Hamas leader Haniyeh killed while in Iran

The New Neo Posted on by

Ismail Haniyeh was one of those Hamas leaders living in comfort, luxury, and seeming safety in Qatar since 2017. He was replaced by Sinwar, but became chairman of Hamas’s Political Bureau:

In early 2024, three of his sons and three grandchildren were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip. On 31 July 2024, Haniyeh was himself assassinated by an Israeli strike during a visit to Iran.

He was in Iran for the inauguration of its new president.

Here’s an article on the assassination in the Times of Israel. Although Israel has not gone on record as having killed Haniyeh, it is pretty certain that’s what occurred.

I would think that the fact that Israel was able to strike him in Iran is somewhat chilling to both the leaders of Hamas and to Iranian leaders, despite their rhetorical bluster.

Meanwhile, Erdogan of Turkey has been issuing threats to invade Israel. I doubt he will, however.

Acting Secret Service head Ronald Rowe is every bit as awful as Cheatle

The New Neo Posted on by

Ronald Rowe is testifying today, and Legal Insurrection has many posts spotlighting his testimony. There’s this, this, this, this, and this.

The gist of it is, as Ted Cruz said, “Does the buck stop anywhere?”

Nope.

But we’ve seen this movie before, about any number of tainted government agencies: the FBI, the DOJ, the IRS, the Capitol Police, and more. And it’s obvious that getting rid of someone like Cheatle is just the tip of the messed-up (or worse) iceberg.

Also please see this:

Israel strikes back at Hezbollah

The New Neo Posted on by

Israel strikes the Hezbollah terrorist who is said to have planned the attack on the Druze children in the soccer field in the Golan Heights. The Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was in a southern suburb of Beirut.

As Ace writes, “They kill children, Israel kills the killer of children — and Israel is the bad guy, of course.”

The Biden administration (or should we now call it the Harris administration, or perhaps Obama 3?) wants Israel to show restraint:

The United States is leading a diplomatic dash to deter Israel from striking Lebanon’s capital Beirut or major civil infrastructure in response to a deadly rocket attack on the Golan Heights, five people with knowledge of the drive said. …

The focus of the high-speed diplomacy has been to constrain Israel’s response by urging it against targeting densely populated Beirut, the southern suburbs of the city that form Hezbollah’s heartland, or key infrastructure like airports and bridges, said the sources who requested anonymity to discuss confidential details that haven’t been previously reported.

So – the push was to deter Israel from striking where Hezbollah leaders (and followers) live. I guess Israel didn’t listen – nor should they, because how else could they retaliate? The US and the international community would like Israel to endure these inevitable and escalating attacks and not do much in return.

Maduro on the ropes?

The New Neo Posted on by

Perhaps.

When one studies the history of tyrants and how they are overthrown, a turning point often comes when either the police, the army, and/or the tyrants’ bodyguards desert them and side with the people aligned against them. Is that happening in Venezuela?

There are large protests but that wouldn’t ordinarily be enough to do the trick.

Here’s some background concerning the political role of the military in Venezuela, written prior to the election:

After years of indoctrination and growing political and economic influence, the Venezuelan military and other security forces are an entrenched part of Chavismo, the socialist movement that has been in power for over 25 years. Generals run several ministries and the national oil company, PDVSA; there is no big legal or illegal business in which the formal and informal repressive apparatus doesn’t have a certain sway.

The military has supported the regime’s brutal repression of recent years. At first sight, that makes the institution an obstacle to regime change. But now the military also runs significant risks from protecting the status quo, particularly if the government loses the vote by a large margin despite its manipulation attempts. How its top brass and the lower ranks react to the vote will be key to defining the country’s next political steps.

There are now reports such as this, which indicates a possible wobbling of the military’s support for Maduro:

You can read a lot about the demonstrations here.

However, today we have this, which seems an ominous sign:

…[D]eclaring the military’s backing for Maduro, Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino denounced the protests, saying on state TV: “There is a coup in progress so President Nicolás Maduro has stepped up to stop it again, and with him the people who elected him president, all the institutions, the Bolivarian armed forces and the democratic institutions.”

“We will defeat the coup,” Padrino said.

The situation is fluid, but unless many of the security forces in Venezuela side with the protesters, I don’t see much hope for the anti-Maduro crowd. If Maduro has the power and is willing to use it, the crowds would have to swell to encompass a much much greater number of people to have any real chance of loosening his grip on power.

Biden still has plans to shore up “our democracy” though SCOTUS “reform”

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The Supreme Court needs the Biden touch:

In Biden’s latest blatant lawfare attack on Democrats’ top political opponent, he used these examples from a routinely unanimous court as a springboard to argue for amending the U.S. Constitution so that “there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office.” The First Family’s history of evading accountability suggests the “No President Is Above the Law” pledge would presumably not affect the patriarch of the Biden family’s international influence-peddling scheme. …

Biden proposed in the pages of a publication known for smearing Republican-nominated justices and their families the enactment of “more predictable and less arbitrary” term limits for members of the high court.

“It would reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come. I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court,” the Biden article argues.

The president did not explain exactly how he planned to do so. The White House’s eager endorsement of a 2023 Democrat-led bill to enact 18-year term limits and forced retirement for senior justices like John Roberts and Clarence Thomas, however, suggests the Biden administration plans to use its connections in Congress to do his bidding.

Much more at the link.

Biden – or whoever is behind this proposal – doesn’t expect this to happen prior to the 2024 election. It’s a blueprint for the next steps if the Democrats manage, by hook or by crook, to win in 2024 and to control Congress. The fact that the Supreme Court is one of the remaining institutions that isn’t wholly controlled by the left sticks in their craws. If they come to power again, that will change.

Other things will happen, too, because the left doesn’t give up; it merely postpones. There’s HR1, the federalization of relaxed voting security. There’s the push to make DC a state, as well as Puerto Rico. There’s plenty more, but those are the two that come to mind.

What’s next on the agenda for Trump?

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t mean on Trump’s agenda. I mean on the opposition’s agenda.

From Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist:

I have a few minor quibbles with that. They actually did impeach him, twice; they didn’t just try to impeach him. They may yet put him in prison. And I don’t think “they” – that is, Democrat leaders – tried to assassinate him. I think they tried to motivate others to assassinate him, and failed to provide him with enough security, making an assassination quite possible.

So, what’s next on the agenda? The Secret Service is on record as suggesting Trump not do any more open air rallies, so if there’s another assassination attempt – successful or unsuccessful – at a rally, they can blame Trump for continuing to hold them.

Will Trump go to prison? It’s anyone’s guess.

Will the election be decided by fraud? It depends on how much of it is necessary for a Democrat win. But I have little doubt that, if they are able to “fortify” a Democrat victory in that manner, they will. There don’t seem to be any principles that would hold them back, so the problem is merely whether it is possible.

But what if Trump actually wins? Then we will almost certainly see an escalation of all the tactics from the Democrats that hampered Trump’s first term.

Maduro declares win

The New Neo Posted on by

Of course he does.

As Erdogan said: “Democracy is like a tram. You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off.”

And the people of Venezuela are the losers:

Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of the country’s presidential election on Sunday after securing more than 50% of the vote, although the opposition contends that the results are not accurate.

The National Electoral Council said at around midnight that Maduro received 51% of the vote, while the main opposition candidate, Edmundo González, had 44% support, according to The Associated Press.

Elvis Amoroso, head of the National Electoral Council, said the results were based on 80% of voting stations and represented an irreversible trend.

Despite Maduro being declared the winner of a third term, the opposition claimed victory, setting up a showdown with the government over the results.

Sound familiar? The opposition in Venezuela declared victory “without evidence,” of course. Evidence is made impossible to obtain [emphasis mine]:

The electoral authority, controlled by Maduro loyalists, did not immediately publish the results from each of the 30,000 polling booths across the country, impeding the opposition’s ability to challenge the results after alleging it only had data for about 30% of the ballot boxes.

“The Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened,” González said.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claimed González’s margin of victory was “overwhelming.” Machado said the opposition had voting results from about 40% of ballot boxes across the country and that more were expected overnight.

Officials and lawmakers in the U.S. and elsewhere expressed skepticism about the validity of Venezuela’s presidential election results after Maduro was declared the victor.

Speaking in Tokyo, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. has “serious concerns” about the announced outcome.

Blinken, election DENIER!

I guess it’s okay to say the left fixes elections in Venezuela. But not here.

You may have missed – as I did at the time – this previous brilliant foreign policy move from our illustrious co-presidents:

No one – not even Biden and Harris – is that stupid. One has to assume they either approved of the fraud, or didn’t care. And then there’s sort-of-president Harris’ tweet on Maduro’s win:

You can read that as a bland expression of the idea that Maduro won and that it’s the will of the Venezuelan people to give him another term. Or you can read it as implying that the people’s will was expressed and needs to be respected but perhaps is being thwarted. That latter interpretation is way too kind, I think, but Blinken’s statement certainly indicates that at least some people in the administration aren’t buying the Maduro win. But I wouldn’t sit on a hot stove till they re-impose sanctions.

I hate small Kleenex boxes

The New Neo Posted on by

Yes, yes I do.

By “small Kleenex boxes” I mean those ones that are taller than they are wide or long. They’re meant to take up less space, and I suppose they do, although the difference between those and the older variety isn’t all that great, nor is it worth it considering the drawbacks of the small boxes. And yet they seem quite popular; go figure.

Well, not with me. I try to avoid them, but I was recently staying in a fairly well-appointed airbnb that had lots of Kleenex boxes, but all of the small variety. It just about drove me crazy, because I was getting over an illness that required me to blow my nose quite a bit. What are my main beefs with those small boxes?:

(1) They lift up when you try to use them. They have no gravitas. And so you have to shake the Kleenex loose. Sometimes several come out at once.

(2) They contain very few Kleenex compared to the longer boxes – often only about sixty. When you have a cold, that’s nothing.

I finally purchased a traditional box and it was a great great relief to see it stay on the counter when I tried to extract a tissue, release only one at a time, and contain at least twice as many tissues per box as those small ostensibly cute boxes.