Conservatism and tyranny

The New Neo Posted on by

I think this might be as good a time as any to spotlight this comment by commenter “Kyndyll G.” It was made in early July, and it’s a discussion of conservatism and its relation to tyranny:

I would not presume to speak for all of the people on this forum, much less millions of people who, for any of a number of reasons, tend to hold the same opinions I have on some subjects or vote for some of the same candidates I choose to vote for. But I will define my political model, which is shared to some extent by many people you would call conservatives.

Let’s start by saying that American conservatives are conservative because they want to preserve the foundational beliefs and ideals of the United States. What would those be? What makes the United States different from the country it broke away from, or the European countries from which a great majority of its early population immigrated? Our nation was founded by people who put their lives and assets on the line to separate us from the tyranny of a government without representation, and our founding documents literally outline an idealization of individual rights with specifically enumerated and limited rights of the central government. Ours was designed as a nation of individuals, for whom our government works. Understand that: the government was written to be subservient to the American people, not the other way around.

In “the old country,” with centuries ”“ approaching millennia ”“ of toiling under monarchs and assorted tyrants, the political axis is based on a starting assumption of government control that our founders would have considered unappetizing. The royalty may now be gone or remain just as dusty figureheads, but a cultural mindset accustomed to living under boots measures its world by the tread pattern on the bottom of a boot. It suits those who live under boots to sort statist tyranny by flavors: with the extremes of “right” being characterized by tyrannies of nationalism and religion, and extreme “left” being tyrannies of communism.

The American political spectrum is different. We lack a history or desire for tyranny. Our true political axis is government vs. governed, with the extremes defined as complete government control on one end and complete lack of government control on the other end. By definition, American conservatives place themselves somewhere on the half that includes less government control, since that was the founding principle of our nation that we are seeking to conserve.

One of the online debate trends I’ve noticed in recent years is a general creeping into political debate on US-based forums, between largely US-based commentators, of the UK/Euro flavor-of-tyranny political spectrum. I expect this is due to numerous factors, including the globalizing effect of the Internet and the Europhilism that has existed within a certain subset of the US population since before the US was a nation. Part of it, however, is being forced onto conversation by the “Progressive” left, since it suits their purposes to stain their political enemies by conflation of UK/Euro “right-wing” (evil nationalists, personified by Hitler) with US conservatives, aka the “right”, who also tend to be American nationalists. Thus, anyone who is not in favor of every single part of the increasingly wacked-out, big-government ideology of the “Progressive” left is by definition, on the side of Hitler.

Like so many “Progressive” left ideas, it’s idiotic and absurd, but because it’s part of an incessant drumbeat it’s a lie that becomes truth with pounding repetition; and because conservatives are bullied into complete silence by violent nutjobs that froth at the mouth with their desire to harm physically, financially and in every other way anyone who harbors an unacceptable thought, there’s not much to counter it. But here is what makes it patently stupid to conflate conservatives with Nazis: Nazi Germany represents a literal cliche of unbridled government control and no individual rights. It is the opposite of what American conservatives want or idealize.

We give exactly zero f%cks if Hitler was a nationalist tyrant, a communist tyrant, a religious tyrant, or a highly inbred, syphilitic tyrant king. The result was a situation featuring murderous and crushing government control over a terrified citizenry lacking rights to live or speak freely, and in some cases, the basic right to exist at all. Anyone who tries to pin that on people who believe in limited power of government and preservation of individual rights, for all citizens, is a drooling moron. We don’t give tyrants the respect of placing them on different points of a political spectrum shared by normal people. We put them all in a box labeled “Evil F’ing Tyrant A’holes” where they can all rot in hell together, and then we put that box on the far end of a political axis that only the “Progressive” left wants to drag our country closer to: powerful central government stifling the life out of its populace.

Why I haven’t written about the NFL

The New Neo Posted on by

The short version is: I could hardly care less about football.

As a child, I used to glance at the TV when my father and brother were watching football, and I had no trouble walking on. Football games looked like a jumbled mess—a bunch of guys whose faces I couldn’t discern (the helmets covered too much) bashing each other all in a heap. Then every now and then there was the part I sort of liked, the ball being thrown with a high and slowish trajectory or a low and fast one either to miss its target, or be fumbled, or—best of all—caught.

And there were injuries in football—lots and lots of injuries. Later, when my brother played football in high school, I went to several games in which he was injured. It was no fun at all to see him lying on the field, writhing and being examined while the crowd cheered something else that had caught their attention.

The very best thing about football was the fall weather, crisp and clear and blue-skyed, with the leaves turning their autumn red and orange and gold.

So I don’t need to consider turning my back on the NFL over this latest flap, because I almost never watched or even followed NFL games in the first place. To me, the anthem-kneeling controversies are a case of politics intruding on still another arena that should be free of it. The NFL has the following guidelines in its operations manual, by the way:

The National Anthem must be played prior to every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem.

During the National Anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking. The home team should ensure that the American flag is in good condition. It should be pointed out to players and coaches that we continue to be judged by the public in this area of respect for the flag and our country. Failure to be on the field by the start of the National Anthem may result in discipline, such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s) for violations of the above, including first offenses.

Note that the disciplines for infractions are discretionary, despite the fact that the text says that the players must be on the sideline for the anthem (not in the tunnel, as some were). But “must” doesn’t really mean “must” if there are no consequences for infractions. And there is little doubt that the NFL itself will not impose any negative consequences.

Freedom of speech is fine, but workplaces (and the football field is a very highly-paid workplace) have the right to enforce some rules about political actions while in the workplace. But since nothing will be done by NFL management, the fans may exercise their own freedom by voting with their feet.

Meanwhile, we have some elections in Germany and Iraq

The New Neo Posted on by

While we are being distracted by such things as the NFL’s knees and Weiner’s weiner, life goes on abroad with some elections.

Germany has re-elected Angela Merkel, for example. But the celebration was somewhat muted for Merkel:

Merkel’s Pyrrhic victory comes at a great cost to her Christian conservative party (CDU), which registered its worst performance in nearly 70 years ”” getting just above 33 percent of the vote. Merkel’s desire to extend her 12-year-old reign also pulverized her junior coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), in many of its traditional working-class bastions. At 20 percent, the SPD, Europe’s oldest socialist party, also clocked its worst performance since 1949.

The biggest winner of the Sunday’s election was the right-wing AfD party. The newcomer secured 12.6 percent of the vote, getting over 21 percent in eastern German states. With 90 members of parliaments, the AfD is set to form the third largest group in the German Bundestag.

This is part of a larger political trend across Europe, and is unsurprising—especially in Germany, where Merkel’s pro-refugee stance has been particularly obvious. The rise of far-right (or what is called “far-right” in Europe) parties across much of Western Europe is a double-edged sword, depending on what their endgame is.

After all, Germany has a certain history with this, and that history is not especially positive, to say the least (and let’s not quibble right now about whether the Nazis were on the left or the right, a topic we’ve certainly discussed before on this blog here, for example).

The rise of these nationalist parties on the right is not just about immigration; their growth is also very much a reaction to the increasing power of the EU:

The EU’s fears over the AfD’s entry into the German parliament are understandable. “The AfD’s entry into the Bundestag is a major shock,” EU’s Economic Commissar, Pierre Moscovici, was quick to point out.

Right-wing party’s presence in the German parliament makes it difficult for Merkel to extend bailouts and financial concessions to other European countries in the names of “saving Europe”. The nationalist AfD will be more than happy to throw a wrench into Merkel’s plans, especially if it means disrupting the EU.

There also was a vote in the Kurdish part of Iraq, a non-binding referendum on whether the Kurds should secede and form their own country. The full results have not been released yet, but there’s little doubt that the answer will be a resounding “Yes!” for the Kurds, who have been wanting their own country for about a century.

This will send a shudder of fear throughout the greater region, because several countries (especially Turkey and Iran) have their own restless Kurds, too. It’s possible to support the very understandable and valid desire of the Kurds to have their own country while realizing that the destabilization that almost certainly would result could be very dangerous, not just to the region but to our interests there as well.

If Iraq (or Iran or Turkey) has anything to say about it, the Kurds aren’t going anywhere:

Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared before the vote that he would take “necessary measures” to protect the country’s unity and he was due to meet parliament members on Wednesday.

Iraqi lawmakers voted on Tuesday to send troops to disputed areas where the referendum took place, but there have been no signs of a deployment so far.

The referendum took place peacefully, but has increased tensions between the Iraqi Kurds and their neighbors, raising fears of potential unrest.

Iran and Turkey have also made a string of threats against the leaders of the enclave, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warning of strangled oil exports, hunger and military intervention.

In the regional capital Erbil, a night of fireworks, flag-waving and dancing in the streets followed the vote.

“We made a Kurdish state today,” Erbil resident Ahmad told AFP during the celebrations.

“We’re Kurdish people, we’re not Arab, we’re not Persian, we’re no one else… We’re Kurds and we’ll remain Kurds forever.”

The Kurds really are different—for example, they support Israel and Israel supports them (and by the way, there are a couple hundred thousand Kurdish Jews, something I just learned today)—and their nationalist desires trouble many countries in the region. The reason is obvious if you look at this map showing the extent of the territory Kurds inhabit:

The fact that the Kurds are nationalist about being Kurds (they identify as Kurds before they identify as members of any religion or present-day country, for example) presents a threat to the entire region, but it is one of the reasons they are more religiously tolerant and secular in their society. They also are excellent fighters, which can’t make the countries they inhabit feel very secure when faced with the possibility of civil war if the Kurds don’t get their nation.

Anthony Weiner will be going to jail

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the story.

One of the worst things about his offense was that it occurred years after his compulsive sexting behavior was first caught and led to his disgrace. His political career was over, his marriage was on life support, and yet he persisted in his behavior.

From Weiner in court: “I was a very sick man for a long period of time, but I am responsible for the damage I have done…I have no excuse.”

No, there really is none, although the story of the 15-year-old he was sex-Skyping with (is that a word?) is awfully strange, too. Let me say at the outset that her role in this cannot and should not affect Weiner’s guilt—he is guilty, guilty, guilty, both morally and legally, and in addition he knew she was only 15—but here’s the girl’s story, according to Weiner’s lawyers:

[Weiner’s lawyers] said he never sought out teenagers on the internet and didn’t engage in other predatory behaviors typical of those arrested in similar cases [of sexting with minors]…

The lawyers said the crime resulted from “untreated addiction and profit-seeking curiosity.” Then they explained that Weiner had caught the eye of “a curious high school student, looking to generate material for a book the government has disclosed she is now shopping to publishers.”

They said the high school student documented their interactions from the outset, selectively photographing her phone to preserve messages otherwise designed to vanish, before selling her story to a British tabloid for $30,000.

“After the election was over, the high school student told government investigators that [affecting the US election] had been one of her goals from the outset,” the lawyers wrote.

Well, that information came from Weiner’s lawyers, didn’t it? So perhaps it’s not true? I did a bit of research on that, and discovered a cesspool of information (a lot of it in the British papers) concerning the actual messages and photos and what was said by Weiner to the girl, and interviews she has later given. I’ve decided not to link any of it; if you want to look for yourself, be my guest. The whole thing is too revolting, but as far as I can see the lawyer’s statements I quoted above are basically true.

Weiner is certainly “a sick man.” That said, despite the compulsive nature of his acts, he is an adult with free will, and he should have thrown all of his computers and tablets and cellphones into New York Harbor rather than continue behavior so morally bankrupt.

And so likely to destroy him in the end. Which makes him not only a very sick man and an immoral man but a stupid man as well. And it’s that last part that may be the most puzzling of all.

Of course the American public disapproves of Graham-Cassidy

The New Neo Posted on by

Of course the majority of people would disapprove. One huge reason is that coverage of the bill has been uniformly negative since it was proposed.

Yes, there have been a few relatively positive articles as well (I discuss them here and here). But it wasn’t easy to find any; I had to actively search quite a while for the ones I eventually managed to locate, and they were in venues other than the MSM. Or should I say “venue,” because both happened to be in Forbes (here and here). Both articles seemed fairly objective and relatively thorough, and one was by an author, Avik Roy, I have come to trust on the subject more than most.

If the negative articles had been fair and comprehensive evaluations of the actual bill and its potential results, the fact that they were so uniformly negative wouldn’t be a problem. But the ones I saw in the MSM—before I gave up—were surface treatments that seemed to me to be propaganda that glossed over the good points of the bill and projected the worst possible consequences onto it.

Exactly the opposite of the way the MSM has treated Obamacare, by the way.

I’m not looking for negative or positive, I’m looking for fairness, intelligence, and comprehensiveness. That can’t be accomplished if the author has neither the skills nor the desire, and it can’t be absorbed in a couple of sound bites or headlines. If readers are exposed to information that is uniformly negative on a technical subject like a health care insurance bill, most are going to have a negative attitude towards it because few people have the mathematical and analytical chops—or the time and/or the patience and/or the interest—to independently read the bill and evaluate such things themselves. We all rely on the “experts” in the media.

(And then of course there’s that noted policy wonk Jimmy Kimmel…)

So the biggest surprise for me in a poll like this recent one from CBS News is that more than 5% of the respondents approved of Graham-Cassidy, not that so many disapproved. But aside from the approve/disapprove statistics (20% to 52%), there were other interesting figures in the poll.

The first is the number of people who said they don’t know enough to say. Truth be told, that number should probably be far higher. But 28% answering “don’t know”—which is over a quarter of the people polled—is a pretty hefty number indicating they just don’t have enough information to give an informed answer. Or maybe they just don’t have a clue what Graham-Cassidy is in the first place and don’t care—but at least they’re being honest.

Next we have the breakdown of those people, which I think is also of interest: 14% of Democrats say they don’t know, 33% of Republicans, and 36% of Independents. Because I’m firmly convinced that most people in all parties actually know very little about Graham-Cassidy, this indicates to me that more Republicans and Independents than Democrats retain the most skepticism about what they read in the MSM and/or the most humility about what they know and don’t know.

Republicans who did have an opinion aren’t especially keen on the Graham-Cassidy bill, either. But, as might be expected, there’s a division among the Republicans who dislike it as to why they disapprove:

One in four said it has so much wrong with it that it should be repealed and replaced entirely. Nearly half of Republicans were of this view, indicating partisan divisions still run deep on this issue. However, about as many Republicans said there were some good things in the law and only changes are needed.

That’s the split in the GOP between the more conservative and more moderate wings, right there. You can see the breakdown of the answers if you go to question number 22 in the poll. Among GOP respondents, 45% indicated that they want Obamacare repealed and replaced, while 47% just wanted some changes implemented in Obamacare. Pretty much even-steven between the two sides of the GOP. Independents leaned more to changing Obamacare than to repealing it (65 to 24). But even most Democrats generally wanted some changes in it, although it’s not clear what they thought the changes should be. Only 13% thought the law should stand as is; 78% wanted changes while only 6% wanted repeal.

And just about everyone wants pre-existing conditions covered, although I’d wager very few have a clue as to how that might be accomplished without high premiums. And I have another wager: if you were to poll people on what the situation regarding pre-existing conditions had been prior to Obamacare, only an infinitesimal number would describe it correctly. Here’s one of my efforts.

[NOTE: I just want to make it clear that the point of this post is not that Graham-Cassidy is so great. It’s not. But as far as I can tell from quite a few hours of reading up on it, it seems to me that it’s nowhere near as bad as most people think. As I’ve written many times, giving people what they want in terms of health care insurance is almost impossible to do at anything but an exorbitant price, and the issue is a difficult combination of technical, emotional, and contentious.]

It’s not the heat, it’s the…smoked meat

The New Neo Posted on by

Look how uniform the temperature is in the entire eastern half of the country:

Seems unusual to me. We’re certainly having unseasonably hot weather in New England.

I was in Montreal this past weekend, and it was bordering on the uncomfortably hot. People there were exclaiming that they haven’t had much of a summer this year—wet and coolish—and that this past few days constituted the first real summery weather they’d had. So it was party time in Montreal; the streets were loaded with pedestrians well into the evening, taking in the balmy night air.

Ever been to Montreal? It’s the inexpensive way (for us in New England, anyway) to get a soupé§on of Paris. About 80% of the conversations you overhear on the street are in French, which for me (because I understand hardly a word of French) means they sound a great deal more interesting and mysterious than the same conversations would in English.

In addition, great clothes and shoes for sale, and not too expensive.

And to top it all off we have the smoked meat sandwich.

“Smoked meat” is a Montreal specialty, a variant of the classic pastrami sandwich that to me tastes somewhat like a cross between pastrami and corned beef but is an improvement on both. And since good pastrami and good corned beef can be improved upon only rarely and with great effort, we’re talking very very very good indeed. Fatty but not too fatty, salty but not too salty. Just plain flavorful and succulent.

The most famous place in Montreal for smoked meat is called Schwartz’s. It’s been around since 1928, and:

…The staff of Schwartz’s credits the unique flavour of their smoked meat to their mandatory 10-day meat curing time, the high turnover of their meat, and their brick smoke-house covered with over 80 years worth of buildup.

That may not sound too appetizing, but believe me, this stuff is great.

Schwartz’s signature dish is a smoked meat sandwich served on rye bread with yellow mustard. The meat is served by the fat content; lean, medium, medium-fat or fat. Medium and medium-fat are the most popular. According to journalist Bill Brownstein, the classic Schwartz’s meal includes a medium-fat sandwich, fries, half-sour pickle, coleslaw, red pepper, and a black cherry soda.

For me, the rest of those things are of little interest. I don’t drink flavored soda. Fries with a deli sandwich seems just plain wrong, although I noticed that in Montreal, fries are absolutely ubiquitous. Coleslaw’s fine, but I don’t need it for that sandwich. Red pepper? Non. As for half-sour pickles—give me a full sour every time, and at Schwartz’s that’s exactly what I ordered, and it was great.

The mustard is good and the rye bread is good. So who could ask for anything more?

I had several other meals in Montreal, which is a foodie capital. But none compared. I was tempted to stop at Schwartz’s on the way out of town to get a sandwich (or two or three) to go, but I desisted.

But just now I learned—to mixed feelings of joy and horror—that you can mail order the smoked meat from Schwartz’s— that is, according to Wiki, but when I went to the Schwartz website I couldn’t find a word about it. It’s possible they experimented with it for a while but ended the practice.

I’m not sure. You’ll have to do your own research on that and report back. As I said, I have mixed feelings about the idea of having constant access to such temptation. And I’m not at all sure that a mail-order version would be anywhere near the same as what I had in the restaurant.

I also found this on HuffPo in 2013, but I don’t know if the information is obsolete:

…if you’re looking for a present for that special someone, nothing says love like getting a vacuum-pack shipped ”” just e-mail the deli at info@schwartzsdeli.com and get it delivered that week. We recommend getting at least the medium cut.

Wiki offers us this bit of history:

Schwartz’s is considered a cultural institution in Montreal; when the Charter of the French Language became law in 1977, the deli kept its name as is with the apostrophe, despite the French language not using it. The new law still forced the change from “Hebrew delicatessen” to “charcuterie Hébraé¯que.”

When I was in Montreal but before I decided to go to Schwartz’s, I did online research about the smoked meat choices, as you might imagine. Montreal is full of smoked meat delis, and the discussion of which is best is hot and heavy (like the sandwiches) and contentious. No small number of people say Schwartz’s is overrated. I disagree vehemently. Some of those people preferred various other establishments, and I had a few bites of a smoked meat sandwich at one of those places and it was inedible. ‘Nuff said.

I’m with this writer:

Okay. Okay. We Get It. Schwartz’s Makes the Best Smoked Meat in Montreal.

Wrong. Schwartz’s makes the best smoked meat in the world. Cured and/or wet brined, smoked and/or baked, steamed, or not, or all of the above, copycats would have to replicate the spices and traditional preparation process to even begin dreaming of giving Schwartz’s a run for their money.

P.S.: How could I have forgotten to add this?

Giving the song the Angelica Hale treatment

The New Neo Posted on by

Angelica Hale was nine years old when she first appeared on this season’s “America’s Got Talent” and wowed the audience. She turned ten before it was over and sang the following song in the finals of the show.

Angelica sings in a style I’m usually not at all fond of; let’s call it “pop diva.” It doesn’t matter, because I’ve become very fond indeed of Angelica’s performances. She’s cute, but that’s not really the point. She’s much more.

Angelica does cover versions of songs that originally were quite popular (or so I’ve heard; I don’t have the finger on the pulse of pop music today). To me, they’re not such great songs—not my style at all—but Angelica’s covers of them are far more interesting than the originals.

Now, cover versions by 10-year-olds are not usually better, and cover versions by 10-year-olds in the pop-diva genre are certainly not usually better. And yet her versions are not just better in terms of voice quality and control, they are usually more moving and exhibit more depth of feeling. That’s not what you expect from a 10-year-old, either. Music prodigies are not all that unheard-of, but ordinarily not in this genre.

Here’s a video of her performance in the finals. She didn’t win, by the way. Another girl—a 12-year-old singing ventriloquist, of all things (who is phenomenally skilled)—did. I offer this video because it shows both Angelica and the original adult performer of the song. I’ve queued it up so that you hear the adult’s version:

Now here’s Angelica:

To me, the original is bubble-gum stuff. Angelica’s version is much more. It’s paradoxical that the adult sounds more like a child than the child does.

Aaron Hernandez and CTE

The New Neo Posted on by

This is sad, although it may offer Hernandez’s family mild comfort and some evidence that might help them win a lawsuit against the NFL:

Aaron Hernandez, the former NFL star who took his life while serving a murder sentence in prison, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy — commonly known as CTE — attorney Jose Baez said Thursday.

Baez cited study results compiled by the Boston University CTE Center, which examined Hernandez’s brain for the neurodegenerative brain disease.

Hernandez played for the New England Patriots from 2010 to 2012 after a standout collegiate career at the University of Florida.

According to a statement from BU, Hernandez’s brain was examined by Dr. Ann McKee, director of the CTE Center. The neurodegenerative brain disease has Alzheimer’s-like symptoms, including memory loss, confusion, aggression, rage and, at times, suicidal behavior. It is believed to result from repeated trauma to the head, which results in a buildup of the abnormal protein tau that clumps in the brain.
The disease is categorized in four degrees, with Stage 4 being the most severe. According to McKee’s analysis, Hernandez was found to have Stage 3 CTE, which is commonly associated with cognitive and memory loss, as well as behavioral changes and impaired judgment.

Perhaps Hernandez wouldn’t have gone so far as murder without this added push from his own brain. However, a caveat—a huge caveat—is that most people with CTE don’t commit murder and don’t kill themselves. There is no way to know how much effect his CTE had on Hernandez’s behavior, and to what extent it may have intensified the emotional reactions that led to his crimes.

I doubt that CTE alone would be considered enough to get him off the hook in the legal sense even if it had been diagnosed before his trial, and of course there was no way to have discovered it before his trial because it can only be diagnosed by autopsy. The legal system has to go on symptoms: does the person have dementia or a mental illness with hallucinations, for example, that might lead to a case of diminished responsibility?

There actually was a case in which CTE (undiagnosed, of course) was raised in a murder trial by a former wrestler—not for the crime itself, which had happened 32 years before the trial, when the accused was a young man—but in the context of deciding whether he was competent to stand trial:

His lawyers argued that decades of getting banged around in the ring had caused dementia, rendering him incapable of understanding what was happening. Frank M. Dattilio, a forensic psychologist hired by the defense, called Snuka a “shell of a man.”

Some think that the defense is taking advantage of the recent media coverage of sports-related CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. A degenerative brain condition caused by head injuries and concussions, it’s often associated with professional athletes from the football and hockey worlds who suffer blow after blow in play.

“I think they’re using it as a strategy, and the goal was to find him incompetent, which was successful,” says John O’Brien, a forensic psychiatrist and physician, who testified for the prosecution during Snuka’s competency hearing.

Snuka was found not competent* to stand trial. But it sounds as though he exhibited strong signs of dementia, and he died about a year later.

[* NOTE: A lot of people confuse competence to stand trial with the insanity defense. They are different. The latter defense is used in the body of a trial, and involves state of mind as an element of the crime. The former has to do with whether a trial will even take place if the person is found incompetent and therefore unable to stand trial—meaning that he or she lacks the requisite mental capacity or state of mind to understand the charges and/or to cooperate in his/her defense. It’s a tough standard to meet unless the defendant is really far gone.]

The return of Valerie Plame Wilson

The New Neo Posted on by

Valerie Plame Wilson has returned, this time as an anti-Semite.

Here’s what Alan Dershowitz had to say:

Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz says this story is “much, much worse” than the media has presented it.

On “Fox & Friends” this morning, he said that the author of the article [that Plame had recommended as “thoughtful”], Philip Giraldi, is a “well-known anti-Semite.”

“In this article, he says that Jews like me or Bill Kristol, when we appear on television, should have on the bottom of the screen identification saying we’re Jews. And he says it’s ‘like a warning label on a bottle of rat poison. Ingest at your own peril,'” Dershowitz said.

Much more on the story here.

And the MSM is playing the role you’d expect:

Imagine, if you will, a conservative tweeting that Jews in America are causing the country’s wars. That person would rightly be denounced by his fellow conservatives and pilloried in the media. But if you’re a progressive media darling, you get a hand-waving pass. This brings us to the way the media covered former CIA analyst Valerie Plame and her long history of anti-Semitic tweets…

The media’s coverage of this story was an epic journo-fail.

McCain (“Lucy”) the maverick strikes again, this time on Obamacare

The New Neo Posted on by

John McCain is an odd duck who infuriates the right. The term he loves for himself is “maverick,” the definition of which is “an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party.”

True to form, he has now indicated he won’t go along with almost all of the other GOP senators in voting for the Obamacare reform bill known as Graham-Cassidy. What’s more, his main reason seems to be that no Democrats support it. From McCain:

We should not be content to pass health care legislation on a party-line basis, as Democrats did when they rammed Obamacare through Congress in 2009. If we do so, our success could be as short-lived as theirs when the political winds shift, as they regularly do. The issue is too important, and too many lives are at risk, for us to leave the American people guessing from one election to the next whether and how they will acquire health insurance. A bill of this impact requires a bipartisan approach.

Sure, John. And you know what I’d like? I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. And I’d also like to buy the world a Coke, and keep it company. And raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.

Have I left anything out?

Because the only thing that would make McCain’s dream come true is if the GOP passed a bill that the left likes. Which would make the GOP the left, essentially.

These days politics has become party-line these days, especially on Obamacare. That’s reality.

This is a bizarre act even for the bizarre McCain. It makes one wonder (and I’m saying this in a kindly way rather than a nasty one) if his brain tumor has affected his judgment. I think not, if only because this sort of mavericky, grandstanding, attention-getting, left-pleasing, holier-than-thou, come-let-us-reason-together act is vintage, classic McCain.

The bill had a chance before. Now it hangs by a very slender thread, a thread I believe will be broken.

If it is broken, a lot of people on the right will blame the entire GOP as betrayers. It may even sound the GOP’s death knell. No wonder the left loves John McCain.

Well, the entire GOP is not McCain, and the entire GOP has absolutely no control over him. I suppose you can blame them for that, but I don’t. If anyone is to blame (besides McCain, of course), it’s the people of Arizona who voted in the 2016 Arizona GOP primary for McCain rather than his more conservative challenger. It’s not as though they didn’t know what was coming:

After his [Senate] re-election in 2010, McCain adopted more orthodox conservative stances and attitudes and largely opposed actions of the Obama administration. By 2013, however, he had become a key figure in the Senate for negotiating deals on certain issues in an otherwise partisan environment. By early 2014, McCain’s apostasies were enough that the Arizona Republican Party formally censured him for having what they saw as a liberal record that had been “disastrous and harmful”…Tea Party leaders have said that they are “sick to death” of McCain and will oppose him.

The state of Arizona state law allows independents to vote in the GOP primary, although I don’t know whether that was a factor. During the campaign, McCain made Obamacare repeal the center of his re-election bid:

No doubt when McCain was campaigning against Obamacare during 2016, he thought that repealing it—which he was advocating—would have strong bipartisan support.

Not.

As Lucy said to Charlie Brown:

Were Medevacs in Vietnam armed?

The New Neo Posted on by

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that during 1968-1969 my boyfriend had been a door gunner for a Medevac helicopter. Commenter “Bumsrush” raised an interesting question in response:

I was there 67-68. Huey gunship pilot. Nine months Vietnam, 3 months NKP Thailand…

As for your boyfriend being a Medevac helicopter door gunner”¦ I always thought Medevac helicopters were unarmed. Whether they were or not my hat is off to those guys.

I remember clearly that my boyfriend indeed held that position, and I even have a photo of him with the helicopter, red crosses and all. But still, I wondered. Memory can play tricks on you, and wouldn’t arming such a helicopter violate some sort of rule?

Well, it turns out that these days they’re not armed, which has stirred some controversy (the following is from 2012):

…Due in part to the lack of an armed escort for the medevac chopper, it took medics about an hour to get Clark, who lost an arm and both legs in the explosion, back to the hospital at Kandahar Airfield.

Yon blamed Clark’s death on Army policies, which require the medevac helicopters to prominently display the Red Cross emblem and be unarmed to conform to rules of the Geneva Conventions. Army commanders also require armed escorts for such helicopters, because Afghan insurgents do not honor the rule that protects the aircraft from hostile fire.

The military’s answer can be found here. I’ll summarize it by saying that they feel that arming Medevacs would impede their work by adding too much weight, and anyway such aircraft almost always are accompanied by a second aircraft that is armed.

But what about Vietnam? I found a bit of confusion when I did a search for answers. Here you can find a discussion where some of the people mention having been gunners on Medevac helicopters in Vietnam. But here’s a discussion where some Vietnam veterans say Medevacs were armed and some say they don’t remember that.

And here’s a Vietnam memoir where someone talks about having been a doorgunner on a Medevac.

But I finally found what I think is the definitive word here.

The brave crews of medical evacuation (Medevac) helicopters, commonly known as Dustoffs and Medevacs, were often required to perform heroic feats when evacuating wounded combat troopers. However, there was an important difference between a Dustoff and a Medevac. The 44th Medical Brigade was responsible for Dustoff operations for all the divisions in Vietnam with the notable exception of the 1st Cav Div. The 1st Cav Div had a dedicated Medevac capability directly under their control for very good reasons; faster reaction, crews were familiar with our concept of operating, and it fostered a closer bond with 1st Cav Div crews evacuating their “own” troops.

My boyfriend was in the 1st Cav Div.

Here’s more [emphasis mine]:

The primary evacuation helicopter used by the1st Cav Div was a specially equipped Huey designed to carry three stretcher patients or six walking wounded. A Medevac crew consisted of the Aircraft Commander, Co-Pilot, Crew Chief, Door Gunner and a Medic. During some missions, gunships provided protection for a Medevac. Although most Dustoffs were unarmed, the 1st Cav Div Medevacs carried two M-60 machine guns for defensive purposes only (the Crew Chief manned the other M-60). The Red Cross on a Medevac Huey did not provide them with immunity and many were shot down. Consequently, when we were in desperate need of resupply, they were known to drop off critical supplies and ammo to us, referred to by one pilot as “preventative medicine”.

In response to our request for a Medevac, the pilot would contact us by radio announcing that he was inbound and request that we pop smoke as he approached our location. This triggered an exchange on the correct smoke color as our enemy also tried to mislead Medevac pilots and lure them to other locations with the use of smoke grenades. As we frequently sustained casualties in jungle or mountainous terrain, suitable landing zones were not always available and a hoist system was used to retrieve wounded soldiers from these locations. As the Huey hovered over the jungle pick-up location, the Medic would lower a litter or jungle penetrator (a folded seat with a harness) to the Bravo Company troopers on the ground. The wounded troopers would be strapped into these devices by a qualified person, usually the platoon medic, and hoisted up.

I’m pretty sure that’s the bottom line.

It was an exceptionally dangerous job, and I remember my boyfriend remarking on the high casualty rate.