Here’s a pretty good summary of the last few years of political and intelligence and media developments, and the reaction of the right

The New Neo Posted on by

I keep looking for a simple way to tell the story – which is hard, because there have been so many incidents leading to the current stance of the right towards these things. But this Twitter thread (hat tip: Ace) does a pretty good job, and I recommend reading it and even sending it to a few open-minded liberals, if you know some.

The author doesn’t seem to be on the right – at least, he describes Trump supporters as though looking at them from the outside, albeit with some compassion and understanding. I don’t agree with everything in the thread; in particular, I don’t think that “the same institutions would have taken opposite sides if it was a Tulsi Gabbard vs Jeb Bush election.” No; Gabbard may be an unusual Democrat with a few conservative values, but she’s a Democrat and the press would have supported her win if it was her vs. Jeb.

However, the thread contains a lot of succinct descriptions of the course of events and of the reactions of the populist right. Just to take one example:

The reaction of Trump ppl to all this was not, “no fair!” That’s how they felt about Romney’s “binders of women” in 2012. This is different. Now they see, correctly, that every institution is captured by ppl who will use any means to exclude them from the political process.

Or:

The idea that the press is driven by ratings/sensationalism became untenable. If that were true, they’d be all over the Epstein story. The corporate press is the propaganda arm of the Regime they now see in outline. Nothing anyone says will ever make them unsee that, period…

This is profoundly disorienting. Many of them don’t know for certain whether ballots were faked in November 2020, but they know for absolute certain that the press, the FBI, etc would lie to them if there was. They have every reason to believe that, and it’s probably true…

They always claimed the media had liberal bias, fine, whatever. They still thought the press would admit truth if they were cornered. Now they don’t.

For me, the disillusionment described in that last paragraph above had already occurred some time early in the first decade of the 21st Century.

Nineteen Eighty-Four vs. Brave New World

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Zaphod” writes, of the Orwell work versus the Huxley work: “Funny thing is that Brave New World happened first.”

Well, yes and no. Brave New World was certainly written first, and I agree that it touched on many of the trends in science and propaganda that actually have come to pass, although of course not in exact detail. The book is exaggerated (so far, that is) in the amount of control and social engineering exerted.

Give them time,though; give them time.

But Orwell, in his dystopian masterpiece, was more or less describing something that had already happened – Soviet Russia – and grafting onto it two future developments, one connected with the advance of surveillance technology (he foresaw the telescreen rather than the internet, but he certainly correctly predicted ubiquitous surveillance cameras) and changes in language. My opinion is that it was in that amalgam that Orwell’s genius lay, particularly in his knowledge of the power of language and how the left was already using it to attempt to shape thought.

Orwell also correctly understood and described the leftist demand for holding in the mind as true two contradictory thoughts – or even an illogical thought such as 2 plus 2 equals 5 – if the party demanded it. He had already seen that at work with Communism.

I read both books in early adolescence and was fascinated by both. Orwell’s book terrified me to my core, but Huxley’s did not. It seemed imaginative and strange and sometimes even humorous, but also vaguely sinister. I didn’t quite understand its more subtle nature (subtle compared to Nineteen Eighty-Four, that is) at the time. I didn’t understand that Brave New World was about a different kind of assault on liberty, one that stroked and embraced rather than tortured and horrified, and was all the more seductive because of it.

One January 6th defendant fights back

The New Neo Posted on by

Andrea Widburg writes:

Following January 6, we’ve been reading stories about people imprisoned for months in solitary confinement and meekly accepting grotesque plea bargains just to get out of the government’s toils. Thomas Edward Caldwell and his attorney, however, are made of sterner stuff. It’s to be hoped that their fight against the federal government will open a new chapter in fighting back against the calumnies and prosecutions emanating from a hyper-partisan “justice” department.

Caldwell’s motion can be read here.

The January 6th detainees have been treated disproportionately harshly. This is necessary in order to further the Democrats’ narrative about January 6th. The DC court system with which the defendants must deal is enormously pro-left and pro-Democrat – and, as Caldwell’s motion asserts, only 5% of DC residents voted for Trump. Caldwell is asking that his case be moved to the Western District of Virginia because the DC pool is extremely tainted at this point (my prediction is that the request won’t be granted, however).

More here:

Caldwell is a 20-year U.S. Navy veteran who was apparently outside of the Capitol Building on January 6. He is charged with four felony counts: conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted area, and tampering with documents or proceedings.

Here is what he is not, according to his attorney. Caldwell is not a “white supremacist,” nor a “white nationalist.” He is not a would-be murderer or a member of a militia group. He did not suggest “gassing” and “executing” members of Congress. He did not lead Oath Keepers, since, presumably, one would have to be an Oath Keeper to lead Oath Keepers. Fischer says his client is not a member…

The defense motion claims that prosecutors “knowingly disseminated false and incendiary claims” that Caldwell and others planned to sack the Capitol and “execute” people when they had no evidence for it – not even after conducting a “cyber colonoscopy” on cell phones and computers. There was no “plan,” Caldwell’s attorney claims. That allegation was based on “a rumor started by government bureaucrats attempting to cover up their incompetent leadership.”

The motion alleges, among other things, that these lies have tainted the DC jury pool. Some of these stories included the following:

…a CNN story claiming Caldwell was part of an “execution squad” that planned to “seal” congressional members in “tunnels under capital” [sic] and “turn on [the] gas” – the acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin gave a “reckless” “prejudicial and extrajudicial” interview intimating that Caldwell was part of a plot to overthrow the government…

Would-be jurors’ “psyches” were subject to an assault on their liberty, fear for their safety, and belief that they were imprisoned in an armed encampment … because they basically were, [Caldwell’s attorney] Fischer argues.

I can pretty much guarantee that 99% of the people I know – none of them potential DC jurors, however – believe that all of that, and more, is true not just of Caldwell but of the many hundreds of January 6th detainees. They probably also think that the half of the population which voted for Trump approves of the nefarious goings-on, with perhaps the small exception of yours truly.

Lies are very effective, especially when backed by the full weight of the government and the MSM.

On the topic of race and school discipline

The New Neo Posted on by

This paper, called “Beyond Suspensions: Examining School Discipline Policies and Connection to School to Prison Pipeline for Students of Color with Disabilities,” is rather long. But it’s well worth reading. It critiques the sort of reasoning that is commonly used to justify leftist policies of “equity” that have little or no foundation in actual research findings.

Tucker Carlson and the NSA

The New Neo Posted on by

I haven’t written much about this story yet, but the gist of it is that Tucker Carlson was tipped off that the NSA was intercepting his emails and was planning to leak them to the press in order to discredit him. He was widely mocked – of course – by the left for making this claim. But it turns out to have been correct:

As RedState reported earlier, Tucker Carlson’s previous claims of being spied on and having his communications leaked by the NSA were true. Axios reported on the leaked emails today, which contained nothing but Carlson attempting to set up an interview with Russia’s Vladamir Putin. Of note is that NBC News interviewed Putin just a few weeks ago and there is nothing untoward about a news host seeking an interview with an adversarial figure…

As Carlson points out, when he first made the allegation last week, the usual suspects jumped in to call him a liar with the caveat that if it was true, then it must have been because Carlson was doing something wrong. Now, we know the truth thanks to Axios’ decision to play along with the illegal leak of Carlson’s emails instead of doing the right thing and rebuking the government for spying on a fellow journalist…

Carlson then got to the real heart of the issue — that laws were broken here. The NSA is required to keep the identity of Americans caught up in surveillance of foreign figures secret. Only via an unmasking request could his name have been revealed. After that request was clearly made, likely by someone in the Biden administration and having to have been signed off by the NSA head, they then took that information and leaked it to try to harm Carlson and Fox News.

Years ago this sort of revelation would have been shocking. Now it’s pretty much business as usual.

And I suppose that’s the point – to boil the American public frog very slowly.

And I’ll add the obligatory (but also obvious) “can you imagine if the Trump administration had done this to a journalist?”

Tucker Carlson is one of the most popular voices on the right in broadcasting. He’s also a pretty smart guy, and fearless. That means the left is determined to take him down.

Now we learn that we have a federal police force that is not accountable to the public

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: Cornflour and sdferr.]

We have likely learned the name of the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021:

Now a new name has surfaced in the Babbitt imbroglio — Lt. Michael L. Byrd — and while USCP Communications Director Eva Malecki won’t confirm he is the shooter, in this case she isn’t denying it.

In a little-noticed exchange, Byrd was cited by the acting House sergeant at arms during a brief discussion of the officer who shot Babbitt at a Feb. 25 House hearing. Both C-SPAN and CNN removed his name from transcripts, but CQ Transcripts — which, according to its website, provides “the complete word from Capitol Hill; exactly as it was spoken” — recorded the Capitol official, Timothy Blodgett, referring to the cop as “Officer Byrd.” His name is clearly audible in the videotape of the hearing…

Byrd appears to match the description of the shooter, who video footage shows is an African American dressed that day in a business suit. Jewelry, including a beaded bracelet and lapel pin, also match up with photos of Byrd.

In addition, Byrd’s resume lines up with what is known about the experience and position of the officer involved in the shooting — a veteran USCP officer who holds the rank of lieutenant and is the commander of the House Chamber Section of the Capitol Police.

Following the shooting, Byrd’s Internet footprint was scrubbed, including his social media and personal photos…

In February 2019, Lt. Byrd was investigated for leaving his department-issued Glock-22 firearm unattended in a restroom on the House side of the Capitol…

Some general information was already known from videos – such as, for example, his physical description. But his name has been kept secret, and the details of any investigation have been kept secret as well. This is shocking, compared to the rules for disclosure of the facts about similar actions by the regular police. To me, that’s actually the most important revelation that has come in the course of learning about Ashli Babbitt’s killing.

For example, from the same article:

…Congress has exempted the USCP from Freedom of Information Act requests…

Unlike other police forces, USCP does not have to disclose records on police misconduct.

More than 700 complaints were lodged against Capitol Police officers between 2017 and 2019, but brass won’t say what the alleged violations were or how the department resolved them. They also won’t disclose how many complaints are in any individual officer’s file.

While the USCP has an inspector general, he does not make reports public, unlike other agency watchdogs. His report on Jan. 6 remains secret.

Critics say the 193-year-old agency is in dire need of reform. They point out that even the Secret Service complies with FOIA requests and releases reports and audits by its internal watchdog. The Capitol Police, in contrast, won’t even reveal how many sworn officers it has on hand.

“Unlike the [D.C. Police] and the vast majority of local police forces, the USCP provides little public information about its activities,” complained Daniel Schuman, policy director of the D.C. watchdog group Demand Progress, in a recent letter to the heads of the congressional panels who have oversight authority over USCP.

D.C. law requires police to identify the officer involved in a police shooting within five business days after an officer-involved death or serious use of force. Officials must publicly release the names and body-camera recordings of all officers involved in the death or use of force. The law does not cover the Capitol Police, however, even though D.C. Police work in conjunction with that agency on homicide cases and fatal traffic accidents.

The Babbitt shooting has thrust this double standard into the national spotlight.

Double standard indeed.

The explanation for not revealing the name is the fear of death threats. Well, the same is true for every single police officer whose name is released after killing someone in an encounter – in particular, for white police officers killing black suspects. And yet their names are ordinarily released very quickly; there is no such consideration for their safety, or at least any concerns about safety are considered to be overridden by the public’s need to know.

Why are the Capitol Police different? Why are they even less accountable than the Secret Service? I believe it is because they are Congress’s special police force, and Congress made the rules exempting them. And now – as reported yesterday – this special protected force is going to be expanded to other parts of the US.

Note that after the near-murder of Steve Scalise, and the attempted murder of several other GOP members of Congress, no such expansion of the Capitol Police occurred. And yet that incident was far more dangerous and threatening to members of Congress than anything that happened on January 6th. In fact, on January 6th, the only killing that occurred was at the hands of a Capitol Police officer, for reasons that have yet to be elucidated for the public.

The Capitol Police will be expanding outside DC

The New Neo Posted on by

What could possibly go wrong?

The January 6th Capitol incursion was the gift to the left that keeps on giving. Then again, was it even a gift, or was it an event partly-orchestrated and steered by the FBI? Either way, the left has made very effective use of it. I don’t think I know a single Democrat who isn’t convinced that it was a highly dangerous insurrection and just the tip of the white supremacist Trump-supporter iceberg.

On the 6th or 7th of January, one of the first thoughts I had when I read the news was: “Reichstag fire.” I was hardly alone in that thought; it was actually rather obvious to anyone with at least a smattering of history concerning the rise of the Nazis and their consolidation of power. About a month later, I wrote a post entitled “We’ve had the Reichstag fire – what’s next?” Here’s the passage that concludes that post:

These developments are just another reminder that, brilliant as the Constitution is and brilliant as the men who devised it were, a constitution cannot rein in a people who have lost their virtue and who support a party that believes the ends justify the means. And the Founders knew that they could not protect us indefinitely from that.

That was written five months ago. Yesterday we got the following news:

The United States Capitol Police (USCP) will open new regional offices in response to increased threats to members of Congress since the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the police agency announced Tuesday.

The first announced two field offices will open in California and Florida, with additional states expected in the “near future,” acting USCP Chief Yogananda Pittman said in a statement Tuesday. The purpose will be “to investigate threats to Members of Congress.”

…In a follow-up statement to Fox News, USCP revealed the new offices will be in the Tampa and San Francisco areas because that’s where many of the threats are concentrated and more offices are on the way.

I thought that sort of intelligence was the province of the FBI – an agency that has earned distrust in recent years. But why would they need augmentation by the Capitol Police (who also didn’t cover themselves with glory on January 6th)?

And why San Francisco, except that it’s the home of Nancy Pelosi? Is the city now a hotbed of alt-right militant radicalism? I find that especially hard to believe. If you want to look at actual violence against members of Congress, rather than threats, look no further than Rand Paul and Steve Scalise. And yet I find it hard to believe that this expansion of the Capitol Police will focus much on threats to members of Congress on the right, although the article does cite attacks on the home of Republican Representative Nancy Mace as an example of the problem they are trying to counter:

Members of Congress have reported having to take extra security precautions at their homes in response to the increased threat level. In one instance, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., had to call the police in Charleston after her house was vandalized over Memorial Day weekend with profanity and anarchist symbols.

More [emphasis mine]:

“Throughout the last six months, the United States Capitol Police has been working around the clock with our Congressional stakeholders to support our officers, enhance security around the Capitol Complex, and pivot towards an intelligence-based protective agency,” [USCP acting director] Pittman said.

And yet the Capitol Police had plenty of intelligence prior to the January 6th incursion that told them something of the sort was planned – in fact, the FBI may indeed have helped plan it.

This emphasis on intelligence seems to be a way to use the January 6th event to spy even more pervasively and effectively on Americans. Unfortunately, at this point there’s no reason to trust them to have our interests at heart.

The President of Haiti has been assassinated

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m surprised it doesn’t happen there more often, actually, because Haiti is such a mess of a country. The authorities say they don’t know who is responsible for the assassination, but here’s the story so far:

A squad of gunmen assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and wounded his wife in an overnight raid on their home Wednesday, inflicting more chaos on the Caribbean country that was already enduring gang violence, soaring inflation and protests of his increasingly authoritarian rule.

Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who confirmed the killing, said the police and military were in control of security in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas where a history of dictatorship and political upheaval have long stymied the consolidation of democratic rule.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Joseph called for an international investigation into the assassination, said that elections scheduled for later this year should be held and pledged to work with Moïse’s allies and opponents alike…

Bocchit Edmond, the Haitian ambassador to the United States, said the attack on the 53-year-old Moïse “was carried out by foreign mercenaries and professional killers — well-orchestrated,” and that they were masquerading as agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration…

Haiti has asked the U.S. government for assistance with the investigation, he said, adding that the assassins could have escaped over the land border to the Dominican Republic or by sea.

I doubt the culprits will be found, and Moise had plenty of people who wanted him dead so there’s no lack of candidates. Haiti is such a mess already that I doubt this event will have any international repercussions of any magnitude; it will just add to the confusion and strife of the country.

[NOTE: A personal note – I have a vivid memory of Haiti from a trip I took there with my family in 1962. Yes, I was a kid, but even then it impressed me as a very poverty-stricken and yet beautiful place. At the time, it was under the sway of despot “Papa Doc” Duvalier, whose photo graced many stores and even the modest home of our all-day cab driver, whose family we met. As a young teenager I later learned something of Haiti’s sad history through Kenneth Roberts’ novel Lydia Bailey, which is set in the time of the Haitian revolution.]

It looks like New York City will have a law-and-order mayor

The New Neo Posted on by

Ex-cop Eric Adams has been declared the winner of the NYC Democratic primary. That probably makes him the next major of the city. But Eric Adams, who is black, is somewhat conservative (by NYC standards) despite being a Democrat. He certainly is conservative compared to predecessor de Blasio – but then, so are most people.

Just before the race was called, Adams said in a statement that “while there are still some very small amounts of votes to be counted, the results are clear: an historic, diverse, five-borough coalition led by working-class New Yorkers has led us to victory in the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City.”

“Now we must focus on winning in November so that we can deliver on the promise of this great city for those who are struggling, who are underserved, and who are committed to a safe, fair, affordable future for all New Yorkers,” he said.

I don’t know that New York has been affordable for a long time, but prior to de Blasio’s tenure it was relatively safe.

This was a ranked-choice vote, marked – and marred – by the erroneous (or purposeful) counting of 135,000 invalid “test” votes that led Adams to successfully question initial results. The present tally is uncomfortably close, but gives him the requisite over-50% in order to avoid futher tallying in which the last-place winner is thrown out and the ranked-choice votes re-counted.

Adams’ GOP opponent will be a familiar name to some: Curtis Sliwa, who founded the Guardian Angels over 40 years ago:

In May 1977, Sliwa created the “Magnificent 13”, a group dedicated to combating violence and crime on the New York City Subway. At the time, the city was experiencing a crime wave. The Magnificent 13 grew and was renamed the Guardian Angels in 1979. The group’s actions drew strong reactions, both positive and negative. Membership of the Guardian Angels showed 80 percent of them were either Black or Hispanic in ethnic origin. Unarmed, the group required training in karate and fulfillment of legal requirements for citizens’ arrest for all members before they were to be deployed.

Adams, who is heavily favored to win, was a state rep from Brooklyn and more recently that borough’s president. Here’s a quote from his policing days back in 1999:

Lying is at the root of our training. At the academy, recruits are told that they should not see black or brown people as different, but we all do. We all know that the majority of people arrested for predatory crimes are African-American. We didn’t create that scenario, but we have to police in that scenario. So we need to be honest and talk about it.

Interesting. Very interesting.

Adams was a Republican between 1997 and 2001, but has been a Democrat ever since. He was an opponent of “stop-and-frisk” but now supports it. Then again, he and several other state legislators “wore hooded sweatshirts in the legislative chamber on March 12, 2012, in protest of the shooting of Trayvon Martin.” His record is a mix of more liberal and more conservative positions, but in running for mayor he has declared himself an opponent of “defund the police.”

In addition, Adams (or a ghostwriter) recently wrote a book about how he became a vegan and improved his health immensely after being diagnosed with Type II diabetes.

Adams’ primary victory is an indication that New Yorkers are fed up with the increasing crime in their city. Then again, he won the primary by a small margin:

In a tally by the New York City Board of Elections on Tuesday, Adams held a slim 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent lead over [ Kathryn] Garcia after holding a 51.1 percent to 48.9 percent lead last week.

If you look at the graph in this article, you can see how ranked-choice works. It looks to me as though Adams won handily if only first-choice votes had been counted, but in the recurrent rounds of recounting the gap narrowed considerably between Adams and Garcia.

It seems to me from reading this endorsement of Garcia in The Daily News (the right-leaning NY Post endorsed Adams) that Garcia was hardly the most leftist alternative to Adams, either. So the results generally appear to be a victory for more moderate Democrats.

That NY Post endorsement mentions two more elements of Adams’ law-and-order program:

Adams would reinstate an anti-crime unit to crack down on guns and gangs.

He’d also push Albany — where he served as a state senator — to reform the no-bail law to allow for judges’ discretion to lock up dangerous, recidivist criminals.

In other words, he plans to stop some of the slide that New York has experienced as a result of far-left policies. I wish him luck.