Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Author: New Neo

Profile photo

New Neo

Neo is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at the new neo.

Posted by New Neo on June 12, 2014 19 Comments
If Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, her Republican opponent had better show part of this clip. I'm surprised it isn't being talked about more, because it is positively Obaman in its offensiveness and duplicity, and its contempt for the listener. It also comes across as insincere and unconvincing, but that never stopped Obama either: Let's contemplate that in print:
These five guys are not a threat to the United States. They are a threat to the safety and security of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s up to those two countries to make the decision once and for all that these are threats to them. So I think we may be kind of missing the bigger picture here. We want to get an American home, whether they fell off the ship because they were drunk or they were pushed or they jumped, we try to rescue everybody.
Hillary must think the American people have forgotten why we went into Afghanistan in the first place. Maybe they have; after all, what difference does it make? It happened so long ago---twelve and a half years, and even longer ago by the time the 2016 election rolls around---that a great many of the voters to whom Hillary expects to appeal would have been little children back then.

Posted by New Neo on June 10, 2014 14 Comments
As soon as Obama was elected it became a foregone conclusion that this would be the result in Iraq---that the country would be taken over by the worst forces in the area. Since then, it's been a slow denouement:
Insurgents seized control early Tuesday of most of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, including the provincial government headquarters, offering a powerful demonstration of the mounting threat posed by extremists to Iraq’s teetering stability. Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda offshoot, overran the entire western bank of the city overnight after Iraqi soldiers and police apparently fled their posts, in some instances discarding their uniforms as they sought to escape the advance of the militants... The collapse of government forces in Mosul echoed the takeover earlier this year of the town of Fallujah in western Anbar province, where U.S. troops fought some of their fiercest battles of the Iraq war...
The Iraqi government is asking for international and/or US help, "by virtue of the Joint Cooperation agreement between the two countries." But that horse left the barn a long time ago. As a result of Obama's decisions regarding the Iraq pullout, there are not even any residual US forces left in the country, as remain in so many other places where Americans have fought and died:

Posted by New Neo on June 09, 2014 35 Comments
The illegal immigration situation in this country seems to have gone from dreadful to utter chaos, with no end in sight. This is absolutely disturbing on so many levels it's hard to process. Also, as a side issue, are Jan Brewer and Arizona being punished by the Obama administration?:
Hundreds of migrants nabbed by the border patrol after illegally crossing the US-Mexico border through Texas have been flown to Arizona and left at Greyhound Bus stations in Tucson and Phoenix during the past month...Critics charge that released border-crossers will vanish into the woodwork. Immigrant advocates accuse the federal government of releasing migrants without providing enough basic necessities such as food and water on days that hover around 100 degrees F. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) calls it "another disturbing example of a deliberate failure to enforce border security policies and repair a broken immigration system" in a letter to President Obama.
Yeah, a letter! That'll do it. Although to be honest, I don't know what the remedy would be. Even impeachment wouldn't do it at this point, because fixing this would require that both parties be dedicated to tightening both border security and lessening the cornucopia of services available to illegal immigrants, which would require some harsh and extremely difficult decisions that I don't think our politicians are up to. The CS Monitor offers more background here on why the number of illegal child immigrants has been increasing during the last two years:

Posted by New Neo on June 05, 2014 35 Comments
Nothing about the Bergdahl/Taliban affair should have been surprising to people who have studied Obama over the years. Not Obama's audacity, nor his disregard of prior bipartisan warnings in Congress or from the intelligence community, nor his aides' attempts to discredit those from Bergdahl's unit who are calling Bergdahl a deserter or worse, nor Obama's refusal to offer any apologies whatsoever for his actions in this affair, nor his lies and broken promises, nor the fact that quite a few Democrats are lining up to defend him like the good party hacks that they are. An intellectual reaction is one thing. But there's still an emotional reaction---what Peter Wehner referred to as a visceral reaction---which is to be stunned, disgusted, outraged, and full of trepidation about both the long-term effects of this move and what Obama will be doing for a series of encores. I've been wanting to know what the American electorate thinks of it all. Today I read that the results of a Fox News poll showed Americans evenly split on the subject, and that news surprised me, too, although it probably shouldn't have.

Posted by New Neo on June 05, 2014 26 Comments
There's a growing sense that, at least for now, the Bergdahl/Taliban exchange and its fallout has the left spooked. Maybe Obama will wriggle out of this mess, too, either by way of the same tricks that have extricated him from so-called "scandals" such as Benghazi, or by distracting us in some new and horrific way. Or maybe there will be a hurricane somewhere that can provide a serendipitous photo-op to impress those Americans who have political attention-deficit disorder. But at the moment this story, probably more than any other incident of Obama's presidency, is one that makes him look bad. It appears to simultaneously expose his disregard for the safety of America and Americans, his sympathy for fundamentalist Islamist governments, his failure to do his homework, his drive towards greater executive power, his disregard for Congress (including some members of both parties) and the law itself, his mendacity, and the stupidity and collaboration of his advisors in all of the above. I may have left something out, but you get the idea. The military men and women who served with Bergdahl and on whom Obama counted to keep their mouths shut are (unlike the diplomats in Benghazi) speaking up and telling what they know. The NY Times and Time and other organs that normally can be counted on to carry Obama's water are spilling it all over the place. That leaves lonely folk such as TNR's Brian Beutler and Esquire's Charles P. Pierce doing their level best to convince the world that it's only vile Republicans complaining about the swap, and that their carping is motivated by petty politics and a cold attitude towards the suffering of prisoners of war.

Posted by New Neo on June 02, 2014 42 Comments
So, we have Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl released in exchange for five of the most notorious Taliban held in Guantanamo, the place Obama keeps saying he wants to empty. This certainly helps to empty it. The five men will now be held by Qatar, which has reassured us they'll be in secure conditions but won't say what those conditions are, except that they can't travel out of the country for a year. Qatar is a Wahabi country, by the way, with a history of assisting Islamic movements worldwide. Obama has been winding down the Afghan War, and one of his stalled goals in connection with that is negotiations with the Taliban. So it may be that the release of these particular prisoners wasn't just a reluctant move in order to free Bergdahl, it may be more accurate to say that Bergdahl's release was negotiated at this point in time in order to free the Taliban Five:
The official’s comments hinted that the deal is seen as potentially helping the Afghan government, which soon will have a new president, in efforts to end strife with the Taliban -- a point seconded by Jonah Blank, a senior political scientist at the Santa Monica, California-based RAND Corporation. “The Taliban prisoners released weren’t mere bargaining chips: It’s quite possible that, as influential figures, they’ll facilitate a broader negotiated settlement,” in Afghanistan, said Blank, a former staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Doesn't sound as though the plan is to keep them locked up in Qatar, does it?

Posted by New Neo on May 28, 2014 21 Comments
Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, under sentence of death for apostasy, has given birth in a Sudanese prison to a daughter. In reaction to her imprisonment and death sentence, the US Embassy in Sudan has released a statement protesting her incarceration, and a few US Senators have also supported her. Others, including Kelly Ayotte of NH (Ibrahim's wheelchair-bound husband, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, is from Sudan but is a US citizen and a resident of New Hampshire), have gone further and written a letter:
...asking John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, to offer political asylum to Ibrahim. "We also urge you and President Obama to reappoint an Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, whose primary purpose is to monitor, prevent, and respond to this exact type of incident," the letter stated.
Some groups such as Amnesty International are on the case as well. And what of President Barack Obama? The guy who spoke up readily in the Henry Louis Gates arrest and the Zimmerman case? The answer appears to be silence---at least so far---as well as silence from Secretary of State John Kerry. Obama is in the same position vis a vis Islam as Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag herself, by the way, although of course he's not in prison for apostasy. Here are the facts of her life as reported:

Posted by New Neo on May 21, 2014 4 Comments

The recent news about commencement speakers being scared away or disinvited or staying the course despite adversity or giving students a tongue-lashing might make you want to return to a commencement address from an earlier time. That time was 1956, nearly a full sixty years ago....

Posted by New Neo on May 20, 2014 23 Comments
Why would any conservative believe anything Valerie Jarrett says about what John Boehner promised to do? Conservatives have good reason to neither like nor trust Boehner. In addition, conservatives have been betrayed by the GOP before, so often that they've come to expect it. But seriously, what reason would Valerie Jarrett have to be telling the truth when she says this?:
President Barack Obama's top adviser and confidant [sic] told a group of global elites on Thursday in Las Vegas, Nevada that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has made a commitment to the White House to try to pass amnesty legislation this year...Valerie Jarrett, Obama's senior advisor, told attendees at the yearly invitation-only SkyBridge Alternatives Conference that Boehner would help the White House make a push [to] get immigration reform enacted in the next three months.
I can't think of a reason to trust her. I can, however, think of a reason or two why she would lie. The first would be to get people on the left pumped and enthusiastic about amnesty's chances. The second would be to cause the right to start railing at Bohener and calling him a traitor. There's no real downside to inciting a civil war among your opposition. That said, we have no idea what Boehner will actually do on immigration, and there's no good reason to trust him. But I wouldn't trust Jarrett as far as I could throw her to report accurately on Boehner's true intentions or even on what Boehner told her his true intentions were, or to report on her own true intentions. Boehner has denied making any such promises to Democrats, by the way. And Jarrett herself has backtracked and offered the following clarification:
Boehner has made [a] commitment to trying, not that he has made [a] commitment to us or time frame.
Everything clear now?

Posted by New Neo on May 16, 2014 12 Comments
Or rather, on this woman:
New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson was abruptly fired from the paper Wednesday, sources familiar with the news informed POLITICO. Managing editor Dean Baquet will take over as executive editor, effective immediately... “I choose to appoint a new leader for our newsroom because I believe that new leadership will improve some aspects of the management of the newsroom,” Sulzberger said. “This is not about any disagreement between the newsroom and the business side.”... Throughout her tenure, Abramson suffered from perceptions among staff that she was condescending and combative... The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta reported that Sulzberger had grown frustrated with Abramson after she pushed for more pay upon learning that her salary was significantly lower than that of her male predecessors.
Abramson apparently alienated some of those with jobs above her and below her. The key figure above her appears to have been Sulzberger. Among the ones positioned below her was the man who has ended up replacing her, Dean Baquet, an African-American who is reported to have been well-liked at the Times and in his previous job. The Abramson firing has caused a big brouhaha and engendered many articles and much blog commentary. But perhaps the most informative is a piece that appeared in New York Magazine. It describes a situation in which Sulzberger never wanted Abramson anyway and gave her the job reluctantly at the outset, only to become more annoyed by her. Much of his annoyance seems to have stemmed from her bluntness in telling some people (one of them being Baquet, whom Sulzberger seemed quite tight with) that they weren't doing their jobs all that well:

Posted by New Neo on May 10, 2014 10 Comments
Fact-checker Glenn Kessler at the WaPo says that Obama's gone and lied again:
In addressing a dinner of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Los Angeles, President Obama made a rather striking claim — that Senate Republicans have filibustered “500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class.”... ...[W]hen you go through the numbers, there have just been 133 successful filibusters — meaning a final vote could not take place — since 2007. But, even if you accept the way Senate Democrats like to frame the issue, the president is still wrong. He referred to “legislation” — and most of these cloture motions concerned judicial and executive branch nominations. In the 113th Congress, for instance, 83 of the 136 cloture motions so far have concerned nominations, not legislation. Even then, while Obama referred to “500 pieces of legislation,” the same bill can be subject to as many as three cloture motions, further inflating the numbers...So far in the 113th Congress, 36 pieces of legislation were subject to a cloture motion — and 12 were actually filibustered... Obama’s count also includes at least a half-dozen instances when Republicans were blocked by Democrats through use of the filibuster.
But that's not all, although it would be enough to earn as many Pinocchios as the WaPo allows. In what Kessler refers to as "the biggest oddity":

Posted by New Neo on May 08, 2014 35 Comments
What happened in North Carolina Tuesday night? I think that blogger CAC at Ace's hits the nail on the head in this post, and points out a problem that GOP conservatives had better figure out a solution to or they'll be griping even more about the vast-RINO-conspiracy against them:
I've seen a lot of hemming and hawing about how the villainous Karl Rove and his band of toads flooded the zone and dragged "their guy" Tillis across the finish line in yesterday's North Carolina primary... ...[But] over 54% of Republican primary voters did not vote for Tillis. Had these other voters consolidated behind a single candidate, as the establishment always does even if they have to switch gears to do so (see the maneuvering to push Christie out and test Bush), Brannon or Harris would be the one facing Senator Hagan. Conservatives jump from candidate to candidate in a lot of these races, and the more who throw their hat into the ring, the further it dilutes their voice in the primary.
CAC calls it the Baskin-Robbins problem. But whatever you want to call it, it consists of the fact that the Tea Party, a group of individualists, must somehow coalesce behind the best conservative candidate in each race if it is going to both maximize its power and choose an individual who actually has a chance of winning in the general, although it's not at all clear that either Brannon or Harris would have been that person in this particular race.

Posted by New Neo on May 05, 2014 37 Comments

This should have been big news from the moment the girls were kidnapped: Fears for the fate of more than 200 Nigerian girls [kidnapped from school on April 14, almost 3 weeks ago] turned even more nightmarish Monday when the leader of the Islamist militant [sic:...

Posted by New Neo on May 05, 2014 63 Comments

When MSNBC host Krystal Ball opined on what she considered the true meaning of George Orwell's Animal Farm, her comments met with a storm of derision from the right. Here's what Ball said, and at first glance it seems preposterous: Animal Farm, hmmm — isn’t that Orwell’s...

Posted by New Neo on April 29, 2014 11 Comments
I'm recommending the book Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties by David Horowitz and Peter Collier. It's a chilling document, especially because---unlike in 1989, when the book was first written---it's become more and more clear that the left's long Gramscian march through our institutions has been largely successful. The book's first chapter---the story of Fay Stender, is a tale of such sadness it's almost unbearable. Stender was an idealistic leftist lawyer who defended, and had affairs with, black prisoners such as Huey Newton and "Soledad Brother" George Jackson, and was later shot by another black con after her supposed "betrayal" of Jackson. Stender's life trajectory wasn't just sad, of course. It was offensive and outrageous and anger-provoking, and not just for what was done to her but for her own role in it. But it was also sad. It was sad that Stender was so naive in the first place as to dedicate her life to defending a group of socipathic con men who happened to talk a good line of racial victimization, sad that she deceived herself so greatly in her perverted idealism. It was sad that, when she finally realized who and what they really were, it was too late to save herself (or others) from their revenge although she tried her best. Sad (although ultimately good, if it's truth you're after) that she lost her illusions even before her former buddies managed to get her, and sad that, prior to their destroying her physically, she had realized her life's work was a sham and a betrayal of the principles she had thought she was defending. Sad and ironic that, at the trial of the man who had shot her five times and left her in horrific unremitting pain and paralyzed from the waist down as well as handicapped in the use of her arms, his defense (unsuccessful, at least) was based on the sorts of arguments she had formerly used to defend other black activist criminals. You might say that Stender got what she deserved, but I see her story as tragic despite (or perhaps because of?) her own role in her destruction and the destruction of others.

Posted by New Neo on April 24, 2014 21 Comments
Taking away the bulk of the rich's money will fix income inequality, according to French economist Thomas Piketty:
Piketty's terror at rising inequality is an important data point for the reader. It has perhaps influenced his judgment and his tendentious reading of his own evidence. It could also explain why the book has been greeted with such erotic intensity....
It's no surprise that the idea of levying enormously high taxes on rich people's money has had rising support in this era of proudly unearned self-esteem and entitlement, as well as decline in the power of religious prohibitions such as the commandment against covetousness. More at the WSJ:
While America's corporate executives are his special bête noire, Mr. Piketty is also deeply troubled by the tens of millions of working people—a group he disparagingly calls "petits rentiers"—whose income puts them nowhere near the "one percent" but who still have savings, retirement accounts and other assets. That this very large demographic group will get larger, grow wealthier and pass on assets via inheritance is "a fairly disturbing form of inequality." He laments that it is difficult to "correct" because it involves a broad segment of the population, not a small elite that is easily demonized.
Oh, but it can be done. Where there's a will, there's a way. Piketty need only take lessons from Stalin re the kulaks, and from Pol Pot re---well, re just about everybody.

Posted by New Neo on April 18, 2014 10 Comments

It's the holiday season, one of those rare years when Passover and Easter come close together, as they did during the original Easter. So I get a twofer when I wish my readers "Happy Holidays!" In recent years whenever I've attended a Seder I've been impressed...

Accessibility by WAH