Biden sinking in polls – so what?

The New Neo Posted on by

In a recent The Economist/YouGov poll, Biden’s overall approval rating is at 39%.

My first reaction is: why so high? It should be something like 2%, if that.

My second reaction is: it’s about time.

My third reaction is: so what? Biden can do a lot of damage anyway. After all, no one is about to remove him unless his approval falls down way below that and polls indicate it will really really hurt Democrats in Congress in 2022 and Democrats figure that they can’t cheat enough to overcome that effect. Only those practical considerations might get the Democrats to activate a Biden-ectomy, and if so it will be done not through impeachment but through the more face-saving 25th Amendment or a forceful arm-twisting to effect a resignation for health reasons.

However, looking at the poll numbers we see the following (approval/disapproval numbers in that order):

Overall: 39/50
Men: 36/53
Women: 42/46
White men no degree: 28/61
White women w/ degree: 53/42
Black: 65/26
Hispanic: 41/36
Registered Voters: 43/53
Dems: 77/15
GOP: 9/89
Indie: 35/56

Who are these supposed GOP members who still approve of Biden? As Stephen Green writes in the linked article: “I don’t know how Biden managed to get a positive nod of approval from 9% of GOP voters, unless The Economist/YouGov oversampled the Bill Kristol household.”

The numbers indicate to me that “white men no degree” are the smartest American demographic. Whereas “white women with degree” – a group of which I happen to be a card-carrying member – are pretty stupid and/or gullible and/or uninformed. Note also that black voters are not as keen on Biden as black voters usually are on Democratic presidents, and Hispanic voters really aren’t all that fond of Biden. Independents have soured on him, although a lot of them were fooled at the time of the election and probably are in some ways most responsible for placing him in office because many of them constitute the all-important swing voters.

Some days…

The New Neo Posted on by

…I get so involved in discussions in the comments that I don’t start working on my posts till later than planned. Today is one of those times. I think that in the last few weeks, distraction has become even more enticing than usual, because the news is so hard to face.

It’s not just that it’s ominous, although it’s that. It’s that it feels as though we’re watching an aburdist play, something by Beckett or Ionesco or the like. Are we really seeing a president like Biden, who does destructive things and then brazenly lies about it – albeit ineptly and obviously – and the press for the most part looks the other way, and our Democrat members of Congress (even most of the so-called “moderates”) don’t seem inclined to do a thing about it, or to even criticize?

Are we really seeing what we’re seeing? Has America actually become a laughing stock and a caricature? The answer does appear to be “yes.”

I mentioned once that at this point the US is like Gulliver being tied down by hordes of Lilliputians. Gulliver’s Travels was a serious satire played at least in part for laughs, and there are some bleakly humorous aspects to our current plight, too. But it’s mostly bleak, and unless something changes, it will get bleaker.

And by “our” plight, I don’t just mean the US, I mean the western world and the world in general. The world may come to realize how important the Pax Americana had been.

I’m tempted to give up discussing what Blinken says on Afghanistan or anything else

The New Neo Posted on by

What’s the point, when nothing the man says can be trusted? Of course, I shouldn’t single out Blinken. It’s that way for the entire administration.

And yet I feel duty-bound to mention this story. Note the way Blinken phrases his words:

“We are not aware of anyone being held on an aircraft or any hostage life situation in Mazar-i-Sharif,” Blinken said during a joint news conference with Qatar’s top diplomats and defense officials in Doha.

Blinken did, however, reveal that the U.S. has identified a “relatively small number” of Americans who are trying to depart from the airport. He also said the administration has been “assured” by the Taliban that American and Afghan citizens with valid travel documents will be allowed to exit.

So, we are not aware. Even if that were true, that doesn’t mean something isn’t happening just because we are “not aware” of it.

And of what are we “not aware”? No one is on an aircraft, as far as “we” know. How reassuring. Where are they, then? In the airport? At home, waiting, having been to the airport and not allowed to depart the country? Also, he is also only speaking of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Another thing of which we’re not aware: whether anyone is being held in a hostage life situation. In other words, at the moment we know of no Americans who have a gun held to their heads with a threat to blow them away?

And what is that “relatively small number”? Is the State Department capable of counting? They’ve given little indication of being able to do so, but if they can, then what is this number? And “relative” to what?

One thing of which Blinken may be aware – but we the public are not – is what promises the Biden administration is making to the Taliban in exchange for letting people out.

As for assurances from our new good buddies the Taliban, that is both ludicrous and insulting to any listeners Blinken thinks he’s addressing here. But actually, I don’t think anyone believes him. The left is just happy to have its talking points, and the right long ago justifiably lost trust in these self-serving habitual liars.

As has the rest of the world.

Here’s another statement by Blinken:

And again, we intend to hold the Taliban to that,” he added.

How do you propose to do that, when you’ve given away your leverage, and have shown your extreme propensity to go belly up?

And now something from the past. Blinken has been with Biden for a long time and has worked on previous policies formulated by Biden:

Blinken worked to help Biden formulate one of his most idiotic foreign policy proposals, the partitioning of Iraq into three separate regions along ethnic lines — “Sunnistan”, “Shiastan”, and “Iraqi Kurdistan.” Other than the fact that it was rejected by the US military, the Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and Turkey, it was a fabulous idea.

The ultimate indictment of Blinken as unsuited to serve as Secretary of State comes from the fact that while the 2008 Democrat Presidential Primaries involved Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, and Tom Vilsack, among others, Blinken chose to work in the “Biden for President” campaign. Apparently, he never recognized in his years of working for Joe Biden that Biden was a moron.

When Obama and Biden were elected, Blinken became National Security Advisor to the Vice President. He served Biden in that capacity for four years.

In 2014, Obama nominated Blinken for Deputy Secretary of State, and John McCain spoke out against that. Now, McCain said a lot of things and did a lot of things with which I take issue. But he certainly seems to have been prescient about Antony Blinken. Please listen to this short excerpt from a speech McCain made back then, and pay particular attention to what he predicts about Blinken and Afghanistan (at :55 to 1:17):

It’s not really the same movie that we’ve seen in Afghanistan as we saw in Iraq, though. It’s a much worse one.

Documents implicate Fauci further in gain-of-function research

The New Neo Posted on by

Is anyone surprised at this?

The Intercept has obtained more than 900 pages of documents detailing the work of EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based health organization that used federal money to fund bat coronavirus research at the Chinese laboratory. The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals that were funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as project updates relating to EcoHealth Alliance’s research, which has been scrutinized amid increased interest in the origins of the pandemic…

One of the grants, titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” outlines an ambitious effort led by EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak to screen thousands of bat samples for novel coronaviruses. The research also involved screening people who work with live animals. The documents contain several critical details about the research in Wuhan, including the fact that key experimental work with humanized mice was conducted at a biosafety level 3 lab at Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment — and not at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as was previously assumed. The documents raise additional questions about the theory that the pandemic may have begun in a lab accident, an idea that Daszak has aggressively dismissed….

The bat coronavirus grant provided EcoHealth Alliance with a total of $3.1 million, including $599,000 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology used in part to identify and alter bat coronaviruses likely to infect humans. Even before the pandemic, many scientists were concerned about the potential dangers associated with such experiments…

According to Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, the documents contain critical information about the research done in Wuhan, including about the creation of novel viruses. “The viruses they constructed were tested for their ability to infect mice that were engineered to display human type receptors on their cell,” Ebright wrote to The Intercept after reviewing the documents. Ebright also said the documents make it clear that two different types of novel coronaviruses were able to infect humanized mice.

Not only does the research seem inherently dangerous, but in any sort of cost-benefit analysis, why would the US have considered it worth the risk?

Jean Paul Belmondo dies at 88

The New Neo Posted on by

The French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo has died at 88.

Quite a few of the tributes to Belmondo call him “handsome.” That surprises me, because I never thought him handsome. He was something else – unique and compelling and magnetic. I didn’t see many films of his, and yet I knew his name, because for a while he was that famous. I did see “Breathless,” the film that had made him a star, but to me it wasn’t all that great.

The movie of his that I did see, and which I loved (and loved him in it), was one in which he had a much more atypical role: he played the sensitive young eye-glassed man who falls in love with Sophia Loren in “Two Women.” That film made a huge impression when I saw it in 1960 – in a movie theater, at an age I consider way too young to have seen it. I think I was taken by an aunt, but at any rate I went, and was terrified by the film while at the same time I thought it was a masterpiece.

I can’t find a video segment online from “Two Women” that highlights Belmondo, despite there being quite a few video compilations of his greatest roles. But I guess everyone has either forgotten that one or considered it dismissable; it’s certainly atypical for him. But this short trailer for the film does show a bit of him here and there:

I see now that Belmondo said this of his role in that film:

It may disappoint those who’ve got me typed,” said Belmondo. “But so much the better.

Well, it sure didn’t disappoint me. But then, I had no prior idea of who he was and I had no expectations.

Why was Belmondo playing an Italian in that movie? Well, he was actually half Italian, with an Italian father born in Algeria. And Belmondo came by his busted nose in the old-fashioned way, as an amateur boxer before he became an actor.

Here’s a video about Belmondo’s other films. It helps if you speak or understand French. I don’t:

RIP.

From “we’re getting everyone out” to “everyone who wants to get out” to “there’s nothing we can do about the hostages”

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the latest:

The State Department says there is little it can do to help Americans and at-risk Afghans whose planes are reportedly grounded at an airport as the Taliban prevents them from leaving the country.

At least six chartered planes are attempting to evacuate these Americans and others from Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport, but the Taliban is reportedly preventing them from taking off. Since it evacuated U.S. military forces and diplomatic personnel from the war-torn country, the Biden administration has not had the resources necessary to ensure that flights chartered by nonprofit groups and others can depart Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was a functioning country just a little while ago, with a government that did not include the Taliban. No, it wasn’t Switzerland, or even close. But there was no big crisis there back in April, when Biden announced his withdrawal deadline, and no great urgency to any pullout, which could have been engineered by someone other than the utter incompetents and/or saboteurs who seem to have been in charge in all branches under the supposed control of our brilliant commander-in-chief.

Come to think of it, though – with their track record, it’s probably best that they’re saying that there’s nothing they can or will do at this point. Haven’t they already done enough to wreck Afghanistan, the US, our relations with our allies, our military, and our standing in the world?

They could have prevented all of this by following established evacuation protocol. Failing that, there’s always common sense – and in this case a second grader could have figured out a better way. Instead, they voluntarily (and with malice aforethought? – one can’t help but wonder) gave up every bargaining chip we had. Their stance right now is probably giving ideas to many other groups who perceive us as a helpless Gulliver tied down by a bunch of Lilliputians.

Now the Taliban call the shots, not us.

Losing children? It’s only news when the right does it

The New Neo Posted on by

Oopsies:

Last week, Axios reported that the Department of Health and Human Services has lost contact with more than 4,500 children who’d crossed the border illegally after it had released them into the country. That’s a third of the migrant children it was supposed to be tracking.

But don’t worry – the MSM is on it.

Not:

As of Sunday, the New York Times hadn’t mentioned it. Nor had the Washington Post. Nor any other major newspaper. There’s been no mention of the findings on the network news, on CNN, or on MSNBC. The story has been picked up only by some conservative news outlets.

This is all in glaring contrast to the reaction to the New York Times report in May 2018 that the Trump administration had lost contact with fewer than 1,500 migrant children.

That story set off a tidal wave of outraged news articles, commentaries, and tweets. Every press outlet covered the story. Reporters demanded answers from White House officials. The hashtag #WhereAreTheChildren started trending on Twitter – peaking at 35,000 mentions an hour.

Politicians and celebrities joined the frenzy.

The MSM does this because it works. It’s as simple as that. There is no guiding principle involved except that the news that’s fit to print is the news that favors left over right, and if there’s a story that cuts the opposite way, it’s best to spin it or kill it. They know that their readers will never read news from outlets on the right, which they are told give out “misinformation” and lies.

I don’t care how low the MSM sinks in the polls, or how many people get news from other sources, the reality that I see and hear is that the MSM continues to shape the viewpoints of a majority of Americans or close to it. The MSM members are neither stupid nor unaware. They are skilled politically-biased operatives who like to pretend they are objective. They are blatant in the skewed nature of their coverage, but because it still works to shape opinions they now are also shameless about it.

The Jewish New Year begins tonight

The New Neo Posted on by

Jewish holidays start at sundown, so tonight is the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the two-day celebration of the beginning of the new year:

…[It] is the traditional anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman according to the Hebrew Bible, and the inauguration of humanity’s role in God’s world.

Rosh Hashanah customs include sounding the shofar (a cleaned-out ram’s horn), as prescribed in the Torah, following the prescription of the Hebrew Bible to “raise a noise” on Yom Teruah. Its rabbinical customs include attending synagogue services and reciting special liturgy about teshuva [repentance], as well as enjoying festive meals. Eating symbolic foods is now a tradition, such as apples dipped in honey, hoping to evoke a sweet new year.

We could use a sweet new year, right? Happy New Year!

Happy Labor Day!

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of a previous post.]

Labor Day is the bookend standing at the opposite end of summer from its holiday beginning, Memorial Day.

July Fourth is summer’s early peak, with the promise of long light-filled days ahead. But Labor Day is summer’s last gasp, the moment I dreaded as a child because it marked the end of vacation and the start of the school year. Spiffy new clothes, a shiny bookbag, freshly sharpened pencils, and the promise of the beautiful autumn leaves’ arrival were nice. But they couldn’t make up for the fact that a new school year was beginning. Where oh where had the summer gone?

And it goes even more quickly these days. But let’s be happy about the fact that we don’t have to worry about the start of school anymore—except, perhaps, for the teachers among us.

Here’s wishing you all a Happy Labor Day, despite the difficult times. Barbecues, picnics, the beach, just hanging out in your yard, whatever you desire and whatever you decide. And for the historically-minded among you, here’s some information on the origins of the holiday.