You want range? I’ll give you range– and autotune?

The New Neo Posted on by

All parts are done by Foust:

However – I hear autotune. Do you? It doesn’t take away from Foust’s range if autotune is used – the range is real – but to me there’s something not right about the sound of his voice, something false, synthetic, and metallic. I listen to all videos with earphones now, so it increases the ability to hear details.

I’ve done a search about Foust and I see references to autotune for the group Home Free of which Foust is a member (for example here), but I’d like to know if they’re correct or just people guessing, as I am. Looking at him, I don’t see the emotion of the song, either. I see the focus on making beautiful sounds. I admire that bass of his, but I’m not moved by this in the least.

No autotune in this next video for that same first song. The Bee Gees never needed it or used it and this was recorded before it was invented anyway – shortly before, that is (1995). Autotune was first introduced the very next year, in 1996. The song was originally written in 1960 – I remember it well – by Carole King, and sung by The Shirelles. This later Bee Gees version from 1995 was part of a Carole King tribute and is one of the very few songs they ever sang that wasn’t written by the Bee Gees themselves:

Here’s the original from The Shirelles. A classic:

And here’s Carole King’s later live version in 1971, the same year her album “Tapestry” was released. It’s interesting to me that until then she had apparently been content to be a songwriter behind the scenes, and yet she has a wonderful voice with a unique quality that I find very appealing – that slight idiosyncratic “sob” in it. Needless to say, no autotune here:

Those Nazi analogies

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday there was a discussion in the comments about making any analogies to Nazism. Commenter “M J R” had this to say, for example:

I would agree with Stone [that the FBI has become Biden’s Gestapo], except I would not use Nazi-era language or allusions, as those allusions reek of hyperbole, and they tend to discredit otherwise salient points about what’s been happening in our USA.

I agree that it is always dangerous and sometimes counter-productive to make such comparisons. And yet, as I wrote in one of my replies to M J R, my attitude about Nazi comparisons is that they work insofar as they are comparisons to Nazis as an example of tyranny and how it works, including how it consolidates its power in the first place. Those comparisons are quite different from calling someone a Nazi. Nazism was one of the worst tyrannies, but some things about it were typical of and instructive about tyrannies in general, including lesser ones. Other things were particular to the particular awfulness of Nazism.

If we lose the ability to even refer to some of the techniques of the Nazis, we lose the ability to see some of the danger in going down certain roads.

So it is in that spirit that I offer the following information about the Gestapo, taken from its Wiki page. Make of it what you will:

Many of the Gestapo employees in the newly established offices were young and highly educated in a wide variety of academic fields and moreover, represented a new generation of National Socialist adherents, who were hard-working, efficient, and prepared to carry the Nazi state forward through the persecution of their political opponents…

The power of the Gestapo included the use of what was called, Schutzhaft—”protective custody”, a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings…

…[T]he Nazi regime sought to suppress any source of ideology other than its own, and set out to muzzle or crush the churches in the so-called Kirchenkampf. When Church leaders (clergy) voiced their misgiving about the euthanasia program and Nazi racial policies, Hitler intimated that he considered them “traitors to the people” and went so far as to call them “the destroyers of Germany”.

Demonizing whole groups of people makes it more and more possible to convince others that it’s fine to eliminate their rights and to ultimately go so far as to kill them without due process and even en masse.

I think also that many people have the misconception that the Gestapo worked to terrorize the people of German wholesale. But their aim was selective; they wanted to lull the rest into staying calm and relatively supportive [emphasis mine]:

While the total number of Gestapo officials was limited when contrasted against the represented populations, the average Volksgenosse (Nazi term for the “member of the German people”) was typically not under observation, so the statistical ratio between Gestapo officials and inhabitants is “largely worthless and of little significance” according to some recent scholars. As historian Eric Johnson remarked, “The Nazi terror was selective terror”, with its focus upon political opponents, ideological dissenters (clergy and religious organisations), career criminals, the Sinti and Roma population, handicapped persons, homosexuals and above all, upon the Jews. “Selective terror” by the Gestapo, as mentioned by Johnson, is also supported by historian Richard Evans who states that, “Violence and intimidation rarely touched the lives of most ordinary Germans. Denunciation was the exception, not the rule, as far as the behaviour of the vast majority of Germans was concerned.” The involvement of ordinary Germans in denunciations also needs to be put into perspective so as not to exonerate the Gestapo…The Gestapo’s effectiveness remained in the ability to “project” omnipotence…they co-opted the assistance of the German population by using denunciations to their advantage; proving in the end a powerful, ruthless and effective organ of terror under the Nazi regime that was seemingly everywhere. Lastly, the Gestapo’s effectiveness, while aided by denunciations and the watchful eye of ordinary Germans, was more the result of the co-ordination and co-operation amid the various police organs within Germany, the assistance of the SS, and the support provided by the various Nazi Party organisations; all of them together forming an organised persecution network.

Another interesting and depressing element was the cooperation of many citizens in occupied countries. For example:

In places like Denmark, there were some 550 uniformed Danes in Copenhagen working with the Gestapo, patrolling and terrorising the local population at the behest of their German overseers, many of whom were arrested after the war. Other Danish civilians, like in many places across Europe, acted as Gestapo informants but this should not be seen as wholehearted support for the Nazi program, as motives for cooperation varied. Whereas in France, the number of members in the Carlingue (French Gestapo) who worked on behalf of the Nazis was upwards of 30,000 to 32,000; they conducted operations nearly indistinguishable from their German equivalents.

It’s not that there was nothing unique about the Germans. There were indeed some characteristics peculiar to Germany. But every country has its uniqueness, and I believe that a great deal of what occurred in Germany during the Nazi era could have occurred in many other countries if accomplished with the same ruthless focus and attention to propaganda.

Is the United States immune? No. However, it does have certain characteristics that have so far made it less likely to happen here – such as the way our government and constitution are set up, for example, and certain highly individualistic cultural traditions here. But I think it’s very clear that we are not immune if those things are not robustly protected and defended.

Why these petitions fail: the Gascon recall and the Michigan Republican primary

The New Neo Posted on by

You may recall that in the Michigan governorship primary, five of the GOP primary contenders – including the frontrunners – were disqualified because of faulty petition signatures. I wrote a previous post about it in June, and I had planned a Part II but never got around to it. However, Part II was going to be about the fact that petition-gathering is a paid business subject to fraud, and that’s apparently what happened in Michigan. Whether that fraud was and is in part politically motivated, or simply motivated by financial greed and the lure of cutting corners, I don’t know. But there’s plenty of motivation to go around.

The Michigan fiasco involved firms hired by the candidates to do the signature-gathering, which is a normal practice. The gatherers are paid per signature, which is also normal. Turns out some of these people working for these unspecified firms were crooks, and gathered quite a few fraudulent signatures.

There never was any allegation that the GOP candidates who had the fraudulent signatures knew about it, much less ordered it. But they are considered responsible anyway, even though everyone knows they’re not going to personally verify the signatures. Who in the campaign was in charge of doing that intermediate work and checking the names against the voter rolls? Whoever it was, that person or people slipped up.

Much much more here. One of the disqualified candidates, Markey, had this to say:

Markey also noted that his campaign started collecting signatures early, paid $7 per signature while others paid $20, and determined independently that his signature validity rates were high before submitting the petitions to the state.

“You associated me with fraud. That’s a really, really big accusation,” Markey told the canvassing board and state Elections Director Jonathan Brater.

“This is why normal people do not run. Because I did everything I was supposed to do, I added extra quality controls and then you just assumed that I was like the rest,” Markey said.

Digging deeper, here’s an article on who or what might be behind this:

Shawn Wilmoth is one of several people now at the epicenter of an alleged fraudulent petition scheme that has disrupted the Republican campaign for governor…

“They (the records) say he was wanted for extradition by Arlington, VA for election fraud,” said Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido.

In Arlington County, Virginia, records show Wilmoth later pleaded guilty to election fraud and served 5 years probation…

…[O]ther campaigns impacted hired Wilmoth, too…

While some states require circulators be from that state, Michigan only requires they are U.S. citizens.

Two experts from the University of Michigan says the responsibility for preventing problems like this falls on campaigns, but Michigan’s system does not allow much time for corrections.

Again, you can find much much more information at the link. And there’s more here as well as here and here.

Which brings us to the Gascon recall petition, where essentially the same thing happened, only a little worse because it seems as though there was some condonation of the fraud by some of those wanting to recall Gascon. The players are not the same, although there’s this curious bit (it’s a long essay, and again I suggest you read or at least skim the whole thing):

However, screenshots from a private Facebook group administered by Mark Jacoby, owner of LTVD [which is one of the signature-gathering firms], show that he actively encouraged gatherers to leave California for Michigan, saying, “Michigan is where it’s at,” and, “It’s up to you to prove that when we get paid correctly and we’re able to make a fair living wage to support us and our families, we can get anything done!!! Then if a campaign is not willing to do that, they won’t get on the ballot!”

There are problems inherent in the entire signature-gathering-for-hire business, many of them described here, for example:

Banning paid signature gatherers was an idea that came about early in the initiative’s history, and was seen as a way to stop wealthy individuals or groups from buying their way onto the ballot. Ohio, South Dakota and Washington passed bans on paid signature gatherers in 1913 and 1914. Oregon passed a ban in 1935, Colorado in 1941, and Idaho and Nebraska in 1988. Until the 1980s, courts upheld bans on paid signature gatherers. That changed in 1988, when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Colorado’s ban in the Meyer vs. Grant, 486 U.S. 414 (1988) decision.

Several states have tried to ban payment per signature, but do permit payment on a salary or hourly basis. These restrictions have met with mixed review in the federal courts. Presently, seven states have such bans (Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Oregon) and five states have had them held unconstitutional (Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Ohio and Washington). Most recently, Colorado’s restriction was temporarily enjoined on June 11, 2010, awaiting the outcome of a trial.

Today, the vast majority of petition campaigns use paid circulators, who are paid between $1 and $3 per signature [that’s from around 2012, so the numbers are different today]. Very few campaigns attempt to qualify an initiative petition with volunteer circulators, and even fewer do so successfully. Paid drives, on the other hand, are much more successful. A campaign that has adequate funds to pay circulators has a nearly 100 percent chance of qualifying for the ballot in many states.

The increase in reliance on paid circulators has increased the cost of qualifying an initiative. In California, it now costs more than $1 million…

…The U.S. Supreme Court’s opinions on petition circulators have made the prevention of fraud in the signature gathering process very difficult for states. Since the 1988 Meyer vs. Grant decision invalidated state bans on paid signature gatherers, it has become more difficult to regulate the signature gathering process.

This is an important and apparently fairly widespread problem of which I was previously unaware.

Realclearinvestigations ties it all together: the Russiagate agents and the MAL search agents are one and the same

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a summary of the links between the Russiagate crowd and the MAL search crowd. An excerpt:

The FBI division overseeing the investigation of former President Trump’s handling of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago residence is also a focus of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation of the bureau’s alleged abuses of power and political bias during its years-long Russiagate probe of Trump.

The law of parsimony.

More:

Although the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, Peter Strzok, was fired after the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of his team remain working in the counterintelligence unit, the sources say, even though they are under active investigation by both Durham and the bureau’s disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility. The FBI declined to respond to questions about any role they may be taking in the Mar-a-Lago case.

In addition, a key member of the Crossfire team – Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten – has continued to be involved in politically sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden, according to recent correspondence between the Senate Judiciary Committee and FBI Director Christopher Wray. FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by labeling it Russian “disinformation,” an assessment that caused investigative activity to cease.

Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

The article goes on to say that the only thing Wray has blocked this group from doing is to write FISA applications. But the MAL case wouldn’t involve FISA, as far as we know.

“It is a disgrace that Auten is still even employed by the bureau,” said 27-year FBI veteran Michael Biasello. “I would substitute other analysts and agents.”

You would, Mr.Biasello; I would – but we’re not in charge, are we? And those in charge seem to have different standards and different goals. Clearly, from his demeanor and answers in his recent Congressional hearing, Christopher Wray doesn’t feel the need to answer to anyone other than the Biden administration.

The article goes on to list other people involved in both investigations, all of whom are DC-based. It concludes this way:

Former FBI counterintelligence official and lawyer Mark Wauck said he is troubled by signs that the same cast of characters from the Russiagate scandal appears to be involved in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.

“If these people, who were part of a major hoax that involved criminal activity and displays of bias and seriously flawed judgment, are still involved, then that’s a major scandal,” he said in an interview.

But if a major scandal falls in the forest and the MSM doesn’t report it, does it make a sound that anyone except those on the right will hear? Of course not – at least, that’s what previous experience tells us.

Many Democrats could believe every word in that article and not care, or even applaud the situation, because they want Trump disgraced and imprisoned and they could not care less how it’s accomplished as long as it’s accomplished.

But among those why might be uneasy if they came to understand what’s been happening, precious few will ever read that article or any others like it. And if somehow they did – let’s says you forwarded it to them and they actually did read it – they would almost certainly dismiss it. The sources aren’t named, for example – which wouldn’t trouble them if it were an anti-Trump article and the same thing were the case. They are unaware of how often unnamed sources speaking to the right have later been proven correct, as compared to those speaking to the left. In general, they would probably put the article on a par with the sort of thing that purports to prove that NASA never sent anyone to the moon.

And let’s not forget the Iran deal

The New Neo Posted on by

The Biden administration certainly hasn’t forgotten [emphasis mine]:

Admittedly, the [Iranian] regime has more than once pumped the brakes on nuclear diplomacy. This intransigence signaled that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, may not have ever wanted an agreement at all. Rather, he may seek to prolong talks to advance the regime’s nuclear program while avoiding harsh decisions by the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Still, recent news out of Vienna suggests a deal may be imminent, with even more Western concessions.

If at first you don’t succeed in getting a terrible nuclear deal, try try again.

The article goes on to summarize the last couple of decades of Iranian efforts to get nuclear weapons, and the negotiations around that. Here’s a portion of that discussion. You probably recall a lot of this, but read it if your memory could use some refreshing [emphasis mine]:

However, while one American team was building trust with Israel, secret negotiations between the United States and Iran began in Oman in 2012. The talks were led by figures now holding key positions in the Biden administration: National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and CIA Director William Burns, then serving as the State Department’s director of policy planning and deputy secretary of state, respectively. These secret negotiation laid the foundation for both the 2013 interim agreement, formally known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), and the 2015 final agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

In exchange for minimal nuclear concessions, the JPOA granted Iran — for the first time — a de facto authorization to enrich uranium, contravening multiple Security Council resolutions. This concession directly reneged on the Obama administration’s pledge to Israel. The agreement, designed to last six months, lasted two years as Iran and world powers repeatedly extended talks past self-imposed deadlines. The deal effectively rewarded Tehran with cash every month simply for negotiating. Billions of dollars in sanctions relief injected new life into Iran’s sanctions-battered economy.

Betrayal of Israel, concessions and payments to Iran. Then, of course, Trump the Terrible ended all that. But now Biden and company are desperate to go back to those glory days of The Deal:

Israel’s shadow war [against Iran] notwithstanding, the [Iranian] regime’s nuclear advances have rendered a return to the old agreement futile. Iran’s nuclear progress since 2015, and particularly since Biden’s election, is beyond the point of containment. This underscores why the original deal was a mistake. The data disclosed by the nuclear archive, as well as new information obtained by IAEA inspectors since 2015, show that the JCPOA failed to account for the full range of Iranian nuclear activities, including activities that preceded the agreement…

The decision to close the PMD investigation was among the West’s biggest mistakes. Today, the regime insists this issue is not open for discussion. Regime negotiators now demand that all IAEA investigations — new and old — be closed or written off. This is reportedly one of the remaining sticking points in Vienna.

Regardless of the terms of any deal that is reached, the regime in Iran is much closer to a bomb than previously estimated. The IAEA has only recently reached this conclusion, thanks largely to Israeli evidence. The nuclear watchdog appears incapable of fulfilling its mandate independently. This alone raises troubling questions about the feasibility of a sustainable agreement, which would require reliable monitoring and verification.

As far as I can tell, the Iranians are progressing quite nicely without a deal. The question of why Obama and now the Biden administration want one so badly has been debated here and elsewhere for over a decade, but the bottom line is that they do, and they are willing to (and already have) give up a lot to get one.

More:

The Iranian nuclear strategy appears to be based on four assumptions. The first is that the United States, under its current leadership, lacks the will to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. This view has yielded a second — and erroneous — belief that Israel lacks sufficient capabilities to strike Iran’s nuclear program and will not attack without American support. Third, the Islamic Republic believes its economy can withstand Washington’s current economic pressure, which is significantly weaker than the sanctions of past administrations. And finally, the regime believes it faces no meaningful internal threats to its survival. These four views explain why Tehran has not exhibited any flexibility at the negotiating table.

I have long thought that stopping Iran will be up to Israel. That country’s current leadership is nearly as terrible as ours, but that may be due for a change after the election scheduled to take place there in November. For now [emphasis mine]:

With negotiations now at a pivotal moment, Jerusalem’s primary concern is that Washington will agree to a “JCPOA-minus.” The White House is reportedly willing to offer sanctions relief that goes far beyond the JCPOA’s concessions. In particular, the Biden team has offered to lift sanctions on thousands of individuals and entities, including Iranian banks, the supreme leader, and his inner circle. Moreover, U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley and his team, together with some EU high officials, have explored ways to comply with the Iranian demand to remove IRGC-related entities from the FTO list despite promises from the White House to the contrary.

Offering additional concessions to the regime is irresponsible, particularly amidst a spate of regime-inspired attacks and plots on American soil.

Since when did that ever stop them?

A great deal more at the link, including what I consider an unrealistic proposal for a bipartisan Congressional group to demand something better from the Biden administration. I don’t see that more than a sprinkling of Democrats would sign on, if that.

Rasmussen poll on attitudes towards the FBI

The New Neo Posted on by

If you’re still interested in polls and think they have any validity at all, here’s a recent one about attitudes towards the FBI. I think the astounding thing is that so many people still do have a favorable view of the agency:

A new national telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports finds that 44% of Likely U.S. voters say the FBI raid on Trump’s Florida home made them trust the FBI less, compared to 29% who say it made them trust the bureau more…

Fifty percent (50%) of voters have a favorable impression of the FBI, including 26% who have a Very Favorable view of the bureau. Forty-six percent (46%) now view the FBI unfavorably, including 29% who have a Very Unfavorable impression of the bureau.

But what is most interesting to me is this:

Roger Stone, an adviser to former President Donald Trump, has said there is “a group of politicized thugs at the top of the FBI who are using the FBI … as Joe Biden‘s personal Gestapo.” A majority (53%) of voters now agree with Stone’s statement – up from 46% in December – including 34% who Strongly Agree. Thirty-six percent (36%) disagree with the quote from Stone, including 26% who Strongly Disagree.

Wouldn’t that suggest that not all the people who think the FBI is Biden’s Gestapo disapprove of that situation?

The Webb: more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy

The New Neo Posted on by

The eagerly-awaited Webb photographs present a conundrum concerning a large and seemingly rather “settled” question in cosmology, the Big Bang. That article is by physicist Eric J. Lerner, who already was on record as a Big Bang doubter (does that make him a “Big Bang denier“?), but here’s what he has to say:

To everyone who sees them, the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images of the cosmos are beautifully awe-inspiring. But to most professional astronomers and cosmologists, they are also extremely surprising — not at all what was predicted by theory. In the flood of technical astronomical papers published online since July 12, the authors report again and again that the images show surprisingly many galaxies, galaxies that are surprisingly smooth, surprisingly small and surprisingly old. Lots of surprises, and not necessarily pleasant ones. One paper’s title begins with the candid exclamation: “Panic!”

Why do the JWST’s images inspire panic among cosmologists? And what theory’s predictions are they contradicting? The papers don’t actually say. The truth that these papers don’t report is that the hypothesis that the JWST’s images are blatantly and repeatedly contradicting is the Big Bang Hypothesis that the universe began 14 billion years ago in an incredibly hot, dense state and has been expanding ever since.

What does it mean? I certainly don’t know, but it’s fascinating. I’m no physicist (duh!), but I’ve long followed cosmology to the extent of my ability to understand it, which is not a huge extent. But I’ve long wondered whether the Big Bang theory would someday be upended by something else, perhaps a return to ye olde Steady State, somewhat modified, or even something as-yet-undreamt-of by all of us Horatios.

NOTE: Here’s some more background, from about a month ago. And here’s an article discussing some of the historical disagreement with the Big Bang theory. I notice that a festival scheduled for a month from now in London, where Lerner will be speaking, is entitled “HowTheLightGetsIn.” Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem chorus,” anyone?:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

And sure enough, the HowTheLightGetsIn get-together is billed as a “THE WORLD’S LARGEST MUSIC AND PHILOSOPHY FESTIVAL.” Then again, how many music and philosophy festivals are there?

Announcement

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m still doing some work on the website that should continue for the next couple of weeks. I hope to manage it and make some technical improvements without any disruption of the blog while it’s happening. But if for some reason there’s any significant time that the blog is down, please go to my very old site neo-neocon.blogspot.com for updates on what’s going on. Thanks!

The drumming-up of hatred against Republicans is escalating

The New Neo Posted on by

The rhetoric from the left is becoming ever more dangerous and inflammatory. And it’s the left that says “words are violence” – if so, what shall we call this?:

Gen. Michael Hayden, the former head of the CIA and NSA, believes that you, dear readers, are more dangerous than ISIS, Communist China, and N. Korea — if you’re a Republican, that is. He said so explicitly in a retweet of a comment from Edward Luce, the blue-check assistant editor of the Financial Times, who wrote, “I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close.”

Let me add that Hayden and Luce are not the sort of people who used to be thought of as the far left – no radical long-haired hippies they, nor do they even resemble an old-fashioned Bernie Sanders type leftist, which makes them even more dangerous. Hayden is a 77-year-old retired 4-star US general who has the following resume:

…[F]ormer Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Hayden currently co-chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Electric Grid Cyber Security Initiative. In 2017, Hayden became a national security analyst for CNN.

He was Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) from 1999 to 2005. During his tenure as director, he oversaw the controversial NSA surveillance of technological communications between persons in the United States and alleged foreign terrorist groups, which resulted in the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy.

On April 21, 2005, then Lt. Gen Hayden, was confirmed by the United States Senate as the first Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and awarded his fourth star-making him “the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the armed forces”…

On May 8, 2006, Hayden was nominated for the position of Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

A George Bush appointee who doesn’t seem to have been very concerned with protecting US citizens from federal surveillance, he backed Biden in 2020.

As for Luce, he’s a mere 54, a blue-blooded Brit who has been a journalist for his working career – for example, for the leftist Guardian – but whose family heritage is strongly conservative:

Luce is the son of Rose Helen (née Nicholson) and Richard Luce, Baron Luce. His father is the former Lord Chamberlain to the Queen (2000 to 2006), former Governor of Gibraltar, a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) (1971 to 1992), government minister, and a crossbench member of the House of Lords. His paternal grandfather is Sir William Luce, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Aden, Political Resident in the Gulf and Special Representative to the Foreign Secretary (Lord Home) for Gulf Affairs. His great-uncle is admiral Sir David Luce, First Sea Lord (1963–1966). His maternal great-grandfather is vice-admiral Sir Trevylyan Napier, who was the Commander-in-Chief, America and West Indies Station (1919–1920).

And the now-venerable (aged 77) James Carville, who always had a big mouth, jumps right in:

“People that believe that the election was stolen and have a right to storm the Capitol, which is a substantial number of people in the Republican Party, are evil. Our people are kind of silly. Their people are actually evil. Racism is evil. Alright. Misogyny is evil…yet the media is addicted to both-sidesism.”

…The problem the Republican Party has is they got really stupid people that vote in their primaries. And when you have that, you’re going to get in – really stupid people demand to have really stupid leaders. And that’s where the Republican Party is now. It’s not, you know, not all of it. There’s obviously some very high quality, you know, smart, patriotic Republicans. But they’re not in the majority. And they will tell you that themselves.”

Like Liz Cheney, no doubt.

If I retained the capacity to be shocked by this sort of thing – and I’m not so sure that I do – this would be highly shocking. These people have traditional credentials and, like so many others, seem to have swallowed not only the “Republicans are evil” line, but have no hesitation to say it right out in the open. The sentiment is now mainstream and non-controversial. The Hayden/Luce statement was posted on Twitter, by the way, which seems to have zero trouble with “hate speech” of the anti-right variety.

When Trump said that “they’re not after me, they’re after you, I’m just in the way,” he was completely correct. And it appears to be moving at warp speed.

I think this is happening for three reasons. The first is that leftism recently reached critical mass, a result of the decades-long leftward drift of the media and the educational system, as well as of other major institutions. The second is the amplification and dissemination afforded by the internet and especially by social media. And the third is that the left senses the growing popularity of anti-left sentiment, and they believe the best way to combat it is to demonize it.

Daniel Pipes on warning Rushdie

The New Neo Posted on by

Daniel Pipes gets to say “I told you so” to Rushdie.

I wondered about the seeming lack of security around Rushdie that enabled his attacker to get so close to him. Scott Johnson has an interview with Daniel Pipes at Powerline that sheds some light on this:

I kept warning him, six times in all between 1990 and 2007, to take the death edict seriously and not to fool himself into thinking he was safe just because he had not yet been attacked. He not only ignored me but prompted his friend, the writer Christopher Hitchens, to ridicule me…

Rushdie chose to live in the United States and he refused security when it was offered him…

And yet it’s also understandable that Rushdie might be strongly motivated to “fool himself” and let down his guard. He had lived in virtual isolation for ten years after the edict was issued thirty-three years ago. To have gone on like that indefinitely would have been a burden so enormous that he might well want to take his chances. However, some sort of compromise involving major security would have seemed reasonable.

Looking at the content of the piece that in the interview was linked on the words “I kept warning him,” I see that Pipes has documented those warnings that he issued to Rushdie over the many long years since the edict against Rushdie’s life was first issued. Pipes was remarkably consistent in saying, in no uncertain terms, that the order to kill Rushdie would last as long as Rushdie lived and that Rushdie should continue to take it very very seriously and act accordingly.

And some of Rushdie’s statements, quoted there, definitely indicate that he wanted as little security as possible. For example, this from 2021:

May 15, 2021 update: Rushdie acknowledged his tendency to fantasy in an interview: “It’s true, I am stupidly optimistic, and I think it did get me through those bad years, because I believed there would be a happy ending, when very few people did believe it.”

It makes psychological sense, as I said earlier. Who can continue to live in such a highly restricted way, when every passing year indicates the danger may be past? Someone like Pipes must have sounded like Poe’s gloomy Raven to Rushdie, perched above the door and muttering incessant words of gloom.

It seems that Rushdie will survive the very serious attempt on his life that occurred the other day, although with permanent problems such as the loss of an eye. I wonder whether he will finally agree to heightened security after this ordeal.

[NOTE: By the way, corny cliche though it has become, that poem “The Raven” still gives me a cold chill when I read it. What a tour de force.]