The beauteous Melania and Ivanka’s Middle Eastern fashions

The New Neo Posted on by

Yes, this is a frivolous post. I need a pleasant escape for a little while from the heaviness of the news. Maybe you do, too.

And the world cares about these things, as measured by the buzz about the way Melania and Ivanka Trump dressed on their visit to the Saudis and then in Israel.

Here they are in Saudi Arabia, just two outfits of many:

And here they are in Israel:

The Saudi outfits show respect for Saudi tradition, because there is no need for Westerners to wear head scarves—only to dress somewhat modestly, and Melania and Ivanka also add “elegantly.” In Israel, Ivanka is dressed Orthodox-style, but that’s because she is an Orthodox Jew (or some approximation of Orthodoxy; I’m not sure how strict), and she will be going to the Western Wall in that outfit.

Orthodox can be elegant, as I learned years ago in Brooklyn at a store run by Orthodox Jews and often frequented by Orthodox Jewish women, whose chic wigs and long silk dresses surprised me with their sophisticated style. Here Ivanka looks very retro, as well (1930s, perhaps?). Both she and Melania show themselves to be the models they both once were (Melania had much more of a career than Ivanka, of course). These two aren’t just incredibly attractive women who know how to wear clothes; they’re both in the fashion industry now or in the past, and very successful at it.

Both Melania and Ivanka are tall and slender, with excellent carriage. I doubt we’ll again have such a physically stunning distaff side of the First Family.

And I may as well remark on an odd thing I noticed: both remind me of animals. And that’s not meant to be anything but a compliment. For example, Melania reminds me of a lioness:

And Ivanka of a female gazelle:

And if you look at this uncropped version of the photo of Melania and Ivanka in Israel, you can see why I say I wouldn’t want to be photographed standing next to them:

Terrorism and language: Trump and the evil losers

The New Neo Posted on by

Last night commenter “Sergey” made the observation that Trump is “the most underestimated politician I heard about…He thinks outside the box, not even thinks, but grasps and sees what nobody else can grasp and see.”

I don’t know how cerebral Trump’s behavior is or how instinctual. But Sergey has a point, because Trump—not an articulate man in the usual sense—now and then demonstrates an uncanny ability to put his finger on something in an unexpected and savvy way.

I thought of that when I read of Trump’s response to the terrorist attack in Manchester, when he said of the perpetrator and his fellow terrorists:

They were evil losers.

I won’t call them monsters because they would like that term. They would think that was a great name. I will call them losers from now on. And we’ll have more of them. But they’re losers, just remember that.

Trump made a point that I don’t think I’ve seen made by any other head of state, and I think it shows psychological astuteness. I refer to his observation that the terrorists would like to be considered monsters by the West, and so he won’t give them that satisfaction.

Monsters, after all, are larger than life, more powerful, scarier. If one major goal of a terrorist is to strike fear (and it is), calling terrorists “monsters” lets them know that that mission has been accomplished. “Evil losers” as a substitute is a very interesting construction, because it combines the strongly moral negative (“evil”) with a word that conveys weakness (“losers”). The second word, “losers,” also conveys contempt rather than fear. And contempt is not what they’re looking for.

“Evil losers” isn’t quite an oxymoron, but it’s a phrase using two words that most people wouldn’t think of putting together. It’s not an elegant phrase; no Churchill, he. It’s a bit awkward, which is very Trumpian. But I think it’s psychologically shrewd.

I’m not pretending it will change much of anything. But it sets a tone that makes sense to me.

Thoughts on the Manchester terrorist attack

The New Neo Posted on by

The Manchester attack at the Ariana Grande concert last night deliberately targeted very young people. It’s an example of what I have previously called the “Pied Piper Impluse”:

Terrorists seem to operate under the Pied Piper Impulse of “get them where it hurts” in order to maximize both their leverage and the fear and grief their acts engender.

I have read several reports from people who had been to the concert, alleging that their backpacks weren’t searched. If true, that would indicate that security was lax. This turns out, however, to have been irrelevant, because the perpetrator was not at the concert.

Is there a single person on earth who is surprised that the terrorist has a name that indicates a Mideastern/Arabic/Muslim origin, and that he was apparently a known wolf?:

British authorities identified Salman Abedi, 22, as the suicide bomber in the attack at the Ariana Grande concert that killed 22 people and injured dozens more…

Abedi was known to British authorities prior to Monday night’s attack, CBS News reported.

As soon as I read that the bomb did not go off during the concert, but detonated as the crowd was leaving, it occurred to me that the terrorist may have circumvented security by targeting the exits/entrances to the venue. This is always a possibility, because security can only begin at a certain geographic point. Sure enough, that was the case here:

The bomber, a man who police say arrived alone, was not inside the arena when he detonated his explosives. He arrived on the local rail system and approached one of the main exits as the audience made their way out.

Kids and teenagers were everywhere, meeting parents and making their way out of the building.

There are thousands of potential Salman Abedis in all the countries of the West, and although some are being “monitored” others are not, and at any rate the monitoring is obviously not good enough or effective enough to stop all of the ones who are subject to it.

I fear that too many Western nations have taken the Kerry attitude, despite their words of sorrow at events such as last night’s. As John Hinderaker writes:

The usual expressions of condolence and anger are being made, but while no doubt sincere, they feel rote. We have seen this story unfold too many times. The question is what we are going to do about it.

There are hundreds if not thousands of known terrorist sympathizers in the U.K., but in any of the liberal democracies, nothing can be done about them until they actually detonate a bomb, or carry out another sort of attack, or come perilously close to doing so. The only other way to address the problem is through immigration policy, but it is probably too late for that in a number of the Western European countries, including Great Britain. It isn’t too late here, but as we have seen with President Trump’s almost de minimis travel order, the establishment won’t permit any serious reconsideration of immigration policy.

So it seems that the West is committed to John Kerry’s view of Islamic terrorism: viewing it as a “nuisance” that we just have to put up with.

The Manchester attack reminds me of the sort of thing that used to happen almost on a daily basis in Israel. Then after the Israelis built the much-maligned wall, the number and death toll shrunk down enormously, and the modus operandi changed as well. But if my suspicion that Abedi was born in Britain—or, at least, has been there for a long long time—is correct, then the true parallel with Israel is to its Arab population, which is large. Israel, a country known for its brilliant security, doesn’t seem to have solved that problem of the internal terrorist any more than Europe or the US has, because there are still a number of terrorist attacks emanating from the Arab population of that country, and there are many Arab sympathizers with those attacks who live in Israel as well. However, large explosive attacks such as the one in Manchester last night—which used to be commonplace in Israel before the wall—have been mostly replaced (at least to the best of my knowledge) with smaller-scale but still deadly knife attacks. I’m not sure why that is, and I’m not sure it’s all that significant, but it does seem to have at least reduced the number of victims per attack.

To the victims in Manchester and their families, my heartfelt condolences for their terrible, terrible loss. RIP.

[ADDENDUM: And here is some further detail on Abedi—and indeed, he was born in Britain:

Born in Manchester in 1994, the second youngest of four children his parents were Libyan refugees who came to the UK to escape the Gaddafi regime.

His parents were both born in Libya but appear to have emigrated to London before moving to the Fallowfield area of south Manchester where they have lived for at least ten years.

They had three sons in total and a daughter, who is now 18-years-old.

Abedi grew up in the Whalley Range area, just yards from the local girl’s high school, which hit the headlines in 2015 when twins and grade A pupils, Zahra and Salma Halane, who were both aspiring medical students, left their homes and moved to Isil controlled Syria.

There were unconfirmed reports in Manchester that the whole family apart from the two elder sons recently returned to Libya.

None of this—none—is a surprise. We have yet to learn whether anyone in the family was under surveillance or investigation, or how the ball was dropped, but my guess is that there just wasn’t anything to distinguish Abedi or his family from thousands and thousands of others like him/then. Even a return trip to Libya could have easily been explained if they have relatives there to visit.]

Al Sisi on Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

This quote from Egyptian president al Sisi to President Trump is pretty funny:

“Let me say that you have a unique personality that is capable of doing the impossible.”

I don’t think many people would disagree with that one, no matter what side they’re on.

Trump certainly didn’t disagree:

Trump laughed and replied, “That’s very interesting”¦I agree.”

Trump is in Israel now.

Trump’s speech to the Muslim world

The New Neo Posted on by

In yesterday’s speech addressing the Muslim world, Trump did something creative. Instead of wading into the swamp of the “terrorists are not real Muslims” argument, he got out of the trap of opining on Islamic theology altogether. Instead, he universalized the argument and made it a religious one, saying:

Every time a terrorist murders an innocent person and falsely invokes the name of God, it should be an insult to every person of faith. Terrorists do not worship God. They worship death.

We’re all in this together—us against the terrorists. But he made it clear that Muslims have a special responsibility to fight this thing:

The speech also called upon Muslim governments to be far more active in the fight against terrorism and extremism. He warned them that the United States could not and would not try to solve this problem for them: “It is a choice between two futures ”” and it is a choice America cannot make for you.” Among the already famous “Drive them out” lines was the first: “Drive them out of your places of worship.” This was as close as Trump came to stating clearly that Muslim extremism is a religious problem that has invaded mosques and in fact invaded Islam itself, and that Muslims need to clean out the networks of mosques and madrassas and imams upon which extremism feeds.

The most memorable part of the speech was the phrase “Drive them out,” repeated several times in several ways:

A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and extremists. Drive. Them. Out.

DRIVE THEM OUT of your places of worship.

DRIVE THEM OUT of your communities.

DRIVE THEM OUT of your holy land, and

DRIVE THEM OUT OF THIS EARTH.

The repetition is effective as a rhetorical device. It’s a short and memorable phrase, with a pulsing rhythm and…drive. It also has a subtle escalation of widening spheres from which terrorists should be driven. First, the mosque. Next, the community. Then, the country. Finally, he earth itself.

This is not only rhetorically satisfying, but it is an answer to critics who say Trump didn’t criticize the Saudis for funding the preaching of terrorism. He couldn’t do that directly, as a guest in their own country. But he put the first emphasis in the correct place: the mosque (although he didn’t call it that, we know that certain mosques with certain clerics are the main “places of worship” in Saudi Arabia and the countries of the other assembled leaders).

No, Trump didn’t address all the problems of terrorism; for example, the internet is a huge propaganda machine for the terrorists, especially those who live in the West. But he wasn’t talking to the leaders of Europe about terrorism, he was talking to Muslim nations.

How do we or anyone else “drive them out”? That’s a question the world has been wrestling with for many a long year. I wouldn’t expect Trump to suddenly come up with the answer.

This was only a speech, after all. A speech is not action. But this speech accomplished several things. It showed not just the Muslim world but the entire world that Trump can look and sound like a president. That’s hardly everything, but it’s something, and it’s an important something. It also showed the world that he is going to set a more resolute tone about terrorism than Obama did. It was tactful and respectful, which was important for Trump, too, because he needed to reassure the world that he’s neither a madman nor a rude crude buffoon. Trump retains more than enough cowboy” aspects in his personality to make him unpredictable and keep people on their toes, and so he needed to reassure the world that he’s not always a loose cannon, and that he can walk the diplomatic walk and talk the diplomatic talk.

SCOTUS rules North Carolina redistricting motive was race, not politics

The New Neo Posted on by

And Clarence Thomas sided with the 5-3 majority (Gorsuch did not participate; i assume because he never heard the oral arguments, but I haven’t seen the reason stated):

This decision by Justice Kagan is a major victory for voting rights plaintiffs, who have succeeded in turning the racial gerrymandering cause of action into an effective tool to go after partisan gerrymanders in Southern states. That Justice Kagan got Justice Thomas not only to vote this way but to sign onto the opinion (giving it precedential value) is a really big deal. Despite what is written in the text of the opinion, Justice Kagan, in a couple of footnotes (footnotes 1 and 7), attempts to solve the race or party problem by moving the Court much closer to the position of treating race and party as proxies for one another in the American South…

Justice Alito, in his partial dissent for himself, the Chief Justice, and Justice Kennedy, is incensed at the decision, seeing it as inconsistent with the Court’s earlier decision in Easley v. Cromartie. He begins his dissent with: “A precedent of this Court should not be treated like a disposable household item””say, a paper plate or napkin””to be used once and then tossed in the trash. But that is what the Court does today …

I haven’t read the decision, nor am I especially familiar with the details of the case. But the fact that Justice Thomas sided with the liberal majority is highly unusual and makes me think the majority might have a point. On the other hand, party is most definitely not an automatic proxy for race, party is an entity in and of itself and more than enough motive for redistricting. It’s hard to see how any party—in the South or elsewhere in the US—could avoid racial disparities in districts drawn strictly along party lines.

The sort of reasoning of the SCOTUS majority in this case reminds me somewhat of the mind-reading that was part of the recent liberal decisions on Trump’s EO and his supposedly discriminatory motive for it. The fact that Republicans in the South tend to be more white, and Democrats more black, is a given. And I haven’t seen anything that addresses a question I have, which is whether this reasoning would work in the opposite direction if Democrats did it to favor the Democratic Party (and black voters) in their districts. I don’t like gerrymandering in general, by the way, but it’s legal and has long been used by whatever party is in power at the time of the districting.

The author of the piece at the link, Rick Hasen (who is an expert in election law), has this to say about the decision in the suit:

The harm in the racial gerrymandering cases is not vote dilution (which is separately considered under the Voting Rights Act and Constitution). The harm has been conceived of as an expressive one of sending the message that voters have been separated on the basis of race without adequate justification. It is a theory J. O’Connor invented in the 1993 Shaw v. Reno case. Liberals used to hate the theory, till this decade, when they started using the theory to attack Republican gerrymanders that Republican legislatures justified as compelled by the Voting Rights Act…

The controversy comes from the analysis of District 12. That district raises the question whether race or party predominated in redistricting. This is a particularly difficult question in the American South, because of “conjoined polarization,” race and party overlap to a great extent, so the question of which predominates is somewhat nonsensical. I make that case extensively in a forthcoming essay, Race or Party, Party as Race, or Party All the Time: Three Uneasy Approaches to Conjoined Polarization in Redistricting and Voting Cases.

It seems nonsensical to me as well, and rather pernicious. According to Hasen:

Holy cow this is a big deal. It means that race and party are not really discrete categories and that discriminating on the basis of party in places of conjoined polarization is equivalent, at least sometimes, to making race the predominant factor in redistricting. This will lead to many more successful racial gerrymandering cases in the American South and elsewhere, and allow these cases to substitute for (so far unsuccessful) partisan gerrymandering claims involving some of these districts. (Why Justice Thomas went along with all of this is a mystery to me. He joined in the opinion, and his separate opinion expresses no disagreement with these footnotes.)

More here:

Alito in his dissent argued that the redrawn lines “are readily explained by political considerations.”

The state formed new lines to comply with the lower court’s ruling, but this also faces a lawsuit that a federal court will hear in June. The groups Common Cause and the League of Women Voters of North Carolina filed the lawsuit, which questions “the breadth to which lawmakers can draw districts for partisan advantage.”

That pending case seems to involve more general questions about politics, not race.

Do skaters get dizzy?

The New Neo Posted on by

Yes, they do. But not nearly as dizzy as you and I would. They’ve got a system, although it takes a lot of practice:

The short answer is training, but to really grasp why figure skaters can twirl without getting dizzy requires an understanding of the vestibular system, the apparatus in our inner ear that helps to keep us upright. This system contains special sensory nerve cells that can detect the speed and direction at which our head moves. These sensors are tightly coupled with our eye movements and with our perception of our body’s position and motion through space. For instance, if we rotate our head to the right while our eyes remain focused on an object straight ahead, our eyes naturally move to the left at the same speed. This involuntary response allows us to stay focused on a stationary object.

Spinning is more complicated. When we move our head during a spin, our eyes start to move in the opposite direction but reach their limit before our head completes a full 360-degree turn. So our eyes flick back to a new starting position midspin, and the motion repeats as we rotate. When our head rotation triggers this automatic, repetitive eye movement, called nystagmus, we get dizzy.

Skaters suppress the dizziness by learning how to counteract nystagmus with another type of eye movement, called optokinetic nystagmus. Optokinetic nystagmus occurs in the opposite direction of the nystagmus and allows us to track a moving object””such as a train whizzing by””with our eyes while our head remains in place. As the first few cars of the train move out of view, our eyes jump back to their initial position to follow the next few, and the motion repeats. Skaters can train themselves to engage this opposing eye movement when they rotate to offset the nystagmus and keep the world from spinning.

That makes me a mite dizzy just to read about. I don’t think spinning is for everyone. It wouldn’t be for me, even though I was a dancer. Dancers use quite a different technique than skaters to defend against dizziness—a much easier one, in my opinion, one that is only possible because they spin far more slowly, since their friction isn’t reduced by being on ice.

But the biggest mystery is why dancers prefer to generally turn clockwise and skaters counterclockwise. I’m a left-handed right-turning dancer, and I have a good friend who was a right-handed left-turning dancer (left-turning dancers exist, but they are a great rarity), so it has nothing to do with handedness.

Nor does it have to do with dominant feet or legs, as that article linked postulates. There is a type of turn in ballet called the chaine turn which makes exactly equal use of both feet and both legs, and yet the clockwise preference of dancers is retained while doing chaines.

Want to learn how to do them? They’re relatively easy compared to other ballet turns:

By the way, I think the weight of that dancer’s upper back is ever-so-slightly leaned too far backward rather than on the vertical. I know, I know; picky, picky, picky (I used to teach ballet, too, but you won’t see me demonstrating it on video).

And I’d love to see this girl’s physics project (read the explanation at YouTube):

I used to be able to do many of these—but not on pointe:

Here’s the champ of spinning in skating, Lucinda Ruh:

The high cost of insurance fraud in drug rehab

The New Neo Posted on by

Health insurance fraud in drug rehab is not just about money. It can be an issue of life and death. But the money involved is enormous, too.

Read this article and weep. An excerpt:

When she enrolled in a South Florida drug treatment program in 2015, Alison Flory had high hopes of getting her life in order and starting anew.

But instead of receiving life-saving health care, the 23-year-old from a Chicago suburb found herself being recruited from one recovery residence to another as a string of shady drug treatment facilities systematically overcharged her mother’s health insurance policy for expensive, unnecessary procedures and tests.

By October 2016, Alison was dead…

Experts estimate that the government and private insurance companies lose $100 billion each year to health care scams and fraudulent claims…

Over a 15-month period in 2015 and 2016, Alison moved nine times to different drug treatment centers. It was largely the work of fellow addicts ”“ young men ”“ who were paid to lure her and others away from their current treatment program. They did so with the promise of free rent, free use of a scooter, and other benefits ”“ including possible romance ”“ if the patient agreed to enroll in a particular treatment program and live in a recovery residence or sober home associated with that treatment program.

Sobriety had nothing to do with it. It is an open secret among addicts enrolled in South Florida treatment facilities that hundreds of suburban homes posing as drug-free recovery residences are little more than co-ed flop houses where the use of drugs is permitted and sometimes encouraged.

The situation is an outrageous disgrace. And why is there no effective algorithm at insurance companies to catch this sort of thing? It wouldn’t seem all that difficult to do; and surely they are losing a lot of money in this way and one would think they’d be motivated to spot it and stop it. Are they afraid they’ll be accused of being meanies if they flag the behavior?

The situation is also a result—an unintended consequence—of Obamacare’s covering “children” up to 26. They are adults, and their parents don’t necessarily know what’s going on even though the payments and statements are on their insurance and come to them. Or perhaps they are just too trusting, but that’s what the perps depend on.

And why on earth was a new license given by the state of Florida? Was someone on the take?

[Hat tip Althouse.]

Questions about Trump’s alleged “I fired Comey the nut job” remark

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday: another day, another leak of a wild and crazy remark alleged to have been made by Trump to the Russians:

I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Mr. Trump added, “I’m not under investigation.”

The conversation, during a May 10 meeting ”” the day after he fired Mr. Comey ”” reinforces the notion that Mr. Trump dismissed him primarily because of the bureau’s investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives.

“American official” is a fairly general designation. Who on earth might this person be, and in what position?:

The White House document that contained Mr. Trump’s comments was based on notes taken from inside the Oval Office and has been circulated as the official account of the meeting. One official read quotations to The Times, and a second official confirmed the broad outlines of the discussion.

That carefully-worded sentence doesn’t tell us much. It’s a “White House document.” Written by whom? Circulated among what group as the official account? For example, was this document signed off on by Trump as an official memo for in-house consumption? Was it written or approved by someone who was at the meeting? As I read the paragraph above, I also note that the second official confirmed the “broad outlines” of the discussion but did not confirm the Trump quote.

The latest group of revelations seem to follow a certain pattern. The leaks are to the NY Times and/or the WaPo. They are from nameless “officials” and sometimes are corroborated by another “official.” So the first thing that comes to mind is: is the leaker mostly the same person, over and over, or a bunch of different people? The law of parsimony would dictate the former, but the anonymity of the person or people’s identities makes it impossible to know.

What is that person’s or those people’s motive or motives in putting this information out? We don’t really know that, either, not exactly, although we can safely say that Trump-approval is not the impetus. But that doesn’t stop people from speculating. And perhaps that’s part of the MSM’s plan for the destruction of President Trump: the more speculation, the merrier.

Is this official or are these officials some sort of holdovers from the previous administration, or members of the Trump administration itself? Signs would point to the latter in terms of the way the person is being portrayed by the media. If so, is he/she a turncoat who originally was a Trump loyalist? Or was he/she a mole from the start?

Since most or all of this is based on memos rather than transcripts or recordings, and those memos have been read to the reporters over the phone without being seen, how does that work? Is this unprecedented in terms of constituting the basis of a major news story by a supposedly reputable periodical? Do “officials” write these memos—supposedly containing direct quotes—from memory? Even if the person is trying to get it right (and we have no idea whether that’s the case here, or whether the person is lying through his/her teeth), when you’re dealing with a memo written after the fact, how can it be verified? Should anyone rely on memory for something as slippery as a quote? I certainly wouldn’t trust that process, even if things are being recalled in good faith, and of course we have no way to evaluate whether this memo was originally written in good faith.

Was the person reading the memo the same person who wrote the memo? How is the newspaper purporting to authenticate the memo without seeing it (for that matter, how would they authenticate such a thing even if they did see it?) Is it just that they implicitly trust their informant? And if so, why would they? With the publication of information from an anonymous informant, they are asking us to trust them, the media (and why should we?) and an unnamed informant to deliver the truth.

So, it it the truth? Did Trump say something of the sort to the Russians? Sean Spicer didn’t repudiate the quote, but he didn’t confirm it either. This is ambiguous, but it indicates there may be at least something true about it and that Trump may indeed have said something very much like it.

So let’s take the Trump quote in the memo at face value for a moment, as a basically correct account of what occurred. Why is it being leaked? To discredit Trump, of course, but in what way? To prove the reason that Trump fired Comey was to stop the Russia investigation? The quote doesn’t do that, except for those who already believe it. Was it to prove that Trump generally colludes with the Russians? It doesn’t do that, either. To prove he’s got a big mouth and says inappropriate things during a meeting with foreign leaders? Certainly.

And although that might indeed be the case, no one who has observed Trump for the nearly two years since his campaign began should be the least bit surprised at such a thing. It’s something I wrote about during campaign season, and feared was a good possibility if Trump ever became president. I was hardly alone in that; it was a commonplace thought.

Does this leak amount mostly to trying to get people to cringe because Trump says intemperate things, and to fear that he will say more of them? Well, du-uh. Didn’t the Trump voters pretty much factor that in? Perhaps they even considered this sort of talk to be a feature rather than a bug. Of course, if Congress wants to impeach and convict Trump for something, I suppose they can call anything a high crime and misdemeanor and vote to remove him. But at the moment, I have to say that nothing about this story surprises me in the least.

This is the Trump that has been on display for most of his life. This is the Trump we saw during the campaign. This is the Trump who came to the debates. It’s not the only aspect of Trump there is, of course, and since he became president we’ve seen less of it (and more of his more “presidential” side—mercifully, I’d say). But it’s not going to go away.

I also find it of interest that this Trump quote is pretty much all we have seen of the memo of this particular meeting with the Russians. We haven’t been told the full context, and although I doubt it would vindicate the remark of Trump’s, it would be nice to know. But what else happened during the rest of the meeting? Did Trump act in a way that would make him look good if we heard about it, and that’s why only the quote was released? Inquiring minds want to know.

[NOTE: Strangely enough, the incident reminds me most (although not in tone and style) of something Obama did in March of 2012, before the 2012 election:

Mr Medvedev, who steps down in May, said he would pass on Mr Obama’s message to his successor Vladimir Putin, according to an audio recording of comments the two leaders made during a meeting in Seoul, South Korea.

Mr Obama says: “On all these issues, but particularly missile defence, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.”

Mr Medvedev replies: “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you ”¦”

Mr Obama retorts: “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”

To my way of thinking, that’s far more pernicious than anything Trump is alleged to have said to the Russians about Comey and the firing. Obama’s remarks were about policy, and as I wrote:

The Obama statement to Medvedev tells you something important, which is that Obama knew that the things he was planning to do in a second term would be very unpopular with the American people. Therefore he was planning to keep the voters in the dark about some of his intentions until after his re-election. His election and re-election were founded on a conscious and deliberate deception (or series of deceptions) perpetrated upon the American people.

This may seem obvious. It was even obvious then. But I think it needs to be made absolutely explicit.

But isn’t it interesting that the same MSM so incensed about Trump didn’t seem very perturbed about Obama? Interesting, but not the least bit surprising.]

A slow-motion coup d’etat

The New Neo Posted on by

Is there any doubt that we’re watching a concerted attempt at a slow-motion coup d-etat?

To achieve this they have undermined the institutions of the Fourth Estate, the bureaucratic apparatus of the U.S. government, and the very nature of a contentious yet affable two-party political system. Unlike the coup d’etat that sees a military or popular figure lead a minority resistance or majority force into power over the legitimate government, this coup d’etat is leaderless and exposes some of the deepest fissures in our system of government. This coup d’etat represents not the rule of one man or even many, but by the multitude of our elites.

This article outlines the mechanisms, institutions, and nature of this coup d’etat; not in defense of President Donald Trump ”” who has proven himself bereft of the temperament of a successful president ”” but in defense of the institutions of our republic that are now not just threatened, but may very well be on the verge of collapse…

With the aid of the media and the Democratic Party, the institutions of the republic are crippled, the levers of power having been seized not by the elected but by the unelected bureaucratic state ”” from ideologues at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the partisans and paranoid who inhabit our intelligence community…

Complicit with the authoritarian nature of the administrative state is factions within the United States intelligence community both inside and outside the White House. They have engaged in a campaign of selective leaks and plots to undermine the president of the United States and weave a media narrative of Russian influence, conspiracy, and now obstruction of justice. With their media allies, they have leaked information and intelligence that ”” while lacking any actual criminal element ”” has allowed a narrative to arise that casts a dark shadow over the White House and those who live and work in it.

I agree, at least in part. But I would add that the process is, in my opinion, an almost inevitable outgrowth of the increase in the size of our federal government and the bureaucracy appointed to administer it. Fear of a federal government when it reaches a certain magnitude is one of the main reasons the Founders tried to limit its size and power. I also think it’s clear that, although there are contributions from both left and right to this arrogance and lust to power of the “elites,” the left is inherently more wedded philosophically to that lust for federal power, and more up-front about it.

The significance of what’s happening is not about Trump, a man who “has proven himself bereft of the temperament” I’d like to see in a president. But, tough. We (or I, or you) don’t get to force presidents out because we (or I, or you) don’t like their style (although Congress does, if it feels like calling that president’s offenses “high crimes and misdemeanors”). Self-appointed government “officials” colluding with high and mighty “journalists” shouldn’t get to force presidents out (and certainly not on style points). But they will do it if they can, or at least rattle and undermine that president and his agenda. They’re certainly trying their hardest right now. They will succeed if Congress and/or the American people let them.

Unfortunately, as I’m not the only person to point out, President Trump is cooperating by giving them extra ammunition. But even without that, they would be mounting this effort with vigor.

Honey badgers—YIKES!

The New Neo Posted on by

Honey badgers. Their name sounds so—sweet.

But they don’t care. And you know what? That’s not just an internet meme. They really, really, don’t: fierce, smart, disgusting, they put the “omni” in omnivore. And if everything else about them weren’t awful enough, they sound terrible, too:

The voice of the honey badger is a hoarse “khrya-ya-ya-ya” sound. When mating, males emit loud grunting sounds. Cubs vocalise through plaintive whines. When confronting dogs, honey badgers scream like bear cubs.

Here’s the original honey badger don’t care YouTube video, which was posted in 2011 and now has 82 million views. Yep, you read that right, 82 with six zeros after it. But since my finger is not on the pulse of YouTube, I’d never seen it before until a couple of days ago. If you haven’t seen it either, warning for language and for all-around revulsion factor. But it’s funny:

You don’t care, honey badger? Well, nah nah nah nah nah; neither do we. The honey badger has been classed as a species of Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. So there, honey badger.

Meanwhile, Trump travels

The New Neo Posted on by

President Trump is embarking on a trip to the Middle East and Europe:

President Trump on Friday afternoon will embark on his first overseas trip, a historic eight-day journey that includes visits to the holiest sites of three major religions, an unprecedented summit with Muslim leaders and a major meeting of NATO allies.

In any president’s first foreign trip, particular symbolic importance is attached to the first country visited, and in that regard Trump will put the spotlight on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is greeting the U.S. president with a highly choreographed red carpet welcome.

No doubt the hostile leakers will follow.

Saudi Arabia gives the appearance of being happy about it, or potentially happy:

Despite possible areas of contention with Trump in the past, the Kingdom is looking forward to the dawn of “a new beginning,” according to Riyadh’s official website for the summit — a “highly anticipated event, the first of its kind in history.”

In Trump, there are hoping for an American president more closely aligned with their priorities, especially after years of perceived neglect under the Obama administration.

There are other highlights planned:

The final and perhaps most important of these summits is the Arab Islamic-U.S. summit on Sunday, where Trump will be joined by leaders from more than 50 Muslim countries. It’s there that Trump will deliver a hotly anticipated speech on Islam and announce a new counterterror partnership.

“We’re going to have the president basically saying that this is not a war between the West and Islam, this is a war between good and evil and we all have to come together to try to attack it,” a senior administration official told ABC News.

The Saudis, of course, have historically funded and promoted the more extremist branches of Islam that have in turn spawned a great deal of the terrorism. Should be…interesting.

Much, much more about the trip at the link, as well as here.