Our old friend Judge Boasberg enabled Arctic Frost

The New Neo Posted on by

Remember Boasberg? I do. My first mention of him on this blog was back in 2015, concerning his ultra-liberal rulings on illegal immigration. Here’s a list of all the posts in which I mention Boasberg; there are quite a few.

And here he is again:

The subpoena [in Arctic Frost] requested records and communications related to over 430 individual and organizations — all of them appear to be aimed at Republicans,” the Iowa Republican [Grassley] added, noting requests sent to the late conservative icon Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA and the Republican Attorneys General Association.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), one of the nine Republicans whose phone metadata was sought, said “Arctic Frost is Joe Biden’s Watergate.”

“Merrick Garland was a fundamentally corrupt attorney general. Jack Smith was a fundamentally corrupt prosecutor. This was a political enemies list from the beginning,” he told reporters, brandishing the court order that demanded AT&T hand over his cell records to the feds.

The order was signed by US District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg and barred the cell carrier from letting Cruz know about the request “for at least one year,” he said.

The Texas Republican and others called for Boasberg’s impeachment in the House, with Cruz claiming the judge was “abusing his power” by asserting in the order there were “reasonable grounds to believe that such disclosure will result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses and serious jeopardy to the investigation.” …

“If a judge signs an order reaching a factual conclusion for which there is zero evidence whatsoever, that judge is abusing his power. I am right now calling on the House of Representatives to impeach Judge Boasberg.”

Boasberg issued a scathing order against the Trump administration earlier this year to halt deportation flights of alleged MS-13, Tren de Aragua and other gang members from the US to a Salvadoran mega-prison.

The MSM doesn’t seem to be covering this; certainly not in the way it deserves. If Watergate had occurred under a Democrat administration, it would have been a nothingburger in the MSM as well.

But impeachment won’t lead to conviction in the Senate, for obvious reasons: no Democrat would vote for it. Attorney “Shipwreckedcrew” writes, however:

Impeachment by the House, even if a conviction in the Senate is unlikely, would have the salutary effect of having the entire episode aired publicly, and forcing the Dem. Senators to vote in such a way that has them affirm their approval of this kind of effort against sitting Senators of the opposition party.

unfortunately, I believe Democrat voters would applaud. That’s what it’s come to.

News roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Continuing horrific massacres in Sudan don’t seem to engender demonstrations from the left. It’s not “Palestine,” after all, so it doesn’t really matter to them.

(2) Bari Weiss continues changing the makeup of CBS: “Purge Begins at CBS; Biased Trump-Deranged Anchor John Dickerson Out, Gayle King Says She’s Leaving, Trump-Deranged and “Geriatric” 60 Minutes Facing Shake-Up.”

(3) Bill Gates’ climate change change:

In the letter, Gates called out the “doomsday view” of climate change and said leaders need to make a “strategic pivot” to focus on issues that have the “greatest impact on human welfare.”

“It’s the best way to ensure that everyone gets a chance to live a healthy and productive life no matter where they’re born, and no matter what kind of climate they’re born into,” he wrote.

Breakthrough Energy, Gates’ climate-focused investment fund, reportedly cut dozens of staffers earlier this year.

(4) On the NY Times’ lies, in which John Hinderaker points out an entire Times article in which virtually nothing is correct.

Not all that unusual for the gray lady.

(5) Trump says there’s a deal with China. Here’s what one writer says:

The U.S.-China deal is actually a one-year truce that will avoid the 100% penalty Trump threatened to slap on China. The question is whether China will follow through. Often they don’t. No matter. With $525 billion of exports to the U.S. in 2024, America is by far China’s largest trading partner, which gives Trump leverage if China tries trade war tactics again. …

… Xi agreed to open up [on rare earths], but Trump is playing the long game to cut China’s market share by boosting global production from friends and allies. …

… Xi pledged to catch up this year [on soybean purchases] and then buy 25 million tons annually …

… Here’s the deal [on AI chips]. Sales = profits = investment = dominant global market share = beating China. …

… Trump has drawn in upwards of $18 trillion in investment commitments [from Asian countries] for everything from shipyards to AI data centers and aluminum smelting. …

… The big miss of this trip, sadly, will be Ukraine. Trump tried. “Ukraine came up very strongly. We talked about it for a long time,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. Trump said Xi is, “going to help us, and we’re going to work together on Ukraine.” Don’t hold your breath. Xi has kept the Russian war machine going with oil purchases and microelectronics. He could get North Koreans out of the Ukraine battle with one phone call. China doesn’t care if Russians and Ukrainians are dying and Europe is in a panic.

New Yorkers are already moving to Connecticut in anticipation of a Mamdani win

The New Neo Posted on by

Trying to beat the mad rush:

As Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani surges ahead in New York City’s mayoral race, residents are racing to secure homes in the leafy, affluent enclaves of Connecticut and Westchester County — driven by anxieties over potential policy shifts that could reshape the city’s economic and social fabric.

Real-estate brokers in these suburban markets report a frenzy reminiscent of the early pandemic exodus, with properties vanishing in days amid fierce competition and all-cash deals that push prices far beyond expectations.

In Greenwich, long home to the well-heeled, available listings have dwindled to historic lows, hovering around 117 from more than 800 a few years earlier. It has fueled intense rivalries even for multimillion-dollar estates.

They’ll have egg on their faces, I suppose, if he somehow loses. But I don’t think he will lose.

Why don’t they move further away? I guess because they want to keep their NYC jobs and access, and are willing to commute. It will be fascinating – if Mamdani is in fact elected – to see if there’s a massive exodus from New York or not. The rich have more options than the poor, as usual.

Perhaps we’ll also see Staten Island – the only conservative borough of New York – really get serious about seceding from the city, something it’s talked about for many decades. Staten Island also has a much smaller population than the other boroughs, and is often called “the forgotten borough” of New York. But Staten Island is a huge Trump stronghold, having voted for him in all three presidential elections in which he’s run. He got abut 2/3 of the Staten Island vote in 2024, for example.

What happened to Bill Kristol?

The New Neo Posted on by

First, a disclaimer: I don’t have the definitive answer. Second: why would I care? I guess it’s because I’m interested in what makes people tick, and especially interested in political change. Most such change goes from left to right. But someone like Kristol – who was thought to be a leading conservative thinker for many years, and who much later in life changed from supposedly right to effectively left – is of some interest.

What made me think of him today was this Instapundit post mentioning that Kristol has come out for Mamdani, and asking, “Did @BillKristol ever believe anything he said he did for decades?” My answer: it depends on what you mean by the word believe.”

Let me add that I was slightly acquainted with Kristol, having met him perhaps twice – one time of which involved sitting very near him at a table of about eight people, for a dinner after a talk he gave. I also wrote for the online Weekly Standard for some years, and would submit articles to him (the articles still exist, with format somewhat strained, at this URL at the Washington Examiner, in case you’re interested in ancient history). My observation is that he certainly appeared to believe what he was saying, although his personality wasn’t what you’d call intense.

Kristol was a Harvard guy, however, who moved in those circles for quite a while. And he was what you might call a legacy conservative. His father was a leading neoconservative (that is, a left-to-right changer) and his mother Gertrude Himmelfarb was a conservative academic historian and author. Bill Kristol’s Wiki page (at the top of which you can find the unintentionally humorous “Not to be confused with Billy Crystal”) notes his career and then his NeverTrumper credentials. But it’s one thing to not like Trump; it’s another to be okay with Mamdani.

Quite a journey. The easiest explanation – money – doesn’t quite do it for me. My guess is that the legacy aspect of Kristol’s conservatism made it perhaps rather shallow, and if you look at his history he was a fan of McCain, for example, and was the kind of neocon who advocated for military interventions. So he was more of a Republican than a conservative.

Trump offended him in some essential and deep way. But why the swing to the left? It was not his children, as far as I can tell. His son works for Tom Cotton and his daughter is married to Matthew Continetti, who is a Trump supporter (at least, according to recent articles he wrote such as this one). I wonder how Thanksgiving goes in their family? Haven’t seen much information about his wife’s politics, so I can’t speak to that.

Kristol’s father died in 2009, before Kristol’s political change. But his mother lived to be 97, dying in 2019. Is that a clue? Did his full political conversion only happen when his mother was deceased? One telling fact may be that, although Kristol hated Trump from the very start, he didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton but did vote for Biden and then Harris; both votes occurred after the death of his mother. Did that death enable him to cut the final cord with his parents’ viewpoints? He also no longer calls himself a Republican. And although he’s continued to support Israel, as far as I can tell, I see no evidence that he’s religious.

Here’s the fuller text of his explanation for supporting Mamdani; he said it in an interview. His reasoning doesn’t make all that much sense and is extraordinarily shallow as well as pretty meaningless, since Kristol lives in Virginia and can’t vote in the mayoral election at all. But here’s an excerpt:

… Abigail Spanberger, who I think will win in November, is really excellent. It might be Sherrill, actually, in New Jersey, excellent. And so, part of my core praise for Mamdani has been that, you know what, if we elect three Democrats who win in November—the three big races, really—and it’s Spanberger or Sherrill and Mamdani? That’s okay. …

… [T]he idea of going back to Cuomo is just, I think, ridiculous. I think if it had been the first round, I would’ve voted for someone else and maybe wouldn’t have even ranked Mamdani and would’ve had other people who were more centrist, liberal types.

It was very disappointing. All these big shot, you know, finance types in New York, they couldn’t get behind anyone except for Andrew Cuomo. It’s really pathetic, in my opinion. So now they’re rallying to Cuomo with some of them, but I don’t have that much sympathy for that.

And I also just think, practically speaking, New York is a huge city. He’s not going to destroy it, I don’t think. He’s gonna set up five silly government-run grocery stores, I guess. I don’t think he even will do that [inaudible]. And so they’ll be fine. So there’ll be some grocery store somewhere and it won’t be as good as the privately run ones, and it will go out of business in three years and it’ll be a little bit of a waste of taxpayer money, you know? Or it’ll be harmless, you know? And so people—I do think the right’s reaction to Mamdani has been a little hysterical. He’s a very impressive politician. I don’t know that he’s going to be a very good mayor. He’s 33 years old, he’s never run anything. They’re good people who could work for him though, in New York.

Huh? So, whatever.

Having a tiny bit of computer trouble today

The New Neo Posted on by

More of a slowdown than anything else. It’s coming along, but I’ll use it as an excuse for late posting.

Meanwhile I’ll just observe here that we turn the clocks back this weekend, which means it will get dark very early here. Ugh.

But the good news is that, in a bit over a month, sunsets will be getting later again. Looking on the bright side. And yes, I know the winter solstice – the shortest day – is later than that. But the earliest sundown comes in early December.

It’s that time again – National Candy Corn Day

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This post is a slightly-edited repeat of a post from 2008.]

No, I didn’t make it up. It really is National Candy Corn Day, the day “the nation celebrates its favorite vegetable.”

No doubt all of my readers, being unusually well-informed people, were already aware of that. But did you know it is estimated that in this country thirty-five million pounds of the classic treat (invented in the 1880s) are sold every year? And by the way, my original post from 2008 had the number at twenty million, according to the same Wiki link, so the number had nearly doubled by 2016, the year of the most recent update at the site.

I personally might be responsible for approximately a ton of that if I gave in to my worst impulses. However, I keep my addiction in tightly-controlled check.

It is part of my penance to confess here that I really love the dreadful stuff and always have, and I’m far from alone (my impression is that candy corn is one of those things a person either loves or hates). Once I even went to a Halloween party dressed as a piece of candy corn, and believe me I was already a grownup. In fact, I’m planning to dress that way again this year. The first time I did it, no one guessed what I was supposed to be, although I thought it was obvious.

Apparently I am not the only adult who has dressed up as candy corn on Halloween. And no, I didn’t look like this—more’s the pity (although to be technical, isn’t she dressed as two pieces of candy corn, the body and the hat?):

candycorncostume.gif

I heard on Fox News (can’t give a link here because I was unable to find the information online) that candy corn is the Halloween treat most often stolen by parents from their kids’ Halloween stash. I believe this to be undeniably true. It is a guilty, shameful secret for most, but I am glad this is finally seeing the light of day.

There are various gourmet variations on candy corn, and I’ve sampled quite a few in my day. A helpful reader sent me some information about this Brach product for example, which includes:

Green Beans, Roasted Turkey, Cranberry Sauce, Stuffing, Apple Pie and Coffee. (Fans of Ginger Glazed Carrots, which were part of last year’s batch, should note that flavor is gone.)

I had tried the earlier version, and it was terrible. This sounds even worse. It’s the good old Brach’s original candy corn that I continue to crave; there is no other brand worth eating, and believe me I’ve tried many a substitute. The Brach’s version been sold out where I live for quite some time, but I purchased it early.

And here’s a burning question: do you eat your candy corn in sections? And, if so, do you consider the top to be the yellow part or the white part? I’ve always seen the little white triangle as the “foot” of the candy corn, but I learned when I designed my costume years ago that most people see it the other way. For those who might be inclined to disagree with me, I offer the following exhibit from the realm of science; the kernel grows with the tip – corresponding to the white part of the candy – down, embedded in the cob:

corn-components.jpg

“Worse than Watergate” doesn’t even begin to cover it

The New Neo Posted on by

We can’t really blame it on Biden; certainly not totally, because who knows how much input he had into so many things that occurred during his presidency? But it was indeed his presidency during which the apparatus of the federal government was unleashed on the opposing party. Big time:

More than 160 Republicans, including current Trump administration officials, may have been investigated by the FBI under former President Joe Biden, as part of the bureau’s sweeping Arctic Frost probe, documents show.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, US Pardon Attorney Ed Martin and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro are among the prominent GOP figures named in FBI files released by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, detailing the massive scope of the Biden-era Justice Department’s investigation into allegations of 2020 election interference.

“What we’ve learned is it was much broader, much more expansive, than we ever thought,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan told Fox News host Sean Hannity.

The idea on the right that the 2020 election wasn’t valid, as well as the J6 outburst in relation to it, were the gifts that kept on giving for the Democrats. Their surprise at Trump’s victory must have been immense, because I don’t think they thought it possible that any of their investigative shenanigans would ever be revealed.

Previously released Arctic Frost documents showed more than 90 conservative groups, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA nonprofit, were targeted in the probe.

Smith also received metadata from the phones of eight Republican senators and a GOP House member that would have allowed the special counsel to see who they called or texted as part of the Arctic Frost investigation.

The idea is to have Jack Smith give closed-door testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. He wants it to be public.

No matter what ends up being revealed, it’s not at all clear what the remedy would be.

In other news, Jonathan Turley opines on Trump’s appeal of the criminal “hush money” case:

President Trump has filed the appeal in his criminal case. Many of us criticized the case as based on a legally unfounded legal theory tried before a highly biased judge. The brief is a devastating litany of errors ignored by a prosecutor and court hellbent on conviction…

That refers to this case, which had most Democrats gleefully intoning that Trump’s a convicted felon.

Left and right: case studies in hating Israel and the Jews

The New Neo Posted on by

Lovely guy, that Mamdani.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

Speaking at a New York University event in September 2023, Democratic socialist state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani made one of his most despicable, antisemitic remarks yet. He said, “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it is been laced by the IDF.” …

Contemptible as Mamdani’s dubious connection between the NYPD and Israel is, it was not original. He was merely parroting a talking point from the long-running, anti-Israel “Deadly Exchange” campaign, which was created by the anti-Zionist, left-wing advocacy group, Jewish Voice for Peace. …

At the time, LI’s Samantha Mandeles noted that the campaign, which sought “to blame American Jews and Israelis for alleged U.S. domestic police violence against minorities,” played a large role in “bringing the Middle East conflict to the streets of Los Angeles, New York, and elsewhere.”

She explained:

“The conflict provided a new opportunity for ‘intersectional’ anti-Israel agitators to portray Israel as the common denominator in oppressions all over the world, including racism in the United States.”

In other words, the Jews killed George Floyd, according to Mamdani and many on the left. This approach tries to play on resentment of Jews by other minorities, and to build on it. It’s a variation on older themes, and as we know, it’s become a dominant force on the left.

Meanwhile on the right we have over-the-top anti-Jew conspiracy theorist Candace Owens (I’ve written about her in this post) as well as “duh, I’m just asking questions” Tucker Carlson, who aired the idea that COVID was engineered to spare Jews, and states that “Zionist Christians” – that is, pro-Israel Christians – are people whom he “dislikes more than anybody” and accuses of “heresy”:

Carlson has millions of followers, and they act as multipliers spreading poison all around. I don’t think it’s a good idea to discount them. Just to take one tiny little example, on one “X” thread that displayed that same Carlson video, there’s this lovely sentiment in a response, “Most Christians agree. Christian Zionism: the belief that God favors a group that rejects Christ and has given them a land where they’re allowed to kill rape and torture without judgment … .”

I see that sort of thing – and worse – constantly online. Although it may not have made enormous inroads yet, it’s gaining. I think that Carlson wants to be Kirk’s successor – although Kirk was, in his own way, certainly a “Christian Zionist” – and to wrest control of the Christian right from the Israel-sympathizers.

I’m happy to announce that my root canal has been completed

The New Neo Posted on by

I went back to the endodontist yesterday for session number two, which I must admit was a better experience than session number one had been.

It lasted a shorter time; maybe an hour. It didn’t hurt, although it was uncomfortable. That huge rubber boot in the mouth isn’t fun, nor is the constant scrape, pressure, drill, whatever – all without a word from the dentist except laconic and mysterious instructions to the assistant such as, “Number 30, please!”

I was concerned this time because the dentist had said, after the first session, that it had been impossible to find the fourth root. The tooth involved was a large molar which supposedly should have four roots. This time, the conclusion was that it has no fourth root and so the quest was abandoned.

I hope that was correct. I hope this is – as they say in the real estate business – my “forever” restoration. Wouldn’t want to have to upgrade to an implant. As it was, I practically had to take out a mortgage to finance the root canal. And it doesn’t even have a view.