The forgotten plague: TB

The New Neo Posted on by

“By the dawn of the 19th Century, the disease had killed 1 in 7 of all people that had ever lived, more than any other illness.”

Anyone who’s a Bronte or Keats or Chopin fan hasn’t forgotten. But it’s true that most of us don’t really appreciate what a widespread scourge tuberculosis was.

I recommend the first half of Jessamyn West’s The Woman Said Yes, about her own bout with TB as a young woman, and her years in a sanatorium as well as her recovery.

The above clip is only part of a longer documentary. More about tuberculosis here.

James Carville, messenger with a message about the message

The New Neo Posted on by

A lot of people are talking about recent remarks by James Carville, warning the Democratic Party about errors they’re making in using so many leftist talking points. Carville became famous as Bill Clinton’s political strategist, and that’s what Carville is into: strategy. It’s difficult to determine if he’s into anything else. To me, he seems to be a pure example (and I don’t mean “pure” in the moral sense) of a political being who is almost entirely about maneuvering in order to win.

This recent interview is of special interest [emphasis mine]:

James Carville: …We just had an election in 2018. We did great. We talked about everything we needed to talk about, and we won. And now it’s like we’re losing our damn minds. Someone’s got to step their game up here.

Sean Illing: What does that mean?

James Carville: In 2018, Democrats recruited really strong candidates, really qualified candidates. And the party said, “This is what we’re going to talk about and we’re going to keep talking about it.” And you know what happened? We fucking won. We didn’t get distracted, we didn’t get deflected.

Sean Illing: Give me an example of what you mean by distractions.

James Carville: We have candidates on the debate stage talking about open borders and decriminalizing illegal immigration. They’re talking about doing away with nuclear energy and fracking. You’ve got Bernie Sanders talking about letting criminals and terrorists vote from jail cells. It doesn’t matter what you think about any of that, or if there are good arguments — talking about that is not how you win a national election. It’s not how you become a majoritarian party.

It’s difficult to avoid believing that Carville literally doesn’t care about political principles or policies. It’s all – and I mean all – about power and winning. And he believes that’s accomplished by talk rather than actions. Nor does it seem to matter to him what the Democratic candidates actually believe or what they actually plan to do once in office. The winning is all. And the power. The power to do what?

Carville also said:

Look, Bernie Sanders isn’t a Democrat. He’s never been a Democrat. He’s an ideologue. And I’ve been clear about this: If Bernie is the nominee, I’ll vote for him. No question. I’ll take an ideological fanatic over a career criminal any day. But he’s not a Democrat.

The “career criminal” to whom Carville refers is, of course, Trump. But he never explains what he is referring to when he calls him that – I guess everyone is supposed to know. He uses the term again later in the interview:

Right now the most important thing is getting this career criminal who’s stealing everything that isn’t nailed down out of the White House. We can’t do anything for anyone if we don’t start there and then acquire more power.

And Carville’s conclusion goes like this:

The purpose of a political party is to acquire power. All right? Without power, nothing matters.

You can feel Carville’s desperation. He believes the Democratic candidates aren’t being pragmatic enough, and that their message isn’t a winning one. He takes it as a given that Democrats must get power or something very dire will happen. In fact, he also says this in the interview:

I’ll just say it this way: The fate of the world depends on the Democrats getting their shit together and winning in November. We have to beat Trump.

Be careful about purposely helping the person you think is the worst candidate on the other side

The New Neo Posted on by

I am very wary of any attempt to manipulate the Democratic primaries by Republicans crossing over and voting for the person they think is the weakest candidate. This is possible to do in many states with open primaries, including the one coming up in New Hampshire this Tuesday.

I say let the Democrats handle their own choices. It’s hubris to think you know who would be the most likely to lose, and it could backfire terribly. If you help the absolute worst candidate get nominated, and that person wins, I doubt you’d be pleased with yourself.

I seem to recall that the press built up Trump for a while during the 2016 primaries, hoping he’d be nominated, because they believed he’d get trounced. How’d that work out for them?

If you watched the Democratic candidates debating last night…

The New Neo Posted on by

…my hat is off to you for your fortitude.

I didn’t watch it. But the gist of what I read about it is as follows:

–Biden led with the idea that he wouldn’t do well in New Hampshire.

–Amy Klobuchar had a good debate, but she often does and it hasn’t helped her all that much so far.

–All the candidates except Klobuchar are perfectly okay with a “Democratic Socialist” at the head of the Democratic ticket. Isn’t that special? Look how wide open that Overton Window is now, in just a few short years.

My guess is that there are three reasons they’re so fine with it. The first is that socialism really is just peachy keen with them. The second is that they know it especially appeals to the youth vote, which is one of the blocs Democrats need in order to win. The third is that if Sanders becomes the nominee, he’s going to need a Veep who’s okay with “Democratic Socialism.” Some of them are looking to be VP. And of course, Bernie isn’t exactly a spring chicken, so being his vice president could be a stepping stone to the presidency itself.

The prospect of one of them winning, and/or of the Senate being taken over by the Democrats, fills me with dread because the party has shifted so dramatically left. I don’t think that victory is likely but I absolutely think it’s possible.

Incredible survival story

The New Neo Posted on by

I have a new YouTube vice: binge-watching old programs of “I Shouldn’t Be Alive,” a show that aired from 2006 to 2012 and featured survival story re-enactments.

All the stories are true, and they’re narrated by the actual people who experienced them, plus re-enactments with actors playing their parts. One particularly interesting thing about the show is that there is no suspense about whether the person makes it. After all, there’s the title. And the person is sitting right there, intermittently narrating the tale. But the suspense is enormous anyway, and it focuses on the fact that the scenarios really do not seem survivable. So the viewer – at least, this particular viewer – is hooked right to the end, thinking “How does it happen? How on earth does this person make it?”

Another fascination for me is the exploration of the mental states of people facing extremely harrowing conditions. For the most part these are quite ordinary people, and yet their behavior under tremendous physical and mental stress features impressive strength. Often, though that strength is preceded by remarkable stupidity in making decisions that lead to the risk. And then, either combined with the stupidity (or let’s just call it bad judgment) that is sometimes present, there’s tremendous bad luck that makes it even worse. And at the very end, there’s either incredible good luck or incredible ability to figure out a way of escape, or both.

Here’s one video in the show that doesn’t seem to feature any bad decisions on the part of the survivor. It’s fairly typical of the genre otherwise, though (although the video’s title is not wholly accurate):

Sanders 2020 and Trump 2016

The New Neo Posted on by

Looking at the 2020 Democratic primaries, it occurs to me that Sanders’ position in the Democratic field in 2020 is something like Trump’s in the Republican field in 2016. If you think that sounds bizarre, please hear me out before you decide. Yes, they’re very different. But there are some striking similarities as well, particularly in the dynamics of the field.

Both men are outside whatever passes for the establishment in their parties. For the Democrats, the “establishment” is in a state of flux, but it appears to be represented by Joe Biden, who is in somewhat of a similar position to that of Jeb Bush within the GOP field in 2016. Joe and Jeb share a bit more than just their initials, too; each was thought to be the frontrunner and yet both don’t seem to engender much (if any) enthusiasm in the public. They’re different as personalities and certainly politically, but there’s something similarly tepid in their support, and they seem flatfooted in knowing how to deal with their more energetic opponents, Bush’s Trump and Biden’s Sanders.

Like Trump, Sanders has enthusiastic supporters. That counts for a lot. They are devoted to him and believe he can make it, and are willing to work hard for it. Sanders is a leftist but a sincere one, and when he speaks his supporters don’t hear the same-old same-old. One of Trump’s greatest strengths is the fact that his supporters feel he understands them and is talking to them from the heart, and the same is true of Sanders.

It’s a rare quality these days in politicians, and a valuable one. I believe it’s the main reason Sanders is doing so well right now – that, and the Democrats’ huge shift to the left duirng the last decade or more.

The other thing both men have in their favor is the number of candidates running against them. To those who oppose them, it seems as though if only the opposition would coalesce behind just one other candidate, that would be the solution to defeating Sanders (and Trump before him). This deep desire to nominate just about anyone else is partly due to the idea that Sanders (and Trump before him) cannot win. In 2016, if Trump were nominated and he didn’t win, that would mean that the dread Hillary would be elected. In 2020, if Sanders is nominated and he can’t win, that will mean the dread Donald would be re-elected. These are nightmare scenarios for each party, and although Trump won the presidency against most predictions, and Sanders could win the presidency, neither outcome seemed very likely at the outset. Thus, the fear within each party.

[NOTE: Oh, and both Trump and Sanders are from New York City. Bernie’s been away in Vermont for many decades, but to me he’s a New Yorker through and through. And, interestingly enough, one of the un-Sanders (anti-Sanders?) candidates on the Democratic side is another New Yorker: Bloomberg.]

There may be an Iowa recanvass

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s supposedly a dead heat between Sanders and Buttigieg in Iowa, and there have been calls for a recount:

Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez is calling on Iowa Democratic officials to immediately recanvass Monday’s caucus vote after days of uncertainty and growing concerns about “inconsistencies” found in the data.

“Enough is enough,” Perez said in a tweet. “In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.”

A recanvass is essentially a double-checking of the vote. Iowa officials would have to hand -audit the caucus worksheets and reporting forms to ensure that they were correctly calculated and reported.

But whatever trust the public once had in the process is gone, perhaps permanently.

The results so far, for what it’s worth:

As of Thursday morning, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg was clinging to the narrowest of leads in Iowa over Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., with 97 percent of the caucus vote released.

Buttigieg was at 26.2 percent and Sanders had 26 percent, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., running behind the pair of leaders at 18.2 percent. Former Vice President Joe Biden had 15.8 percent, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., at 12.2 percent and other candidates were in low single digits.

New Hampshire has a very different system:

New Hampshire’s primary is an election run by municipal officials, as opposed to the political parties that run the Iowa caucuses.

New Hampshire voters fill out paper ballots in all 309 voting locations, from the most congested ward in Manchester to the most isolated of North Country towns.

The Accuvote machines used by most towns to count ballots can’t be hacked because they aren’t online.

And, as required by the state constitution, the moderator reads the results at each polling location while the clerk records them by hand.

It help to have a small population. I expect it to go quite smoothly.

A history of partisanship in US presidential impeachments

The New Neo Posted on by

The Founders were fearful that impeachment would become a partisan endeavor, and they were right to be fearful. It has. That’s why the Founders set the bar so high for a Senate conviction.

If you look back on the history of US presidential impeachments, you will find a great deal of partisanship in the support for impeachment and removal, except for the impeachment that didn’t happen: that of Nixon, whose opposition was so bipartisan that he realized Senate conviction was likely and he stepped down before the impeachment ever occurred.

You will also find that the majority of the bipartisanship and/or crossing of party lines was by Republicans rather than Democrats, and it was Republicans voting against impeachment and/or removal of a Democrat president. This will probably not be a surprise. Democrats tended much more to vote as a bloc for impeachment and/or removal of a Republican president.

Take a look at the vote on the impeachment of Democrat Andrew Johnson. Republicans held an enormous majority in the House, and there were only 4 defections out of 126 GOP House members voting “yea” to impeachment. Of the 47 Democrats, only 2 went against their party to vote “yea” instead of “nay.” So the House vote was highly partisan. However, in the Senate – also very strongly controlled by Republicans (45 to 9) – something quite different happened. Of the total of 45 Republicans, 10 voted for acquittal, which was just enough to acquit Johnson by a single vote.

Nixon I’ve already discussed, but for Clinton we had a House vote that was mixed on the different articles. On the first article (perjury to the grand jury), there were 5 crossovers from each party. On the second (perjury in the Jones case) there were also 5 Democratic crossovers but 28 on the GOP side, and so that measure failed. On the third (obstruction of justice) there were 5 Democratic crossovers and 12 GOP ones; the measure passed. On the fourth (abuse of power), there was 1 Democratic crossover to 81 Republicans who crossed over, and the measure failed.

In Clinton’s Senate trial, every single Democrat voted for acquittal on both counts. Even if every Republican had voted to convict, there would not have been a 2/3 majority to remove Clinton. But 10 Republican senators voted against the first article and 5 voted against the second, a bipartisan vote on the GOP side only. This resulted in the first article not even getting a majority, and the second only getting a tie vote.

Interesting, no?

Which brings us to the recent impeachment of Trump. In the House, no Republican voted for either article, and only 2 Democrats crossed lines on the first article and 3 on the second. Extremely partisan. And I don’t even have to link to the Senate vote, because it’s easy to remember there was only one crossover, Mitt Romney. Almost completely partisan, the most partisan in the history of US impeachment trials.

Which indicates another interesting point: impeachment may happen again and again, since the bar is so low. But as far as conviction goes, if Democrats ever control the Senate by 2/3 and there is a Republican president, he or she may stand a good chance of being removed on a party-line vote. But if the GOP ever gets control of that much of the Senate and there is a Democratic president, removal would be less likely, at least if you look at the historical precedent.

However, at this point things have gotten so polarized that it also could happen. All bets are off.

Fortunately, that sort of imbalance hasn’t occurred in recent decades. During FDR’s tenure the Democrats had huge Senate majorities, but of course FDR was a Democrat as well. The same was true for Lyndon Johnson.

One can only conclude that the Founders knew what they were doing in setting so high a bar. Of course, that doesn’t stop the sort of stunts that the Democrats pulled this time, impeaching because they could do it and because they thought it would help them politically despite the fact that they would not and really could not secure removal.

Schiff’s star rising

The New Neo Posted on by

Lies pay when you’ve got the MSM wind at your back.

Adam Schiff’s performance was highly praised by Democrats and the MSM during the impeachment, and now there’s a small push to nominate him as the Democratic candidate for president in 2020 if no clear winner emerges before the convention:

MSNBC host Chris Matthews proposed the long shot notion of nominating Rep. Adam Schiff to represent the Democratic Party in the 2020 election contest against President Trump.

The California Democrat, who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and lead impeachment manager, is not running for the White House, but as Matthews noted, he could be picked in a brokered Democratic convention. After all, frustration with the nomination process is mounting after the Democratic Party botched its handling of the Iowa caucuses.

Lest you think this is some sort of joke, I can pretty much assure you that it is not. I say this because recently a friend of mine who happens to be on the right, and who is active on Facebook (I’m not), mentioned that a mutual friend of ours whom I’ll call Linda had posted support for the idea.

I have quite a few friends who are significantly to the left, but in the past Linda was never one of them. Nor is she stupid; au contraire, she’s extremely intelligent and always was very sensible. Linda lives in a small blue enclave within a red state, so she’s not really in a complete liberal bubble and in fact, when I last spoke to her about politics a few years ago, I would have called her mostly a political moderate.

That this former moderate is now enthusiastically supporting Schiff is an ominous sign. It’s not just a sign of how bankrupt the Democratic Party is this year in terms of candidates. It’s a sign of how the failure of the MSM to tell the truth about a person such as Schiff (just to take one example, the way he lied about the contents of the FISA application) has allowed his lies to spread and be believed, and apparently it has caused otherwise-reasonable people (or previously-reasonable people) to support him and even admire him greatly.

These are trends we have known about for a long time. But something about this particular news about Linda really got to me in a deeper way, as a graphic and personal demonstration of how far it’s gone.

The Senate votes against removal

The New Neo Posted on by

Along strict party lines, except for good old Mitt the Democrats’ hero.

It is unsurprising but still astounding that with such a weak case – or rather, a non-existent case – every single Democrat voted for removal. Every one. Now, that’s party discipline.

Note that two Democratic senator one would think were vulnerable – Manchin and Simena – and who were making noises about maybe not voting to remove, came right along with the rest. Their vulnerability is really much less than it seems, because both have terms (just like Romney) till January of 2025. So they’ll be just fine. And (unlike Mitt) they will be rewarded by their leaders for their loyalty.

The only truly vulnerable Democrat who voted to remove Trump is Doug Jones of Alabama, who must run again this year. My guess is that he thought he didn’t have much of a chance before today, anyway, so he had little to lose.

By the way, there’s a Utah bill that was proposed just a few days ago, providing for the recall of senators. The bill’s sponsor says it wasn’t about Romney and impeachment, because it was in the works long before that. At any rate, it may face a constitutional challenge because recall votes are ordinarily only for state offices, if they are allowed at all.

Romney will vote to convict Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “texexec.”]

Well, well, well. Mitt Romney is going to vote to convict Trump:

In a stunning break with his party, Romney became the first Republican to say that he would find Trump guilty of an impeachment charge, with his remarks coming just hours before the Senate was set to vote.

“The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the president committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a high crime and misdemeanor. Yes, he did,” Romney said in remarks on the Senate floor.

Not a single GOP senator was in attendance for Romney’s somber remarks…

I wonder if there’s a single person (except the left and NeverTrumpers, of course) who will see Romney’s vote as anything other than pure revenge and an attention-getting device. Ah, how the left will love him and laud him as the only Republican patriot and hero!

That seems to be the attention he craves. Obviously Romney doesn’t care about being re-elected. My guess is that this sort of opportunity was the main reason he decided to run for the Senate from a safely red state – to hurt Trump. Senators serve for 6 years, so the state of Utah is stuck with him for a while, and so are we. He’s going to be there till 2024. I don’t think there’s any way to recall a senator, either.

Very very sad, I think.

[NOTE: I see that Schiff says Romney is displaying “moral courage.” Coming from Schiff, that’s rather humorous.]

And then there was the non-handshake

The New Neo Posted on by

The following quote is from commenter “Liz”. I haven’t done the research independently myself, but I found what she writes here fascinating, and I haven’t yet seen any reporter discussing this sort of thing:

About that handshake, I found a video of the 2019 SOTU speech and looked at the start of it.

Trump handed the speech copy to the VP, without shaking hands and then to Pelosi. She did extend her hand and they shook hands and Trump said some words to her. He then shook hands with Pence.

Going back to the 2018 SOTU, Trump hands the speech copies to Ryan, then Pence and did not shake hands with either one.

Way back to the 2016 SOTU, Obama probably kissed every woman while going down the aisle and even got a big hug from RBG. He gave Biden and Ryan the copies of the speech and did not appear to shake hands but turned around to start the speech.

So, there is no tradition of shaking hands.

If that’s the case, Trump wouldn’t have been expecting a handshake, and it would have explained the fact that he didn’t shake Pence’s hand, either. It is clear from the video that he was mostly turned away by the time Pelosi offered her hand. I don’t know whether she purposely timed it that way or not.

But much of the coverage I’ve seen not only doesn’t explore the question of whether a handshake is usual, it also acts as though the handshake refusal was intentional (although we can’t tell) and as though Pelosi’s speech-ripping action was some sort of tit-for-tat. Here’s an example.

And now I am heartily sick of analyzing this war of gestures.