Roundup!

The New Neo Posted on by

So much news … how to choose?

(1) Remember how the Democrats were keen to pack the Court? Now – funny thing – not so much.

(2) Judge Boasberg’s ridiculous criminal contempt finding against the Trump administration for turning over Tren de Aragua gang members to Salvadoran officials gets overruled. From the opinion:

The district court’s order raises troubling questions about judicial control over core executive functions like the conduct of foreign policy and the prosecution of criminal offenses. And it implicates an unsettled issue whether the judiciary may impose criminal contempt for violating injunctions entered without jurisdiction.

SCOTUS had ruled that the Boasberg court had no jurisdiction.

(3) Trouble for “no one is above the law” Letitia James? See this:

The Department of Justice has launched a grand jury investigation targeting New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), focusing on allegations of deprivation of rights related to her $454 million civil fraud lawsuit against President Donald Trump.

The probe is being run out of Albany. Subpoenas have already reportedly been delivered for documents concerning James’ lawsuit, which accused Trump of inflating his net worth to secure favorable loan terms.

Fox News Digital reports that James’ office received the subpoenas for documents and information pertaining to that case this week.

The grand jury investigation is at its early stages, according to reports, but marks a clear escalation in the DOJ’s attempts to hold James accountable for potential rights violations and potential abuse of her office against the president.

She ran for office with a promise to get him. She was elected, but she failed to keep her promise – although not for lack of trying.

(4) Keir Starmer wants Israel to make nice to Hamas and Gazans, and Ambassador Mike Huckabee has what I’d say is an appropriate answer:

(5) It’s the 3-year anniversary of the raid on Mar-a-Lago, and Tom Cotton has some observations:

This double standard is nothing short of breathtaking.

Where Trump was charged for merely “causing” boxes to be packed, Biden was specifically not charged because he “did not move the files himself” and “depended on staffers.”

With Trump, the Reagan precedent was ignored; with Biden, it was upheld due to “basic principles of notice and fairness.”

For Trump, the Supreme Court’s “express statement” doctrine, that certain laws should not apply to a president unless expressly stated, was ignored.

For Biden, the DOJ applied this doctrine — historically extended to include vice presidents — and declined prosecution to avoid “significant separation of powers concerns.”

Prosecutors charged Trump with 40 felonies — effectively life in prison.

Prosecutors charged Biden with nothing.

Those now angrily denouncing Trump for enforcing US laws — laws he is duty-bound to enforce — fully supported forging the justice system into a guillotine to lop off Trump’s head.

Because they don’t really care about law.

And they don’t really care about justice.

They only care about power.

Regaining power — and retaining it.

The news of the Russiagate Hoax appears to be reaching the public after all …

The New Neo Posted on by

… and even some Democrats, despite the attempts by the MSM to ignore or “debunk” it.

We have stories of this sort from the WaPo, which somehow frames the story as anti-Gabbard for releasing the information that implicates the likes of Brennan et al, and never reveals the content of what that information was:

“Exclusive!” boasts Washington Post intel reporter Warren P. Strobel in a report this week: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and “other intelligence agencies” didn’t want Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to declassify a report that makes the CIA look bad. …

Strobel does not make it easy for the reader to see the report, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s 2020 staff report regarding the Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Election Interference. At no point does he offer a link to the report or explain its explosive findings: that John Brennan, CIA director under former President Barack Obama, produced a sloppy Intelligence Community Assessment promoting the lie that Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered with the 2020 election to help Trump win. The foundation of Brennan’s report was an out of context fragment of a sentence that could not be confirmed and the comically false Steele dossier. A newly released CIA review shows high level CIA analysts and officers urged Brennan not to include the Steele dossier in the report.

Beyond being thin on facts, Strobel’s piece paints Gabbard as the villain right off the bat with the title, “Gabbard overrode CIA officials’ concerns in push to release classified Russia report.” It reads as if Gabbard did something wrong; she didn’t. Gabbard does not need permission to declassify these documents.

I have noticed time and again that MSM efforts to cover up stories that reflect poorly on Democrats and the left are often quite successful, at least among the Democrats I know. Even though not so many people read the MSM anymore, somehow the viewpoint espoused there filters down and is spread and amplified by social media.

And yet – at least according to a recent Rasmussen poll – the news is reaching the public and even some Democrats don’t seem to be dismissing it. This surprises me, but it’s good news. Miranda Devine summarizes the poll’s findings:

According to a Rasmussen poll released Monday, nearly two-thirds of voters (65%) are following declassified releases over the past month by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) “very closely” (32%) or “somewhat closely” (33%) …

The poll of 1,172 likely voters, conducted July 29-31, shows 54% believe Obama administration officials committed serious crimes in “manipulating intelligence,” with 37% saying it’s “very likely” and 17% saying it’s “somewhat likely.”

A staggering 69% agree it is critical that the perpetrators be held accountable “for the survival of our country.”

Even more disturbing for Democrats is that it’s not just Republicans who are concerned. The poll shows 56% of Democrats are following the investigation, 32% believe serious crimes were committed and 59% agree the perpetrators must be “held accountable.” The respective Republican comparison is 75%, 83% and 86%.

Hispanics are more cynical about the scandal than either black or white voters, with 66% saying serious crimes were committed and 74% wanting accountability, compared to 51% and 65%, respectively, for blacks and 53% and 69%, respectively, for whites.

Men are more concerned than women, with 74% vs. 59% following the revelations closely, 60% vs. 49% believing there is serious criminality, and 72% vs. 66% favoring accountability.

Of course, it’s always possible that the Democrats who think serious crimes were committed think they were committed by Trump.

Yahoo has once again decided to “improve” things

The New Neo Posted on by

Suddenly, without warning, Yahoo has introduced a new and vastly inferior email format. And this comes after many other “improvements” over the years that are anything but. For example, just recently Yahoo kindly added a seemingly useless and unnecessary step to the process of accessing the email, even if already signed in: a “next” tab to click on.

The plaintive cry of “why?” escaped my lips when the new format appeared. But I soldiered on, trying to find the magic tab that would return me to the old format. I’ve learned that such a secret door sometimes lurks somewhere in hiding. Finally, after a lengthy and frustrating search, found! What a relief. But if it’s anything like previous times, the old format won’t remain available for long. I feel in my gut that, like so many other times before, they someday will remove that option when I least expect it.

And this despite the fact that I – like many others, no doubt – have clicked the “feedback” tab and sent a blizzard of complaints and pleas.

And no, I don’t like gmail’s format any better, although I do use it for certain things. I’ve had my blog email at Yahoo for over 20 years, and I’m loath to pack up and move.

The ramped-up Pallywood game

The New Neo Posted on by

The MSM falls for Pallywood deception – or knowingly cooperates with it and promotes it. I think at this point it would have to be the latter, because if the press is ignorant at this point, it’s willful. Richard Landes – who coined the phrase “Pallywood” – exposed this twenty years ago with the al Durah hoax (extensively covered on this blog), and already the French media knew about the hoax aspect and thought it was okay because of A Higher Truth about suffering Palestinians.

The mendacious press coverage falsely accusing Israel is destructive and vicious. Here’s a recent article describing some of it:

A recent investigation by Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung casts serious doubt on a number of highly circulated Gaza images, suggesting that several were either selectively staged or carefully framed to serve a broader propaganda agenda — one that plays directly into Hamas’s media strategy. …

As foreign journalists have virtually no access to Gaza, most war photography is conducted by Palestinian freelancers — some with open or suspected ties to Hamas. According to historian and photography expert Gerhard Paul, Hamas exercises “100% control over image production” in southern Gaza. Every frame is curated. Every shot is a message.

The goal? Elicit sympathy from Western viewers. Stoke anger against Israel. Blur the moral lines between terrorist and victim.

Here’s a link to the German article; you can use a translation program to translate it.

And here’s Legal Insurrection on the same subject:

The problem is not limited to a few rogue Hamas-linked journalists. Palestinians have an entire industry dedicated to fabricating and disseminating fake statistics, imagery, and news. These Pallywood lies travel halfway around the world before the truth even has a chance to put on its proverbial shoes.

We’ve known that for literally decades. Images are merely one aspect of it – although an important and highly emotional one.

Trump calls for new census that doesn’t count illegal aliens

The New Neo Posted on by

I assume that this is an issue that will be fought in the courts:

President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Commerce to develop “a new and highly accurate census” that does not count illegal aliens.

The idea is that many blue states that welcome illegal aliens have had their representation padded through counting illegal aliens, as well as enhancing their coffers with extra federal dollars. The process of a census is determined this way:

Also known as the Population and Housing Census, the Decennial U.S. Census is designed to count every resident in the United States. It is mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution and takes place every 10 years. The data collected by the decennial census determine the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives and is also used to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds to local communities.

Seems like a census is mandated every ten years but an extra census isn’t banned. Does it have to be justified, and if so to whom, and in what way? And what is a resident; does it include illegal residents?

The Census Bureau has long counted illegal aliens as residents. I’m not sure the Constitution can be a guide here, because originally the laws defining legal and illegal immigration hadn’t been passed. I am immediately reminded of the compromise that counted slaves as 3/5 a person in order to reduce the power of slave states, but illegal aliens aren’t slaves and in any case slavery is illegal. However, the issues are strangely similar, although I doubt that current mores would allow for illegal aliens to be counted as 3/5 of a resident.

This issue isn’t new, but it’s heating up:

During his first term in office, Trump issued an memorandum in 2020 declaring that he “determined that respect for the law and protection of the integrity of the democratic process warrant the exclusion of illegal aliens from the apportionment base, to the extent feasible and to the maximum extent of the President’s discretion under the law.”

President Joe Biden issued an executive order in 2021 which revoked Trump’s memorandum, but Trump revoked Biden’s order this year.

In 2020, SCOTUS also weighed in, kind of:

The Supreme Court has ruled it is too soon to bring a legal challenge against the Trump administration’s still-developing plan to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count used to allocate seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The case is Trump v. New York.

From the ruling:

A foundational principle of Article III is that “an actual controversy must exist not only at the time the complaint is filed, but through all stages of the litigation.” … The plaintiffs now seek to substitute an alternative theory of a “legally cognizable injury” premised on the threatened impact of an unlawful apportionment on congressional representation and federal funding. Id., at 100. As the case comes to us, however, we conclude that it does not—at this time—present a dispute “appropriately resolved through the judicial process.”

So SCOTUS punted because the damage was merely threatened and had not yet occurred. Would the same be true now? It would seem so. And at the point at which the damage would become actual, and SCOTUS would deign to hear it, I can’t say what the Court would rule. But if I absolutely had to guess at the moment, I would say they wouldn’t rule in Trump’s favor and would use a fairly non-restrictive use of the word “resident.”

Federalizing DC

The New Neo Posted on by

Everyone wants to fiddle with DC. The left wants to make it a state, or many states, since it is almost 100% Democrat and could easily tip the balance of Congressional power to the Democrats. Trump wants to federalize it, undoing what was done in 1973 (which totally escaped my notice at that time).

Some background:

The Constitution, in Article 1 Section 8, directs Congress to “exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States.”

The idea was that the seat of government should be a neutral zone, one not dominated by any state or party, dedicated to the running of the government.

Instead of a local government or legislature, the district was to be governed by Congress. …

First, the passage of the 23rd Amendment in 1961 gave the district the right to be represented in presidential elections.

In 1973, when Congress passed a “home rule” law, the district became a self-governing municipality with its own elected officials, prosecutors and courts.

I never heard of it, and I was an adult at the time. More background here:

The District of Columbia Home Rule Act is a United States federal law passed on December 24, 1973, which devolved certain congressional powers of the District of Columbia to local government, furthering District of Columbia home rule. In particular, it includes the District Charter (also called the Home Rule Charter), which provides for an elected mayor and the Council of the District of Columbia. …

Under the “Home Rule” government, Congress reviews all legislation passed by the council before it can become law and retains authority over the District’s budget. Also, the President appoints the District’s judges, and the District still has no voting representation in Congress. Because of these and other limitations on local government, many citizens of the District continue to lobby for greater autonomy, such as complete statehood.

So it used to be completely federalized and it’s still semi-federalized. Make DC Great Again?

Trump’s stated motive is the rampant crime in DC:

President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to federalize Washington, D.C., calling for local minors and gang members over the age of 14 to be prosecuted as adults, after a famed former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employee was allegedly beaten in the nation’s capital.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said local youth and gang members are “randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released.”

I’m not sure there will be any follow-through on this, but it seems to me it would be up to Congress.

Legal action against the Russiagate perps: what to call it?

The New Neo Posted on by

The left often says Trump is seeking revenge, which implies that the charges against his previous tormentors are bogus and merely emotion-driven. They are not; there is evidence, and if the cases do go to trial that evidence will be heard. I have little doubt, though, that Trump wants revenge; who wouldn’t in his position?

But the word “retribution” is in fact appropriate as well, because the definition is “deserved and severe punishment.” I doubt the punishment will be severe, although that remains to be seen. But from what I have learned over the years, it would be deserved.

And yes, accountability is a big reason to institute legal proceedings, as is deterrence. If there is no accountability there is no deterrence, and a Russiagate-type operation is something that should never ever happen again.

But revenge, retribution, accountability, and deterrence are hardly mutually exclusive. They can all exist together.

Today is the 80th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: The following is a slightly changed version of a previous post of mine. If you follow the links in the second paragraph, you’ll find three other pieces I’ve written about the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.]

Once again it’s the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Nagasaki followed three days later, and Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945.

To date these two bombs remain—astoundingly enough, considering the nature of our oft-troubled and troubling species—the only nuclear warheads ever detonated over populated areas. (I’ve written at length on the subject of those bombs: see this, this, and this.)

Oliver Kamm wrote a while back:

Our side did terrible things to avoid a more terrible outcome. The bomb was a deliverance for American troops, for prisoners and slave labourers, for those dying of hunger and maltreatment throughout the Japanese empire – and for Japan itself. One of Japan’s highest wartime officials, Kido Koichi, later testified that in his view the August surrender prevented 20 million Japanese casualties.

This context always needs to be kept in mind when evaluating any “terrible thing” – and there is no question that the dropping of these bombs was a terrible thing.

But critics who are bound and determined to portray the West as evil, marauding, bloodthirsty – whatever the dreadful adjective du jour might be – are bound and determined to either avoid all context, or to change the true context and replace it with fanciful myth. As Kamm writes, those who want to portray Hiroshima and Nagasaki as American crimes cite evidence of an imminent Japanese surrender that would have happened anyway.

Trouble is, available information points strongly to the contrary. It’s difficult to know whether those who argue that the bombs were unnecessary and the deaths that ensued gratuitous are guilty of poor scholarship, wishful thinking, or willful lying – but most likely it’s some combination of these elements.

Truth in history is not easy to determine (see this), although it helps greatly if conventions of scholarship (sources, citations) are properly followed. Oh, the main events themselves are often not disputed – except for fringe groups – although the details are often the subject of disagreement. But it’s the motivations behind the acts, the hearts and minds of the movers and shakers, the “what-might-have-been’s” and the “but-fors” that are so open to both partisan interpretation and willful distortion, and so deeply meaningful.

It’s hard enough to determine what happened. How many died in Dresden, for example? Do we believe Goebbels’s propaganda as promulgated by David Irving, or do we believe this work of recent exhaustive scholarship? The former “facts” have reigned now in popular opinion for quite a while, and although the latter mounts a far more convincing case, how many have read it or are familiar with the facts in it, compared to those who have been heavily exposed to the former?

There’s what happened, and then there’s why it happened – the meaning and intent behind the policy. It takes a lot of time and effort to wade through facts, make judgments about the veracity of sources, and be willing to keep an open mind.

Much easier to stand in a public square (as a bunch of nodding, smiling, waving, elderly peace-love Boomers regularly used to do in a town where I lived) holding huge banners declaring “9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB.” Repeat it often enough, and the hope is it will become Truth in people’s eyes.

Especially in the eyes of the young, and of future generations, who don’t have their own memories to go on. It’s much harder to convince a WWII vet that Hiroshima was an unnecessary war crime than it is to convince a young person of same; the former not only has the context, he has own personal memories of the context. World War II veterans are scarce these days and getting scarcer by the minute. And propagandists from the left are more numerous, with larger platforms from which to distribute their products. They are not just interested in changing opinions in the present, they’re interested in changing history to change the future.

[NOTE: The definitive essay on the dropping of the atomic bomb by a contemporary and a fine writer is Paul Fussell’s “Thank God for the Atomic Bomb.” (That link no longer works, and I’m having trouble finding another that links to the actual text of the essay. If anyone can come up with one, please post the link in the comments.) For a discussion of the idea that Russia’s entry into the war against Japan rather than the atomic bomb was the cause of Japan’s surrender, see this.]

Canada’s revenge: land of the red sun

The New Neo Posted on by

Canada may not want to become part of the US, but its smoke does. The Canadian wildfires have created haze in much of the northern midwest of this country as well as New England.

This is a somewhat new phenomenon in recent years; I’ve lived in New England for a long time and have only noticed the problem for maybe five or ten years. If one does research on why this is happening more often – as I have – what emerges in each article is climate change, climate change, climate change, in the form of more drought and heat.

Well, perhaps. But if so, wouldn’t there also be more wildfires in New England itself? I don’t see evidence of that.

Articles about Canadian wildfires also mention arson, and I wonder if that’s a larger part of the picture than we know. Also lightning strikes, but I don’t see why that would be increasing. There’s also forestry: less logging, more fires? It’s hard to get objective data on this – at least, in the time I tried to research the issue in order to write this piece, every single article I found appeared to have a bias of some type (for example, this one).

Meanwhile, the haze continues …