More McCarthy: what did Comey tell Trump?

The New Neo Posted on by

I keep linking to Andrew C. McCarthy, but that’s because this former prosecutor has been the best at covering the Russia collusion/Fusion story.

His latest is no exception. It’s entitled “What Did Comey Tell President Trump about the Steele Dossier?” The topic of his article (and you need to read the whole thing, because it’s a bit complicated) is the CYA Susan Rice email to herself, and what it might signify:

That is what Rice’s email is really about: not sharing with the incoming Trump administration classified information about the Trump-Russia investigation, such as the basis for seeking a FISA warrant on Carter Page.

The dilemma was that the Obama administration had placed “the incoming team” ”” in particular, President-elect Trump ”” under investigation…

[The day after the Obama meeting] President-elect Trump was briefed by agency leaders on the intelligence community’s Russia report, Comey met privately with Trump to brief him on the Steele dossier. But is that what happened? I don’t think so. I believe Trump was briefed only on a sliver of the dossier.

Remember, the Obama administration presumption was: “We cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.” When we scrutinize Director Comey’s carefully crafted Senate testimony from last June, and when we consider the panoply of what a full briefing on the Steele dossier would have entailed ”” the breadth of the Trump”“Russia corruption allegations, the FISA warrant applications and their heavy reliance on the dossier, the fact that the dossier was a Clinton campaign project ”” it is manifest that Comey did not give Trump the full picture of what the dossier was and how it was being used by the FBI and the Justice Department. Certainly, President Trump was not informed to the same extent President Obama was. The main purpose of counterintelligence operations is to keep the president informed; but when it came to the incoming president, law-enforcement leaders treated the Russia investigation like a criminal probe in which Trump was a suspect.

There’s much, much more at the link. It’s speculative, but it makes sense. McCarthy knows the law, and he knows investigations, and he knows how prosecutors think.

The partisan divide: these charts may not say it all…

The New Neo Posted on by

…but they say a lot.

They’re from an article by David French in National Review entitled “How Progressive Radicals Move the Country Left, and Right”:

Election results are decided in that gray middle, by the way, which is getting smaller and smaller. It may not be long before a Venn diagram will have no overlap at all.

French writes:

…[T]he notion that one Overton community will govern the other is increasingly infuriating and even terrifying to the losers of national political contests. That’s why ”” even if control in narrowly divided houses of Congress changes hands ”” true “waves” will be hard to find. As the midterms move closer, that’s a key reason why the margin in the generic congressional ballot keeps narrowing.

I believe that is true, at least so far. The fear, however (of both sides) is that the other side will achieve perpetual dominance.

I don’t think this guy has much cause for intellectual pride about being a high-level thinker

The New Neo Posted on by

But then again, people are very strange. This is what it’s come to:

Last month, a teacher at El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera, Calif., was captured on video telling his history class that members of the military are “the lowest of our low,” and insulting troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We “have a bunch of dumbs”“”“”“s over there,” Gregory Salcido told his students. “Think about the people who you know who are over there. Your freaking stupid Uncle Louie or whatever. They’re dumbs”“”“”“s. They’re not like high-level thinkers, they’re not academic people, they’re not intellectual people. They’re the lowest of our low.”

He probably hates Donald Trump, too, for bringing such coarseness to our national dialogue.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

School shooting in Florida: 17 dead

The New Neo Posted on by

Another terrible act of violence, this time at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Today’s shooter did not kill himself, however. He’s now in police custody:

The shooting suspect was identified as Nikolaus Cruz, a U.S. official told The Associated Press…

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said the suspect was taken into custody “without incident” and was “not a current student” at the school…

High school junior Noah Parness, 17, told The Associated Press that the fire alarm went off for the second time of the day about 2:30 p.m. He said he and others calmly went outside for a fire drill when he suddenly heard several pops.

I’m not finding many details yet. As usual, there is a certain fog that descends, and misinformation is often rampant.

The shooter appears to have been a student there at some point in the past:

According to other students, Cruz was the subject of jokes from other kids. A student told WFOR-TV that other students “knew it was going to be him.”

“A lot of people were saying it was going to be him. A lot of kids threw jokes around saying that he was going to be the one to shoot up the school,” the student said. “It turns out that everyone predicted it. That’s crazy.”

Seventeen-year-old junior Matthew Walker spoke to ABC News, saying Cruz was known to show off knives and guns on his social media accounts.

“He was going class to class just shooting at random kids,” he said. “Everything he posts [on social media] is about weapons. It’s sick.”

If that was true, who among the teachers and administration were aware of all of this? What interventions were tried with this young man? Is there anything that might have been done differently and more effectively? Each time there’s an incident such as this, I’ve written about those issues in the aftermath, and although each situation is different the remedies are rarely clear—although politicians try to make use of the tragedy to advance their own simplistic agendas.

RIP to all the students who came to school this morning expecting a normal day, and instead became victims of a violent killer.

Love among the finches

The New Neo Posted on by

Of course, I’m not sure it’s appropriate to call it “love,” but on Valentine’s Day what else can I call it?

Nature is absolutely extraordinary:

Dr. Woolley’s lab has been looking into the acoustic systems of zebra, bengalese and long-tailed finches to see how their brains take in and process sounds ”” learning, performing and analyzing different parts of them to make sense of songs.

A male’s system is designed to recognize the songs of other males and copy his father’s. If he doesn’t learn, perfect and memorize his father’s song within the first 90 days of life, when his brain is especially malleable, he never will. He still sings, but “he sings a disaster,” said Dr. Woolley. “And the females want nothing to do with him.”

When a female’s brain is young and malleable, she tunes into her father’s song, memorizes it and then stores it as a template for evaluating a mate’s song later. This example reminds her that she didn’t die, and her father helped ensure that. Perhaps something similar will work for her offspring.

Females tend to prefer elaborate songs with more syllables.

I prefer a good sense of humor. But maybe that’s another type of “elaborate song.”

Dr. Woolley adds, in what I think is a bit of a leap and quite an oversimpllification: “The way that people fall in love, is talking to each other.” There’s no doubt that’s a good part of it. But there’s a reason that “love at first sight” is called love at first sight. And a man and a woman (or to be PC about it, any sort of potentially-romantic couple) can be really really really good friends and talk up a storm without being in love.

I’ve had the experience of love at first sight and I’ve had the experience of clicking with a potential good friend right away, and they’re very very different. For me, though, the initial impression of love (through the visual and a gazillion other signs and signals we’re constantly picking up on) has to be followed up by a lot of verbal rapport, too. And I find that, at least in my life, love is a rare and precious commodity.

The new news normal

The New Neo Posted on by

Ben Shapiro writes about news coverage these days:

You’ve heard the phrase over and over again: “This isn’t normal.” We’ve heard it about President Trump’s rhetoric, and his Twitter usage. We’ve heard it about his attacks on the media, and we’ve heard it about his legislative ignorance. We’ve heard it about his running commentary on the Mueller investigation, and we’ve heard it about his bizarre stream-of-consciousness interviews…

All of this “non-normality,” however, has resulted in … a relatively normal situation. The economy’s booming. We’re on more solid foreign-policy ground than we were when President Obama was in office — by a long shot. The Constitution hasn’t been torn asunder. The structures of government are still in place. Trump may be toxic rhetorically, but his presidency hasn’t annihilated the norms that govern our society.

The same can’t be said, however, of the media institutions that seem so consumed with saving the republic from the specter of Trump. Like self-appointed superheroes so intent on stopping an alien monster that they end up destroying the entire city, our media are so focused on stopping Trump that they end up undermining both their credibility and faith in American institutions.

Agreed. And although that “credibility” of the media was in the cellar anyway even prior to the Trump phenomenon, it has sunk even further.

About two years ago I stopped being able to stomach the news as presented on TV. That wasn’t such a loss for me because I wasn’t especially fond of it to begin with and it was not my main source: print journalism and the internet (a few blogs) were. But at a certain point (and I’m not sure exactly when it hit me) I simply found TV news to be a worthless hive of repetitive and inaccurate garbage mixed with obvious bias, and I stopped watching it at all.

Now something similar has happened for me with print journalism. There’s long been a tendency in that direction but somehow a tipping point was reached, and it happened during the Trump administration. Nearly everything is opinion with an agenda, and that agenda is as York writes in that quote, and/or a social justice warrior type of identity politics and trashing of many principles I hold dear (“Anglo-American legal system,” anyone?). Mob rule, vigilante revenge, slur and rumor—and even the prevalence of those things in the MSM or public life were blamed on Trump (he’s hardly innocent but certainly not the cause).

I still read the news because I have to follow what’s happening, and it’s still possible to discern some of that through the fog. But I read less of it than I used to and I skip the most biased sources or fisk them. I’ve come to rely on a few relatively trusted individuals to give me more insight into the news if that’s what I’m looking for. And I try to focus on the more pleasant things in life.

Our Anglo-American legal system

The New Neo Posted on by

CNN reports:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday brought up sheriffs’ “Anglo-American heritage” during remarks to law enforcement officials in Washington.

“I want to thank every sheriff in America. Since our founding, the independently elected sheriff has been the people’s protector, who keeps law enforcement close to and accountable to people through the elected process,” Sessions said in remarks at the National Sheriffs Association winter meeting, adding, “The office of sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcemen.”

Big yawn, right? Of course not:

Sen. Brian Schatz (D. Haw.) led the charge. He tweeted:

“Do you know anyone who says ‘Anglo-American heritage’ in a sentence? What could possibly be the purpose of saying that other than to pit Americans against each other? For the chief law enforcement officer to use a dog whistle like that is appalling. Best NO vote I ever cast.”

Schatz was educated at Punahoe (Obama’s private school alma mater) and then went to Pomona College and majored in philosophy. He’s been in politics since the age of 25.

And yet somehow, despite his academic credentials, an education has managed to elude him (I’m being kind here, because the jury’s out on the fool/knave question). Just about everyone who knows anything about our legal system either uses or is aware of the suitability of the phrase “Anglo-American heritage.” But Schatz would apparently rather accuse others of divisiveness (while being divisive himself, a neat trick but a common one) than to learn anything about that system.

One person he could have learned something from is the pre-presidential Obama of old, who is quoted as having said the following in 2006:

The world is watching what we do today in America. They will know what we do here today, and they will treat all of us accordingly in the future””our soldiers, our diplomats, our journalists, anybody who travels beyond these borders. I hope we remember this as we go forward. I sincerely hope we can protect what has been called the “great writ”””a writ that has been in place in the Anglo-American legal system for over 700 years.

It’s no accident that Schatz is either ignorant of the Anglo-American foundation of our legal system or ignores it. One of the pillars of that system is that people are treated as individuals rather than groups by the legal system. Schatz’s politics would pit group against group, and use the legal system to do it, and to stir up anger by talking about “dog whistles” that aren’t even there.

Our Anglo-American heritage is a shared one open to all who come here. Is it flawed? Of course. But I believe it’s the best legal system possible and the most protective of the individual.

[NOTE: Also please see this from Bill Murray. Yes, that Bill Murray.]

Dueling Carmens II

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Steve57” asks:

I was goofing around on the intertubes. I came across this nugget [of ballet dancer Diana Vishneva as “Carmen”] and I was captivated…

She wasn’t one of the “Dueling Carmens” you wrote about in June 2013 (Svetlana Zakharova and Maya Plisetskaya) . I was wondering what you thought of her as a performer.

Happy to oblige.

First, here’s the Vishneva video Steve wanted me to watch:

There’s no question she has tremendous appeal. She’s lovely, has a beautiful body, and certainly puts a lot more sexy fire into it than most other modern-day Carmens. That’s good, and important for the role.

But for me, there’s no comparison to Plisetskaya, whose sexuality was smoldering and serious and almost dangerous as Carmen. Why is Vishneva smiling? She’s charming but it comes across as light to me.

Here Plisetskaya is again, in a performance recorded 51 years ago (a different variation, however; it’s the one I had in my original post and I think it shows off her gifts particularly well. And if you’re getting bored and/or are pressed for time, please scoot down to the last four clips at the bottom of the post, with much shorter excerpts of both dancers):

Both dancers are exemplars of the Russian tradition of dramatic dance. But I prefer Plisetskaya; your mileage may indeed differ on this.

Here is one of Plisetskaya in the same variation as in the Vishneva clip, and it’s not as socko IMHO. Yet I still prefer it to Vishneva because of Plisetskaya’s interpretation of the role:

There’s no question that Vishneva has the more astounding technique. But Plisetskaya’s technique is sufficient for her art. Unlike Vishneva, Plisetskaya’s extensions were never gymnastic and exaggerated. She was trying to seem like she was doing something a real Carmen would or at least might do—an actual woman, not an acrobat, although a woman who’s a trained ballet dancer. Gymnastic extensions in ballet bother me in general (see this); I’m not picking on Vishneva in particular at all. To me they spoil the line by drawing attention to themselves and away from the flow of the dance.

There’s a reason extensions like that used to be discouraged and actively frowned on by the people who train ballet dancers. Nowadays, however, they seem to be required. But every time Vishneva kicks that leg up to about a 180 angle I think of the circus or acrobatics, not dance. There’s a place for the circus and for acrobats, of course, but for me that place is not in ballet.

One more thing that’s a bit of a technical observation. There are ordinarily two types of dancers, although that’s a generalization. There are the rubbery and naturally elastic ones who have no trouble with getting legs into positions that seem humanly impossible. Then there are those whose tighter and more resistant muscles and other soft tissue (although they can’t be really tight or really resistant; they have to yield to stretching) tend to go along with having more strength. It’s not that flexible people aren’t strong, too, but they tend not to have a very good jump (most men are less flexible than women and they can ordinarily jump higher). Plisetskaya was known in particular not just for her acting ability but also for her soaring, powerful jump. It’s no accident.

Here are some small but in my opinion telling details of their performances for special comparison. In this clip of one sequence of movement, Plisetskaya gives it a completely different focus and meaning than Vishneva does:

Plisetskaya always seems to be stalking prey in this role; she’s a predator. Vishneva not so much (at least, that’s the way I see it). Plisetskaya’s front kicks, for example, have a knifelike quality of attack. Vishneva’s are impressive, but to me they say “Look ma, I’m dancing!”

Here’s another little vignette for comparison. Note how Plisetskaya emphasizes the Spanish style more than Vishneva does:

[NOTE: Here’s the original “Dueling Carmens” post.]

Limping along

The New Neo Posted on by

The is the sixth day since I sprained my ankle, and I’m limping along.

Limping is tiring. It’s also not so great because it leads to other aches and pains. I realized today that when I walk I’ve got more pain in the calf above my hurt ankle than in the ankle itself, and I’m favoring that, which means my back is a bit out of whack and achy and so on and so forth.

You get the drill; no doubt it’s happened to you a few times. It’s not the worst injury in the world. In the scheme of things it’s pretty minor. But since my forms of exercise are limited by other old injuries, I walk fast for exercise, and I get very antsy when I can’t let out some energy that way. Blogging doesn’t quite do it.

Today as I was hobbling around I realized that one of the weird things about limping is that it disrupts a nearly-automatic and seamless mind-body connection. We learn to walk at such an early age that we very soon make it an unconscious coordination of timing and muscle and balance and manage to just stride along.

But just start limping and you may begin to question just how it is that people walk. Do I usually stand up straight? How do I usually bend my ankle and push off, and why can’t I do it now in that same way? After all, I’m not in excruciating pain. But my body is automatically protecting me (or is it my mind, or both?) from further pain and sends me gimping along in this herky-jerky way instead of the usual smooth flow I tend to take for granted.

Well, I’m not taking it for granted now.