Border rumblings with Russia

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s a lot of posturing going on near the border of Russia with Poland, Belarus and Lithuania:

Lithuania’s foreign minister Linas Linkevicius confirmed Russia’s military activity in Kaliningrad is terrifying the region.

He said: “Iskander missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads have been deployed. There are S-400 missiles and modernised jets.”

Testing, testing.

In addition:

Lithuanian Defence Ministry spokeswoman Asta Galdikaite confirmed America has offered additional military support following Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

She said: “The United States was the first to offer additional safety assurance measures to the Baltic countries following the deterioration of the security situation in the region after the annexation of the Crimea.”

She added: “US Special Operations Forces presence in Lithuania is one of the deterrents” against military threats by Putin’s aggressive regime, reports the Express.

One is tempted to remember the exchange between Mitt Romney and Obama over Russia during the second debate of the 2012 campaign. But that’s old news. Now Trump will have to deal with this.

Speaking of old news, please recall that one of Obama’s first moves on becoming president was to scrap the Bush-planned missile defense system for eastern Europe and replace it with a different and NATO-based system. In 2016, that new system was finally put in place last May:

The U.S. and NATO have continually stressed that the system is intended to defend Europe from Iran and its expanding arsenal. Tehran has continued to test-fire ballistic missiles following the internationally negotiated deal to limit its nuclear program.

But Russia has dismissed the justification.

“From the very outset we kept saying that in the opinion of our experts the deployment of an anti-missile defense poses a threat to Russia,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Tass News Agency. “The question is not whether measures will be taken or not; measures are being taken to maintain Russia’s security at the necessary level.”

Looking back at my post from 2009, I see that they are correct that they had objected to the Bush plan. But not the Obama plan, which they had praised:

The Bush administration proposed the European-based system to counter the perceived threat of Iran’s developing a nuclear weapon that could be placed atop its increasingly sophisticated missiles”¦The Bush plan infuriated the Kremlin, which argued the system was a potential threat to its own intercontinental ballistic missiles”¦The Obama administration’s assessment concludes that U.S. allies in Europe, including NATO members, face a more immediate threat from Iran’s short- and medium-range missiles and is ordering a shift toward the development of regional missile defenses for the Continent, according to people familiar with the matter…

Russia on Thursday welcomed the news [of the Obama changes] but said it saw no reason to offer concessions in return. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called the plan a “responsible move.” He threatened last year to station tactical Iskander missiles on Poland’s border if the U.S. system was deployed.

“We appreciate this responsible move by the U.S. president toward realizing our agreement,” Mr. Medvedev said Thursday. “I am prepared to continue the dialogue.”

So let’s recap on the situation as presented by that history: the Bush plan was scrapped by Obama as a concession to the Russians (apparently in hopes of Russian cooperation on Iran). Russia didn’t do much to thank Obama, and when the new system was finally in place—almost six years later—this is Russia’s response. It’s a challenge to both outgoing president Obama and incoming president Trump, as well as to eastern Europe.

Democrats and SCOTUS nominees: then and now

The New Neo Posted on by

When President Obama nominated Merrick Garland as SCOTUS Justice Scalia’s replacement last March, it was eight months from the 2016 election. Republicans controlled the Senate, and they decided to punt and wait for the next president.

This was somewhat of a gamble. If Clinton had been the victor (and most people in DC expected that to happen) and in particular if the Senate fell into Democratic hands (and there was a good chance of that, as well), the GOP would have faced the possibility of somehow trying to approve of Garland after the election but before the transfer of power if they could, or the probability of a far more liberal/leftist nominee who would be approved by the next Congress.

The Democrats protested, of course. But the GOP—to the surprise of many people, especially those on the right—held firm.

The Democrats had invoked the nuclear option for most federal appointees (but not the Supreme Court) back in 2013, and for a very simple reason: it made sense to them because they still held the majority in the Senate and Obama was still president. If both hadn’t been true in 2013, there would have been no practical reason for Democrats to vote for the nuclear option.

But by the time Justice Scalia died unexpectedly in 2016 and Obama was given the opportunity of choosing his successor, one of those conditions no longer applied: the Senate had turned to the Republicans. Therefore there was absolutely no reason (and no way, had there been a reason) for the minority Democrats to have invoked the nuclear option for the nomination of Scalia’s SCOTUS successor.

Now they have a reason to be glad they kept the filibuster intact for SCOTUS nominees. They most assuredly do. Because now they’re still in the minority in the Senate, and Trump as president will be the one doing the nominating. And now, of course, Democrats think that blocking his nominees would be a great great thing, and they think that the GOP invoking the nuclear option for SCOTUS nominees and thereby blocking their Democrat block would be a terrible terrible thing.

Here’s Chuck Schumer:

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) says he regrets the decision by Democrats in 2013 to trigger the “nuclear option” for most presidential nominations.

The change to the Senate rules lowered the threshold for confirming Cabinet nominees to a simple majority vote ”” something that will now help President-elect Donald Trump push through his nominees.

“I argued against it at the time. I said both for Supreme Court and in Cabinet should be 60 because on such important positions there should be some degree of bipartisanship,” Schumer told CNN.

“I won on Supreme Court, lost on Cabinet. But it’s what we have to live with now.”

At least Schumer is consistent in the sense that apparently he did oppose Reid’s move in triggering the nuclear option back in 2013, at least for a while. Now Schumer is left holding the Reid bag. And he should be afraid that the GOP will extend that nuclear option to SCOTUS nominations, as well, if the Democrats are too obstructionist about the Trump SCOTUS picks.

And Schumer says the Democrats plan to be obstructionist:

“We are not going to settle on a Supreme Court nominee. If they don’t appoint someone who’s really good, we’re gonna oppose him tooth and nail,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “They won’t have 60 votes to put in an out-of-the-mainstream nominee and then they’ll have to make a choice: change the rules. It’s gonna be very hard for them to change the rules because there are a handful of Republicans who believe in the institution of the Senate.”

“We are not going to make it easy for them to pick a Supreme Court justice,” he added.

That’s a really interesting quote: “there are a handful of Republicans who believe in the institution of the Senate.”

All it would take is “a handful,” because the GOP lead in the Senate is slim (52/48). The Democratic lead back in 2013 when Reid invoked the nuclear option, violating the spirit of “the institution of the Senate,” was somewhat larger but not at all enormous: 53/45, with 2 Independents who caucused with the Democrats for a grand total of 55/45. The vote on that occasion was 52/48 in favor of the nuclear option. A “handful” of Democrats—Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Carl Levin of Michigan—voted against it (and by the way, I doubt they would have done so had they not known their votes wouldn’t matter because the Democrats had enough votes to pass it without them). Chuck Schumer was not among those “no” votes.

Here’s the NY Times reporting in 2013 on that vote. The story contains ironies, and a rather impressive amount of prescience on the part of leading Republicans:

Furious Republicans accused Democrats of a power grab, warning them that they would deeply regret their action if they lost control of the Senate next year and the White House in years to come. Invoking the Founding Fathers and the meaning of the Constitution, Republicans said Democrats were trampling the minority rights the framers intended to protect…

“You think this is in the best interest of the United States Senate and the American people?” asked the Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, sounding incredulous.

“I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you’ll regret this. And you may regret it a lot sooner than you think,” he added.

Mr. Obama applauded the Senate’s move. “Today’s pattern of obstruction, it just isn’t normal,” he told reporters at the White House. “It’s not what our founders envisioned. A deliberate and determined effort to obstruct everything, no matter what the merits, just to refight the results of an election is not normal, and for the sake of future generations we can’t let it become normal.”

It’s only fitting and proper if Democrats do it, I suppose.

The party and the parties

The New Neo Posted on by

I was at a holiday party recently. A small one that was really a dinner party, with all the guests (about twelve) gathered around a dining room table.

It was a pleasant and convivial evening. Would have been, anyway, had I been one of the crowd, one of the gang. And if it had been twenty years ago it probably would have been that way for me.

Maybe. I’m not sure I was ever one of the gang.

But what happened the other night was that every now and then, like a reflexive and habitual tic, someone either made a remark bashing Trump and/or Trump voters, or one bashing the US.

These were just throwaway remarks. We weren’t having any serious political discussions. We were talking about travels, or the aging process, or telling jokes and stories, or praising the food. But somehow it seemed obligatory to most of the people there (not all, by the way) to throw in the odd anti-Trump or anti-US remark now and then just to let everyone know what side we’re all on.

At least, what side they thought we all were on.

Nor were these people particularly political. They were definitely all highly educated and accomplished in their fields. The hostess is a good friend of mine, and I knew three other people there mildly, but the rest I was either meeting for the first time or speaking to for the first time.

Although I was enjoying other aspects of the party and didn’t want to leave, I became more and more uncomfortable and very weary. The exhaustion came from three things: the feeling of estrangement I felt, the realization of the overwhelming difficulty of ever trying to challenge their worldview and get them to actually listen to what I might have to say rather than merely reject what I had to say, and the awareness that it would be impolite of me to even try in that particular venue. These were mostly strangers to me (and I doubt I’ll ever see most of them again), I was a guest in my friend’s home, and it was a holiday party and I would be disrupting it.

I’ve been in that position before, and I’ve learned to choose my battles. This wasn’t the time or place. Once during the evening, though, I got up from the table and went into the bathroom to cool down for a few minutes when one woman had made a remark about how helpful Russia had been to Cuba and how mean we had been, and I found myself starting to make remarks like, “Oh, they were helpful, all right” with rising ire.

Later, I realized what I should have done instead. I should have asked how they knew there were no Trump voters in the room. And I should have described to them how, in similar groups, people have sometimes come to me afterwards to reveal they are in the closet about being on the right or being Republicans, because they are afraid to speak politics in groups where they are being repeatedly trashed.

I doubt it would have done much good, but it would have been a way to bring up the issue without causing a fight. Maybe.

Afterwards, I described the party goings-on to a friend of mine on the right, and he said, “Ignore it, they lost; they’re irrelevant.” But losses can be very temporary, and these people are still so numerous and vocal everywhere that I don’t find them the least bit irrelevant. I think it’s an error to think they’ve lost, either, because their ideas are still being very much perpetuated.

Remember that Gramscian march? Don’t think for a moment that it’s lost its force. In fact, it’s gained new impetus. Many of the more politically active people I know on the left are flush with the vigor of protest, feeling themselves to be standing up to extremely evil and almost-Hitlerian powers. They may be depressed, but they are energized as well.

So, was there a vote to gut the ethics office?

The New Neo Posted on by

[See UPDATE below]

It seems to be the big story of the day—the news that the House GOP has, as the NY Times puts it, voted “with no warning” to “hobble the independent ethics office.”

That certainly sounds bad, very bad. And it’s certainly something that came with no warning. At least, I’ve never heard this discussed before, and I’m a fairly assiduous follower of the political news.

But just try to figure out what it actually means and why it was done. I wish you good luck. Because I’ve grown to deeply distrust sources such as the Times, I’m certainly not going to take their word for it and theirs alone. So I’ve just spent about an hour trying to get up to speed on the story behind the story.

What I’ve gotten so far is this: it wasn’t a vote by the House, it was by Republicans in what is called a blind ballot (according to Kellyanne Conway, at least), and the full House is supposed to vote on it today. The favorite word that is being used to describe the action is that it “guts” the ethics office, but what it actually seems to do is move its function from complete independence to oversight by the House Ethics Committee. The change would also bar investigation through anonymous tips, as well as public disclosures about ongoing investigations. The House Judiciary Chairman who proposed the measure said that it “would ensure due process rights are protected for lawmakers.”

So there you have it. This measure either means that Congress wants to stop itself from being investigated for ethics violations, or it means that it wants to stop abuse/overuse of investigations for political means and to protect the rights of the accused.

This WaPo article is the best one I’ve found so far at explaining the purposes of the proposed change:

The 119-to-74 vote during a GOP conference meeting means that the House rules package expected to be adopted Tuesday, the first day of the 115th Congress, would rename the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) as the Office of Congressional Complaint Review and place it under the oversight of the House Ethics Committee.

Under the proposed new rules, the office could not employ a spokesman, investigate anonymous tips or refer criminal wrongdoing to prosecutors without the express consent of the Ethics Committee, which would gain the power to summarily end any OCE probe.

The OCE was created in 2008 to address concerns that the Ethics Committee had been too timid in pursuing allegations of wrongdoing by House members. Under the current House ethics regime, the OCE is empowered to release a public report of its findings even if the Ethics Committee chooses not to take further action against a member.

The move to place the OCE under the Ethics Committee’s aegis stands to please many lawmakers who have been wary of having their dirty laundry aired by the independent entity, but some Republicans feared that rolling back a high-profile ethical reform would send a negative message as the GOP assumes unified control in Washington.

It does indeed “send a negative message”—and it gives the MSM the opportunity to magnify that negative message into something even more negative. It also is another example of the sort of inside-baseball move about which the public was previously completely unaware and for which the GOP did nothing to prepare them. Bad PR, at the very least.

UPDATE 12:46 PM: Just a couple of minutes after I finished this post—literally, just a couple of minutes—I read this:

House Republicans scrapped plans to weaken an independent ethics watchdog on Tuesday after a backlash from President-elect Donald Trump, as a new period of Republican-led governance started taking shape on a tumultuous note.

The House GOP moved to withdraw changes made the day before to official rules that would rein in the Office of congressional Ethics. Instead, the House will study changes to the office with an August deadline.

Trump took to Twitter to slam House Republicans for voting behind closed doors Monday night to weaken the independent ethics office. The vote defied House GOP leaders and complicated Trump’s “drain the swamp” campaign mantra.

“With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it .”‰.”‰. may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, health care and so many other things of far greater importance!” Trump wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning, hours before the start of the 115th Congress.

Fascinating. A couple of things to note. The first is that the House GOP leadership (Ryan) was against the vote. The second is that Trump adds “as unfair as it is”—underlining the fact that the current setup does lend itself to abuse and might need changing. His criticism is reserved for the precipitous way it was done, and the timing of it.

That pretty much agrees with my assessment.

[ADDENDUM: More explanation here.

It does appear that the main problem was indeed the timing and precipitous nature of the changes, which could probably be debated at leisure and passed in a bipartisan manner. Nor do the proposed revisions “gut” the ethics office.

But when will the Republicans learn that the MSM is not their friend, and they must get out ahead of stories and communicate effectively with the public about what they’re doing and why?]

New Year’s Eve terrorism in Turkey

The New Neo Posted on by

When terrorist attacks occur outside of Western nations they tend to get less coverage here. But they are equally horrific, as the New Year’s Eve nightclub attack that has left 39 dead in its wake—and a perpetrator who is still at large—demonstrates.

And let’s not forget that such attacks outside the West occur with great frequency, and that most of the time they represent the internal war within Islam for control of the Muslim world. That internal war is of huge importance.

In Istanbul:

Sunday’s attack struck at the heart of secular Turkish nightlife, targeting one of the most famous nightclubs in Istanbul. Nearly 600 people from around the world were gathered to ring in the New Year when a gunman opened fire, killing nearly 40.

This was very specifically aimed at Muslims who aren’t strict observers of the more austere aspects of the religion. Among the dead are 11 Turks; 7 Saudis; 3 Iraqus; 3 Lebanese; two each from Jordan, India, and Morocco; and one each from Germany, Syria, Israel, France, Tunisia, Belgium, Kuwait, Canada, and Russia.

So you can see that another goal was to discourage international tourism in the country.

RIP to the victims.

Can immigrants/refugees to Germany become citizens?

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “blert” writes [emphasis mine]:

…[K]eep in mind that these so-called refugees are not being given a path to German citizenship. That would be a daunting project for even German-Americans to obtain.

Europe just does not recognize birth-right citizenship. Instead, ”˜guest-workers’ can stay in-country based upon their documents. These provide for perpetual non-citizen status.

Actually, very few countries in the world recognize automatic birthright citizenship. And by “very few” I mean two first world countries: the US and Canada. The other countries granting automatic birthright citizenship are all third-world countries, most of them in Latin America (see a list here; I also wrote about birthright citizenship in this post from July of 2014).

However, that doesn’t mean that the “so-called refugees” (or actual refugees, for that matter) don’t have a path to citizenship in Germany. They do. Here’s the way it works:

Children born on or after 1 January 2000 to non-German parents acquire German citizenship at birth if at least one parent:

–has a permanent residence permit and
–has been residing in Germany for at least eight years.

In order to retain German citizenship, such children are required to take affirmative measures by age 23, after which their German citizenship otherwise expires. These affirmative measures may include proof of the applicant’s link to Germany, which comprises either of the following:

–resided in Germany for at least eight years during their 21 first years of life
–has attended a school in Germany for at least six years
–has graduated from a school in Germany
–successfully finished vocational/ professional training in Germany

These requirements are fulfilled in the vast majority of cases. If they are not fulfilled, the applicant can alternatively prove that he or she does not hold any foreign citizenship other than in a European Union member nation or a nation such as Morocco, Nigeria, or Iran whose domestic law provides that citizenship in it cannot be lost…

Between 1995 and 2004, 1,278,424 people obtained German citizenship by naturalization. This means that about 1.5% of the total German population was naturalized during that period.

That is followed by a chart. I did the math and totaled up the figures, and the chart indicates that, between 1995 and 2012, about 670,000 people of Turkish origin became German citizens, 66,500 Iranians, a very similar number of Serbians and Montenegrans, about 34,000 Afghans, 43,000 Moroccans, and large numbers from several other Muslim countries. Each of these totals is larger than the number coming from any European country and getting German citizenship.

The very newest arrivals (people coming since the Syrian war heated up) are not citizens yet, of course; the multi-year waiting period has not been fulfilled. But they and their children will be eligible later on.

Also, by the way, it says in that Wiki article on German naturalization that “refugees and stateless persons may be able to apply after 6 years of continual residency.”

You can find more here on the requirements for naturalization of immigrants who were not born in Germany. They must:

–have right of residence at the time of naturalisation;
–have been living in Germany permanently and lawfully for eight years (seven if you’ve attended an integration course or six in special integration circumstances);
–be able to support yourself and dependent family members without the help of welfare or unemployment benefits;
–have adequate oral and written German language skills (equivalent to level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages);
–have no criminal convictions; and
–be committed to the constitutional principles of freedom and democracy.

If you look here, you’ll notice that the US has very similar requirements.

And the following is relevant to the issue of German birthright citizenship. A child with at least one German parent is automatically a citizen, but:

If neither parent is German, a baby born on German soil automatically takes German nationality, provided that at the time of birth at least one parent had been living in Germany for eight years and had a permanent right of residence or is Swiss. In these cases, a child is also entitled to take the nationality of the parents (dual nationality). This only applies, however, to children born after 1 January 2000; the claim period for children born before then has already closed.

There is indeed a difference between the process of receiving German citizenship and ours, and it’s a reflection of our different concepts of nationality. In the US it is definitely easier to become a citizen by birth. But it isn’t all that difficult to become a citizen in Germany, either, either by birth or by naturalization. I would imagine that many Germans are quite aware of this, and that they believe that the recent influx of people from Islamic countries will change the demographics of the citizenry of Germany.

Obama and Trump: by their books…

The New Neo Posted on by

…ye shall know them.

Sort of, anyway.

According to Saleno Zito in the Washington Examiner:

Obama’s books defined his public image in a large part because the political class gushed and plowed their way through his words for insights into the candidate; who was he? Was there evidence in his words that pointed to the central promise of his campaign? Could he of all people reconcile a divided country?

It literally was the most vetted book in American politics.

Donald Trump’s “The Art of the Deal”? Not so much. Which is a shame because any reporter who read the book before embarking on covering this presidential candidate, eventual nominee and now president-elect would have a much deeper understanding of who he is, how he operates and how he’ll behave going forward.

Well, yes and no; yes and no.

For starters, there is the issue of ghostwriters. Trump’s book was admittedly ghostwritten; Obama’s may have been. However, each book undoubtedly contained the ideas of each man, and expressed what each one wanted expressed about himself. That’s a very important clue, whoever wrote the actual words.

But I don’t think Trump’s book was universally ignored by reporters. It certainly was discussed a great deal on blogs, anyway, and the idea that Trump’s proposals were merely a series of audacious opening bids in a negotiating game that resembled his past deal-making in the business world, bids that were all mutable and changeable manipulable, was a point made on this blog and by many other observers.

On that issue, Zito writes:

[Voters] never took [Trump’s] statements exactly, but they did take them earnestly. They never really expected a massive wall, or massive deportations, but they did expect him to have their back, their voice, and their interest at heart.

Like Trump, they did not get too attached to everything he said he would do, they understood he was juggling different ways of approaching a problem and if he could not make one of his promises work, he’d make another promise, until something finally worked. Until a deal was finally met.

I understand what Zito’s getting at, and I certainly think some Trump supporters felt that way. But a great many others—particularly at the beginning—supported him because they thought he meant exactly what he said and that he would have the tools and the power to do it. Some other people who didn’t support him were afraid he’d do exactly what he said, and they didn’t like what he was proposing.

But many many people who voted for Trump did so for one reason only: to prevent Hillary Clinton from becoming president. For them, it had little to do with Trump himself, whom they neither trusted nor liked. However, they trusted him more than they trusted her, they liked him better than they liked her, and they at least agreed with quite a few of the things he proposed whereas they agreed with none of hers.

Still other voters had no particular quarrel with what Trump was proposing in the policy sense, and also saw these proposals as opening bids up for negotiation later on, but were offended by a host of other things Trump did and said and had done and said throughout his life.

But now we’re in a very different phase of the Trump adventure. We’re only two and a half weeks from the inauguration, and it’s after that day that we will begin to see exactly what is real and what is bluster, what can be done and what can’t, what will be done and what won’t, and how other events in the country and the world will play out. I have little doubt about one thing: it will be interesting. And another: the press will attempt to give President Trump a very, very, very hard time.

New Year’s Eve: what are you doing?

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a slightly-edited version of a previous post.]

I have a confession to make: I’m not extraordinarily fond of New Years Eve.

Oh, back when I was a very little kid I remember liking it very much indeed. It was an opportunity to beg my parents to be allowed to stay up, and often I won that battle and had the thrill of watching the ball drop on TV.

Back then each year had seemed almost endless, and the punctuation of that last day, with its celebrations and dramatic turning of the number of the year into one we’d never seen before (wow! 1959! next, 1960!) was exciting and fresh. It also meant I was growing up, gaining in privilege and stature.

In high school it was still sort of fun—we went out in big packs, once or twice to Times Square to watch the whole thing in person. In college it became more problematic because I went home for Christmas vacation and was away from the boy friend de jour.

Then later on I was married. What do married people do on New Years? Parties still happened, but they were starting to end earlier and earlier (New Englanders don’t tend to be nightowls or wild partygoers, I’m afraid). For me they functioned mostly as an excuse for getting dressed up. It doesn’t help that I don’t drink much. Watching others get drunk has been an interesting spectator sport over the years, but not really my favorite activity.

As for that “growing in privilege and stature” thing—well, I’m kind of on the other side of that particular slope. Gaining in wisdom, perhaps; at least, that’s a consummation devoutly to be wished. And the passage of time seems to have accelerated at an alarming rate.

This year? Nada. Maybe visiting a friend to watch TV and have a sip of champagne. Maybe not.

And then on New Years Day: resolutions galore! Will they last more than a day this time? And the fervent hope that 2017 will be a much better one than 2016 was for this country, and the entire world.

So folks—what are you doing New Years Eve?

Happy Chanukah!

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of a previous post.]

This year Chanukah began on Christmas Eve. But since it has eight days, I still get a chance to wish you a happy one—tonight is the very last night to light the candles. And it happens to occur on New Years’ Eve. Nice symmetry.

The words of this Chanukah song in Yiddish—written in 1924 before the Holocaust and before the establishment of Israel—are not happy. But I didn’t know that when I first heard it, and I post it anyway because I think it’s very beautiful:

Here are the lyrics, as translated by Theodore Bikel (you can hear an excerpt of him singing it here):

O little lights of mystery
You recall our history
And all that went before
The battles and the bravery
And our release from slavery
Miracles galore.

As my eyes behold your flames
I recall our heroes’ names
And our ancient dream:
“Jews were learning how to fight
To defeat an awesome might
They could reign supreme”

“They would rule their own domain
When the enemy was slain,
The Temple cleansed and whole.
Once there was a Jewish land
And a mighty Jewish hand.”
Oh, how it moves my soul!

O little lights of mystery
You retell our history
Your tales are tales of pain.
My heart is filled with fears
My eyes are filled with tears
“What now?” says the haunting refrain.

Remember: written in 1924.

Bikel translated the song that way in order to make the rhymes come out. But a more literal translation of that last verse might be:

Oh little candles,
your old stories
awaken my anguish;
deep in my heart there
stirs
a tearful question:
What will be next?

Indeed.

Merkel’s New Year message expresses Europe’s immigration contradiction in a nutshell

The New Neo Posted on by

Angela Merkel tried to have it both ways in her New Year’s message to the German people.

First, she talked about the terrorist threat:

Islamist terrorism is the biggest challenge facing Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has said in her New Year message.

Referring to the deadly truck attack in Berlin by a Tunisian asylum seeker, she said it was “sickening” when acts of terror were carried out by people who had sought protection.

So, unlike our own president, Merkel does not minimize the terrorist threat, and she apparently calls it by its name: “Islamist terrorism.” (I say “apparently” because I don’t have a transcript of her speech and anyway I don’t speak German, so I’m relying on the report in the linked article.)

However, she also was careful to say this:

“As we go about our lives and our work, we are saying to the terrorists: ‘You are hate-filled murderers, but you do not determine how we live and want to live. We are free, considerate and open’,” Mrs Merkel said.

What does “considerate” mean? It almost makes me want to learn German, to understand her mentality here. Does it mean “polite”? “Working and playing well with others”? What does that mean, when speaking collectively?

And “open”? As in “committed to open borders”? Or “refusing to take proper security precautions”?

Merkel followed up with this:

…[T]he chancellor said images of the devastation in the Syrian city of Aleppo, where Syrian government forces have forced out rebels after months of fighting, showed how “important and right” it was for Germany to take in those fleeing the conflict.

Actually, it does no such thing. First of all, Germany has no way to tell who is actually fleeing the conflict and who is along for the ride and pretending to be fleeing the conflict. Secondly, just because a person needs to flee a conflict doesn’t mean that western European countries need to take that person in; there are plenty of Muslim countries who can do so (Turkey was doing quite a bit of it, for example, as was Jordan).

Thirdly (and probably most importantly), if Merkel would like Germany to remain “free, considerate, and open,” it had better take in people who are committed to freedom, consideration, and openness in a society. Those things are not particularly characteristic of the culture, religion, and society from which Syrian refugees come, and it’s an error of extreme magnitude to pretend that isn’t true or that it doesn’t matter.

So there’s a contradiction here.

I would assume that Merkel (and other European leaders who say much the same thing) knows it, too, but that she’s caught in a bind. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the strength of her belief that the power of the German people’s goodwill—their consideration and openness, and all those other kindly virtues—will prevail, and that if they just wish it hard enough, and are considerate and open enough, it will all work out.

How could this guy have been deported/removed 19 times and still return?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the story:

A Mexican man accused of raping a 13-year-old girl on a Greyhound bus that traveled through Kansas had been deported 10 times and voluntarily removed from the U.S. another nine times since 2003, records obtained by The Associated Press show…

Court filings show Martinez-Maldonado has two misdemeanor convictions for entering without legal permission in cases prosecuted in 2013 and 2015 in U.S. District Court of Arizona, where he was sentenced to serve 60 days and 165 days respectively.

A status hearing in the rape case is scheduled for Jan. 10. Defense attorney Lisa Hamer declined to comment on the charge, but said, “criminal law and immigration definitely intersect and nowadays it should be the responsibility of every criminal defense attorney to know the possible ramifications in the immigration courts.”

One of my first reactions (and perhaps yours, too) was, “this is the sort of thing that led to Donald Trump’s election.” You may recall that the very first furor about Trump, when he first declared his candidacy, was his claim that Mexico was exporting illegal immigrant rapists.

It’s not that quite a few of the illegal immigrants (most of whom, of course, are not rapists) aren’t being prosecuted for immigration violations. Some most definitely are:

Nationwide, 52 percent of all federal prosecutions in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 were for entry or re-entry without legal permission and similar immigration violations, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

That’s an awful lot of prosecutions. And Martinez-Maldonado was prosecuted, too. Just not effectively:

Records obtained by AP show Martinez-Maldonado had eight voluntary removals before his first deportation in 2010, which was followed by another voluntary removal that same year. He was deported five more times between 2011 and 2013.

In 2013, Martinez-Maldonado was charged with entering without legal permission, a misdemeanor, and subsequently deported in early 2014 after serving his sentence. He was deported again a few months later, as well as twice in 2015 ”” including the last one in October 2015 after he had served his second sentence, the records show.

You might even call Martinez-Maldonado a commuter.

There are remedies on the books, but:

ICE said in an emailed statement that when it encounters a person who’s been deported multiple times or has a significant criminal history and was removed, it routinely presents those cases to the U.S. attorney’s office for possible criminal charges.

Cosme Lopez, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona, declined comment on why prosecutors twice dismissed felony re-entry after deportation charges against Martinez-Maldonado in 2013 and 2015 in exchange for guilty pleas on misdemeanor entry charges.

That would be an interesting question for them to answer. Is it that they were overwhelmed with similar cases? Or had they given up on keeping this recidivist illegal immigrant out of the country? Or did they just not just think him dangerous enough to bother with a felony prosecution?

Most of Martinez-Maldonado’s family live in Mexico. But some live in the US (the article doesn’t say whether legally or illegally). Here’s their attorney speaking:

“(President-elect Donald Trump) can build a wall 100 feet high and 50 feet deep, but it is not going to keep family members separated. So if someone is deported and they have family members here … they will find a way back ”” whether it is through the air, under a wall, through the coast of the United States,” Trevino said.

Ah, but I bet it will deter quite a few of them. Plus, if Martinez-Maldonado’s family members who live in the US are illegally here also, why not deport them, too? If he’s so into family unification, why not unify the entire family in Mexico? And if his family residing in the US is here legally, there are legal avenues by which he could have applied to come here.