Demonstrations in Iran – once again

The New Neo Posted on by

We’ve seen this before, over and over: the people of Iran against the mullahs, the stirrings of hope and defiance, and the suppression of the movement.

Is there any reason to believe the cycle won’t simply repeat itself this time? Turning points in these sorts of revolts tend to occur when the police or military turn on the regime and refuse to enforce order. I haven’t read any sign of that happening in Iran right now, but when it occurs it can be sudden.

Meanwhile:

Independent analysts warned the unrest reflects deeper structural strains. The OSINT research group SpecialEurasia said in an assessment on Tuesday that Iran’s internal stability has reached a “critical threshold,” citing the convergence of currency collapse, renewed international sanctions and chronic water and energy shortages. The group noted that the participation of bazaar merchants, traditionally a pillar of regime support, signals declining confidence in the state’s economic management and raises the risk of prolonged unrest.

There’s also this news:

Reports from across the country indicate that shop owners in other cities, including the western city of Hamedan and the southern island of Qeshm, have also joined the protests by closing their stores. Slogans such as “death to the dictator” and “Seyyed Ali (Khamenei) will be toppled this year,” referring to Iran’s supreme leader, were heard in Qeshm and Zanjan, according to reports. …

Video and pictures coming from different cities in Iran show a heavy police and security force presence at the ongoing protests, with some video showing the police using tear gas against protestors.

That last paragraph – not a good sign.

The fraud scandal grows and grows and grows

The New Neo Posted on by

It is already so large that I can’t cover all the angles. Luckily, I don’t have to, because a roundup will serve.

(1) Excellent point:

If welfare and redistribution were really about helping people, then their proponents should care *more* about fraud. That’s money not going to the stated purpose of these programs. Their hostility to all scrutiny proves their stated goals were always lies. It’s just patronage.

(2) And from Stephen Miller, about the reporting on the subject:

I guess the question is why did the New York Times allow a kid with an iPhone to put millions of eyeballs on this instead of them.

Journalists would love to answer this question but they can’t. It’s lunacy. It’s industry suicide because they don’t want to called racist by their colleagues and they don’t want to do anything that might prove Donald Trump’s administration right on *a thing* like *anything*

(3) Transparency, not:

Stunning – it appears they have taken down the license look-up website so Minnesotans can’t see who the Medicaid service providers are or what licensing violations they may have.

(4) As Minnesota goes, so goes Ohio>?:

After the fraud scandal in Minnesota, a TikToker decided to investigate daycare centers in Ohio, which has the country’s second-largest Somali population.

By plugging the addresses into Google Maps, he discovered that many of the buildings didn’t look like typical childcare facilities—lacking playgrounds, proper signage, and even having blacked-out windows.

(5) DHS is investigating suspected fraud sites in Minnesota.

(6) Is this magnitude of fraud a possibility? I don’t know where the figure is coming from. But there’s little doubt that we’re talking about a very large figure:

It’s a very real possibility that the United States is looking at over $2.5 trillion/year in fraud from state and federal entitlements.

That’s more than next year’s estimated federal budget deficit.

This is a national security issue.

(7) Glenn Reynolds observes that, so far, there’s no evidence that Walz has committed a crime, and so he probably can’t be tried for anything. But this is what Reynolds says about the press coverage:

… [W]ith Walz on the Democratic presidential ticket in 2024, why did no national or local “mainstream” journalists look into all this?

Given the previous prosecutions [in Minnesota is similar fraud cases years ago], the background of a state’s governor on a national ticket should be a top priority for any honest press.

(I know, haha, I said “honest press.”)

Even now, Minnesota press isn’t covering this story.

Shirley’s findings [and video on the subject] went uber-viral on social media — but the Minnesota Star-Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press have said not a word about his post as I write.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is the Liz Cheney du jour

The New Neo Posted on by

All it takes is to become Trump’s enemy, and the MSM will give you the sympathetic star treatment.

From Ace, a post entitled: “As Predictable As the Setting Sun: After Conspiracy Theorist and Lunatic Marjorie Taylor Greene Turns on Trump, the NYT Offers Her a Puff-Piece with an Attempted Glamour Shot.” In the Times article, Greene gives them the Trump-dissing quotes that earn her new respect from the Gray Lady: a lot about Trump and Epstein, plus the standard charge (one that usually comes from the left) that Trump will never leave office.

Is a Greene gig at MSNOW on the horizon?

She adds, just to top it all off:

I’ve seen a bunch of America Last accounts attacking Tucker so I’m making it clear that I’m proudly friends with Tucker Carlson.

He is a man of sincere faith, loves his family, and our country.

America First is winning.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

My opinion is that Greene, Carlson, and their allies on the “woke right” are trying to take over the GOP and replace MAGA with themselves – much like what the Democratic Socialists have done quite successfully to the Democrats.

Hail Somaliland

The New Neo Posted on by

A fascinating move by Israel:

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland landed like a dropped plate in a room full of diplomats pretending not to hear the crash. Somalia protested. The Arab League scolded. Turkey and Egypt warned darkly about precedent. The African Union fretted about stability. Western officials whispered about process. All the usual theater. What none of them wanted to say out loud was the obvious truth staring back at them. Israel did nothing radical. It applied the rules.

For thirty years Somaliland has functioned as a state. Not a slogan, not a cause, not a grievance economy. A state. Permanent population. Defined territory. Effective government. Capacity to conduct foreign relations. The four tests of the Montevideo Convention, met quietly and consistently since 1991. Add a fifth fact that the convention does not even ask for but history does. Somaliland has committed exactly zero acts of international terrorism. No hijackings. No embassy bombings. No exported jihad. No global fundraising networks laundering blood as politics.

The article goes on to state that Palestine, the darling of so many countries around the world who have recognized it as a state, lacks characteristics of effective government (unless the aim of effective government is terrorism):

[“Palestine” has no] defined territory under sovereign control. No effective government with a monopoly on force. No independent foreign policy capacity. No coherent administration. Plenty of armed factions. Plenty of glorified murder. Plenty of international terror. And yet that project is treated as sacred, inevitable, untouchable. …

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland … says something deeply offensive to the professional peace industry. Sovereignty is not a vibe. It is a performance. You earn it by governing, not by suffering louder than your neighbor.

Leave it to Israel to point out the contrast.

And from Roger L. Simon:

According to Grok, “Somaliland, a former British protectorate, has maintained relative stability, its own currency, passports, elections, and government since 1991, in contrast to ongoing instability in Somalia.” …

In fact, their residents have been photographed waving the Israeli flag after their country’s leader signed agreements promising Israeli aid for agriculture, health, technology, and economic development.

Is this another important avatar of Netanyahu’s “New Middle East?” It could well be, but in the short run, it certainly will make life extremely difficult for the Houthis with the possibility of Israeli jets parked three hundred miles from their shores. Say goodbye to the terrorists’ control of the Gulf of Aden with its proximity to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Let’s hope so.

It’s another roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Is the Ukraine War finally nearing the end? I’ll cut to the chase and say that I don’t think so, although I’d be more than happy to be pleasantly surprised.

But here’s the story:

Donald Trump said security guarantees to end the war in Ukraine were “95 per cent done” as he hosted Volodymyr Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago for peace talks.

Speaking at his Florida holiday home, Mr Trump said a deal to end the conflict was “a lot closer” after an afternoon of negotiations with the Ukrainian president and a call with Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, on Sunday.

The US president suggested it could take a “few weeks” to get the deal over the line and that some “thorny issues” remain, likely referring to Ukrainian territorial concessions.

As thorny as a briar patch.

(2) Somalia will head the UN Security Council in January. No, that’s neither a joke nor a typo:

The great nation of Somalia is set to assume the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council on January 1 for a period of one month. Somalia is currently serving as a non-permanent member of the Security Council for the 2025–2026 term. As president, the nation’s representatives “will chair council meetings, help shape the agenda, and represent the Security Council throughout the month.”

(3) The J5 pipebomber’s motive is revealed:

But…for those willing to accept what the current DOJ has to say about it at face value:

Cole acted alone
Cole was upset about the 2020 election
Cole blamed both of the parties
Cole planted the bombs, intending for them to go off on the night of January 5

This makes sense to me, particularly since the bombs were placed at both the RNC and the DNC.

(4) Brigitte Bardot has died at the age of 91. She quit movies while still young, and devoted the rest of her life to animal rights causes. But she also spoke out against what she saw as the Islamic practices that she viewed as cruel to animals, and was fined many times for her statements on the issue.

Bardot was very much a sex symbol, and I never saw any of her films. She apparently didn’t think too much of them:

With the exception of 1963’s critically acclaimed “Contempt,” directed by Godard, Bardot’s films were rarely complicated by plots. Often they were vehicles to display Bardot’s curves and legs in scanty dresses or frolicking nude in the sun.

“It was never a great passion of mine,” she said of filmmaking. “And it can be deadly sometimes. Marilyn (Monroe) perished because of it.”

Bardot retired to her Riviera villa in St. Tropez at the age of 39 in 1973 after “The Woman Grabber.”

That’s quite a title; perhaps it loses something in translation?

RIP.

(5) This video on the empty Somali daycare centers of Minnesota has gone viral:

The right: “live not by lies”

The New Neo Posted on by

Solzhenitsyn famously said: “live not by lies.” How many politicians follow that maxim? Vanishingly few. And I wouldn’t expect them to; politics is a dirty, compromised business.

And yet, not all lies are created equal. Some lies are minor: “I had the biggest crowd ever at my rally.” Some lies are much worse: “The MAGA insurrectionists on January 6th killed five people.” Some lies are even more destructive: “The Jews are an evil cabal that runs the world, and all of them must be murdered, even the children.” Or: “Communism will lead to utopia; we just have to kill a few hundred million people who stubbornly refuse to get with the program.”

Politicians need to draw lines about the positions of allies, and to make it clear when a position an ally holds is beyond the pale and highly destructive, especially when that position is based on something that is unequivocally a lie.

Which brings us to discussions such as this one, from a comment by “Nate Winchester.” I had previously written this:

Yes , I think it will “end there” because the offenses of Owens, Carlson, Fuentes et al are especially egregious and vile. If [Vance] can’t be critical of them he is morally bankrupt., These are not small nitpicky issues, to be safely ignored, as other such calls to denounce someone else might be. Perhaps you haven’t listened to them; i have. They are poison, and it’s not “just” about Jews and Israel, either.

It is possible – and necessary – to pick and choose whom to denounce.

I wrote quite a bit more, but that was the part “Nate Winchester” quoted, and he replied:

I believe you have misunderstood me, @neo. I’m not saying they are small things or nitpicky or anything of the sort. You say it will “end there” – how?

Not even rhetorical or leading, I really do mean, “how will it end there?” Because I remember the 2016 election. You could make a drinking game of how often Trump would get asked in interviews about white nationalists and like. Each and every time he expressed strong condemnation and denouncement. And then they would ask it again. Even in Trump’s Charlottesville speech he outright said “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally” and yet what was the meme created by the media? I remember that time because on other blogs I pointed out to Leftists that line, a line of condemnation in a speech by Trump before that day, and a line of condemnation in a speech that followed that one (establishing that in 3 speeches in a row he condemned white nationalists) and it still wasn’t enough for the other side (some of whom even outright denied it).

So yes, part of me just does not believe that it will “end there” because experience has shown me that it won’t. It may “end there” for you and a few other people, but unfortunately those are not the only votes that count in a nation-wide run or voice in public spaces. … My impression looking back is that when the Right said, “Ok, we’re also not ok with racism and will kick out people who have those views” the Left very quickly figured out they could use “racism” to snipe out of the way any Right-leaning figure that was a bit too troublesome for them.

I’m not even saying you’re wrong or Carlson et al aren’t dangerous or anything like that. I’m trying to think what are the long term plays. JD kicks them out of the party and establishes for the Press that a specific charge can cut someone out of the coalition. Then they start badgering JD about the next person/group they want to get cut off. Then the next after that. And another after that.

Because in the post and thread that followed we were talking solely about demands from the right that Vance criticize and even denounce Tucker, Owens, and Fuentes, I assumed with my answer that we were not talking about demands from the left. But apparently that wasn’t clear enough, so let me say that of course, the left will never stop making such demands. Also, it will distort any response that is made in order to make the Republican look as bad as possible. Those things are crystal clear and have been for a long long time.

I’m talking about demands from people on the right. And to clarify further: I’m not even saying that demands from the right will ever end, although I think they are not as incessant or widespread as those from the left. What I meant when I wrote that “it will end there,” was not that the demands themselves will end, just that only some things require a public stance against them. I think that generally, when we’re talking about demands from the right, it’s only the most egregious and destructive lies on the right from which a politician on the right would need to distance him or herself.

And furthermore – for me, the emphasis shouldn’t be on demands and reactions to them, yea or nay.

If a person says “I’m not going to do a certain thing because I don’t respond to demands,” that is paradoxical because the demand is still shaping the speaker’s behavior, albeit in a negative way. It’s a bit analogous to the position of a rebellious teen who won’t do something merely because mom and dad tell him not to do it. The demand nevertheless is still shaping the behavior and the teen is not independent, merely stubbornly negating the demand.

“I don’t do something merely because people tell me to do it” is a perfectly reasonable position for anyone to take. But it should be combined with, “I also don’t not do something just because people tell me to do it. That is, I make my own decisions independently.” And then the person can either condemn something, refuse to condemn it, agree with it, disagree with it, or declare neutrality, based on the thing itself: is it true or false, is it wrong and destructive, and how important is it?

That should be the basis of the decision. Each politician can make that decision and must make it, setting up a hierarchy of issues he or she deems important enough and offenses great enough on which to draw the line.

“I will condemn no one and no thought or utterance on the right, no matter how awful” is, in my opinion, a position of moral bankruptcy, although it might be arrived at for the very practical reason that the politician has decided that’s the way to election victory. I don’t think that’s the case here with Vance’s stand; I not only think it’s morally bankrupt but I also don’t think it will lead to victory. I think that more people would vote for moral clarity than moral bankruptcy, and that “my buddy, right or wrong, and there is literally nothing that person could say with which I would publicly disagree” is not moral clarity and not worthy of respect.

NOTE: Let me add that it’s a strawman to pretend that the issue at hand is the demand that Vance or any other politician condemn people for disagreeing with Israeli policy or the current Israeli government. I see that strawman argument made constantly; it started on the left and then morphed to the right. I’ve written about some of the actual issues involved, in several posts on Owens and Carlson; for example this and this for Owens, and this and this for Carlson.

And by the way, I don’t think Trump needs to denounce the trio. He’s already called Carlson “kooky” (way too mild, but at least it’s both true and negative). But actions speak even louder than words, and Trump has made it clear by both words and action that he doesn’t share the pernicious beliefs of Carlson, Owens, and Fuentes and is opposed to them. Perhaps as time goes on, this will become more clear of Vance as well. I certainly hope so.

From “Always On My Mind” to “The Letter”

The New Neo Posted on by

I have long been very partial to Willie Nelson’s version of this beautiful song. I find it to be understated rather than overdone, with a bittersweet and mature tone of regret. Here it is:

I had a vague memory – very vague – of the Elvis Presley version. When I listened to it after all these years, it just doesn’t move me the same way at all. I’ve never been a Presley fan; maybe that’s it. But it doesn’t reach me with that same tone of sincerity:

I was very surprised, though, to learn that the first recording of the song was by Brenda Lee. As usual, she sings very very well. However, call me sexist, but I don’t see this as a woman’s song. It just doesn’t work as well as when a man sings it. But here you go:

But none of those people wrote the song. It was written by a threesome: Johnny Christopher, Mark James and Wayne Carson. They sing it here; I like their version a lot:

But perhaps the most surprising thing of all is that Carson also wrote “The Letter,” an extremely different song. His rendition is here:

And the fabulous hit version, sung by The Boxtops and their 16-year-old lead singer with the raspy voice, all yukking it up here because they’re lip-syncing:

J. D. Vance tries to thread the needle

The New Neo Posted on by

Melanie Phillips is not pleased:

Bad as all this is, the really shocking thing has been the refusal by certain mainstream conservatives to denounce [growing anti-Semitism on the right] and shut it down, appearing instead to nod along to it.

It’s certainly true that some have not condemned it, but a great many have – at least it seems that way to me. For example, she cites Kevin Roberts’ initial failure, but not the fact that it caused an uproar and rebellion at Heritage, with many conservatives there leaving in anger.

The split is an old story rather than a new one, with Pat Buchanan and William F. Buckley playing starring roles way back when.

In my opinion,Vance tries to be too clever by half. From Phillips:

One of those influential conservatives, however, is none other than U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who is another of Carlson’s friends. Vance closed the conference by decrying “purity tests” and said: “I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform.”

The difference between “denounce” – that is, criticize – and “deplatform” – that is, silence – is huge, and Vance is smart enough to know it.

From Phillips:

In a subsequent interview on the website UnHerd, [Vance] made some even more troubling remarks. Although he said that antisemitism and all forms of ethnic hatred “have no place in the conservative movement,” he also said the idea that Carlson’s views “are somehow completely anathema to conservatism, that he has no place in the conservative movement” was “frankly absurd.”

That makes zero sense if one believes, as I do, that Carlson expresses anti-Semitism or at least heavily implies it, by highlighting and failing to challenge the views of people who lie about Israel in order to demonize that country. In Tucker’s case, it takes the form of promoting the idea (sometimes in his own direct statements, sometimes through fawning interviews with others) that Israel purposely murders Christians and discriminates against them, and that Israel is committing genocide.

A differing view from that of Phillips about the right and anti-Semitism can be found here – although, interestingly, the article steers clear of mentioning Vance:

Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes represent regress masquerading as rebellion. They do not speak for the right; they speak for themselves and for the algorithms that reward outrage and sounding outrageous.

Many, maybe most, prominent people on the right — from President Donald Trump to Pastor John Hagee to Thomas Sowell to Marco Rubio — stand with Israel because they stand with the West, with victims of jihad, and with a commitment to preserve the values of individual freedom, equal justice under the law and freedom of speech. …

To its credit, the American right has no shortage of adults in the room. Many intellectuals, Jewish advocates, and elected Republicans openly condemned the Carlson-Fuentes stunt. You could watch the split in real time: one faction explained that freedom of speech does not require private companies and organization to provide a platform for unreconstructed bigots; the other faction accused “the establishment” of “silencing us.” …

The fact is that Republican support for Israel remains high, even though younger cohorts are more skeptical. Pew Research in April 2025 found solid GOP confidence in Israel’s leadership and warmer views of Israelis than Democrats expressed. In October, Pew found the same partisan gap, even as overall U.S. favorables toward Israel declined. The point: when far-right influencers target Jews, they are out of step with rank-and-file Republican voters — and not speaking for them.

And Vance? I’m still not sure, but I’m fairly certain that before November of 2028 we’ll find out more.