Hormuz again

The New Neo Posted on by

Open? Closed? Half-open?

You be the judge. See this:

The U.S. military has quietly established a shipping corridor in and out of the Strait of Hormuz to transport millions of barrels of oil each day — a notable success even as the broader war remains at a stalemate, two U.S. officials told Axios.

Under the operation, which has been underway for the last several weeks, 15–20 tankers have entered and exited the strait each night through a southern channel along the coast of Oman.

About 10 million barrels of oil a day — roughly half the pre-war volume — are being transported out of the strait and injected into the global energy market, the officials said.

And there’s this:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already enacted numerous sanctions and economic punishments against the Islamic Republic of Iran as the conflict with the U.S. grinds on, but President Trump took to Truth Social Wednesday evening to announce he’s taking things to a whole new level.

Using his trademark all-caps style, he promised to unleash an “ECONOMIC D-DAY” that will be the “MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!” He also warned other nations that if they throw any lifelines to the mullahs, they will pay a steep cost courtesy of the U.S.

Seems to me we’ve heard this before.

Sinema the homewrecker

The New Neo Posted on by

Former Senator Kyrsten Sinema is currently embroiled in a rather odd – and somewhat archaic – lawsuit. It turns out that Sinema (who was considered the first “out” bisexual senator) had an affair with her bodyguard Matthew Ammel, who was married and the father of two.

Hazard of the bodyguard trade, it seems. After all, it’s an intimate relationship of sorts, just not ordinarily that sort.

Ammel’s ex-wife is suing Sinema for “alienation of affection.” Boy, does that phrase evoke memories. When I was in law school a long time ago, it was one of a host of terms often involved back then in divorce law, such as “loss of consortium” and “condonation” and “collusion.” In particular, “alienation of affection” always seemed an odd offense to me. After all, it’s the spouse who makes the promise to be faithful, and if he or she strays I think the responsibility is wholly with that person rather than the paramour.

The idea of the nearly irresistible “homewrecker,” however, is apparently still alive and well and living in North Carolina:

Ammel’s now-ex-wife sued Sinema, 50, last year alleging “alienation of affection,” taking advantage of North Carolina’s “homewrecker law,” which permits women to seek damages from their ex-spouse’s lovers.

Heather Ammel is asking for more than $75,000 in compensation.

But Sinema, the first openly bisexual member of congress, claimed in court that she had no romantic feelings [for] Matthew during the final months of her political career in 2024.

“I’m not like that,” Sinema told her attorney, Steven Epstein, when asked under oath about the tone of her conversations with her bodyguard..

“When the opportunity presented itself, and when Mr. Ammel approached me, we had sex,” she added flatly.

Wow, that’s cold.

And the ex-wife is asking only $75K? That seems rather archaic, too.

But it’s the term “homewrecker” that brings up really ancient memories for me. When I was a kid, I loved the movie “Damn Yankees.” Saw it many times. I hadn’t thought of it in ages, but since I’m one of those odd people who remembers song lyrics to just about every Broadway musical from the 1940s through the 1960s, I recall that Ray Walston as the Devil says to Gwen Verdon as his sexy assistant Lola in the intro to one of the songs, “There isn’t a homewrecker on my staff better than you, Lola. But this fellow is stubborn.”

Verdon wasn’t conventionally beautiful, but she was exceptionally charming and a fabulous dancer. She played the role of Lola (“Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets”) with a tongue-in-cheek humor and lightness. Anyway, here’s the “homewrecker” scene. When I was a child, I loved the lavender decor, too:

Rich socialists as champions of the working class

The New Neo Posted on by

But the working class in the US doesn’t seem to think so; they don’t vote for the DSA candidates, for the most part. The DSA gets its support from the dissatisfied and yet well-educated scions of the comfortable and wealthy.

Here’s a DSA leader:

Gustavo Gordillo, the 38-year-old co-chair of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, is peddling his anti-capitalist lefty agenda while enjoying the life in the two-story, nearly 2,000-square-foot row home on a gentrifying tree-lined block in Bed-Stuy. …

The Ivy League [Yale] radical’s converted single-family home was bought in 2019 by his mommy and daddy through a dummy corporation, Chucuito LLC, for just under $1 million, property records show.

Since then, it has undergone a major facelift, with renovations done to its entire front facade, the planting of lush landscaping, the revamping of the interior and the addition a pair of decks on the roof as well as near the front door, according to plans filed with the borough in 2023. …

“My son and my other son both live there,” Gordillo’s father said …

Here are some of Gordillo’s plans for landlords. Somehow I think that he might give his own parents a pass on this, considering that he’s the beneficiary of their property-holding. Then again, he’s probably not paying them anything to live in the building, and perhaps his goal is to confiscate the property from his selfish (Boomer?) parents and take it for himself:

Gordillo and his DSA comrades have meanwhile railed against property ownership, calling for a redistribution of land “from landowners to the landless.” …

“We don’t think that anybody should have the constitutional right to double-digit returns on their investment,” he said.

For years he claimed to be an electrician, but his history in that arena was unclear until the NY Post uncovered the following:

Former Yale University liberal arts student Gustavo Gordillo, 38, was fired from his apprenticeship program in March after ghosting his employer for months, meaning he never made it as a fully-credentialed electrician, the IBEW Local 3 union confirmed Wednesday.

“After learning of Mr. Gordillo’s prolonged absence from and failure to participate in required work and classes, the trustees of the Joint Apprentice Training Committee terminated Mr. Gordillo from the program,” the IBEW said in a statement.

A source close to the union said “he didn’t have a strong work record to begin with” and took the job “just for show,” while hogging “a slot from someone who probably really needed the opportunity.”

Absolutely perfect.

And to top it all off, the DSA now pays him $95K a year with benefits.

Has he ever paid his own rent? Plus, it turns out he didn’t graduate from Yale after all, although he “attended”:

The Yale registrars’ office confirmed to The Post on Wednesday that he studied literature there between 2006-10, but did not earn a degree. He also studied sculpture at Yale’s graduate School of Art a couple of years later, records show.

Gordillo’s dad admitted Tuesday that he paid his son’s $2,600 a month rent on the Lower East Side, through a dummy corporation, Chucuito LLC, until 2019.

I think there’s a certain logic to someone from this sort of background becoming a socialist. For them, the connection between earning money and buying things isn’t necessarily part of their “lived experience.” That does not mean that all or most people from such backgrounds become socialists; plenty do not. But a significant number of socialists do seem to have that sort of background. Perhaps becoming socialists is the only way they can feel virtuous without actually refusing their parents’ money.

NOTE: It’s not a new phenomenon, either; one can see this sort of thing among some prominent socialists and Communists of the past. Take Che Guevara, for example. He was raised by very financially comfortable leftist parents, and he earned a medical degree before becoming a revolutionary. He had Mangione’s stylish looks and a similar willingness to kill, and like Mangione he attracted quite a following among US leftists (in Guevara’s case, mostly after his death).

Florida: Vindman down, Nixon up

The New Neo Posted on by

We’ve got another DSA member winning a Democrat primary, this time in Florida for the US Senate. The outcome was considered an upset:

Progressive state Rep. Angie Nixon scored a major upset over former National Security Council aide Alex Vindman in the Florida Democratic Senate primary, NBC News projects, setting up a general election race against Republican Sen. Ashley Moody.

Vindman, a retired lieutenant colonel and Iraq War veteran who rose to prominence as a witness during President Donald Trump’s 2019 impeachment hearings, was viewed as a heavy favorite against Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, heading into Tuesday’s contest.

Vindman isn’t exactly a fountain of charisma, but a DSA member is an odd choice for a basically red state such as Florida. And how is it the polls were so wrong – again? Most of the other polls have overestimated the DSA candidates’ leads, but in this race polls seem to have done the opposite.

Odd, but perhaps all the polls are way off because the number of “undecideds” has been large in each race. For example, a July poll said this:

A recent poll released in July by Democratic Party sponsor Change Research showed Vindman leading Nixon in the Aug. 18 primary election 34% to 24%, with 41% of primary voters still undecided.

That’s a huge number of undecided people.

Another problem for Vindman was that he hadn’t lived in Florida long. And Nixon voiced the right (that is, the current leftist) stance on Israel:

Nixon is an advocate for cutting U.S. aid to Israel, a controversial position in a state with the country’s third-largest Jewish population. Her stance put her at odds with members of her own party at times and was in contrast to Vindman, a Jewish immigrant born in Soviet Ukraine.

Hopefully, it’ll be moot in November because hopefully, GOP candidate Ashley Moody will win. But I take nothing for granted. The seat they’re all vying for is Rubio’s, by the way. He vacated it when he was appointed SOS by Trump, and Moody was chosen by DeSantis to take his place until the 2026 election, which will be to fill in the remaining two years.

Spent many hours today …

The New Neo Posted on by

… with my ex in the local emergency room. He’s basically okay. They found something relatively minor.

Growing old is no joke. Nor was the ER, which has degenerated in recent years: short-staffed, very long waits, extremely depressing group of sick people sitting there for hours and hours and hours.

I finally left him there when he was somewhat better, but now I’m about to leave to pick him up. I’ll probably post more in late afternoon or perhaps not till the evening.

News roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s been one of those days.

(1) Speaking of Bin Laden … which some of you were, in this thread from yesterday –

I am reminded that I had seen a comment that appeared at Instapundit the other day about him. Here’s the part that caught my attention:

Beyond the obvious that he was a mass murderer, Bin Laden was a piece of sh*t con man. Bin Ladin was basically an Arab Luigi, only he had a lot more money and was not quite as retarded as Luigi. He was a rich kid poser, who grew up in one of the richest families in Saudi Arabia living in absolute luxury that allowed him to indulge in every sort of luxury belief, in Bin Laden’s case whack job Muslim Brotherhood theology rather the usual Marxism. Then when it came time to act on those beliefs, Bin Laden was happy to let other people fly planes into buildings while he ran for his life and hide out in Pakistan. Real brave guy. Certainly someone whose thoughts on world affairs everyone needs to hear.

The comparison to Luigi and the DSA rich-kid lefties is quite apt, actually. Bin Laden became an active jihadi during the Russian-Afghan War, when he was in his mid-20s (he was born in 1957). But he was raised in great wealth and had inherited a great deal of money when he was very young, and was also highly educated.

(2) That entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in today’s youth. For example:

Attorney General Dave Sunday announced that the leader of a cocaine-trafficking ring involving Penn State University students and two student fraternities surrendered Tuesday morning.

Agostino Abbatiello, 24, was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Kelley Gillette-Walker on numerous felonies, including multiple counts of possession with intent to deliver (cocaine), and conspiracy. …

Thirteen of the charged defendants were Penn State University students at or around the time of the alleged conduct, in 2023 and 2024. According to the investigation and a grand jury presentment, Abbatiello and Thomas Robinson were the main suppliers for the criminal organization, making”> regular trips to Philadelphia and New York for large quantities of cocaine.

Well, tuition is high these days.

(3) What a novel idea – the Census Bureau checked voting records against citizenship records for 128 million 2020 voters, and has found 24K noncitizens who voted. Fancy that.

The left will say it’s not so many; nothing much to be concerned about

(4) There was a massive earthquake in Indonesia yesterday, an area of frequent earthquakes. RIP to the victims.

(5) “Fauci’s Partner-in-Crime David Morens Pleads Guilty to Illegal Evasion of Federal Records Laws (to Cover Up His Complicity in Covid).”

I guess Biden or Biden’s autopen forgot to pardon him.

Voter “vouching” in Minnesota

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s how it works:

As Presler noted earlier, it is Minnesota policy that one “registered Minnesota voter can vouch for up to 8 persons (without an ID).”

On X:

1 registered Minnesota voter can vouch for up to 8 persons (without an ID).

In St. Louis County (Duluth, MN), 737 of the 13,375 voters that registered to vote on Election Day in 2024

“proved their residence through vouching.”

737 / 13,375 = 5.5

?5.5% of voters that registered to vote for the presidential election in ONE county did so via vouching?

More:

As Muckraker wrote on X:

“BREAKING: Hidden camera captures Minnesota poll workers confirming alleged foreign terror organization members can vote if vouched for. We put Minnesota’s voter ‘vouching’ system to an extreme test by asking if it was okay to vouch for alleged Hamas militants who had recently come to America from the Gaza Strip.

“An election worker said, ‘You can vouch for up to 8 people,’ and added, ‘If you’re vouching for them, they wouldn’t need to show anything,’ referring to the alleged Hamas members we asked about registering to vote. We were also told that the person doing the vouching ‘is the documentation.'”

Minnesota’s not the only state with the system of vouching:

As of August 2026, 36 states required voters to present identification in order to vote at the polls on Election Day, but many states provide for exceptions to these rules. Of these states, 24 required voters to present identification containing a photograph, with certain exceptions, and 12 states did not explicitly require photo identification. The remaining 14 states did not generally require voters to present identification in order to vote at the polls on Election Day. …

In 15 states, some or all voters can sign an affidavit or a form in lieu of providing identification. Four states allow election officials or other voters to vouch for a person’s identity instead of an ID. And in four states, voters who live and vote in state-licensed nursing homes or care centers do not have to provide ID.

The site says four states have vouching, but I’ve been having trouble finding which states they are – besides Minnesota, of course.

Jason Arday, leftist martyr

The New Neo Posted on by

The left says the right is to blame for Arday’s death. But exposing the truth doesn’t kill someone. The left that rewarded his lies set him up for exposure, and if he killed himself (it’s not official, but it’s fairly clear that he almost certainly did), then it’s the tragic outcome of that plus his own actions.

From Roger Kimball:

Whatever else can be said about the “Jason Arday Affair,” he was not the victim. Perhaps you can say he was the casualty, first, of his own mendacity and race-fired megalomania and second, of an educational establishment that, marinated in the anti-white, self-flagellating racial animosities of the moment, colluded in the construction of Arday’s fantastical, self-aggrandizing, and ultimately self-destructive fantasies.

And Kurt Schlichter is harsh but correct here:

Of course, the entirely predictable response of the institutional left to [Arday’s] cowardly and apparent self-deletion has been to insist, loudly and with quivering outrage, that his death is our fault. You see, we normal people pointed out that he lied about his background, his achievements, his credentials, and his work. The fact that we did what a functioning institution should’ve done itself outraged his boosters, so these moral illiterates now invert the moral calculus to keep the exposure of academic fraud from happening again. Arday lied pathologically and endlessly, enabled by a ridiculously solicitous academia, then likely killed himself when his lies were exposed. …

But let’s be serious about these condescending leftists. They knew Arday was a phony. They also knew he was useful. His existence supported their narrative, so that irritating objective truth thing could be dispensed with. But he was never their peer; he was their pet.

Yes, they treated him as a pampered and indulged pet, which is both insulting and cruel. In the end, it was very cruel indeed.

But I wonder how much they actually knew, at least at the start when they first hired him. He checked all the DEI boxes and then some, and scholarship isn’t what it used to be (and perhaps never was, in the field of education). I think they wanted so much to believe that they followed a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and never checked a thing. When the first doubts were raised, they then went into protective mode. At some point they definitely knew the truth, at least most of them did. But denial is a very powerful thing. People can fool themselves, and that makes them even bigger fools.

Here’s a recent tweet from Nathan Cofnas (I featured an interview with him in this post; he’s the professor who said Arday plagiarized his PhD thesis):

For those without X, it says:

There is an anti-Cofnas hate rally in Trafalgar Square with ~15,000 attendees. If I were in London there is a real possibility that I would be murdered.

1000s of academics & journalists knew the truth about Jason Arday for more than a year. Now you know why no one said anything.

Cofnas is asserting that tons of people knew for at least a year. That probably is true. I don’t think most of them knew for the first year or two, but that was through willful blindness. I also think Cofnas is correct that many people were afraid to speak up, for fear of getting the sort of vicious reaction he’s getting. Others wouldn’t speak up because they felt it would hurt the DEI cause to which they were wedded. Some didn’t speak up because they felt not only would it be cause for accusations of racism against them, but because they also might lose their positions.

How did that war on terror go?

The New Neo Posted on by

It is commonly accepted that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were disasters, and that the “war on terror” (whatever that means) wasn’t won. But are these things true? Here’s a discussion that might be of interest. See what you think.

By the way, about the idea that the Bush administration thought the Iraq aftermath would be easy (“a cakewalk”), I beg to differ and I wrote about it in this post from 2005.

The problems in the present campaign against Iran – and they are many – stem from the fact that Iran is a much bigger country than Iraq with a larger population and a more religiously fanatical leadership unafraid to kill vast numbers of its own people, plus the IRGC has a structure that makes it exceptionally difficult to break, with power to control or threaten to control the vital Strait of Hormuz. In addition, we no longer tolerate having any boots on the ground, or nation-building of any complexity or length, and the Iranian leaders are well aware of that fact.