France bans short haul domestic flights…

The New Neo Posted on by

…that have rail coverage of the same trip in less than two and a half hours.

The wave of the future, I suppose. Some day it will only be the EU heads and the Great Resetters who will be allowed to fly, in chartered luxury jets of course.

Actually, I don’t think it makes sense to take a flight that’s so short, because the trip to and from the airport, and the wait to go through security, probably makes the trips as long or longer and more stressful than the train rides would be. And connector flights are unaffected by the ban. But still, banning the flights seems very ominous to me.

And apparently, Macron’s being criticized for not banning flights with up to four-hour train rides as the alternative.

These sorts of measures are really just technological virtue-signaling:

Critics have described the latest measures as “symbolic bans”.

Laurent Donceel, interim head of industry group Airlines for Europe (A4E), told the AFP news agency that “banning these trips will only have minimal effects” on CO2 output.

I don’t doubt it.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) There’s a new IRS whistleblower on the effort to stifle the Hunter Biden tax investigation.

(2) North Carolina’s Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has declared a state emergency in order to stop the North Carolina legislature – controlled by Republicans – from voting on school vouchers. I guess an emergency is whatever a Democrat says it is, and it’s an emergency when the public school unions are in danger of being thwarted.

(3) The word is that DeSantis will be declaring his candidacy tomorrow.

(4) Andrew C. McCarthy asks – and answers – the question of why there’s been no special counsel appointed in the Hunter Biden investigation.

(5) Another indictment may be in the works for Trump, this time in connection with the Mar-Al-Lago raid.

Biden again claims his son was “lost” in Iraq; Republicans pounce

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ll start by saying that Joe Biden has had an enormous number of personal tragedies in his life, losses I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

But I’ll add that he continues to either lie about certain elements of these tragedies, or actually believes his own misrepresentations, and that this pattern of behavior was set before his cognitive decline.

The first involves the loss of his wife and young daughter in a traffic accident, which he has in the past blamed on a drunk driver. Apparently, the driver’s family had to seek the help of a judge to clear the driver’s name from the public charge, for which there never has been a particle of evidence. In the fall of 2007, after the judge had said there was no evidence to support the allegation of drunkenness, Biden said he accepted the family’s claim that drunkenness wasn’t involved – but that was thirty-five years after the accident.

It would be one thing – and an understandable one – if Biden had decided on his own, in a reaction to the tragedy and trauma of the crash that killed his wife and daughter, that the driver was probably drinking and that it was his fault. People often assign blame like that in an effort to deal with very painful and complex emotions. But as a public figure, to state it and assign blame to the driver for all the world to hear is another. And it’s that latter course that Joe took.

With these recent declarations of Biden’s about his son Beau that “we lost him in Iraq” (and an earlier claim that Beau “lost his life in Iraq”), I believe we’re seeing a variation of the same phenomenon on Joe’s part, plus advancing cognitive decline. The facts are that Beau served in Iraq as a military lawyer (judge advocate) from 2008-2009 and died of a brain tumor in May of 2015, having been diagnosed in August of 2013. Biden has attributed his cancer to exposure to “burn pits” in Iraq, and whether or not that is the case (it is not proven, but there are carcinogens released by burn pits and so it’s arguably possible), there is no question that Beau Biden was not “lost in Iraq.” Biden is a native English speaker and is well aware of what the phrase means: that someone either died or went permanently missing in Iraq.

In 2019, Biden was aware enough to cite a connection with bun pits when he stated as much in a speech:

Biden also referenced his son in a 2019 speech: “[Because] of exposure to burn pits, in my view — I can’t prove it yet — he came back with stage four glioblastoma. Eighteen months he lived, knowing he was going to die.”

Even then, this does not reflect the facts, because Beau returned from Iraq in 2009 and wasn’t diagnosed till August of 2013, after which he lived for nearly two years. Biden distorts the timeline in that speech by making it sound as though Beau was diagnosed with stage four glioblastoma very soon after his return.

But although these statements of Biden’s tell us something about the man, they’re not much of a concern to me. Of much much greater concern are his destructive public policies and vicious divisive race-mongering and MAGA-demonizing.

I’ve said several times that even when I was a Democrat I found Biden to be a mendacious nonentity whom I never considered had a chance to be president, he had so little following. Well, he got the last laugh on that score, didn’t he?

That “Life of Brian” trans scene: brilliant, prescient, and now forbidden

The New Neo Posted on by

In an odd coincidence, two days ago I sent a friend a video of one of my favorite comic scenes from “Life of Brian,” made in 1979:

And last night I saw this article about a new stage production based on the movie. Guess what?:

Cleese told an audience at his one-man show last week that when the scene (co-written with the late Graham Chapman) was performed at a read-through for the new show in New York last year, doubts emerged. ‘At the end, I said to the American actors: ‘What do you think?’ And they said: ‘We love the script, but you can’t do that stuff about Loretta nowadays.’

Can’t.

‘So here you have something there’s never been a complaint about in 40 years, that I’ve heard of, and now all of a sudden we can’t do it because it’ll offend people. What is one supposed to make of that? But I think there were a lot of things that were actually, in some strange way, predictive of what was actually going to happen later.’

We now have the institutionalization of that “struggle against reality” that was mentioned in the clip. But whatever you think of trans people and even if you are largely sympathetic and supportive, the truth is that a biological man cannot become pregnant and have a baby.

Many trans people admit that, and are appalled at what today’s extreme trans activists have done in their name. There are actually a number of trans YouTubers who have embarked on trying to make it clear that they know that there are important biological differences between people who are born in a sex and people who transition to it, and it is not the least bit disrespectful or transphobic to admit the truth on the subject.

And then there are the de-transitioners, many of whom appear on YouTube as well. When I was writing this post I came across this recent video by a young man from Norway who was born a biological male, became a trans female (not a female; a trans female), and now realizes he is a male and always was. His story is harrowing, heartbreaking, horrific, and heroic. I’ve cued up just a couple of minutes that happen to be relevant to this post, but I recommend the entire video while warning you that it’s not for the squeamish:

NOTE: This is also an excellent interview with an endocrinologist who describes how science has been jettisoned in the treatment of the disorder.

“Defund the FBI”: but how?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve seen many many articles and comments saying that the only solution to the rampant partisan corruption of the FBI is to defund it. Here’s an example of one such article. It’s by Roger Kimball, and the following excerpt is couched in the form of advice to Donald Trump if he manages to get elected in 2024:

Disband the FBI. We should never have allowed a national police force to come into being.

Move the bits of the government you can’t actually destroy to other parts of the country.

Do these things instantly—the day you take office. The deep state will howl. The bureaucrats will oppose you. The lawyers will sue you. Do it anyway. Act first, deal with the consequences later.

Conduct metaphorical dawn-raids on their people and institutions just as they weaponized the Justice Department against you and your supporters. That would not only be the retribution you seek, it would also be reciprocity. Speed and thoroughness will be of the essence. If you hesitate, if you are half-hearted, you will be lost…

The focus should be on eclipsing Washington, D.C. as the seat of government. It has long been obvious to candid observers that there is something deeply dysfunctional about that overwhelmingly Democratic, welfare-addicted city.

First of all, for Trump to even attempt to do any of that it would be necessary for him to get elected, which I don’t think will happen. But just for the sake of argument, let’s say he does. And let’s say he attempts this in some top-down action – because for it to be done with the agreement of Congress, both houses would have to be in firm Republican control and not just Republican control but control by the most radical elements of the right. So that’s another reason it’s not going to happen.

But again, what if Trump or some Trump-like figure tries to do it by diktat? That would lend credence to the long-claimed idea of the left that Trump has always wanted to be a dictator. And who would be enforcing his directive? The current FBI or DOJ, the Washington DC police force, the Capitol Police? Who would close the FBI offices and/or fire everyone? Wouldn’t Trump himself (or the Trump-like figure) be more likely to be arrested in a coup? And wouldn’t most Americans agree that he should be arrested? Half of America (or even more) may distrust the FBI, but that doesn’t mean they’d be in favor of it’s dissolution in that manner.

And even if most people did approve, the Deep State would not. And they are no longer afraid of the will of the people. Among other things, they believe that they control the outcome of elections – whether through “rigging” achieved by court cases approved by leftist judges, the cooperation of an almost wholly-leftist media, or outright fraud in situations where it can be accomplished, or some combination of all of these things.

To take a different but related topic, what of the criticism of the Durham Report not going so far as to recommend prosecution of anyone involved? There’s this [emphasis mine]:

The fact that Durham failed [to convict any of the Rusiagate perps so far] tells us a lot about the priorities of the Justice Department and partisan elements of the judiciary but little about the truth. Mueller was able to strong-arm guilty pleas from campaign flunkies such as Papadopoulos for not speaking carefully enough, but last year, Durham was unable to secure a conviction against Danchenko for blatantly lying to the FBI. To give you an idea of what Durham was up against, the judge threw out one of the key charges against Danchenko because when he told the FBI that he had not talked to Dolan, the evidence presented contradicting this was in the form of written emails, which did not meet the literal definition of physically talking to someone.

Ultimately, the most damning thing about the Durham report is that it makes no specific recommendations to stop something such as the Trump-Russia abomination from happening again. This may seem like a strange place to arrive at, given the voluminous corruption he documented. However, Durham’s report repeatedly noted how the FBI showed extreme caution investigating anything related to Hillary Clinton’s prodigious corruption and gave her campaign “defensive briefings” when it believed a foreign entity might be attempting to influence her campaign — a marked difference between the aggressive and clandestine efforts to target the Trump campaign.

If federal law enforcement and bureaucrats are going to choose willfully to employ gross partisan double standards and ignore the existing policies and are generally incapable of restrained and prudent judgment, Durham sees no point in putting new guardrails in place.

“The promulgation of additional rules and regulations to be learned in yet more training sessions would likely prove to be a fruitless exercise if the FBI’s guiding principles of ‘Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity’ are not engrained in the hearts and minds of those sworn to meet the FBI’s mission of ‘Protect[ing] the American People and Uphold[ing] the Constitution of the United States,’” Durham concluded.

And believing that Durham’s failure to successfully prosecute is mostly a matter of failure of will and/or active collusion with the perps, and that if only he had had the will to do the right thing he could have been successful, is in my opinion futile magical thinking. That doesn’t mean I believe that Durham left no stone unturned; for example, I find this the best indication that there was something amiss with the investigation:

The ringleaders of this crime against the American people, including Comey, McCabe, rabid Trump-hater Peter Strzok, then deputy assistant director of counterintelligence, declined to be interviewed by Durham, and he inexplicably declined to use his power to compel their testimony.

But did he have the power to compel their testimony? So far I haven’t been able to ascertain whether he did. Here’s an interesting article that mentions they refused the interviews but doesn’t deal with the question of whether he had authority to make them talk to him.

Unfortunately, the situation looks bleak at this point. I hate to be such a downer, but that is what I see.

A default? Not.

The New Neo Posted on by

Each time there’s a big hype about the debt limit crisis, it seems to be resolved at the last minute.

And on the topic of default:

Today the Wall Street Journal editorial board makes a point that I also have made repeatedly on this site: there is zero chance of a default on sovereign debt arising out of the current budget impasse in Washington. The press hysteria, which we have seen before, arises out of a deliberate misuse of the word “default.”

More FBI abuses

The New Neo Posted on by

See this:

The FBI improperly used warrantless search powers against U.S. citizens more than 278,000 times in the year ending November 2021, according to an unsealed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) filing.

U.S. citizens covered in that improper effort included people involved in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021; George Floyd protesters during the summer of 2020; and donors to a failed congressional candidate, the filing said.

The left should be as incensed as the right about this. But they sure don’t seem to be.

Martha Stewart, swimsuit model

The New Neo Posted on by

Sports Illustrated has decided to feature the 81-year-old Martha Stewart in its swimsuit edition.

Stewart was employed as a model in her youth, and she’s still an attractive woman. But I just don’t get it. Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition used to feature the usual sexy, young, extremely female beautiful models, but in the last few years (and I don’t know exactly when it began) they’re used many people who don’t fit that description, such as heavy people and transgender people. This is a trend in store advertising, too; I’ve noticed it over and over. Many times, it seems that the number of traditional beautiful models in an ad campaign is zero.

So here’s Martha, somewhat airbrushed I’d assume, but certainly not your typical 81-year-old:

The photo is rather artfully designed to conceal the parts more vulnerable to age and showcase the others. But there’s something about it that just seems sad to me. And if I were her stylist, I’d choose a suit with more – ahem – uplift.

I guess I prefer models in general to approach an unrealizable ideal. Isn’t that part of the point? Why should looking at someone young and beautiful make the rest of us feel bad? We know what we look like, and we know that most people never look like models, even when young. But wokeness dictates that more and more models look like regular folks – although Stewart doesn’t really fit that mold, either.

Here’s a look at the bygone days of fashion.

And here are a lot of photos of Martha Stewart in her own modeling days, mostly in the 1960s. She was gorgeous. But I have some trouble perceiving it as the same person, although it is. It’s not just youth versus age; it’s that her actual features in many of the photos look very different, too.

Hillary was protected from investigation by the same agencies who hounded Trump on false charges…

The New Neo Posted on by

…promoted by Hillary.

Andrew C. McCarthy writes:

…[There were] many ways the FBI went easy on [Hillary] Clinton, as Durham reveals the agency dropped at least four criminal investigations related to her.

The Clinton Foundation was understandably suspected by FBI agents in three different field offices — Little Rock, Washington, and New York — as a dodgy vehicle enabling donors, very much including foreign regimes and their operatives, to give goo-gobs of money to Hillary and Bill Clinton without appearing to violate the campaign finance laws.

But McCabe was infuriated, during the stretch run of the 2016 campaign, when the Wall Street Journal reported that he had tied the hands of investigators on the Clinton Foundation case…

To push back against that, McCabe had his subordinates leak that the Obama Justice Department had pressured him to shutter the Clinton Foundation probe.

This was true. In fact, it is substantiated by Durham. He found that the bureau had meetings with top Obama DOJ officials who were hostile to the investigation…

The Obama DOJ, including its appointed U.S. attorneys in Manhattan and Brooklyn, made clear to the FBI that they had no interest in a Clinton Foundation case…

This was a pattern. As Durham found, even when there may have been evidence that foreign powers were trying to cultivate Clinton and possibly try to bring her under their influence, the same FBI that couldn’t open a case on Trump fast enough became paralyzed.

As McCarthy says, it was “quite a contrast.”

And although we already knew this, at least the general outline and patterns, the details are interesting.

The question is, as usual: what to do? It’s all very well and good to say “Defund the FBI! Clear out the DOJ!” and that sort of thing. But it can’t be done without gaining political power and numbers. And does anyone think those numbers will be attained in 2024? I certainly don’t.