Haley in New Hamphire – plus Sununu

The New Neo Posted on by

Nikki Haley is doing well in New Hamphire, according to the polls. One of the reasons is that the popular NH Republican governor, Chris Sununu, has endorsed her.

Sununu is an interesting case. I think he would have been a shoo-in had he run for the Senate from NH in 2022 against the vulnerable Democrat incumbent, as he was expected to do. Instead, he announced that it was more important that he stay as governor. He did run for another two-year term as governor in 2022, but then announced about six months later that he wouldn’t be running for governor in 2024 either.

I guess it wasn’t so very important after all that he be the NH governor, because that leaves a very good possibility that a Democrat may win the NH governorship in 2024. Nor does this seeming retreat from politics mean that Sununu is actually retreating from politics, because he endorsed Haley a little over month ago, and has been making appearances with her. Sununu has made it clear he doesn’t like Trump, and his Haley endorsement should be seen in that light.

In New Hampshire, anyone can vote in the GOP primary unless the person is a registered Democrat. And even registered Democrats can fairly easily change their registration to “undeclared” and vote for one of the GOP candidates. It has to be done by a certain date – this year it was apparently in early October – but many many people just register as “undeclared” in general in order to keep their options open. It’s no secret that Haley is favored by Democrats and Democrat-leaners in the state, and there is a great deal of money behind her.

House GOP election security guidelines bill

The New Neo Posted on by

The House has come up with a model bill for states to follow in order to secure their elections. It’s a good effort, I think. But it’s the sort of thing that only will be passed in states with GOP legislatures, GOP governors, and conservative judges who won’t overturn it when it’s challenged in the courts by the left.

Here are some excerpts from the bill:

Titled, “The Uniform State American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act,” the legislative tool kit provides 13 recommended state laws “to increase voters’ confidence and promote election integrity.” Many of the policies are modeled after the ACE Act, a federal measure containing similar provisions that House Republicans introduced last year. The bill was passed by the Committee on House Administration in July and is awaiting a full House floor vote.

Included in the Uniform State ACE Act are policies long-supported by election integrity activists, including voter ID and proof of residency requirements for individuals voting in person or by mail. Despite Democrats’ claims that ID requirements suppress non-white voters, the vast majority of U.S. voters — including those who are black and Hispanic — support such election safeguards. Several courts have also recently shot down Democrat-backed lawsuits alleging voter-ID laws “suppress” voters.

Another policy suggested is a mandate to regularly remove ineligible voters from state voter rolls. This would include removing any non-citizens on the list. …

Also included in the Uniform State ACE Act is a recommendation that states prohibit private funding of elections [such as “Zuckbucks”].

These things should be no-brainers for states to pass. They are simply obvious basic safeguards. But as I said, only GOP-controlled states will pass them, and the control has to be solid.

You may recall that, the next time the Democrats get control of the federal government, they are planning to pass HR1 or its equivalent, a federal uniform voting act that will make it impossible for states to employ these safeguards of voting security. This is an enormously important part of the Democrats’ platform, one of which many people are unaware. If the Democrats win both houses of Congress and the presidency, many more people will become aware, but it will probably be too late.

This and that

The New Neo Posted on by

Today I woke up in a funk. There are probably many reasons, and quite a few of them involve the news. I probably don’t need to list the things in the news that disturb me – the triumph of the knaves, the fools, and the knavish fools and foolish knaves. You know the drill.

I also recently was informed of the extremely serious illness of an old friend, and those messages come more and more frequently these days. You probably know the drill on that, too.

That said, I’ll just note that today I learned from comments in the Open Thread that the DOJ has issued a report on Uvalde. I haven’t read it yet, but I will. It reminds me that I’ve never published that long-promised report of my own on the same subject. So many other pressing things intervened that I kept putting it off. I’ll try to take the enormously long and disorganized draft I wrote ages ago and make it into a post or series of posts soon. I can almost guarantee my take on Uvalde will be significantly different than that of the DOJ.

Open thread 1/19/24

The New Neo Posted on by

Can it really be true that they’ve never met before and haven’t worked this out in advance? I think that’s the case:

Here’s the same guy doing another improv with a different woman:

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Here’s a link to a story about October 7 and its aftermath (hat tip: commenter “sdferr”), although I warn all of you that it describes a Palestinian atrocity so barbaric that you might not want to read about it. However, I’m posting the link because I think the event is emblematic of the horror Israel is fighting – one that all civilized people should be fighting.

(2) More on the FBI’s war on the right:

Federal investigators asked banks to search and filter customer transactions by using terms like “MAGA” and “Trump” as part of an investigation into Jan. 6, warning that purchases of “religious texts” could indicate “extremism,” the House Judiciary Committee revealed Wednesday in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital has learned the committee also obtained documents that indicate officials suggested that banks query transactions with keywords like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shops and more.

The House Judiciary Committee and its subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government have been conducting oversight of federal law enforcement’s “receipt of information about American citizens without legal process and its engagement with the private sector.”

We are very deep in the weeds.

(3) Pakistan and Iran are having a skirmish:

Pakistan carried out a series of deadly military strikes on what it said were separatist militant hideouts inside Iran, in the latest incident across their shared border that has sent tensions between the two neighbors soaring.

The new strikes mean both Pakistan and Iran have now taken the extraordinary step of attacking militants on each other’s soil this week at a time of expanding conflict in the Middle East and wider region. …

Pakistan’s operation comes a day after Iran said it used “precision missile and drone strikes,” to destroy two strongholds of the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl in Pakistan’s southwest Balochistan province, according to the Tasnim news agency.

The strikes killed two children and wounded several others, according to local officials and Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, which described the attack as an “unprovoked violation of its airspace by Iran” and warned Iran of “serious consequences.”

Intra-Islamic violence has been a thing for a long time.

(4) Blinken thinks Israel should promise to give the Palestinians with a state. Now, where have we heard that before?:

The secretary of state returned to Washington, the officials said, having been rebuffed by Netanyahu on all but one of the administration’s asks: an understanding that Israel would not attack Hezbollah in Lebanon. …

Blinken’s major achievement on the trip was getting a commitment from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and four other Arab leaders to help rebuild Gaza after the war, multiple senior administration officials said. The Arab leaders also agreed to support a new, reformed Palestinian government to secure Gaza, the officials said. The Saudi crown prince offered to normalize relations with Israel as part of a Gaza reconstruction agreement — a diplomatic development Netanyahu has long sought — but only if the Israeli leader agrees to provide Palestinians with a pathway to statehood, the officials said.

Netanyahu rejected the offer, officials said, telling Blinken that he’s not prepared to make a deal that allows for a Palestinian state. And now three senior U.S. officials say the Biden administration is looking past Netanyahu to try to achieve its goals in the region. Several senior U.S. officials told NBC News that Netanyahu “will not be there forever.”

Neither will Blinken and Biden, I suppose. The idea of some sort of Palestinian reconstruction supervised by others is fine, in the abstract. But who are the others? What would the marks be that Gaza’s government has “reformed”? How is that supposed to happen if Hamas isn’t destroyed militarily (and even if it is destroyed, “reforming” the area is quite the task)? And they want Netanyahu to make this deal now, after October 7, and while hostages are still being tortured in Gaza? Insane. Let’s reward barbaric terrorism.

(5) Anti-HIV drugs may be able to combat sepsis. I’ve written about sepsis several times before.

Hamas anti-Israel supporters harass children getting treated for cancer at Sloan Kettering

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m referring to this:

Thousands of anti-Israel protesters descended on Manhattan to demand a cease-fire in Gaza on Monday, with some even targeting a respected hospital for cancer patients over its alleged “complicity in genocide.”

The protesters shouted “Shame!” at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center while patients received treatment on the Upper East Side before targeting a Starbucks and a McDonald’s restaurant they reportedly accused of making “meals for genocide.”

“Make sure they hear you. They’re [patients, including children] in the window,” an organizer said on a bullhorn outside Sloan Kettering, according to footage posted on social media.

Someone in the crowd beat a drum as scores chanted: “MSK shame on you, you support genocide, too.”

And how does this hospital supposedly “support genocide”? The protesters are referring not to the genocide Hamas perpetrated, of course. They’re referring to the “genocide” accusations that have been given credence by the kangaroo court known as the ICJ.

And I think this explanation by a protester who was interviewed lets us know how complicit the MSM is in whipping up the kind of sentiment we see in this demonstration, and how the word is spread through social media, in order to affect young adults in particular:

One anti-Israel protester, 18, told The Post the images of Gaza have pulled at her heartstrings and motivated her to call for a cease-fire even though she isn’t Palestinian.

“It’s really been weighing heavy on my heart just seeing it on my timeline,” the resident who grew up in NYC said. “Every single day it’s a different child.”

So, why Sloan Kettering? Here’s the ostensible reason:

An organizers said the cancer center is a “complicit institution” for collaborating with Israeli medical centers.

And also:

An organizer for the pro-Palestine group Within Our Lifetime attempted to explain their rhetoric on X, accusing the hospital of accepting money from pro-Israel billionaires.

‘Sloan Kettering accepted a *400 million dollar donation* from billionaire Zionist Ken Griffin, the largest in their history. This was *after* he threatened pro-Palestine student activists at Harvard with revoked job offers. Our medical institutions are not innocent bystanders.’ But others were horrified by the behavior.

One can’t help but conclude that not only are the organizers of the pro-Hamas march in favor of harassing child cancer patients, but they’re against cancer research itself if that research has anything to do with Israel. This says a great deal about the protesters and their anti-life alliance with the anti-life jihadi killers. And people like that 18-year-old weeping for the poor Palestinian children should be weeping for the fact that Hamas wants its children to die, and puts them in harm’s way, in order to create publicity that affects people like her and causes them to support a murderous life-denying cause.

The organizers of these marches, and the hard leftists who participate, know they are not going to win anyone else over by this sort of action. But that’s not their goal. Their goal is to frighten and subdue and pressure; to cause as much trouble as possible and as much disruption as possible. They also are trying to frighten institutions like Sloan Kettering and so many others into “buying” protection (like in a Mafia shakedown) by complying and denouncing Israel or making statements supporting a ceasefire or at least not supporting Israel or having Israeli doctors there or taking donations from pro-Israelis or whatever the gripes might be. This is to let all other businesses know: if we would do this to child cancer patients, you’d better believe we’d do it to you.

No, Trump isn’t the only person “who can save America”

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “that guy.”]

Right at the outset, the title of this piece annoyed me: “Only Trump Can Save America.” My quarrel with it? No one person can “save America,” although one person – if elected president – can certainly help it begin to happen. But to do that, such a person would first have to get elected. Is Trump that person? I’m not at all sure he could get elected, although I’m pretty sure he could and will get nominated by the GOP.

Is DeSantis or is Haley that person? I definitely think DeSantis could be that person – but again, he’d have to get nominated first and then elected. Neither looks probable at this point, and neither has looked probable for many many months. So I pretty much gave up on that long ago.

I realized quite early in the campaign season that Trump was almost certainly going to be the nominee – barring black swan events – and I don’t know why everyone else didn’t realize it as well. I have long seen the race for second place as a competition to be the Trump alternative if something were to happen that would mean Trump couldn’t run, and I therefore think it’s fine if the second-place race continues for at least a while.

From the article:

Those of us who backed Ron DeSantis – or the other Republican candidates – should read the room. Former President Trump winnowed the field effortlessly and then crushed the remaining three candidates in Iowa. He leads in the polls everywhere else.

Is the writer, Steve Cortes, just noticing that? Is he only now “reading the room”? But it’s been quite obvious almost from the start of the race. Iowa was merely a demonstration of what has been apparent for ages.

Then he follows up with this:

It is time to coalesce and unite behind the clear preference of the GOP grassroots, Donald John Trump.

No, it’s not. As I’ve said before, that second-place battle is important. A lot of Republican voters don’t prefer Trump, and they don’t want to be prematurely deprived of their chance to vote for alternatives in the primaries. This is not a coronation.

Cortes continues:

We do not have the luxury of further internal strife and instead must gird for an epic battle this autumn against our opponents who are inflicting daily damage upon America.

“Internal strife” has long been a GOP constant, so forget about ending it. And calling to prematurely unite behind Trump when the primaries have barely begun might even increase that strife, because many Republican voters – probably close to half – might resent it.

And if the GOP leaders haven’t already been “girding for an epic battle this autumn against our opponents,” then we’re in even bigger trouble. It is possible to have several candidates competing in the primaries while at the same time not just “girding” for a battle later on against Democrats, but fighting that battle right now.

The DOJ knew right away that Hunter’s laptop was Hunter’s laptop

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, I’ll be gobsmacked. Fancy this:

Of course they knew, and most people on the right knew they knew. But the press and fifty “intelligence officers” were eager to suppress that news and create an alternate reality in which the whole thing was Russian “disinformation” and Joe Biden’s election would not be unduly affected.

I wonder how many Democrats will get this new information about the coverup, and how many will care – after all, isn’t lying about the laptop (and just about everything else) well worth it in order to prevent the demonic Trump from being elected?

Here’s a trip back in time – from a post I wrote in late October of 2020, not long after the outset of the Hunter laptop stories in the NY Post and prior to the 2020 election:

Well, we already knew the FBI was given the Hunter laptop in December of 2019, didn’t we? …

And now the following has been reported by James Rosen:

“A Justice Department official confirmed to journalist James Rosen of Sinclair Broadcasting Group that in 2019 the FBI ‘opened up a criminal investigation into Hunter Biden and his associates that is focused on allegations of money laundering and remains open and active today.'” …

So, what was the FBI doing with the laptop [till late in 2020]? Perhaps Toobining themselves?

Whatever they were doing, they kept mighty mum about it …

Or, as Ace wrote today:

They [the DOJ] verified that the laptop was Hunter’s in 2019. They compared information on the laptop to information from Hunter’s Apple accounts and determined it was the same information.

And then they lied and lied and lied to the American public.

One of the saddest things of all is how little any of this surprises us anymore.

Haley’s support and other election 2024 matters

The New Neo Posted on by

Nikki Haley’s supporters in Iowa are Biden-friendly (or Biden-adjacent):

nearly half of [Haley’s Iowa voters] — 43% — [said] they’d vote for Democratic President Joe Biden over Trump.

These new findings from the latest NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa further illustrate the degree to which Haley is bringing in support from independents, Democrats and Republicans who have been uneasy with Trump’s takeover of the GOP. Fully half of her Iowa caucus supporters are independents or crossover Democrats, according to the survey results.

This makes perfect sense. It’s exactly the demographic to which Haley would be likely to appeal. The GOP base, of course, is loyal to Trump, and my guess is that many would not vote for Haley were she to be the nominee – which I predict won’t be happening anyway. But the split between a candidate who seems to appeal to moderate and especially Independent voters, such as Haley, and one who appeals to the conservative right is an old old story.

My favored candidate remains DeSantis. But unless he can make big inroads in New Hampshire in the next week, Haley will best him there – probably as a result of crossover votes from Democrats and Independents. Crossover votes represent a flaw in the primary system in my opinion. They’re not as much of a problem in a year in which both parties’ primaries are very competitive, but this year Biden has it locked up (if the powers behind the throne don’t give him the hook, that is), and so Biden supporters feel free to meddle in the Republican primaries in states that allow it.

Haley has refused to attend a planned debate in New Hampshire with DeSantis for the ostensible reason that Trump won’t be there. That reason doesn’t pass the smell test. She has attended many debates, including one recently with DeSantis, without Trump. I think her refusal now is that she’s way ahead in NH polls and she did somewhat poorly against DeSantis in her one-on-one debate with him, so why risk it? DeSantis has rightly called her on this:

Making his case to host Wolf Blitzer and an audience of New Hampshire voters, including registered Republicans and undeclared voters, DeSantis made the point that he is the sole remaining candidate who hasn’t refused to show up and debate his opponents.

He said at this point he was the only one not running a “basement campaign.” Good point, but I don’t know if this will help him. That link to the DeSantis talk has some interesting remarks of his about many other things, such as baseball and why he joined the military.

As I’ve said many times, though, I believe Trump will be the nominee. Will Biden be his party’s nominee? I continue to think it more likely than not because a mechanism for removal and a good replacement hasn’t been found. And to those who say “Michelle Obama,” I say that if she had wanted to run she’d have run in 2020 instead of Joe.

I’ve read here and elsewhere that Trump might pick Elise Stefanik as his running mate. I think that would be a good choice, but I have no idea what he’s thinking.