The left’s Kamala problem

The New Neo Posted on by

A lot of people think Joe Biden will somehow be “retired” from the 2024 election, and someone like Newsom will run instead. And although I think that’s a distinct possibility, I am far from thinking it’s a done deal.

Because – how do you solve a problem like Kamala (cue music)?

Commenter “Jerry” writes:

I think you are overestimating how big an obstacle Kamala is to a Newsom nomination (in the event that Biden “decides” to not run).
She was such a loser in 2020 that she dropped out practically in the same speech she announced her candidacy. She’s gotten no better. Plus there is already at least one viable, if odious to many, opponent declared. The party also finds that other candidate odious but fears he could easily defeat Harris. So Newsom is “invited” to run and Kamala is off the stage by the second debate.
Yes, there will be some half-hearted grumbling about another white men only primary but that will fade quickly with a few public and private consolation prizes.

That seems to be a popular opinion on the right, but it’s not my opinion. I don’t think the grumbling will be half-hearted.

Of course, some Democrats would be relieved to see Kamala go. But for others I believe that she has too many intersectional pluses: that is, she is female and black (her Indian heritage isn’t as much of an advantage as those two, but it does solidify her position even further as a “person of color”). Pushing her aside will be a trigger for rage for quite a few Democrats, I believe, either female or black or both – and that’s a sizable proportion of the Democrat constituency. And they’re not the only ones.

But most importantly, she is already VP; not only that but she’s the very first female VP. Historic! Also the first black VP, although that’s not quite as historic because we’ve already had a black president. I think a sizable number of Democrat voters will feel that she shouldn’t have to be in a presidential debate against other candidates for the presidency. She should be the obvious choice if Biden “retires.” If she’s booted out because she performs poorly, I think a lot of people on the left will be quite angry.

The Democrat leadership – whomever is plotting the course – will have to figure out a way around that, and I don’t think it will be all that easy.

Also, I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I think Joe himself will not go gentle into that good night. As a very young man, he decided he would and should be president, and now he has that prize. He will not give it up easily, although they may indeed figure out a way to force him to do so. But I think Biden himself is a more formidable obstacle than most people credit.

From a post I wrote in April of 2020:

But what does Joe Biden want, and why would he think that he’s the man to do it? Is he running merely to stop Trump? That certainly wasn’t true in his previous bids. To bring a divisive America together? But on that score he offers nothing but intermittent and lukewarm lip service. Not rhetoric, not energy, not unity, not a record of achievement, nothing but the desire to be president. one he’s had since he was a very young man:

“When [Biden] first met [future wife] Neilia’s mother, she asked what he wanted to do for a living. Biden informed her he intended to become president of the United States.”

Biden had met wife-to-be Neilia when he was 22 years old and married her at 24, so this encounter with his future mother-in-law must have occurred during those years between 22 and 24. That’s how early he had the ambition to be president, and had not only formed the notion but it was firm enough that he was willing to state it to his future in-law as a solid intention and qualification to marry her daughter.

Biden has lost quite a bit of cognitive power over the years. But I don’t think he’s lost a single ounce of ambition and narcissism.

Two tiers of justice: more on the Hunter Biden protection squad, plus a new Trump indictment?

The New Neo Posted on by

From James Comer:

Today, a former FBI supervisory special agent assigned to the FBI’s Wilmington office and the Biden criminal investigation confirmed key portions of the IRS whistleblower’s testimony. The night before the interview of Hunter Biden, both Secret Service headquarters and the Biden transition team were tipped off about the planned interview. On the day of the Hunter Biden interview, federal agents were told to stand by and could not approach Hunter Biden—they had to wait for his call. As a result of the change in plans, IRS and FBI criminal investigators never got to interview Hunter Biden as part of the investigation.

The Justice Department’s efforts to cover up for the Bidens reveals a two-tiered system of justice that sickens the American people. The Oversight Committee, along with the Judiciary Committee and Ways and Means Committee, will continue to seek the answers, transparency, and accountability that the American people demand and deserve.

Does that two-tiered system of justice “sicken the American people”? Half of them; what about the other half? Do they applaud it? Do they even know about it?

Speaking of those two tiers:

Would anyone be surprised if they indict Trump for incitement, despite the fact that he clearly is not guilty of it (see this by Jonathan Turley)?

And then there’s more evidence of the extent of Biden family corruption:

According to House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), the Biden family allegedly set up over 20 shell companies in an effort to launder millions of dollars paid by foreign entities…

“We found all these shell companies that make absolutely no sense,” Comer told Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business. “I don’t believe they have paid a penny of revenue, a penny of taxes on most of this… millions of dollars they received from our adversaries around the world.”

“But then the question is, what did they do to receive this money? How did they list that on their taxes? Is it a service they provided? As a capital investment? We don’t know.”

If Democrats controlled the House as well as the Senate, we would never know.

[NOTE: It’s extremely depressing to report on this stuff. But it’s no longer surprising. Maybe that’s why it’s so depressing.]

Let women speak – then again, maybe not

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “Bob Wilson.”)

Here’s a good example of the workings of the hierarchy of victimhood in the Woke world:

Eventbrite is facing blowback for taking down an event page for women advocating on behalf of single-sex spaces on the grounds that it violates the platform’s policy against hateful content.

Independent Women’s Network chapter leader Michelle Evans, organizer of the Aug. 12 Texas-based event Let Women Speak Austin, said her gathering was “intentionally misrepresented by Eventbrite as hate speech.”

“Eventbrite‘s team of Trust and Safety experts politely communicated to me that they were capitulating to the trans ideologues, the loud minority who are perpetually offended by women speaking out against their intrusion into our sports and private spaces,” said Ms. Evans in a statement…

Ms. Evans said she still plans to hold the event, which is billed on Facebook and other platforms as a gathering “where women can speak freely about the risks of gender identity ideology to women and girls, the dangers of gender self-ID, and the need to protect women’s sex-based rights.”

Right now, in the left’s all-important hierarchy of victimhood, pride of place is held by people identifying as trans. Even though it’s pretty clear that most trans people are not activists and merely want to be left alone to live their lives unencumbered, there is an activist subset that is vocal, energetic, and determined to take over spaces that once were limited to women. And by “women,” I mean what the word has always meant and been understood to mean.

Years ago, when trans activism became a thing, a group of feminists saw the danger and spoke out, and were branded by trans activists as being “TERFS” – which stands for “trans exclusionary radical feminists”:

First recorded in 2008, the term was originally used to distinguish transgender-inclusive feminists from a group of radical feminists and social conservatives who reject the assertion that trans women are women, including trans women in women’s spaces, and transgender rights legislation. Trans-inclusive feminists who support transfeminism assert that these “TERF” ideas and positions are transphobic and discriminatory towards transgender people.

To accuse someone of “transphobia” is a typical leftist rhetorical move, particularly against other leftists who care about such labels. It is typical in the sense that it is just another in a long line of such designations, including “homophobia” and “Islamophobia.” Fall short of complete approval of every aspect of a group’s agenda and one is accused of having such a “phobia” – and even the word “phobia” is not meant in these cases to signify “fear of” but rather “hatred for.” Many people get with the program rather than face being designated as a “hater” of the group in question.

It’s a very clever and useful ploy on the part of the left, and although one would think it loses much of its force over time, it apparently still stings. The “Let Women Speak” group is being called hateful to trans people, and that is considered a powerful tool to silence them. The trans activists in this case who want to enter female-only spaces are predominantly male-to-female transitioners, who are of course biological males. Although I would be labeled transphobic for stating this obvious truth – and although many male-to-female trans people would actually agree with me on this and freely admit that they are still biological males – it has become anathema on the left to say so. That brings us to the highly ironic looking-glass-world phenomenon of trans activists calling male-to-female trans people “transphobes” if they say that they themselves are still males in the biological sense.

Why do women want their own sports competitions? The answer is obvious. Why do they want their own “spaces” – such as in prisons or abuse shelters or restrooms or lesbian bars? I think the answer there is obvious, too, and it is rooted in the differential propensities to violence of men and women, and the danger women can face. Men are not afraid of female-to-male trans people in the same way, in that they are neither a threat in sports nor in prisons, and I’m not even aware of any female-to-male trans people trying to enter male sports or male prisons, also for obvious reasons.

One of the approaches trans activists take is claiming that trans people are the victims of a lot of violence, in particular against male-to-female trans people, and especially black male-to-female trans people. But here’s what’s going on, the gist of which is that most of the victims met deaths that had nothing to do with their trans identities and everything to do with the environments in which they were living or operating (read the article for the details).

But the best way to get a leg up in the victim-identity competition on the left these days is to claim a higher degree of victimhood, and at the moment the trans community has been winning that skirmish.

[NOTE: Here’s the website of the group sponsoring the event.]

Open thread 7/18/23

The New Neo Posted on by

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Vera-Ellen is very skillful, with remarkable strength and energy, and she’s got great legs. On the other hand, I just don’t like the choreography or the style. But you have to admire that toe-tapping, which reminds me of Georgian male dancers:

The Georgians, yikes!:

Here’s a new book for parents of children declaring themselves to be trans

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s one that can be helpful for all parents, including those who are not willing to unquestionably “affirm” their child’s choice. Most books today on the subject encourage parents to do the latter; this book is by two therapists who are podcasters at “A Wider Lens” on YouTube and they are generally excellent. I’ve watched many of their videos and so far every one has been good.

Here’s the Amazon link to the book, which is called Is My Child Trans?: A Guide for Parents. It will be available in October.

Here’s a podcast in which the authors describe the book:

Rewarding failure in New York City

The New Neo Posted on by

This is extraordinary:

Roughly 5,200 black and Hispanic ex-Big Apple teachers and once-aspiring educators are expected to collect more than $1.8 billion in judgments after the city stopped fighting a nearly three-decade federal discrimination lawsuit that found a certification exam was biased.

It’s the largest legal payout in city history.

As of Friday, 225 people who failed the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test used for teacher licensing from 1994 to 2014 had already been notified they’re getting settlements of at least $1 million, according to an analysis of Manhattan federal court records.

Court rulings found the exam violated civil-rights laws, allowing far more white candidates to pass.

The case is expected to generate hundreds of other future million-dollar awards.

Herman Grim, 64, of Queens, on July 5 was awarded the biggest judgment to date — a jaw-dropping $2,055,383.

It includes $1,583,114 in back pay for time never clocked, lost interest accrued, and other compensation.

It was de Blasio who agreed to the payouts, during the last weeks he was in office. Taxpayers will, of course, be footing the bill – which includes hefty lawyer fees. The huge amounts of the payments reflect the amount of time the suit has been going on; earlier failed applicants get more money, later ones get less.

Grim said he’s in disbelief but the money can’t come fast enough because he’s racked up serious debt on his Queens home and credit cards.

He couldn’t recite examples of why the test was biased.

But Grim recalled hiring private tutors and studying for it during the early 1990s, before failing many times.

Here’s an example of this supposed bias:

More than 90% of white test-takers passed the 80-question multiple-choice and essay Liberal Arts and Sciences Test between March 1993 and June 1995 — one version of which had questions such as asking teachers to ­explain the meaning of a painting by pop artist Andy Warhol.

But black applicants on average scored passing grades only 53% of the time, and Latinos had an even lower passing rate, just 50%, according to the lawsuit.

Disparate impact can only be explained by bias these days; any other possibility – including normal variation among all groups, which exists on almost every dimension of life – is unacceptable.

It also seems to me that, if any such awards are given, they should be based on the difference between what the person supposedly might have earned as a teacher during those years and what that person actually earned doing something else. But that doesn’t seem to be the way these awards are being calculated.

More:

Arthur Goldstein, a recently retired veteran teacher at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, said the former test wasn’t a good indicator of how well candidates would perform in the classroom and the city would’ve been better off resolving the issue decades ago by hiring many of those who sued.

“All this money for nothing – nothing!” he fumed. “I’ve been teaching in … overcrowded classrooms in miserable conditions when we could’ve had more teachers working. Instead, we just have the city paying [money] for no reason at all. It’s ridiculous.”

One Brooklyn principal said the city was “crazy” to settle the case.

“The standards are the standards,” he said. “It shouldn’t be based on what would be easy for blacks or whites. To hire people who are not qualified and change the requirements because a certain group didn‘t pass the test is bulls–t.”

Yes, but it’s BS that is very popular in legal and leftist circles.

Whatever trouble Robert Malley is in, and for whatever reason…

The New Neo Posted on by

…it does not signal any disruption or fundamental break in the devotion of the Biden administration to the policies of the Obama administration in dealing with Iran.

Although we don’t seem to really know exactly what may be going on, you can read something about it here:

News of the suspension of Malley, the head of the U.S. negotiating team for a “new” nuclear deal with Iran, was first published on June 29th on the Iran International website, which noted that Malley had not been participating in meetings and discussions regarding Iran for some time. This forced State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller to confirm the report, without saying when and why exactly Malley had been removed from office.

Official announcements stated that the suspension followed orders from the State Department’s security department, which claimed that Malley had allegedly done something to compromise the rules of confidentiality, indicating that he passed classified information – whether in the form of documents or verbally – to someone who was not authorized to know it.

During Obama’s tenure:

[Malley] acted as a Middle East adviser to President Barack Obama, and urged the administration to support the Muslim Brotherhood, who won Egypt’s post-Arab Spring election, and met with representatives from Hamas – after which, he was fired. Later on, Obama appointed him as special envoy for Iran, and two years ago, President Joe Biden appointed him special envoy as well, and put him in charge of negotiations on a new nuclear deal.

What a guy.

Now the Republicans in Congress want answers:

The Republican representative’s [Michael McCaul] letter [to Blinken] presented an ultimatum: Blinken must announce preparations no later than Monday evening for a classified briefing of the Committee [on the subject] to be held on or before July 26th; if it fails to do so, “I am prepared to request testimony on this matter in a classified hearing and to compel the appearance of requested witnesses should they refuse to appear voluntarily.”

I have written at length about Malley in this previous post. I suggest you read the whole thing; it’s not all that long, but you may be shocked if you don’t already know much about Malley.

The New York City subway

The New Neo Posted on by

I was going to make the following video an open thread. But then I realized that I had so much to say about it that it seemed to merit a regular post instead.

First, the video:

Boy, did that bring back memories of my youth riding the old IRT. That was always an adventure, and usually not an especially nice one. There was the incredibly loud screeching, particularly as it rounded the bend. Long minutes spent waiting for the local after getting off the express, a wait that could feel interminable, especially in the evening. The exhibitionists. The crazies. The men who told me to smile because I looked too gloomy – and this is when I was a child of ten or eleven.

I rode the subways mostly to ballet classes from the time I was about ten years old till I was about sixteen, often in late afternoon and early evenings. My trip was to Times Square, which was not a fun and kid-friendly place in those days.

I never noticed the different shapes of the entrance and exit kiosks that the video narrator points out, but I certainly noticed the mosaics and other decorations. My mother had shown them to me when I was even littler, and explained that every station was different.

I never saw rats in the subway till many years later, but when I did they were huge and numerous. And in childhood and adolescence I used to have nightmares about concentration camp-type selections that for some reason were always set in the NYC subway.

A better story: once when I was a young adult, sitting in a half-empty subway car in late-afternoon, in walked my brother on his way somewhere. Complete coincidence. We made a big show of crying out in glee and hugging each other.

RFK and the Jews

The New Neo Posted on by

This type of utterance from RFK Jr. does not surprise me in the least:

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dished out wild COVID-19 conspiracy theories this week during a press event at an Upper East Side restaurant, claiming the bug was a genetically engineered bioweapon that may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

Kennedy floated the idea during a question-and-answer…at Tony’s Di Napoli on East 63d Street.

“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” Kennedy hedged.

Where to begin?

There are probably “papers out there” that show that RFK’s father was assassinated by space aliens.

And I guess Ashkenazi Jews are not “Caucasians,” according to RFK Jr.. Who knew? You learn something new every day.

And I guess those reports of high rates of COVID mortality in Jews are just a fiction, too:

In June 2020, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in England and Wales published the results of an investigation into mortality from COVID-19 by religious group. The analysis revealed a significant “Jewish penalty”: coronavirus mortality of Jews was shown to be relatively high compared to the British Christian majority.

This would have been prior to vaccination, so vaccine rates in different groups would not be relevant.

Kennedy said he didn’t really mean it that way:

After a broad backlash to his comments, first reported by the New York Post, Kennedy took to Twitter to defend himself, calling the reporting “mistaken” and writing that he did not believe Covid-19 had been deliberately engineered against specific ethnicities.

“I have never, ever suggested that the Covid-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews,” Kennedy wrote.

Sure sounded that way, RFK. Why cite this stuff if you didn’t mean to call attention to it? And what race do you think Ashkenazi Jews belong to, if not the “Caucasian” race? Just curious.

I wonder whether he’s aware of historical anti-Semitic theories that feature the Jews as infectious agents: poisoning the wells, bringing the Black Death, and of course Nazi propaganda. If not, here’s a little history lession:

The best-known case of this kind of persecution was attacks perpetrated against Jewish communities in the German Empire between 1348 and 1350. At this time, the Black Death devastated the continent, and Jews were accused of intentionally spreading the disease by poisoning wells. A series of terrifying massacres ensued, destroying many of the major Jewish communities in Europe. This was not, however, the only case in which such charges led to persecution. In 1321, lepers in south-western France were accused of attempting to spread their particular illness by poisoning water sources. These accusations evolved to include the idea that the plot was initiated by Muslim rulers and aided by the Jews of France. As a consequence, both Jews and lepers suffered violent fates, from expulsion or isolation to execution by fire.

Nazi propaganda:

The Nazi propaganda poster featured here was created in 1941 for public display in German-occupied Poland. The Polish-language words translate roughly to “Jews are lice; they cause typhus.” Designed to link Jews and typhus closely together in the minds of non-Jewish Poles, the poster shows one of the feared typhus-ridden lice drawn on top of the face of a Jewish man that has been made to look like a skull. Several other examples of antisemitic Nazi propaganda depict Jews covered in lice, but this image seems designed to suggest that Jews and lice are similar creatures equally responsible for spreading the disease.

Here’s an interesting British survey

Kennedy’s antisemitic connection is not unique, as an Oxford University study found that one-in-five British people believed that Jews created the coronavirus pandemic for financial gain.

RFK Jr. is abysmally ignorant if he’s not aware of the effect of statements such as his, whether he means them to sound the way they sound or not. And the statement itself was abysmally ignorant.