Orthodox Jews and the measles outbreak

The New Neo Posted on by

When I first heard that the measles outbreak in New York was particularly bad among Orthodox (actually, ultra-Orthodox) Jews, I assumed it was because of some religious prohibition about vaccines in that group. That’s also what I read here and there in comments around the blogosphere.

But apparently it’s not true. There is no conflict between traditional Jewish law and vaccinations, even among the strictest sects.

So, what’s going on? It’s not easy to get an answer. But here’s an exceptionally interesting article:

… a careful look at the data available on vaccination rates in Orthodox Jewish communities, and reports by members of the community and their doctors, indicate that the Hasidic community is vaccinated on par with the rest of the city…

…[T]he vaccination rate [in Chasidic communities is] around 96 percent. The threshold for herd immunity for measles is presumed to be 93 to 95 percent.

That information also is supported by Jane Zucker, New York City’s assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Immunization. Zucker told Vox that most school-age children in the community are vaccinated at levels on par with other schools…

OJPAC also noted in a statement that in upstate Rockland County, where the Orthodox community is also in the midst of a measles outbreak, most schools now have a 95 percent vaccination rate for measles. One yeshiva had 100 percent compliance, as reported by health officials early in the outbreak.

So what really is going on?

The answer may lie in a combination of factors, including the large numbers of young children, delays in receiving the MMR, and vaccine failure.

OJPAC notes that large family size and frequent mingling during holiday and other events create an environment conducive to spreading an infection that is not present in other segments of society.

It’s worth noting here that the CDC has reported more than 400 cases of mumps in 34 states this year and that these outbreaks can occur in highly vaccinated populations, especially where people are in close contact with one another.

There’s also evidence that there’s a higher rate of delay in vaccination in this community:

“Williamsburg … has one of the lowest rates of vaccine coverage among young children, ages 19 to 35 months, in the city,” wrote Belluz.

Zucker told Vox, “We hear they want to wait until the child is older so they know the child doesn’t have autism, then get the child vaccinated.”

But that’s true in all communities these days—just thank the anti-vaxers.

There there’s this:

Another piece of the puzzle is vaccine failure. Recent data from the health department confirms that a known minority of cases are found in vaccinated people…

…[M]ultiple studies show that even two doses of measles vaccine do not appear to confer immunity in 2 to 10 percent of people, a phenomenon called primary failure. Secondary failure refers to the waning of immunity over time.

“Thus, measles outbreaks also occur even among highly vaccinated populations because of primary and secondary vaccine failure, which results in gradually larger pools of susceptible persons and outbreaks once measles is introduced.

But isn’t it much more attention-getting to blame the Orthodox Jews? Just to take one of many examples, this article seems to insinuate (without actually saying so, and without giving any hard facts, unlike the other article) that orthodoxy is to blame. This one, also from the Times, and headlined “‘Monkey, Rat and Pig DNA’: How Misinformation Is Driving the Measles Outbreak Among Ultra-Orthodox Jews,” talks a great deal about an anti-vaccine pamphlet being circulated among ultra-Orthodox Jews without giving the figures that in fact vaccination rates are typical among them, not atypical.

Even without articles like that, that’s a conclusion many people will come to on their own, erroneously—just as I initially did.

Well, this was inevitable

The New Neo Posted on by

Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg has been accused of sexual assault.

Is the accusation true? I have zero idea. But those who consider all such claims true must consider this one to be true. I’m not someone who considers all such claims to be true, so I’m under no such requirement.

I often wonder how it is that people who insist we consider all such claims as true think that it won’t come back to bite some favored candidate of theirs. Or does it matter that the accuser here is a man? Perhaps even a white man? Does that mean we needn’t trust him, according to the left? It’s so confusing.

Just to make it perfectly clear, I try to trust or distrust all accused people and all the accusers equally. I say: prove it (if possible, in a court of law), and I’ll believe it. Until then, all accusations are iffy, and although possibly true they’re possibly false. We simply lack any way to judge them, and I don’t believe we should make character assassination easy.

UPDATE 4/30: The accusation was untrue. No surprise there.

Why the international NY Times didn’t think twice about printing that anti-Semitic cartoon

The New Neo Posted on by

When the international version of the NY Times decided to publish an anti-Semitic cartoon by the Portuguese cartoonist Antonio Moreira Antunes, it was just following a long-established European post-WWII tradition. Antunes has been in the anti-Semitic image business for decades, and won an award in 1983 for his appropriation of a Warsaw ghetto photo, changing the victim of Nazis into a Palestinian victim of Israeli Jews. For this, Antunes received the top prize at the 20th International Salon of Cartoons in Montreal.

Note that word “international.” The international community, of which western Europe is a big part, has not only been exhibiting this sort of anti-Semitism for a long while (even post-WWII, I mean) but rewarding it.

So that’s the identity and history of the cartoonist who drew the more recent cartoon with Trump as blind Jew being led by the dachshund Jew Netanyahu. So far, though, the Times hasn’t seen fit to name the person or persons who decided to publish the Trump/Netanyahu cartoon in their paper. But my guess is that this person or people who made the call is/are European as well (or, if American, at least have lived a long time in Europe or abroad). To Europeans, that cartoon would be ho-hum, just business as usual—or maybe even worthy of a prize or two.

I don’t even think many Europeans would see the recent Trump/Netanyahu cartoon as anti-Semitic. After all, it’s just conveying ideas that are very standard there. Trump is a blind man—and that’s one of the nicer things they might say about him. Netanyahu is an ugly little weiner dog, very low to the ground (I happen to love dachshunds, but I can’t say I’d be all that attracted to a person who looked like one). The Star of David on the collar around Netanyahu’s neck is a religious symbol but they’d say it is also on the flag of Israel, and they’d be correct about that. And of course, everybody knows that those conniving Jews are leading the stupid blind Trump around and telling him what to do, rather than that there would be any independent reason to support the nefarious state of Israel.

Oh, and the kippah (in Yiddish, yarmulke) on the top of Trump’s head? That’s—well, that’s the only thing that keeps the Times from successfully claiming this is just the usual anti-Zionist cartoon rather than an anti-Jewish one, because the kippah is both gratuitous in the picture and religious. So if they’re trying to claim that the kippah’s about Zionism they haven’t got a leg to stand on.

But none of the anti-Semitism obvious in the cartoon would be likely to register with a European at this point—or even an American leftist. They have lost the ability to see what the cartoon looks like to others, because they are so used to what’s being expressed there.

It’s not as though any of this is new in Europe, although it may be somewhat new for the NY Times to publish this sort of thing. Prior to doing the research for this post, I had never heard of Antunes’ reworking of the Warsaw ghetto image. But for me, that blind-Trump/dachshund-Netanyahu cartoon had already conjured up the memory of another cartoon, one that had appeared in 2003 in the British newspaper The Independent and was drawn by the British political cartoonist Dave Brown. That one I remembered quite well.

It was early in 2003, during the Second Intifada, when Palestinians had been deliberately targeting and blowing up Israelis civilians (including Israeli children) at a rapid clip for three years. The wall had been started but was far from completion at the time the cartoon was published (January of 2003). One would think that if anyone was going to be depicted as deliberate and ghoulish child killers it would be the Palestinians, who not only supported suicide bombers who murdered children but who purposely used their own children as sacrifices, putting them in harm’s way (see also this) to make it more likely that defensive retaliatory measures by the Israelis would result in the inadvertent death of Palestinian children.

But ghoulish Palestinians wasn’t the image Brown was after (and here the reference is to the famous Goya work “Saturn Devouring His Son“):

See? He’s naked, except for that little Likud rosette instead of a fig leaf. Not a kippah or a Jewish star in sight. So that makes the blood libel perfectly okay.

The cartoon was so highly thought of that it was awarded the 2003 first prize by the British Political Cartoon Society. In his acceptance speech, “Brown thanked the Israeli Embassy for its angry reaction to the cartoon, which he said had contributed greatly to its publicity.”

If you think about it, it’s a wonder that the international NY Times took so long to get with the program.

The trouble with the San Diego synagogue shooting narrative

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) An armed man (an off-duty border guard) and an Iraq War veteran both charged the shooter and may have helped prevent further carnage.

(2) The shooter was a white supremacist, yes, but he hated Trump for Trump’s support of Israel.

Those are inconvenient truths for the left, and although they won’t stop them from using the shootings for the usual agenda, they certainly put a little cramp in their style.

The story of the Iraqi vet is interesting:

Stewart, 51, was in the back of the room when the shots rang out, he told reporters. The veteran said his military training kicked in.

“I ran to fire. That’s what I did. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t think about it. It’s just what I did,” he said.

Stewart said he started yelling expletives at the gunmen, who stopped shooting when he heard Stewart’s voice….

Stewart said he served in Iraq from March 2003 to April 2004. He had also been a bomb disposal tech in the Navy, and joined the Army after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

“I never thought I’d hear gunfire again,” he told the Union-Tribune.

It seems that the gun may have jammed, or perhaps Stewart wouldn’t be around to tell his story. Then again, in the confusion of such a scene, and with a fairly inexperienced and rattled gunman, an aggressively charging member of the congregation might be an unexpected challenge.

Stewart ended up following the gunman to his car:

Get down!” and “I’m going to kill you,” Stewart said he yelled.

According to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, the suspected gunman fled the synagogue to a nearby vehicle. Stewart was in close pursuit.

“Stewart caught up to the vehicle as the suspect was about to drive away,” the department said in a statement.

Stewart said he began punching the shooter’s window when Morales told him to get out of the way.

“He yelled, ‘Clear back, I have a gun,'” Stewart said. Then, Morales began firing.

The gunman got away, but the description of the car was what allowed the police to stop him.

Morales was the off-duty border control agent. And he has a very interesting story, too:

[Rabbi] Goldstein said Morales recently discovered his Jewish roots and traveled more than three hours from El Centro to pray with the congregation. The rabbi recalled telling Morales, “Please arm yourself when you are here. We never know when we’ll need it.”

If you follow genealogy, you may know that people who are of Spanish or part-Spanish descent—as the name “Morales” implies—often find when they do DNA testing that they have some proportion of Jewish DNA, sometimes a significant amount (the reason has to do with the history of Jews in Spain, the expulsion and the conversos; for a fuller treatment please see this). I am guessing that was the case with Morales, and he decided to embrace that aspect of his identity and attend services in a synagogue.

In addition, we have the prescient rabbi, who asked Morales to carry a weapon while in the synagogue. It paid off.

As for point #2, the Trump-hate of the shooter, we have this:

The evil psychopaths who shot up the synagogues in Poway and Pittsburgh undoubtedly share a number of traits in common, but prominent among them is unremitting hatred of Donald Trump. The Poway shooter put it — how shall we say it — in succinct terms, calling the president a “Zionist, Anti-White, Traitorous, C*cksucker.” His Pittsburgh doppelgänger was almost as disgusting.

Despicable as they are, these two creatures can’t really be accused of Trump Derangement Syndrome, because, unlike many in mainstream media, they are at least somewhat correct in their assessment. Trump is pro-Israel, indeed likely the most pro-Israel president since Truman…

The left is fond of calling Trump a white supremacist and/or saying that white supremacists adore him and are empowered by him. No, they don’t and no, they’re not.

Synagogue shooting in San Diego

The New Neo Posted on by

One person has been killed and three are hospitalized with what is described as non-life-threatening injuries when a man entered a San Diego Chabad synagogue during services on the last day of Passover and opened fire.
The mayor of San Diego is labeling it a hate crime:

[Mayor] Vaus said he considered it a hate crime “because of statements that were made when the shooter entered.”

The mayor said the congregation was targeted by “someone with hate in their heart … towards our Jewish community and that just will not stand.” The congregaton “took security very seriously,” he said.

“I also understand from folks on the scene that this shooter was engaged by people in the congregation and those brave people certainly prevented this from being a much worse tragedy,” Vaus told CNN.

It’s a good thing they’re taking security very seriously, and all congregations both Jewish and otherwise had better take it very seriously, too.

[NOTE: Odd how even before I heard of this attack today, the theme of the day had already emerged.]

And then they came for the Christians and the white people

The New Neo Posted on by

I just finished a post about an anti-Semitic cartoon published in the international NY Times. But the left certainly isn’t stopping at anti-Semitism; Jews are just the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. You no doubt have noticed that Christians and white people (especially white men) have been fair game for quite some time, too.

But it’s getting worse. Or you might say it’s getting more open, in that coal mine known as modern-day academia.

First let me give a little background on this story. Tim Wise has (please see *NOTE below) has the following resume as an anti-racism (that is, pro-diversity) educator, activist, and speaker:

Since 1995, he has given speeches at over 600 college campuses across the U.S. He has trained teachers, corporate employees, non-profit organizations and law enforcement officers in methods for addressing and dismantling racism in their institutions.

So Wise has been instrumental in shaping—or trying to shape—the minds of both students and adults, in a diverse (to coin a phrase) group of settings. These sorts of trainings are very popular and have been for quite some time, with the alleged goal of fostering tolerance and understanding and acceptance of diverse opinions, races, colors, lifestyles, sexes/genders, and creeds.

But Wise draws the limits at Christians and white people, for whom he has the harshest of words. Here’s a Facebook post of his from September of 2015, which I will now proceed to render in full:

This is America…people basing their beliefs on the fable of Noah and Ark, or their interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah…rather than science or logic…If you are basing your morality on a fairy tale written thousands of years ago, you deserve to be locked up…detained for your utter inability to deal with reality…NO, we are not obligated to indulge your irrationality in the name of your religious freedom…but we will provide you a very comfortable room, against which walls you may hurl yourself hourly if your choose. Knock yourself out….seriously, knock yourself out, completely, for weeks at a time…I’m sorta kidding but not by much…I don’t believe lunatics like this should be locked up, but I do think they have to be politically destroyed, utterly rendered helpless to the cause of pluralism and democracy …the world is not theirs. They have no right to impose their bullshit on others. They can either change, or shut the hell up, or practice their special brand of crazy in their homes…or go away. Their choice. And this argument applies to any fundamentalist religionist of any faith who thinks they have a right to impose their beliefs on a secular, pluralistic society. Go away.

Now, I’m all for the separation of church and state, as are the vast vast majority of Christians in the US, as well as Jews and even ultra-Orthodox Jews. In fact, as far as I know, most of the countries these days that are theocracies are Muslim ones (although just now I did a quick search of Wise’s work, so far I haven’t found mention of that, although I suppose I might have missed something).

Wise recently was the keynote speaker at Harvard’s annual diversity conference. He apparently kept his anti-Christian views quiet during his speech, but aired some of his other views [emphasis mine]:

President Donald Trump is and “always was” racist, Wise said. His election shows that “this country is more sexist and more racist than I realized.”…

Wise sought to clear up purported misconceptions about educating people on equity, inclusion and solidarity. It is “not about shaming people, it’s asking [them] to be responsible, responsive and accountable” for their advantages, Wise said…

Higher education has actually been too successful in this regard, prompting white people to “hoard” their privileges upon realizing they exist, Wise said. In other words, white people are inclined to “internalize superiority.”

Academic institutions have an obligation to embrace the struggle for social justice and solidarity, “not just at the level of rhetoric but policy” as well, Wise said.

“Schools must make mission statements up to date,” and be “willing to say what it means to operationalize” the implementation of inclusive ideals.

He set out vague admission and graduation requirements in order to achieve this mission. Admissions offices must consider applicants under the mind-set that “if you’re not down with this mission, then you don’t actually fit in with us as an institution.”

Current students should pay their dues by proving that they’re committed to “this mission” by way of “community service requirements … relevant to solidarity.” If they don’t meet this standard, “then you don’t graduate,” he advocated.

There’s plenty more at the article if you follow the link, but I think you get the idea.

It’s an old idea. Leftism has long had two major characteristics (among others): leftist movements tend to be rabidly anti-religion as well as deeply desirous of total control over people’s lives and thoughts. These two things are not unrelated, because in a sense the left wants to replace religiousness with its own brand of fundamentalism.

Whether these twin elements combine to lead to actual mass imprisonment and murder when leftists come to power or whether their emphasis is on “re-education” and discrimination without so much actual murder, or whether both are equally favored, leftists want to get the job done. And freedom of speech, thought, and religion are just small casualties along the path to the Utopia they plan (with themselves in charge, of course).

The fact that this man was the keynote speaker at a Harvard conference supposedly on tolerance and understanding is both ironic and completely unsurprising, as Orwell could have told you. The left is very very dangerous, and the Gramscian marchers are entering the stadium for what they believe will be the final push.

*NOTE: On the Spectator thread, there was a commenter pointing out that Wise is Jewish. First of all, even if he were Jewish, that says nothing about the fact that his views are not at all common among Jews and are absolutely not sanctioned by Judaism in any way shape or form.

But Wise is not Jewish in any sense of the word as I understand it. If you look at his heritage, he has three non-Jewish grandparents and one Jewish one. The Jewish one was his paternal grandparent, and Judaism is not transferred through the paternal line. Not even the vile Nazis, who were very intent on learning who was Jewish and who was not, would have considered Wise Jewish. Under their reprehensible Nuremberg laws Wise would have been a “mixed race (second degree)” and approved for Reich citizenship.

According to Wikipedia, Wise himself has apparently “referred to himself as Jewish and as an anti-Zionist Jew but does not practice Judaism.” I can’t quite parse that, but I will add that whether or not he himself says he’s Jewish, the combination of his non-Jewish ethnicity (one paternal grandparent who is Jewish) as well as his belief system (doesn’t practice Judaism) wouldn’t make him any sort of Jew with which I’m familiar, not even a secular one.

The New York Times morphs into Der Stürmer

The New Neo Posted on by

You think I exaggerate? Not much. Take a look for yourself:

The cartoon, apparently by a Portuguese artist named Antonio Espresso, depicted a blind Donald Trump, resplendent in the kippah he wears at all times except when the cameras are near, being led by Benjamin Netanyahu in the form of a sausage dog, wearing the Star of David dog collar that all sausage dogs wear.

Please read the whole thing. And take a good look at the cartoon, which appeared in the Times’ international edition. In the Spectator article about it, Dominic Green obwerves the tepid nature of the Times’ note and retraction of the cartoon.

The note from the Times purporting to explain what happened called it “offensive” and an “error of judgment.” That was about it; not even an apology, and certainly no one was named as the culprit or culprits who made that error, or what might happen to them, or why the Times originally decided this would be a nifty thing to run—only in the international edition and not the US edition, which I think is an interesting decision to have made in light of the history of anti-Semitism.

Green writes the note the Times ought to have written but never will. It reads this way:

We ran a blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon. At a time when anti-Jewish violence and incitement is at levels not seen since 1945, we chose to place gutter racism on our pages. We did this because plenty of our editors share the prejudice of this cartoon; if in doubt, look at our unsigned editorials.

We’re so soaked in this that none of us thought that it might be an error to publish a cartoon with clear precursors in fascist, communist, Arab nationalist and Islamist propaganda. Rather than explain this away in the passive tense, we’re going to name the editors who signed off on this cartoon, and fire them.

[NOTE: For those who don’t get the title reference, please see this.]

The Day Collusion Died

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “AesopFan” and some others have called my attention to this song parodist, Don Caron. Funny stuff.

Unfortunately, it will take more than the Mueller report to drive a stake through collusion’s heart, and the obstruction vampire is alive and well and living in the Democratic Party:

Program to desegregate San Francisco’s schools has made them more segregated

The New Neo Posted on by

I can’t say that the results of this attempt at intervention are especially surprising:

San Francisco allows parents to apply to any elementary school in the district, having done away with traditional school zoning 18 years ago in an effort to desegregate its classrooms. Give parents more choices, the thinking was, and low-income and working-class students of color like Cinthya would fill more seats at the city’s most coveted schools.

But last month, Cinthya’s parents, who are Hispanic, found out she had been admitted to their second-to-last choice, a school where less than a third of students met standards on state reading and math tests last year. Only 3 percent were white.

Results like these have soured many on the city’s school enrollment plan, which is known here as “the lottery” and was once considered a national model.

“Our current system is broken,” said Stevon Cook, president of the district Board of Education, which, late last year, passed a resolution to overhaul the process. “We’ve inadvertently made the schools more segregated.”

But this is San Francisco, and the NY Times reporting on it. So the solution being discussed? More Draconian measures that will also fail to benefit anyone, we can safely predict, and will harm the entire system much as forced busing did in Boston in the 1970s. I described that process in great detail here, and it was a resounding failure for all concerned.

But that dismal track record is unlikely to discourage the powers that be in San Francisco:

Parental choice has not been the leveler of educational opportunity it was made out to be. Affluent parents are able to take advantage of the system in ways low-income parents cannot, or they opt out of public schools altogether. What happened in San Francisco suggests that without remedies like wide-scale busing, or school zones drawn deliberately to integrate, school desegregation will remain out of reach.

Hey, I’ve got an idea! Outlaw private schools! That’ll do the trick, I’m sure.

More:

The district’s schools were more racially segregated in 2015 than they were in 1990, even though the city’s neighborhoods have become more integrated, research shows. That pattern holds true in many of the nation’s largest cities, according to an analysis by Ryan W. Coughlan, an assistant professor of sociology at Guttman Community College in New York…

While black children were slightly less racially isolated in 2015 than in 1990, that was largely a result of their lower enrollment in the district, Professor Coughlan said — a change driven by astronomical housing costs…

Even the school district has acknowledged that a system of geographically zoned schools would most likely create more racial integration than the current, choice-driven approach.

There are several reasons the system has not worked as intended. One is a lack of transportation. Fewer than 4,000 of the district’s 54,000 students ride a bus to school. The city’s busing program was reduced in 2010, during the last recession, and has not been restored.

Much much more at the link.

Back to the cosmology drawing board

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve had many occasions over the years to quote this line from “Hamlet,” and I’m going to do it again:

There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

It was true in Shakespeare’s day. And it’s true now:

The universe is getting bigger every second. In fact, it’s expanding at a much faster rate than it should [according to conventional predictions]…

When scientists look at what was going on 13 billion years ago, via Planck, and then extrapolate that into the present, the results don’t match what Hubble sees today. For several years, there’s been an assumption that the disagreement is due to a lack of precision in the measurements. But as scientists have fine-tuned their tools, the discrepancy has remained. On Thursday, researchers using Hubble said the chances the mismatch is some sort of user error or fluke have gone from 1 in 3,000 to 1 in 100,000…

Riess says the discrepancy strongly suggests there’s a piece missing in the puzzle that scientists have put together over the years to model the history of the universe.

Oh, I wouldn’t doubt it. And I’d wager it’s more than “a piece.”

Time—way past time—to take a good long look at John Brennan

The New Neo Posted on by

In a Russiagate story full of abominable characters, John Brennan may just be one of the most odious.

I’m written before about Brennan’s history (here). Suffice to say it’s shocking that he ever rose to become director of the CIA. And yet rise he did.

Brennan has long been one of Donald Trump’s most vocal and accusative (Treason! Treason!) opponents. But apparently he also had a role behind the scenes in Russiagate :

Brennan’s personal role in the Trump-Russia collusion saga dates back to at least the summer of 2016 (and perhaps even earlier) when he met with a top British intelligence chief to discuss Trump’s supposed ties to the Russians. Around the time of that meeting, and following its conclusion, American and foreign spies began to make contact with members of the Trump campaign, with some claiming to have access to Russian secrets involving the Hillary Clinton campaign. Brennan later seemed to take credit and defend the espionage operation, which again, relied on the dossier to legitimize spying on Americans.

Brennan, as CIA director, reportedly inserted the Clinton-funded-and-manufactured Steele dossier into a draft version of the highly scandalous Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russian interference, which was published under the auspices of Donald Trump’s political opponents in early January 2017, just two weeks before President-elect Trump took office.

Victor Davis Hanson lays it out, too:

Former CIA Director John Brennan is a paid analyst for MSNBC who often railed about Trump’s “treason” and predicted his indictment. Yet Brennan has lied under oath to Congress on two occasions. He likely misled Congress about his role in trafficking in the Steele dossiers. And Brennan’s CIA may well have helped the FBI use informants abroad to entrap Trump campaign aides in efforts to find dirt on Trump.

So here’s the question: will anything happen to Brennan as a result? We’ve all seen the ability of wrongdoers of the Deep State variety to evade all consequences (think, for example, Lois Lerner). Will the same be true of Brennan, who may have orchestrated the attempted coup through clandestine means?

This is at least somewhat encouraging:

Joe di Genova says an individual report from the IG is coming on James Comey, complete with criminal referrals and that he has so much on John Brennan, he will need five lawyers. As a former US attorney, there is no doubt that di Genova has his sources and he says that Comey and Brennan will both be indicted. In both cases, it will involve the cover-up of Hillary’s crimes and trying to enact a coup against President Trump based on a document paid for by Clinton and the DNC.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

I know I should write a post about Biden entering the race…

The New Neo Posted on by

…but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. (I refer you to this and this.)

Biden’s candidacy fills me with a powerful feeling of weariness as well as repulsion. The weariness is a very similar feeling to one I had during the 2016 campaign when I tried to write about Jeb Bush.

Not that Biden is Jeb Bush. But they engender at least some of the same reaction in me, which is basically: why would anyone want this person to be president?

Of course, if by some strange alchemy Jeb Bush were running against Joe Biden, I’d happily vote for the former over the latter. But still, they give me the same impression of general mediocrity as thinkers and as politicians. I think it’s a sign of the extreme weirdness and leftism of the Democratic field that Biden is the front-runner and might even remain so.

By the way, although Bernie Sanders makes Joe Biden look a tiny bit young (which is quite a feat), Joe Biden makes Trump look positively fresh as a daisy. Sanders is 77 years old now and Biden is 76, whereas Trump is a mere 72. And the election’s not for a year and a half, so they’ll be that much older.