Saltshaker-gate and salty memories

The New Neo Posted on by

Do we really need to talk about Trump’s mega-salt-and-pepper shakers?

Apparently we do, with visuals.

Trust the press to uncover the pressing issues of our time.

Trump’s a strange and unusual man who does some strange stuff. Maybe he likes having the biggest salt shaker around. It wouldn’t surprise me. Or maybe it’s something the staff does, and he doesn’t even notice. Or maybe he uses a ton of salt.

Hey, I know what – let’s appoint a special prosecutor to discover what going on here!

I’m writing about this only because it made me think of two things. The first is that Jimmy Carter made a show of carrying his own suitcases to show that he was just a regular guy, with no imperial trappings (although if you believe this, his bag was virtually empty and he made agents carry the heavy stuff). I can’t say that Carter was a better president for it.

The second thing the story made me think of was the salt cellars of my youth. When I was little, my parents would sometimes host relatively formal dinners. Thanksgiving was one of the occasions, for example, although not the only one. For those dinners, the table was set much more elaborately than usual. Not just the use of the good china and good silver, or several sizes of crystal goblets, but also little individual crystal salt cellars with tiny silver spoons.

I can’t find a photo that matches the ones we had, but this is close (the two middle ones in particular):

My mother’s family had been quite wealthy back in the 1800s, and I’m pretty sure these had been inherited from them. The salt cellars harked back to a much more elegant and formal time, and I absolutely loved them. Somewhere they still exist, although maybe not all twelve. Do I have them, in storage, along with the gorgeous crystal glasses? Does my brother? I don’t know.

But what I do suspect is that my son and his wife will never want any of it. Will anyone? I know, I know; sell them on eBay. But that would mean going into the storage unit (I have a small corner of a friend’s) finding them, unpacking them, dealing with them. I’m really not keen on it.

The crystal glasses, by the way, were also quite old. I have no idea exactly how old, but again I believe it was the 1800s. They were made of super-thin crystal that had a very delicate and unusual cut design in it. You could dip your finger in the water and run it along the rim and make the glass sing, and the different sizes and amounts of water would create different notes.

Great after-dinner fun.

In the Times: “How a strong job market has proven the experts wrong”

The New Neo Posted on by

An interesting half-admission at the Times:

…[T]here is a bigger lesson contained in the data, one that is important beyond any one month’s tally of the job numbers: that the American economy is capable of cranking at a higher level than conventional wisdom held as recently as a few years ago. As the economy continues to grow well above what once seemed like its potential, without inflation or other clear signs of overheating, it’s clearer that the old view of its potential was an extremely costly mistake.

The mainstream view of the economics profession — held by leaders of the Federal Reserve, the Congressional Budget Office, private forecasters and many in academia — was that the United States economy was at, or close to, full employment.

I say “half-admission” because there are some curious omissions there, all having to do with the influence of politics. Yes, experts are often wrong. But one of the many reasons (not the only one, but an important one) is that they let their prognostications be colored by politics. For example, the article doesn’t mention Trump, which seems a rather odd omission. Nor does it mention Obama except in a passing remark about forecasts during “the late Obama years.” It steers clear of Paul Krugman, too, who (at the Times, right after Trump’s election) wrote:

The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear.

Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.

With track records like that, it’s no wonder that “experts” have been tuned out by most people.

Remember Pearl Harbor on the 78th anniversary

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a somewhat-edited version of a previous post.]

Today is the seventy-eighth anniversary of the December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. The generation that reacted to it by mobilizing and fighting World War II is on its last legs. But they were the ones we still call “the Greatest.”

I was reminded of this a few years ago while watching one of those Oliver North “War Stories” TV shows about Pearl Harbor. It featured some of the elderly participants reminiscing about that long ago day. Before each one spoke, there was a photograph of him back in 1941: young, vibrant, handsome, full of life. Now they were ancient, and most only vaguely resembled their former selves. But they still transmitted great moral strength and a kind of Gary-Cooperesque stoicism and understated bravery as they told their stories.

On the 75th anniversary there were still quite a few WWII veterans alive:

The Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t have data on veterans of individual battles, and an alumni association for the battle disbanded in 2011, at the 70th anniversary, when it believed just 8,000 of the 84,000 uniformed Americans on Oahu during the attack remained alive. Since 2011, roughly half of veterans of World War II who were alive then have died, according to VA projections, leaving fewer than 700,000 alive today. Roughly 400 American WWII veterans die each day.

Obviously the number of Pearl Harbor veterans alive has only gotten smaller sine that was written—as it will every year until the number is zero. And then, we will still remember? In fact, do most of us remember Pearl Harbor now? Time marches on, and even 9/11 has faded into the background for most people.

A couple of facts: it’s become fashionable to believe that FDR knew about the attack in advance and let it happen anyway. But those 12/7-truthers are almost undoubtedly wrong. Roosevelt wanted to get us into the war, and he knew a Japanese attack was coming at some point, and informed his generals to that effect, but he knew none of the particulars in advance.

Here’s a post I published ten years ago on Pearl Harbor Day. It focuses on FDR’s famous speech afterward, and the will and resolve he amply demonstrated. Will and resolve in war remain extremely relevant these days.

Here is just a little bit of Roosevelt’s post-Pearl Harbor speech, in case we need reminding of what American resolve used to sound like:

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

“Righteous might.”

Here’s the speech itself:

The memorable phrase that began FDR’s address, “a date which will live in infamy,” wasn’t in Roosevelt’s earlier draft. That draft reads “a date which will live in world history.” That sounds like a high school essay; Roosevelt crossed out “world history” and added “infamy” in his own hand. He also changed “simultaneously and deliberately attacked” to “suddenly and deliberately attacked.”

Wise choices.

The economy rolls along

The New Neo Posted on by

The economic news is good:

The jobs market turned in a stellar performance in November, with nonfarm payrolls surging by 266,000 and the unemployment rate falling to 3.5%, according to Labor Department numbers released Friday.

Those totals easily beat the Wall Street consensus. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for solid job growth of 187,000 and saw the unemployment rate holding steady from October’s 3.6%. The decline in November’s jobless rate came amid a corresponding 0.1 percentage point drop in the labor force participation rate, to 63.2%.

And yet all the Democrats seem to do is talk about how awful Trump is. And really, what else can they do at this point but ignore the good economic news?

Of course, they can predict a fall. And they might get lucky because a fall could occur before the election.

Such things happen. What goes up must come down.

There might even be some way to coax it along, if the Democrats so desire. The continuation of a good economy during the Trump administration must be exceptionally frustrating for them. Here’s how some of that frustration is expressed:

…New York’s Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the top Dem on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, found some clouds to wrap around the silver lining of Friday’s news: “The job market has shown remarkable resilience in the face of the president’s increasingly erratic trade policies. But let’s not forget that Americans in many communities and parts of society still find it hard to get a well-paying job.”

But I basically agree with this “Democratic strategist”:

“The normal rules of political gravity no longer apply,” said Democratic strategist Craig Varoga. “Voters’ opinions about Trump are baked in. Good news and bad news no longer move the needle. The only major variable is the identity of the Democratic nominee, and it may be another half-year until we know who that is.”

However, despite the relatively fixed nature of opinions on Trump, good economic news can only help him. Some movement of opinion also may be possible, and every little bit can matter in what might be a close election.

Labour’s anti-Semitism

The New Neo Posted on by

The upcoming UK election (December 12) has focused on the Brexit issue, but there’s another one: the Labour Party’s anti-Semitism.

You can find several articles on the topic in today’s Telegraph: for example, this one as well as this. You can also read about it here, although that author seems to have little understanding of the fact that the Times and WaPo are now the Pravda and Izvestia of US leftism.

One thing that is clear, however: the Jews of the UK have turned on the Labour Party. From the latter article:

94% of British Jews will vote for any party but Labour next Thursday. For those Jews who cannot stomach a vote for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s pro-Brexit Tories, the Liberal Democrats offer the option of unambiguous support for continued European Union membership without the rank stench of anti-Semitism. Last year, the country’s three Jewish newspapers—each representing different political and communal traditions and constituencies—all published the same, front-page editorial warning that a Corbyn-led government would present an “existential” threat to British Jewry. The old joke about two Jews, three synagogues really does not have any pertinence when it comes to the matter of how the British Jewish community sees Jeremy Corbyn.

Corbyn’s and Labour’s anti-Semitism has been blatant enough that even Jews who would ordinarily be inclined to vote Labour are having trouble doing so.

If at first you don’t succeed…impeach, impeach again

The New Neo Posted on by

If impeachment doesn’t lead to Trump’s removal the first time, it can be tried again and again, according to Democratic House member Al Green:

“A president can be impeached more than once,” Green advised. “So, we can do this, we can move forward with what we have on the table currently, we can take this before the Senate and we can still investigate other issues and when the president has committed additional offenses, and my suspicion is that he will, we can take those before the Senate.”

“There is no limit on the number of times the Senate can vote to convict or not a president, no limit to the number of times the House can vote to impeach or not a president,” Green continued. “So, my belief is that the speaker will probably say we’re going to move forward with what we have now, but we’re not going to end investigations and that there may be possible opportunities to do other things at a later time.”

He’s not alone, either.

I find this fascinating. The country seems to have no stomach for it, but the Democrats seem to have enormous stomach for it. Do they think this sort of pledge of intent will help them in the 2020 elections? Do they believe that they will end up controlling the Senate to the extent that 2/3 of its members will be Democrats in 2020? Or do they think something will come along – or they can manufacture something – that will convince enough Republican senators to come along for the Trump conviction ride?

Do they believe that making themselves into a perpetual impeachment machine whose only goal is to remove President Trump (and perhaps even a twice-elected Trump) from office will somehow be appealing to the majority of voters?

This seems to be a form of madness that ties into my Trump Superpower post from September. Here’s how it went…

You know that game people sometimes play? The one where you choose which superpower you’d want?

Sometimes the choices are limited, such as in this typical group: “Telepathy, teleportation, super-strength, invisibility or the ability to regenerate your cells.”

But I’ve never seen a list that includes the superpower that Donald Trump seems to possess, which is the ability to drive your enemies crazy and make them do stupid things.

We first saw this in evidence, at least somewhat, during the 2016 campaign. The Republican challengers were surprisingly flat-footed against him. And since his election we’ve seen it over and over and over with Democrats, the press, and NeverTrumpers.

I think what’s going on is twofold. The first is that Trump is very very different from their usual opponents. He’s unpredictable. He hits below the belt and above the belt. Whatever he does, they don’t see it coming.

But the second is that they really truly are convinced that he is the crazy stupid one. Therefore, if they can just rile him enough, he’ll reveal this unequivocally to the world. Plus, he’s not just crazy and stupid, he’s also corrupt, and so – like the boy in the joke about shoveling away at the manure in the barn because he knows there must be a pony somewhere – they know that if they just dig and dig and dig they will find the pony that will sink Trump. This is not a pose on their part; they believe it.

George Zimmermann sues

The New Neo Posted on by

If this turns out to be true, wow:

The Trayvon Martin case was built on a fraud, with a key witness being swapped out with an imposter when the real witness wouldn’t testify, George Zimmerman said in a lawsuit Wednesday.

The lawsuit says Martin was on the phone with his girlfriend, a vivacious 16-year-old named Brittany Diamond Eugene, when Zimmerman killed him on Feb. 26, 2012. At trial, prosecutors produced the plump, slow-spoken 18-year-old Rachel Jeantel as the girl who had crucial insight into his final moments by being on the phone with him.

The lawsuit says Eugene refused to provide the version of events used to build a narrative of racism at trial, so Jeantel, who reads at a fourth-grade level, was pressured into pretending to be “Diamond.”

The lawsuit seeks $100 million and names both young women as defendants, plus Martin’s parents, who it says were well aware of the swap.

Zimmerman’s lawyer filed the lawsuit in state court in Florida and it also targets the state of Florida and its prosecutors, who allegedly initially falsely told the defense that Martin’s cellphone was too damaged to extract its data, when it actually contained evidence damaging to their case. That includes not only evidence of the witness swap, but also texts showing Martin previously discussing gun sales and bragging of beating up a “snitch” and saying, “He aint bleed nuff 4 me, only his nosez.” Prosecutors also ran out the clock by repeatedly ignoring the defense’s entitlement to exculpatory evidence, the suit says.

Even if it is true (and at this point I have zero idea whether it is or isn’t), the left will say it doesn’t matter. The Trayvon narrative is deeply entrenched at this point.

Here’s more, if you’re interested:

Dark days

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m not speaking metaphorically when I say “dark days.” Right now is one of those days of the early early sunsets. To me, sunset is the most important marker rather than the shortest amount of daylight, which can actually involve a slightly later sunset in combination with a later sunrise.

But one of the consolations of the deepest part of winter, the part that comes after the solstice, is that the sunsets start getting later and later.

I just did a YouTube search for winter scenes to post here, and discovered that there’s a load of them that are many hours long and made as relaxation videos to facilitate meditation or sleep. Hmmm. Hibernation, anyone?

Impeachment is on the menu…

The New Neo Posted on by

…but will the Democrats order it, only to be told by the Senate chefs that they won’t prepare the dessert of conviction?

[Yeah, I know, it’s not a great metaphor. But I’m jet-lagged.]

Today Pelosi gave articles of impeachment the green light, saying (among other things) that “The president leaves us no choice.”

That’s a nice touch, don’t you think? She keeps trying to keep a tone of reluctant sorrow at being forced to do this.

And in a way, maybe she actually is being “forced” to do this – by Trump, because he won and is being quite successful as president; by her left wing, because they demand it; and by the fact that so far, one by one, other alternatives for taking Trump down seem to have disappeared.

So the question is: will impeachment happen? I submit that Pelosi herself isn’t yet 100% sure. The Democrats will have to decide which course is best for them. Here are the two possibilities as I see them:

(1) Impeach. Make the vote margin quite close but more than one or two. Allow Democrats who are supposedly “moderate” and are in the most Trump-friendly districts to vote against, and allow them to say that although Trump is absolutely terrible they are acting for the good of the Republic (and of course to show how independent and moderate they are), because these offenses doesn’t quite rise to an impeachable level.

(2) Don’t impeach. Maybe don’t even hold the vote. But maybe hold it and allow the “moderates” to all vote against it and praise themselves for their brave moral stand. Then go on to the next attempt to get Trump, and the next.

I try and try to guess which of the two will occur. I can’t decide. And perhaps there are even third and fourth alternatives that haven’t yet occurred to me. Have they occurred to Pelosi and company?

Today’s impeachment theater

The New Neo Posted on by

Apparently Ann Althouse has a stronger stomach than I do, because she was able to watch today’s impeachment hearing:

I thought…the idea would be for the 3 law professors called by the Democrats to provide cover for the Democrats by performing the theater of making everything sound like law and not politics and by speaking in a tone that would feel academic and sadly, grimly inevitable.

But they came on so strong, righteously angry and in an exaggerated tone, making assertions that the things Trump did are impeachable. They did not work to establish our confidence that they were operating in a scholarly zone that was truly their expertise. They did not give us reason to believe we should listen to them as expert witnesses.

What an awful display! And I’m not even counting the motions for who knows what and the roll call votes (which seemed to be the GOP strategy for making the show as annoying as possible). The first 2 witnesses — Noah Feldman and Pam Karlan — scolded and yelled. Michael Gerhardt was a bit milder, but he mumbled and stumbled, and I couldn’t believe he brought up the musical “Hamilton.”

Althouse’s suggestion that the Democrats would want to establish a neutral, regretful, academic tone as cover for their partisan impeachment drive made a certain amount of sense. But Democrats seem to have lost their senses. For the most part they are incapable of a sober academic tone about a topic like Trump and much else that is political, even as a pretend, strategic, tactical tone.

Rage has unhinged them. And their base expects it.

Althouse doesn’t even get into some of their worst excesses today. But here’s a post at Legal Insurrection describing Pam Karlan’s entry into the low blow sweepstakes, which involved mocking Barron Trump’s name.

Law professors are often incredibly partisan and both vicious and sophistic in their arguments. This has only become more apparent in recent years. And most of them are liberal, in fact overwhelmingly so. No doubt someone such as Karlan is used to getting kudos for her anti-Trump bon mots, but they don’t play quite as well on a national stage.

[NOTE: And then there’s Jonathan Turley, called by the GOP to speak today. It’s interesting that he’s not a partisan Republican or any sort of Republican at all. Nor is he a Trump supporter. But he’s one of those Alan Dershowitz types who tends to be fair and objective. Please read the whole link.]

Abolishing the Electoral College – be careful what you wish for

The New Neo Posted on by

Democrats would love, love, love to get rid of the EC. Their rhetoric is to establish a “make every vote count” democracy (republic? who needs it?). But the actual motivation is that they believe a national vote would favor them tremendously and would eliminate what they consider the disproportionate influence of less populous red states such as Oregon, and of so-called “swing” states such as Ohio.

Note, though, that many of the most important swing states – Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina – are quite populous. Take a look at how high up they are in the rankings of states by population, So they would remain very important, even with a national popular vote.

In fact, they are important swing states not just because they sometimes vote red and sometimes blue, but because they are populous states that do so. Swing states that are small, such as tiny New Hampshire, with its piddly two votes (CORRECTION: four votes; I apparently was thinking of its 2 Congressional districts rather than the EC), can have disproportionate influence in the primaries because they hold theirs early. But by the time of the general election, no one cares much about how New Hampshire goes. That’s true with the current EC system and it would also be true in a national popular vote election.

If Democrats are prone to cheat in big blue cities by manufacturing extra Democratic votes, a national popular vote would seem to make such cheating even more tantalizing and important to accomplish. And in a close election, the recounts would be a complete nightmare.

I wonder, though. Would the Democrats really get what they want? For example, the amount of cheating required might be a bit harder to gauge in a national popular vote. It seems to me it could be easier to do this successfully on a state-by-state basis than on a national one.

Also, in a state such as California in which an overwhelmingly blue vote is a foregone conclusion, perhaps a lot of Republicans stay home on Election Day. After all, why bother to vote when your vote really doesn’t count? But with a national popular vote, they might be motivated into coming to the polls (or sending in those absentee ballots) instead.

The Democrats will continue to push for the end of the EC, of course, because they believe it would help them immeasurably. And perhaps it would.

And yet I seem to recall that one big argument in 2016 prior to the election was that Trump had no EC path to victory, or at least an exceedingly narrow one (see this, for example, a WaPo article that says his path isn’t just narrow, it’s “nonexistent”).

And consider that in a state like NY or California, even if 20% of black votes defect to Trump those states will still reliably go blue and their huge number of electoral votes will go to Democrats. But in a national popular vote, such a shift could substantially cut into the Democrats’ total popular vote enough to deny them the margin of victory. That would be ironic, wouldn’t it?

Do I really think abolishing the EC would favor Republicans? No, I do not. But I think it could do so, and that’s why I subtitled this post – addressing those Democrats who would like to get rid of it – “be careful what you wish for.”

[NOTE: Here’s an article from 2013 on why abolishing the EC might benefit the GOP. It’s outdated and assumes some things that changed for the 2016 election, but it’s still an interesting example of thinking outside the box on the topic.]