First world problems
There’s been so much big news every day since Trump’s inauguration that it’s hard to keep up. Today, though, I was further hampered by a new computer problem – this time a bum modem. I’ll skip the details, but let’s just say I’m too tired from struggling with that (and fixing it, I think) to write some of the larger posts I had planned for today, although I hope to get around to them tomorrow or the next day.
Meanwhile, I went out for a walk while it was still light out. I can’t wait till the clocks spring forward in just a couple of weeks!
Speaking of which, I saw this the other day:
German election results …
… were pretty much as expected. That indicates that opinion polling still seem to work in Germany:
With vote counting finished, preliminary results show the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz and its sister Christian Social Union (CSU) won the election.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was projected to finish second … [having] nearly doubled its vote share.
The center-left Social Democrats (SPD), led by current Chancellor Olaf Scholz, recorded not only its worst result in a federal election but also its largest loss of votes compared to previous elections.
The neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), whose withdrawal from the coalition triggered the snap election, also suffered heavy losses. The party won’t enter the Bundestag after failing to meet the 5% threshold.
But Friedrich Merz, head of the CDU, has said he will not form a coalition with the AfD. Therefore, although by European and German standards the CDU is a conservative party, any coalition government that is formed will have to be with a party to the left, almost certainly the SPD, which has recorded terrible losses in this election. The gain is on the right, but because it’s the so-called “far right” that grew the most, paradoxically Merz has turned his back on a coalition of the right.
How “far-right” is the AfD? I tried to answer that question in this post of mine from a few days ago. My answer was that, as far as I can tell – and I’m no expert on the subject of Germany’s politics – the party does have some anti-Semitic elements. How large these elements loom I’m not sure, and in Germany the danger of this possibility, as well as the whole idea of a German nationalist party, engenders understandable concern. However, the opposite – in particular, a huge influx of unassimilated Muslims, as well as leftist policies on energy – have harmed both Germany and Europe.
[NOTE: I am almost certainly not the only one in whom the name ‘Friedrich Merz” conjures up fond memories.]
Dan Bongino is new FBI Deputy Director
Dan Bongino has been named Deputy Director of the FBI, and the Hill coverage I just linked has an unintentionally humorous lede:
President Trump’s selection of Dan Bongino as deputy FBI director adds another conservative firebrand to the top of the agency, fueling concerns from Democrats the bureau will be politicized.
Ha ha – that’s a good one, Hill, a real knee-slapper: will be politicized. Tell me another one.
Actually, they’re afraid it will be politicized in the wrong direction. They were ecstatically happy when it was politicized in their favor and used to destroy those they considered their enemies.
Bongino is described in the headlines of many of these MSM articles as a talk show guy. For example, NPR uses this headline: “What to know about Dan Bongino, the media personality tapped as FBI deputy director.” The NY Times goes with this: “Right-Wing Commentator Named F.B.I. Deputy Director – The choice of Dan Bongino is a radical departure from the bureau’s history of having a veteran agent serve in the key role that oversees operations.” They know that the headlines are all that many people read, so headlines are important. And it’s not as though it’s untrue; Bongino is a “right-wing commentator.” But that’s not why he was chosen. And although the Times does say – not in the headline, but in the first paragraph – that Bongino also has been a NYC police officer and Secret Service agent, it’s clear from the headline what they wish to emphasize.
Plus this:
The role of deputy director does not require Senate confirmation, meaning two steadfast Trump loyalists will effectively be at the uppermost reaches of an agency known for its tradition of independence.
I wonder whether it was ever known for being politically independent. In the days of J. Edgar Hoover? I wouldn’t exactly describe it that way. But whatever independence it once had – whatever objective application of the law and its energies – ended when it turned its focus on Trump and the right. I’m not sure what date to give the beginning of that pivot, but it certainly was in place early in Trump’s first presidential term. But those who are either oblivious to that fact or who applaud it are of course upset at Patel and Bongino.
The Hill article quotes none other than that pillar of objectivity and fairness, Senator Adam Schiff:
Trump installs another loyalist who won’t say no to any immoral or unethical act. And our law enforcement agencies — and the public safety — are further degraded.
Further degraded? You and your party have degraded it so much that there’s almost nothing left.
A bit more on Bongino’s background, from Wiki:
Bongino joined the United States Secret Service in 1999 as a special agent. In 2002 he left the New York Field Office to become an instructor at the Secret Service Training Academy in Beltsville, Maryland. In 2006, he was assigned to the Presidential Protection Division during George W. Bush’s second term. He remained on protective duty after Barack Obama became president, leaving in May 2011 to run for the U.S. Senate.
Also in 2011, The Baltimore Sun reported that Bongino was the lead investigator of a car rental fraud scheme. His work contributed to two people being indicted on federal wire fraud charges. …
In May 2018, after Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy and some conservative legal experts challenged Trump’s claims that the FBI had spied on his 2016 presidential campaign, Bongino claimed Gowdy had been “fooled” by the Department of Justice. In February 2019, he accused Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of attempting a coup against Trump.
Bongino reportedly told the House Judiciary Committee during hearings on police brutality that efforts to reduce the funding of police departments were an “abomination” that should be dropped “before someone gets hurt”.
After Joe Biden won the 2020 election and Trump refused to concede, Bongino backed his false claims of election fraud, and claimed that Democrats had rigged the election.
Bongino was a strong critic of face mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic, stating that face masks are largely ineffective and deriding them as “face diapers” on occasion.
Most of that seems correct, doesn’t it? Whether or not fraud occurred in 2020, or enough fraud to affect the results, there certainly was enough “rigging.”
I say let Patel and Bongino give it a try. Bongino wouldn’t have been my first choice or even second or third for this position. But perhaps he’ll do a good job in helping clean up the FBI. It certainly could use some cleaning up.
Open thread 2/24/2025
I sure would have liked to have seen the waterfall:
I feel like venting my spleen
As soon as I typed that title, I started thinking that you don’t often hear people talk about venting their spleens anymore. In fact, I began to wonder, did I ever hear it? Or did I merely read it in old novels? And is its origin in the ancient ideas about the four humors? Choleric, for example?
The answer is yes, it’s about the humors:
The phrase “vent one’s spleen” originates from ancient Greek and Roman medical theories known as humorism. According to this theory, the spleen was believed to be the organ responsible for producing and storing black bile, one of the four humors or bodily fluids. This idiom may be used in various occasions, such as during heated debates, arguments, or discussions where individuals passionately express their discontent or dissatisfaction. It can also be used in personal settings, such as venting frustrations to a trusted friend or family member, or even in written form, like venting through social media posts or blog entries.
Blog entries! There you have it.
Except there’s a glitch. Black bile, associated with the spleen, was historically connected to melancholy. Yellow bile – the “choleric” humor connected with anger – was supposedly secreted by the gallbladder. So it really should be “venting my gallbladder,” shouldn’t it? However, it just doesn’t sound as good.
But I digress. Or do I?
What am I angry about? Maybe not angry; maybe just annoyed – or perhaps even a trifle melancholy? It’s that it seems every time I do anything – have a doctor’s appointment, go to the theater or a museum, have my car fixed – I get an email asking me to rate the experience. I ordinarily don’t answer unless for some special reason I want to give some feedback. But then a day or two later I get a repeat email asking the same thing, and then another, and then another …
Finally it ends. I don’t want to block the email address in case they happen to send me something important. And I realize in the scheme of things this whole topic is very small, almost nothing. But still annoying.
And the phenomenon seems to be building. It started quite a few years ago, but the number of companies or groups asking for feedback was not large. Now the practice seems near-universal. And it’s not as though there’s any evidence the organizations involved actually pay attention and improve their customer service. Quite the contrary.
There now. I feel better. Perhaps I vented my spleen and my gallbladder.
Today’s hostage return …
… was the usual sickening theater from Hamas. But it also engendered the usual joy at seeing the hostages return to Israel and their families. This time the cynical and abusive “ceremonies” around the hostage release seemed to feature even more Gazans than usual hanging around to watch the show, most of them videoing the festivities with cellphones held high.
This time, we saw the return not only of three male civilian hostages kidnapped on October 7, but also of Avera Mengistu, an Israeli of Ethiopian ethnicity who suffers from mental illness and who has been a hostage for ten years. And yet Hamas made a spectacle of him, as well, although they didn’t make him give a speech.
And there was this little touch for one of the Israelis who was captured at the NOVA festival:
Shem Tov was also directed to kiss two of the masked Hamas gunmen on the tops of their heads by the terror group’s cameramen, who were filming alongside the hostages and the gunmen at the carefully staged handover event.
Shem Tov’s father comments:
Malki Shem Tov, father of Omer, says his son was held for most of his captivity alone in a tunnel.
“He said that he was in tunnels alone for the whole time — [almost] 500 days… For the first 50 days he was with Itay [Regev] and all the rest, on his own,” Malki tells Kan TV.
He says Omer “didn’t see daylight at all.”
His returned son is still “our Omer… Omer the funny, Omer the optimist, just 16-17 kilos less.”
Regarding this morning’s handover ceremony, “he told us that they compelled him to wave and to kiss [on the top of the head] that [masked] guard who was standing next to him. He said they told him what to do. You can see in the footage that someone came up to him and told him what to do.”
Was this meant to convey the idea that he was thanking his captors, and that he liked them? Also, that he is subservient to them? I don’t recall any other hostage being asked to do this; it’s a new one to me.
Here is Shem Tov in much happier footage, reuniting with his parents:
The other hostage who has been in Gaza for about ten years and was released, Hisham al-Sayed, is a Bedouin Israeli who was spared being made a spectacle like the others. My guess is that this was because of one or both of these factors: he is in extremely bad shape, and/or Hamas doesn’t want to highlight the fact that they held an Arab hostage all that time. Also, like Mengistu, al-Sayed is mentally ill – that’s apparently part of the reason each of them voluntarily entered Gaza before being held hostage there for a decade.
The show is for the inhabitants of other Arab countries, and for Hamas sympathizers all over the world, to supposedly project strength and to humiliate the hostages further, as well as to torment the hostages’ families just a little more.
There are four more hostages to be returned in Phase I, but it is assumed that they are all dead. Their heartbreaking stories can be found here.
As for Shiri Bibas, her body is now in Israel and forensics also indicate she was brutally murdered in Gaza. As were her baby and toddler. Three generations of her family – her parents, herself, and her children – were murdered by Hamas. Her husband endured unimaginable hardship as a hostage and is now left to mourn, but at least he is in Israel with surviving family members. Please pray for him.
Roundup
(1) Rubio mentions some additional sources for Trump’s anger at Zelensky:
The tensions go back much further … , though, with the Ukrainian president slamming Trump and now-Vice President JD Vance during the 2024 presidential election, presumably believing Kamala Harris would win. Zelensky also showed up on stage with Democrats in Pennsylvania, essentially campaigning for Harris in the swing state.
Aha. Yes, I noticed at the time, but I’d forgotten that. Of course, foreign policy should not be based on personal animosity. I don’t think it ultimately will be, even with Trump, but he’s vulnerable to holding a grudge at least for a while and it worries me that it will affect his judgment.
Rubio said considerably more:
Rubio reveals why everyone in the administration is pissed at Zelensky.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) February 21, 2025
(2) The Senate voted for a budget resolution that seems to be different than what the House is looking for:
The Senate adopted a budget resolution Friday intended to serve as a blueprint to deliver the first part of President Trump’s agenda.
Senators voted 52-48, mostly along party lines, on the resolution after a marathon overnight voting session. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) voted against the measure. …
The resolution helps pave the way for Republicans to pass roughly $340 billion in funding, including $175 billion in for border operations and immigration enforcement and to carry out Trump’s ambitious deportation plans, as well as $150 billion in defense spending. …
Trump this week endorsed the House’s one-track plan that includes border and defense spending, combined with an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and a debt ceiling increase. But GOP leadership in the Senate, backed by a large swath of their conference, are barrelling forward with their preferred two-track process.
(3) This certainly sounds good:
?President Trump announces that Tim Cook and Apple will invest hundreds of billion of dollars into manufacturing in America to take advantage of tax incentives and to avoid tariffs. Trump continues to be America’s best salesman. pic.twitter.com/Ad85XkWScD
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 21, 2025
(4) The BBC airs unadulterated Pallywood propaganda. Please read the whole thing. I may have more to say about it in another post in the next couple of days.
(5) I wish Trump would resist the urge to perform this sort of grandstanding, which only gives ammunition to those who say he’s a wannabee dictator and must be resisted by the “resistance.’ He might be able to cut off federal funding for education for noncompliance – although I’m not sure of that. But all federal funds? I actually think Mills would win that case [emphasis added]:
President Donald Trump stood his ground when going head to head with Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) over his executive order that bans males from female sports.
At the National Governors Session, Trump called out Maine since the state won’t follow the order:
“TRUMP: Is the Maine here, the governor of Maine?
MILLS: I am here.
TRUMP: Are you not going to comply with it?
MILLS: I’m complying with state and federal laws.
TRUMP: Well, I’m — we are the federal law. Well, you better do it. You better do it, because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t. And by the way, your population even though it’s somewhat liberal although I did very well there, your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports. So you better — you better comply because otherwise you’re not getting any — any federal funding.
MILLS: See you in court.
TRUMP: Every state — good, I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that.”
(6) The Vatican says that Pope Francis is in critical condition.
Is Trump “politicizing” the military?
Trump has replaced the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., who is black and highly devoted to DEI in the military. Naturally, this change is one of the many many things that the left is angry about.
The Obama Machine is very unhappy about Trump’s new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs —
— Susan Rice laments Trump “politicizing” a formerly “apolitical” military:
“We have always had an extraordinarily apolitical professional military. It's one of our greatest strengths as a… pic.twitter.com/2xfQIpzLRF
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) February 22, 2025
When I listen to Rice, I find it amazing that anyone buys what she’s saying. So much of what Trump has done so far, which the left calls politicization, is an undoing of what was done by his leftist predecessors. For example, see this article from 2013:
What the president calls “my military” is being cleansed of any officer suspected of disloyalty to or disagreement with the administration on matters of policy or force structure, leaving the compliant and fearful.
We recognize President Obama is the commander-in-chief and that throughout history presidents from Lincoln to Truman have seen fit to remove military commanders they view as inadequate or insubordinate. Turnover in the military ranks is normal, and in these times of sequestration and budget cuts the numbers are expected to tick up as force levels shrink and missions change.
Yet what has happened to our officer corps since President Obama took office is viewed in many quarters as unprecedented, baffling and even harmful to our national security posture. We have commented on some of the higher profile cases, such as Gen. Carter Ham. He was relieved as head of U.S. Africa Command after only a year and a half because he disagreed with orders not to mount a rescue mission in response to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi. …
From Breitbart.com’s Facebook page comes a list of at least 197 officers that have been relieved of duty by President Obama for a laundry list of reasons and sometimes with no reason given. Stated grounds range from “leaving blast doors on nukes open” to “loss of confidence in command ability” to “mishandling of funds” to “inappropriate relationships” to “gambling with counterfeit chips” to “inappropriate behavior” to “low morale in troops commanded.”
Nine senior commanding generals have been fired by the Obama administration this year, leading to speculation by active and retired members of the military that a purge of its commanders is under way.
Much more at the link.
It also strikes me that 2013 may feel like ancient history to a lot of people, if they even were aware of what was happening back then in the first place.
Open thread 2/22/2025
Man stabbed near Berlin’s Holocaust Museum – plus, German elections coming soon
German police arrested a suspect after a stabbing at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial left a person seriously injured on Friday evening local time.
Police haven’t yet given a motive or made any connection between the stabbing and the Holocaust memorial, known as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, or the U.S. Embassy located nearby.
The stabbing also came two days before Germany’s national elections on Sunday.
The victim, whose injuries are not life-threatening, was identified as a 30-year-old Spanish tourist, according to The Associated Press.
“Our forces have detained a suspect in the vicinity of the crime scene,” Berlin police posted on X. “Investigations continue.”
During a news conference, police spokesperson Florian Nath said the attack happened around 6 p.m., “probably with a knife. Maybe with something else.”
The suspect was arrested around three hours later after he was seen near the memorial.
“He had blood on his hands, and this made him very suspicious,” Nath said.
This one actually may be a crazy person. Walking around with blood on his hands? The suspect’s name hasn’t been released.
Speaking of German elections, here’s a report:
The frontrunner to become the next German chancellor is Friedrich Merz, leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union party. Polls show the CDU enjoying a comfortable lead, with 28% support.
But it’s the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany party that has caught the attention of many analysts ahead of this election. The AfD has surged in popularity and is currently polling second, expected to take about 21% of the vote, while the liberal Social Democratic Party (SPD) is polling at 16%, and the Greens at 14%.
That indicates that a coalition will probably be required. But the other parties have ruled out a coalition with Alternative for Germany. What is the AfD? I’m always wary when any party is called “far right,” especially in Europe. It tends to mean against mass immigration, especially from Muslim countries, which doesn’t seem so very far right to me. Let’s see if we can tease it out from its Wiki page:
Alternative for Germany is a far-right and right-wing populist political party in Germany. The AfD is Eurosceptic.
Well, that’s about what I thought. Nothing so “far” about that. And by the way, when I started my search, every single article had the phrase “far-right” in the headline.
However, it definitely seems as though elements in the party – or certainly who support the party – are antisemitic and either Holocaust deniers or Holocaust minimizers. It’s no surprise that any party devoted to German nationalism would attract that element. The Hamas-loving antisemitism of the left and the more traditional anti-Semitism of the right have that perennial favorite – antisemitism – in common.
Young people in particular seem attracted to the AfD. That’s not surprising, considering the disruption that all the newcomers have caused. Simply put, the more traditional parties failed to protect the country from decline and violence, and young people are attracted to a party that promises to reverse that trend.
More on the Bibas family
Now Hamas is saying they’ll give back the body of Shiri Bibas. It will, I’m sure, be examined and the DNA checked to see if it finally means that this kidnapped mother’s body has come home to Israel.
Awful, terrible, nightmarish situation.
And Israel has also announced the following:
Hagari said the evidence clearly showed that they [the Bibas children] were not killed in an airstrike as Hamas claimed.
“Contrary to Hamas’s lies, Ariel and Kfir were not killed in an airstrike. Ariel and Kfir Bibas were murdered in cold blood by terrorists,” he said.
“The terrorists did not shoot the two young boys — they killed them with their bare hands. Afterward, they committed horrific acts to cover up these atrocities.”
“This assessment is based on both forensic findings from the identification process and intelligence that supports these findings. We have shared these findings, intelligence and forensics with our partners around the world so they can verify it,” said Hagari.
Hagari added that he spoke on Thursday with the children’s father, recently released hostage Yarden Bibas, who demanded that he tell the world what had happened:
“Yarden looked me in the eyes and asked that all the world know and be horrified by the manner in which they murdered his children.”
Unsurprising, unfortunately. It also still doesn’t give details, and we may have to do without the details. But “bare hands” indicate something like strangulation, perhaps.
It was also announced that the return of six living hostages will go on as planned on Saturday. The article added that, among the Palestinian prisoners slated for the exchange, seven elected to remain in Israeli jails.
It’s probably a lot better there than in Gaza.