilities that it’s been demonstrating ever since.

Trump-hatred, fear, and cutoff

The New Neo Posted on by

Ever since Trump announced his candidacy in 2015 there have been intense reactions, and prominent among them has been Trump-hatred, fear of Trump, Trump Derangement Syndrome – whatever you want to call it. It’s something I’ve noticed escalating over time, reaching more and more people and getting more and more serious.

I’m not talking about people who just don’t like Trump or his policies and choose not to vote for him. I know plenty of people like that. But there’s a subset who consider Trump nothing less than demonic.

I mean that quite literally – even though they’re not necessarily religious. The idea is that he’s uniquely evil, up there with the worst of history.

During the last few months of the 2024 campaign, as we know, the opposition compared him to Hitler and called him a fascist over and over. But now that he’s poised to become the next president, most Democrats don’t seem to really think Hitler is coming to power, and certainly the Bidens have given no indication that they believe such a thing, either.

But some people do believe it. They really really do. And I know a couple such people. One – a longtime good friend – is at the moment not talking to me because I support Trump. And this isn’t because I ever talk politics to her, because I don’t bring it up. It’s just because of wrongthink on my part.

The right may joke about Thanksgiving conversations and TDS but it’s truly a terrible thing when it causes that big a rift between family members and/or friends who were formerly able to get along well despite their political differences. It’s tragic, actually. And as far as I know it’s always or nearly always Democrats cutting themselves off from Trump voters. Maybe something similar has happened now and then when Biden was elected and coming from the right, but I never read about it and I certainly never did it nor would I ever think to do it. My perception is that Trump’s first term didn’t have nearly the divisive effect this second term seems to arouse – and it hasn’t even begun yet.

The fears I see expressed are way over-the-top and out of step with anything Trump has actually done or said he will do. It seems to be stirred up by MSM articles, pundits, social media, and the like, stating things about Trump that he never said he’d do and I don’t see any reason he ever would do. Or it’s about generalized fears that have no basis in reality and aren’t even specifically related to Trump, but often are blamed on him. Take this example of the latter:

“I’m afraid I’m going to be murdered” isn’t something you hear a 10-year-old say every day. However, that’s the message a child named Violet delivered during a shocking CNN segment featuring multiple transgender children and their parents.

“[I’m worried that] one day I’m going to be walking down the street, and someone is going to come up and like shoot me or something,” Violet said somberly in the opening exchange.

“That’s a really scary thing to be worrying about at 10 years old,” the CNN reporter replied, affirming this bizarre paranoia as if it were justified.

It is not.

While the debate over the medical transitioning of gender-confused minors, currently before the Supreme Court, is intense, often heated, and sometimes toxic, no one is randomly murdering 10-year-olds who identify as transgender. The other children on the CNN panel similarly indicated that they falsely fear their “lives” and “existence” are at stake throughout the shocking six-minute segment. This is just an extension of the false narrative, routinely propagated by so-called LGBT activists, that transgender people are frequently murdered for their identity when, in fact, their murder rates are below average.

Such fears are hardly limited to children, and sometimes they take the form of believing that Trump will do the killing (or incarcerating) himself or send troops to do it.

Do a search for “my loved ones stopped talking to me because of my politics” and you will probably see, as I did, plenty of discussions. All the ones I saw featured conservatives who said they had been shunned by friends or family or both. But it was the responses to them that were especially depressing. Many of the commenters said the equivalent of, “Of course they don’t want to talk to you; you’re a bigot (or some other extreme misstatement of what conservatives believe).”

Just to take a few typical examples:

You can have whatever belief system you want, but you have to understand that most people in today’s world don’t align with conservative politics, as the entire platform is based on stripping rights and discriminating against disenfranchised people. Most people don’t want to associate with that, and for good reason.

Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of your own actions.

If you’re a republican and feel that half the population should lose autonomy over their bodies, that’s going to lose you a lot of female friends.

And others said things like “if you vote for Trump you vote for someone who thinks black or brown people have no right to be in this country.” Or worse.

But every now and then you see something like this:

To so grossly caricature half of our country (160 million human beings) with such antagonistic generalizations and flippantly condemn them as malicious or degenerates is irresponsible at best and catastrophic at worst.

Once upon a time, we all knew it was possible for one person to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative, with political considerations falling all across a broad spectrum. We used to believe that listening to and celebrating differing opinions made us better, as a country and as people. But now it seems that tolerance has been infected by these dangerously divisive assumptions and absolutizations.

Echo chambers and free-thought are analogous to incestuous gene pools and evolution. Without the constant injection of variation, stagnation leads to the end of your kind. These people, who believe themselves to be highly intelligent, seem completely ignorant to the fact that ideological diversity is key to our survival and success as a nation. We need as many perspectives as we can get because who knows what problems tomorrow might bring.

I have yet to see a single comment on these threads from those who advocate cutoff citing actual policies of the actual Republican Party or of Trump himself. It’s all based on things like “he’s going to end abortion” or “he’s a racist who wants to kill black and brown people” or “he wants to take away our human rights,” or “he’ll take away Social Security.” That’s the sort of thing many people sincerely believe – as I said, I know some – and it’s tearing people apart.

This is the consequence of the opposition’s attempt to get Trump and to portray him as an awful person out to do serious harm. There are people who are very vulnerable to it, and with them it has had its intended effect.