The January 6th production number…

The New Neo Posted on by

…has begun.

I didn’t watch, but I have friends who did. They already believe that version of events anyway, of course, but I suppose the rehashing acts as a memory refresher. Liz Cheney is a particular favorite, as one of the few Republicans Democrats think has integrity.

I’m not sure that anyone who isn’t already fully onboard with the official narrative is going to watch or care. But for the Democrats’ base, it’s probably riveting.

Speaking of which, this documentary looks interesting and presents the other view of January 6th. But as a commenter to that post writes:

The more I know about J6, the more frustrated I get..The half of the country that believes the propaganda about the riot will never see this movie…The rest of us already know how unjust the fall-out has been.. I’m glad the movie is being made anyway.. It can serve as a historical documentary…

Here’s a link to the film.

Wapo viper Felicia Sonmez gets the boot

The New Neo Posted on by

(Is that a mixed metaphor? Can a viper get the boot?)

You can be totally forgiven if you haven’t followed the woker-than-woke shenanigans of victim-card-playing Felicia Sonmez of the WaPo. I can’t say that it’s been number one on my dance card, either, but it’s actually an interesting example of workplace enmity and its uses. You can catch up here if you’d like, and today Sonmez has finally been fired from the WaPo.

Apparently she overplayed her hand when she accused other WaPo reporters – who had tweeted support for the paper and said it’s a nice place to work – of being way too white and too privileged. It’s a bit confusing, because looking at her photos I’d say that Sonmez is also white, but I guess she gets points for accusing others of white privilege – isn’t that the way it works? Although perhaps, going by her last name, Sonmez may actually be Hispanic, which would make her a POC by definition no matter what her appearance? I can’t keep up.

Here’s what got her fired:

On Thursday, Sonmez took a flamethrower to fellow staffers in another lengthy series of tweets, attacking those who had posted recent, strikingly similar messages of support for their paper.

“I don’t know who the colleagues anonymously disparaging me in media reports are. But I do know that the reporters who issued synchronized tweets this week downplaying the Post’s workplace issues have a few things in common with each other,” Sonmez wrote during a lengthy Twitter thread.

“They are all white – They are among the highest-paid employees in the newsroom, making double and even triple what some other National desk reporters are making, particularly journalists of color – They are among the ‘stars’ who ‘get away with murder’ on social media,” Sonmez tweeted. “Of course the Washington Post is a great workplace. It is a great workplace *for them.* The system is working *for them.* What about for everyone else? The General Assignment team? The Morning Mix team? The newsletter researchers?”

Viper.

Well, now she can move on to the next venue. I wonder which media outlet would like to be the first to hire her?

More on what the California primaries reveal

The New Neo Posted on by

Looking at some of the other results in Tuesday’s California primaries, there appears to be a law-and-order trend – at least, as California would define law and order these days.

Read this on Orange County DA Todd Spitzer.

Also this on the results of the LA mayoral primary:

Developer Rick Caruso’s showing in the mayoral primary Tuesday demonstrated that a significant number of Angelenos want immediate changes on homelessness and aren’t turned off by the vast fortune of a billionaire who has never held elected office.

Caruso will face Rep. Karen Bass in the general election after the two candidates topped the field in a race focused on the unhoused and crime, a contest viewed as a judgment on City Hall’s handling of those issues.

Both Democratic and Republican voters in Tuesday’s election backed the developer, a onetime Republican who jumped in the race just four months ago and is seeking big changes in city government. He has proposed bypassing the City Council on homeless housing decisions, as well as removing their ability to oversee land use — a step that follows several FBI investigations of local politicians.

“The unhoused” – love that leftist nomenclature. Kind of like that old favorite, “undocumented.”

His campaign — which tapped his own wealth and relied on an unprecedented $40 million in spending — resonated in the heavily Democratic city, where voters are frustrated by the intractable homelessness crisis, unaffordable home prices and rising gun violence…

As Bass gathered with her supporters on election night at the W Hollywood hotel, she described the mayoral election as a “fight for the soul of our city.”

Some people will be surprised to hear that Los Angeles has a soul. But it’s a place where I’ve spent a lot of time over the last 50 years (!) or so, and for which I have some fondness. I think what the election is really about is a fight for the ability of the city to function and to ensure the safety of most of its citizens. That’s something so basic we might refer to it as the body of the city rather than its soul.

How to condemn and not condemn an attempt on the life of a SCOTUS justice

The New Neo Posted on by

I was curious what the White House or Joe Biden had to say about the attempt on Kavanaugh’s life. All I could find was this:

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement provided to Fox News that the president condemns the alleged actions of the suspect and “is grateful to law enforcement for quickly taking him into custody”.

“As the president has consistently made clear, public officials – including judges – must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety or that of their families,” according to the statement. “And any violence, threats of violence, or attempts to intimidate justices have no place in our society.”

The president supports legislation to fund increased security for the Supreme Court and justices, the statement said.

So the deputy press secretary sends a written statement to news agencies (I’m going to assume not just Fox) with some boilerplate blah-blah. Does anyone actually read this except for someone searching for it as I did? And it took a while to find it, I might add.

On the other hand, Biden appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show last night, a venue that has a pretty wide audience. Here’s what Biden actually said:

President Biden in an interview broadcast late Wednesday predicted a “mini revolution” in November’s midterm elections if the Supreme Court overturns the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which enshrined abortion access as a constitutional right.

During the interview on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Biden said overturning the court precedent would be “ridiculous” and would motivate turnout in November’s elections.

“I don’t think the country will stand for it,” Biden said. “If in fact the decision comes down the way it does, and these states impose the limitations they’re talking about, it’s going to cause a mini revolution and they’re going to vote these folks out of office.”

Now, he does define this revolution as a revolution in voting that will sweep Republicans out of office, not a violent one. But the rest of the rhetoric is stronger that that. The country “won’t stand for it.” Such a decision would be “ridiculous” – says the noted jurist Joe Biden.

That appearance would have been a golden opportunity to address the assassination attempt and to condemn it. It was an opportunity Joe didn’t take, however. Nor did he say that whatever SCOTUS eventually decides needs to be respected. Nope; he said it would be “ridiculous” if SCOTUS overturned Roe and that the country wouldn’t stand for it.

I can’t find a word from Kamala Harris – remember her? – on the Kavanaugh assassination attempt, either. She certainly did her bit in the past to assassinate his character, however:

Focusing on her support for abortion and position on the Senate Judiciary Committee that handled the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, Harris strongly opposed Kavanaugh’s nomination within moments of it being announced, and long before she had a chance to review his record.

She joined other Democratic presidential hopefuls on the steps of the Supreme Court the next day to further express her opposition. She ran 3,600 different advertisements on Facebook before the second round of hearings began in late September 2018.

“Her performance during the Kavanaugh circus stood out as particularly demagogic, cynical & abysmal,” wrote TownHall political editor Guy Benson.

Within a few seconds of the first hearings being gaveled to order, Harris interrupted the proceedings in an attempt to shut them down on procedural grounds, part of a coordinated attack that included attempts by hundreds of compensated activists to get arrested.

Harris, a former prosecutor, led a line of questioning that was an obvious attempt to put Kavanaugh in a perjury trap, albeit a trap he was able to avoid. Harris began by asking Kavanaugh if he had ever discussed Robert Mueller, the special counsel then investigating the Trump presidential campaign, with anyone.

Read the whole thing; it’s quite interesting.

And what of Schumer, he of previous “released the whirlwind” threats, naming Kavanaugh and Gorsuch specifically? Crickets, as far as I can tell.

A trip down memory lane:

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) I wrote briefly last night about the successful recall of San Francisco’s DA Chesa Boudin, and I’ve written about him previously as well. I just want to add that I first realized there was a good chance that the recall effort would work when, back in the fall, I was talking to some ultra-liberal friends who live in a San Francisco suburb and they spontaneously started to talk about their upset at the high crime rate. They were quite emotional about how awful it was, and although they didn’t say anything about Boudin and the recall, it made me realize that if people like this were so upset about it then an awful lot of people were going to be giving Boudin the boot. And so it’s happened.

Will his replacement be any better? Maybe a little bit.

(2) The drip drip drip of revelations about Hunter Biden’s dissipation isn’t something I’ve been covering heavily or even much at all lately. Who wants to wade through such a fetid cesspool? And yet it needs to be done. And today Ace has done yeoman’s work in a post entitled “Hunter Biden Made a Porno With a Druggy Hooker While Brandishing His Illegally-Purchased Gun.” It’s not just about Hunter’s sexual escapades and general dissipation; it’s also about how all his gun violations are being ignored by the oh-so-concerned left and our so-very-determined president, otherwise known as Hunter Biden’s dad.

(3) A guy who wanted to kill Justice Kavanaugh has been arrested:

An armed California man incensed about the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion expected to overturn Roe v. Wade was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home Wednesday after he hatched a plan to kill the jurist to “give his life purpose,” prosecutors said.

Nicholas John Roske, 26, was arrested by the Montgomery County Police Department at about 1:50 a.m. near Kavanaugh’s home in Chevy Chase and was charged later Wednesday in Maryland federal court with attempting to kill or kidnap a US judge, court records show.

Roske, who was dressed in black clothing and carrying a backpack and a suitcase, was spotted getting out of a cab in front of Kavanaugh’s home around 1:05 a.m. by two deputy US Marshals, who were stationed outside the residence, court papers state.

When he saw the marshals, who were standing next to their parked vehicle in the tony Washington, DC, suburb, he walked down the block and called 911 and told an operator he was having “suicidal thoughts,” had a firearm on him and wanted to kill Kavanaugh.

Doesn’t seem as though entrapment was involved here at all, unlike in the Michigan Whitmer kidnapping case. In the current incident, it seems as though the fact that Kavanaugh’s house had protection was the only reason this guy didn’t succeed or at least come a lot closer to succeeding in killing or wounding Kavanaugh and/or his family. The left is probably disappointed that he didn’t succeed, because if one or more of the SCOTUS justices on the right were to be assassinated, then Joe Biden would get to appoint a successor. This could change the course of history, and so the motivation is almost certainly quite strong. And since Kavanaugh in particular has been demonized from the start by the left and the Democrats, he’s a natural target for someone like Roske, who says he found Kavanaugh’s home address online.

See also a post entitled “The Schumer fatwa,” by Scott Johnson at Powerline.

(4) By the way, when is SCOTUS going to rule on Dobbs and thereby revisit Roe? Supposedly in late June or early July.

(5) The Washington Post is a hot mess. See also this as well as this. From the latter:

The state of the media industry is such that journalists are now incentivized to be as effusive as possible in professing how emotionally unstable they are. Why? Because it’s a surefire way to bolster their pleas for a redress of various workplace or personal grievances. No longer are these psychological issues thought to be best dealt with in the privacy of a therapist’s office, or among trusted confidants. Instead, these journalists create a public spectacle, beckoning colleagues to flood their tweet threads and affirm unstinting support. When Taylor Lorenz of the New York Times recounted her own emotional turmoil stemming from allegedly “violent” online criticism, the International Women’s Media Foundation, an NGO devoted to “[recognizing] badass female journalists and photographers whose courage sets them apart,” issued a rousing statement in her defense.

Subsequently, these journalists’ union representation will rush to amplify their grievances by echoing the therapeutic trauma jargon…

Most of these so-called jounralists are youngish women (well, they’re all young to me). They have probably been rewarded for this sort of behavior many times, and it seems to be continuing. The day of the hard-boiled reporter is long long gone.

Senator Stabenow is in love with her car

The New Neo Posted on by

Senator Stabenow of Michigan bragged about her electric car:

“I just have to say just on the issue of that at gas prices; after waiting for a long time to have enough chips in this country to finally get my electric vehicle, I got it and drove it from Michigan to here this last weekend and went by every single gas station. It didn’t matter how high it was.”

The Senator then added, “So I’m looking forward to the opportunity for us to move to vehicles that aren’t going to be dependent on the whims of the oil companies and the international markets.”

How nice for you, senator. That electric car of course cost a ton more then the non-electric cars most of us peasants drive,

Plus, you mention zipping past the gas stations (chortling with glee and self-satisfaction?), but what about the fact that you had to stop to – you know – charge your electric car? Or does it run on Hope and Change?

According to this website, electric cars must be charged every 250 to 350 miles depending on the make (the Tesla has the 350-mile range). A trip from Michigan to DC is about 720 miles, so that probably means two charging stops (if you start out with a full charge). Charging such a car is not expensive (see this), but a person must find a charging station and then there’s time spent charging.

How much time? A lot of time:

The time it takes to charge an electric car can be as little as 30 minutes or more than 12 hours. This depends on the size of the battery and the speed of the charging point.

–A typical electric car (60kWh battery) takes just under 8 hours to charge from empty-to-full with a 7kW charging point.
–Most drivers top up charge rather than waiting for their battery to recharge from empty-to-full.
–For many electric cars, you can add up to 100 miles of range in ~35 minutes with a 50kW rapid charger.
–The bigger your car’s battery and the slower the charging point, the longer it takes to charge from empty to full.

I don’t know which approach Stabenow used for her trip, full charge or topping off more frequently, but neither sound like great solutions for a lengthy trip such as from Michigan to DC.

I’ll add that her statement about gas prices being dependent on the “whims of the oil companies and the international markets” is inflammatory and ignorant. Does she really think the big bad oil companies and the international markets (or whoever runs them in her fevered imagination) just wake up in the morning and decide on whim to jack up the prices? That there are no market forces at work? I don’t believe she really thinks that. I believe she wants American consumers to think that.

Just for fun:

Lyrics here. An excerpt:

The machine of a dream
Such a clean machine
With the pistons a-pumping
And the hubcaps all gleam

When I’m holding your wheel
All I hear is your gear
When my hand’s on your grease gun
Oh it’s like a disease, son

I’m in love with my car
Got a feel for my automobile…

The banality of Arendt’s “banality of evil”

The New Neo Posted on by

Several commenters have called my attention to the fact that there’s a new Israeli film about Adolf Eichmann. It’s entitled ““The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes,” and it features interviews in which he describes how much he knew about the Holocaust (a great great deal) as it was happening, and how much he approved of it (a great great deal).

It’s been pointed out that this makes it even more clear that Hannah Arendt’s famous line about “the banality of evil” – based on Eichmann and his trial – is garbage:

When you watch Mozer’s film and hear Eichmann’s actual words from the old recordings, his persona is completely different from the figure of the dull bureaucrat he tried to present to the world at the trial. It is difficult not to be shocked by his haughtiness when admitting his crimes and boasting of them, and not to be appalled by the sheer indifference he displays, in view of the fact that he was directly responsible for the deaths of millions, in complete contradiction to what he said during the trial.

In the interviews with Sassen, Eichmann admits that the Holocaust was carefully planned, and clarifies that he knew that many of the Jews that were sent at his directive to the camps were destined for extermination. He declares that he has no remorse about anything.

Arendt and others somehow were fooled by a combination of Eichmann’s lawyers’ defense of him at the trial, and his own demeanor on the stand. I’ve long been somewhat puzzled by all the attention paid to her views, but it’s always seemed to me that it has to do with the catchy phrase “banality of evil” rather than anything especially compelling about her arguments. I have thought for quite some time that what fooled her was “the banal-appearing facade that evil can sometimes wear.” That fooled her into thinking the facade was real, and that it was deeper than a facade.

As for my own views about evil, I’ve written two posts that are especially relevant, and I suggest you read them. The first is called “Understanding evil,” and it was first posted in 2007 and then again in 2019. The other is called “The ladder of evil,” and it was first posted in 2014 and then again in 2021. For a good discussion of Arendt and Eichmann and that “banality” quote, I recommend this essay by Thomas White, written in 2018.