Julian Assange plea deal

The New Neo Posted on by

It appears that Julian Assange will be returning to Australia, his original home:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is due to plead guilty on Wednesday to violating U.S. espionage law, in a deal that will end his imprisonment in Britain and allow him to return home to Australia, ending a 14-year legal odyssey.

Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents, according to filings in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

He is due to be sentenced to 62 months of time already served at a hearing in Saipan at 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday (2300 GMT Tuesday). The island in the Pacific was chosen due to Assange’s opposition to travelling to the mainland U.S. and for its proximity to Australia, prosecutors said.

At this point, it does seem rather like ancient history, doesn’t it? Fourteen years ago for Assange’s leaks.

I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I think that journalists should not get a pass on leaking classified documents especially concerning ongoing military operations, which was the case at the time of the Assange-assisted leaks. I don’t trust journalists’ judgments on this, to say the least, although it’s not as though I trust the government either. On the other hand, I’m not sure what the proper punishment would be for Assange; perhaps it is enough already in Assange’s case. On still another hand – I’m up to three hands now – sometimes we do get important information this way, but I don’t think it’s good to adopt an “ends justify the means” excuse.

Trudeau in trouble?

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “Bob Wilson.”]

Could it be a portent of things to come?:

A Liberal stronghold for thirty years and one of the ridings that helped squeak out a minority government for Trudeau in the last election, swung Conservative in last night’s Toronto-St. Pauls by-election. This is most certainly a sign of things to come in the next general election, scheduled for late 2025.

Late 2025 is awfully late, though.

Canada has a parliamentary system, and Trudeau’s present government is a coalition. The left isn’t going to relinquish power easily, and so there’s talk of a tighter coalition next time: a Liberal/NDP merger. The NDP has never formed a Canadian government and stands to the left of Trudeau’s party. Sounds great. A merger, however, would create a stronger force – and an even more leftist one. So whereas Trudeau may not be the head of such a party, it’s possible it would be led by someone even worse and more leftist.

At least, as a bona fide non-expert on Canadian politics, that’s my take.

If such a merger were to occur, though, I’m not sure it would be all that strong, because if it moved even further left some of the current Liberal Party (Trudeau’s party) supporters might leave.

Any Canadians here who can shed a bit more light on this?

The wheels of Snopes grind slowly

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, well, well. Better late than never?:

In a news conference after the [Charlottesville] rally protesting the planned removal of a Confederate statue, Trump did say there were “very fine people on both sides,” referring to the protesters and the counterprotesters. He said in the same statement he wasn’t talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, who he said should be “condemned totally.”

The Charlottesville incident happened in 2017. The Democrats have talked about it incessantly, as has the MSM and Biden himself, stating that Trump said neo-Nazis and white supremacists were “good people.” The right has known almost from the start that he didn’t say that, and it wasn’t hard to discover. All one had to do was actually listen to an unedited version of what he said. Apparently, until now, Snopes was somehow unable or unwilling to do that.

The question isn’t why; Snopes is left-leaning. The question is why they finally have admitted this now. Is there a mole at Snopes?

The furor from the left was so great that Snopes issued this semi-disclaimer:

Some readers have raised the objection that this fact check appears to assume Trump was correct in stating that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville incident. That is not the case. This fact check aimed to confirm what Trump actually said, not whether what he said was true or false. For the record, virtually every source that covered the Unite the Right debacle concluded that it was conceived of, led by and attended by white supremacists, and that therefore Trump was wrong.

But Snopes is misleading its readers again, at least somewhat. While Snopes is quite correct that Trump explicitly excluded neo-Nazis and white supremacists, it fails to discuss who these “good people” on the right to whom Trump was referring might be. To the best of my understanding, he was talking about some of the people who were trying to stop the historical statues’ destruction.

It remains a bit hard to see why Snopes would now write something that even partially exonerates Trump. Is this part of the campaign to get rid of Biden? I doubt it, because this news would help Trump against any Democrat opponent who replaces him. Perhaps Snopes just feels the story has served its purpose lo nigh these seven long years, and it’s time to retire it. But that doesn’t make sense to me, either. There’s no expiration date on the political power of lies.

One thing seems true to me: most Democrats will continue to believe that Trump is a racist white supremacist who supported racist white supremacists and still does.

Is Biden “about to” abandon Israel?

The New Neo Posted on by

The title of this piece is: “Biden May Be About to Abandon Israel.”

It seems to me, however, that he abandoned Israel long ago, when he lifted sanctions on Iran and released money to them. One of Biden’s very first acts as president was to abandon Israel; the following is datelined February 18, 2021:

The Biden administration on Thursday rescinded former president Donald Trump’s restoration of U.N. sanctions on Iran, an announcement that could help Washington move toward rejoining the 2015 nuclear agreement aimed at reining in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

They resumed the Obama-era policy regarding the so-called Iran deal, and only abandoned it when the lead negotiator for the administration, Robert Malley, was caught in some shady doings involving security compromises. That was about a year ago. And Biden also released billions to Iran, and has continued to do so:

The Biden administration renewed a sanctions waiver on March 13 [2024] that grants Iran access to $10 billion in previously escrowed funds. The waiver, which allows the Islamic Republic to use electricity revenue from Iraq for budget support and debt repayment, comes just six weeks after an Iran-backed drone attack killed three U.S. servicemembers in Jordan. The Biden administration last extended the sanctions waiver on November 14.

This is not just because the Biden administration wants to get some extra votes in Dearborn. This is a long-term Obama-era decision by the left to favor Iran in order to “balance” Israel’s power and that of the Sunni Muslims in the Middle East. It seems both evil and self-destructive to me, but what else is new?

The current threat of administration abandonment of Israel involves the prospect of war with Hezbollah. Hezbollah is, of course, an Iranian proxy.

Caroline Glick has quite a bit to say on the matter. There’s so much in there that I’m only going to quote a small part of it, but I suggest you read the whole thing [emphasis mine]:

The top U.S.-Israel story of the week is the prospect of a massive ground war in Lebanon.

The main question dominating the discourse is whether the Biden administration intends to provide Israel with the munitions it requires to prosecute such a war successfully. The White House says it has Israel’s back. But recent U.S.-Israel backstories indicate that Israeli anxiety about the U.S. position on munitions is well founded. …

… [There are fears in Israel] that consensus organizations including the Regavim Movement and government ministers, first and foremost Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, may soon be sanctioned by the U.S.

Regavim uses the legal system and public awareness campaigns to protect Israel’s state lands in Judea and Samaria, the Negev and the Galilee against illegal encroachment. Recently, Regavim published a massive report documenting the depth and breadth of the U.S.-funded, -armed and -trained Palestinian security forces’ engagement in terrorism. …

Smotrich has been widely condemned by progressives inside and outside the administration for refusing to transfer funds to the Palestinian Authority due to its support for terrorism. Smotrich has also be singled out for calumny for refusing the authorize the destruction of Israeli building projects that leftist NGOs supported by the U.S. and other foreign governments claim are unlawful. …

Last Thursday, Yediot Achronot’s veteran reporter Itamar Eichner published a bombshell report titled “U.S. asks Israelis applying for green card whether they committed war crimes.”

Eichner reported a number of instances where IDF veterans and reservists applying for U.S. entry permits ranging from tourist visas to green cards have faced detailed interrogations—under oath—regarding their service in the IDF.

The damage this administration has done since it’s been in office is almost unmeasurable.

The books are being printed

The New Neo Posted on by

And that means I finally signed off on the proofs. Proof-reading is one of my least favorite occupations, and at a certain point you just have to say enough, because it seems it’s always possible to find mistakes.

I still have to do work on the book-selling website and make some decisions about mailers. But printing the books is a big big step.

Cruising with Bond. James Bond.

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an article purporting to rank the James Bond films in ascending order.

I saw a few of the early films, but I haven’t seem most of them on the list. So I can’t do my own ranking. But I can say unequivocally what my favorite Bond film was, and I know exactly why.

A little background. My parents loved cruising. They usually went away for two weeks every February, allowing my father (who was a lawyer and CPA) to relax a bit before the huge crush of tax season, and to escape winter for a while. They ordinarily went with a host of other couples friends and had a great time.

But in 1962 they did something they’d never done before – and didn’t do after, either – which was to take my older brother and me on a Christmas week cruise to the Caribbean on board the Mauretania.

It was memorable for many reasons. One was of course that I’d never been on a huge ocean liner. Another was that my brother and I had a tiny inside cabin with the wonderful characteristic of being completely dark, so that we could sleep in on days when we weren’t in port. There were quite a few of those days, since the ship departed from and returned to a pier in Manhattan.

The ship was already old even then, having been launched in 1938. Unbeknownst to us, it was close to retirement and was taken out of service in 1965, just a few years after our trip. The Mauretania had very few of the extras that are standard on modern cruise ships. It only carried about 1,100 passengers at the time, much smaller than many of today’s gargantuan vessels that often carry four to five thousand people. The cabin my brother and I occupied on the Mauretania was tiny, containing bunk beds and almost nothing else. The bathroom was a dorm-type thing down the hall. Every night we weren’t in port we had to dress formally – and that meant rented tuxes for my father and brother and evening gowns for my mother and me.

There wasn’t much entertainment, and what there was didn’t interest my brother and me. Except for one thing: there was a little movie theater that seated maybe 75 people. And in that movie theater they showed movies that hadn’t been released in the US yet. The most memorable one was the very first James Bond movie, Dr. No, which had come out in the UK in October but wasn’t released in the US until 1963.

The wonderful thing about that movie was that we previously knew nothing about it. No hype at all. I think I did know that JFK supposedly liked James Bond books, but that was it. I’d never heard of Sean Connery or Ursula Andress. Never read that a Bond movie was being made.

So the whole thing was a great surprise. I well remember its slightly humorous tone, and from almost the very first frame there was that great theme music:

The movie had a Caribbean setting, too, which fit the cruise well. But what I most remember was a sense of fun, freshness, wit, and surprise. That’s why Dr. No would have to be tops on my rather short James Bond movie list.

The betrayal by and of the Palestinian workers

The New Neo Posted on by

There are so many aspects of the October 7 attacks that were horrific – but one element that can get lost in the focus on the more barbaric events involves the Palestinian workers who, prior to 10/7, were gainfully employed in Israel. Many of them (we don’t know how many, but a substantial number) acted as spies for Hamas while they were pretending to be friendly to the Israelis they would be helping to torture, murder, and rape.

The program was meant not only to help Palestinians economically, but to show goodwill and most of all to lay the groundwork for better relations between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians’ betrayal of all this goodwill was profound; one can hardly imagine a worse one. The resulting destruction of all trust the Israelis might have still retained up to 10/7 in the word of Palestinians and the potential goodwill of the ordinary Palestinian “man in the street” meant that it would be difficult or actually impossible for any such program or any such rapprochement again.

All of this came to mind again when I read this recently:

On the eve of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Israeli authorities had issued work permits to some 18,500 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a body responsible for Palestinian civil affairs. Israel was forced to revoke the work permits for security reasons after the October 7 atrocities carried out by Hamas and thousands of “ordinary” Palestinians.

This was particularly true in light of evidence that some of the workers had used their time in Israel to gather intelligence on the Israeli communities that were targeted on October 7. The work permits of another 80,000 Palestinians from the West Bank have also been suspended in the aftermath of the Hamas attack. Prior to the October 7 massacre, more than 170,000 Palestinians were working in Israel, constituting an important source of income for the Palestinian economy. …

Palestinian trade unions had said the reopening of the border between Israel and Gaza was a “positive step:” the workers had far higher earnings in Israel than in the Gaza Strip, where salaries are low and unemployment is rife. …

The Israeli goodwill gesture of expanding the number of Palestinian work permits came only days after Palestinians had rioted near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip and had attacked Israeli soldiers with stones, Molotov cocktails, and explosive devices. Palestinian workers were joyful over the Israel’s decision to overlook the riot.

Workers were quoted at the time as saying the riots had nothing to do with them – and perhaps, for some, that was the truth. Perhaps some really did just want to better themselves economically. But for too many of them, it was all a lie and a ruse.

More:

In 2022, then Defense Minister Benny Gantz revealed that Israel was planning to increase the number of work permits for Palestinians from the Gaza Strip from 5,000 to 20,000. The pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported:

“[Israeli] Political authorities believe the gradual increase in the number of Palestinian workers will prompt Hamas to consider any escalation since it will take into account that the thriving labor movement is a major factor in supporting the economy.

“Workers bring to the [Gaza] enclave up to 90 million shekels [roughly USD $24 million] per month, in light of the difficult and deteriorating economic situation there.”

Looking back, it seemed to make a certain amount of sense. But the Israelis were naive, putting too much faith in the idea that all human beings are motivated to better themselves economically, and that such goals can overcome jihadi hatred. Not every worker had to be a jihadi to make the situation extremely dangerous; just a critical mass of them. And that requirement was fully met.

Well, here you have the consequences:

Ibrahim, a father of four, sat with friends in his living room in the Palestinian village of Hizme, just outside Jerusalem, to talk about the hardship of unemployment over the past eight months: “The Israeli government cannot wage war on every Palestinian as if we are all guilty [of Hamas’s crimes],” he said.

Sure they can, and they should. Was the US supposed to ferry some Germans over during WWII to work in the factories? I think not. The concept of “enemy” precludes it.

More:

Within hours of the onslaught, the Israeli government announced the suspension of work permits for about 150,000 West Bank Palestinians who had been commuting daily to work inside Israel, plus another 18,500 Palestinians from Gaza, leaving an economic hole on both sides of the border.

It is estimated that besides permit holders, an additional 50,000 West Bank laborers were sneaking through the border illegally each day before October 7.

Among those who found themselves unable to work in Israel, where salaries are considerably higher than in the West Bank, were around 80,000 Palestinians who used to work on Israeli construction sites, many of them highly specialized in sectors such as ironwork, flooring, formwork and plastering. …

Today, Ibrahim spends most of the time at home, gripped by uncertainty for his and his family’s future. He occasionally gets work in the West Bank, but it pays half what he used to make in Israel — about NIS 300 a day ($80).

The article goes on to say that the Israeli building and agricultural sectors have been hard hit.

And the following is telling, although it doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know:

Like Ibrahim, other Hizme residents agreed to speak with The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal for talking with the Israeli press. Their real names have been replaced.

The reprisal they’re worried about doesn’t come from Israel. It comes from Hamas and other Palestinians.

This is one of the reasons it’s hard to measure how large the “live and let live” Palestinian contingent is. It might be nearly non-existent, or it might be bigger than that. I very much doubt it approaches anything like a majority, although I also think it’s not zero.

But unfortunately it doesn’t matter – although it might matter in the future if Gaza is fully defeated and the re-education begins. The fewer who have to be de-cultified, the better.

But unless these people are presently numerous enough and powerful enough to overthrow the government and establish a new one with good relations with Israel, it doesn’t matter how many of them there are moderates about Israel. They are effectively impotent to change a thing. And Hamas and the other jihadis have sacrificed any moderates for the sake of perpetrating slaughter and mayhem on Israelis. But sacrificing Palestinians who aren’t sufficiently bloodthirsty – or even ones who are, through martyrdom – is part of Hamas’ game.

The new anti-Trump Resistance …

The New Neo Posted on by

… is all revved up and ready to go.

Actually, they never stopped. You almost have to admire their work ethic, even if you disagree with their goals and methods. The basic message: it’s possible that you peons may be able to elect Trump – although we’ll do our very best to prevent that – but he certainly won’t be allowed to govern. We know better than you, and when we say “our democracy” we mean ours, not yours.

Excerpt:

Opponents of Donald J. Trump are drafting potential lawsuits in case he is elected in November and carries out mass deportations, as he has vowed. One group has hired a new auditor to withstand any attempt by a second Trump administration to unleash the Internal Revenue Service against them. Democratic-run state governments are even stockpiling abortion medication.

Only the left is allowed to sic the IRS on its opponents the conservatives. Nor did Trump do this during his first term, as far as I know. And Trump isn’t even against early abortions.

More:

A sprawling network of Democratic officials, progressive activists, watchdog groups and ex-Republicans has been taking extraordinary steps to prepare for a potential second Trump presidency, drawn together by the fear that Mr. Trump’s return to power would pose a grave threat not just to their agenda but to American democracy itself.

Talk about projection! And note, “democracy” is defined as the left wants to define it.

“Trump has made clear that he’ll disregard the law and test the limits of our system,” said Joanna Lydgate, the chief executive of States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan democracy watchdog organization that works with state officials in both parties. “What we’re staring down is extremely dark.”

Projection, projection, projection. I don’t even think most of them believe what they’re saying; it’s propaganda for the rest of us. But the ones who are far gone do believe it.

This one is unintentionally funny. Or maybe it’s intentionally funny and meant to taunt and mock anyone on the right:

If Mr. Trump returns to power, he is openly planning to impose radical changes — many with authoritarian overtones. Those plans include using the Justice Department to take revenge on his adversaries …

Anyone who’s been paying any attention to what’s been happening to Trump and his supporters at the hands of the DOJ and radical leftist state officials would recognize that they’re describing their own actions. And yet I believe that a significant number of people seem to be taken in by these accusations about Trump. And of course the left is afraid of payback, even though they don’t define it that way.

The leftists are the good guys, folks! We promise! I’ve highlighted the most important and most dangerous message, the one the left and many Democrats have been sending pretty much from the moment Trump declared his candidacy, and certainly from the moment he assumed the presidency:

Ian Bassin, the executive director of Protect Democracy, said the planning for how to resist such an agenda should not be seen as an ordinary policy dispute, but as an effort to defend fundamental aspects of American self-government “from an aspiring autocrat.”

“He is no normal candidate, this is no normal election, and these are no normal preparations for merely coming out on the wrong side of a national referendum on policy choices,” Mr. Bassin said.

Remember the calls for impeachment as soon as Trump took office? Here’s a memory refresher from around the time of Trump’s inauguration in 2017, in case you need one (emphasis mine):

Two civil rights groups trying to boot President Donald Trump from the nation’s highest office have launched an online campaign to get the brand new commander-in-chief impeached.

Their website, www.impeachdonaldtrumpnow.org, went live on Friday just as Trump was officially sworn in. It is run by two groups, Free Speech for People and RootsAction, which believe Trump’s possible conflicts of interest are grounds for his ouster, the Washington Post reports.

“The nation is now witnessing a massive corruption of the presidency, far worse than Watergate,” the campaign’s website says. “From the moment he assumed the office, President Donald Trump has been in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution. The President is not above the law. We will not allow President Trump to profit from the presidency at the expense of our democracy.” …

Earlier Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union said it has taken legal action to obtain government documents that may show Trump’s potential conflicts of interest.

And this is of the same vintage. The date is January 6, 2017:

The joint session of Congress is a legally required — and typically ceremonial — event to ratify the results of the presidential election. But members are permitted to challenge the validity of electoral votes, and for just the fourth time since 1877, they did so.

There was no expectation that the protests would succeed — backers acknowledged that the Republican-led House and Senate would never act to impede Trump’s imminent presidency. But it’s a continuation of efforts by Democrats to poke Trump in the eye before he takes office and undermine what his team has described as a “mandate” to govern. Democrats have routinely cited Trump’s 2.9 million-ballot popular vote loss to Hillary Clinton and pounced on Russian meddling in the election to undermine Trump’s victory.

Jackson Lee and her allies argued that widespread voter suppression in states won by Trump tarnished the results. They also pointed to research provided by a team of independent lawyers that found dozens of Republican electors were technically ineligible to serve. But their arguments failed to persuade their Senate colleagues to step forward.

But back to the present:

Many are also wary about discussing their contingency plans publicly, for fear of signaling a lack of confidence in President Biden’s campaign prospects. Their angst is intensified by Mr. Biden’s low approval numbers and by his persistent trailing of Mr. Trump in polls of the states that are likely to decide the election.

Interviews with more than 30 officials and leaders of organizations about their plans revealed a combination of acute exhaustion and acute anxiety. Activist groups that spent the four years of Mr. Trump’s presidency organizing mass protests and pursuing legal challenges, ultimately helping channel that energy into persuading voters to oust him from power in 2020, are now realizing with great dread they may have to resist him all over again.

Poor babes! I feel so sorry for them. And yet I believe they are fully up to the task, if the situation should arise.