The left may have made a tactical error in Kenosha

The New Neo Posted on by

When Kenosha erupted in flames, it immediately struck me as something different.

It wasn’t that the actions of the rioters were different. That was business as usual, and we have (sadly) become used to seeing it happen in deep blue (i.e. leftist) cities such as Seattle, Portland, and Chicago. We are not used to seeing it in the Kenoshas of the world, which are much smaller cities not known for leftism.

The left would have us think this was a spontaneous demonstration by the people of Kenosha, upset at the Jacob Blake shooting, but that never seemed likely to me. It seemed fairly clear that although some would be from Kenosha, a great many of the ones looting and burning would be in the category of “outside agitators.”

And that indeed seems to have been the case.

Although Kenosha no doubt has its own unique characteristics, it also seems like Everytown USA. That’s what was especially frightening. If the mayhem was confined to a small number of blue cities far far away, it was upsetting but didn’t strike as personally dangerous to most people. Kenosha changed that equation.

So now we have evidence for that, as well:

“In June approval of protests was widespread, with 61 percent approving of the protests and 36 percent disapproving,” the poll found. “Approval declined in August with 48 percent approving and 48 percent disapproving.”

The biggest change was among suburbanites who were, it seems, largely unaware of protests (and ensuing riots) when they were affecting major urban areas but began to pay attention when Kenosha, a more suburban, more residential area of Wisconsin, started seeing major damage.

Approval of BLM “declined in each of five urban-suburban categories including cities, suburbs, exurbs, small towns, and rural areas,” the study’s authors note. “In August more respondents approved than disapproved in cities. Suburban areas, which were substantially net positive in June, became net negative on approval in August, though not as negative as exurban, small towns or rural areas.”

And Democrats are also souring on the situation, Marquette says: “Net approval also declined across all three categories of party identification, with the largest declines among Republicans.”

I hope that the rioters have overplayed their hand.

This is one of the main reasons that the Biden camp has started to condemn the riots, although they’re trying to pin them on the right. But I think that particular dog won’t hunt. At least, I hope not.

Anonymous Democrat insider describes years of perpetrating mail-in fraud

The New Neo Posted on by

A very disturbing article. Here’s a sample:

…[T]he political insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears prosecution, said fraud is more the rule than the exception. His dirty work has taken him through the weeds of municipal and federal elections in Paterson, Atlantic City, Camden, Newark, Hoboken and Hudson County and his fingerprints can be found in local legislative, mayoral and congressional races across the Garden State. Some of the biggest names and highest office holders in New Jersey have benefited from his tricks, according to campaign records The Post reviewed.

“An election that is swayed by 500 votes, 1,000 votes — it can make a difference,” the tipster said. “It could be enough to flip states.”

The whisteblower — whose identity, rap sheet and long history working as a consultant to various campaigns were confirmed by The Post — says he not only changed ballots himself over the years, but led teams of fraudsters and mentored at least 20 operatives in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania — a critical 2020 swing state.

To most people on the right, this is no surprise. I know plenty of people on the left who would be surprised, though, and who would probably say it’s a lie rather than look at what it means. Or, they’d say that the Republicans do the same thing (which they probably do, but on nowhere near the same scale). And then of course there are those who say the ends justify the means and therefore it’s just fine in order to stop the evil Republicans.

One of my concerns with an article like this is that it also functions as a “how-to” manual and may have the effect of increasing voter fraud.

In addition, there’s this:

The bottom line, according to the operative, is that mail-in ballot fraud is a “real thing” that could be fixed…

The problem here is that only one political side wants to lessen the likelihood of this type of election fraud happening, while the other side – including their allies in the mainstream press, willfully turns a blind eye to it because it’s politically advantageous for them to look the other way.

We are in a heap of trouble. The voting laws have been expanding in recent decades in a way that I believe erodes the voting process as well as trust in the voting process. Absentee ballots have extra safeguards built in, and I’m okay with them in limited circumstances. But early voting and mail-in voting and vote harvesting, as well as laws banning the requirement of IDs, are a travesty and increase fraud. Once people no longer trust the vote-tallying process – and I submit that we have reached that point – we’re in banana-republic-land.

The Trayvon Hoax

The New Neo Posted on by

I missed some news that came out in late 2019, something I’m just coming across now. In the not-too-distant future, I hope to post a longer piece or two connected with it. It concerns allegations that are not only mind-blowing but could end up being important, if they ever get a proper airing and proper coverage. I’m talking about The Trayvon Hoax, which refers to the claim that the prosecution’s case against George Zimmerman was built almost entirely on a fraud in which they substituted a fake witness for the real one.

That seems preposterous, I know. It seems it should be impossible to get away with such a thing, especially with all the scrutiny the case received. The story is complicated and takes a while to set out and digest. The man who’s promoting this is a documentary filmmaker named Joel Gilbert, who’s been connected previously with some iffy theories. So he’s easily dismissed by the left, and hard to take all that seriously.

Until you watch the documentary or read his book, that is.

I haven’t done the latter, but I’ve done the former. The video is two hours long, and some of it could easily have been cut to tighten it up, which I think would be an improvement. Nevertheless, by the time I was finished watching, I felt that Gilbert had presented a remarkably compelling and comprehensive case, which was not my initial expectation at all.

Nor has anyone refuted it, although he started this tack in the fall so they’ve had plenty of time. Oh, they’ve excoriated him (and Zimmerman) plenty. But I could find nothing that dealt with the heart of the actual research he’s done and the allegations he’s making.

As I’ve said, I plan to write more about this. But I decided to put this post up rather quickly, to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, as well as an opportunity to watch the video if you’re not already familiar with it.

So here’s the documentary itself. Please be patient, and I think your patience will be rewarded. The importance of the Zimmerman/Martin case cannot be overemphasized. It’s the event that was the kickstarter for the organization BLM and the spreading of the leftist narrative about innocent blacks being killed in droves by cops. That’s a bit ironic, because Zimmerman wasn’t a cop. But he was considered a quasi-cop (and a quasi-white, since he’s half Hispanic).

If you’re interested in reading the document filed by Zimmerman’s lawyers in his suit, see this. And there’s also Gilbert’s book, which you can find here.

It’s very possible there’s a whole counter-story which has yet to be told, one that debunks the documentary and the book. But so far I haven’t seen it, and I can’t figure out what it would be.

Antifa: on sociopaths and riots

The New Neo Posted on by

On the white guilt thread yesterday, I wrote about various ways in which people can react to feelings of guilt and then want to join movements such as BLM or especially Antifa. Then I added:

in addition, I believe that quite a few of the rioters and especially the most aggressive ones are sociopaths, people who “just want to watch the world burn.” These people don’t feel guilt at all. They don’t even get the concept.

In the comments, I also wrote, of the presence of sociopaths in violent and tyrannical groups:

It is standard operating procedure. Nazis and Communists, for example, made use of the sociopaths among them.

Last night I found this video by two lawyers whose work I usually like. The one speaking here is named Robert Barnes. The whole video is worth watching, but here’s the part that’s especially relevant to this discussion:

Which brings us full circle today, to this earlier post on Biden and how the Democrats have incited violence while pretending that Trump’s the one who’s been doing it.

Leftist Finance 101

The New Neo Posted on by

Mayor de Blasio says:

“Help me tax the wealthy. Help me redistribute wealth. Help me build affordable housing in white communities if you want desegregation,” de Blasio said on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer” show after a caller asked about integrating public schools.

So I wonder – how can you redistribute wealth if you’ve driven away your tax base?

I think the answer is simple for the left: it doesn’t matter how low the standard of living goes as long as the wealth is more equally distributed. “Socialism is the equal sharing of misery,” and de Blasio is determined to bring it about in New York.

De Blasio can’t run for mayor of New York again. But I almost wish he could, to see if the people of that city would re-elect him. As it is, I suppose it’s possible that his successor will be in the same mold or even worse. After all, one of the many things that’s happening there is that a lot of people inclined to vote otherwise are leaving the city.

In related news, many business owners of Minneapolis have had enough.

And there’s no way any of this can be a surprise to the leftist leaders of such cities. It is a choice, the choice the left always makes:

The Biden camp’s strategy

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I’m going to start referring to Joe Biden as “the Biden camp.” For quite a while I’ve been writing “Joe Biden and/or his handlers” to refer to said group, but “the Biden camp” is shorter and it essentially means the same thing. We don’t really know who’s calling the shots right now, or to what extent Biden himself can come up with something one might call a strategy.]

The Democrats are banking on the idea that no one ever went broke underestimating the America public. So after denying the violence going on in American cities – “who are you going to believe, us our your lying eyes?” – they’re now applying their all-purpose remedy, the Big Lie of blaming it on Trump.

Yesterday Joe Biden went to Pittsburgh, which is in itself news – that he went somewhere. He gave a speech there to an audience of a few newspeople, which makes one wonder why he had to go anywhere at all. This was apparently the setting:

And then there was his inability to deliver the speech in a coherent fashion. Some of this may be eye problems with reading from the teleprompter, but he shows no ability whatsoever to recover from such errors and ad lib in anything resembling a coherent fashion:

Even when Joe manages to speak in normal sentences, now that it’s been decided he must condemn the violence what he says is of this nature:

Trump “long ago forfeited any moral leadership,” and was incapable of stopping violence “because for years he had fomented it.”

In Biden’s vision, Trump “may believe mouthing the words ‘law and order’ makes him strong, but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows you how weak he is.” And “does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is re-elected?”

That’s Orwellian nonsense. And yet, it’s the exact nonsense the MSM has been spouting for quite some time. It goes like this: Trump is dark, divisive, and evil, as are his supporters. The riots don’t exist and are a product of Trump’s imagination. At the same time, where they do exist, the perpetrators consist of right-wing militias, white supremacists, and Nazis who support Trump. He could call them off but refuses to do so, while the brave mayors of the blue cities they are attacking fight them off, with the help of the brave anfi-fascist volunteers of Antifa.

A lot of people think that the Biden camp is using this strategy now because Trump’s poll numbers have been going up. Maybe. But I also read the other day (in this blog’s comments or elsewhere, but I don’t recall the location or the author) that the real motivator is that finally in Kyle Rittenhouse they have a person they believe can be successfully labeled as a cold-blooded right-wing murderer. Anyone who studies the videos (or Rittenhouse’s activities that day) knows that this could not be further from the truth, but when did being far from the truth stop the Democrats from blaming Trump or Republicans?

Meanwhile, Kayleigh McEnany said this:

So, now, all of a sudden, 90 days later, I, from this podium, have talked about law and order. The President has talked about law and order repeatedly, but because the polling has shifted, now it’s time for the Democrats to deny what they said previously and, all of a sudden, focus on law and order.

I’ll leave you with this: That’s like the arsonist blaming the firefighter.

And here’s an effective ad (hat tip: Legal Insurrection):

The Democrats are used to getting away with flagrant lies and ridiculous reversals. Even if the lies are blatant and obvious, they are counting on several things to help them pull this off. First and foremost, they have the MSM in their pocket, protecting them from criticism but also engaged in spreading the very same lies, preparing the way and then bolstering the message and covering up for the flaws of the messengers. Next, you have four years of constant Trump-hatred which has been effective in getting a huge number of people to the point where they are willing to vote for literally anything – a yellow dog, a limp washcloth, Joe Biden – rather than Trump. And lastly, you have the all-purpose wild card which can be used for almost anything at all, race.

Sanders and Biden and the left: together again

The New Neo Posted on by

Prior to his election in 2008, Obama concealed how far to the left he was, and the American people bought it. He had a calm and soothing voice and demeanor, as well as what people thought of as a great intellect. In 2012, he managed to pull it off again, and it was after that election in particular that he felt free to enact his more radical policies without the fear of having to answer to the American electorate once more.

Since Obama left office, the Democratic Party has become more openly radical in word and deed. But faced with the 2020 election, the Democratic powers-that-be (and that still includes Obama) decided that Bernie Sanders – who was beginning to look like he was going to win the primaries and become the party’s nominee – was too radical a face to win the general election. And so they pressured all the candidates except Biden to drop out and unite behind Joe as the blander candidate, the one who wouldn’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.

Biden also had the advantage of being vacant enough that others would be able to control him once he took office. One of those people might indeed be Sanders, who probably saw the benefits of working behind the scenes to effect leftist policies he couldn’t put in place while trying up-front. Now Sanders is campaigning for Joe and saying this sort of thing:

The day after Joe is elected president — we’re going to be mobilizing people all across this country to make sure that he becomes the most progressive president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

And even that is an understatement, a deception designed to compare Biden and the policies that Democrats will instigate under him to a leader of the past, FDR. Many Americans still don’t understand the word “progressive,” either, which is a screen as well. Biden – or those behind him, who will “make sure” that he becomes what they want – is on track to have by far the most leftist administration America has ever known.

They have tried to hide that, but only intermittently, because they must also reassure their sizeable left flank that they will satisfy their needs and wishes. And what’s been happening now in our cities has revealed their goals to more people than ever realized it before. Democrats can keep shouting that it’s all Trump’s fault, and that will fool some of the people. But the question is the same as always in politics: how many of the people can you fool, how much of the time, and what might they be able to do about it?

Portland, Oregon: if you wink at bad behavior you will get more of it

The New Neo Posted on by

The man who is allegedly the Portland shooter had been arrested before and released without consequences:

A 48-year-old man who was accused of carrying a loaded gun at an earlier downtown Portland protest is under investigation in the fatal shooting Saturday night of a right-wing demonstrator after a pro-Trump rally.

Michael Forest Reinoehl calls himself an anti-fascist and has posted videos and photos of demonstrations he attended since late June, accompanied by the hashtags #blacklivesmatter, #anewnation and #breonnataylor…

Aaron Danielson, a supporter of the conservative group Patriot Prayer, was shot in the chest and died in the street. It was soon after most cars in a caravan of supporters of President Donald Trump had left the city’s downtown streets.

…On July 5 at one of the demonstrations, Reinoehl was cited at 2:10 a.m. in the 700 block of Southwest Main Street on allegations of possessing a loaded gun in a public place, resisting arrest and interfering with police

He was given a date to appear in court later that month, but the allegations were dropped on July 30 with a “no complaint,” according to court records. The documents don’t indicate why prosecutors decided not to pursue the accusations. Reinoehl spent no time behind bars.

Brent Weisberg, a spokesman for Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, said the office is still reviewing that July case involving Reinoehl.

Schmidt earlier Sunday decried the deadly violence. He took office on Aug. 1 and quickly announced that he wouldn’t pursue low-level charges against demonstrators, such as interfering with police or resisting arrest. He wasn’t district attorney when the office handled Reinoehl’s gun case.

Michael Reinoehl has been estranged from [his] family – including [his sister], their parents and a younger brother – for at least three years, his sister said.

“On the one hand, this whole thing surprises the daylights out of us, because we always thought he is a lot of bark, not a lot of bite,” she said. “But he’s also been very impulsive and irrational.”

Reinoehl has stolen their mother’s seizure medication and owes a lot of debt, often giving his relatives’ addresses as his own to avoid responsibility, she said.

He has a son and daughter and is split from their mother, she said…

Reinoehl is also wanted on a failure to appear warrant in a June 8 speed racing case in Baker County in eastern Oregon. He and his 17-year-old son were racing in two different cars at speeds of up to 111 mph heading east on Interstate 84 after midnight near North Powder, according to state police.

Michael Reinoehl faces allegations including driving under the influence of a controlled substance, recklessly endangering another, unlawful possession of a gun and driving while suspended and uninsured.

He was stopped driving a 2005 Cadillac STS with his 11-year-old daughter as a passenger, police said. Inside the car, police said they found marijuana, “unidentified prescription pills” and a loaded Glock pistol for which Reinoehl didn’t have a concealed handgun license.

I included a lot of that information because I think it paints a portrait that is not atypical of the kind of person who finds a cause with Antifa: a drifting loser who has had many brushes with the law and keeps pushing the envelope, but who has not seemed to suffer any real punishment or consequences for his actions. I also am not surprised that drugs have been involved in his life.

As for the article itself, I like this phrase: “calls himself an anti-fascist.” That’s true of Antifa as a whole, and it’s one of those Orwellian self-descriptions of which the left is so fond.

The city of Portland voted for this catastrophe when they elected a DA such as Schmidt, and they got it.

On white guilt and the white rioters

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Art Deco” writes (the first paragraph is a quote from a previous commenter}:

“The point is that Leftist[s] are motivated by guilt towards blacks. And they demand other whites share in their guilt by mongering.”

Rubbish. People who actually feel guilty do practical things or they sit in a chair depressed or they try to distract themselves. People who feel ashamed hide. They don’t recriminate against others. These people are aggressive and self-aggrandizing. They don’t hate themselves, they hate you.

Actually, people who feel guilty can do a lot of different things. As Art Deco indicates, some do practical things in an attempt to expiate their guilt, some are immobilized by depression, and some try to change the subject (including drowning themselves in drink or drugs).

But the claim that people feeling guilty “don’t recriminate against others” simply doesn’t fit what I’ve observed of human nature. Many don’t do that, but some do. Some use projection, for example, which is “projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.” People can get very nasty and aggressive when they do that.

Now, we can nitpick and say that someone doing this is doing it in order to not feel guilty, and that is at least somewhat true. It is a way of deflecting and casting off a feeling of guilt (or shame, which is not exactly the same), before it becomes too painful or sometimes even before it reaches full consciousness. But it’s usually in there somewhere, and the behavior described can be a reaction to it, one that can be very effective in protecting the person from unpleasant feelings and gaining a feeling of self-righteousness.

But in addition, I believe that quite a few of the rioters and especially the most aggressive ones are sociopaths, people who “just want to watch the world burn.” These people don’t feel guilt at all. They don’t even get the concept.

Since some time in the 1980s and/or 1990s, depending on where they grew up, many young people today have been raised with the idea that whites are inherently guilty. That sort of teaching has only been accelerating and spreading during the 21st Century. So most young white people deal with that indoctrination, and have various ways of processing it and reacting to it. But the effort to instill guilt is there, and deal with it they must.

[NOTE: I haven’t read this article yet; it’s long. But it was mentioned in the comments to a previous post, and it seems as though it might be relevant.]

In a move that should surprise absolutely no one, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals allows Judge “Ahab” Sullivan to have another go at General “Moby” Flynn

The New Neo Posted on by

Predictable, considering the makeup of the court, and yet awful:

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling en banc (full court), has ruled against Michael Flynn’s attempt to force District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan to grant the government’s motion to dismiss criminal charges.

In the Opinion (pdf.) the Court held, among other things, that it was premature to force Sullivan to rule a particular way…

Here, Petitioner and the Government have an adequate alternate means of relief with respect to both the Rule 48(a) motion and the appointment of amicus: the District Court could grant the motion, reject amicus’s arguments, and dismiss the case. At oral argument, the District Judge’s Attorney effectively represented that all these things may happen…

This was easily predictable because of the Democrat-appointed makeup of the court. It also represents – at least, in my quick appraisal, not having read the full document – a kind of kicking the can down the road, and a pretense that this entire episode has been business-as-usual.

It has not.

I’ve already felt so much outrage about this case that this ruling is more or less an anticlimax, in my opinion. But I don’t see the fight as over. It will be interesting to see what Judge Sullivan does next, now that the ball – I mean, the harpoon – is back in his court (boat).

[NOTE: And yes, I know that the Pequod was a ship and not a boat. But in the last chapter of Moby Dick, Captain Ahab was in a smaller boat, and it was from there that he launched his final harpoon.

I saw the movie “Moby Dick” in a movie theater on a large screen when I was a very young child, too young to understand much of anything about the movie except that it frightened me. I spent a significant amount of time there with my eyes closed, so I’m not sure whether I ever saw this scene – which doesn’t track precisely to the novel but is close enough. It’s special effects are still impressive considering it was made in 1956:

When I grew up I read Moby Dick many times. I understand it better now than I understood the movie all those years ago, but I can’t say I totally understand it. I think those who profess to do so are fooling themselves. At the heart of the book lies a mystery bigger than the whale, and it’s the mystery of life and the existence of good and evil, and the human heart.]

How to pose in photos

The New Neo Posted on by

On the lighter side. But practical, too.

I find this video quite fascinating, although I think most people might find the instructions confusing. Easier for dancers or ex-dancers, though, who are used to doing this with one part of their bodies and that with another and something else with still another, and thinking about having that imaginary vertical string through the middle. I have a feeling that the woman doing the video, who’s a professional photographer, has had quite a bit of dance training: