A bit more about Joe Biden’s January 6th speech

The New Neo Posted on by

I didn’t watch it; I knew what to expect and that it would be disturbing and infuriating. But here’s the text of the speech if you’d like to take a look, and here’s the video (Biden’s speech starts at 9:18).

I’m wondering, though, how many people did watch it or read it? I bet not all that many. And did it change anyone’s opinion? I strongly doubt that it did. The left may succeed if they’re tricky enough – they’re certainly ruthless enough. But they don’t seem to be winning hearts and minds these days, and what’s more they know it.

Here’s an article on the subject of the January 6th anniversary histrionics and their goals, by the ever-sharp Glenn Greenwald, fearless libertarian of the left.

What does it mean for a politician to be a “good communicator,” and how important is it?

The New Neo Posted on by

You may have noticed that the left seems to think that politics mainly comes down to “messaging.” If something isn’t being accepted by the public, the left just needs to “message” it better – to communicate better with the public – perhaps to inform them, perhaps to misinform them, but in any case to affect their opinions by framing something with better words.

I certainly agree that communication is highly important. I wouldn’t be a writer if I didn’t think that, and I wouldn’t take time to craft my posts with care if I didn’t think that.

But there’s a great deal more than that to politics. The left has had a huge advantage in recent years because of the power to control the information that reaches the public in the first place, through control of the press, the entertainment media, education, and in recent years social media as well. It’s a huge power, and if the only communication that reaches the public is one-sided, it doesn’t need to be so very well done because it has no competition.

It also helps if the “message” makes sense and conforms to the observations people have in their daily lives, and that sometimes hurts the left. For example, saying that inflation isn’t really a Thing doesn’t convince people who are suffering from it in the real world, no matter how great your “messaging” is.

That brings us to a recent comment by “Bauxite”:

As a communicator, DeSantis is orders of magnitude more effective than Trump. I simply cannot fathom why anyone would support Trump over this guy in 2024. DeSantis has a chance to expand the base. Trump does not.

I partly agree and partly disagree. I like DeSantis and think he’s an excellent communicator: whip-smart and clear, tough yet not abusive. But I can easily fathom support for Trump: loyalty, fighting spirit, humor, foreign policy experience, just to name a few things. At the moment I lean towards DeSantis, but that could change.

I also submit that Trump did expand the base, particularly among minorities, although I think that DeSantis could expand the base among moderates.

Bauxite adds:

The last two Republican presidents were terrible communicators, not just below average, but really, unusually bad. That absolutely has something to do with why the left has been ascendent in the 21st century so far. I remember when the conventional wisdom was that the US was a center-right country. That was before Bush and Trump.

I disagree. Bush was a mediocre communicator – not “unusually bad.” And I think it has almost nothing to do with why the left has been ascendant recently. It was already happening for decades prior to his election, in education in particular, which indoctrinated the young who later became voters. And I think that the US is still a center-right country. It’s just that the media, education, and almost all other institutions (including many businesses) have become so indoctrinated by leftism that it’s hard for people to get straight facts.

Trump actually was able to cut through that; Bush was not. I think DeSantis can cut through it, too.

Are some of our SCOTUS justices dunces?

The New Neo Posted on by

Read the list of things that SCOTUS justices have gotten wrong about COVID during oral argument questioning today. It’s mind-boggling. The vast majority of the errors are from the liberal justices, and all in the direction of overemphasizing the dangers of COVID, sometimes to a remarkable degree.

What does this tell us? Probably not much that we don’t already know.

The first thing is that justices can find a way to justify any result they wish, and that this is a particular problem with liberal justices who feel unburdened by constitutional restrictions. The second is that if they get their facts from the MSM they will get incorrect facts, although I must say that the errors these justices (especially Sotomayor, but hardly limited to her) are making are more egregious than what I read in the MSM.

The third is that perhaps these errors of fact will be corrected either during the arguments or afterward. But don’t bet more than a few pennies on it.

I will add that Sotomayor seemed to also be making an error of law, which is even more distressing:

I’m not a SCOTUS justice, and my law is very rusty, but as far as I know the federal government doesn’t have what’s known as “police power” (which is not about police); that is reserved to state governments and under. And indeed, that appears to still be the definition, and it’s one of the most basic constitutional legal principles.

Another tidbit is that Breyer said there were 750 million new COVID cases yesterday. In the US? That’s many times greater than the population, and there have only been about 60 million diagnosed COVID cases in the United States total to date. I decided that perhaps he meant in the world, but he would be way overestimating there as well because there have only been 302 million COVID cases in the entire world to date, and about 2 and a half million new ones diagnosed yesterday worldwide.

In fact, if you look at that first link in the above paragraph and go to yesterday’s cases in the US, you’ll see that the actual figure is about 750 thousand new cases in the US. So Breyer appears to have adopted Biden’s type of math, mistaking thousands for millions. The math problem is more contagious in our “elites” than COVID, apparently.

Beyond noting the utter stupidity of some of the statements by the justices – read the entire Legal Insurrection link to get more of the details – I will add that whatever their reasons, factual or nonsensical, I would expect the liberal justices to uphold the mandates and the conservative ones to reject it. It’s the ones in-between who are unpredictable, and I’ve learned that predicting what they will do on the basis of questions during oral arguments is all too often a fool’s errand (although every now and then I take it up). So I’ll make no predictions on the eventual outcome here.

Open thread 1/7/22

The New Neo Posted on by

The evolution of a song, in reverse.

They made it famous:

He covered it even before that, without his brother:

But this guy wrote it:

For me, the Hollies’ harmonies win, hands down.

COVID reveals propensities towards tyranny

The New Neo Posted on by

We know that China isn’t the least bit interested in liberty, and so policies such as these should not shock us:

Imagine a nation in such a state of distress that its citizens were reduced to bartering for food. A nation where women were so desperate for something to cook and eat that they started swapping sanitary towels for vegetables. A nation where families were so hungry that they would trade their cigarettes for a cabbage. This country actually exists. And it isn’t one of the poor, sometimes famished nations of the global South. It’s China. More accurately, it’s China under the policy of ‘Zero Covid’. …

The bartering for grub and other basic supplies is taking place in the city of Xi’an in north-west China right now. There has been a spike in community Covid infections in Xi’an and the authorities have responded with ferocious authoritarianism. Thirteen million people have been confined to their homes since 23 December. Initially they were allowed out once every two days to buy food, but even that infinitesimal scrap of liberty was done away with on 27 December. Since then, the people of Xi’an have been under literal house arrest. They are not permitted to leave their place of residence for any reason, not even to buy food…

To get around the rather important matter that people will become gravely ill if they don’t have food, officialdom in Xi’an has arranged to deliver essentials to people’s front doors. Not surprisingly, this hasn’t gone entirely smoothly. Residents have complained about not receiving enough to eat. Others say they have received no aid at all. Citizens have taken to Weibo to share images and videos of themselves bartering for foodstuffs…

Much more at the link.

The question of how far the leaders of a country will go in response to COVID – or with COVID as an excuse – is certainly not limited to China. We’ve learned a lot about the West as well, in the last two years. And a lot of it is very very bad.

The news from the northern part of Australia is more shocking than the news from China, because Australia used to be considered a country that placed some value in liberty:

Today, [Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael] Gunner announced that due to Omicron, he is taking the concept of lockdowns one step further. Effectively 1pm today, anyone who is not vaccinated is, by decree, designated as locked out of civil society in the region. Without notice, and effective almost immediately, the unvaccinated citizens in the Northern Territory are to remain confined in their homes and are not permitted to work.

At 1pm on Monday the lockout will be lifted; however, a mandatory vaccine passport process will be fully implemented in the territory, and the unvaccinated will continue to be locked out of all non-essential, businesses, operations and services in society.

And then there’s France. I’m not sure whether this comes under the heading of liberté, égalité, or fraternité, but I suspect it’s “none of the above”:

French President Emmanuel Macron feels emboldened by the rise of COVID fear. Pretenses are being dropped as these words were spoken yesterday about the citizens of France:

(EuroNews)”Macron told Le Parisien that he had decided to act against the non-vaccinated, by ‘limiting as much as possible their access to social life activity’. ‘The unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off. And so we will continue to do so, to the bitter end. That’s the strategy,’ the head of state said. ‘When my freedom comes to threaten that of other people, I become irresponsible. An irresponsible person is no longer a citizen.’”

“An irresponsible person is no longer a citizen”? Extraordinary. Does he realize the line he’s crossed? I suppose so, and I suppose it’s intentional. The inner tyrant emerges into the light of day. This happens all too often nowadays, but it’s still quite astounding to see in countries such as Australia and France, and even parts of the US.

[NOTE: This focus on vaccines is particularly odd considering that they really only mitigate the serious effects of the illness, on average. But to tyrant wannabees such observations are irrelevant.]

Happy Insurrection Day! says the left

The New Neo Posted on by

My gut feeling is that most Americans who are not on the left are heartily sick of hearing about the horrors of January 6th from the Democrats’ perspective, and have Moved On to more pressing concerns like inflation and crime. Democratic leaders, however, would like to stoke the memory of that day, when they were riding high – having just taken control of the presidency and both houses – and were scoring an anti-Trump anti-right propaganda victory as well.

The good old days.

It’s been a slide downhill for Democrats ever since, but they’re hoping that they can “reform” America’s voting through HR! or similar executive orders, and keep themselves winning no matter what the majority of Americans may want.

As for today, I haven’t listened to the over-the-top, self-serving speeches. As regular readers here know, I usually can’t stand political speech-making anyway, although I usually read transcripts. But today, after reading the descriptions of Biden’s and Harris’s divisive and mendacious rhetoric, I’ll leave it at that.

I’ve written many posts already on the actual events of January 6th and their aftermath, but I would recommend brushing up on this from RealClearInvestigations as well as this video featuring Glenn Greenwald. I haven’t watched the latter yet, but Greenwald has been spot on about this topic and I’m going to assume this is more of the same.

In sum, I’ll quote commenter “Cappy” who earlier today wrote: “It’s a Woodstock for paranoid leftists.” I will add that some actually are paranoid, but I think most of them are not the least bit worried about January 6th but are merely coldly calculating and hoping that frightened Americans will give them more power, or at least allow them to take more power. That’s actually what this is all about.

Chicago teachers go on strike

The New Neo Posted on by

The ostensible reason is COVID, of course, the all-purpose excuse. The real reason – IMHO – is they have gotten very very accustomed to just phoning it in (that is, computering it in), and being paid for it. So why would they want to return?

Even leftist mayor Lori Lightfoot isn’t happy with this. In retaliation, she locked the teachers out of their Zoom class access and says they will not be paid till they return.

How many people are weeping for them? Very few, I think.

New York may have gotten rid of de Blasio and installed a tougher-on-crime mayor, but…

The New Neo Posted on by

…it’s got a new Soros-backed DA named Alvin Bragg. And you know what that means:

Bragg took over on January 1. On January 4, Bragg promised to instill new rules similar to those in San Francisco and Philadelphia, both of which have DAs backed by Soros.

Just contemplate that for a moment. It’s one thing for voters to have elected people who espouse this philosophy when it was just a fantasy of some sort – although it still was profoundly stupid even as an idea. But now, to try to implement what’s already happening to destroy San Francisco and Philadelphia? Do Bragg (who is black, by the way) and his supporters want law-abiding black central city residents to suffer at the hands of criminals who are predominantly black as well?

Apparently, they do.

Bragg was running against other “progressive” DA candidates anyway in the Democratic primary (the winner of which would be virtually guaranteed to win the election), and apparently he was one of the less extreme of the lot. But here’s a recent statement of his plans:

In his first memo to staff on Monday, Alvin Bragg said his office “will not seek a carceral sentence” except with homicides and a handful of other cases, including domestic violence felonies, some sex crimes and public corruption.

“This rule may be excepted only in extraordinary circumstances…

“Carceral” means pretty much what you’d think it does: prison. Well, that’s one way to empty out the prisons – elect a DA who doesn’t believe in imprisoning the vast majority of criminals.

More details include the following: no prison sentences over 20 years without the possibility of parole, even in the worst cases. Sadistic mass murderer? No biggee, I guess. And except in extraordinary cases there will be no pretrial incarceration.

(Bragg is in charge of the office trying to prosecute Donald Trump, by the way.)

More here:

Armed robbers who use guns or other deadly weapons to stick up stores and other businesses will be prosecuted only for petty larceny, a misdemeanor, provided no victims were seriously injured and there’s no “genuine risk of physical harm” to anyone. Armed robbery, a class B felony, would typically be punishable by a maximum of 25 years in prison, while petty larceny subjects offenders to up to 364 days in jail and a $1,000 fine…

Convicted criminals caught with weapons other than guns will have those felony charges downgraded to misdemeanors unless they’re also charged with more serious offenses…

Drug dealers believed to be “acting as a low-level agent of a seller” will be prosecuted only for misdemeanor possession. Also, suspected dealers will only be prosecuted on felony charges if they’re also accused of more serious crimes or are actually caught in the act of selling drugs.

I wonder if New York will see a lot of resignations in the DA office of prosecutors who didn’t sign up for this sort of thing. And I wonder if a liberal backlash – such as I’ve witnessed from several liberal friends in other blue cities with Soros-backed prosecutors – will occur in New York, and whether it will ever result in a rejection of Democrat/progressive politics.

I doubt whether that last bit – a more general rejection of Democrat/progressive politics – will be occurring in more than a handful of people.

I used to visit New York several times a year. I haven’t been there for two years now, and I doubt I’ll be going back any time soon.

Can any airplane experts out there explain?

The New Neo Posted on by

Recently I returned from a cross-country visit out west. The less said about the airport from which I left, and the crowds there and lack of decent signage, the better. And yes, wearing a mask almost unceasingly for close to twelve hours, all told (including long wait at airport and trip in bus from airport), is not the comfiest experience.

But the flight was great, and much to my surprise the pilot announced at the outset that we’d be arriving one hour early. And we did – exactly one hour earlier than scheduled. I know that when traveling west to east in the US there are tailwinds, but I thought those were factored in already. I also thought that if tailwinds were especially strong that day, the pilot would mention it as a reason we were making such good time. I’ve had that happen before.

But this pilot didn’t say a word about it. He was the laconic type.

Not only that, but I’ve never been that early for a flight landing because of tailwinds being especially strong – practically twenty percent early. What gives, oh you airplane experts?

And then, when we were getting off the plane, all its lights went out. It was very late at night and cloudy, and therefore the plane became nearly pitch black. I had been seated in the middle section of the plane and I was just starting to walk down the aisle to leave when it occurred. As I passed one of the flight attendants, she remarked that she’d never seen such a thing happen before. Clearly, the crew didn’t seem to be able to turn any lights back on, either, although people started using their cellphone flashlights to negotiate their exits from the plane.

I can’t find anything online to explain this. Why would the airplane lights go out like that? Why couldn’t the attendants turn them back on? Was this some sort of electrical problem? Or did the ground crew turn them off prematurely and is the crew unable to override that?

I know that someone out there has the answer. I’m counting on you, folks.

The James Webb Telescope sunshield has been successfully deployed

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE I wrote about the James Webb Telescope previously here.]

I’ve grown so used to assuming government incompetence (or worse) as the default position that I’m gobsmacked by this news:

The James Webb Space Telescope team has fully deployed the spacecraft’s 70-foot sunshield, a key milestone in preparing it for science operations.

The sunshield – about the size of a tennis court at full size – was folded to fit inside the payload area of an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket’s nose cone prior to launch. The Webb team began remotely deploying the sunshield Dec. 28, 2021, three days after launch…

The five-layered sunshield will protect the telescope from the light and heat of the Sun, Earth, and Moon. Each plastic sheet is about as thin as a human hair and coated with reflective metal, providing protection on the order of more than SPF 1 million. Together, the five layers reduce exposure from the Sun from over 200 kilowatts of solar energy to a fraction of a watt.

This protection is crucial to keep Webb’s scientific instruments at temperatures of 40 kelvins, or under minus 380 degrees Fahrenheit – cold enough to see the faint infrared light that Webb seeks to observe.

“Unfolding Webb’s sunshield in space is an incredible milestone, crucial to the success of the mission,” said Gregory L. Robinson, Webb’s program director at NASA Headquarters. “Thousands of parts had to work with precision for this marvel of engineering to fully unfurl. The team has accomplished an audacious feat with the complexity of this deployment – one of the boldest undertakings yet for Webb.”…

The unfolding and tensioning of the sunshield involved 139 of Webb’s 178 release mechanisms, 70 hinge assemblies, eight deployment motors, roughly 400 pulleys, and 90 individual cables totaling roughly one quarter of a mile in length. The team also paused deployment operations for a day to work on optimizing Webb’s power systems and tensioning motors, to ensure Webb was in prime condition before beginning the major work of sunshield tensioning.

It certainly was a “bold undertaking,” and it’s not out of the woods yet, although I’m very impressed so far:

The world’s largest and most complex space science observatory has another 5 1/2 months of setup still to come, including deployment of the secondary mirror and primary mirror wings, alignment of the telescope optics, and calibration of the science instruments. After that, Webb will deliver its first images.

The goal is pretty darn comprehensive:

The telescope’s revolutionary technology will explore every phase of cosmic history – from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe, to everything in between. Webb will reveal new and unexpected discoveries and help humanity understand the origins of the universe and our place in it.

We’ve been wondering about that last bit for a long, long time, and though I’m impressed with Webb so far, I think even after its data is collected we’ll have a long long way to go before we understand “our place” in the universe. Science can tell us a lot, but I think the answers to that one lie in a different realm, or at least in the arena where science, philosophy, and religion meet.