Manafort on trial

The New Neo Posted on by

Paul Manafort’s trial begins today.

As Liz Sheld writes:

Manafort is not on trial for anything related to treasonous RUSSIAN collusion, he is on trial for working for President Trump’s campaign and for being a sleazy political consultant, which is a crime every other person is guilty of inside the beltway. It also appears like Manafort is on trial for his luxurious lifestyle.

When Trump hired Manafort, it was already known that the guy was sleazy and had a past working in politics in Ukraine. But as Sheld points out, much of DC could be indicted if prosecutors had a mind to do so. Manafort’s big mistake—and I have little doubt he made many big ones—was to work for Trump and have foreign connections that had something or other to do with Russia (in his case, he helped the Russian-backed candidate win the election in Ukraine).

The idea was (and probably still is) to get Manafort to turn on Trump and give Mueller something that could be used to snare the bigger fish. But if the big fish evades them (for now), the littler fish will do. Manafort is a decidedly unsympathetic person who doesn’t seem to have all that many champions, and Mueller has two trials planned for him.

The other idea is to make it clear to all and sundry that prosecutors can get you if you help Trump or work for him. That’s been amply demonstrated, I think. Very few people are squeaky-clean enough to avoid prosecution if the legal powers-that-be have determined they need prosecuting, and Manafort certainly isn’t one of those squeaky-clean people.

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]

Let’s hope this isn’t our surveillance future

The New Neo Posted on by

I have sometimes thought that it was a very good thing that the Nazis, despite all their Germanic thoroughness, were still in the relative dark ages of technology. I’m not just talking about weaponry. I’m talking about keeping track of people.

They tried—oh, how they tried. And considering the tools they had at hand, they certainly were able to rather efficiently control, round up, torture, enslave, and/or kill a host of people.

But there still were those who managed to go into hiding and elude their grip. It was difficult to do even then. If the Nazis had had modern technology I believe it would have been far more difficult.

Which brings us to what’s been going on in the Chinese area known as Xinjiang, according to this Spiegel article.

The surveillance is supposedly aimed at monitoring the minority group known as the Uighurs, who are Sunni Moslems. This Wiki article describes the history of Uighur unrest in the region: there has been a separatist movement, and some riots and terrorist attacks. But it’s hard to know which came first, the oppression or the violence. There are other Muslim ethnic groups in the same region who are not violent and are not being discriminated against, so the situation does not seem to be about the Moslem religion per se and is apparently based on the separatism. But whatever the situation and whatever the justification or supposed justification, it sounds as though everyone living in the area is under siege, and it’s the thoroughness and nature of the methods used by Chinese authorities that got my attention.

From the Spiegel article:

Xinjiang, one of the most remote and backward regions in booming China, has become a real-life dystopia. It provides a glimpse of what an authoritarian regime armed with 21st century technology is capable of.

With its ultra-modern skyline, the capital of Xinjiang is home to a population of some 3.5 million, 75 percent of which are Han Chinese. The Uighurs make up the largest minority. Kazakhs, Mongolians and Chinese-speaking Muslim Hui people also live here…

The Chinese decided to deal with it by making the area into a surveillance state. Nineteen Eighty-Four, but with many more tools at their disposal than Orwell’s telescreens [emphasis mine]:

Beijing brought in hardliner Chen Quanguo, party boss in Tibet, and put him in charge in Xinjiang. Within two years, he implemented the same policy he enacted in Tibet and installed police stations across the region. These bunker-like, barricaded and heavily guarded buildings now litter every crossroads of the major cities.

Chen also introduced a block leader system not unlike the old German “Blockwarts,” with members of the local Communist Party committee given powers to inspect family homes and interrogate them about their lives: Who lives here? Who visited? What did you talk about? Even the controllers are getting controlled: Many apartments have bar code labels on the inside of the front door which the official must scan to prove that he or she carried out the visit.

To optimize social control, neighbors are now also instructed to turn each other in…

“Qu xuexi,” meaning to go or be sent to study, is one of the most common expressions in Xinjiang these days. It is a euphemism for having been taken away and not having been seen or heard from since. The “schools” are re-education centers in which the detainees are being forced to take courses in Chinese and patriotism, without any indictment, due process or a fair hearing.

Much of this, of course, is just tried-and-true traditional Communist control (informing, and re-education camps, for example). But there’s much more, and some of it is new [emphasis mine]:

…the provincial government has recruited over 90,000 police officers in the last two years alone — twice as many as it recruited in the previous seven years. With around 500 police officers for every 100,000 inhabitants, the police presence will soon be almost as tight as it is in neighboring Tibet.

At the same time, Beijing is equipping the far-western region with state-of-the-art surveillance technology, with cameras illuminating every street all over the region, from the capital Urumqi to the most remote mountain village. Iris scanners and WiFi sniffers are in use in stations, airports and at the ubiquitous checkpoints — tools and programs that allow data traffic from wireless networks to be monitored.

The data is then collated by an “integrated joint operations platform” that also stores further data on the populace — from consumer habits to banking activity, health status and indeed the DNA profile of every single inhabitant of Xinjiang.

It’s not as though China has some tradition of liberty. It doesn’t. We do. But unless we are constantly devoted to preserving it, it can become fatally compromised, and technology is a key method for doing this.

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]

Re-opening the debate on birthright citizenship

The New Neo Posted on by

Michael Anton has caused a furor by suggesting that birthright citizenship is not required by the US Constitution:

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. . . .

Maybe it’s the same wing of the GOP who think that socialism is just peachy-keen, and that socialism increases the power of the individual vis a vis the government. As we’ve learned, it’s a rather sizeable wing.

And Anton clearly never saw the results of this 2011 poll, or he would not have been at all surprised:

Seventy percent (70%) of those in the Political Class favor automatic citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, but 70% of Mainstream voters are opposed.

I discussed the issue of birthright citizenship on this blog in some detail in this post from four years ago. It’s not just Anton’s issue; this has been debated for quite some time and the anti-birthright side has made a pretty good case. By the way, the US is almost alone in having such a rule [NOTE added for clarification: among developed, first-world countries]:

To stop birth tourism, Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom have a modified jus soli, granting citizenship by birth only when at least one parent is a citizen of the country or a legal permanent resident who has lived in the country for several years.

[NOTE: the language of the above Wiki quote has changed ever-so-slightly since I wrote the original 2014 post, but its meaning is the same.]

Only Canada of all the developed countries has a rule that resembles ours.

It’s certainly a subject that should be able to be debated without name-calling. But name-calling seems to be the favorite debate technique of a great many people these days. And if Anton is “evil” for saying what he said, then I guess that Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom are all evil too.

And here I thought Europe was supposed to be so wonderfully progressive.

[ADDENDUM: I want to add that Anton suggested Trump do this 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.]

[ADDENDUM II: To understand Anton’s argument better, I strongly suggest you take a look at Anton’s piece in the Claremont Review of Books. It goes into much greater detail on the debate about the 14th Amendment and its language.]

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg trolls the right

The New Neo Posted on by

The right’s been going crazy about this statement by RBG:

I’m now 85,” Ginsburg said Sunday, according to CNN. “My senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90, so think I have about at least five more years.”

Trolling, like I said.

But honestly, I think Ginsburg loves her job. If she didn’t, she would have retired during Obama’s term so that he could appoint a very liberal justice to replace her. She could have done it any time during the eight years he was in office, and most of that time she had no reason to believe his successor would inevitably be a Democrat.

But she didn’t do it. And if she didn’t do it then, why on earth would she do it now?

And of course she hopes she retains her faculties and stays on a long long time. Ninety years old, however, has been the de facto limit so far for SCOTUS justices, with Oliver Wendell Holmes (the jurist, not the poet) the oldest at ninety, like Stevens. There’s no de jure limit.

Ginsburg’s a competitive sort. Maybe she wants to beat the record. She certainly will if she can; one thing she does not want is for President Trump to name her replacement.

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]

Are people really this stupid, or are they just funnin’ with the pollsters?

The New Neo Posted on by

I hope, I hope, I hope they’re just messing with the pollsters’ minds.

Because otherwise, a great many of them are just profoundly stupid.

I refer to these poll results:

…51% of Democrats have a favorable impression of socialism, with 13% who share a Very Favorable one. This compares to favorables of 21% among GOP voters and 26% among unaffiliateds, with seven percent (7%) and five percent (5%) respectively who hold a Very Favorable opinion of it.

It’s not that 51% of Democrats who surprise me. I expect that. But what’s up with that 21% of GOP voters? How does someone who likes socialism vote for the GOP?

I know that some of you will say “well, those Republicans in the GOPe are practically socialists”—and I suppose that if you define “socialism” broadly enough, like support for any government entitlement program, then they are. But that’s a far-fetched definition. And one in five GOP voters? Seems very…odd.

And then there’s this:

Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Democrats, however, incorrectly believe the individual has more power than the government in a socialist system, a view held by just 12% of Republicans and seventeen percent (17%) of unaffiliated voters.

It’s one thing to support socialism and yet acknowledge what it is. But individual power? Excuse me? And 12% of Republicans think this?

Yes, I know—this may be the line the schools are pushing these days.

Or maybe the respondents are just giving the pollsters a hard time. I prefer this explanation, but I doubt it’s true.

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]

Devin Nunes on the Russian collusion investigation

The New Neo Posted on by

Great article by Kimberly Strassel. Some excerpts:

Mr. Nunes, 44, was elected to Congress in 2002 from Central California. He joined the Intelligence Committee in 2011 and delved into the statutes, standards and norms that underpin U.S. spying. That taught him to look for “red flags,” information or events that don’t feel right and indicate a deeper problem. He noticed some soon after the 2016 election.

The first: Immediately after joining the Trump transition team, Mr. Nunes faced an onslaught of left-wing claims that he might be in cahoots with Vladimir Putin. It started on social media, though within months outlets such as MSNBC were openly asking if he was a “Russian agent.” “I’ve been a Russia hawk going way back,” he says. “I was the one who only six months earlier had called the Obama administration’s failure to understand Putin’s plans and intentions the largest intelligence failure since 9/11. So these attacks, surreal—big red flag.”

The first of many that included very specific security leaks as well as attempts to block the investigation Nunes was spearheading, and stonewalling by the DOJ on the production of documents.

Mr. Nunes would later come to believe the accusations marked the beginning of a deliberate campaign by Obama officials and the intelligence community to discredit him and sideline him from any oversight effort. “This was November. We, Republicans, still didn’t know about the FBI’s Trump investigation. But they did,” he says. “There was concern I’d figure it out, so they had to get rid of me.”

Initially, Nunes also had thought that Comey and the FBI were straight shooters and that tales of their spying on the Trump campaign were ridiculous. He was “stunned” when he discovered otherwise.

The whole thing is worth reading.

There’s also this very tantalizing quote from Nunes:

He and his committee colleagues in June sent a letter asking Mr. Trump to declassify at least 20 pages of the FISA application. Mr. Nunes says they are critical: “If people think using the Clinton dirt to get a FISA is bad, what else that’s in that application is even worse.”

Nunes has seen it. And so far he’s been a pretty good reporter on what’s in it, as far as we can tell.

And here’s what worries me, as well:

His big worry is that Republicans are running out of time before the midterm elections, yet there are dozens of witnesses still to interview. “But this was always the DOJ/FBI plan,” he says. “They are slow-rolling, because they are wishing and betting the Republicans lose the House.”

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]

Time for jello

The New Neo Posted on by

I haven’t done a jello post in a long, long time.

To rectify that shameful failing, I bring you this [hat tip Ed Driscoll via Instapundit]:

Jell-O might be the glistening dish of picnics and potlucks, but for Allie Rowbottom—a descendant of the Jell-O fortune—it’s both a burden and an abyss. In Jell-O Girls, she weaves together her family history and the story of the classic American dessert to produce a book that alternately surprises and mesmerizes. Despite its title, this isn’t a bland tale that goes down easy; Jell-O Girls is dark and astringent, a cutting rebuke to its delicate, candy-colored namesake.

I feel the need to interrupt and say that the title “Jell-O Girls” doesn’t sound like “a bland tale that goes down easy” to me. It sounds like porn.

But it’s not:

Rowbottom’s great-great-great-uncle purchased the Jell-O business in 1899 for $450. He sold it 26 years later for $67 million, plenty of money to fund several generations of heirs.

Jell-O Girls could have easily devoted itself to the tragic fates of those heirs, or what the family called “the Jell-O curse.”

“The Jell-O curse.” Now it sounds like a Nancy Drew mystery.

Jell-O, meanwhile, gets the full semiotics treatment, as Rowbottom shows how it went from a modern, scientific foodstuff to a relic of soul-killing suburbia. As sharp as her insights often are, this is a book in which Everything Signifies. Even a digression about the catacombs in an Italian monastery includes some Jell-O symbolism. You occasionally want to tell Rowbottom to ease up: Sometimes a Jell-O mold is just a Jell-O mold.

“Soul-killing surburbia”? Maybe the reviewer should ease up, as well.

Here’s the book, which I have to say I probably won’t be reading.

And here are some jello molds that aren’t “just jello molds.”

By the way, “Jell-O” is the brand name, and “jello” is the generic.

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]

Economic ignorance: Ocasio-Cortez continues

The New Neo Posted on by

More economic ignorance on display from Ocasio-Cortez, possessor of a dual degree in economics and international relations from Boston University.

See this as well.

When I was reading about the latest from Ocasio-Cortez, I started to remember all the giddy guffawing from the left back during the 2008 campaign when Sarah Palin was mocked for statements that were far less ignorant than the sort of things that Ocasio-Cortez says every day. But Sarah Palin was on the right (and a vice presidential nominee) and Ocasio-Cortez is on the left and “only” running for a seat in the US House of Representatives—a House the Democrats are desperate to take over and the GOP is eager to keep—from a district in which getting the Democratic nomination (which Ocasio-Cortez has already secured) is tantamount to winning the election.

Thus there is almost no question that the abysmally ignorant and yet telegenic Ocasio-Cortez will be winning her election and going to Washington DC to vote on matters that will directly affect us all. And of course, she is hardly alone in her ignorance, both economic and otherwise. If her constituents are economically ignorant (as well as historically ignorant, and ignorant in many other ways), why should they demand more knowledge of her, and how would they even know the difference? The press used to serve some of that function, but much of the press is often a combination of the ignorant and the partisan, so that’s not really of much help.

Regular readers of this blog are aware that I claim no particular expertise myself on economic matters. In fact, the only economics course I ever took was in high school. But it was enough to make me aware of certain basic facts. I’ve been amazed at how often I see an opinion piece or hear a politician or see a tweet that states ideas that can only be believed by someone who thinks that if you throw enough money at something it will be fixed, that it’s easy to get enough money to fix it if the political will is there, that the only impediment to that is the greed of the right, that the pockets of the rich are inexhaustibly full and that it’s perfectly okay to reach into them as much as you deem necessary, that the taxed have no behavioral response to taxes and that their actions and earnings will remain exactly the same no matter how much of their money is taxed, and that the people advocating all of this are such experts that they know exactly how to accomplish all of this.

Ignorant of economics, of history, of human nature, of common sense, but with no lack of arrogance and hubris, they march on. And those are the ones with the better motives—there are also those who are not ignorant of any of this, but merely see it as a path to power.

Members of the former group doesn’t see themselves as having any role in creating a situation with any resemblance whatsoever to the one described in the following Orwell quote from his dystopic Nineteen Eighty-Four. Members of the latter group see themselves, but are pleased to believe that it is they who will be wearing those boots:

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]

Keeping a security clearance: yes or no?

The New Neo Posted on by

I agree with the basic idea stated here (although apparently not everyone on the list has a security clearance at this point):

This is characterized by the left as Trump taking revenge on those who criticize him. But the reason I agree with what Trump is suggesting be done is not really because these people have proven to be politically-motivated leakers inimical to the administration (although most of them certainly have). I believe that once any person is no longer in a job requiring a security clearance in order to access sensitive and/or classified information—either directly or through speaking to others who do have such jobs—it should be standard operating procedure to revoke such a clearance. If the expertise of that person is again needed later by an administration, a new clearance can probably be expedited and obtained after a more speedy investigation.

And particularly, of course, if such people have become affiliated with the press, retaining a security clearance seems like a travesty and the argument to revoke their clearance becomes even stronger.

But until now, lifelong security clearances seem to have been part of the game (sometimes parlayed into paid or unpaid press and/or speaking gigs), although most of us didn’t realize that. It’s a relic of another time, when such people were thought to be paragons of integrity above the partisan fray.

Ha.

However, I’ve been thwarted in my attempts to discover exactly what privileges a security clearance offers when a person is no longer involved in the job for which he or she needed it in the first place. I’ve read answers that are all over the place, ranging from “they can’t read anything classified” to “yes they can.” At any rate, I see no pressing need for it, and I see potential danger in it.

This State Department website has this to say:

Eligibility will be granted only where facts and circumstances indicate access to classified information is clearly consistent with the national security interests of the United States. Access to classified information will be terminated when an individual no longer has need for access…Security clearances are subject to periodic reinvestigation every 5 years.

I have no idea whether that applies to other agencies than State, no idea whether someone who is no longer in the position continues to have that particular type of access, and no idea whether the rules are different if the person wasn’t just a lowly hire but a big muck-a-muck when in office.

This article purports to answer some of those questions but I have no idea if it’s correct. It seems to be saying, however, that people keep their clearances and have some level of access to classified material but perhaps not the deepest classified material, and that the 5-year renewal is pretty much automatic for the higher-ups.

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]

Trump and Juncker: the dealmakers

The New Neo Posted on by

Is this a deal on trade with Europe, or just a blueprint for a future deal?:

President Trump’s top economic adviser said Thursday that the United States and the European Union will join forces to hold China accountable for unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft.

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told Fox Business Network today that the US and Europe “will be allied” against China a day after Trump and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced an agreement to work toward a free trade agreement.

Kudlow said China had “broken the world trading system” and that Junker “made it clear” Wednesday that the EU would back the Trump administration’s efforts to curb trade abuse from Beijing…

Trump and Juncker announced Wednesday that the US and EU had agreed to begin talks geared toward removing all tariffs and trade barriers imposed on each other.

The EU has agreed to increase U.S. soybean and liquified natural gas (LNG) imports, lower industrial tariffs and work more closely together on regulations and energy. The US also agreed to not impose further tariffs on the EU while negotiations continue, including planned levies on foreign automobiles.

Whatever it is, it sure sounds very promising. Roger Simon at PJ Media thinks it’s even more promising than that.

One thing I don’t understand is people who fail to understand Trump’s negotiating style. After all, it’s not as though his modus operandi hasn’t been amply demonstrated. It’s not as though he didn’t write a best-selling book (or dictate one, or supervise the writing of one) about it.

People can disagree with Trump’s goals. They can certainly worry that his tactics won’t work, will backfire, or will wreak havoc. I certainly worry about negative repercussions at times; it’s not an unreasonable worry. But so far things have gone rather well. And I certainly realize what Trump is doing when (for example) he threatens to impose extreme tariffs if people don’t do such and such and such and such. His threats have power because he is perceived as a loose cannon—will he or won’t he? So, if people are afraid to call his bluff—and also if they can get to the point where they see mutual advantages in playing nice with him—he gets the deal.

That seems to be what’s happening right now with Europe.

I didn’t read Trump’s book. But that’s how I read his style. It’s not rocket science; but it does take cojones (or stones or chutzpah; take your cultural pick) to pull it off.

So here’s my question: are people who hate Trump just pretending to not get his style of dealmaking? Or do they really not even understand the concept? Because they write as though it’s one or the other.

Again, it’s certainly possible to criticize it or disagree with it but nevertheless show understanding of it. But so far I haven’t seen too much of that.

[NOTE: After I wrote this post, I noticed that today Andrew Klavan has written in a similar vein.]

[NOTE II: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]

A tiny little wee postponement

The New Neo Posted on by

As my regular readers have no doubt noticed, the transfer to this site didn’t happen yesterday, although I had announced that it probably would.

There were some unexpected difficulties. Or maybe I should say there were some expected difficulties, because it’s certainly not unusual to run into glitches when dealing with something like this.

So, apologies for the delay. The transfer won’t be happening today either because the person doing the heavy lifting on this is busy with stuff in his life today. The goal now is for the redirect to be completed some time over the weekend or perhaps early next week.

I’ll let you know when I know more.

The DNA of 9/11

The New Neo Posted on by

26-year-old Scott Michael Johnson was a securities analyst who worked at the investment banking company Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, located in the World Trade Center. On 9/11 he was killed, but only now has the New York City medical examiners’ office announced that it has positively identified the victim using newer techniques of DNA analysis.

This confirmation is good for the family, although very sad. So many died in that attack, and so many of them were young.

It’s strange to think that there are college students now who were mere babies at the time of 9/11, and who therefore have had the event as part of their historical world-view from the start. It’s also strange to think that, as the linked article mentions, 40% of the dead from that day are still unidentified though DNA. I hadn’t realized the number of unidentified was still that large. It is a graphic reminder of many things, including how devastating the heat and the collapse were, incinerating and then pulverizing everything in their path.

RIP.

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]