Guy with gun stops shooter

The New Neo Posted on by

In a Birmingham McDonald’s:

The shooting took place at the McDonald’s across from Princeton Hospital. Sanders entered the restaurant when an employee opened the door for a father and his sons to leave.

Sanders then opened fire in the restaurant. At that point, the father began shooting at him.

Both the father and Sanders were struck along with one of the children.

The father and a minor have non-life threatening injuries.

Sanders later died at the hospital.

There are very few other details about this. For example, was the father outside the building and then re-entered in order to engage the gunman? I’d also like to know more about the father’s weapons training. Was he an ex-serviceman or ex-police, or just someone who learned on his own and carried a gun for personal protection?

Also:

The employee who hid in the restaurant freezer called the father his “hero,” WBRC reported.

“Because I can only imagine how it would’ve went if he wasn’t armed,” he said, according to the station. “We might not be here having this interview.”

Of course, the mass shooting that didn’t happen is not nearly as big a news story as the mass shootings that do happen. But the former story should be a very important one, as well.

Can Trump end birthright citizenship with an executive order?

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, he can certainly try:

It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t,” Trump said, declaring he can do it by executive order.

When told that’s very much in dispute, Trump replied: “You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they’re saying I can do it just with an executive order.”

“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States … with all of those benefits,” Trump continued. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”

The Axios article then goes on to provide a link to the fact that “more than 30 countries, most in the Western Hemisphere, provide birthright citizenship.” But what is left out of the Axios piece is the fact that those other countries are not first-world countries, except for Canada. It’s not as though Honduras has a big problem with what’s known as “birth tourism,” or with many thousands of people forming caravans to come to that country illegally.

The developed countries of Europe do not grant birthright citizenship to people born there unless (for example, in many of them) “at least one parent is a citizen of the country or a legal permanent resident who has lived in the country for several years.” In fact:

No European country presently grants unconditional birthright citizenship; however, most countries in the Americas, e.g., the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil do so. In Africa, Lesotho and Tanzania grant unconditional birthright citizenship,[citation needed] and so do in the Asian-Pacific region Fiji, Pakistan, and Tuvalu.

Other countries such as Austraila do not grant it either. Basically, only Canada of all the developed countries shares our devotion to birthright citizenship.

I’ve written rather extensively about the birthright citizenship question, in this post as well as this one. The issue is hardly new, and what Trump said recently to Axios is not new either, unless the news is that very soon he’s really going to announce this by executive order. I tend to doubt that’s going to be happening all that soon, but Trump has surprised me before.

Here’s what I wrote on that issue back in July, and I think it bears repeating:

I want to add that Anton [in this article] suggested Trump do this [end birthright citizenship] via executive order, and I don’t agree with that. Of course, Trump could try it and there would immediately be a court challenge. I believe he would probably lose that challenge, but it would compel SCOTUS to clarify the issue, a process which has its own merits.

I believe, however, that the better approach would be a statute passed by Congress. This would almost certainly not happen, for the same reasons that the previous bill introduced by Vitter (I have discussed Vitter’s proposed bill in my 2014 post) did not go anywhere. If one were to be passed, however, it would also be challenged and would almost certainly ultimately go to the Court for clarification.

The safest route would be a constitutional amendment. This is quite difficult to accomplish, of course, but it would be the answer to those who believe that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment is properly read as requiring birthright citizenship even for the children of illegal aliens and/or birth tourists.

So I think it would end up in the Supreme Court, unless the Amendment route is followed. The legal issues are rather complex, and a matter of interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s “under the jurisdiction” phrase. Here’s Anton’s argument that the Constitution does not call for birthright citizenship:

You have to read the whole 14th Amendment. There’s a clause in the middle that people ignore or they misinterpret — “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” — ‘thereof’ meaning of the United States. What they’re saying is, if you’re born on US soil subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, meaning you’re the child of citizens or the child of legal immigrants, then you are entitled to citizenship. If you’re here illegally, if you owe allegiance to a foreign nation, if you’re the citizen of a foreign country, that clause does not apply to you.

If you read the debate about the ratification of the 14th amendment, all the senators who are discussing what this is meant to do and what it means are very clear on this point; I tried to point that out. I expected the left would blow up and get angry which they did. What I didn’t expect, at least not to this extent, and what was very disappointing was how angry the so-called conservative intellectuals got with me, and they essentially said any opposition to birthright citizenship is racist and evil and un-American…

Anton advanced a more detailed version of his argument in this article.

As I said, I’m not at all sure this is imminent. Trump may just be floating the idea at the moment.

[ADDENDUM: And Lindsay Graham says he will introduce a bill on this:

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said he plans on introducing birthright citizenship legislation sometime after the elections. The senator applauded the president’s planned move saying in a statement: “Finally, a president willing to take on this absurd policy of birthright citizenship.”

That’s the role Vitter used to take.]

Further thoughts on the Pittsburgh shooting

The New Neo Posted on by

Here are brief notes about the victims. All were over fifty, and most were well over fifty. I don’t know whether that represents a deliberate targeting of old people by the shooter, or whether they were merely the targets available to him in the room he entered.

It is terribly terribly tragic, an abomination.

There have been a host of shootings in houses of worship all around the world. This is for two reasons. People are often unarmed in such places. And hatred of certain religious groups exists and is often rabid. Jews are not the only ones so hated, but the hatred of Jews is very widespread and of great antiquity, and the reasons given are so various that it seems to be a very adaptable hatred.

Some people have expressed shock at the Pittsburgh shootings. I feel outraged but not at all shocked. There is plenty of precedent for shootings in houses of worship. And anti-Semitism being the phenomenon that it is, I am just surprised this sort of thing hasn’t happened more often.

That’s a terrible terrible thought. But certainly ever since 9/11 the writing has been on the wall. 9/11 was perpetrated by Muslim fanatics, and they are numerous. But there are fanatics all around and they take many forms, and it just takes one to commit a deed like this. A single person with a weapon can wreak havoc among the unarmed, as has been proven time and again.

Those who blame this on Trump are reprehensible, but their tactics were inevitable, too. To them Trump, who has been a great friend of Israel and the Jews, is the source of all evil. The fact that the shooter was a Trump-hater just means that Trump somehow triggered him (quite literally). The Resistance and NeverTrumpers can be quite creative in finding reasons to blame him for every awful thing that happens, and lack of logic is no obstacle.

I think it behooves everyone to learn more about defense against active shooter situations. Here’s an article that talks specifically about houses of worship. And here’s a guide for people who do not carry weapons, instructions on how to protect themselves nevertheless. I suggest reading both.

As Roger L. Simon writes:

Many, if not most, temples and other Jewish institutions I know in New York and Los Angeles are at high levels of readiness, often with police and/or security personnel standing by. In France, all Jewish organizations, synagogues, schools, etc. are constantly guarded by gendarmes with highly visible automatic weapons. It’s an accepted part of the landscape Given what has occurred there, they have no choice. Israel’s security measures are legendary.

I am not angry at the people — some are friends of mine — who are adamant about gun control, just frustrated with them. I understand the idealistic impulse. I had it myself for many years. But the world is not a John Lennon song. Pittsburgh showed us that yet again. It’s time to grow up.

Indeed.

Air tragedy in Indonesia

The New Neo Posted on by

An Indonesian plane has crashed into the ocean and all 189 people on board are almost certainly dead.

Articles about the crash are almost unutterably sad: the photos of IDs and cellphones found floating in the water, the grieving and devastated relatives, the rescue operations that are really recovery operations.

The plane was brand new, a Boeing 737 Max 8. Terrorism does not seem to have been part of this, however, because shortly after takeoff the pilots requested a return to the airport, which indicates something was wrong and they knew it. It is likely that the black boxes will be found.

Indonesian airlines had a poor reputation even before this accident, and there are reasons for this:

Aviation in Indonesia serves as a critical means of connecting the thousands of islands throughout the archipelago. Indonesia is the largest archipelagic country in the world…With an estimated population of over 255 million people — making it the world’s fourth-most-populous country — and also due to the growth of the middle-class, the boom of low-cost carriers in the recent decade, and overall economic growth, many domestic travellers shifted from land and sea transport to faster and more comfortable air travel…

However, safety issues continue to be a persistent problem in Indonesian aviation. Several accidents have given Indonesia’s air transport system the reputation of the least safe in the world. Indonesian aviation faces numerous challenges, including poorly maintained, outdated, and often overwhelmed infrastructure, the factor of human error, bad weather, haze problems caused by plantation fires, and volcanic ash spewed by numerous area volcanoes that disrupts air transportation.

RIP.

Potentially wonderful news for type 2 diabetics

The New Neo Posted on by

This could be really really big:

By destroying the mucous membrane in the small intestine and causing a new one to develop, scientists stabilised the blood sugar levels of people with type 2 diabetes. The results have been described as “spectacular” – albeit unexpected – by the chief researchers involved.

In the hourlong procedure, trialled on 50 patients in Amsterdam, a tube with a small balloon in its end is inserted through the mouth of the patient down to the small intestine.

The balloon is inflated with hot water and the mucous membrane burned away by the heat. Within two weeks a new membrane develops, leading to an improvement in the patient’s health.

Even a year after the treatment, the disease was found to be stable in 90% of those treated. It is believed there is a link between nutrient absorption by the mucus membrane in the small intestine and the development of insulin resistance among people with type 2 diabetes.

The article doesn’t mention it, but I would guess that the mechanism by which this works is at least somewhat similar to what happens with a lot of gastric bypass patients who have type 2 diabetes. In the case of those patients, the operation acts as a near-instantaneous cure, and works long before they lose any weight.

BLEXIT debut: Candace Owens and Kanye West make a fashion statement

The New Neo Posted on by

And quite a statement it is:

…Kanye West has designed T-shirts urging blacks to leave the Democratic party in a “Blexit,”…

More here:

West has done the work for his conservative pal, Candace Owens, and her new “movement” which she has entitled, “BLEXIT,” which is meant to represent “the black exit from the Democrat party.”

Describing the idea, Owens says, “BLEXIT is a national movement of minorities that have awakened to the truth. It is for those who have taken an objective look at our decades-long allegiance to the left and asked ourselves “what do we have to show for it?”

Kanye’s contributions to the cause made their debut on Saturday at Turning Point USA’s Young Black Leadership Summit in Washington.

They mean business.

Kanye West Blexit shirt

Here’s the website. It contains the T-shirts but also much more, including some links to information about history. For example, one link is to this article on some of the forgotten history of lynching:

According to David Barton’s extensively well-documented book, “Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White,” the original targets of the Ku Klux Klan were Republicans, both black and white. The Klan terrorized both black and white Americans not to vote for Republican tickets. “Of all forms of violent intimidation, lynchings were by far the most effective.” Republicans often led the efforts to pass federal anti-lynching laws and their platforms consistently called for a ban on lynching. “Democrats successfully blocked those bills and their platforms never did condemn lynchings.”

People like Owens (who is exceptionally articulate) and West (who is exceptionally popular) are potentially a tremendous threat to the Democratic Party and a new type of threat at that. For years I’ve noticed the presence of very knowledgeable and vocal black conservatives on YouTube, the blogosphere, and now and then as pundits on TV. But the black conservative movement never quite caught on as a popular thing.

BLEXIT and Owens are different. First of all, she’s young and telegenic and quite beautiful, which doesn’t hurt. Someone like Kanye West, who is not a conservative but seems to be pushing freedom of thought, has an enormous following and therefore may have an enormous influence. He was already considered cool (I’m so uncool that I don’t know if that’s the right word nowadays, but I think you know what I mean) and therefore his message and Owens’ isn’t immediately rejected as stuffy or ridiculous, although the press and the left are trying to say that he’s both ridiculous and crazy.

BLEXIT seems to know about publicity and marketing, too. It is fascinating to see this happening. Could it become a mass movement? I don’t know, but they certainly got my attention. That’s for several reasons, not the least of them the fact that this represents the phenomenon of left-to-right political change, one of my long-held interests.

[NOTE: Et tu, latinos?]

Bolsonaro wins in Brazil

The New Neo Posted on by

Remember the so-called “Brazilian Trump,” Jair Bolsonaro? I’ve written about him several times previously.

Today was the run-off election between Bolsonaro and a leftist opponent, and the the results are in:

Far-right lawmaker Jair Bolsonaro won Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday, riding a wave of frustration over corruption and crime that brought a dramatic swing to the right in the world’s fourth-largest democracy.

With 94 percent of ballots counted, Bolsonaro had 56 percent of the votes in the run-off election against left-wing hopeful Fernando Haddad of the Workers Party (PT), who had 44 percent, according to the electoral authority TSE.

“We cannot continue flirting with communism … We are going to change the destiny of Brazil,” Bolsonaro said in an acceptance address in which he vowed to carry out his campaign promises to stamp out corruption after years of leftist rule.

The former army captain’s rise has been propelled by rejection of the leftist PT that ran Brazil for 13 of the last 15 years and was ousted two years ago in the midst of a deep recession and political graft scandal.

Thousands of Bolsonaro supporters cheered and set off fireworks outside his home in Rio de Janeiro’s Barra de Tijuca beachfront neighborhood as his victory was announced. In Brazil’s commercial capital of Sao Paulo, Bolsonaro’s win was greeted with fireworks and the honking of car horns.

“Brazil is partying. Brazil’s good people are celebrating,” said Carmen Flores, local president of Bolsonaro’s PSL party.

I wish them luck. Bolsonaro, who was severely wounded early September in an assassination attempt, is a controversial figure, to say the least.

Brazilians were more than willing to roll the dice, however. They’ve had enough of leftists being in charge.

One of the very greatest dancers you’ve probably never heard about

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m puzzled by the near-obscurity into which Fernando Bujones has fallen.

Barishnikov and Nureyev are household words, even for a lot of people who know nothing else about ballet. Likewise, Nijinsky, who danced a hundred years ago.

But Bujones, one of the greatest male dancers of all time, and probably the greatest American male dancer ever? Crickets, relatively speaking.

I saw Bujones dance in person many many times. Bujones had the misfortune to die young, at the age of 50 in 2005, but that was after he had had a full dance career. So his relative obscurity is somewhat puzzling.

There are surprisingly few films/videos of Bujones, although he danced during the 70s through the 90s. His career (which began in his teen years; he was a prodigy who was offered a job at the age of 14 by Balanchine) also coincided with that of Barishnikov, who defected to the West around the same time Bujones won the Gold Medal at Varna in 1974. Barishnikov caught the attention of the public while Bujones never really did.

Bujones was born in Cuba but came to this country at a very young age. He had many sterling qualities as a dancer, but I think the most important was his tremendous ballon, the definition of which is an effect that makes it “seem as though a dancer effortlessly becomes airborne, floats in the air, and lands softly.” Neat trick, eh? And try doing it over and over, while maintaining a perfect line, pointed feet, and not seeming to be making a whole lot of effort or to breathe all that heavily?

Sadly, many of the videos of Bujones are blurry. But I offer you a few that show just a glimpse of the gifts I’m talking about. Here he is as James, the hero (or perhaps anti-hero) of one of the oldest ballets in existence, “La Sylphide.” He has the challenge here of dancing in a kilt (in this case, you may be relieved to hear, with underwear). I think this short clip is a great example of the extraordinary quality of Bujones’ ballon:

I said that dancers have to look as though they’re not exhausted. But in this next clip from the finale of “Giselle,” Bujones has to achieve the next trick of seeming both energetic and exhausted, sequentially and even simultaneously. The plot involves the eponymous heroine Giselle’s betrayal in the first act by Prince Albrecht, played here by Bujones. This is the second act, in which he goes to her grave (she has died of a broken heart at the end of Act I) and he is set upon by Wilis, spirits of women who are determined to dance him to his death. But Giselle herself has a love that transcends the grave and the betrayal, and she is set on saving him from his fate.

In this excerpt Albrecht has already been under the spell of the Wilis and is forced to dance, against his will, and is both spellbound and exhausted. At the very beginning of the segment I’ve cued up, there is a series of entrechats (the step where he jumps vertically, with beats) that is absolutely phenomenal. A sequence like that has the effect of turning one’s legs and feet into the equivalent of lead weights. (By the way, looking at videos of Barishnikov doing the same ballet, he does a different type of step that’s not quite as exhausting, although I can’t remember which is the original choreography, Bujones’ version or Barishnikov’s). Giselle appears at around 1:20; before that we just see the Wilis, commanding him to dance till he dies:

Here’s my question: why hadn’t pipe-bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc served any prison time?

The New Neo Posted on by

Sayoc now faces up to 58 years in prison for the pipe bomb (or pipe bomb hoaxes) recently sent to various political figures on the left.

But my question is: why was a guy with a rap sheet a mile long not only at large until yesterday, but with a history of never having served any time in prison?:

Sayoc has been arrested multiple times previously, according to the FDLE, including for a “threat to bomb” in 2002. Sayoc pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year of probation. Subsequent arrests were related to fraud, possession of a controlled substance, battery and grand theft in the third degree, and more. Based on FDLE records, Soyac appears not to have served any jail time in Florida, but was placed on probation in three separate instances.

I wrote about this yesterday as well, quoting an article that listed the following:

Sayoc has been arrested several times in Broward County, Florida, dating back to 1991, court records show. His most recent arrest in Broward was in 2014. In 2002, he was charged with making a bomb threat in Dade County, Florida. He was sentenced to one year of probation. Prosecutors agreed to withhold adjudication of the felony charge, meaning it was dismissed after he completed the probation in 2003.

In 1991, Sayoc was charged with third-degree grand theft, a felony. He pleaded guilty that same year and was sentenced to two years of probation. In 1994, his mother sought a domestic violence injunction against Sayoc, court records show.

Sayoc was arrested on drug charges in 2004. He was accused of possession and sale of steroids, along with possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, tampering with evidence, filing fraudulent tax returns, criminal use of personal ID info and possession or unlawful issue of a driver’s license. He pleaded guilty that same year and was sentenced to 18 months of probation.

In 2013, Sayoc was charged with battery and third-degree grand theft, a felony. He pleaded guilty in 2014 and was sentenced to probation. In 2009, Sayoc was charged with operating without a valid license, not having insurance and not having a tag light and was fined after pleading guilty to the misdemeanor charges. In 2014, Sayoc was arrested on a petit theft charge and violation of probation. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

He apparently never served even that 30-day sentence.

I’m neither a police officer nor a judge, and I don’t have enough information to say how usual or unusual this would be, but I certainly hope it’s unusual for someone that dangerous to be walking around, free as the proverbial bird.

Theories abound. One is that it has to do with lenient sentencing in the Florida court system involved. He also has been reported in various outlets as having a history of mental illness (apparently untreated) and/or diminished intellectual capacity, but I’m not at all sure that those reports are reliable. Certainly, if he intended his bombs to be functional, the way he actually built them was a testament to a certain amount of diminished intellectual capacity.

My question remains unanswered as yet, so far as I know.

8 reported dead in shooting at Pittsburgh synagogue

The New Neo Posted on by

A breaking story, and very bad news:

At least eight people were killed and multiple others injured in a shooting Saturday morning at a synagogue in a Pittsburgh neighborhood known for its Jewish population, CBS Pittsburgh/KDKA reports.

The suspected shooter was identified as Robert Bowers, 48, law enforcement sources told CBS News and KDKA. Bowers surrendered and was taken into custody.

Bowers burst into the Tree of Life synagogue and indiscriminately fired in the building while shouting, “All Jews must die,” police sources told KDKA. Three officers were shot during the incident, officials said. The extent of their injuries are unclear.

Reports are that the synagogue was full of people.

The shooter? The thing about anti-Semitism is that there are so many candidates: extremist Muslims, leftists of various kinds, Farrakahnners, neo-Nazis, and probably a few I haven’t thought to list—such as, I suppose, the garden-variety non-political lunatic.

I assume the MSM will find a way to pin it on Trump, if only for the fact that there are some bad people with guns in the United States.

One thing I don’t understand, however, is why at least one person in this large congregation wasn’t armed, and/or why there wasn’t a guard of some sort. If it has been a smaller group I might understand, but this was apparently a flourishing congregation. Maybe there was such a person, and it just hasn’t been reported. Or maybe the person didn’t get the opportunity to fire; being armed doesn’t mean you have an opportunity to take a gunman out. Even four of the police who came to the scene were apparently injured by the shooter’s fire.

And yes, I would imagine that a population of Jews in Pittsburgh would be a bit less likely than the average group to be packing heat. But it’s not as though there aren’t Jews who are very interested in self-defense and in preserving the Second Amendment.

It was the longest game in World Series history last night…

The New Neo Posted on by

…by far.

And it felt even longer.

Eighteen innings. Seven hours and twenty minutes. And strange:

Maybe the best way to sum up the bizarre night at Dodger Stadium: Of the 50 players on both rosters, only four didn’t get into the game: Chris Sale and Drew Pomeranz for the Red Sox and Rich Hill and Hyun-Jin Ryu for the Dodgers. The 46 players used on both teams was a record for any postseason game. The Red Sox burned through a record-tying nine pitchers, including Eovaldi, the projected Game 4 starter who pitched the final six-plus innings — leaving the Red Sox without a starter for Game 4 until manager Alex Cora announces one Saturday afternoon.

It felt more like a demolition derby than a baseball game.

And oh yeah, the Dodgers won.