A sea change in US policy towards Iran?

The New Neo Posted on by

I think Trump’s new administration will represent a big change in US policy towards Iran, and that Trump means business. Look, for example, at the primacy he gave to appointments to the UN, Israel, State, and Defense. Hardliners all, and staunch defenders of Israel.

And I think the mullahs know it, as does Netanyahu. And of course, it helps that he and Trump already have a working relationship.

Here’s an article purporting to have the inside scoop on some of the plans. For example:

According to these sources, Iran’s planned operation – dubbed “Operation True Promise 3” – has been put on hold pending potential negotiations with Trump, following diplomatic messages conveyed through Iraqi channels. The operation follows two previous initiatives, “True Promise” and “True Promise 2.”

Representative Mike Waltz, Trump’s selection for national security advisor, has consistently advocated for a more assertive approach toward Iran. Prior to Israel’s military action against Iran last month, Waltz proposed targeting Kharg Island, Tehran’s crucial oil export facility. In a September interview with Jewish Insider, Waltz stated, “The United States needs to pressure Hamas and its allies in Iran. Unilateral pressure on Israel will not lead to a ceasefire.”

Pete Hegseth, the prospective defense secretary, has previously advocated for giving Israel autonomy in addressing Iranian nuclear capabilities. “This is an existential threat to them, let them do what they need to do,” Hegseth remarked in statements to US media outlets.

It’s interesting that both Netanyahu and Trump were out of power for a while and now are back in charge of their respective countries in a time of great crisis. Regarding Iran, the picture is even more clear than before what a danger it is – not just to Israel but to the Western world.

Speaking of dangers and the Western world, anti-Jewish riots have spread from Amsterdam to Paris:

Demonstrators on Wednesday night went on a rampage in Paris over a pro-Israel event in the city. “Protests erupted in Paris on Wednesday against a gala … in support of Israel,” The Times of Israel reported. “The demonstrations came on the eve of a high-stakes soccer match at France’s national stadium against the Israeli national team.”

I think one of many goals is to further isolate Israel from the rest of the world and make it too costly for other countries to even host sports events with them. I remember the shock of the Munich Olympics massacre over fifty years ago, when the intrusion of murderous politics into sporting events was new. What did Arafat learn from that? He learned that such barbarism was a way to gain world sympathy and fame.

On Gaetz as potential AG

The New Neo Posted on by

Never a dull moment with Trump, although one might wish for a few.

So, what about Gaetz? Is Trump’s decision to put him up for Attorney General the ultimate troll? Is it even meant to be serious, or some sort of complicated move that is a test of loyalty, or a way to get Gaetz out of the House, or what? I don’t even pretend to know, but I note the furor it has engendered even on the right.

Gaetz is an unconventional choice, to say the least. Most people think he won’t be confirmed in the Senate, and that’s certainly a good possibility, considering the thin GOP majority there and the presence of people like Collins and Murkowski.

Gaetz is nothing if not aggressive; he was one of the main drivers of the ouster of Speaker McCarthy, for example. McCarthy has said this about the nomination:

Asked for his response to Trump’s Cabinet picks so far, McCarthy told Bloomberg Television in an interview, “I think the choices are very good, except one.”

“Look, Gaetz won’t get confirmed,” he continued. “Everybody knows that.”

McCarthy, a loyal Trump ally while serving in the House, was asked why the former president would bother tapping Gaetz if he knew the Florida Republican couldn’t get confirmed.

“You can talk to [the] president, but it’s a good deflection from others, but it also gives …” McCarthy responded, cutting himself off. “I’ll let it stand at that.”

Pressed again for some insight into Trump’s thought process, McCarthy said, “You’d have to ask the president, but Gaetz couldn’t win in a Republican conference, so it doesn’t matter.”

And then there’s Fetterman, who called it a “God-tier kind of trolling just to trigger a meltdown.”

The DOJ had previously subjected Gaetz to a 2-years-long investigation, which was finally closed in 2023 because of witness unreliability [emphasis mine]:

The investigation stemmed from allegations that the congressman had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, with the DOJ looking into if Gaetz violated sex trafficking laws in paying for her to travel with him, including across state lines.

The probe was part of a larger investigation into Gaetz’s ally and former Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty in 2021 to six federal crimes, including sex trafficking of a minor, identity theft and wire fraud.

Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison in December. He agreed to cooperate with the DOJ’s investigation as part of his plea agreement.

But the investigation into Gaetz hit a roadblock over concerns about the credibility of two witnesses, one of whom was Greenberg. Career attorneys reportedly recommended to the DOJ in September that the department not charge Gaetz based on those witness credibility issues.

Prosecutors were also worried that testimony from the girl with whom Gaetz allegedly had the relationship would not stand up in front of a jury.

In other words, they offered something to Greenberg if he’d implicate Gaetz, and his testimony (and the girl’s) ended up being too shaky to hold up in court. You can draw your own conclusions about Gaetz’s guilt, but I say it’s most likely they tried to frame him. I doubt there’s much love lost between Gaetz and the DOJ which, as AG, he would be in the position of running.

There’s also a House investigation:

The House Ethics Committee was investigating whether he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other allegations. With Gaetz’s resignation from the lower chamber, the panel no longer has jurisdiction but could still vote to release the report.

Yes, Gaetz resigned from the House yesterday, ostensibly to start the ball rolling on DeSantis appointing his replacement so that the House majority is protected. This may or may not have been the reason.

My gut feeling is that this is certainly not a simple matter, and that both Trump and Gaetz may be playing a more complicated game. I think it presents Senate GOP members with a real dilemma, as well.

But let’s for a moment say that Gaetz is confirmed as AG. I think it would be a scorched earth policy at the DOJ, which is richly deserved for the agency’s behavior under Garland. It’s not as though the DOJ has any reputation to defend.

More Trump appointees

The New Neo Posted on by

As has been rumored for a couple of days, Marco Rubio is Trump’s pick for Secretary of State:

“He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries,” Trump added. “I look forward to working with Marco to Make America, and the World, Safe and Great Again!”

And Tulsi Gabbard has been named Director of National Intelligence:

Gabbard, a former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee who endorsed Trump and joined the Republican party late in the 2024 campaign, will oversee America’s 17 intelligence agencies in the powerful post.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are joint directors of the Department of Government Efficiency (or DOGE, which is some sort of meme about a Japanese dog and crytopcurrency). Although “government efficiency” sounds like a classic oxymoron, perhaps Musk and Ramaswamy – two unusual guys with very high intelligence – might be able to change that.

Moving right along!

ADDENDUM: And wow, I see that Matt Gaetz will be AG. That’s certainly a bold pick.

Who spilled the beans on Israel’s plans for attacking Iran?

The New Neo Posted on by

A CIA operative has been arrested for the leak of Israel’s plans on Iran:

A Guam-based CIA staffer named Asif W. Rahman was arrested after the Israeli plan for a counter-strike on Iran was passed on to Iranian-linked social media accounts. The leaked documents revealed detailed U.S. intelligence on Israeli military preparations in the run-up to a possible Israeli retaliation to a major Iranian aerial attack in early October.

Rahman was arrested in Cambodia; had he fled there? He had a top security clearance, and has been charged with “two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.”

Of course, anyone reading the name “Asif Rahman” immediately recognizes it as Middle Eastern or perhaps Pakistani (which would be South Asian). I can’t find any more information on who he actually is, but I did find a road in Queens named after a man with the same moniker, a young musician and artist who was tragically killed on that road by a truck while riding his bike. This other Asif Rahman had been raised in Queens but was born in Bangladesh, which is the country that used to be known as East Pakistan. So my best guess is that the Asif Rahman who was recently arrested might be of Bangladesh origin.

An agency like the CIA has a dilemma. It probably needs to have agents with backgrounds in Muslim countries around the world, and yet vetting them presents special challenges. Then again, as we know full well, spies and moles come from all backgrounds. Some of the most dangerous have been all-American, such as Robert Hanssen, for example:

Hanssen’s espionage activities began in 1985. Since he held key counterintelligence positions [with the FBI], he had authorized access to classified information. He used encrypted communications, “dead drops,” and other clandestine methods to provide information to the KGB and its successor agency, the SVR. The information he delivered compromised numerous human sources, counterintelligence techniques, investigations, dozens of classified U.S. government documents, and technical operations of extraordinary importance and value.

Because of his experience and training as a counterintelligence agent, Hanssen went undetected for years, although some of his unusual activities had aroused suspicion from time to time. Still, he was not identified as a spy.

Hanssen was responsible for the death of many informants, and he received a life sentence.

Then there was Aldrich Ames of the CIA, currently serving a life sentence for spying:

In court, Ames admitted that he had compromised “virtually all Soviet agents of the CIA and other American and foreign services known to me” and had provided the USSR and Russia with a “huge quantity of information on United States foreign, defense and security policies”.[42] It is estimated that information Ames provided to the Soviets led to the compromise of at least 100 American intelligence operations and the execution of at least ten sources.

These people are vipers.

I wonder what the ultimate charges against Rahman will be.

Van Jones has the funniest and most honest Democrat take on the election

The New Neo Posted on by

Van Jones, you say? Have you gone stark raving mad, neo?

Please watch. The back-and-forth here is with the excellent Scott Jennings on CNN:

“What do you want me to do? Can I leave? … ”

And it went on and got even better:

“…we’re just sitting here with the dunce cap on. This time last week we thought we were the smartest people in the world, we thought Donald Trump was an idiot, we thought his campaign made no sense. And it turned out they were smarter than us. And we don’t have anything to say. I can sit here and pretend I know something. Here’s what I know: everybody I know is miserable. Everybody’s on these Zoom calls. Nobody’s got any good ideas and it’s gonna take us a while to figure this out.”

Take your time, Democrats. Take your time.

But bravo, Van Jones, for honesty and humor. And bravo Scott Jennings, who’s got just the right touch.

Thune is the new Majority Leader, and I’m fine with it

The New Neo Posted on by

The new Senate Majority Leader is John Thune of South Dakota. The conservative wing of the party is very upset. I consider myself a conservative, and I’m not upset at all. Please bear with me while I explain.

Republicans have a majority in the new Senate, which is great. But it’s not a huge majority, which is typical of GOP Senate majorities of the last eighty years or so. And – as is also typical – that majority contains quite a few members who are not conservative, and some who are really not conservative such as Collins and Murkowski. And although Alaska certainly could and might someday elect a more conservative senator than Murkowski, for the moment she’s a senator. Collins, on the other hand, is different. Once she retires I doubt she’ll be replaced by a Republican at all. They’re not the only ones, either, although they may be the most visible and extreme. And the election of Thune isn’t some sort of secret betrayal; it’s a logical outcome of the makeup of the current Senate.

Thune is kind of middle-of-the-road as current GOP senators go. But he’s someone who’s been around long enough to know who’s who and how to pressure them, and he’s been the GOP whip since 2019.

A Senate Leader needs to be willing to push for the president’s agenda. But how is that accomplished, and what are the impediments to success? One of the most important requirements for the job – and one a lot of people ignore when they only look at where the leader falls on the political spectrum – is how well the person knows his or her fellow GOP members of the Senate.

I’m going to post a discussion of this issue by four savvy guys who’ve worked in politics for many years, are conservative, and also very knowledgeable IMHO. The podcast they have is called Ruthless, and I highly recommend it (they’re funny and entertaining, too). I discovered Ruthless during this election cycle, and they provided the best coverage of anyone I’ve seen.

Here is what they said on this issue before Thune was elected. I’ve cued it up just for that part, which is a bit less than seven minutes. I consider it an extremely insightful discussion on the question of who to elect as Majority Leader and why, and I strongly urge you to listen to it. If you have time I think you might enjoy the whole thing, but if not, then these seven minutes are well worth it (and if you speed it up it goes even more quickly):

So that’s why I look at Thune’s election quite calmly. He might just have been the best one for this particular job.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) The FEMA plot thickens. The woman who was fired for discriminating against homes with Trump signs in FEMA relief efforts says she’s the fall guy for a more comprehensive policy. The gist of her claim is this:

However, this doesn’t make total sense, since the text on which the accusations against her were based specifically said to avoid homes with Trump signs.

(2) Word is that Marco Rubio will be Secretary of State. That would mean that DeSantis would get to name his replacement in the Senate, and there would be a special election in 2026 for that person’s successor. The person appointed could be in the running in 2026, as well.

(3) Kristi Noem is Trump’s pick for head of Homeland Security.

(4) The new “border czar” will be Tom Horman:

Former acting ICE Director Tom Homan is “honored” to be tapped as the “border czar” for the incoming second Trump administration, and he’s prepared to do what it takes to get the crisis under control.

“I’ve been on this network for years complaining about what this administration did to this border. I’ve been yelling and screaming about it and what they need to do to fix it. So when the president asked me, ‘Would you come back and fix it?’ Of course. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t. I’m honored the president asked me to come back and help solve this national security crisis, so I’m looking forward to it,” he told “Fox & Friends” Monday in his first interview since being tapped for the role.

“I think the calling is clear,” he continued, “I’ve got to go back and help because every morning… I’m pissed off with what this [Biden] administration did to the most secure border in my lifetime, so I’m going to go back and do what I can to fix it.”

(5) A bigger cast of characters:

(6) Casey of Pennsylvania still hasn’t conceded his Senate race.

The new Tory head has a request of the new British prime minister

The New Neo Posted on by

I link the cut of her jib:

RIP dancer Judith Jamison

The New Neo Posted on by

Statuesque Alvin Ailey dancer Judith Jamison has died at the age of 81. She was a towering figure in the dance world – pun intended, because she was very tall – and there are plenty of tributes. This is mine.

I first saw Jamison perform relatively early in her career, when I was in college some time in the late 1960s. I’d never even heard of the Alvin Ailey company, much less Jamison. But she was instantly noticeable and memorable because she was so unique. She didn’t have a conventional dancer’s body; she was taller and not especially turned-out, with extremely long arms and legs and a slightly thicker (but just slightly thicker) torso. But that wasn’t really it, although her height helped. The reason she was memorable was her stage presence, something you can’t define. Between her height and her ability to project that presence, she was a star from the very first moment.

I saw her dance many times. Most memorably, she had a prominent role in Ailey’s signature piece “Revelations.” I may have seen her dance that something like seven times, and then when she retired I saw some of her replacments. They were usually more beautiful, they were often quite tall (although not as tall as Jamison), and they were probably better dancers technically. But none could even begin to compare with her. The moment of Jamison’s running entrance in the “Wade In the Water” sequence, carrying a ruffled white parasol held impossibly high, was one of the most arresting theater experiences I can recall.

Unfortunately – and I mean very unfortunately – I cannot locate a single video of her in the role, which is odd because it certainly wouldn’t have been impossible to record it at the height of her fame in the 1970s. No one else compares, but here is the moment. Strangely enough, it’s the only video I could find of the piece that has the entrance, and it’s rather blurry. Nor, of course, is Jamison the person holding the parasol here. The entrance is at around 0:24. When Jamison did it, the audience used to let out a gasp:

The other moment that stands out in my mind is also in “Revelations,” when Jamison made her entrance in the “Rocka My Soul” (“The Day Is Past and Gone”) finale. The moment she stepped on the stage she established the character – a bossy but lovable lady with whom you didn’t mess. Her height once again gave her that commanding quality, and the large floppy hat completed the picture. Again, there is no footage of Jamison in the role. But here is a short clip of the dance; her entrance is at 23:04, but the person in the role here just doesn’t convey anything like the same authority and humor:

It’s interesting to me that the two moments of Jamison’s I recall best were entrances and not even really dance moves. But take it from me, they were absolutely wonderful and she was magnificent.

Jamison’s signature piece was her solo “Cry.” I never much cared for its choreography, but most people love it and at least it has been filmed. So here’s a little bit of footage of Jamison herself dancing the part; I couldn’t find any record of the whole thing, although it may exist:

RIP, Judith Jamison.

Two election night videos

The New Neo Posted on by

This one makes me marvel at the fact that Joy Reid is on national TV. “Many celebrities” equals “flawless campaign”? This is analysis?

And this one – well, it’s self-explanatory: