Victor Davis Hanson health update

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “Kate.”]

I want to call attention to this announcement from VDH:

… [H]ere is a brief update concerning my current temporary absence.

As I wrote, the removal of a cancerous lung mucinous adenoma carcinoma along with the lower right lung lobe roughly a month ago was successful.

But a post-op aneurism/bleed soon developed. That required a quick second reentry operation into the lung to stop the hemorrhaging—adding considerable time under anesthesia and requiring about five blood transfusions.

As a result, over the last 30 days, I developed low red blood counts, fatigue, and bouts of arterial fibrillation. All that has sort of slowed my recovery.

This type of nonsmoker’s lung cancer has a rare genetic/mutation profile. And it seems to recur about 40% of the time in the general lung area—even when, as in my case, the removed and biopsied lymph nodes, along with adjacent vascular/pleural samples, were all negative.

He adds that chemo is only slightly effective against the type of cancer he has, and he hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll do it. It certainly sounds as though he’s been through the mill.

The bottom line is that I’m hoping to come back as soon as possible. But I don’t know exactly when I’ll be back to near normal.

In the meantime, I hope to post things now and then on days when I feel better.

Sincerely—and again thanks to everyone!

Prayers and best wishes for healing go out to him.

NOTE: I’ll add that I have a very good friend who’s undergoing treatment for a cancer with a poor prognosis. Very distressing. I’m in that time of life when such news becomes more and more common. Many of you probably are, too.

Billie Eilish: “no one is illegal on stolen land”

The New Neo Posted on by

The story:

Pop star Billie Eilish has been hit with calls to either return her $3 million Los Angeles mansion to a Native American tribe or welcome migrants inside following her controversial Grammys declaration.

The 24-year-old singer won a Grammy for her hit song Wildflower on Sunday, but it was her acceptance speech that got the country talking.

‘As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything but that no one is illegal on stolen land,’ Eilish said, referencing the colonization of the Americas by Europeans.

As she stood alongside her brother Finneas, who co-wrote and produced the song, Eilish continued to address the ongoing immigration raids going on across the US.

‘It’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now, and I just feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, and our voices really do matter, and the people matter,’ she said.

She concluded her brief but impassioned speech by shouting, ‘And f*** ICE, that’s all I’m gonna say. Sorry!’

Charming.

And I would have thought that, if the land is stolen, then everyone would be illegal except the original owners. But I also thought that native tribes didn’t have a concept of land ownership back then. This says as much:

The Native American concept of land ownership differs significantly from that of the European settlers who colonized the Americas or their descendants in that land could not be owned, only stewarded and lived with. The Earth is understood by Native Americans as a living, sentient being, and, therefore, no one can claim ownership.

To Native Americans, the Earth is one’s relative, requiring respect and care, as are all the animals and plant life the land supports. The definition of one’s ‘relatives’ encompasses all living things, not just the members of one’s family, and so, just as one would not claim to ‘own’ a relative, one cannot own the land; one can only act as a steward in caring for it. The European settlers’ understanding of the land was quite different …

The Tongva tribe had this to say to Eilish, however:

‘As the First People of the greater Los Angeles basin, we do understand that her home is situated in our ancestral land,’ they stated, adding that the A-lister has not reached out to the tribe herself.

‘Eilish has not contacted our tribe directly regarding her property, we do value the instance when Public Figures provide visibility to the true history of this country,’ the spokesperson continued.

Well, Eilish already stated that no one is illegal on stolen land, so that would include her as not being illegal. However, she seems to think this guy is illegal:

… [T]he Birds of a Feather performer obtained a restraining order against a man who she said was stalking her and threatening her family and friends in 2023.

A man named Shawn Christopher McIntyre was ordered by a court to keep a distance of a minimum of 100 yards from Eilish, 21, her family and her friend Zoe Donahoe, TMZ reported, citing court docs. obtained a restraining order against a man who she said was stalking her and threatening her family and friends in 2023.

I wouldn’t ordinarily pay attention to the words of Eilish at the Grammys (or anywhere, really). But this was too ironic – and too typical of leftist celebrities – to ignore.

The shutdown …

The New Neo Posted on by

… appears to be over. If it ever happened at all:

What shutdown? It turns out that large parts of the federal government were “show down” for the past three days.

Funding for Homeland Security has been approved for the next two weeks and the rest is fully funded (at bloated levels) through the end of September.

Chuck Schumer says voter ID is Jim Crow

The New Neo Posted on by

Of course he does:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday condemned legislation requiring ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote as “nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0.”

Probably more like Jim Crow 2000.0, since the Democrats are fond of calling nearly everything the GOP proposes “Jim Crow.”

So, how would a person prove citizenship under the SAVE Act as proposed? If you listen to the left, “millions” couldn’t comply even though they are citizens:

The SAVE Act would require all Americans to prove their citizenship with documentation unavailable to millions and upend the way every American citizen registers to vote.

The article then goes on and on about passports, as though that’s the way it needs to be done, and although it’s already said birth certificates are fine. It mentions that real IDs wouldn’t work for the purpose.

But what does the legislation actually say? This:

As used in this Act, the term ‘documentary proof of United States citizenship’ means, with respect to an applicant for voter registration, any of the following:

“(1) A form of identification issued consistent with the requirements of the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates the applicant is a citizen of the United States.

“(2) A valid United States passport.

“(3) The applicant’s official United States military identification card, together with a United States military record of service showing that the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States.

“(4) A valid government-issued photo identification card issued by a Federal, State or Tribal government showing that the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States.

“(5) A valid government-issued photo identification card issued by a Federal, State or Tribal government other than an identification described in paragraphs (1) through (4), but only if presented together with one or more of the following:

“(A) A certified birth certificate issued by a State, a unit of local government in a State, or a Tribal government which—

“(i) was issued by the State, unit of local government, or Tribal government in which the applicant was born;

“(ii) was filed with the office responsible for keeping vital records in the State;

“(iii) includes the full name, date of birth, and place of birth of the applicant;

“(iv) lists the full names of one or both of the parents of the applicant;

“(v) has the signature of an individual who is authorized to sign birth certificates on behalf of the State, unit of local government, or Tribal government in which the applicant was born;

“(vi) includes the date that the certificate was filed with the office responsible for keeping vital records in the State; and

“(vii) has the seal of the State, unit of local government, or Tribal government that issued the birth certificate.

“(B) An extract from a United States hospital Record of Birth created at the time of the applicant’s birth which indicates that the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States.

“(C) A final adoption decree showing the applicant’s name and that the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States.

“(D) A Consular Report of Birth Abroad of a citizen of the United States or a certification of the applicant’s Report of Birth of a United States citizen issued by the Secretary of State.

“(E) A Naturalization Certificate or Certificate of Citizenship issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security or any other document or method of proof of United States citizenship issued by the Federal government pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act.

“(F) An American Indian Card issued by the Department of Homeland Security with the classification ‘KIC’.”.

A person can still register on election day, too, if a state allows it and the person provides the documentation.

Plus, there’s also this, which Schumer and the rest of the left seem to leave out:

“(i) IN GENERAL.—Subject to any relevant guidance adopted by the Election Assistance Commission, each State shall establish a process under which an applicant who cannot provide documentary proof of United States citizenship under paragraph (1) may, if the applicant signs an attestation under penalty of perjury that the applicant is a citizen of the United States and eligible to vote in elections for Federal office, submit such other evidence to the appropriate State or local official demonstrating that the applicant is a citizen of the United States and such official shall make a determination as to whether the applicant has sufficiently established United States citizenship for purposes of registering to vote in elections for Federal office in the State.

“(ii) AFFIDAVIT REQUIREMENT.—If a State or local official makes a determination under clause (i) that an applicant has sufficiently established United States citizenship for purposes of registering to vote in elections for Federal office in the State, such determination shall be accompanied by an affidavit developed under clause (iii) signed by the official swearing or affirming the applicant sufficiently established United States citizenship for purposes of registering to vote.

Requiring ID and proof of citizenship in order to vote is a popular proposal:

Despite the ongoing divide between elected Republicans and Democrats over requiring photo I.D. to vote, a whopping 86% of Americans support it.

The poll comes just days from the presidential election with voting underway across the country.

Support varied by political party, with 98% of Republicans, 67% of Democrats, and 84% of Independents supporting requiring photo I.D. to vote.

Another 83% of Americans support “requiring people who are registering to vote for the first time to provide proof of citizenship.” By party, 96% of Republicans, 66% of Democrats and 84% of Independents agree.

This is a very high level of support indeed.

Noem says ICE in Minneapolis will be issued body cameras

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m surprised this hadn’t already occurred:

“Effective immediately we are deploying body cameras to every officer in the field in Minneapolis,” Noem wrote.

“As funding is available, the body camera program will be expanded nationwide. We will rapidly acquire and deploy body cameras to DHS law enforcement across the country,” she wrote.

Bodycams have generally had a clarifying effect on disputes over the actions of law enforcement, and often exonerate the officers.

It’s not clear whether the Border Patrol agents involved in the Pretti shooting had bodycams. The relevant statement is: “Investigators have video from at least four Border Patrol agents on the scene who were wearing body cameras, said DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.” Read that carefully and you’ll notice it doesn’t say whether any of the officers in the group clustered around Pretti were the same ones wearing the cameras, or whether it was other nearby officers.

NOTE: When a state cooperates with ICE or Border Patrol, it tends to go smoothly:

ICE announces the arrests of 650 illegal aliens in West Virginia as part of an operation with cooperation from local law enforcement via the 287(g) program. Per ICE, those arrested have convictions for child sex abuse, drug possession and endangering the welfare of children.

What’s the 287(g) program? It’s when local and state officers carry out the arrests, supervised by ICE.

The two Border Patrol agents who shot Pretti …

The New Neo Posted on by

… have Hispanic names and are probably Hispanic. This is not surprising; I’ve noticed before that many border agents are Hispanic. It makes sense, not only because the Hispanic population is large in the areas involved, but because, as the article notes:

Thus, the influx of illegal aliens from Latin American countries has put enormous pressure on the legal communities of Latin Americans. Not only are there more people fighting for the same resources (housing, jobs, and goods), but there are also more criminals, and statistical data shows that most criminals stay local. When the illegal immigrant drug dealers, pedophiles, and murderers come to town, they prey on their own.

But no doubt the left considers the two “white Hispanics,” which is what they called George Zimmerman.

Nor is “Hispanic” a race or even a single ethnicity, although it’s been regarded in the US as one for years.

Bizarre-sounding Mangione trial rulings

The New Neo Posted on by

This seems absurd:

First, Judge Gregory Carro in New York State argued that Luigi Mangione, the leftist terrorist, wasn’t a terrorist because he said he wasn’t.

Judge Gregory Carro argued that Luigi Mangione was wrongly being charged as a terrorist since the radical terrorist’s objective “was not to threaten, intimidate or coerce, but rather to draw attention to what he perceived as the greed of the insurance industry. …

“The defendant emphasized that he wished to spread a ‘message’ and ‘win public support’ about ‘everything wrong with our healthsystem.’”

One man’s terrorist is another man’s do-gooder.

More:

More of the same now at the federal level where Judge Margaret Garnett, a recent Biden appointee, decided that Luigi Mangione stalking Brian Thompson in order to kill him wasn’t a “crime of violence”.

Judge Garnett, a Biden appointee, noted the “apparent absurdity”, arguing that “the analysis contained in the balance of this opinion may strike the average person — and indeed many lawyers and judges — as tortured and strange, and the result may seem contrary to our intuitions about the criminal law.”

You said it, ma’am.

And:

But stalking a man in order to kill him, according to the Biden judge, isn’t a “crime of violence” and has decided to “foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment to be considered by the jury”’

That is so very strange that I did some more research, and discovered the rationale:

To seek the death penalty, prosecutors needed to show that Mangione killed Thompson while committing another “crime of violence.” Stalking doesn’t fit that definition, Garnett wrote in her opinion, citing case law and legal precedents.

So there has to be a separate crime of violence to elevate the charges to a capital offense in New York. So as strange as it sounds, Garnett’s ruling might indeed be correct on this.

I will add that in New York, the difference between capital charges and life imprisonment is more technical than real. You can read about the complicated history of New York executions here, but this is the most relevant part for today:

Capital punishment was reinstated in New York in 1995 for a wide-range of aggravating factors, when Pataki signed a new statute into law, which provided for execution by lethal injection.[28] However, there were no executions before the capital punishment statute was nullified in 2004.

On June 24, 2004, the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, held 4–3 in People v. LaValle that the state’s death penalty statute violated the New York Constitution, because in case of a deadlocked jury the judge could impose a sentence lesser than life without parole, so jurors would be “coerced” to vote for death solely to prevent the convict from being paroled. Governor Pataki criticized the ruling and called for a quick legislative fix.

Between December 2004 and February 2005, public hearings were held in Manhattan and Albany. …

In 2007, the New York Court of Appeals decided in People v. Taylor that the statute defect could not be corrected by a judge instruction to the jury that he would impose life without parole. This led to the commutation of the last of the seven death sentences that were imposed under the 1995 statute.

In 2008, the State Senate again passed legislation that would have established the death penalty for the murder of law enforcement officers, but the Assembly did not act on the legislation. In July of that year, Governor David Paterson ordered the removal of all execution equipment used to perform lethal injection and the closure of the execution chamber at Green Haven Correctional Facility.

The 1995 statute has never been repealed and is still on the books. …

There is currently no inmate on federal death row sentenced for a crime committed in the state of New York.

However, the death penalty can still be imposed in federal cases, even in New York. The reality is that it has not been imposed. The Mangione case is in line with that.

Right and left, left and right: in Costa Rica and in the US

The New Neo Posted on by

You may have noticed a Latin American wave of elections won by politicians on the right. The latest is in Costa Rica:

The rightwing populist Laura Fernández has won Costa Rica’s presidential election in a landslide after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade.

Fernández’s nearest rival, centre-right economist Álvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40% needed to avoid a runoff.

The link is to the leftist Guardian, so it’s hard to know exactly what they mean by “rightwing populist” (Trumpish?) and “centre-right” (Romneyish?). But clearly, Costa Ricans want someone on the right rather than the left. Has the country ever had a leftist government? Yes, and it turned to the right only in 2022. But this recent election is a continuation of that trend.

Fernandez’s inspiration is Bukele of of El Salvador:

The country of 5.2 million people, famous for its white-sand beaches, has long been seen as an oasis of stability and democracy in Central America. But in recent years, it has gone from transit point to logistics hub in the global drug trade.

Drug trafficking by Mexican and Colombian cartels has seeped into local communities, fuelling turf wars that have caused the murder rate to jump 50% in the past six years, to 17 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Fernández cites the iron-fisted Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele, who has locked up thousands of suspected gang members without charge, as an inspiration on how to tackle crime. Bukele was the first foreign leader to congratulate her.

Fernández’s win confirms a rightward lurch in Latin America, where conservatives have ridden anger towards corruption and crime to win power in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Honduras.

In Argentina at least, it was also economics.

Compare and contrast to this news in the US:

The January New York Times/Siena College poll found that only 32 percent of registered voters believed the country was better off than when Trump returned to office. 49 percent said it was worse. Trump’s approval rating stood at 40 percent, disapproval at 56 percent, and a majority of respondents, 55-42 percent, described his first year as unsuccessful.

These figures were released just days after the White House’s “365 Wins in 365 Days” announcement. They reveal a populace largely unmoved by achievements that objectively transformed policy, economy, and security.

Skepticism of this polling is not misplaced. The New York Times has long demonstrated a pattern of framing narratives through a left-leaning lens. It often underreports Republican accomplishments while amplifying Democratic perspectives. Trump condemned the poll as “fake” and “fraudulent,” denouncing it on Truth Social as a rigged effort to undermine his agenda. He promised to incorporate it into a multibillion-dollar defamation suit against the Times.

It may not be totally accurate, but I don’t think it’s fake. I think it represents something real; some sort of backlash. Look at the results of a recent Fox News poll:

A new Fox News survey, released Thursday, finds the Republican Party is seen as better able to handle border security (by 15 points), national security (+12), and immigration (+5).

The Democratic Party is favored on transgender issues (by 22 points), healthcare (+21), vaccines (+16), helping the middle class (+14), and affordability (+14).

And on three issues where Republicans have recently held the edge, now neither party has shown a clear preference: taxes (+1D), foreign policy (even), and the federal budget deficit (+2R). …

The survey shows if the election were today, 52% of voters would back the Democratic candidate in their House district and 46% the Republican. That’s a 6-point edge, which is right at the poll’s margin of sampling error.

The current 52% Democratic support is the highest recorded for either party; the previous high was 50% for the Democrats in October 2017.

Do people have such short memories of what Democrats do when in office? Do voters require that the current administration fix everything or they turn on it and turn to the opposition, no matter what the record is of the latter? Is it perhaps the dying off of older voters and the ascendance of young voters steeped in leftism?

It was “affordability” that got Mamdani elected. And special elections are not going well for the GOP; for example, this just happened:

Democratic Texas Senate candidate Taylor Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss, who President Donald Trump endorsed, 57.21% to 42.79% in the runoff election for the District 9 seat. …

Trump won District 9 by 17 percentage points in 2024. It encompasses Tarrant County and parts of Fort Worth and Arlington.

What gives? I quote two comments to that LI post:

I live in TX Senate 9 district and consider this a major upset. Rehmet aligns 90% with Jasmine Crockett’s positions. His (incessant) mailers seemed all warm and fuzzy, but his positions on his website are pure leftist dogma. Early voting was hampered by the storm last week, but that’s no excuse. We need a nationwide message on the positive economy now through November.

I, too live in this district. The WSJ has a column today about how this vote was all about immigration enforcement. I disagree. I have several friends that typically vote Republican withhold their votes because the disliked the candidate. This was a runoff election and there were two Republican candidates that split the vote. Don’t let the press confuse or discourage you.

Those two GOP candidates ran in November, however. I think that commenter is saying that, because there were two, the worse GOP candidate ended up being the person who ran against Rehmet. But the final result wasn’t even close; you can read more about it here.

I can’t find statistics on turnout, but my guess is that it was fairly low. At any rate, both candidates will be running against each other again in November.

Philip Glass pulls out of Kennedy Center – and buys a loaf of bread

The New Neo Posted on by

Composer Philip Glass, 89, is apparently not a Trump fan:

Composer Philip Glass announced Tuesday that he is withdrawing his symphony from the Kennedy Center, pointing to the arts center’s values and leadership.

“After thoughtful consideration, I have decided to withdraw my Symphony No. 15 ‘Lincoln’ from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,” Glass announced in a statement posted to X.

“Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony,” he continued. “Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership.”

Really? I was unaware of Trump’s support for slavery, or his advocacy of the South’s defiance of the federal government (seems the opposite, actually).

And I wonder whether Glass is aware that Lincoln met with many accusations similar to those against Trump: that he was a tyrant who didn’t respect the law. For example:

“What shall we call him? Coward, assassin, savage, murderer of women and babies? Or shall we consider them all as embodied in the word fiend, and call him Lincoln, the Fiend?”

So wrote Virginia’s Richmond Enquirer of the President of the U.S. in 1862. It was not unusual. Caught up in the passions of the era, the Northern Copperhead papers no less than the Southern press called Abraham Lincoln names that for venomous variety have been unsurpassed before or since in editorial tirades against a President—”The Ape,” “Simple Susan,” “Kentucky Mule,” “Illinois Beast,” “traitor,” “lowborn, despicable tyrant,” “cringing, crawling creature.” …

Thus the Illinois State Register (Springfield), taking Lincoln to task for his “assumed clownishness,” charged that his “buffoonery convinces the mind of no man, and is utterly lost on the majority of his audience.” The Chicago Times, one of his angriest foes, sneered that “he cannot speak five grammatical sentences in succession.” One of Lincoln’s greatest speeches, the second inaugural (“with malice toward none”) was dismissed by the Times as “slipshod” and “puerile.” …

Of his assassination, the Dallas Herald wrote: “God almighty ordered this event.” Houston’s Tri-Weekly Telegraph crowed: “From now until God’s judgment day, the minds of men will not cease to thrill at the killing of Abraham Lincoln.”

Then again, Philip Glass actually is a loaf of bread. If you’re unfamiliar with Glass’s work, the following parody may not make sense. It’s from a favorite play (or rather, series of short plays) of mine by David Ives, called All In the Timing: