Kamala Harris is getting some bad press from the MSM. Why?

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s been obvious for a long, long time that Kamala Harris leaves something to be desired in the “likeability” department, lacks political skills despite the heights to which she’s risen, and isn’t even especially bright or articulate – unlike her similarly “unlikeable” Democratic female presidential-hopeful predecessor Hillary Clinton, who was intelligent and could express herself fairly well. It’s hard to see what political attributes Harris actually has besides her sex (female) and racial makeup (mixed white, East Indian, and black).

Until now, that’s been enough to get her the vice presidency. She was chosen for those two latter identities by a party that values identity politics above nearly all else.

I noticed Harris’ unlikeability and political flat-footedness long ago (as I described in this recent post). It didn’t take incredible perceptiveness to do so, either; it was obvious. And yet she’s second in line to the presidency of a man of 78 with signs of fragile health, and until quite recently the MSM has lauded her.

So why are we now being treated to articles such as this in The Atlantic and this in Politico? The first one is at least somewhat critical of Kamala, and the second one is quite critical of her staff.

Does the following except from that Atlantic piece contain at least a hint about what one of the reasons might be for the sudden appearance of criticism of Harris in the press? Has she alienated the MSM by the way she treats them?:

The vice president and her team tend to dismiss reporters. Trying to get her to take a few questions after events is treated as an act of impish aggression. And Harris herself tracks political players and reporters whom she thinks don’t fully understand her or appreciate her life experience…[S]she continues to retreat behind talking points and platitudes in public, and declines many interview requests and opportunities to speak for herself (including for this article). At times, she comes off as so uninteresting that television producers have started to wonder whether spending thousands of dollars to send people on trips with her is worthwhile, given how little usable material they get out of it.

The left isn’t too happy with her, which is probably another clue (if the following is even true):

Now, four months into the administration, many progressives like Jayapal and Barber are surprised at how satisfied they are with Biden’s presidency so far. But some of those same activists and elected officials still find ways to gripe about Harris. Everything she doesn’t do is a strike against her. Everything she does gets attributed to Biden.

And then there’s this:

Harris has been an elected official for 18 years straight, but she has only a few senior aides on staff who have worked for her for more than a few months. Turf battles have been a recurring feature of Harris offices over the years, but her newest circle believes it is finally getting her on track after years of past staffers not serving her well.

Wow, only a few have stuck it out more than a few months. And the Politico, article, which focuses on her staff, adds:

The handling of the border visit was the latest chaotic moment for a staff that’s quickly become mired in them. Harris’ team is experiencing low morale, porous lines of communication and diminished trust among aides and senior officials. Much of the frustration internally is directed at Tina Flournoy, Harris’ chief of staff, a veteran of Democratic politics who began working for her earlier this year.

In interviews, 22 current and former vice presidential aides, administration officials and associates of Harris and Biden described a tense and at times dour office atmosphere. Aides and allies said Flournoy, in an apparent effort to protect Harris, has instead created an insular environment where ideas are ignored or met with harsh dismissals and decisions are dragged out. Often, they said, she refuses to take responsibility for delicate issues and blames staffers for the negative results that ensue.

While much of the ire is aimed at Harris’ chief, two administration officials said the VP herself also bears responsibility for the way her office is run. “It all starts at the top,” said one of the administration officials, who like others requested anonymity to be able to speak candidly about a sensitive matter.

You get the picture.

So the question remains: why is this being reported? And why now? I don’t know the answer (one of Rumsfeld’s “known unknowns“). But I’ll offer a guess: Harris has made some enemy or enemies in the White House. Is it Dr. Jill? And/or, is Biden or the Biden forces concerned that, if Harris keeps getting good press, there will be a growing movement to get rid of Biden for health reasons and replace him with Harris? Weakening her in the eyes of the public could help counter such a scenario.

If you have further ideas about what’s happening and why, go for it in the comments.

The story of California so far

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a summary by Michael Barone. The concluding paragraph:

California’s divergence from the rest of the nation politically, on top of its continued domestic out-migration and, over the last decade, slower than average population growth, make it clear that it no longer is a harbinger of the nation’s future. It has gone off on its own, for better or worse, and most of the nation has charted its own course, a few closely resembling California’s, many quite different. That may seem odd, and perhaps off-putting, for those who grew up in the era when California seemed to be the model toward which the nation was aspiring. But a longer perspective, taking account of California from the time Richard Henry Dana recorded the aboriginal version of smog in the Los Angeles Basin and the American flag was first raised over Monterey and San Francisco Bays, suggests that the natural state of things is for California, off on one coast of America, with its unusual climate and atypical economy, to be distinctive, even idiosyncratic—adding its own savory and sweet flavor to America’s multivarious stew. The influx of Americans in the great domestic migration to California in the quarter century from 1940 to 1965 made California a plausible model for the rest of the United States, but the great immigrant migration in the quarter century from 1982 to 2007 has made it, once again, a commonwealth of its own.

I’d caution Barone not to be too sure of that. If the Biden administration and the left (redundant, I know) is successful in its policy towards illegal immigration, California may once again point the way to America’s future.

RIP Donald Rumsfeld

The New Neo Posted on by

Rumsfeld died on June 29 at the age of 88.

It seems like a long time ago that he was a mover and shaker on the world stage.

A portrait of Rumsfeld by someone who knew him well:

That’s the way he saw the world—he and Joyce blessed by providence and a wonderful country. From his days as a young aviator in the United States Navy, he spent the majority of his adult life serving that country. When Rumsfeld left government in 2006, he took all the weight of the Bush administration’s failure in Iraq onto his shoulders and bore it into exile. Though he offered some defense of his actions, he also protected colleagues by refusing to reveal in his books some of the more damning information he knew that could have justified some of his decisions. He refused many opportunities to make a McNamara-esque apology for Iraq that would make him look good or to fault President Bush or others for the decisions he took part in. Instead he lived his life—writing bestselling memoirs, spending time out West, helping others where he could, trying to make the world a better place without bitterness or rancor.

And that’s what most every obituary or essay on Rumsfeld you will read in the wake of his death will get wrong. They’ll tell you the story of the ferocious, take-no-prisoners Washington operator whose headstrong tactics got us into an unwinnable war. The great irony is that in the end, this supposedly ruthless political animal didn’t play the game that many others played against him.

Here’s one of his most memorable sayings:

I was surprised that this statement was widely mocked at the time. My guess is that it was mocked by people who think they know what they don’t know.

Open thread 7/1/21

The New Neo Posted on by

Music videos from the 1980s are often so bizarre that a literal video treatment only makes them slightly funnier:

Here’s the original video. I put it up for the spectacular tenor voice of Russell Hitchcock, which cannot be imitated:

Jim Steinman wrote the song, by the way (see this).

Can trust in our election integrity be undermined any further? New York shows how it’s done.

The New Neo Posted on by

After many months of shrieking that challenges to election integrity by anyone even vaguely on the right are Big Lies by definition, the left has a bit of egg on its face.

In New York’s recent mayoral primary the Democratic Party had some candidates who were more to the left as well as those who were not as far to the left and maybe even a bit on the right. One of the latter, Eric Adams, did quite well in what is a complex ranked-choice system that won’t declare a winner till a few weeks have passed.

Adams is a Democrat (he’s also black), but he’s a relative law-and-order guy, which puts him somewhat on the right. Suddenly, over 100,000 votes came out of nowhere and narrowed his strong lead considerably. That’s when Adams questioned the validity of what had happened, and the left exploded with anger and derision:

“The vote total just released by the Board of Elections is 100,000-plus more than the total announced on election night, raising serious questions,” Adams said in a statement. “We have asked the Board of Elections to explain such a massive increase and other irregularities before we comment on the Ranked Choice Voting projection.”

The BOE eventually responded by admitting they made an oopsie that didn’t get caught until Adams raised the issue.

“The Board of Elections conducts rigorous and mandatory pre-qualification testing for every election. It has been determined that ballot images used for testing were not cleared from the Election Management System (EMS),” they explained, noting that the test results included “approximately 135,000 additional records.”…

And therein lies a big part of the problem. Noting discrepancies and demanding clarifications and corrections if necessary in vote totals – even raising legal challenges if you’re concerned enough – is not a “threat to democracy,” no matter how Democrats and the media try to spin it. Nor is objecting to the certification of election results, which is what Sens. Cruz, Hawley, and numerous other Republican members of Congress did on January 6th, something Democratic members of Congress also did as recently as 2001, 2005, and 2017 – all times when Republicans won their respective presidential elections.

Election integrity can be compromised either intentionally or accidentally. But this example illustrates how easily it can be compromised. This time the problem was obvious enough – and the Adams camp alert enough – that it was caught in time. But there’s no reason to imagine that’s ordinarily the case.

The charges against the Trump organization

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s been a lot of legal news lately, much too much for me to cover it all. But most of it seems to point to the continuing and deepening politicization of our legal system and the use of lawfare by the left against its political opponents.

For example, the story I reported on four days ago – that the charges New York state is preparing against Trump aren’t going to be what the left has long hoped would drive a stake through his heart – appears to be going forward as previously stated:

They investigated the Trump organization for three years and the best they could come up with is unpaid taxes on fringe benefits? This is the kind of thing you normally handle as a civil matter. In fact, as my prior write-up noted, the Times literally could not find a previous example of a prosecutor filing criminal charges in a similar case. That’s how much of a politicized witch-hunt this entire thing is.

These marginal charges come days after it was leaked that Trump himself would not be charged for anything, and you know that wasn’t from lack of trying. Per RedState’s report on that, there isn’t some other shoe waiting to drop either. This is literally all there is.

Given that, the disappointment on the left is palpable. Here a few comments from the Journal’s breaking post…”Evading taxes on fringe benefits and perks doesn’t sound like the hammer I was hoping for. Surely there’s more.”

Hope springs eternal.

I conclude that Trump just may be the cleanest real estate developer in the world. But the legal cost of working with and/or for him has been made crystal clear.

All the news that’s depressing enough to print: on disbarments

The New Neo Posted on by

I have to gird my loins (metaphorically speaking) to look at the news these days. It’s hard to know what to say about so much of it, other than that it feels like a looking-glass world in which the Red Queen is in charge and “the best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.”

Some of the depressing news is quiet and probably has no significance for most people. For example, if you were to conduct a poll of the American public and ask them who Kevin Clinesmith is, how many would be able to identify him as the FBI lawyer who falsified an email as part of the Russiagate web spun to snare Trump? I would say that 10% would probably be a high estimate.

So I think that this recent story about Clinesmith’s law license wouldn’t have much meaning to most people:

Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith and his legal team have agreed to a one-year law license suspension in Washington, D.C., after the official was found guilty in August 2020 of illegally modifying a statement relating to the Russiagate investigation and scandal, according to new bar records.

A District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility committee will hear the suspension proposal on July 19 and decide whether to approve or reject Clinesmith’s bar sanction.

If the panel proceeds with the suspension, Clinesmith will be prohibited from practicing law again until August 2021, one year from the date when he reported his guilty plea to the D.C. disciplinary counsel’s office.

Clinesmith pleaded guilty in court to the charge that he had doctored an email that was presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) in 2017 concerning whether or not former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had been a “source” for the CIA. He was then sentenced to 12 months probation and 400 hours of community service in January 2021.

In other words, not even much of a wrist slap – more like a love tap. The message? If you’re on the side of the left, you can get away with things like that with hardly any consequences at all.

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani – who was on the other side – has had his law license suspended:

Rudolph W. Giuliani … had his law license suspended after a New York court ruled on Thursday that he made “demonstrably false and misleading statements” while fighting the results of the 2020 election on behalf of Donald J. Trump.

Alan Dershowitz has something to say on the matter:

Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from the practice of law without a hearing, based largely on First Amendment-protected statements he made outside of any court of law. A panel of the Appellate Division of New York suspended the former mayor of New York and former United States Attorney last week without giving him an opportunity to dispute the charges against him at an evidentiary hearing. Moreover, he was suspended largely on the basis of statements he made not in court but on television…

Although Giuliani is now entitled to a post-suspension hearing, it seems clear that the judges already have made up their minds, saying that the result will “likely” be “substantial permanent sanctions” — which means disbarment…

…[T]here are no compelling arguments why anyone — lawyer or non-lawyer — should be denied the full protection of the First Amendment when he or she participates in the marketplace of ideas on television, podcasts or other media, even when representing a client.

Any statements made in such a public context can be rebutted in the marketplace of ideas, and so the public needs no special protection from statements made by lawyers…

The rules under which Giuliani has been suspended are so vague that they cannot possibly satisfy the standards of due process, especially where public speech is concerned and clarity is required before it is suppressed.

The court cited a rule allowing disbarment for conduct, including speech that “adversely reflects on the lawyer’s fitness as a lawyer.” It is difficult to imagine a more subjective standard subject to selective application. The panel also cited a rule that called for disbarment for knowingly making “false statements of fact or law to a third person.”

As usual, Dershowitz is both clear and correct. And then he adds this, which expresses my sentiments exactly:

If these rules were applied across the board fairly, and equitably, thousands of lawyers would be disbarred every year.

If we’re going to apply such a standard – which I think is absurd – then I nominate Ben Crump to be first in the disbarment line. He’s lied over and over and over about nearly every one of race-centered police violence cases in which he’s been involved, and his lies have done remarkable damage.

And no, I won’t sit on a hot stove till Crump’s disbarment occurs.

Rocky Mountain high: the results of legalizing marijuana in Colorado

The New Neo Posted on by

Colorado was a US trailblazer in the legalization of marijuana. It was legalized there for medical use in 2009, and for recreational use in 2014. That means that there’s quite a bit of data now about the results in that state, and a lot of it is not encouraging:

Advocates for legalization were adamant that a major purpose was to create a regulated market that would drive out the criminal element and end the violence that drives the black market. It fact, the exact opposite has happened, with a thriving black market still dominating the trade, as has happened everywhere states have legalized marijuana, from California to Illinois…

Easier access, greater prevalence, higher psychoactive potency from increased THC, a continued criminal element, and more intensive daily use have all occurred since the experiment began. Maybe the sky hasn’t fallen, but a great deal of damage has rained down on Colorado, as measured across several indicators.

Please read the whole thing. The negative effects seem formidable, but I don’t think it’s possible to re-criminalize cannabis, nor do I think it would work to stem the tide.

Free speech in chains

The New Neo Posted on by

Free speech has always been a hard sell. It goes against the human grain to a certain extent. People often feel a powerful desire to silence those whom they define as opponents, bullies, liars, or anyone else whose speech they think is offensive or dangerous to them.

Free speech requires that people stifle that impulse in the name of a principle that seems abstract: everyone benefits because it may be the speech suppressor who’s suppressed next time. The marketplace of ideas will be the judge, with the battle fought openly by allowing the speech to occur in the interests of liberty.

I’m of the opinion that, as our lives have become safer and more protected in terms of vanquishing disease, vastly lengthened lifespans, huge increases in conveniences, enormously faster communication, and a host of other improvements, many of us have become more intent on trying to eliminate many things perceived as still dangerous. As we’ve become safer, we’ve demanded even more safety, and expanded the definitions of “safe.”

Recent generations have grown up with the idea that their feelings will be protected even from hurtful speech. Where the children of yesteryear recited the nursery rhyme “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me,” and parents and educators emphasized resilience, in recent decades that attitude has mostly been replaced by the idea of protection from anything and everything upsetting.

That’s one of the reasons that dedication to free speech has been waning in the general population, particularly among younger people. In addition, the left in the US and many other western countries used to support allowing speech that might be offensive back when they were weak and the policy of free speech mainly protected them. But now that they’re feeling so much stronger, they can afford to try to suppress – though social media and cancel culture, as well as law – people on the right, and even those on the left who are insufficiently pure in their leftism. The radical left doesn’t care about protecting people’s feelings; they care about power and about shutting the opposition down. But they use and exploit the desire to spare feelings by appealing to it in pursuit of their goal.

And, as Mark Steyn writes, the left never, never ever rests [hat tip: AesopFan]:

The “free world” barely pretends to favor free speech these days…

For most people under thirty – forty? fifty? – freedom of expression takes a back seat on ever more issues. On climate, Islam, race, immigration, LGBTQWERTY and of course ChiCom-19, there is one correct position and it is entirely legitimate therefore to quash any dissenting views.

In such a world it is no surprise to find that Justin Trudeau’s ministry is preparing to restore “Section 13” of the Canadian Human Rights Code. The repeal of that vile law represents one of my few victories in the political realm. As the saying goes, there are no permanent victories in politics, and I would have a tougher time winning that battle today: The principled lefties (Margaret Wente) who offered support have themselves been canceled, and the queasier ones (Neil Macdonald) who objected on the grounds that all the attention was merely helping me sell even more books have been supplanted by more committed warriors who feel that, with Zuckerberg and Bezos at your back, there is no one so lofty he can’t be brought low…

We’re not alone in this. In Britain, Australia, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and many other places, democratic societies have become far too comfortable in policing the opinions of the citizenry…

… Ian Fine, the senior counsel of the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission, declared that his organization was committed to the abolition of hatred—not “hate crimes,” not even “hate speech,” but hate—a human emotion; you know, like the human emotions the control-freak enforcers attempt to abolish in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Stepford Wives. Any society of free peoples will include its share of hate: it could not be human without it. And, as bad as racists and homophobes and Islamophobes and whateverphobes may be, empowering Mr. Fine’s ever more coercive enforcement regime to micro-regulate us into glassy-eyed compliance is a thousand times worse.

If people are not taught to love liberty and to protect it, they will not defend it against those forces that would quash it.