On turkey soup and books for sale

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been making turkey soup with the leftovers from Thanksgiving, which this year in my case amounts to about 95% of a cooked turkey. Turkey soup always sounds so easy, and is one of the reasons I like to make a turkey for Thanksgiving. But I keep forgetting that the soup part is fairly labor-intensive, although very rewarding.

It’s important to find a pot big enough. The prep requires a lot of cutting of carrots and other veggies. The cooking takes many hours, and then there’s the taking the meat off the bones once it’s pretty much falling apart. In go leftover green beans and a bit of leftover stuffing (most of the stuffing was demolished on Thanksgiving Day). Hey, let’s even dump in a scoop of leftover mashed sweet potatoes for thickening, and a spoonful of cranberry sauce. Why not? Gravy, too. Be creative – in the end, it always tastes good. And the rest of the turkey meat – there’s plenty more – makes turkey salad sandwiches for days.

While I’m doing that, I want to remind you to use the Amazon portal here for Amazon gifts. You might be interested in this book by Eric Trump; I haven’t read it, but I heard him interviewed about it. It’s an account of what the Trump family went through during the years out of power and under siege – which is the book’s title.

But I also especially want to remind you that Gerard Vanderleun’s essay book, still available through the Vanderleun Books website here, is a handsome volume that makes an entertaining read and is a great gift (if I do say so myself, which I do). It’s not political, so you can even give it to liberals on your list. There are only a couple of hardcovers left, but there are plenty of non-flimsy paperbacks.

What’s more, pretty soon the Vanderleun poetry book will be available. I know I’ve said that before, and I was hoping it would be ready by November 1. But I ran into unforeseen formatting trouble and once that was fixed I ran into some difficulties with the printer. Now I’m awaiting book proofs from two different printers, and once I make that decision – hopefully in a week or even less – I’ll make the big announcement that it’s ready for ordering.

Now I’m getting nervous about the special election in Tennessee

The New Neo Posted on by

These special elections and/or off-year elections have been going especially poorly. This one in Tennessee should be an easy win for the Republican, but polls say it’s not:

Special elections are notorious for yielding unexpected results because they tend to draw only the most politically engaged voters, a pattern that generally favors Democrats. All eyes are on Tuesday’s fight for the House seat vacated by Republican Rep. Mark Green in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, who retired in July. The 7th District, which is “located in central and western Tennessee, stretches from Kentucky to Alabama, and includes parts of Nashville.”

The stakes are high as Republicans seek to preserve their already narrow 219–213 majority in the House. Even by special election standards, the polls should not be this tight in such a reliably red state, which explains why both parties have poured significant resources into this contest.

Fears of an upset in this race increased after an Emerson poll released on Wednesday showed liberal Tennessee state Rep. Aftyn Beyn, the Democratic candidate, within 2 points of her Republican opponent, Mark Van Epps. President Donald Trump carried the district by 22 points last November.

Perhaps the poll is wrong – it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Then again, recent special election and general election polls were wrong, too – in the direction of not giving the Democrats as much of a lead as they actually ended up getting when the votes were in. Tennessee’s Aftyn Beyn is a leftist somewhat in the mold of AOC, and should be far behind in the race. She’s not.

And why do special elections seem to favor Democrats so heavily? After all, people on the right certainly know the dangers of electing someone on the left. Yes, I’m aware that many on the right are perennially displeased with the GOP in Congress. But do they really think they’ll like a Democrat majority there?

Trump and Latin America

The New Neo Posted on by

Trump has made a somewhat cryptic announcement:

President Donald Trump on Saturday said that the airspace “above and surrounding” Venezuela should be considered as “closed in its entirety,” an assertion that raised more questions about the U.S. pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

The White House did not respond to questions about what Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, and it was unclear whether he was announcing a new policy or simply reinforcing the messaging around his campaign against Maduro, which has involved multiple strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean on small boats accused of ferrying drugs as well as a buildup of naval forces in the region. More than 80 people have been killed in such strikes since early September.

The Republican president addressed his call for an aerial blockade to “Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers,” rather than to Maduro.

What’s going on? It seems one goal is to isolate Maduro and Venezuela. I suppose the idea is to frighten and intimidate those in the drug trade – although I would think they’ve already gotten that message through the attacks on drug boats. Trump also likes to employ his reputation as an unpredictable loose cannon, which can be useful.

Trump’s policies in Latin American haven’t gotten too much coverage compared to so many of his other actions, such as in Ukraine and Israel. But his administration – and particularly SOS Rubio – has been quite busy there. For example, here’s an article from last month:

Nine months into Donald Trump’s second term, Latin America has become a central focus of U.S. foreign policy. The administration has shifted away from traditional development aid and diplomatic forums, opting instead for a strategy centered on tariffs, military pressure and bilateral political alignment. …

U.S. Representative María Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican and one of the administration’s most outspoken defenders, said Trump’s approach marked a long-overdue shift. “The Trump administration is doing exactly what it needs to do — to take out of power an illegitimate president, someone who stole the elections last year after promising to abide by the Barbados Accord,” she told Newsweek.

The article goes on to describe Trump’s alliance with Argentina’s Milei, and his opposition to Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro as well as his confrontations with Panama over the Canal and Chinese influence.

More:

Michael Shifter, former president of the Inter-American Dialogue, described the administration’s approach as “aggressive but erratic.” He told Newsweek: “It’s hard to deny that the Trump administration is doing more in Latin America than any U.S. government this century. Yet it’s equally hard to discern a coherent plan.”

Oh, is it? How about: promote what’s good for the US and discourage what’s bad for the US, as well as being friendly with simpatico leaders such as Milei? It doesn’t seem all that incoherent.

You can take the Somalis out of Somalia …

The New Neo Posted on by

… but way too many of them bring Somali corruption with them. In Minnesota, it reached terrible proportions, and we’re still finding out its extent:

Minnesota is drowning in fraud. Billions in taxpayer dollars have been stolen during the administration of Governor Tim Walz alone. Democratic state officials, overseeing one of the most generous welfare regimes in the country, are asleep at the switch. And the media, duty-bound by progressive pieties, refuse to connect the dots.

In many cases, the fraud has allegedly been perpetrated by members of Minnesota’s sizeable Somali community. Federal counterterrorism sources confirm that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia, where they ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab. As one confidential source put it: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”

Incredibly depressing news – although it’s not really all that new as news, since we’ve been hearing about it piece by piece for quite some time (I’ve written about one of these cases previously, for example here and here).

More:

If you were to design a welfare program to facilitate fraud, it would probably look a lot like Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program. The HSS program, the first of its kind in the country, was launched with a noble goal: to help seniors, addicts, the disabled, and the mentally ill secure housing. It was designed with “low barriers to entry” and “minimal requirements for reimbursement.” Nonetheless, before the program went live in 2020, officials pegged its annual estimated price tag at $2.6 million.

Costs quickly spiraled out of control. In 2021, the program paid out more than $21 million in claims. In the following years, annual costs shot up to $42 million, then $74 million, then $104 million. During the first six months of 2025, payouts totaled $61 million.

On August 1, Minnesota’s Department of Human Services moved to scrap the HSS program, noting that payment to 77 housing-stabilization providers had been terminated this year due to “credible allegations of fraud.” Joe Thompson, then the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, went even further, stating that the “vast majority” of the HSS program was fraudulent.

That is what happens when naive virtue-signalers set up such a program. It becomes overrun by fraud, especially when dealing with people with a third-world mentality who consider the bureaucrats easy marks – which they indeed are. The simple truth is that all people bring their culture with them, and they either reject it or continue it when they get here. There are so many Somalis concentrated in Minnesota that apparently assimilation is not all that common. The result is rampant fraud.

And when I say “rampant,” that’s exactly what I mean. This fraud was very organized and sophisticated. Too bad all that energy wasn’t challenged into something more constructive – although it was very constructive indeed for the fraudsters:

“Most of these cases, unlike a lot of Medicare fraud and Medicaid fraud cases nationally, aren’t just overbilling,” Thompson said at a press conference announcing the indictments. “These are often just purely fictitious companies solely created to defraud the system, and that’s unique in the extent to which we have that here in Minnesota.”

Thompson said many firms enrolled in the program “operated out of dilapidated storefronts or rundown office buildings.” The perpetrators often targeted people recently released from rehab, signing them up for Medicaid services they had no intention of providing. He noted many owners of companies engaged in HSS fraud had “other companies through which they billed other Medicaid programs, such as the EIDBI autism program, the . . . Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services program, the . . . Integrated Community Support program, the Community Access for Disability Inclusion . . . program, PCA services, and other Medicaid-waivered services.”

“What we see are schemes stacked upon schemes, draining resources meant for those in need. It feels never ending,” Thompson said. “I have spent my career as a fraud prosecutor and the depth of the fraud in Minnesota takes my breath away.”

Another fraudulent scheme involved autism claims:

… [O]n September 24, U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson announced his office’s first indictment in yet another fraud case. This time, the scheme involved federally funded autism services for children.

The accused is a woman named Asha Farhan Hassan, a member of Minnesota’s Somali community, who has also been charged in the Feeding Our Future scam. She’s alleged to have played a role in a $14 million fraud scheme perpetrated against Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program.

Hassan and her co-conspirators “approached parents in the Somali community” and recruited their children into autism therapy services. It didn’t matter, prosecutors suggested, if a child did not have an autism diagnosis: Hassan would facilitate a fraudulent one.

It involved much of the Somali community, because the parents got kickbacks. And get this:

Often, parents threatened to leave . . . and take their children to other autism centers if they did not get paid higher kickbacks.

Nice. As one might imagine, autism claims in Minnesota went through the roof. Hey, maybe it’s even responsible for the supposed rise in autism rates in general – it’s certainly responsible for the increase in Minnesota. This is the sort of increase we’re talking about:

… [A]utism claims to Medicaid in Minnesota have skyrocketed in recent years—from $3 million in 2018 to $54 million in 2019, $77 million in 2020, $183 million 2021, $279 million in 2022, and $399 million in 2023. Meantime, the number of autism providers in the state spiked from 41 to 328 over the same period, with many in the Somali community establishing their own autism treatment centers, citing the need for “culturally appropriate programming.” By the time the fraud scheme was exposed, one in 16 Somali four-year-olds in the state had reportedly been diagnosed with autism—a rate more than triple the state average.

Did no one notice? Or was it too unwoke to notice? This guy is noticing, and he’s Somali:

Kayesh Magan, a Somali-American who had worked as a fraud investigator at the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office and declined an interview request, identified the problem last year: “We must grapple with something that is uncomfortable and true: Nearly all of the defendants in the cases I’ve listed are from my community. The Somali community.”

If you follow the money, what do you find? It leads back to Somalia:

Our investigation reveals, for the first time, that some of this money has been directed to an even more troubling destination: the al-Qaida-linked Islamic terror group Al-Shabaab. According to multiple law-enforcement sources, Minnesota’s Somali community has sent untold millions through a network of “hawalas,” informal clan-based money-traders, that have wound up in the coffers of Al-Shabaab.

According to Glenn Kerns, a retired Seattle Police Department detective who spent 14 years on a federal Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Somalis ran a sophisticated money network, spanning from Seattle to Minneapolis, and were routing significant amounts of cash on commercial flights from the Seattle airport to the hawala networks in Somalia. One of these networks, Kerns discovered, sent $20 million abroad in a single year. “The amount of money was staggering,” Kerns said. …

“Every scrap of economic activity, in the Twin Cities, in America, throughout Western Europe, anywhere Somalis are concentrated, every cent that is sent back to Somalia benefits Al-Shabaab in some way,” the former official said. “For every dollar that is transferred from the Twin Cities back to Somalia, Al-Shabaab is . . . taking a cut of it.”

I have quoted liberally from the article because the whole picture is staggering.

Somalis have what’s called “temporary protected status” in the US, but there’s little about it that’s temporary. In fact, Somalis have had that status since a 1991 civil war broke out in Somalia. Not all Somalis are here under that program – in fact, the majority are not – but Trump would like to end it, which seems extremely reasonable, and has declared it over.

Here’s how CBS treats the news:

[Trump] also accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, without proof, of overseeing a state that had become a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”

Without proof? There’s a ton of proof, but CBS assumes its readers are unaware of that.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal will be facing murder charges after all

The New Neo Posted on by

In unutterably sad news, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom has died, which means that Rahmanullah Lakanwal will be facing murder charges for the DC shooting of two members of the National Guard. The other victim is in critical condition and may not survive either.

This crime brings back horrific memories of the late 60s and early 70s, when many police were ambushed and murdered. Back then the assailants were mostly home-grown, but this one was imported. The Biden administration was warned that people from Afghanistan were being let in without proper vetting after the disastrous 2021 pullout, but it happened anyway. Lakanwal came here during that influx, but was he unvetted?:

Shawn VanDiver, founder and president of #AfghanEvac, a US nonprofit run by American veterans helping to evacuate and resettle Afghan allies in the US said one man’s monstrous actions are now hurting all Afghans who risked their lives for the US in its 20-year war — and the shockwaves are hitting the Americans who helped them find safety.

“He betrayed everybody who helped him,” VanDiver said Thursday. “He betrayed his family. He betrayed every American that helped him get here. He betrayed the United States government. And he deserves to be held fully accountable.”

That article doesn’t go into Lakanwal’s personal history, however, so it doesn’t answer the question of how well he was vetted. Here’s something that speaks to that question:

“This is a deadly combination,” Kent declared, noting that the suspected terrorist “was only vetted to serve as a soldier to fight against the Taliban, AQ, & ISIS IN Afghanistan, he was NOT vetted for his suitability to come to America and live among us as a neighbor, integrate into our communities, or eventually become an American citizen.”

A senior US official confirmed that he had been “vetted to fight” alongside US forces against Taliban, al-Qaeda and ISIS militants between 2011 and 2021 — but that this was a “low standard” that “has never been used before to let people into the US.”

That raises some interesting questions. So Lakanwal fought to help the US defeat the Taliban – and indeed, although that’s an indication he wasn’t fond of the Taliban, it doesn’t tell us much about why, or about any of his other beliefs. However, once we were leaving Afghanistan, it put him and anyone else who had helped the US at grave risk of retaliation from Taliban forces. The idea of bringing such people here was not just to save them – although that was part of it – but also to establish the idea that if you help the US you won’t be abandoned in the end.

“Prior to Biden it took 18 months or longer for someone to be granted a Special Immigrant Visa, including the applicant needing to flee to a third country so the US government could interview and vet them,” the official noted. “Biden threw all of this out and applied tactical war time vetting to people seeking entry into the homeland.” …

Chad Robichaux, a former Force Recon Marine who deployed to Afghanistan eight times and was part of a coalition effort that evacuated 17,000 nationals from the country in 2021, claimed to The Post that there was “zero vetting” for tens of thousands of Afghans flown out of Kabul in the final days of the withdrawal.

“Probably close to 100,000 of them were flown straight from Kabul to the United States to different airfields, and they were let go into the American population. We have no idea who they are — zero vetting,” said Robichaux, who authored the 2023 book “Saving Aziz: How the Mission to Help One Became a Calling to Rescue Thousands from the Taliban.”

The Biden administration let in an estimated 80,000 such refugees, and their asylum claims were expedited as well. How did Lakanwal end up in Bellingham, Washington?:

The Kandahar Strike Force [Lakanwal] joined was a CIA-backed paramilitary group that fought alongside US forces — but was also accused of being a death squad that tortured and executed civilians.

Roughly 10,000 members of the so-called “Zero Units” eventually settled in Washington State near Seattle. Lakanwal ended up in Bellingham, Wash., with his wife and five children in September 2021.

I assume the FBI will be pretty busy in Bellingham for a while. Here’s an article featuring interviews with some of Lakanwal’s Bellingham neighbors, who seem quite clueless about him and his family except to say that the FBI has visited the apartment where he and his family lived.

Trump has made some announcements, including a “sweeping review of green card holders from 19 countries of concern.” No doubt this will be challenged in the courts.

RIP, Sarah Beckstrom. Such a tragic loss.

Late start

The New Neo Posted on by

I had a late start today. Pie hangover, I guess.

But here I am.

We’re edging towards the earliest sunset of the year. But not too long from now, the sunsets will start getting later again. I very much look forward to that.

My Thanksgiving meal

The New Neo Posted on by

I had an extremely small group for Thanksgiving, but the smallest turkey I could find was 12 pounds. And so there are lots and lots of leftovers for turkey soup and sandwiches.

Photos from the meal:

The anti-stuffing spoilsports

The New Neo Posted on by

Somehow we managed to survive all these years, eating stuffing that was cooked within the cavity of the bird. But now every site warns not to. For example:

…[M]any experts recommend baking the stuffing outside the bird, where it can easily be cooked to 165°F and is less likely to harbor bacteria. However, many people who grew up eating stuffing from inside the bird find it lacking moisture and flavor when it’s baked in a casserole dish, without the benefit of the turkey’s juices.

“Many people find”? Nearly everybody finds, because it’s just a fact that it’s hard to make it nearly as tasty as stuffing cooked within the bird. Moisture and flavor are the point of stuffing, aren’t they?

And this is simply untrue, or only somewhat true:

Luckily, whichever method you prefer, there are ways to get around the problems. If you choose to bake your stuffing alongside the bird, drizzle 1/4 to 1/2 a cup of extra stock over it before it goes in the oven. This will replace the extra moisture and flavor the turkey would have provided. Using a rich, flavorful homemade stock will also go a long way toward providing that indescribable roast-turkey-ness.

It goes a very short way, not a long way, and strands the stuffing short of the goal.

The site does add that if you must stuff, do it this way:

… [D]o not stuff your turkey until right before it goes in the oven. Yes, when faced with a long list of Thanksgiving Day tasks, it’s tempting to stuff the bird the night before, stow it in the fridge, and then just pop it in the oven the next morning. But this will create an optimal environment for bacteria to flourish …

I have never, never ever, heard of stuffing the bird the night before. I suppose somebody somewhere does that, but not me or anyone I’ve ever been around.

Then there’s this:

Instead of this risky procedure, cook any veggies for the stuffing the night before, but do not mix them with the bread, stock, and eggs. (Even if you don’t stuff the bird, just mixing the wet ingredients and the bread can be too inviting to bacteria.) The next morning, heat the stock and combine it with the other stuffing ingredients, then immediately fill and roast the bird. Using warm stuffing and putting the turkey in the oven immediately will help the stuffing spend as little time in the “danger zone” as possible.

Eggs? Who puts egg in stuffing? As I look it up just now online, apparently many people do. I certainly never have done so, and I’m not about to start now:

Finally, when the bird is done, take the temperature of the stuffing as well as the meat. Bacteria cannot survive above 165°F …

This seems to be a decent tip:

If the bird is done but the stuffing isn’t, use this tip that Rodgers shared in his turkey recipe: spoon the stuffing out into a bowl and microwave it until it registers 165°F. This will allow you to have moist, not overcooked meat and safe stuffing at the same time.

A few days ago I searched for my seldom-used and somewhat ancient meat thermometer, and all I could locate was a candy thermometer (the epitome of “seldom-used” and “ancient”). So it was time to buy a new meat thermometer, and I discovered that they’re now digital. Oh brave new world.

Breaking news: two National Guard members shot and killed in DC [see UPDATE]

The New Neo Posted on by

This is the most recent article I could find. Terrible news:

Two West Virginia National Guardsmen have been shot and killed in Washington, Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Wednesday. …

The Guardsmen were in Washington as part of a state deployment.

The New York Times reported that one suspect was in custody, citing police; while the Times quoted President Trump as saying the attacker also had been shot.

The shooting occurred just before 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, at a Metro station about a minute from the White House, according to NBC Washington.

RIP.

UPDATE:

Now I’m seeing that the West Virginia governor may have erred in reporting that they had died:

FBI Director Kash Patel and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said the Guard members were hospitalized in critical condition. Bowser said they were victims of a ”targeted shooting.”

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey initially said the troops had died, but later walked back the statement to say his office was “receiving conflicting reports” about their condition. The governor’s office did not immediately respond to questions about the attack and the condition of the troops.

UPDATE II:

It’s a little after midnight, and as of now the wounded National Guard members remain alive but in critical condition. The shooter, who was wounded but not critically, has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal:

A source familiar with the case and a separate law enforcement source told NBC News that the suspect was granted asylum this year.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said earlier that the suspect came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in September 2021 as part of “Operation Allies Welcome,” a program to help those who assisted the U.S. in Afghanistan. …

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order suspending all refugee resettlement in the United States until admissions align “with the interests of the United States.” Thousands of Afghan refugees, including many who had already been approved for U.S. resettlement, are now stranded in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries, and in some cases they have been forcibly repatriated.

However, Lakanwal was one of the crowds of post-withdrawal Afghanis who came here, to much criticism that they were often unvetted. I would guess this was one of the largely-unvetted ones. It’s easy enough to gain asylum, as well. Then again, maybe he was further radicalized here.

Then again, this information is a bit different:

The Afghan national accused of shooting two National Guardsmen in a possible terror attack near the White House Wednesday was living in the US illegally after overstaying his visa, sources told The Post.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, arrived in the US through Operation Allies Welcome, the botched 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal plan that allowed roughly 90,000 Afghans to obtain Special Immigration Visas under the Biden Administration, sources said.

But Lakanwal, who resettled in Bellingham, Washington, reportedly overstayed his visa, which expired in September, FOX News correspondent Bill Melugin reported, citing federal law enforcement sources.

That article adds that Lakanwal lay in wait to ambush his victims:

On Wednesday, Lakanwal was lying in wait before he rounded the corner near the Farragut West Metro Station in Northwest DC around 2:15 p.m., then allegedly opened fire, striking a female guard in the chest before shooting her in the head, law enforcement sources told The Post.

The crazed gunman then allegedly fired at and struck the second guard — until a third guard stationed nearby rushed to the area and took him down, the sources said.