Watch out for Captain Hook

The New Neo Posted on by

But not for the usual reasons.

For this reason:

Disney execs worried that Tinker Bell and Captain Hook were “potentially problematic” during their review of content headed to the new Disney+ streaming service, the New York Times reports…

…[T]hey reportedly fretted over Captain Hook because [he] has a disability but likes to do villainous things, and that could be considered by some to be discriminatory.

But I thought that entire issue had already been addressed in the non-Disney musical “Peter Pan,” which I saw with great delight as a very young child in a real live theater – perhaps the first one I ever attended. I was fortunate enough to see the greatest Captain Hook ever, Cyril Ritchard. This Hook celebrates his awfulness, and is proud of being the “slimiest” and “creepiest.” So quick – before someone bans him, too:

ADDENDUM: The Florida Senate has passed a law to end Disney’s special tax privileges. It is expected to clear the House as well.]

Doxxer Taylor Lorenz thinks she’s the real victim

The New Neo Posted on by

I haven’t followed this story and before today probably hadn’t even heard of Taylor Lorenz. But it’s quite a tale. This is what the WaPo has descended to (it’s not the only pernicious thing the WaPo has descended to, not by a longshot, but it’s pretty awful). The tweets at that link are by Glenn Greenwald, but here are a few excerpts:

F****** unbelievable: @TaylorLorenz, after sobbing on national TV 2 weeks ago, claiming she’s the victim of “harassment,” showed up at the house of the relatives of the citizen behind @libsoftiktok and badgered them, according to @libsoftiktok

The bullies claim to be bullied.

What’s the new journalistic principle being applied? Is it now permissible for journalists to investigate and expose the real identity of any anonymous social media user? Or is it just permissible if the anonymous social media user has a certain kind of politics?

Yes, liberals worship giant media corporations and think their resources shouldn’t be used against powerful institutions like the CIA or NSA or Pentagon but against private, anonymous citizens with bad politics. That’s what they think “journalism” is.

More here:

Lorenz, the former New York Times journalist [presently with the WaPo] who earlier this month broke down in tears on MSNBC while recounting “harassment” she has experienced online, published an article on Tuesday revealing the identity of the social media user…

In response to criticism that she targeted a private citizen who wished to remain anonymous, Lorenz tweeted that the social media user “isn’t just some average woman with a social media account” but is instead a “powerful influencer operating a massively impactful right wing media shaping discourse around LGBTQ+ rights.”…

In a segment that aired April 1 on MSNBC’s Meet the Press Daily, Lorenz revealed that online harassment targeting her and her family caused her to experience “severe PTSD” and contemplate suicide in the recent past.

MSNBC’s segment detailed how Fox News host Tucker Carlson ripped Lorenz in March 2021 for calling for an end to online harassment.

At the time, Lorenz, then a reporter for the New York Times, said she had endured a “smear campaign” that had “destroyed her life.”

Targeting private citizens, as well as sometimes doxxing them, is the new m.o. of the MSM and of the left. I’m trying to recall when this sort of thing started, and it seems to me that – like so many things that are bad – it began in 2008 during the Obama campaign. Wasn’t the first victim Joe the Plumber? At least, that’s my recollection.

It spread to involve minors with the Nick Sandmann incident, and was incredibly vicious and obviously mendacious to anyone who spent even a small amount of time researching the facts. The demonization and exposure of a 16-year-old minding his own business was extraordinary, and included “journalists”. Ultimately, the WaPo paid Sandmann money in a defamation suit settlement, but it apparently wasn’t enough money to hurt them very much.

ADDENDUM: Here’s what Libs of Tik Tok does, by the way:

The account “Libs of TikTok” is a treasure trove of content that gathers and posts bizarre videos from radical leftists and protected groups that fall under their intersectional umbrella. They don’t edit it in any way, they just rip and post. The most they add is a little blurb for the tweet.

They don’t need to add anything, anyway. The content speaks for itself…

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the left is horrified by its own ideas being exposed to the world in such a way, and so it set out to shoot the messenger. Twitter suspended it for no legitimate reason, leading many to surmise that the real reason was that it was effective at helping the left expose themselves.

The airline mask mandate appears to be over

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m still out west, so this affects me personally because in a little while I’m due to return home. I flew out on a trip that for various reasons (mostly a long delay in the airport) took about 18 hours, and had to wear a mask the entire time.

One of the ways I dealt with it on the trip out here was to sip my club soda very very slowly, maskless. No one ever bothered me about it.

My grandchildren have colds, and I bet I’ll get one from them. I know it’s colds they have and not COVID, because the whole family already had COVID back in February – fortunately, without any serious complications. So I’m not even sure yet what I’ll do on the way home. But it’s great to have the choice.

Now it seems the Biden administration has given up on reinstating the mask mandate for public transportation, after a judge declared that it exceeded federal powers:

On Monday, a federal judge struck down the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) federal mask mandate for public transportation.

U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle ruled that the mandate “exceeded the CDC’s statutory authority, improperly invoked the good cause exception to notice and comment rulemaking, and failed to adequately explain its decisions,” and wrote, “the Court declares unlawful and vacates the Mask Mandate.”…

“The agencies are reviewing the decision and assessing potential next steps,” an administration official said in a statement. “In the meantime, today’s court decision means CDC’s public transportation masking order is not in effect at this time. Therefore, TSA will not enforce its Security Directives and Emergency Amendment requiring mask use on public transportation and transportation hubs at this time. CDC recommends that people continue to wear masks in indoor public transportation settings.”

What a long strange masked trip it’s been – so far.

On Ukraine: being wrong over and over doesn’t seem to stop Colonel Macgregor

The New Neo Posted on by

In the comments recently, Geoffrey Britain posted a link to an April 17th pronouncement by Colonal Douglas Macgregor that is entitled “Col. Douglas MacGregor on Ukraine: ‘We’re in the final phase of this war’”. Here’s an excerpt:

Former U.S. Army Colonel Douglas MacGregor believes the war in Ukraine has reached its “final phase.” MacGregor stated that tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops are surrounded in trenches dug around the Donbas region. Without food, ammunition or a means to retreat, he expects these pockets to collapse over the next few weeks.

An interview follows in which Macgregor spends most of his time criticizing the Biden administration. I concur in criticizing it, perhaps even more harshly than Macgregor. The colonel also thinks it “nonsensical” that Russia would ever use nuclear weapons. Funny thing, but they keep talking about it quite seriously, although I suppose Macgregor can read their minds.

And of course, perhaps Macgregor is correct that the Ukrainians are about to be overwhelmed militarily by the Russians. I don’t think most people who support the Ukrainians have ever believed that Russia doesn’t hold the upper hand in terms of numbers and might win for that reason, if Russia is willing to sacrifice enough blood and treasure. But it’s by no means a foregone conclusion, and the timing is very uncertain.

For that last point, I bring you the evidence of the previous pronouncements of none other than – Colonel Macgregor himself. Nor is Macgregor new to the business of opining on Russia and Ukraine. For quite some time, actually, Colonel Macgregor has been all for Russia taking over Ukraine. See this:

In 2014, Macgregor went on Russian state-owned RT to express his opposition to U.S. intervention in the Kosovo War.

In 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea and was engaged in a conflict with Ukraine over its eastern parts, Macgregor appeared on Russian state-owned network RT where he called for the annexation of the Donbas and said residents of the region “are in fact Russians, not Ukrainians, and at the same time, you have Ukrainians in the west and in the north, who are not Russians.”

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Macgregor appeared on three Fox News programs to speak in support of Russia’s actions. Russian state television broadcast excerpts of Macgregor’s appearances, which included a characterization of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “puppet,” that Russian forces had been “too gentle” in the early days of the invasion and that Russian president Vladimir Putin was being “demonized” by the United States and NATO. Macgregor said he believed Russia should be allowed to seize whatever parts of Ukraine it wanted.

Here’s what Macfregor said a full month ago, in mid-March:

Ret. United States Army Col. Douglas Macgregor declared Ukraine has lost the war with Russia and that the country has been “grounded to bits.”…

…In fact last month [that would be in February shortly after the invasion], Macgregor said the war was basically over before Ukrainians mounted a spirited if not inspired defense that continues to this day.

At that same point in mid-March, Macgregor also said this:

“The war is really over for the Ukrainians,” Macgregor continued. “They have been grounded to bits. There’s no question about that despite what we report on our mainstream media.

Ah, but now – NOW – Macgregor means it: “we’re really in the final phase of the war.”

Why am I harping on Macgregor? It’s not really about him, and at any rate he’s a very minor figure. It’s about holding people accountable for past predictions and their truth or falsehood, and whether we should pay much attention to their predictions about the future. Macgregor is hardly the only TV talking head who is consistently wrong (and/or biased) who keeps on going and going like the Energizer bunny, and who doesn’t seem to be called on his past errors. Their number is legion.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) I know someone who got this food allergy from a tick bite. It sounded so unlikely as a phenomenon, but apparently it’s quite real:

The ticks can pick up the Alpha-gal carbohydrate from a previous mammalian host and transfer the sugar to humans through saliva during a bite or feeding. The transfer can take hours or up to a day, according to the CDC.

Some people’s immune systems release antibodies to combat the foreign substances such as alpha-gal carbohydrates. As with Thomas, each time she eats meat, milk or gelatin, those antibodies attack and can cause hives, swelling, headaches and anaphylaxis. She has passed out before on the way to the hospital and had to call an ambulance after having trouble breathing because her throat was swelling.

Sufferers get tested periodically, and often after a couple of years the allergy wears off and they can eat meat again. If they dare to.

(2) The CIA knew all along:

Special Counsel John Durham asserted in a court filing Friday that the CIA concluded data from Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann alleging coordination between Donald Trump and Russia was “not technically plausible” and was “user-created.”

But hey, why let the truth get in the way of an extremely useful narrative?

(3) Victor Davis Hanson talks about nuke talk over Ukraine:

Ukraine nuke talk spins off into lots of other places. Nuclear North Korea is resuming its ballistic missile launches to intimidate non-nuclear South Korea and Japan. China is rapidly expanding its nuclear stockpiles and now talks openly of ending a free Taiwan, warning Taiwan’s friends and allies to keep out — or else.

Iran promises to become nuclear soon. Nuclear Russia has assumed the role of interlocutor of all discussions to restart a new nuclear “Iran deal.”

Russia controls Syrian airspace. In theory, Putin could stop nuclear Israel either from replying to terrorist attacks emanating from Syria, or from staging a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear bomb facilities.

But it was all worth it to get rid of Trump, right?

(4) About the Washington DC jury pool the January 6th defendants face:

Lawyers for two defendants, in a motion last week to move their trials out of DC, cited a poll by Inlux Research, which found nearly 75% of DC residents would find Jan. 6 defendants guilty, and more than 40% said the Capitol riot was “racially motivated.”As bad as the storming of the Capitol was, it had nothing to do with race, just anger at what Trump supporters believed was an unfair election.

Almost three quarters of DC residents believe that anyone inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, should be convicted of insurrection…

DC is an outlier when it came to American attitudes to Jan. 6, says the motion: “Unlike D.C. residents, most Americans . . . believe that J6 was a very large protest that got out of hand and turned into a riot.”

Speaking of January 6th, here’s a court filing that claims there were 20 federal assets present for the January 6th Capitol incursion. I wonder who they were and what roles they played.

(5) A very early Christian church found in Israel is about to be opened to the public [hat tip: AesopFan]:

A third-century church that experts believe is the first in the world will be open to the public starting this summer after the prison on top of the site is relocated.

About a 20-minute drive south from Nazareth, Megiddo prison is located on top of the church and the first known mosaic dedicated to Jesus…

“There was an early Christian community here way before Christianity became the official religion,” he said. “Through the excavations, we learned about all the connections between Samaritans, Jews, pagans, Christians, soldiers and civilians: It is a microcosm.”

A current sticking point of the Iran deal (also, how the Deal and the Ukraine War intersect)

The New Neo Posted on by

We still don’t know for certain what’s going on with the Biden administration’s Iran Deal negotiations. One thing we do know, however, is that we heard recently that the deal was a day or two from completion, and that was more than a couple of days ago. Yet there’s still no final deal.

Another thing we know is that Obama’s Iran Deal had bipartisan opposition, and yet it was implemented, whereas so far the Biden era deal seems to have even more opposition. And yet it also appears to still be going forward.

We also know that Trump undid the Obama deal, something he was able to accomplish because it only had the force of an agreement between the Obama administration and Iran’s leaders rather than having been supported by Congress. So it would make sense that Iran’s leaders, remembering that experience, might be wary of the latest deal which could be subject to a similar fate if the GOP takes control next.

That’s the peril of an agreement that goes against the wishes of most of the American public. You also might call the problem Trump’s Revenge.

Here’s a report on what Iran is reportedly asking of the US in order to fix the problem. It’s quite something:

…Iranian officials from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on down are demanding “inherent guarantees” from the United States to ensure the latest version of the Iran deal doesn’t go the way of Obama’s version, which was junked by Donald Trump in 2018.

While U.S. government officials I have spoken to provided differing details of the “inherent guarantees” Iran is seeking, it appears they would be triggered if the United States reimposes sanctions. On the nuclear side, a semi-official Iranian government site reported that one such guarantee would allow Iran to rapidly reconstitute its ability to enrich nuclear material to the 60% purity level by keeping its advanced nuclear centrifuges inside the country. According to the same report, the highly enriched nuclear material Iran has generated in excess of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)’s limits could also be kept inside the country instead of being shipped overseas. An alternate version of this guarantee would allow excess material to be held by Russia, which would return it to Iran in the event of certain American sanctions.

According to remarks made last month by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the issue of guarantees on the economic side was one of two remaining issues in negotiations, alongside the Iranian demand for the removal of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Both Iran and Russia wanted guarantees from the United States that any economic contracts exempted from sanctions under the deal would remain immune under a subsequent administration.

It’s certainly possible that the Biden administration would love to oblige Iran in order to get their fabulous wonderful all-important Iran Deal accomplished. But I’m not aware of any mechanism by which they could tie the hands of a future GOP president on the matter, much as they might like to do so.

And then there’s Congress:

Because the U.S. negotiators are unable to provide such a guarantee, the Iranians are said to be seeking some form of economic compensation to be held in trust by a third party that would be paid to Iran in the event that U.S. sanctions are reimposed. In other words, the United States would pay into a giant trust fund to protect the regime from future sanctions presumably triggered by Iran’s own malignant behavior. One U.S. government official close to the negotiations told me they doubted the demand would ever be accepted or could even be fashioned in the first place in any way that wouldn’t cause even more Democrats to jump ship and oppose the deal…

In recent conversations with a number of Senate and House offices, it became clear that Republicans in the legislative branch are ready to flex their institutional muscles to shatter any deal that is reached, and will work to bring the Iranian regime’s economy back under sanctions should Biden lift them. Much has been written about Congress’ potential use of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) to prevent any deal from lifting sanctions in the first place. Forcing a vote on the deal would show the Iranians just how deep congressional opposition goes, but the measure would be hard-pressed to overcome Biden’s veto.

While it would take a Republican in the White House again to officially cease participation in the new deal and fully return to a campaign of maximum economic and diplomatic pressure, it would only take Republican control of one chamber of Congress to dismantle a fledgling deal next year—which is precisely what top Republicans are planning to do. What follows is a look at the weak points in the new Iran deal’s construction, and how its opponents in Congress are planning to exploit them in order to destroy whatever agreement Malley and the Iranians have struck.

I suggest you read the whole thing for the details.

You may cynically say, “oh, it’s all just theater; the GOP will never do it.” I think the Republicans are serious about this, though, because these measures Iran is demanding would be so deeply unpopular. I also think the GOP would be able to get quite a few Democrats on board.

[NOTE: Two more articles on the current situation: this one from Melanie Phillips, and this one from Lee Smith. From the latter, which explicitly connects many dots between the Iran Deal and Putin’s attempts to take over Ukraine:

Because keeping Assad in power was an Iranian strategic necessity, the equation circa mid-2014 was clear to everyone involved: no Russia, no Iran deal. When Putin bit off Crimea and chunks of Donbas, Obama barely blinked an eye.

When Putin again escalated the number of Russian ground forces in Syria shortly after the JCPOA was struck, Obama administration officials celebrated Putin as America’s new partner in the fight against terror—that is, the war to defend Iranian interests in the eastern Mediterranean. If Iran couldn’t protect its “equities” in Syria on its own, then Russia could protect them, with American help.

It was only natural that the same people who relied on Russia to protect the Iran deal the first time around knew they could count on Putin once again when it came time for the United States to reenter the JCPOA. In December 2021, Putin and Biden aides met in Vienna to coordinate their negotiating postures over the Iran deal. Biden and Putin then discussed their arrangements together directly in a video summit. “Russia is an important partner in these talks,” a State Department spokesperson told the press in January. “We engage very constructively with Russia … on a mutual return to the JCPOA.”…

In the context of America’s use of Putin to negotiate and guarantee Obama’s “legacy” foreign policy initiative, it’s not hard to see the logic behind Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine when he did: The Russian leader knew that he had America over a barrel…

In January, Biden effectively signed off on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine—and the subsequent instability in the energy market—by signaling that a “minor incursion” into Ukraine would be overlooked by the White House.

Sure, Biden talked tough about imposing sanctions on Russia and called out Putin for his fiendish actions, but the Russians knew that his words were as hollow as Obama’s meaningless sanctions over Crimea.

Interesting, no?]

The Iran Deal – still pending

The New Neo Posted on by

From Caroline Glick:

Last week, the McLaughlin polling group published the results of a survey regarding Iran and the results leave no question about where the American people stand on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. A large majority of Americans strongly opposes the administration’s appeasement policies. 76 percent of Americans support escalating the nuclear sanctions against Iran. Only 14 percent support the administration’s intention to weaken them. Indeed, when asked directly about whether or not to weaken sanctions, 69 percent of Americans said not to. Instead, a plurality of 45 percent of Americans think the U.S. should attack Iran’s nuclear installations if sanctions fail to stop Iran’s nuclear operations.

As for the nuclear deal itself, 63 percent of Americans believe that the nuclear deal is a graver threat to U.S. national security than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

And yet the Biden administration is pursuing this terrible deal, just as the Obama administration did when Biden was vice president. They simply do not care what the public thinks, and they certainly are aware of what the public thinks. Likewise, even members of their own party have voiced reservations about the deal. They are worried about the midterms, and rightly so. The Biden administration doesn’t seem very concerned – or at all concerned – about that, either. That’s how important this Iran Deal is to them.

Glick describes the coalition of Israel-supporters in the US who oppose the deal:

The majority pro-Israel camp is comprised of many factions. The two most important ones are national security hawks and faith-based communities, particularly Evangelical Christians…As a nation who fights its own wars, and whose enemies are also America’s enemies, national security hawks recognize that the stronger Israel is, the more secure U.S. interests in the Middle East are.

Faith based voters and communities base their support for Israel first and foremost on their belief that the Jews are God’s chosen people and that the reborn Jewish state is proof that God’s covenant is eternal.

Those may be the two “most important” camps, according to Glick, but I would add that many Americans who don’t fit either of those two descriptions also support Israel, because they recognize it as a functioning democracy struggling to exist in a rough neighborhood, and they are also well aware of the lengthy and terrible history of anti-Semitism as well as the Holocaust.

Glick goes on to describe the anti-Israel camp:

…[I]ts factions can be roughly divided into three groups – hard right isolationists and white nationalists; progressives, and Arabists…

…[O]ver the past generation, progressives have taken over the institutions of the Democrat Party. They have become the dominant faction in the party and they control the Biden administration’s policies.

…The Arabist view posits that U.S. support for Israel undermines U.S. ties with the Arab world. Consequently, Israel is a burden, rather than an asset for the U.S. Arabists argue that U.S. ties with Israel should be downgraded.

Over the past decade, the Arabist camp has been weakened because its key regional anchor, Saudi Arabia has abandoned its hostility with Israel.

And yet, as Glick also points out, a revised Arabist point of view is strong in the Biden administration:

Tellingly, U.S. Arabists have not abandoned their anti-Israel position. Instead, they have turned on the Saudis and the UAE and now rely for justification on Iran’s closest Arab partner Qatar – itself a prolific supporter and financier of terror groups from ISIS to Hamas — and on Iran itself. It is hard to ignore that in their anti-Arab policies, the Arabists among the U.S. foreign policy elite expose a darker motive for their strident opposition to the U.S.-Israel alliance.

As for Israel, Glick describes a pro-US-alliance faction that is fairly straightforward in its strategy of appealing to the pro-US majority:

The first camp, which we can call the American camp, recognizes that Israel cannot influence members of the anti-Israel camp in any of its various factions. But it also recognizes that this camp is the minority in the U.S. and while it is the dominant camp in the Democrat Party, it isn’t the only faction in the party. Members of the American camp believe that the way to preserve and expand U.S. support for Israel is to support and strengthen Israel’s supporters on both sides of the partisan aisle. The American camp advances this goal by speaking straightforwardly and unapologetically about Israel’s interests and actions, and how both advance U.S. interests and values.

And then Glick discusses an “elitist” faction whose position is more complex:

Members of elitist camp believe that the anti-Israel camp, particularly its Arabist and progressive factions is all-powerful. In their view, the State Department is the beginning and the end of U.S. foreign policymaking. Under these circumstances, Israel’s job is to foster good relations with the anti-Israel camp and seek to appease it, even if that appeasement undermines the credibility of Israel’s supporters.

Israel’s radical left supports the elitist approach because its members share the U.S. anti-Israel camp’s hostile ideological convictions about their country. The Lapid camp is a major faction of the elites camp because its members are elitists. Lapid and his supporters prefer the company of progressives and Arabs, who share their habits and personal preferences to the company of security hawks and Evangelicals.

Glick feels that because this second group is in power right now in Israel, it disempowers the American pro-Israel wing to fight off the Biden camp. Perhaps that’s true, but I don’t think it really matters. After all, back in the time of the first Iran deal at the hands of Obama, Netanyahu was in power and he was strongly against the Deal and reached out to the large pro-Israel community in the US – to no avail. Netanyahu even addressed Congress. The majority of the Senate was against the deal, but not enough of them to be able to pass some sort of legislation against it.

The same would be true now, in my opinion, with the Biden administration’s deal. It seems the administration is grimly determined to do this and unless enough Democrats join against them, they will do this.