Put it this way

The New Neo Posted on by

I agree with this:

If we’re not in it now, we are hurtling towards the abyss. They’ve captured the government, the courts, the media, and most crucially the schools, where all of this metastasized from so many decades ago. My only consolation is that there are at a minimum over 74 million people who did not vote for this and perhaps twice that number not down with “the struggle” so to speak. Some have stated that the only way to really fight back is to run for office, get involved with school boards and community boards, enter the teaching profession, etc. etc. The problem is, with the Enemy in control of virtually everything, do you think they will now allow voices of dissent within the institutions that took them nearly a century to take over to wrest control away from them?

So, the question remains, how best to organize and focus the potential energy of tens of millions of us into a force to be reckoned with. Actually, the question is, given what I just stated, can it be focused at all into a force to be reckoned with?

I plan to say more later today, but for now I’ll just keep it to this: I expected this result and dreaded it, but it’s still very very hard to see it come to pass. I can sum up the speed of the changes this way: twelve scant years ago in 2008, Obama felt he had to distance himself from Reverend Wright in order to win. This year, a Reverend Wright clone has been elected to the Senate from the previously-red state of Georgia. What was once unacceptably radical has been nearly mainstreamed.

Georgia returns

The New Neo Posted on by

This is a new thread for the Georgia election results.

But I’m not going to report on them moment by moment. My plan is to do something else for a few hours, and then check back. Too much tension otherwise. I’ve been worried about this night ever since November 3/4, when it became clear that a Georgia runoff would decide the fate of the Senate and that the left was well aware of that fact and determined to win it at any cost.

All eyes turn to Georgia

The New Neo Posted on by

The Georgia runoffs are today.

I make no predictions. Polls are useless. And between turnout unknowns, fraud possibilities, and motivation differentials, all bets are off.

One thing I can say is that I’m extremely apprehensive.

I plan to post another thread tonight for the results.

Whether you’re a brother or whether you’re a mother…

The New Neo Posted on by

… in the future, it may be that you’re not to be mentioned on the floor of the House.

It’ll be “parent” and “sibling” for us all:

Proposed changes to the rules of the House of Representatives would “honor all gender identities” by eliminating such specific terms as mother and father, son and daughter, and aunt and uncle.

Instead, only gender-neutral terms such as “parent,” “child,” “sibling” and “parent’s sibling” would be allowed in the text of the House rules, according to the proposed changes.

The proposed changes — which also include the establishment of a House “Office of Diversity and Inclusion” — will be voted on after the House convenes Sunday for the new 117th Congress.

In case you don’t know the reference in the title of this post, it’s to the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” a 1977 song in which the words are often lost in the driving beat and John Travolta’s movie strut, but which describes urban decay and despair in the late 70s. Have a look:

And now it’s all right. It’s OK.
And you may look the other way.
We can try to understand
The New York Times’ effect on man.

Whether you’re a brother
Or whether you’re a mother,
You’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.
Feel the city breakin’
And everybody shakin’,
And we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…

Life goin’ nowhere. Somebody help me.
Somebody help me, yeah.
Life goin’ nowhere. Somebody help me, yeah.
Stayin’ alive.

Leftist tactics and boundaries

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday the left did to Josh Hawley’s family what it’s done to so many others in recent years – came to his house:

Protesters from ShutDown DC went to Senator Josh Hawley’s house, chanted loadly with bullhorns, approached the front door and looked in the sidelight. Hawley’s wife and newborn apparently were at home alone as the mob gathered…

The group spent 51 minutes in front of the Hawley residence.

This sort of thing has become almost commonplace, and it’s not just the left coming to the homes of people on the right. They act similarly towards those on the left who are insufficiently leftist in their eyes.

The goal is twofold. The first aim is to intimidate the particular person being targeted, but that is a minor one in comparison to the second goal, which is to intimidate others – probably more easily cowed – who might even be thinking of taking a stand with the person whose family is being harassed. Profiles in courage are rare enough as it is, but the left’s actions are designed to make them even more rare.

Hawley tweeted, “Let me be clear: My family & I will not be intimidated by leftwing violence.” Perhaps not. But many other people will.

One of the strengths of America in the past – and in particular the mid-twentieth century, when I grew up – was to separate the personal from the political. Remember “I may not agree with you, but I defend your right to say it”? Ha. And the internet makes the intimidation tactic available not just against public figures but against just about anyone, because once you have someone’s name it’s not hard to find an address and even to dox that person and then encourage the mob to go after them.

All this is mild, of course, compared to what the left has done in other countries. But the left here now feels poised on the brink of great victory, and leftists are merciless in victory because once in power they try to make sure it is never relinquished.

ADDENDUM: From Dennis Prager:

Half of America, the nonleft half, is afraid to speak their minds at virtually every university, movie studio and large corporation — indeed, at virtually every place of work. Professors who say anything that offends the left fear being ostracized if they have tenure and being fired if they do not. People are socially ostracized, publicly shamed and/or fired for differing with Black Lives Matter, as America-hating and white-hating a group as has ever existed. And few Americans speak up. On the contrary, when BLM protestors demand that diners outside of restaurants raise their fists to show their support of BLM, nearly every diner does.

So, then, who are we to condemn the average German who faced the Gestapo if he didn’t salute Hitler or the average Russian who faced the NKVD (the secret police and intelligence agency that preceded the KGB) if he didn’t demonstrate sufficient enthusiasm for Stalin? Americans face the left’s cancel culture, but not left-wing secret police or reeducation camps. (At least not yet — I have little doubt the left would send outspoken conservatives to reeducation camps if they could.)

I have come to understand the average German living under Nazism and the average Russian living under communism for another reason: the power of the media to brainwash.

As a student of totalitarianism since my graduate studies at the Russian Institute of Columbia University’s School of International Affairs (as it was then known), I have always believed that only in a dictatorship could a society be brainwashed. I was wrong. I now understand that mass brainwashing can take place in a nominally free society.

Well, of course it can. People are people. The safeguards of our Constitution and our traditions are extremely helpful, but they rest on a foundation of awareness and knowledge in the people. Propaganda can undermine everything, and it can do so in a manner both subtle and ubiquitous. Intimidation and fear can assist in cementing the deal.

My reaction #2 to the Trump-Raffensperger phone call

The New Neo Posted on by

When I found and read a transcript here, it came as no surprise that Trump’s call with Raffensperger had been mischaracterized by the MSM as nefarious, when the actual call versus MSM discussion of the call seems to have been much as shipwreckedrew describes it here: “a case study in the media duplicity that President Trump has battled from day one.”

I suggest you read the transcript (or listen to the call, if you have more time and patience, or both). I believe you will find that it is basically a lawyer’s conference in which, as shipwreckedcrew writes:

…[T]he conversation immediately went to the basis for the election dispute lawsuit in Georgia and the position of the Trump Campaign as expressed in the complaint it has filed.

Much later in the call, closer to the end, Meadows comments on a possible follow-up meeting which would be considered part of further efforts to reach a settlement, “just like the call” — or words to that effect.

That was the first confirmation that I heard that the reason for the call taking place was to look for a settlement or narrowing of issues in dispute in the matter pending in state court in Georgia. From that perspective — which every IDIOT journalist whose stories I read failed to mention or understand that as part of providing context for the call — the President’s comments and Raffensperger’s responses made perfect sense.

These were adverse parties in pending litigation on the call, along with their counsel and advisors. Each side was arguing the facts and stating the case from their respective points of view. The President was not trying to “coopt” Raffensperger, he was trying to convince Raffensperger that the facts as alleged in the complaint filed were correct, and the Trump Campaign had the evidence to back them up.

The bulk of the call was Trump’s recitation of a litany of allegations of many different types of election fraud in Georgia, and Raffesnperger’s (and his lawyers’) denial. What emerged was that Trump and his team have been frustrated at receiving little or no specific information that refutes their charges of fraud, other than these generalized reassurances that Georgia hasn’t found any fraud to speak of. And Trump’s statements that the MSM has treated as suggesting that Raffensperger illegally “find” votes for Trump that weren’t cast is completely unsupported by the call. That exchange actually refers to Trump’s suggestion of some combination of throwing out illegally cast votes as well as allowing legally cast votes for Trump (such as provisional ballots that may not yet have been counted, and involve people who came to the polls and discovered that someone else had already voted in their name).

I also think that some of the context of what Trump said may have been this sort of thing, news of which just came out a few days ago. Excerpt:

Georgia election data indicates that more than 30,000 votes were removed from President Donald Trump and another 12,173 votes were switched to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, data scientists testified on Dec. 30 during a state Senate hearing.

Lynda McLaughlin from the Data Integrity Group, along with data scientists Justin Mealey and Dave Lobue, presented the results before the Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Elections.

They testified on Dec 30 but their data was available online about a week earlier.

Some excerpts from Trump’s remarks from the transcript [“Brad” is Raffensperger; emphasis added]:

So I guess with all of it being said, Brad, the bottom line, and provisional ballots, again, you know, you’ll have to tell me about the provisional ballots, but we have a lot of people that were complaining that they weren’t able to vote because they were already voted for. These are great people.

And, you know, they were shellshocked. I don’t know if you call that provisional ballots. In some states, we had a lot of provisional ballot situations where people were given a provisional ballot because when they walked in on November 3 and they were already voted for.

So that’s it. I mean, we have many, many times the number of votes necessary to win the state.

Here Trump is talking about signature verification problems:

The only way you can do a signature verification is go from the one that signed it on November whatever. Recently. And compare it to two years ago, four years ago, six years ago, you know, or even one. And you’ll find that you have many different signatures. But in Fulton, where they dumped ballots, you will find that you have many that aren’t even signed and you have many that are forgeries.

Okay, you know that. You know that. You have no doubt about that. And you will find you will be at 11,779 within minutes because Fulton County is totally corrupt…

And they’re going around playing you and laughing at you behind your back, Brad, whether you know it or not, they’re laughing at you. And you’ve taken a state that’s a Republican state, and you’ve made it almost impossible for a Republican to win because of cheating, because they cheated like nobody’s ever cheated before. And I don’t care how long it takes me, you know, we’re going to have other states coming forward…

I have to find 12,000 votes, and I have them times a lot. And therefore, I won the state. That’s before we go to the next step, which is in the process of right now.

“Find” is through this process of uncovering fraud, obviously – which he goes on and on about. Now, you may think his belief in this fraud is delusional and/or mistaken, but he clearly believes it has happened and has very specific information about it – information we’ve discussed in many posts here already.

This is what Trump says about Kemp, with the cadences of New York:

You treated the population of Georgia so badly. You, between you and your governor, who is down at 21, he was down 21 points. And like a schmuck, I endorsed him, and he got elected, but I will tell you, he is a disaster.

The people are so angry in Georgia, I can’t imagine he’s ever getting elected again, I’ll tell you that much right now. But why wouldn’t you want to find the right answer, Brad, instead of keep saying that the numbers are right? ’Cause those numbers are so wrong?

Then lawyer Cleta Mitchell refers to the election case in Georgia that has yet to be heard, the one that shipwreckedcrew previously wrote about here. Mitchell says this, which I think is an excellent point:

…[T]he people of Georgia and the people of America have a right to know the answers. And you have data and records that we don’t have access to.

And you can keep telling us and making public statement that you investigated this and nothing to see here. But we don’t know about that. All we know is what you tell us. What I don’t understand is why wouldn’t it be in everyone’s best interest to try to get to the bottom, compare the numbers, you know, if you say, because .?.?. to try to be able to get to the truth because we don’t have any way of confirming what you’re telling us. You tell us that you had an investigation at the State Farm Arena. I don’t have any report. I’ve never seen a report of investigation. I don’t know that is. I’ve been pretty involved in this, and I don’t know. And that’s just one of 25 categories.

But this is the quote from Trump that was especially noteworthy to me. It reminds me of Trump’s riffs in his speeches [my emphasis]:

And Stacey Abrams is laughing about you [Raffensperger]. She’s going around saying these guys are dumber than a rock. What she’s done to this party is unbelievable, I tell you. And I only ran against her once. And that was with a guy named Brian Kemp, and I beat her. And if I didn’t run, Brian wouldn’t have had even a shot, either in the general or in the primary. He was dead, dead as a doornail. He never thought he had a shot at either one of them. What a schmuck I was. But that’s the way it is. That’s the way it is. I would like you .?.?. for the attorneys .?.?. I’d like you to perhaps meet with Ryan, ideally tomorrow, because I think we should come to a resolution of this before the [runoff] election. Otherwise you’re going to have people just not voting. They don’t want to vote. They hate the state, they hate the governor, and they hate the secretary of state. I will tell you that right now. The only people that like you are people that will never vote for you. You know that, Brad, right? They like you, you know, they like you. They can’t believe what they found. They want more people like you. So, look, can you get together tomorrow? And, Brad, we just want the truth. It’s simple.

And everyone’s going to look very good if the truth comes out. It’s okay. It takes a little while, but let the truth come out. And the real truth is, I won by 400,000 votes. At least. That’s the real truth.

With a little poetic license and a few tiny inconsequential changes, I can make it scan as a poem of five eight-line stanzas:

Stacey Abrams is laughing at you.
She’s going round saying
You’re dumber than a rock.
What she’s done to this party
Is unbelievable.
And I only ran against her once.
And that was with a guy named Kemp,
And I beat her.

And if I hadn’t run,
He wouldn’t have had a shot,
Either in the general
Or in the primary.
He was dead,
Dead as a doornail.
He never thought he had a shot
At either one of them.

What a schmuck I was.
But that’s the way it is.
That’s the way it is.
I’d like for the attorneys
To meet with Ryan tomorrow,
Because we should come
To a resolution of this
Before the runoff.

Otherwise you’re going to have people
Not voting. They don’t want to vote.
They hate the state,
They hate the governor,
and they hate the secretary of state.
I’ll tell you that right now.
The only people who like you
Are people who’ll never vote for you.

You know that, Brad, right?
They like you, you know,
They like you.
They can’t believe what they found.
They want more people like you.
So, can you get together tomorrow?
And, Brad, we just want the truth.
It’s simple. We just want the truth.

And everyone’s going to look very good
if the truth comes out.
It’s okay.
It takes a little while,
but let the truth come out.
And the real truth is,
I won by 400,000 votes at least.
That’s the real truth.

Is that the real truth? We don’t know, and at this point I don’t think we’ll ever know. The court system certainly isn’t about to help us learn, and neither is Brad Raffensperger.

My reaction #1 to the Trump-Raffensperger phone call

The New Neo Posted on by

Once Trump is gone from office – which I do believe is likely to be happening this month – one thing I will not miss are these leaked “gotcha” phone calls, whereby the MSM declares him finished, criminal, and/or hopelessly corrupt, and then once any objective person has a chance to actually listen to the call or read the transcript it becomes clear that this is a mischaracterization of what Trump actually said.

The very first such episode in Trump’s presidency occurred less than two weeks after his inauguration, and they have continued apace right through and include the call that was supposedly the basis (it was actually the pretext) for the House’s impeachment of Trump.

Of course, there’s no reason to suppose it will end even if and when Trump leaves office. I have long thought that the left will be pursuing him and his family as long as he and they live, and that the main form this pursuit will take is an enduring attempt to convict him (or them) of something illegal.

As for Biden, rest assured that there will be no leaked phone calls about him published in the WaPo, except ones that the MSM characterizes as doing him credit – until and unless the powers behind the Biden throne decide it’s time for him to be retired from office. When and if that turning point ever comes, a leaked phone call revealing marked senility just might be the mechanism by which it is announced.

As far as the present Trump call goes, I’m going to assume it was leaked by the Raffensperger forces. But there are some people who think that Trump had his reasons for recording and releasing it. I really don’t see that, but who knows?

Walking (and singing) those lonely streets

The New Neo Posted on by

The other day I was thinking how very many songs there are about loneliness. So I did a search, and the following video came up. Even though it’s supposedly about loneliness, the video made me smile. The lead singer’s 80s hair. And that beginning to the video – the woman doing gymnastics on the cars. Could anything be more 80s?

So tell me if you think this guy actually looks the least bit lonely:

Then again, loneliness can be a frame of mind, and people can be lonely in the midst of fame and fortune and women throwing themselves at them (I wouldn’t know personally, but I hear tell). The singer in that video, Britisher David Coverdale, ended up marrying the woman in the video two years later, but only two years after that they were divorced:

The video includes, besides band’s stage performance, appearances by model Julie E. “Tawny” Kitaen, who was married to Whitesnake’s David Coverdale from 1989 to 1991. Her notable sex-appeal was immediately recognized, having memorable unchoreographed scenes dressed “in a white negligee, writhing and cartwheeling across the hoods of two Jaguars XJ” which belonged to Coverdale (white) and Callner (black). Coverdale recalls that he even brought choreographer Paula Abdul to the set to show some moves to Tawny, but only to positively exclaim that she couldn’t “show her anything.”

But that video isn’t why I’m writing this post, you’ll probably be happy to learn. It was these lyrics from it that repeatedly caught my ear:

‘Cause I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams

And here I go again on my own
Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known
Like a drifter, I was born to walk alone…

Isn’t that pretty much this one, not music-wise but lyric-wise?:

What a difference a decade and a half makes (the songs are more than two decades apart, but the video for the first song was made some time later). No more playful cavorting with a gymnastically inclined woman. No more halo of hair. Beat up old cars rather than Jaguars. Black makeup on the eyes. But the words are so similar:

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known…

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I’m the only one, and I walk alone…

But, just as in the other video, the singer is hardly alone. You’ve got the band (not to mention the cameraman who must be there too). The visible threesome is trudging along, singing about how they’re alone. But at least you believe it possible that these guys may not be exactly living the high life.

For me, though, the best lonely street song is Leonard Cohen’s “Boogie Street”:

No street in this next one – there’s some lonely, though. For those of you who are only familiar with the disco iteration of the Bee Gees, this is from considerably earlier (1970). Twins Robin and Maurice are 20 years old here, and Barry three years older. Sharp suits on Robin and Barry:

Just for fun, here’s the same song in a Bee Gees concert six years later. Quite a few changes, of the sartorial and tonsorial variety, and also demeanor-wise, although this is still before the Saturday Night Fever explosion. I kept the final song on also, because it’s such fun:

“No evidence” of election fraud?

The New Neo Posted on by

From what I’ve gleaned from discussions with liberal friends, this statement is true:

…evidence of massive election fraud in swing states during the 2020 election is widely known and understood by Americans who obtain their information from independent and conservative media. Those who only pay attention to legacy media sources, and most members of the political class, are almost completely unaware of that fraud and/or have swallowed the Democrat-media narrative that the fraud was insufficient to have changed the outcome of the election.

I purposely left out the first word of the quote, however. It was “Direct” as in “Direct evidence.” I left it out because I’m not so sure there is much direct evidence. First, take a look at what “direct evidence” is:

Evidence that directly links a person to a crime, without the need of any inference (for example, they were seen committing the crime).

Much of the evidence we’ve seen so far is indirect and comes in the form of extremely suspicious activities (throwing out observers, videos of ballots that were under tables, etc.), and statistical anomalies that are very convincing but are not “direct evidence.”

There is eyewitness testimony in the form of affidavits of witnesses who allege wrongdoing, and eyewitness testimony can be direct evidence, but certainly not always:

For example: a witness who testifies that they saw the defendant shoot the victim gives direct evidence. A witness who testifies that they saw the defendant fleeing the scene of the crime, or a forensics expert who says that ballistics proves that the defendant’s gun shot the bullet that killed the victim both give circumstantial evidence from which the defendant’s guilt may be inferred.

It is my understanding that most of the eyewitness affidavits involved observations of suspicious activity that amounts to circumstantial evidence. I’m not even sure what direct evidence there could be, short of something of this sort, for example: an eyewitness wearing an invisible cloak (needed because observers were either not allowed to stay in the disputed polling places or were required to stay so far away that they couldn’t see much of anything), sitting next to a poll worker close enough to see everything that worker does, and seeing that worker falsify signatures on previously-blank ballot after previously-blank ballot. The observer would also have to keep a count of such falsified ballots. Even then, the testimony of the eyewitness observer would be subject to the counter-argument that this is only one worker and doesn’t represent nearly enough fraudulent votes to have mattered in terms of changing the results of the election.

So unless there were thousands of such invisibly-cloaked observers acting at every stage of the process in all the disputed arenas, it’s hard to see how direct eyewitness evidence, especially of the magnitude required, could ever be obtained.

Of course, in a normal trial, circumstantial evidence is also used to convict a criminal. However, that takes at least three things. The first is enough time to prepare a case, the second is access to the evidence, and the third is a court that doesn’t dismiss the case on technical grounds. With allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, we don’t have nearly enough time, in many cases those who supervised the election are not willing and/or able to make the harder evidence available (for example, how does one match envelopes to ballots once the latter have been separated from the former?), and most of the cases so far have been dismissed on technical grounds such as lack of standing or the doctrine of laches.

Unfortunately, if a party is willing and able to commit massive election fraud, the legal system is inherently unable to deal with it in time, even if it had the will to do so. I think our system presently lacks both will and ability, and the MSM is invested in saying “nothing to see here; move along.” Therefore, this split will continue between the portion of the populace that believes such a fraud was perpetrated and the portion that thinks the first group to be delusional.

[NOTE: To clarify, indirect circumstantial evidence can definitely be enough to prove a case. But in these election fraud cases, I think when people state there is “no evidence” they usually mean no direct evidence, just as the quote said. In addition, as far as I know, so far no court has actually given the circumstantial evidence a hearing, nor is any court likely to do so in time for it to matter. They have avoided it on procedural grounds.]

Twelve Republican senators call for emergency audit

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the story, as well as the names of the twelve:

Twelve Republican Senators and Senators Elect, led by Ted Cruz, have released a Joint Letter calling for appointment of an Electoral Commission to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of results in disputed states, to be completed in time for the January 20 inauguration, including giving state legislature’s time to change their electoral votes if the audit reveals fraud…

…[Signers are] U.S. Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.), and Senators-Elect Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).

You can find the full letter at the link, as well as a sampler of the predictable backlash against it.

This is a reasonable approach that, in a saner world, shouldn’t even be especially controversial. After all, there have been an enormous number of anomalies in the voting, and this election was obviously less secure than previous ones, ostensibly because of COVID and resultant rules relaxations. But we don’t live in that saner world right now.

For that matter, there should be a bipartisan call for tightening up the rules so that this sort of controversy never happens again. Yeah, I know; not gonna happen. Not even close to happening.

The end of the buffet and other prognostications

The New Neo Posted on by

Today Pocket decided I just might be interested in an article called “Is This the End of the Buffet?” And they were correct; it’s actually a topic I’ve pondered before.

After all, buffet restaurants are probably especially likely to close during the COVID lockdowns, unless they pivot to takeout dish-by-dish models like other restaurants. But why would anyone want to order a single dish (or two or three) from a buffet restaurant, when there are so many other choices of restaurant from which to order, and when a buffet restaurant was previously frequented mainly because of the enormous number of choices for a single fee? Once those extra choices are gone, why bother to patronize the place?

And secondly, how can the genre of restaurant survive, even post-COVID? Won’t people’s attitudes and mentality have changed, and won’t there be much greater wariness of buffets in general?

The article didn’t really shed much light on any of this, so I’ll skip discussing it. But perhaps yo’re wondering why I think that anyone should care about buffets. My answer is that I see buffets as a canary in the post-COVID coalmine. My gut feeling is that we will never be able to go back to “normal” – that an exaggerated fear of infection will remain in a lot of people and taint all sorts of social interactions, and not just buffets.

I don’t see this as a good thing. I imagine it could particularly affect children brought up in this atmosphere of fear and distancing, although perhaps children are more resilient than that. I certainly hope the vast vast majority of them are. I’m not so sure about the adults, though. And I strongly believe that the folks in charge – be they governors, mayors, health commissioners, the CDC, and/or the like – will want to periodically assert the powers to which they’ve grown accustomed.