Today we have the first of a series I call “sports you may never have watched before or even known existed”:
Leftist business-as-usual: crying RACIST!
DeSantis is a racist and Vivek is a white supremicist, according to the leftist MSM.
No surprise for any of this. Any Republican contender will be painted with that brush for a simple reason: the propaganda works with a lot of people who are already convinced that all people on the right are racist, no matter what their color and no matter what their history and no matter how tenuous and ridiculous the so-called evidence. It becomes a case of confirmation bias, and it’s very very powerful.
These accusations have become one of the sole tactics of the left in its political campaigns. A lot of people will put up with an awful lot – crime and mismanagement and even mental and emotional abuse of their own children – in order to not ally themselves with supposed racists. The left knows this and plays on it. They don’t have too much else to offer except a free lunch, which is of great appeal to some. But those who are relatively (or very) well off are looking to virtue-signal by making sure they never, never ever, vote for someone the MSM has labeled a racist.
And it is so extreme that it actually doesn’t matter whether the candidate is white or not. Vivek is an honorary white person – but conservative black candidates such as Larry Elder are also honorary white people, and white supremacists at that, when they dare to run for office.
“Racism” isn’t the only attack the left mounts, of course. Not caring – Bush and Katrina, for example – is another. Being just plain mean is another that’s related; remember the attacks on mild-mannered Romney for putting his dog in a crate on top of his car many years ago, or teasing someone in high school?
I accepted long ago that all Republican candidates will be demonized in this way. Some people feel that Trump is the only person strong enough to take these insults and deflect them. But what I’ve seen is that because of Trump’s abrasive and brash personality, people are very inclined to believe these things of him. He fights, but so has DeSantis over the course of some very vicious attacks even before he announced his candidacy.
Who can better deflect such things, and for which man are they more believable to a greater number of voters? I can’t say I know, because I don’t. But I know the election may hinge on such things – that is, if fraud (or lawfare against Trump) doesn’t win the day for the left anyway.
China keeps pushing
Here’s an interesting tidbit of news:
Chinese nationals have illicitly tried to access U.S. military installations and other sensitive areas some 100 times in recent years, raising the issue of espionage.
The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend that these incidents range from individuals claiming they were just following GPS to get to restaurants that are actually on bases to speeding through checkpoints to scuba divers. Since we know that the America-hating Chinese Communist Party planted half a dozen illicit police stations in the U.S. and infiltrated all major U.S. institutions and levels of government, the risk of espionage is very real.
Then of course there’s Joe and Hunter Biden, on the take for who-knows-what promises.
And on a much much smaller scale, for a month or two I’ve noticed an attack of Chinese bots. “Attack” may not be quite the right word; let’s just say an awful lot of visits for no discernible reason. I had an uptick of traffic without any obvious links to explain it, and I started to wonder. Sure enough, there was a new influx of Chinese “visitors.”
I’ve been engaged in trying to control it and have been somewhat successful. But my question is: what are they looking for? I assume it’s something business- or money-related. But the blog doesn’t have anything of that sort on it; this is a very plain Jane blog. One thing of which I’m virtually certain is that a whole bunch of actual Chinese people are not suddenly fascinated by the musings of thenewneo.
Happy Labor Day!
[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of a previous post.]
Labor Day is the bookend standing at the opposite end of summer from its holiday beginning, Memorial Day.
July Fourth is summer’s early peak, with the promise of long light-filled days ahead. But Labor Day is summer’s last gasp, the moment I dreaded as a child because it marked the end of vacation and the start of the school year. Spiffy new clothes, a shiny bookbag, freshly sharpened pencils, and the promise of the beautiful autumn leaves’ arrival were nice. But they couldn’t make up for the fact that a new school year was beginning. Where oh where had the summer gone?
And it goes even more quickly these days.
Here’s wishing you all a Happy Labor Day, despite the difficult times. Barbecues, picnics, the beach, just hanging out in your yard, whatever you desire and whatever you decide. And for the historically-minded among you, here’s some information on the origins of the holiday.
Open thread 9/4/23
Last call for donations this cycle [scroll down for today’s new posts]
Once again, I offer a huge “thank you!” to every single person who has contributed so far, and to all those who contribute at other times of year. I am so very grateful to you all, and to all the readers and commenters here.
If anyone wants to contribute to thenewneo, just click on the Paypal button either to the right or at the bottom of the page, depending on what sort of device you use when reading the blog. If the Paypal button isn’t showing, disable your adblocker and that should make it visible.
Mickey Thomas explains how he learned to sing
On the song “Fooled Around and Fell In Love,” which I highlighted in this post, I couldn’t help but notice the strong gospel flavor of lead singer Mickey Thomas’ rendition. There’s no question that’s one of the elements that made the song so special. And he does it so effortlessly; never show-offy, unlike so many singers who put a lot of embellishment into their work. It just seems natural when he does it. He’s a white male Aretha Franklin, which may sound like a ridiculous claim, but not when you hear him.
I figured he just always could sing that way. But he swears he couldn’t. He tells the story here, and it’s a great one.
Here’s one of his live performances:
The song lyrics are a great hook, too. The repetition and emphasis on “fooled around and fell in love” highlights the surprise of it. A player, a user, discovers to his shock that there’s this one special woman who calls forth a different response from him: love. Some listeners think it means he gets his comeuppance and gets shafted by this woman, but I don’t see that at all. He looks way too happy. I think it’s the real thing.
Call me romantic.
Trump the dissident; Trump the performer
Here’s an interesting piece by someone who doesn’t appear to be a Trump supporter:
… [W]hile I don’t think Trump is a dissident now, he is once again playing the role. He has millions who see him as unjustly persecuted for his politics, and a movement based on the premise of political persecution is already in gear.
The writer sees the whole thing as performative, just a role Trump is playing, rather than the real thing. It strikes me, and not for the first time, that anti-Trump forces, whether on left or right or in the middle, see him as an actor and ignore the very very real forces arrayed against him that have in fact politically persecuted him and to which he might indeed be sincerely reacting. Russiagate and the Steele dossier are undeniable examples, given the facts.
It also strikes me that, at least for the left, perhaps they think Trump is merely acting because so many of their own positions are performative roles that they play. I also think it’s relevant that one of the big charges from Jack Smith and in the Georgia case is the idea that Trump was merely pretending to think he won the 2020 election when in fact he knew he’d lost it.
Anyone who has studied Trump should be quite aware that it is highly likely he really thinks he won that election. I also wonder, in 2016 when all those Democrats were whining that the real election winner had been Hillary, whether they actually thought that was true or whether they were just saying it for effect. My guess is the latter.
Liars and pretenders often assume that everyone else is doing the same thing and playing the same game.
How could I have forgotten …
… that yesterday was Barry Gibb’s 77th birthday? And his 53rd wedding anniversary?
Forgive me Barry, a thousand times over.
Another Draconian sentence for J6 participants
Two of the Proud Boys are sentenced, one to 17 years and one to 15 years:
Two former leaders of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group were sentenced to more than a decade each in prison Thursday for spearheading an attack on the U.S. Capitol to try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.
Note the way that’s written – an attack on the Capitol.
Rehl, Biggs, Tarrio and Nordean were convicted of charges including seditious conspiracy, a rarely brought Civil War-era offense…
Federal prosecutors had recommended a 33-year prison sentence for Biggs, who helped lead dozens of Proud Boys members and associates in marching to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Biggs and other Proud Boys joined the mob that broke through police lines and forced lawmakers to flee, disrupting the joint session of Congress for certifying the electoral victory by Biden, a Democrat. …
“That day broke our tradition of peacefully transferring power, which is among the most precious things that we had as Americans,” the judge said, emphasizing that he was using the past tense in light of how Jan. 6 affected the process.
Defense attorneys argued that the Justice Department was unfairly holding their clients responsible for the violent actions of others in the crowd of Trump supporters at the Capitol.
Perhaps the judge slept through the 2016 riots in DC on Inauguration Day, and the constant challenges to Trump’s election, as well as the soft coup to try to remove him from office through lies supported by agencies such as the FBI.
What did Biggs actually do? As far as I can tell from the article, it was this:
Biggs “acted as the tip of the spear” during the attack, prosecutors said in a court filing. He tore down a fence and charged up scaffolding before entering the Capitol. He left the Capitol but reentered the building and went to the Senate chamber.
As for Rehl:
For Rehl, who also helped lead Proud Boys, prosecutors asked for a 30-year prison sentence. He was seen on video spraying a chemical irritant at law enforcement officers outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, but he repeatedly lied about that assault while he testified at his trial, said prosecutor Erik Kenerson. “He tried to craft a narrative to fit the evidence and he was caught,” Kenerson said.
Rehl also led at least three other men into the Capitol and into a senator’s office, where he smoked and posed for pictures while flashing the Proud Boys’ hand gesture, prosecutors said in court documents.
“Rehl led an army to attempt to stop the certification proceeding, was proud that they got as close as they did, and his only regret in the immediate aftermath was that they did not go further,” they wrote in a court filing.
Kelly read from some of the “chilling” messages Rehl sent after Jan. 6, including one, the judge said, that read, “Everyone should have showed up armed and taken the country back the right way.” The judge shook his head and said, “I mean, my God.”
I mean, thoughtcrime – what he wished he’d done but didn’t do. And, smoking and posing for pictures while flashing the Proud Boys’ hand gesture? Throw the book at him!
And both defendants have been incarcerated already for two and a half years.
The long pre-trial incarcerations, and the length of these sentences, are obviously and egregiously unfair. But that’s the point: to send a message so that no one on the right dare ever do something similar again.
Open thread 9/2/23
These are the last few days of my donations drive [BUMPED UP: Please scroll down for today’s new posts]
I offer a big “thank you!” to every single person who has contributed so far, and to all those who contribute at other times of year. I am so very grateful to you all, and to all the readers and commenters here. I’ll keep this up for a couple more days, and then it will go into hiding for a while.
If anyone wants to contribute to thenewneo, just click on the Paypal button either to the right or at the bottom of the page, depending on what sort of device you use when reading the blog. If the Paypal button is not showing, disable your adblocker and that should make it visible.