Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British left…

The New Neo Posted on by

…is every bit as awful as our own leftist “leaders.”

Maybe even worse, although that’s hard to accomplish.

And here’s some good news for Boris Johnson:

Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party are on course to win up to 366 seats at the general election on December 12, according to a massive new piece of polling analysis.

A major piece of work conducted for the Best for Britain pro-EU campaign group suggests the Tories could end up with a majority of 82.

It also suggests Jeremy Corbyn could finish with just 199 seats…

Such a result would represent a huge victory for Mr Johnson and provide him with the stable foundations necessary to implement his Brexit deal and deliver his manifesto pledges.

But the data also highlights the result on polling day remains on a knife-edge with Mr Johnson’s hopes pinned on holding and gaining seats in increasingly marginal areas.

Democrat caught speaking her own mind…

The New Neo Posted on by

…and is swiftly made to get back in line:

During a Nov. 24 radio interview, liberal Democrat Rep. Brenda Lawrence (Mich.) said she does not support removing President Donald Trump from office but does want to see him “censured” by Congress.

However, on Tuesday, Nov. 26, Lawrence reversed herself, releasing a statement that reads, “I continue to support impeachment.”

Oopsies.

Of cars, showers, keys, and kiosks

The New Neo Posted on by

I recently was traveling in a rented Toyota Corolla that flashed a message on the dash after about three straight hours of driving, gently suggesting that it was high time the driver took a break. It featured a little picture of a steaming coffee cup to go with the chiding, just for some extra motivation.

Is this the wave of the future? Will your car turn into your nanny? Has it already?

Speaking of which – on this same trip I’m staying in a motel because I’m away from home visiting some relatives for the holidays. This motel has a type of shower curtain I first started noticing a few years ago and which seems to now be obligatory in all motels and hotels. Its top fourth is transparent or translucent, so that a person taking a shower can see the head of anyone entering the bathroom, and the person entering can see only the head of the person taking a shower and not his or her naked body.

What’s up with this? It’s not exactly a privacy thing, because the old-fashioned opaque type of shower curtain actually gave more privacy to the showering person. It seem to me to be a privacy compromise, shielding the body while allowing the person in the shower to know exactly who has just entered. But don’t people knock and identify themselves any more? Do they just barge in?

Or is it a remnant from the movie “Psycho,” in which the deranged motel keeper played by Tony Perkins offed Janet Leigh in the shower not very far into the movie, horrifying as well as perplexing millions of moviegoers, and leaving some of them with a showering-in-motels phobia?

Inquiring minds want to know – at least, this inquiring mind wants to know. And from some comments here, I discovered that people who like this type of shower curtain appreciate the fact that it lets in more light than the opaque kind. But I can’t recall having any problems with lack of light in a modern motel bathroom; the lighting is usually very bright, actually. But I’ll accept that maybe the light factor rather than the Psycho explanation is the reason for the ubiquity of this type of curtain.

While we’re at it – I understand why motels have computerized cards now instead of actual keys for their rooms. But does anyone else have a hard time making the cards work? They all seem to be different. Sometimes you insert them. Sometimes you swipe them. Sometimes they need to hover. Sometimes they need to merely touch. Sometimes the solution seems random – you stand there with your bags and try each variation until one finally works.

And don’t tell me to just look at the handy little graphic diagram that purports to show you. I do look for it. But sometimes there’s no diagram. And often the diagram doesn’t really do the trick of making it clear.

Same for parking permit kiosks. Oh, for the parking meters of old! The new ones vary a lot, and a person has to stand at the kiosk for a while reading the fine print (sometimes obscured by snow, ice, or darkness) while an impatient line forms.

[NOTE: I thought I’d check out that “Psyco” scene again, just to refresh my memory, and I find I have no desire to watch it. Too upsetting, still. But I did notice from the first few seconds that the shower curtain in that scene is actually very slightly translucent. As Perkins enters, you can see that someone is there, although you haven’t a clue who it is.]

Happy day-before-Thanksgiving to you!

The New Neo Posted on by

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

I happen to like Thanksgiving. Always have. It’s a holiday for anyone and everyone in this country—except, of course, people who hate turkey. There are quite a few of those curmudgeonly folks, but I’m happy to report I’m not one of them. Even if the turkey ends up dry and overcooked, it’s nothing that a little gravy and cranberry sauce can’t fix. And although the turkey is the centerpiece, it’s the accompaniments that make the meal.

My theory on turkeys is that they’re like children: you coax them along and just do the best you can, but as long as you don’t utterly ruin or abuse them, they have their own innate characteristics that will manifest in the end. A dry and tough bird will be a dry and tough bird despite all that draping in fat-soaked cheesecloth, a tender and tasty one can withstand a certain amount of cooking incompetence.

One year long ago my brother and I were cooking at my parents’ house and somehow we set the oven on “broil,” an error that was only discovered an hour before the turkey was due to be finished cooking. But it was one of the best turkeys ever. Another time the turkey had turned deep bluish-purple on defrosting and was so hideous and dangerous-looking that it had to be abandoned. Another terrible time, one that has lived in infamy ever since, my mother decided turkey was passe and that we’d have steak on Thanksgiving.

Since I like to eat, I am drawn to the fact that Thanksgiving is a food-oriented holiday with a basic obligatory theme (turkey plus seasonal autumnal food) and almost infinite variations on that theme. Sweet potatoes? Absolutely—but oh, the myriad ways to make them, some revolting, some sublime. Pie? Of course, but what kind? And what to put on it, ice cream, whipped cream, or both?

For me, there are three traditional requirements—besides the turkey, of course. There has to be at least one pecan pie, although eating it in all its sickening sweetness can put an already-sated person right over the top. The cranberry sauce has to be made from fresh cranberries (it’s easy: cranberries, water, and sugar to taste, simmered on top of the stove till mushy and a bright deep red), and lots of it (it’s good on turkey sandwiches the next day, too). The traditional stuffing in my family is non-traditional: a large quantity of cut-up Granny Smith apples cooked in fair amount of sherry as well as a ton of butter till a bit soft; and then mixed with prunes, almonds, and one Sara Lee poundcake reduced to small pieces by crushing with the hands.

Thanksgiving is one of the few holidays that has a theme that is vaguely religious—giving thanks—but has no specific religious affiliation. So it’s a holiday that unites. It’s one of the least commercial holidays as well, because it involves no presents. It’s a home-based holiday, which is good, too, except for those who don’t have relatives or friends to be with. One drawback is the terribly compressed travel time; I solve that by not usually traveling very far if I can possibly help it – although this year I happen to be far from home.

The main advantage to hosting the day is having leftovers left over. The main disadvantage to hosting the day is having leftovers left over.

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, filled with friends and/or family of your choice, and just the right amount of leftovers!

Biden and Bloomberg: Trump as “existential threat”

The New Neo Posted on by

First Biden said it, back in June:

Biden labeled Mr. Trump an existential threat to decency, America’s standing in the world, and democracy.

Now it’s Bloomberg’s turn:

We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage.

The stakes could not be higher. We must win this election. And we must begin rebuilding America.

Is anything going on here other than hyperbole and propaganda? Neither Biden nor Bloomberg really explains what each means by “existential threat.” Why not just label him as a simple “threat”?

I think the word “existential” is in there partly because it sounds highfalutin and intelligent (Sartre, anyone?), as well as being an intensifier. It’s not enough to say that Trump merely threatens the Democratic Party, (which he does) or the Deep State bureaucracy (which he does), or even certain leftist causes such as increased gun control. He doesn’t just threaten to turn the judicial system to the right by appointing conservative judges and justices.

“Existential” indicates it’s not just leftist causes he threatens, or the left. No, he threatens the very existence of decency, of democracy, of our country itself.

Is the existence of “decency” so very tenuous, is it hanging by such a slender thread, that one man’s tweets can obliterate it?

And he’s an existential threat to “democracy”? Is that a reference to the persistent idea that Trump stole the 2016 election, or do they mean something more than that? They usually don’t bother to explain; we listeners are supposed to know.

Our standing in the world seems fine to me. The economy is booming, but Bloomberg – who certainly must know something about finance and economics – insists that America must be “rebuilt.” Strange; I don’t see it collapsing around me.

However, these messages of “existential threat” conform to what liberals and the left (and a lot of people on the right, too) thought prior to Trump’s presidency and still think now—that Trump will either cause the world to end (through climate change or nuclear war, for example) or will wreak irreparable damage on the US (though those two mechanisms or countless others—economic and racial strife for starters).

Prior to Trump’s presidency some of those fears were at least somewhat plausible. He’d never held office. He seemed like a loose cannon. He was a rich real estate developer, self-promoter, and reality TV star. It was difficult to picture him dealing with world leaders or a country such as North Korea (not that any other president had dealt well with it either, but Trump’s bombast seemed especially worrisome).

Three years of Trump’s presidency has proven those particular fears wrong. Most people on the right have abandoned them by now, but the left and liberals not only (bitterly) cling to them, it sometimes seems that such fears have increased rather than decreased. The MSM and Democratic politicians and pundits have been fanning the flames of the panic, and although some (or much) of what they do is tactical and cynical, I know many people who listen and are sincerely and deeply afraid.

It’s interesting that Biden and Bloomberg – candidates who present themselves as the most moderate of the Democrats – are using this kind of apocalyptic language to stoke the already-existent fears about Trump. It belies the idea that they are moderate at all. But to play to the base, candidates have to speak in the language of the base. And that’s what they’re doing.

History of the women’s vote in the US

The New Neo Posted on by

A commenter writes:

There are many irrational men and many rational women, but it is an unfortunate truth that a majority female vote got every Democrat President elected since women’s sufferage. Women are much more susceptible to the concept of a paternal, Federal government.

There is no question that women have been voting for Democrats more than men have in recent years. And I must say that, when I read the comment, I thought it was probably correct. But I decided to check, and I found something quite interesting and quite different has been going on since women got the vote in this country.

Before I get into that, I want to mention that “everybody knows” that in 2016 women voted far more for Hillary Clinton than for Trump. But it turns out it was actually nowhere near as simple as that. In fact, more white women voted for Trump than for Hillary, and non-college-educated white women voted for Trump in especially overwhelming numbers:

Women did vote overwhelmingly to elect Clinton, but it was white women who helped hand Trump the presidency, according to Edison national election poll. Overall, 54% of women voted for Clinton, much higher than the 42% of women who voted for Trump. But when the women’s vote is divided by race, it becomes clear that black women actually largely drove the so-called gender gap against Trump.

The majority of non-college educated white women (64%) voted for Trump, while 35% backed Clinton.

Minority women, on the other hand, voted for Clinton in overwhelming numbers. So “women” is not a unitary group. And although since 1980 women have definitely been more likely than men to vote Democratic, that was not the case earlier. So if the nature of women hadn’t changed in those years, it may have been the messages that changed.

Did the Democratic Party find a more effective way to exploit women’s vulnerability to certain messages (such as, for example, Romney’s completely innocuous “binders of women”)? Probably. Feminism had its role, too.

Here’s a deeper dive into the historical record, and you’ll see that the situation used to be quite different:

…Prior to 1980 there were two presidential candidates for whom women voted at notably greater rates than did men: Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower.

The election of 1928 could well be called the “year of the woman voter.” Throughout the 1920s, the mass of women had been relatively apathetic about politics, enthused by only a few local candidates and none of the national ones. But Hoover was so popular that he became known as “the woman’s candidate.” (McCormick 1928, 22; Smith 1929, 126; Barnard, 1928, 555). Some of his popularity derived from his role as Food Administrator during the Great War, and some from the importance of Prohibition in the election of 1928. Hoover was Dry, Smith was Wet, and it was commonly assumed that women wanted Prohibition to be enforced. Women registered to vote in record numbers, and the Republican Party’s Women’s Division was “besieged by unprecedented numbers of women who wanted to participate in the campaign.” (Morrison 1978, 84). Hoover was endorsed by the National Woman’s Party, the only major party Presidential candidate to be endorsed by a specifically feminist organization prior to 1984.

When the dust settled both private and public commentators were impressed with women’s greatly increased turnout to vote, and with their strong support for Hoover. While scientific polling did not yet exist, straw polls recorded a gender gap. Robinson’s review of these polls concluded that the Hearst poll was the most accurate; it had predicted that 60 percent of women and 56 percent of men would vote for Hoover. (Robinson 1932, 92). Private reports to the RNC and to FDR estimated larger differentials, some that women were ten percent more likely than men to vote for Hoover…

Attention to women faded in the election of 1932, dominated as it was by the Depression, and fewer observations were recorded. However, when Gallup surveyed expected voters in 1936, he asked those who had voted in 1932 to declare their choice. Of those who said they had voted, 63 % of the men were for FDR, but only 57 % of the women. Only 35 % of the men said they voted for Hoover, compared to 41 % of the women. (AIPO (Gallup) Poll #53)

So, rather surprisingly, FDR was more popular among men than among women, as best we can tell.

More:

This differential voting pattern [between men and women voters] faded to less than two percent in Presidential elections until 1952. Polls of voters done before and after that election found women were five percent more likely to vote for Eisenhower than were men, though both gave him a majority. Republican women gleefully claimed that women had elected him President (Priest 1953), and this belief soon became “firmly enshrined among American political lore.”…

The election of 1960 saw women once again fade from political sight. Some of this was due to the ongoing campaign of the DNC to downplay the idea that there was a woman’s vote, and some was due to the rise of new issues. The gender gap dropped to between 2 and 3 % in 1960 — too small to be statistically significant but implying that women still voted more frequently for the Republican candidate…

In 1964 as in 1960 the gender gap of 2 to 3 % was too small to be significant, but it was notable because, for the first time, women were more likely than men to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate. In 1968 43 % of both men and women said they voted for Nixon. But men were 4 % more likely to vote for George Wallace (16% to 12%) while women were more likely to vote for Humphrey (45% to 41%)…

What’s notable about this history is not merely that there was a gender gap prior to 1980, but that the pattern shifted. Previously the Republican Party had been the beneficiary of woman suffrage; subsequently the Democratic Party was. Furthermore, this change correlates with different attitudes by the national parties toward women and women’s rights. While partisan differences were not large prior to 1980, they were present. Historically, it was the Republican Party that was the party of women’s rights, and the Democratic Party that was the home of anti-feminism. After the new feminist movement rose in the 1960s-70s, the parties switched sides. (Freeman 1987)

Interesting, no?

RIP rickl

The New Neo Posted on by

I learned from an announcement at Ace of Spades last night that commenter “rickl” has passed away. He was a prolific commenter here for a decade, from 2006 to 2016. He hadn’t been active here in the last couple of years, but many of you may remember him and I thought you might like to know.

Rest in peace, rickl.

Members of the “Squad” are running into some trouble

The New Neo Posted on by

They’re young, they’re female, and they’re bold. And they’re having some difficulties:

The three most prolific members of the so-called “squad” of freshman Democratic congresswoman face allegations of violating campaign finance laws and House ethics rules for their personal or political benefit 10 months into their terms.

The article describes the charges against AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar. They certainly seem to be fast learners – in terms of political corruption.

They and their supporters will say the charges are (ahem) trumped up, and that they are being persecuted.

Impeachment in the House and trial in the Senate: two different animals

The New Neo Posted on by

When Bill Clinton was impeached and then tried and acquitted in the Senate, Republicans controlled both legislative bodies. So the impeachment and trial – which was conducted with protection of minority and presidential rights, unlike the present-day process so far in the House – made a certain amount of sense. GOP control in the House pointed towards impeachment, and although GOP control in the Senate was nowhere near the requisite 67, at least it assured that the Republicans would be managing the proceedings in the Senate against Clinton.

In the case of the removal process for Richard Nixon – although it never came to impeachment and trial because Nixon resigned first – both legislative bodies were controlled by Democrats. The situation was very similar to what later prevailed with Bill Clinton, in which the opposition party (in this case, the Democrats) would have directed a Senate trial because it had a majority, but lacked 67 senators to convict. However, there was one huge difference: enough GOP senators had turned on Nixon that they went to him and informed him that a Senate conviction was highly likely. Therefore, he resigned.

But in both cases, that of Clinton and Nixon, the party opposed to the president controlled both bodies of Congress. This is not the case today, which brings us to a curious situation and a puzzlement: why are the Democrats doing this, if they control only the House and not the Senate?

My answers (some or all of the following):

(1) They feel that the propaganda value of the testimony will damage Trump for the election.

(2) They hope that something new will be unearthed during the process that will end up sinking him in the election.

(3) They hope that something new will be unearthed during the process that will end up sinking him in the Senate and that enough Republicans will come to their side to effect his conviction and removal.

(4) They want to satisfy their base.

(5) They are crazy.

(6) They can’t do math.

(7) They never even looked to the future, and so they forgot about the Senate aspect of the process.

There are probably more possibilities, but I think that’s enough for now.

And so far, (1) (2) and (3) seem to have backfired.

[NOTE: CBS legal analyst Jonathan Turley observes:

Whether this is intentional or not, it [impeachment and removal process] seems designed to fail in the Senate. I don’t think you could prove a removable offense of a president on this record even if the Democrats were in control. This thing is too narrow, it is – it doesn’t have a broad foundation, and it’s an undeveloped record. There are a lot of core witnesses that were not called. And the question is why? They said, “We want a vote by December. We want to vote before Santa.” Why? Why – why would you – why would you be pushing this instead of calling these critical witnesses?…

And so the question is, what is this going to look like in the Senate? And I got to tell you, I think this could be the trial that Trump wants. And they will – the first witness they call may be Hunter Biden.”

Turley, who is often described as a liberal but is actually more of the libertarian persuasion, is a bit like Alan Dershowitz in that he tends to be pretty fair and to sometimes speak up for Trump even though he is very much not a fan.]

The people of Hong Kong have spoken

The New Neo Posted on by

And they are voting for pro-democracy candidates:

Pro-democracy candidates appear to have made major gains in Hong Kong’s district council elections, as early results trickled in Monday morning, with multiple high-profile pro-government figures losing their seats.

More than 2.9 million people turned out to vote in Sunday’s elections, which have been framed as a de facto referendum on the almost six months of ongoing protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. With more than 95% of constituencies declared, pro-democracy candidates appeared to have won a landslide victory.

Speaking to CNN, Kenneth Chan, an expert on politics and governance at Hong Kong Baptist University, said the more than 70% turnout — higher than any other election in the city’s history — “exceeded many predictions” and demonstrated both Hong Kongers’ commitment to democracy and that they are “counting on this election to point a way out of this impasse.”

A way out of the impasse? I wish that were true, but I don’t buy it. There’s this, for example:

China’s government has responded to a stunning landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates in the Hong Kong elections by emphasising that the city will always be ruled from Beijing, and warning against further protest violence.

The foreign minister, Wang Yi, warned against “attempts to disrupt Hong Kong”, as a few hundred people took to the streets again in support of protesters holed up in a university that has been under siege by police for over a week.

“No matter how the situation in Hong Kong changes, it is very clear that Hong Kong is a part of Chinese territory,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Tokyo. “Any attempts to disrupt Hong Kong or undermine its stability and prosperity will not succeed.”

They feel they can’t afford to lose Hong Kong. The only questions are how far they are willing to go to keep it, and how far the protesters are willing to go – as well as whether the police and/or military will continue to do the bidding of China or whether they will decide to cast their lot with the demonstrators (I see no sign of the latter, but I certainly don’t have any inside track on that).

More here:

The election results pose a dilemma for Beijing, and Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam. Hand-picked to rule by party leaders, Lam always insists she rules independently, but is widely accepted to have coordinated her hardline response to protesters with China’s top leadership.

Before the vote, Lam often claimed she had the support of a “silent majority”, as she escalated the police response to protests, invoked sweeping colonial-era emergency powers, and ruled out meeting any of the protesters’ main demands.

That argument was clearly untenable after pro-government candidates were swept from power across the city, holding on to barely one in 10 seats on district councils. Nearly 3 million ballots were cast; both in absolute numbers and in turnout rates it was the biggest exercise in democratic participation that Hong Kong has seen.

However, the district councils don’t really have much power:

There will be few immediate political consequences in Hong Kong because the councils have limited powers, only a small budget and a mandate restricted to hyper-local issues such as parks, bus stops and waste collection.

But these local election victories may sow the seeds of greater long-term influence for democrats, because the councils play a role in choosing the city’s chief executive and some legislators.

Stay tuned.