D-Day: 82 years after

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: The following is a slightly-edited version of a previous D-Day post.]

Today is the eighty-second anniversary of D-Day, the Normandy landings in WWII that led to Western Europe’s liberation.

I wonder how many people under forty, either here or in Europe, now know or care what happened there. The dog barks and the caravan moves on.

The world we now live in seems so vastly different, including the relationship between the US and western Europe. But make no mistake about it; if threatened in a way that finally gets their attention, Europeans would be counting on us again. And although until a while ago I still thought that we would probably be up to the task, I now have my doubts. It would depend on the administration in charge. And we pretty much know our press would fail us.

About forty-eight years ago I visited Omaha Beach, site of the worst of the carnage. A quieter place than that beach and those huge cemeteries, with their lines of crosses set down as though with a ruler, you never did see.

But the scene was quite different back in 1944. The D-day invasion marked the beginning of the end for the Germans.

The weather was a huge factor, and the Allied commanders had to make the decision knowing that the forecast for the day was iffy and the window of opportunity small. For reasons of visibility and navigation (maximum amount of moonlight and deepest water), the invasion needed to occur during a time of full moon and spring tides, and all the invasion forces had already been assembled and were at the ready. To postpone would have been hugely expensive and frustrating, but to go ahead in bad weather would have been suicidal.

This is how bad the weather looked, how difficult the decision was, and how much we owe to the meteorologists, who:

…were challenged to accurately predict a highly unstable and severe weather pattern. As [Eisenhower] indicated in the message to Marshall, “The weather yesterday which was [the] original date selected was impossible all along the target coast.” Eisenhower therefore was forced to make his decision to proceed with a June 6 invasion in the predawn blackness of June 5, while horizontal sheets of rain and gale force winds shuddered through the tent camp.

The initially bad weather ended up being an advantage in other ways, because the Germans were not expecting the invasion to occur yet for that reason:

Some [German] troops stood down, and many senior officers were away for the weekend. General Erwin Rommel, for example, took a few days’ leave to celebrate his wife’s birthday, while dozens of division, regimental, and battalion commanders were away from their posts at war games.

In addition, there was Hitler’s personality and his reluctance to give autonomy to his military commanders:

Hitler reserved to himself the authority to move the divisions in OKW Reserve, or commit them to action. On 6 June, many Panzer division commanders were unable to move because Hitler had not given the necessary authorization, and his staff refused to wake him upon news of the invasion.

.

This didn’t mean that the beaches were not heavily fortified and manned, especially Omaha:

[The Germans] had large bunkers, sometimes intricate concrete ones containing machine guns and high caliber weapons. Their defense also integrated the cliffs and hills overlooking the beach. The defenses were all built and honed over a four year period.

The number of Allied casualties was enormous. Reading about it today makes one appreciate anew what these men faced, and how courageously they pressed on despite enormous difficulties. This is just a small sampler of what occurred on Omaha Beach at the outset; there was much more to come:

Despite these preparations, very little went according to plan. Ten landing craft were lost before they even reached the beach, swamped by the rough seas. Several other craft stayed afloat only because their passengers quickly bailed water with their helmets. Seasickness was also prevalent among the troops waiting offshore. On the 16th RCT front, the landing boats found themselves passing struggling men in life preservers, and on rafts, survivors of the DD tanks which had sunk. Navigation of the assault craft was made more difficult by the smoke and mist obscuring the landmarks they were to use in guiding themselves in, while a heavy current pushed them continually eastward.

As the boats approached within a few hundred yards of the shore, they came under increasingly heavy fire from automatic weapons and artillery. The force discovered only then the ineffectiveness of the pre-landing bombardment. Delayed by the weather, and attempting to avoid the landing craft as they ran in, the bombers had laid their ordnance too far inland, having no real effect on the coastal defenses.

These obstacles and unforeseen circumstances were extraordinarily costly in terms of the human sacrifice that occurred that day. Note that I use the word “obstacles and unforeseen circumstances” rather than “mistakes.” Today, if the same things had occurred (at least, while under the aegis of a Republican administration), they would be labeled unforgivable errors rather than the inevitable difficulties inherent in waging war, in which no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

Another historical footnote is the following passage from Eisenhower’s message to the Allied Expeditionary Forces: You are about to embark upon the great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. It’s another sign of how times have changed; the word “crusade” has become verboten.

In his pocket, Eisenhower also kept another statement, one to activate in case the invasion failed. It read:

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.

The note was written in pencil on a simple piece of paper, and is housed in a special vault at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library & Museum in Abilene, Kansas, a bit of thought-provoking fodder for an alternate history that never occurred.

[NOTE: I’ve read that there’s a new movie out about Eisenhower and D-Day, entitled Pressure. Has anyone seen it?]

Not saving the SAVE Act

The New Neo Posted on by

The SAVE Act was voted on in the Senate, and four Republicans joined the Democrats to stop it. Can you guess the four?

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) offered the amendment. The SAVE America Act would require proof of citizenship for voter registration in federal elections and require voters to present photo identification at the polls.

The four Republicans who voted against the amendment were Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Collins I understand. She has to vote this way to try to keep her Maine seat, and if she loses it Maine will almost certainly elect a Democrat. Also, if it was just Collins voting against this, it would have passed.

The other three? No excuse, and yet predictable.

Think the NY Times story about Platner’s ex-girlfriend’s complaints was an anti-Platner hit piece? Think again.

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday we had some revelations in the NY Times about Graham Platner’s treatment of women. Its publication indicated to me one of two things, maybe both. The first is that the Democrats would really like to rid themselves of Platner and replace him with someone with a less offensive past (a low bar indeed). The second is that they were getting ahead of the story.

Ace describes some of the claims thusly:

NYT: “Ex GF of Platner Says He Knew All About “My Totenkopf,” Used Physical Force Against Her, Bragged That He Would Rape His Male Enemies, “Not in a Gay Way,” But to Show “I’m Dominant” …

Most of the Democrats refused to address this except to say that Platner’s reformed, and that he needs to beat Collins and is poised to beat Collins and that this will give them a Senate majority, as though that would justify anything. And of course, in their eyes it would.

Fetterman was one exception, however (although here he’s addressing some previously-revealed offenses of Platner’s):

“[Platner] is a guy that had a problem with me, how I dress, but he seemed to have no problem posing in a towel at a disgusting website that consistently had serious problems about that kinds of depravity,” Fetterman told Fox News host Sean Hannity. …

“Let me make a deal. I’ll tell P-Hustle, I’ll wear a suit every day, if he releases all those texts and messages that he’s had,” Fetterman said. P-Hustle is a reference to the account name Platner reportedly had on his Kik account. …

Fetterman replied [when asked if there were more lies to come from Platner], “Well, he lied to everybody. He said that there wasn’t any after his Nazi tattoo situation. And now there’s more and more of the things. So he’s already lied about that.”

Fetterman added, “So I assume, you know, it’s like they say, for every ranch you see in Texas, there’s 50 that you haven’t seen. So I’m sure there’s plenty, a lot of more ranches in P-Hustle’s life.”

I think the Democrats actually would like to rid themselves of Fetterman, or at least muzzle him. But he’s not up for re-election until 2028, and they won’t replace him then unless they find someone they think can win in Pennsylvania.

But I digress.

The story behind the Times story about Platner’s girlfriends actually seems to have been even more Byzantine than I originally suspected. Take a look:

But these allegations [of girlfriend abuse] are buried [in the Times story] under mountains of campaign flack bullshit and then packaged as “intimidating” and “unsettling.” Normal people have another phrase for it: domestic abuse.

That characterization is by design.

Let me be clear: the New York Times story was not journalism. It was a soft catch-and-kill operation. It was a favor to Platner’s campaign, a disservice to readers, and an insult to the women who say they were hurt by him.

One of those victims, Lyndsey Fifield, is my friend.

Fifield has been attacked by the left as not credible because she’s on the right politically – therefore, of course, lying. Believe all women – if they’re Democrats.

More:

The term ‘catch and kill‘ refers to a shady practice where a public relations firm or consultant works with a friendly news outlet that was pitched or ‘stumbled’ upon a negative story about a client to effectively ‘catch’ and then ‘kill’ the story — or delay it until it no longer has impact.

A ‘soft catch and kill’ works similarly, though it mostly involves the publication still running the story in a timely manner, but the details are softened or buried deep in the narrative to soften the bite. …

In fact, for the first third of the New York Times expose, they focused on women provided to the newspaper by the Platner campaign — who, of course, sang the degenerate former bartender’s praises. And frankly, that is all many readers will come away with, because that is about as far as their attention span lets them get into the narrative. Which is, again, the point.

I didn’t know that “catch and kill” terminology, but that’s the sort of thing I meant by “getting ahead of the story.” In other words, the friendly outlet shapes it before an unfriendly one does.

This is the part that wasn’t apparent from the story itself:

Prior to publication, I’m told that the Times spoke to two women who had credibly accused Platner of sexual assault. This detail was revealed to Fifield — likely in an effort to encourage her to divulge more of her story. Those women’s allegations never made it into the story. They were effectively ‘killed’ by the Times’s editors and by Platner’s attorneys, I’m told. …

Even more telling, and perhaps a tip of the hat to the nature of this soft catch and kill, is the fact that numerous Democrat aligned influencers and operatives were essentially flooding the zone on social media in the hours before the story was published. Somehow, they knew that one of the women was an activist in the conservative movement — a detail that surmisably came from the New York Times or from the Platner campaign, or both, ahead of publication. Others appear to have known details that were cut from the story.

Then there’s Fifield herself (see this describing and quoting a series of tweets of hers on X) [my emphasis]:

Fifield explained that in early April, the New York Times contacted her and she told them she was not interested in discussing her story. The reporter told her there are other women coming forward about Platner’s conduct. “ They said but wait—there are other women. Women terrified to tell their stories, too, and you need to band together. WE will help you. We will protect you. Men can’t keep getting away with this,” she wrote.

You could say that the Times was another abusive, lying boyfriend. Don’t ever believe what they promise [my emphasis]:

After seeing former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s downfall, she reversed course. She told them her story and even “let them take pictures of my diary pages.” She sent screenshots of her message exchanges with Platner.

“I explained very clearly that, like many women abused by their partners, I had not told anyone about his violence at the time—I had covered for and defended it. I accepted his earnest apologies. They said that’s fine because the diary entries and my on the record story was enough,” Fifield wrote.

The reporters connected her to other victims and she told them they were “doing the right thing” even though they had misgivings. Fifield also realized that Platner was in a relationship with one of the other victims while she was dating him.

She further explained that she felt guilty about having remained silent for so long, but at some point, she decided she couldn’t continue to keep this under wraps. “I couldn’t stay silent as he continued to lie and lie and lie. I want my daughters to boldly speak out if they’re ever abused as I was,” she wrote. …

“After the story went up I began to ask them … wait, where are the stories from the other women? Where are their accusations of sexual assault? Why am I the focus? Why are there 11 paragraphs dedicated to detailing my work history (more than has been published about Graham’s by far)?

“Why does it say “nobody could corroborate” when I offered them sources that COULD corroborate?”

The piece was obviously written in a way that would discredit her and/or make it easy for the left to attack her. She was naive, but it makes sense that she wanted to tell her story. It was a mistake to tell it to the Times – but then again, if it had appeared in an outlet on the right, it would also have been discredited because the only true “truth” appears in the leftist MSM.

ADDENDUM:

More here, including this from Fifield:

It dawned on me that this really was a set up all along. The journalists I trusted who convinced me to share a story I never wanted to tell methodically delayed and twisted this into a gift to the Platner campaign. Violating the trust of his victims. Shattering the trust I placed in them with the most vulnerable story of my life.

As Fetterman said, there are probably “a lot more ranches in P-Hustle’s life.”

Blog tech talk

The New Neo Posted on by

The blog’s been having too many “too many requests” interludes here lately and I would like to fix the problem, whatever it is. The sales people at my host say (predictably) that I need to upgrade, to the tune of a lot more money. But I have my doubts about whether that’s necessary.

Usually the “too many requests” message only lasts at most about a half-hour or forty-five minutes, but I don’t want it to happen at all. So I ask you to please bear with me and be patient for at least a few more days while I try a bunch of other possible fixes.

This is not my forte, but I can always upgrade if it doesn’t work. Nothing I do at this point should disrupt service … hopefully.

And now, presenting Congress member Judy Chu

The New Neo Posted on by

Democrat Judy Chu is the US House member from California’s 28th District. The other day she was quizzing Bessent and an exchange ensued about whether Trump cares about the American economy as opposed to the Iran War. As part of the back-and-forth, Bessent was making a reference to Woodrow Wilson’s entering WWI, and asked her the following question and got the following answer:

Cultural illiteracy.

Not knowing anything about Chu other than what I said above, I assumed that perhaps she hadn’t been educated in the US, which might account for the lacuna in her knowledge of history. But I discovered that she was born, raise, and educated in this country, and that her father was a WWII veteran:

Chu was born in Los Angeles as the second of four children to May Lin and Judson Chu. Judson was born in Chico, California, to Chinese parents from Jiangmen, Guangdong and served during World War II in the 10th Army Corps in Okinawa. He brought over his wife May from his ancestral home in Xinhui County as a war bride in 1948.

Chu grew up in South Los Angeles, near 62nd Street and Normandie Avenue, until her early teen years, when the family moved to the Bay Area. She graduated Buchser High School in Santa Clara, California in 1970.

In 1974, Chu earned a B.A. degree in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1979, she earned a Ph.D. degree in psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology of Alliant International University’s Los Angeles campus.

She’s been in Congress since 2009. And since Chu is 72 years old, she also doesn’t have the excuse of having been educated recently, when history has mostly been jettisoned in favor of wokeness. And yet there is that abysmal ignorance.

Nor does Chu say something like, “I know, it’s on the tip of my tongue but I forgot for the moment.” That would be more acceptable. But no; she merely says “I don’t know” and proceeds with her prepared talking points.

The murder of Margaret Swan

The New Neo Posted on by

The death of Margaret Swan mirrors the death of Iryna Zarutska. Although Swan is much older and also black rather than white, otherwise the murders are uncannily alike and equally chilling. We know even less about the perpetrator in Swan’s stabbing, but he is also a black man who suddenly, and with no provocation whatsoever, viciously stabbed a woman to death in front of a bunch of train
passengers who didn’t intervene.

Whatever delusions or triggered grievances were sparked by the mere sight of such women, the acts are consummately evil.

This is what surveillance video shows:

Security footage shows [66-year-old] Swan sitting alone inside MARTA train car 134 around 11:25 a.m. on Saturday, according to an arrest warrant.

The warrant states [25-year-old homeless man] Matthews walked up to stand near her right side, pulled a knife out of his front pants pocket, grabbed Swan by her head, and cut her throat.

Swan screamed and attempted to rise from her seat before Matthews grabbed her right arm and stabbed her roughly 18 to 20 times in an unprovoked attack.

Matthews then threw Swan to the floor and stood beside her until the northbound train pulled into the Oakland City Station at approximately 11:27 a.m.

There were many witnesses were able to furnish an almost immediate description of the murderer, which enabled police to catch him quickly. He had gotten off the train at the next stop but was still in the station, still holding the bloody knife and dressed in his bloody clothing. But that quickness on the part of the police didn’t help Margaret Swan.

This decision seems to have been a factor:

Swan’s devastated daughter Shanae Sams told The Post on Monday, ripping local officials over the temporary decision to allow free access to MARTA during systemwide renovations for the FIFA World Cup.

In other words, the MARTA system became a haven for homeless people and others with little or no money, such as Matthews.

One of the comments at the NY Post goes like this:

I expect to see every member of the clergy, celebrities, politicians, athletes and BLM members who showed up for the optics of supporting George Floyd at his THREE funerals to be in attendance for this poor lady. If the crime doesn’t fit the narrative, there’s not an activist in sight. Sincere condolences and Godspeed to the family.

Although this attack occurred last Saturday, we still know nothing about Matthews’ life or record, other than that he was homeless. Why have we been told so little?

As for non-intervening bystanders, I don’t judge them too harshly at this point. We don’t know how many people were on the train, or who they were. If it was just a few, and mostly women or the elderly, were they supposed to confront a knife-wielding maniac? I doubt I would have done a thing. Was anyone armed with a gun, which is legal in Atlanta? I have no idea. Were they afraid of a Daniel Penny type of situation, in which a Good Samaritan was criminally tried? I also call your attention to this article analyzing the Zarutska murder and why bystanders did nothing in time.

RIP Margaret Swan.

Hamawy of New Jersey: worse than Platner?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a disturbing game: who’s the worst Democrat nominee this cycle? Platner is definitely in the running – although he’s not yet officially the Democrats’ nominee for senator from Maine. But arguably neck and neck with Platner is Dr. Adam Hamawy, the nominee in New Jersey’s 12 district for the US House of Representatives.

The way he was advertised in the campaign was as a military veteran and doctor who saved lives during the Iraq War. And that is true:

I’m Dr. Adam Hamawy. I’m a father, a husband, a humanitarian, a surgeon, a veteran, and a small business owner. I’ve dedicated my life to serving others, and I’m running for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th District to build a government that works for you, not special interests.

Just a great guy, right? He goes on to criticize ICE in typical Democrat fashion, and then segues to some Obama-esque “let’s all get together” pablum:

This is not about Republicans or Democrats. Both parties have failed to address the problems facing our families – affordability, healthcare, education, and so much more. Congress has the power to solve our problems instead of making them worse, but only if we elect Members with the courage to fight for us.

I’m stepping up now to fight for you because the people of New Jersey’s 12th district deserve a leader that puts our interests first, not billionaires and special interests.

Here’s a slightly more detailed bio that he offers. But nowhere does he seem to mention – much less try to explain – what even Politico calls his “controversial past” [my emphasis]:

Hamawy, who lives in South Brunswick and runs a plastic surgery practice in Princeton, entered the race as a political unknown. His campaign quickly gained traction as progressives simmered over Israel and its war with Hamas in Gaza. Hamawy’s work volunteering at a Gaza hospital during the war earned him support. …

Hamawy, 56, led the Democratic field in fundraising even before a new super PAC called American Priorities, founded as a pro-Palestinian counterweight to the pro-Israel AIPAC, spent $2 million on his behalf. …

Hamawy’s campaign planks are unabashedly progressive, including “Medicare For All” and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (which his campaign website says is “full of neo-Nazis at all ranks”) and dismantling the Department of Homeland Security.

So we have a Hamas-friendly, Egyptian-born, MD who is extremely to the left and considers ICE ‘neo-Nazis.” So far, that’s unfortunately not all that atypical for today’s Democrat Party.

But then we also have this:

But the heroic picture portrayed by Hamawy’s campaign and allies met a stark contrast when a publication tied to an anti-Islamic group resurfaced news reports of his 1995 testimony in defense of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “blind sheikh”who was convicted on terrorism and seditious conspiracy charges, and whose followers conducted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Hamawy, then a medical student in his 20s, had four years earlier accompanied Abdel-Rahman on a trip from New Jersey to Michigan, where Abdel-Rahman spoke at a conference and talked of “conquering the land of the infidels.” Even after the World Trade Center bombing, Hamawy acknowledged translating a document for Abdel-Rahman for a press conference.

Hamawy said on the campaign trail that he disavowed Abdel-Rahman’s calls for violence and called the critiques against him as “guilt-by-association attacks on Muslim and Arab candidates.”

He’s the victim, of course.

And his opponents among the Democrats were in the odd position of being reluctant to mention it, probably because of the danger of being accused of Islamophobia or the like. So I wonder how many of Hamawy’s voters even knew of his past:

While the Abdel-Rahman controversy got significant media attention and criticism from the right, most of Hamawy’s rivals declined to touch it. Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp, an exception, called Hamawy a “radical extremist.”

Hamawy in November faces Republican Gregg Mele, who has run unsuccessfully for several offices in New Jersey as a Republican and libertarian.

That’s not the only thing in Hamawy’s background that’s “controversial.” I’ve cued up just a couple of minutes of the Ruthless podcast discussing some of the rest, which includes an al Qaeda connection:

[NOTE: See also this article on the general theme of the radicalism of the current Democrats.]

On the treatment of Henry Nowak: it didn’t happen in a vacuum

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I wrote about Henry Nowak’s murder and his terrible treatment by the British police. But here are some thoughts on the bigger picture of disparate treatment, of which his death is emblematic.

Britain is even further along on this “the brown minorities are always right” road than we are here. For example, one of the first things that came to mind for me were the Rotherham rapes in which Muslim (mostly Pakistani) men groomed and raped underage white British girls. I recalled that not only was the situation allowed to continue for decades, despite constant reports, because British authorities feared upsetting the Muslim immigrant communities by pointing the finger at them, but also that some of the Rotherham victims were themselves arrested. Checking to see if that memory was accurate, I found this sort of thing [emphasis mine]:

On a number of occasions, victims of sexual abuse [in Rotherham] were criminalised – arrested for being drunk – while their abusers continued to act with impunity. Vital evidence was ignored, Jay said, with police apparently trying to manipulate their figures for child sexual exploitation by removing from their monitoring process girls who were pregnant or had given birth, plus all looked after children in care.

Blame the victims, not the perpetrators, if it was racially woke to do so.

Also, we could go all the way back to the post-9/11 emphasis in the US on a backlash “Islamophobia” which really didn’t even exist to any extent. There was a bending over backwards to make Muslims in the US the potential victims.

In Britain, there’s also the phenomenon in which Jews are being told not to wear symbols of their religion so as not to inflame or enrage their persecutors, rather than punishing the demonstrators harassing them. And some Jews have been arrested; for example these cases:

(1) Niyak Ghorbani:

Niyak Ghorbani, 37, waved the sign in the middle of last Saturday’s rally before protesters turned on him leading to a confrontation.

Police said he was arrested for assault before being de-arrested after officers reviewed footage. …

Ghorbani said that he would make a complaint after the incident and that he was not given back his sign.

He said: “[Police] told me that it is a danger for [my] life and for the people when they see maybe attack [me]. I told the police they attacked me and I want to complain and they say go to police station near your home.”

(2) Gideon Falter:

London’s police force has been forced to issue two apologies after officers threatened to arrest an “openly Jewish” man if he refused to leave the area around a pro-Palestinian march because his presence risked provoking the demonstrators.

Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, was wearing a traditional Jewish skullcap when he was stopped by police while trying to cross a street in central London as demonstrators filed past on April 13.

One officer told Falter he was worried that the man’s “quite openly Jewish” appearance could provoke a reaction from the protesters, according to video posted by the campaign group. A second officer then told Falter he would be arrested if he refused to be escorted out of the area because he was “causing a breach of the peace.”

Here’s another article on the phenomenon. Fortunately, none of those incidents caused serious physical harm, but they are indicative of the same trend of placating the country’s Muslim population at the expense of white British natives and of Jews.

As I said, it’s not quite as bad in the US; at least, not yet. But there is the MSM believing Hamas reports on the Gazan conflict, which exploit this same “brown people are automatically the truthful victims” mentality. This is in line with fake hate crimes here (Jussie Smollett, take a bow), a tactic which began long ago (Tawana Brawley, for example). The belief in the veracity of a once-persecuted group came originally from the desire to correct what used to be the opposite – the automatic belief in the white person even if that person was lying. But what started out as a needed correction ultimately became a dangerous overcorrection.

Will the same dynamic be at play in the Karmelo Anthony trial now beginning? He will be pleading racism on the part of the victim, whom he allegedly stabbed and killed with little to no provocation.

Then we also have the coverup – until recently, anyway – of various kinds of government aid fraud perpetuated by Somalis and allowed to go on for fear of being called a racist if it were to be exposed and prosecuted. Officials would rather lose billions of dollars than be called racists.