A post-9/11 political changer tells her story

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s her tale.

I think the most interesting thing about it is the writer’s description of how she used to make political decisions. One might say, “frivolously.” There was also a strong family-tradition influence. Both things are not unusual, in my experience. I don’t think I was ever as frivolous as this woman, but I certainly wasn’t researching most issues in great depth when I voted during the 20th Century:

The 1988 Presidential Election was the first time that I got to exercise my right to vote. I went to the polling place with my parents and excitedly pulled the lever for Michael Dukakis. Why? I liked his wife Kitty. I also grew up in a Democrat-voting family. My grandparents had a photo of JFK hanging in their home. My grandmother would proclaim “Democrats are for the working people.” Both of my parents voted for Democrats most of the time, although they were registered as Independents. They claimed to keep open minds on the off chance they may vote differently but they never did. I did the same, registered as an Independent but voted Democrat up and down the ballot.

I voted for President Clinton both times. He was young, good looking, charming and played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show during the 1992 campaign. Yes, I thought, this guy is going to be an amazing President.

What changed for her? After being in Manhattan on 9/11 she got interested in politics, researched things more, and it ended up changing her voting patterns. I think this is fairly typical of a rather straightforward kind of political change story from a person who previously had a rather shallow involvement. The real change, from which the rest followed, was that politics suddenly got her attention.

Does Biden hate Governor Newsom?

The New Neo Posted on by

Why do I ask that question? Because I can’t believe that even in California this visit would be considered a plus for the Newsom campaign:

President Joe Biden will campaign for Gov. Gavin Newsom in California ahead of the Sept. 14 recall vote, Newsom said Thursday.

“I’m humbled by the fact the president will be out here soon,” Newsom told reporters during a campaign stop in San Francisco’s Chinatown district.

Get it? He’s humbled by the emperor’s resplendent suit of clothing.

The article goes on to say that VP Harris as well as Biden were originally scheduled to come and help him campaign – Harris being another dubious plus – but that Afghanistan caused a cancellation by Harris. My guess is that the real reason is she doesn’t want to subject herself to the heckling.

Polls in California:

Biden’s numbers have also fallen in California, though he still enjoys strong ratings. A Public Policy Institute of California poll released Wednesday night showed 58 percent of Californians approve of Biden, down from 70 percent in January and 66 percent in May. Still, 83 percent of Democrats back the president, and his support could help motivate the governor’s base.

Or not.

And of course, Republicans pounced – like the predators they are:

Republicans jumped on Newsom’s comments Thursday.

“Dozens of California school children remain stranded in Afghanistan, abandoned by this Administration,” California Republican Party Chair Jessica Millan Patterson tweeted.

The students live in Sacramento and are from families of Afghan ethnicity, and their families are trapped with them, adding up to about 72 total.

Sacramento apparently is home to a lot of Afghan immigrants. This is the sort of story that would be on the front pages of every newspaper had Trump been in charge, but the Democrats’ great concern about children – particularly immigrant children – seems to have pretty much evaporated at the moment. After all, these children are probably the offspring of legal immigrants.

I make no predictions about what will happen in the Newsom recall, except to say that the Democrats will do everything they can – including a sufficient amount of vote fraud, if possible – to keep him in office.

Open thread 9/4/21

The New Neo Posted on by

This Moiseyev number in rehearsal starts slow, but it certainly picks up speed. The attention to detail and style is phenomenal – in particular the ever-changing lean of the head and upper body, and the interplay between the men and women. Even when the men and women are doing the same steps, they do them so differently: the women with sedate yet subtly flirtatious charm, and the men with a bit of swagger.

Enjoy.

Biden’s six Afghanistan Big Lies

The New Neo Posted on by

The NY Post lists them here.

Those are not his only lies about Afghanistan, either. But they’re certainly important ones. Biden really is one of those people who is used to lying, has lied his entire life, has almost never been called on it or suffered bad consequences for it (except for the plagiarism charges that knocked him out of the 1988 presidential race), and knows he will almost certainly be protected by his party and the MSM for every single lie he tells.

Although Biden has some cognitive challenges, he’s not so far gone that he has forgotten how to lie. It is that basic to him. I also noticed that, in the transcript of his call with Ghani that was leaked to Reuters, he sounded relatively in command of his mental faculties and just as duplicitous as ever.

One oft-repeated statement – not by Biden, but by members of the press and by a lot of other people too – is that we were defeated in Afghanistan. No, we were not. While it’s true that we failed to obliterate the Taliban, that was because we only wage limited wars these days and because this was an asymmetrical and ideological war as well. But when Biden announced his pullout “plan” (in mid-April of 2021), the country of Afghanistan was not being ruled by the Taliban, and there had been no large-scale Islamic terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11.

Biden and the Democrats chose to surrender, and they chose to surrender in this manner. Their hand was not forced. They removed all conditions from the agreement, set a hard time limit no matter what, and stuck to it. And they certainly were not required to withdraw in the worst possible way, although they managed to accomplish that dubious feat. They thought they would get away politically with the surrender because the American people had tired of Afghanistan, and they knew the MSM would ultimately back their decision up (even if there was a bit of a kerfluffle for a while).

And maybe they will get away with it politically. Maybe they won’t. But this was an unforced surrender.

Depressing but true – there isn’t an apparent way out of Biden being president

The New Neo Posted on by

And we are in absolutely enormous trouble. By “we” I don’t just mean the right. I mean America. I also mean the West. Biden is just a symptom rather than a cause, but he is amplifying the problems tremendously, perhaps even exponentially.

How can he be removed, and would that even help? I agree with this analysis of both impeachment and the 25th Amendment as methods to remove Biden. I was planning to write something similar, so now I don’t have to and I’ll just quote from it:

The Constitution has no proviso for the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris catastrophe, except for a series of impeachments, 25th Amendment removal, and waiting it out until 2024.

A disabled Biden won’t be removed unless his cabinet says so… and Biden’s cabinet members are happy to have a crash dummy wherein they can romp without any guide rails. Impeachment is breath-wasting banter as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would never assemble let alone schedule a vote on articles to impeach Joe Biden.

But assuming both Biden and Harris are impeached, who would replace them? Pelosi and then Dem Senator and Senate President Pro-Tem Patrick Leahy are next in line.

Can the Republicans arrange an omnibus impeachment to eliminate all of the toxic or incompetent successors? Rhetorical speculations of that sort are unserious clickbait.

Would the House and Senate Republicans, as a unified bloc, stymie and neutralize any Democrat agendas? Uh, no.

As for the last paragraph – the Republicans in Congress may not be unified in general, but they are relatively unified in their disapproval of what Biden has done and some of the most extreme things the Democrats are planning. I’m referring to the fact that the Republicans in Congress have already “stymied” several of the Democrats’ most dearly-embraced plans: removing the filibuster, packing the Court, DC statehood. To be more accurate, what mattered is the fact that the GOP really did present a unified front on those issues and were joined by two Democrats on the need to continue the filibuster. The two Democrats were Manchin and Sinema, and without their votes the Democrats were powerless to do away with the filibuster unless a Republican (or two, if both those Democrats had held firm) broke ranks and voted with the Democrats.

No Republican did break ranks or it would have been all over. If the filibuster had been done away with, even a totally united GOP would lack the power to block much of anything unless a Senate Democrat or two joined them on whatever the issue might be.

That’s the reality of having a Democrat president, Democrat House, and Democrat Senate bent on increasing their power so that it will be permanent. It’s also the reality of having an abominable president and vice-president.

Democrats and especially leftists were only in favor of protecting minority rights while there was a chance that they would be the minority. If they can fix it so that they remain a permanent majority, almost all of them would be perfectly happy if the minority had few or no rights.

We have never been in a more dangerous situation in my lifetime – and probably even longer than that. Since the Civil War, perhaps? Or the early years of World War II, when the Allies were doing poorly?

Many people are pointing out a contradiction between those who say “my body, my choice” for abortion while also advocating vaccine mandates

The New Neo Posted on by

But I contend that there is no contradiction. The two positions are remarkably consistent, but you have to understand that the principle being advocated is not the one you suppose. The principle actually goes like this: “My body, my choice” and “Your body, my choice.” In other words, the speaker always gets to decide – for self and for everyone.

That sounds like I mean it to be tongue-in-cheek, and I do – but only partially. I’m also serious, because the people Thomas Sowell calls The Anointed believe they know best, and that what they want either for self or others should be the rule. The principle is not “every person gets to decide what happens to his or her body” – it’s not “my body my choice and your body your choice.” It’s “my choice, period.”

Pro-abortion advocates are also ignoring or minimizing a simple fact about pregnancy that makes it different from a woman’s usual state, which is that her body is now housing the body of another human being. When that other body becomes fully human, and what being human even means, is neither simple nor universally accepted. That is why debating abortion by talking about “my body” is sophistry.

As far as the Texas Heartbeat Law goes, I’ve already said I think the fact that it allows anyone to sue a provider who does abortions after six weeks (or without checking for a heartbeat) makes it very weak legally. And the six-week limit makes it weak in the practical sense, because that really does mean that a lot of women who want abortions will be barred from them in Texas. It’s not a good way to attack Roe, if that’s the intent.

As far as my own views on abortion go, I’ve stated them in many previous posts: for example, here as well as here.

SCOTUS refuses to block the Texas Heartbeat Law at present

The New Neo Posted on by

The so-called Texas Heartbeat Law took effect yesterday.
Here’s the text of the law; it’s long and I’ve only read about a third of it. It includes, among other things:

Except as provided by Section 171.205, a physician may not knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman unless the physician has determined, in accordance with this section, whether the woman’s unborn child has a detectable fetal heartbeat…

Except as provided by Section 171.205, a physician may not knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman if the physician detected a fetal heartbeat for the unborn child as required by Section 171.203 or failed to perform a test to detect a fetal heartbeat…

Section 171.204 does not apply if a physician believes a medical emergency exists that prevents compliance with this subchapter.

The law seems quite unusual for abortion-limiting laws in that the liability is civil and not criminal, which means that the state would not be bringing any actions under it but any random citizen could sue a provider under it. It is my understanding that there would be no action allowed against the woman herself, only against providers, but I’m not 100% sure about that. At any rate, it seems that the goal and the upshot would be that providers would get out of the business of doing abortions on anyone over 6 weeks pregnant, because otherwise they would risk a lawsuit and a loss of income.

A lot of the pro-abortion people are saying this effectively bans abortion in Texas. It doesn’t do that, but it does restrict it so much that the vast majority of abortions would indeed be liable to a civil lawsuit. A woman might have to go to another state if she wanted to have an abortion after that 6-week mark, and this would impact the most on poorer women.

SCOTUS has decided the case on procedural grounds, and it’s only a temporary decision not to block it:

It was a non-abortion ruling because by 5-4, with Roberts voting with the liberal block, the court found the case not ripe for judicial intervention. But it’s related to abortion, so according to the left, it’s the end of the world, and we’re already in that movie with the women in red robes and head coverings…

The government is not enforcing the law, private citizens are. But none of those private citizens have not yet filed a suit under the law, so there’s nothing for SCOTUS to decide yet. The Court left open that there might be other procedural ways to judicially challenge the law, and made clear it was not ruling on the merits.

So that’s it. That’s the entire thing. Someone actually has to bring suit in order for there to be a possible SCOTUS appeal. From the opinion:

…[F]ederal courts enjoy the power to enjoin individuals tasked with enforcing laws, not the laws themselves. And it is unclear whether the named defendants in this lawsuit can or will seek to enforce the Texas law against the applicants in a manner that might permit our intervention.

I assume we haven’t heard the last of the challenges to this law.

The message of “move on” from the Biden administration

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve long been annoyed by people who tell other people to “move on.” I’m talking about private life, although the exhortation is also used by politicians and has been especially useful for the left in the past.

When Biden scoffed at a question about the desperate people falling from airplane wheel wells in Kabul, he defended himself by pointing out that it had happened four or five days earlier. Critics tended to fasten on his exaggeration of how much time had passed. But to me the far more important thing was that he was implicitly using the “move on; after all, I’ve done so” argument.

Of course, in private life it’s not good to dwell unduly on the past. And sometimes that happens, and should be discouraged. But the passage of a few days is not distant enough, and what’s more if an issue is undiscussed and/or unresolved it can and often will fester no matter how long it’s been. One of the reasons it’s important to face such things even if there’s been a delay is to learn what the accused thinks about what he or she did. After all, a repeat in the present or the future is likely to occur if it’s brushed off. Plus, the person hurt by it or objecting to whatever happened will at the very least fear a repeat if it’s not aired and understood, and that can deeply affect the relationship, too. Why not at least try to clear the air?

I’ve also noticed a very distinct trend: it’s the person being accused of wrongdoing, and perhaps guilty of it, who is the one who insists that everyone “move on” and that such moving on is a virtue. Isn’t it interesting how that reverses things, how it allows the accused wrongdoer to cast off any guilt or any need for redress and to claim a virtue – the superior ability to move on – that the accuser lacks?

Biden and the Democrats would like nothing better than to have Americans move on from Afghanistan in this way. And it’s certainly happened before that the public at large has a short attention span. I don’t know whether it will happen this time, though. Of course, it also depends on how cooperative the MSM will be in covering the story with a pillow, till it stops moving. My guess is that members of the MSM will be very cooperative from now on, because they’ve “moved on,” too. After all, they are implicated as well in whatever happens in Afghanistan, because they were instrumental in getting Biden into the White House.

A few words from Ric Grennell and Lara Logan on Afghanistan

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s Ric Grennell speaking about the intelligence community and the Afghanistan withdrawal:

Here’s Lara Logan on Tucker last night (one correction – I think “Islamophobia” accusations actually became a thing quite a bit before Obama came to office; my recollection is that it happened and CAIR pushed it when Bush was president and not all that long after 9/11):

Now that we’re out of Afghanistan – except for that indeterminate number of citizens left behind – how we will even learn the details of what’s happening there? The Biden administration would be only too happy if we never learn, because if it turns into the killing fields it would reflect poorly on them. So a blackout or near-blackout of news is a good thing as far as they’re concerned.

If this report is true, it is abominable

The New Neo Posted on by

Please read.

An excerpt:

Director of MRC Latino, Jorge Bonilla, posted an interview of Pardo-Maurer. Pardo-Maurer, who was in the State Department for years, since at least 2001, said he was being told that the Department of Defense already knew who the bomber [at the Kabul airport] was ahead of time, before the bombing and when the Kabul attack would occur…

But Pardo-Maurer went further in his interview. He said not only did they know where and when it would happen, but that they had a Predator drone lock on the bomber, but that “they” refused to grant permission to take the guy out. “[Permission] was requested and was denied,” he said. Why? “Because we are in this process of negotiating with the Taliban who aren’t even in control of their own government or their own people.”

If so, betrayal on top of betrayal on top of betrayal.

We do know that we knew there would be an attack of some sort at or near the airport, because the US gave the warning to stay away.