Trump’s lead: what does it mean?

The New Neo Posted on by

Whether or not it means anything to you depends on how you feel about polls, as well as how you feel about the possibility and/or likelihood of fraud in 2024. But it’s a fact that Trump is doing well in current polls. That’s not just true in national polls, which aren’t as meaningful as state polls; it’s true of state polls as well:

What does the state polling show today? Trump leads in the RCP Average in Michigan for the first time, ever.

Pennsylvania? He leads for the first time ever, and has led in most polls.
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He narrowly trails Biden in Wisconsin but has already led in almost as many polls as he led in the state in 2016 and 2020 combined. His 0.7% deficit compares to his previous best showing in the state: A 3.5% deficit in August of 2020.

Florida? Trump has led or tied in every poll, including some double-digit leads.

Arizona? He leads by five in the RCP Average.

Georgia? He leads by six.

Ohio? Polling is sparse, but he leads by 10.

Does seem to be a trend, doesn’t it?

Of course, it may fizzle out. There may be some flaw in the polls, or collusion among pollsters to make sure Trump is nominated because he really is one of the weaker candidates (I don’t think that’s what’s going on). There’s a pause in some of the legal proceedings against him, and when that ends and the trials heat up again it might change things. Or, Biden may not be the eventual Democrat nominee; but one of the reasons he hasn’t been replaced as yet – and I have been saying I don’t think he will be replaced – is that possible alternative Democrat nominees fare no better, plus Biden stubbornly refuses to leave at the moment.

I think that one of the reasons Biden’s poll numbers are dropping is a strange and ironic one: many “progressives” support the decidedly unprogressive thugs of Hamas, and are unhappy with Biden’s relative support of Israel. Go figure. Probably some of the Jewish Democrats are leaving the fold, too, but Jews are such a small minority of voters that such a phenomenon wouldn’t matter in most states. Black voters are another story; they matter far more because they are much more numerous. They are said to be leaving Biden in significant numbers, although the vast majority of black voters are probably still going to vote for Biden over Trump. Same for Hispanic voters. And people are tired of being told the economy is great when it’s not great for them, for example when they shop for groceries.

Obviously, it’s too early to get all excited about these polls. Remember the Red Wave of 2022, the one that never happened? But it’s better than seeing Trump trailing dismally at this point, because I am convinced that Trump will be the GOP nominee in 2024.

The Gazan informants

The New Neo Posted on by

I hope this is true, and I hope it means that at least a few Gazans are, as Golda Meir used to say, beginning to love their children more than they hate Israelis:

A senior 504 [Israeli intelligence Unit] official added: “We received thousands of phone calls from Gazans on a scale never seen before in the unit. It is evident that the residents of the Gaza Strip are not satisfied with the barbaric conduct of Hamas. The ordinary civilian understands that Hamas is bringing disaster to the residents of Gaza that will be difficult for them to recover from.”

It’s certainly possible that – as a recent poll indicated – 75% of Gazans support Hamas. If so, then up to 25% don’t – although they may support another terrorist group. Then again, why would any Gazan feel free to disagree with terrorist aims, given the total control the terrorists have had until now, as well as their propensity for violence against Palestinians who don’t toe the line?

So maybe quite a few of those 25% have decided to tell what they know about the tunnel entrance down the street. And maybe, as Hamas is seen as weakened over time – if Israel does what it says it will – the number of Palestinians fed up with Hamas’ violent and tyrannical rule will increase.

A person can hope, anyway. Do I believe it’s what will happen? Not really. But I believe it to be possible.

I wrote about the recent West Bank lynching of two men accused of collaborating with Israel. Whether they really were helping Israel is impossible to know, of course. Someone merely may have wanted them destroyed for other reasons. However, the public lynching and the reason given for it is an indication that the jihadis certainly want to send a very strong message against assisting Israel. They must be at least a little bit worried about the phenomenon.

Today’s hostage release: note the pattern, which is for Hamas to keep the fathers

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the list; the pattern is quite obvious:

From the Engel family:
Karina Engel-Bart, 51
Mika Engel, 18
Yuval Engel, 10
(Father Ronen Engel remains hostage in Gaza)

From the Calderon family:
Sahar Calderon, 16
Erez Calderon, 12
(Father Ofer Calderon remains hostage in Gaza)

From the Yaakov family:
Or Yaakov, 16
Yagil Yaakov, 12
(Father Yair Yaakov and girlfriend Meirav Tal remain hostage in Gaza)

From the Yahalomi family:
Eitan Yahalomi, 12
(Father Ohad Yahalomi remains hostage in Gaza)

Separate the fathers, the better to torture Israel and the families further, and to increase Hamas’ leverage on Israel and the US. I don’t think any of the US citizens other than yesterday’s 4-year-old (3 when taken) Avigail Idan have been released. The US hostages are particularly valuable to Hamas, because they constitute special leverage on Biden, who can pressure Israel in a variety of ways.

A very prescient Mark Steyn piece on immigration, leftism, and anti-Semitism

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “AesopFan.”]

Mark Steyn gets to say “I told you so.”

Boy, does he ever.

Please read this piece by Steyn that first appeared in Commentary back in May of 2009. It is astounding how much of the current blatant Jew-hating atmosphere was already present, especially in Europe. I suggest you read the whole thing. It’s all relevant, but I’ll highlight some especially relevant portions:

“Israel is unfashionable,” a Continental foreign minister said to me a decade back. “But maybe Israel will change, and then fashions will change.” Fashions do change. But however Israel changes, this fashion won’t. The shift of most (non-American) Western opinion against the Jewish state that began in the 1970s was, as my Continental politician had it, simply a reflection of casting: Israel was no longer the underdog but the overdog, and why would that appeal to a post-war polytechnic Euro-Left unburdened by Holocaust guilt?

Fair enough. Fashions change. But the new Judenhass is not a fashion, simply a stark reality that will metastasize in the years ahead and leave Israel isolated in the international “community” in ways that will make the first decade of this century seem like the good old days.

Let that last sentence sink in.

More:

…[T]here is a difference of scale between the well-established faculty-lounge disdain for “Israeli apartheid” and a mass psychosis so universal it’s part of the air you breathe. For a glimpse of the future, consider the (for the moment) bizarre circumstances of the recent Davis Cup First Round matches in Sweden. They had been scheduled long ago to be played in the Baltiska Hallen stadium in Malmo. Who knew which team the Swedes would draw? Could have been Chile, could have been Serbia. Alas, it was Israel.

Malmo is Sweden’s most Muslim city, and citing security concerns, the local council ordered the three days of tennis to be played behind closed doors. Imagine being Amir Hadad and Andy Ram, the Israeli doubles players, or Simon Aspelin and Robert Lindstedt, the Swedes. This was supposed to be their big day. But the vast stadium is empty, except for a few sports reporters and team officials. And just outside the perimeter up to 10,000 demonstrators are chanting, “Stop the match!” and maybe, a little deeper into the throng, they’re shouting, “We want to kill all Jews worldwide” (as demonstrators in Copenhagen, just across the water, declared just a few weeks earlier).

This has been going on for a long, long time, and authorities in Western countries have not stopped it. Steyn explains:

In Britain in January, while “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators were permitted to dress up as hook-nosed Jews drinking the blood of Arab babies, the police ordered counter-protesters to put away their Israeli flags. In Alberta, in the heart of Calgary’s Jewish neighborhood, the flag of Hizballah (supposedly a proscribed terrorist organization) was proudly waved by demonstrators, but one solitary Israeli flag was deemed a threat to the Queen’s peace and officers told the brave fellow holding it to put it away or be arrested for “inciting public disorder.” …

… But, if you look at it from the authorities’ point of view, it’s not about Jew-hatred; it’s a simple numbers game. If a statistically insignificant Jewish population gets upset, big deal. If the far larger Muslim population – and, in some French cities, the youth population (i.e., the demographic that riots) is already pushing 50 percent – you have a serious public-order threat on your hands. …

One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, a group wearing “BOYCOTT ISRAEL” T-shirts entered a French branch of Carrefour, the world’s largest supermarket chain, and announced themselves. They then systematically advanced down every aisle examining every product, seizing all the items made in Israel and piling them into carts to take away and destroy. Judging from the video they made, the protesters were mostly Muslim immigrants and a few French leftists. But more relevant was the passivity of everyone else in the store, both staff and shoppers, all of whom stood idly by as private property was ransacked and smashed, and many of whom when invited to comment expressed support for the destruction. “South Africa started to shake once all countries started to boycott their products,” one elderly lady customer said. “So what you’re doing, I find it good.”

I’ll stop there. You get the picture: almost 15 years ago.

Newspeak again: according to Ireland’s PM, 9-year-old Hamas hostage Emily Hand merely wandered off without her GPS

The New Neo Posted on by

And then she apparently came home, wagging her tail behind her.

I would say that the man is incredibly stupid, except that I know he’s not. He’s being incredibly careful with words – like most good leftists – trying desperately to avoid saying the truth about Hamas, Palestinians, and Israel.

There’s an awful lot of that going around in Ireland lately.

So here’s how the PM described Irish-Israeli citizen Emily Hand, nine years old, kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and finally returned to her family:

In a post that has quickly been lambasted on Twitter, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar welcomes the release of Israeli-Irish hostage Emily Hand, “an innocent child who was lost has now been found and returned.”

The passive tweet from Varadkar does not mention that the 9-year-old Hand had been held hostage for 50 days in Gaza by Hamas terrorists after she was kidnapped from a sleepover with her friend.

“We breathe a massive sigh of relief. Our prayers have been answered,” he says.

“Lost” – like Hansel and Gretel, lost in the forest and captured by the Witch who wants to eat them? Lost, like in the “Amazing Grace” lyrics? Lost, like a mitten or one’s reading glasses?

Not only was Hand not “lost,” but she was also not “found.” Her captors exchanged her for terrorists who plan to kill and abduct more Israelis, and that is the purpose for which she was kidnapped (excuse me: lost) in the first place. The kidnappers knew where she was all the time, although we didn’t. I don’t know whether we’ll ever know, actually.

The Irish PM, Leo Varadkar, is a pretty nasty piece of work vis a vis Israel:

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar on Friday described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “something approaching revenge”, in some of the strongest criticism of Israel by a leader of a European Union member state. …

“I strongly believe that … Israel has the right to defend itself, has the right to go after Hamas, that they cannot do this again,” Varadkar told journalists during a visit to South Korea, according to comments broadcast by state radio RTE.

“What I’m seeing unfolding at the moment isn’t just self defence. It looks, resembles something more approaching revenge,” Varadkar said.

“That’s not where we should be. And I don’t think that’s how Israel will guarantee future freedom and future security,” he said. …

Ireland has traditionally been one of Western Europe’s strongest critics of Israeli policies towards Palestinians.

I eagerly await Varadkar’s suggestions about what Israel should do instead, to “guarantee future freedom and security.” No doubt they’re as brilliant as his remarks about Emily Hand. Hey, maybe he’ll suggest pulling out of Gaza and letting them have their own elections …

And then there’s Reuters, whose headline writer seemed to think that little Israeli children and old ladies are “soldiers”:

Some progressive publications and politicians have come under fire for downplaying the kidnappings and plight of the Israeli hostages under Hamas or for generally showing anti-Israel bias. For instance, Reuters called the hostages released in the second tranche “Israeli soldiers,” even though many of them were young children and teenagers. The New York Times published a headline, “2 Dozen Hostages Are Freed as Aid Heads into Gaza” alongside a picture of a Palestinian prisoner draped in what appears to be a Hamas flag.

Hamas says all Israelis are soldiers, or soldiers-to-be, or ex-soldiers, and therefore fair game. Some Hamas talking head – I forget which one – recently claimed that “no Israeli civilians” were killed or harmed on October 7. When questioned further, he explained that there are no Israeli civilians. And at least one person working at Reuters appears to agree. Of course, part of the Orwellian collusion between the MSM and the terrorists is to also call the released Palestinian prisoners “children,” and to highlight their heartfelt reunions with their family members.

It’s all the same, right? Moral equivalence, amoral equivalence, 3-year-old toddlers or 17-year-stabbers – whatever.

I’m not sure where to put this next bit, so I may as well place it here – Biden apologizes for doubting Hamas’ word:

President Biden apologized to some prominent Muslim-American leaders for publicly questioning the Palestinian death toll being reported by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, a new report says.

Biden huddled with five Muslim American leaders the day after his Oct. 25 comments about reported Gaza deaths roiled the Islamic community, vowing to “do better.”

During the meeting, which was initially planned for 30 minutes but lasted more than twice as long, Biden heard the leaders describe individuals they knew who were personally affected by the conflict.

“I’m sorry. I’m disappointed in myself,” Biden told the group, the Washington Post reported.

No reason to doubt Hamas, right? Must be Islamophobic to do so.

Ireland riots after the stabbing of children

The New Neo Posted on by

Riots in Dublin:

The most riot police in Irish history were deployed to deal with Thursday’s street violence in Dublin, the country’s justice minister has said.

Helen McEntee praised the police response to a riot which began following a knife attack in the city.

Three children and a school care assistant were stabbed outside a primary school several hours earlier.

Sinn Féin – the largest opposition party – criticised the police response to the riot.

While its leader Mary Lou McDonald backed individual gardaí (police), she called for the commissioner of the force to resign.

Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar said about 500 people were involved in the disorder, adding that they had “brought shame” on Ireland and promising new laws within weeks to bring those involved to justice.

Officers arrested 34 people after vehicles were set on fire and shops looted.

A large police presence remains in Dublin’s city centre on Friday night and a number of arrests have been made following sporadic altercations on O’Connell Street.

J6, Irish style?

The police don’t seem to be saying anything official about the perp’s identity. Who was it? People don’t like being “protected” from the truth, whatever it may be.

Ireland’s police chief Drew Harris blamed the rioting on a “lunatic, hooligan faction driven by a far-right ideology”.

Two of the five people injured in the stabbings outside a primary school, Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuir, on Parnell Square are critically ill.

They include a five-year-old girl and a school care assistant who “used her body as a shield” in an attempt to protect children from the attacker.

By the way, for what it’s worth, I read somewhere recently – don’t know where – that Ireland has more Hamas sympathizers than any other part of the UK.

More:

The “extraordinary outbreak of violence” had come after “hateful assumptions” were made based on material circulating online in the wake of the stabbings, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said.

It is understood that included false claims that the attacker was a foreign national.

Sources have indicated to the BBC that the man suspected of carrying out the attack is an Irish citizen who has lived in the country for 20 years.

So why not announce that fact officially? And note the words “Irish citizen” – does that mean a person of Irish ethnicity and typical Irish religious beliefs, who merely flipped his lid? Or does it mean an immigrant who came 20 years ago to Ireland? No way to know right now, so no wonder people fill in the gaps, because the m.o. is reminiscent of jihadis.

This is what I mean about J6:

Police in Ireland are trawling through 6,000 hours of CCTV footage as a major investigation into riots in Dublin’s city centre continues.

The violence in the Irish capital on Thursday – which involved far-right elements and saw Garda cars, buses and trams set alight and shops looted and damaged – flared after a knife attack on three children and their care assistant outside a school in the north inner city.

Justice minister Helen McEntee also told colleagues that officers are trawling 6,000 hours of CCTV footage and vowed that further arrests would follow the 34 already made.

Chauvin stabbed in federal prison by another inmate

The New Neo Posted on by

This could have easily been predicted:

The Associated Press reports that Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, was stabbed by another inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Tucson.

In a statement that does not mention Chauvin by name, the Bureau of Prisons says an “incarcerated individual” was assaulted at FCI Tucson around 12:30 p.m. Friday.

It goes on to say that “responding employees initiated life-saving measures for one incarcerated individual” who was “transported by EMS to a local hospital for further treatment and evaluation.”

Recently SCOTUS declined to hear Chauvin’s appeal; apparently it was too hot to handle, or perhaps it was just a case of how difficult it is to reverse something once a verdict is rendered. The Court was mum about why it refused to hear the case, and about whether any of the justices voted differently.

One would think that Chauvin should have been protected while in prison. But apparently he was not. It sounds like the attack was very serious. I haven’t seen anything about Chauvin’s attacker’s identity, nor about what happened to the attacker in terms of punishment, or how he got (or made) a knife. However:

The attack happened at the Federal Correctional Institution, Tucson, a medium-security prison that has been plagued by security lapses and staffing shortages. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the attack and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. …

Chauvin’s stabbing is the second high-profile attack on a federal prisoner in the last five months. In July, disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar was stabbed by a fellow inmate at a federal penitentiary in Florida.

It is also the second major incident at the Tucson federal prison in a little over a year. In November 2022, an inmate at the facility’s low-security prison camp pulled out a gun and attempted to shoot a visitor in the head. The weapon, which the inmate shouldn’t have had, misfired and no one was hurt.

Chauvin, 47, was sent to FCI Tucson from a maximum-security Minnesota state prison in August 2022 to simultaneously serve a 21-year federal sentence for violating Floyd’s civil rights and a 22½-year state sentence for second-degree murder.

Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, had advocated for keeping him out of general population and away from other inmates, anticipating he’d be a target. In Minnesota, Chauvin was mainly kept in solitary confinement “largely for his own protection,” Nelson wrote in court papers last year.

Solitary confinement is no joke, either. Not many good options for Chauvin’s incarceration.

If you have followed my many posts about Chauvin and his trial, I strongly believe that the trial was unfair and subject to intense public pressure to convict, and that Chauvin was not guilty of murder. But it was a foregone conclusion that he would be convicted.

Meanwhile, back in the West Bank: lynchings

The New Neo Posted on by

Some supposed Israeli collaborators have been lynched by the West Bank crowd:

Two alleged collaborators were publicly hung before a cheering crowd with so many cell phones held high you’d think you were at a rock show. The bodies were mutilated then dismembered, just like Hamas did on a massive scale on October 7.

Such a lovely bunch of people. There really does seem to be a special blood lust and love of sadism among this group.

Were these men actually collaborators? Who knows; they might just have been people someone didn’t like for whatever reason, and this was a way of settling scores. It does appear, however, that lately there may have been more people giving the Israelis information – whether because of payments or threats or the desire to be free of the yoke of the terrorist oppressors of the Palestinian people themselves, I don’t know. But the Palestinians have been so trained in hatred and violence that I see no good future for them or for anyone with the misfortune to be in their neighborhood.