On Kevin McCarthy

The New Neo Posted on by

A lot of people on the right can’t stand Kevin McCarthy, finding him to be the rough equivalent of Paul Ryan 2.0. The latest word is that, if Republicans take the House and McCarthy becomes Speaker, he isn’t going to be impeaching anyone in the Biden administration, and I’ve seen quite a few angry responses to that news in comments around the blogosphere.

Coincidentally – or maybe not so coincidentally – last night I had just read this lengthy profile of McCarthy in The Federalist, and the picture it paints is quite a bit different than how he’s often portrayed. I suggest you read it, although I doubt it will change the minds of those who detest him.

Here are some quotes there from McCarthy on impeachment, which give a better idea of what he’s saying about it:

McCarthy also counts the first impeachment as a critical leadership moment for him and the GOP caucus.

“You learned in the first impeachment that they would use power. That they would stop to no end for their own political gain,” McCarthy reflects. “You’ve watched Pelosi do it before, but never to the extreme level that they had then. That they would lie. They’d create something.”

He continues: “Even as more information came out about the Russia dossier and how fake it was. Created from them. And they’d look into the camera and they’d say, ‘We have proof.’ And nothing. It was shocking to me.”

McCarthy says it became clear to House Republicans that what Democrats were doing to oppose Trump was destructive in ways that went far beyond ordinary political concerns. “They’re coming after everybody. It’s not just us, they’re coming after the voters. They’re coming after anyone who thinks differently than them,” he says. “They no longer respect a difference of opinion. This is a scary moment in America, and it’s only gotten worse.”…

At least now, there are some limits to what might happen right out of the gate. Will his agenda include impeachment trials of cabinet officials such as Merrick Garland and Alejandro Mayorkas? McCarthy says, “Look, everybody starts with impeachment. I think we just spent two years showing where the Democrats made it all political. If something arises that occasions impeachments, we’ll do it. But that’s not where we start with. We’re not making it for political gain.”

I have no quarrel with any of that. In fact, the way I see it, McCarthy gets the extreme seriousness of what has transpired during the Trump years. He also perceives – and you may disagree – that going immediately for impeachment will be perceived as mere political revenge, and that there are other priorities that come first. I agree. Nor has he ruled out impeachment “if something arises that occasions impeachment.”

I would add that impeachment is an empty exercise without conviction, and there’s no way to get the Senate to convict with a closely divided Senate, even one in which the GOP holds a slight majority.

Steve Bannon sentenced to four months for contempt

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, you might say he probably has more contempt for Congress than that.

But it’s completely obvious that his sentencing is just another example of one set of legal consequences (none) for Democrats and another set (conviction, prison) for Republicans and in particular for anyone affiliated with Donald Trump:

Former Trump White House official Steve Bannon has been sentenced to four months in prison and a $6,500 fine for contempt of Congress.

Bannon was found guilty of contempt of Congress in July after he ignored a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee.

The good old DOJ wanted 6 months and a 200K fine.

More:

Bannon was released pending appeal, which he and his legal team promised to make. If an appeal is not made, Bannon must surrender voluntarily by Nov. 15, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols ruled…

“I want to thank all you guys for coming,” Bannon said entering the courthouse Friday. “Remember this illegitimate regime, their judgment day is on the eighth of November when the Biden administration ends. I want to thank you all for coming.”

By “the Biden administration ends” I’m assuming Bannon means that Congress will no longer do its bidding.

NOTE: Compare and contrast with the treatment of Lois Lerner and of Eric Holder.

Election polls, 2022: “politicophobia”

The New Neo Posted on by

Like me, you’ve probably seen lots of articles from pundits and bloggers on the right, pointing out encouraging polling for the 2022 election. For a discussion of some examples, see this. And there are plenty more.

You may have noticed I haven’t talked much about it. It’s not just that I don’t think polls are trustworthy – in fact, I don’t think they’re trustworthy but I do think they generally tend to indicate trends and are valid in that sense, although far from perfect. In the case of the 2022 election, the trends right now are good. But the reason I haven’t written much about this is that I always get nervous about elections, starting around the last fifteen years or so. There must be a name for it – election phobia?

And apparently there is a name: “politicophobia”, although that’s defined as fear of politics in general.

That would be a funny thing for a political blogger to have, wouldn’t it? So no, I don’t have a general fear of politics. But I do have the subset described as “fear of the results”:

Some people are unafraid of casting a vote but are fearful of the direction in which the country is heading. This appears to be especially true when elections happen to fall during a period of war, economic uncertainty or other negativity…

During presidential elections, the balance of power is frequently mentioned. Legislation must pass through the House and the Senate before being signed by the president. Controlling two or even all three branches of government makes it easier for a political party to pass its agenda, so naturally, both major parties want to gain as much control as possible. But this fight for control makes it easy for those who support the “losing” side to develop strong fears of what the future will hold.

According to the 2019 Stress in America survey by the American Psychological Association taken a year before Americans return to the polls to vote for president, 56% of adults identify the upcoming election as significant source of stress.

That was about the 2020 election, and the results have fully justified that sense of stress.

The stress is exacerbated by the sense that, whatever the polls may say, there is always the possibility of fraud. Or, with the full cooperation of the MSM, an “October surprise” on the part of the Democrats. I hate to be negative, but I just cannot relax about this, no matter what polls might say.

Liz Truss resigns: well, that was quick

The New Neo Posted on by

As expected and predicted, British PM Liz Truss has resigned. Who will be replacing her?

There’s the guy who had come in second to Truss, Rishi Sunak, who also can say “I told you so” because he’d warned about problems with Truss’s tax plans. There’s a woman named Penny Mordaunt, whose Wiki page can be found here. Among the others, one of the more interesting is a British woman of Nigerian descent, Kemi Badenoch, who seems to be one of the more politically and socially conservative of the group.

And then there’s a familiar face – Boris Johnson. Has absence made the British hearts grow fonder, so soon?

Vaccines for children recommended by CDC advisory committee

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “Kate.”]

This has just been announced:

Today the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met to discuss and vote on whether or not to add the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna to the list of recommended childhood vaccines for children six months and older. In a unanimous vote, the ACIP approved the addition. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are still under emergency use authorization (EUA), making their consideration and approval for inclusion on the Vaccines for Children (VFC) schedule unprecedented.

First I’ll get this out of the way: I have reads hundreds of articles claiming that the COVID vaccine causes very serious problems in large numbers of people who receive it, far far more than other vaccines, and I have discussed the issue many times with commenters here who have linked to such articles and expressed alarm. I’m not going to go into it again in any detail right now, but I’ll summarize by saying that such claims have not convinced me at all. My readings of the science and math behind the claims indicate a flawed understanding of statistics and research with human subjects on the part of those making those claims.

However, that said, all vaccines involve a cost/benefit calculation. In the case of the COVID vaccines and children, the evidence I’ve seen indicates that the costs generally outweigh the benefits. It does not surprise me that this committee made this recommendation, though; after all, the strong tendency of the health authorities has been to overdo the supposed “protection” (lockdowns, masks, vaccine passports) and to come down way too hard on children (school closings), with very little valid reason in terms of health benefits.

Children have never been particularly at risk for serious COVID, nor does the vaccine prevent transmission. The vaccine, like all vaccines, definitely has some risks, and I see no reason to expose children (other than those with special health problems that make them extra-vulnerable to having severe COVID) to them. Of course, I support the right of any parent to decide to have their children take the vaccine, but this committee’s recommendation will be used by blue states to require it.

More:

The committee emphasized that adding the COVID vaccines to the VFC ensured access to families who cannot afford vaccines and reiterated that the agency does not issue vaccine mandates for school attendance. These statements are performative, as it is well-established that states and school districts use the VFC to issue mandates.

California was the most aggressive state in announcing a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for school attendance shortly after the FDA and CDC approved the jabs for school-age children. However, implementation is now delayed until at least 2023. Likewise, New York City pushed back its mandate, and Washington D.C. will likely delay its requirement at a meeting on November 1. All of them may now use the ACIP recommendations to move ahead.

I think a lot of parents are going to object, and rightly so.

This is part of the leftist push to undermine the authority of parents to decide what’s best for their children’s medical treatment – and that of course includes the war on parents who are against early transition for children claiming to be transgender. The two issues may not seem related, but I believe that what links them is the desire of the left to dictate and control, and to undermine the family at the expense of the state.

It’s “ablist” of a reporter to discuss John Fetterman’s health problems, says his wife

The New Neo Posted on by

John Fetterman is running for the Senate, but he and the left are trying to make his disability – or handicap, or whatever you want to call it – off-limits by definition. His wife compares discussion of his health problems to a teacher criticizing a disabled child, even if it’s a member of the press discussing it:

NBC News’s Dasha Burns earlier this month conducted an interview with John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke in May, in which he discussed the effects it had on his auditory process. John Fetterman used closed captioning during the interview, and Burns commented on his comprehension during an appearance on the network promoting the conversation.

“During some of those conversations before the closed captioning was rolling, it wasn’t clear he could understand what we were saying,” Burns said on NBC…

“I would love to see an apology towards the disability community from her and from her network for the damage they have caused,” Gisele Fetterman told The Independent.

She told the news organization that the NBC interview, which sparked a firestorm online, may cause damage to those with disabilities, citing messages from disabled voters expressing frustration.

“If this happened in a school, if this was a child that was ableist towards another child or a teacher, there would’ve been issues stated,” Gisele Fetterman told The Independent.

“There would have been new training done,” she continued. “What is being done at the media after a reporter came out so openly ableist towards a person? I think shocked and appalled, but sadly not surprised. I know there’s still so much to do, but it would be great to see some accountability, to actually see real change.”

Send that reporter to the re-education camps! How dare she even mention such a thing!

That is what identity politics has come to. The goal is to place the leftist candidate beyond criticism. You know that the same rules would never be applied if such a candidate were on the right. Nor, of course, should they be applied to anyone, because Senate candidates are not children in need of support. They are engaged in deciding important questions for the entire nation. Gisele Fetterman’s analogy and outrage are completely misplaced.

If Fetterman’s disability had to do with walking – if he were paralyzed, let’s say – it would have little to no relevance to his Senate candidacy . However, if he were paralyzed and wanted to be a firefighter, it would be highly relevant. Fetterman’s cognitive abilities are very relevant to being a senator.

Or are they? Perhaps at this point, only very minimal abilities are needed – in Fetterman’s case, the ability to cast a vote on every issue in a manner aligned with the Democratic leadership. Not much thinking or auditory processing or even understanding is required. Just vote “yes” or “no” as you’re told, and as nearly every single Democrat senator – even supposed “moderates” – does every single time.

This business of not criticizing a Democrat politician because of some identity politics designation began with Obama. At least, that’s when I noticed it coming to the fore. All criticism of Obama was labeled racism, and was not allowed. There could be no neutral, objective, non-bigoted way to say that Obama wasn’t a perfect candidate. Even the words “skinny” or “socialist” were supposedly racist – remember? If not, refresh your memory here and here.

Tulsi unleashed

The New Neo Posted on by

I guess until now she was holding back. Having left the Democratic Party, Tulsi Gabbard has wasted no time in calling them out in no uncertain terms:

“They [the Democrats] have gone crazy — they have gone insane. There’s no other way to describe it,” Gabbard told the crowd in Chandler, Ariz. “It’s kind of like the emperor has no clothes. Everybody sees what’s going on, but nobody wants to say it out loud.”

Gabbard, a former Democratic candidate for president, later added that her former party bares no resemblance to the party as it was when John F. Kennedy was president.

Can’t argue with that. Leftism was certainly present in the party back then, but it was a small fraction that became more prominent in the 1960s with the ascendance of people such as Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern. And even then, it was a very different leftism than today’s. They would not recognize today’s party.

Gabbard made the statements while campaigning for Kari Lake, who is a MAGA type candidate rather than a “moderate” Republican. And it’s not just Lake; Gabbard also plans to speak up for other Trump-backed Republican candidates such as Joe Kent of Washington and Don Bolduc of New Hampshire.

Interesting.

Danchenko found not guilty on all counts

The New Neo Posted on by

The verdict on Danchenko is in: not guilty.

I would be shocked if it were otherwise, given the legal problems of the case as well as the venue. I’ve written about this many times before, but the main point is that it’s really really hard to convict someone of lying to people who are extremely eager to believe your lies and are collaborating in those lies, and have no interest in finding out the truth.

I concluded long ago that there would almost certainly be no way for any of the Russiagate perps to be found guilty, particularly in the left-leaning courts and communities where the trials would be held. Many of them are also lawyers or people who work with lawyers frequently, and before they started Russiagate I believe they were very careful to do things in such a way that convictions would be highly unlikely and very difficult to obtain – if anyone ever discovered what they’d done in the first place (which they didn’t think would happen, either, although it ultimately did).

Yesterday, prior to the Danchenko verdict, Andrew C. McCarthy wrote this:

The culmination of this collusive arrangement, one of the great political dirty tricks in American history, was the FBI peddling to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, under oath, the uncorroborated rumor, innuendo, and sheer fabrications of the Steele dossier. Not once, not twice, not thrice, but four separate times, over close to a year and for months into his presidency, agents depicted Trump as a clandestine agent of Moscow.

This is where Danchenko comes in. A cagey operator whom the FBI credibly suspected as a Russian asset a dozen years ago, he was the main source of “intelligence” — which is apparently Russian for “gossip among drinking buddies” — that Steele turned into the faux reports that comprised the dossier.

In his probe into the origins of the bureau’s Trump-Russia investigation (codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane”), Durham discovered that, although Danchenko acknowledged that the Steele dossier was farcical, he also appeared to have misled the FBI regarding his sources. In particular, he made up a conversation with Sergie Millian — a loose Trump associate whom Danchenko doesn’t know and never actually communicated with. The result was the dossier claim that Trump and the Kremlin were in a “conspiracy of cooperation.”

That’s the background, which you probably already knew. But here’s the legal problem:

Durham charged Danchenko with four counts of lying about Millian… It is a tough case for Durham because it’s hard to expect a jury to convict someone for lying to the FBI about comparatively less serious matters when the FBI itself was blatantly and serially dishonest with a federal court — with apparent impunity…

Understandably, the more appalled the jury becomes over the FBI’s behavior, the less inclined it may be to convict Danchenko.

That is the heart of the matter, and it’s what occurred in the Sussman case as well, to the best of my recollection.

The Democrats and the MSM (a redundancy) will spin this as a big win for the Russiagate group. My sense is that most voters have moved on and are paying little attention at this point. Most people’s viewpoints on Russiagate and the FBI solidified a long time ago.

ADDENDUM:

I already wrote that I don’t think that the abomination known as Russiagate has any likely successful avenue for legal redress. I say that with a combination of regret and anger, but not every bad act has a legal solution. Our legal system is constructed – for good reasons – to make it difficult to prove guilt, in order to protect the innocent from being railroaded. That, unfortunately, is even true for those with great power who can do great damage and get off scot free.

One of the reasons this was almost inevitable in all the Durham cases has to do with venue. The Danchenko case was tried in Alexandria, Virginia, which is not only a deep blue area but one filled with members of the Deep State. I can’t even imagine how air-tight a case would have to be for someone like Danchenko to have been convicted in a venue such as that; I don’t even think such a thing would be humanly possible.

That’s why I don’t blame Durham overmuch.

Here’s part of what Durham said to the jury:

Durham was emphatic that in prosecuting Igor Danchenko for alleged lies about his sources for information that ended up in the bogus “Steele dossier,” the special counsel’s office was not defending the bureau. As reported by the Washington Examiner’s Jerry Dunleavy, who is covering the trial, Durham concluded that “the FBI failed here,” observing that it “mishandled the investigation” and that its agents “didn’t do what they should have done.” Durham added that the explanation for the bureau’s appalling performance could be that it is “simply incompetent” or possibly that it was “working in coordination.” He does not appear to have stated with whom the FBI might have worked in coordination; the implication points to the Clinton campaign, which sponsored the dossier — opposition research based on which Hillary Clinton argued that Trump was a Putin puppet.

Something like that last contention – which I believe to be the case – simply does not have the sort of evidence that would have convinced this jury or any such jury in this venue, and I don’t think that Durham was wrong not to bring such a case.

Here’s the sort of thing Dachenko’s defense argued, just to give you some of the flavor of the thing:

…[T]here are four false-statements counts, all related to Danchenko’s alleged fabrication of a conversation with Sergei Millian, a loose associate of Trump’s with whom there is no evidence that Danchenko ever spoke. Danchenko’s lawyers are stressing that Millian did not testify and Durham could not disprove that a conversation may have taken place over an Internet app rather than a conventional phone — although they also insist that Danchenko never claimed to be sure that the person with whom he spoke was Millian.

That sort of “plausible” deniability was more than enough for this jury.

More here:

The special counsel [Durham] is using tried-and-true “lying to the feds” charges to unravel for the public the hoax—which on its face requires painting the FBI as dupes. Yet every filing and witness question is instead building Mr. Durham’s case of rank FBI malfeasance.

Mr. Danchenko pleaded not guilty, His trial—and prior to it Mr. Durham’s unsuccessful prosecution of Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann—has by now yielded a scandalous portrait of an FBI willing to take nearly any step—and cut any corner—to harm Donald Trump…

While Mr. Durham presents evidence Mr. Danchenko lied to FBI handlers, there is as much evidence the FBI closed its eyes to glaring problems in his story…

Partisanship and incompetence aren’t crimes, so the FBI isn’t in the dock. But Mr. Durham is making the case for the public—and it’s as ugly as they come.

That was written on October 13, towards the beginning of the Dachenko trial. It foreshadowed the ending, which in my opinion was a foregone conclusion.

Is Liz Truss aleady on the way out?

The New Neo Posted on by

If so, that was quick.

See this:

In six short weeks, Liz Truss has succeeded in angering all wings of her party. Most now agree she can’t fight the next election.

Britain’s latest prime minister, who won a Tory leadership contest with promises of tax cuts and “growth, growth, growth,” by Friday had driven supporters on the Tory right to send furious WhatsApp messages bemoaning her latest U-turn on corporation tax as more of her planned budget crumbled.

“I’ve never known the atmosphere to be as febrile as it is at the moment,” one veteran Tory MP who backed Truss in the leadership contest said. Another MP who supported her said: “It feels like the end. I think she’ll be gone next week.”

Tory MPs began casting around wildly for mechanisms to oust Truss and candidates to replace her. While party rules make that complicated, rules can be changed and Truss’ removal is fast becoming a question of when, not if.

From what I’m reading, Truss seems to have projected a combination of weakness and incompetence, as well as fear and indecision. Not a great combination. I think very few Western leaders are up to meeting the multiple crises we’ve been facing lately, but Truss is apparently particularly unready.

Here are some of the details:

Two weeks ago the PM said she was “committed” to the triple lock [definition here]”, so payments rise by whatever is higher: prices, average earnings or 2.5%.

But her spokesman has now said she was “not making any commitments” on government spending.

It comes after ditching flagship tax cuts announced in the mini-budget.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s move to tear up most of last month’s mini-budget announcements has reassured investors, but left Ms Truss battling to salvage her authority.

A decision on what to do with pensions from next April has not yet been made, and would normally be expected this autumn.

The probable replacement:

A group of Tory MPs have settled on the idea of a joint ticket of Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak to take over from Truss. “Rishi and Penny got over two-thirds of the parliamentary party between them on the final MPs ballot,” one Tory rebel organizer said. “You have a critical mass already backing them.”

The article mentions what I’d already suspected, that ousting Truss this year would make her the shortest ever British PM. It’s by no means clear that will happen, however. Truss does have some supporters, or at least some people who are not in favor of replacing her so soon.

The polls indicate that a general election now would result in a huge Labour victory, and people are assuming that whenever it does come (see the rules on that) it will definitely feature a turnover to a Labour government. Of course, the fact that the current Tory party isn’t providing competent leadership does not mean that Labour would do any better at all. But this is the way of politics: when one party sinks the other rises, and the results can sometimes be even worse.