How to prove wrongdoing when emails go missing?

The New Neo Posted on by

Another hard drive bites the dust, taking with it the record of possible malfeasance:

Federal employees, like all Americans, are entitled to hold passionate political beliefs. Most executive branch federal employees, however, may not engage in certain political activities, thanks to an anti-conflict of interest principle enshrined in a federal law called the Hatch Act…

Which brings us to the case of April Sands, an employee at the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), who struck a deal with the agency’s Inspector General to avoid criminal charges related to running afoul of the Hatch Act on numerous occasions. She has openly confessed to breaching federal law as part of her effective plea bargain, but investigators were unable to probe a potential goldmine of incriminating activity: Her email. Why? You guessed it; her hard drive crashed, supposedly wiping out her email records, and resulting in the FEC recycling (i.e., destroying) the hard drive. Sounds familiar. Did I mention that Ms. Sands worked under Lois Lerner when Lerner served as the agency’s Associate General Counsel for Enforcement?

Sands’ job was “helping to enforce election laws” as an FEC employee, and yet she posted strongly partisan anti-Republican political opinions on Twitter (example: “I just don’t understand how anyone but straight white men can vote Republican. What kind of delusional rhetorical [sic] does one use?”). She has already confessed to “violating the Hatch Act by soliciting political contributions via Twitter, conducting political activity through her Twitter account, and participating in a political discussion ”˜via webcam from an FEC conference room . . . while on duty’.”

But Sands’ emails, which could be an extremely important source of evidence on which to base a charge of committing the criminal offense of soliciting campaign contributions from work, have been destroyed along with her hard drive. The criminal investigation is stalled without it.

So let’s leave Ms. Sands for a moment, and ponder the question of the necessity for emails as evidence. Emails would seem to be easily recoverable, even if hard drives crash, because until now it’s been unusual for computers and/or hard drives to actually be destroyed in order to cover a perp’s tracks. Computers and emails have largely taken over business and government correspondence within the last twenty years or so (perhaps even earlier, but I’m not sure, since I wasn’t employed in the business or government world). But I seem to recall that, before that, paper was the way to keep a record of things, and paper was not only harder to find in discovery (it’s not on a hard drive) but quite easy to destroy. And yet prosecutors managed somehow to indict and convict people.

So, how was it done? Not everyone made tapes a la Nixon (who of course most likely erased some crucial minutes of his); in fact, most people kept no electronic record whatsoever. So, how was prosecution accomplished? I don’t think white collar workers were routinely tortured back then to make them squeal. Did cases without a paper trail rely on witnesses, confederates who became informants? I doubt that perps had such a great respect for paper that they never destroyed it, either. Were threats to the perp or confederates involved? Or did perpetrators just get away with it?

Maybe I’m missing something; help me out here.

I’m really curious, because I foresee that from now on “my hard drive has been recycled” will be a routine defense. If we don’t figure out other ways to amass evidence of wrongdoing, government employees will violate these and other laws with impunity, and we will have no protection from them.

Hmmmm. Perhaps that’s already happened.

[NOTE: I realize that some people have suggested we call on the NSA records, the ones they’ve amassed through spying. That’s a pretty dangerous incursion on liberty, don’t you think? And wouldn’t the NSA just say it didn’t have any records for the people the government is interested in exonerating? Who checks on the NSA?]

What it’s like to be a climate change skeptic

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s not pretty, even if your credentials are impeccable:

John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, says he remembers the morning he spotted a well-known colleague at a gathering of climate experts.

“I walked over and held out my hand to greet him,” Dr. Christy recalled. “He looked me in the eye, and he said, ”˜No.’ I said, ”˜Come on, shake hands with me.’ And he said, ”˜No.’ ”

It’s fortunate for Dr. Christy that burning at the stake has gone out of style.

And Christy isn’t even technically a climate change denier. He might more rightly be called a climate change minimizer:

Dr. Christy is an outlier on what the vast majority of his colleagues consider to be a matter of consensus: that global warming is both settled science and a dire threat. He regards it as neither. Not that the earth is not heating up. It is, he says, and carbon dioxide spewed from power plants, automobiles and other sources is at least partly responsible.

But in speeches, congressional testimony and peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals, he argues that predictions of future warming have been greatly overstated and that humans have weathered warmer stretches without perishing.

One can only imagine how many “deniers” have been socially ostracized, not offered jobs, discouraged from continuing in the profession, and a host of other pressures designed to purge the field of anyone who might dissent in any way. After that’s done, the fact that a huge percentage of scientists have reached “consensus” is touted as all the more reason to be certain that “the science is settled.”

I found this passage in the article to be especially interesting:

Dr. Christy was pointing to a chart comparing seven computer projections of global atmospheric temperatures based on measurements taken by satellites and weather balloons. The projections traced a sharp upward slope; the actual measurements, however, ticked up only slightly.

Such charts ”” there are others, sometimes less dramatic but more or less accepted by the large majority of climate scientists ”” are the essence of the divide between that group on one side and Dr. Christy and a handful of other respected scientists on the other.

“Almost anyone would say the temperature rise seen over the last 35 years is less than the latest round of models suggests should have happened,” said Carl Mears, the senior research scientist at Remote Sensing Systems, a California firm that analyzes satellite climate readings.

“Where the disagreement comes is that Dr. Christy says the climate models are worthless and that there must be something wrong with the basic model, whereas there are actually a lot of other possibilities,” Dr. Mears said. Among them, he said, are natural variations in the climate and rising trade winds that have helped funnel atmospheric heat into the ocean.

No doubt there are many possibilities, and we don’t know which is correct—that’s why the science is not settled. And one of those possibilities is exactly what Dr. Christy asserts (an explanation that seems quite reasonable to me), which is that the models being used are grossly inadequate.

Change Wilberforce now

The New Neo Posted on by

You hear the pundits on the left saying that the right criticizes Obama for ignoring laws, but when he enforces the 2008 act that requires that unaccompanied minors from Central America be given special treatment, the right howls.

No doubt that criticism makes sense to some people. But it ignores almost every salient fact about the situation.

The bill in question, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, dealt with a different set of circumstances and was never envisioned to apply to what’s happening now. As its name suggests, it was aimed at stopping human trafficking, and only a very small part of it dealt with unaccompanied minors from Central America (actually, from all countries except Mexico and Canada), and even that was in the context of those minors as presumed human trafficking victims. Back then, there were no hordes of unaccompanied minors coming here from Central America to attempt to gain residence on rumored promises of amnesty.

The second point is that Obama is very selective about his enforcement. He ignores the laws he doesn’t like, or changes them, whereas with those that suit his purpose he falls back on the idea that he simply must obey the law. It’s his intentionally selective enforcement that’s the problem. In particular, if Obama enforced the laws on border security, Wilberforce wouldn’t have ever become such a problem in the first place.

For Wilberforce, Charles Lane invokes the law of unintended consequences—legislative version. He’s correct. In retrospect we can see that the section of the law involving unaccompanied minors was poorly drafted, but hindsight is always 20/20:

So, here we are: The Wilberforce Act, logical and humane on paper, has been overthrown by an influx of Central American kids…

This isn’t anyone’s idea of sustainable immigration; at least it shouldn’t be. Some call the situation a humanitarian crisis. I prefer “national scandal.”…

Yet the key is to fix the Wilberforce Act: to permit prompt exclusion of unaccompanied Central American minors, as is already the case for Mexicans and (far less frequently) Canadians.

Sounds simple, right? Seems like everyone should get behind this, right? Wrong. That’s much too reasonable.

It will be very interesting to see whether the House manages to pass some sort of revision to Wilburforce, making the new arrivals subject to quicker deportation:

Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the working group’s leader, will argue that child immigrants from Central America should be subject to the same rules as those from Mexico. A source close to Granger said the group will also advise that National Guard troops be sent to the border, a longstanding demand from Republicans.

I’m not even sure the GOP would support such a bill, although it seems eminently sensible to me. And even if it were to somehow be passed, I can’t imagine Harry Reid allowing it to come to a vote in the Senate. And then, if by some incredible happenstance it did get through the Senate, and such an act reached Obama’s desk for signing, he would be faced with quite a dilemma: would he veto a bill most of America desperately wants? Or would he sign it and turn his back on the left of his party, as well as his own plans for America’s future and an entrenched Democratic majority? I know which one I’d put my money on.

One more thing about that famous Hillary Clinton quote “What difference at this point does it make?”

The New Neo Posted on by

The question Hillary Clinton asked during the Benghazi hearings has become famous, and famously mocked.

But people have been so focused on the blase attitude it shows that they rarely comment on the fact that embedded in it is a false choice. This has bothered me for a long time, so I want to set the record straight.

Not that it makes any difference at this point.

But here’s the quote:

With all due respect, the fact is, we had four dead Americans! Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?

So, was it “because of a protest”? Or was it some random chaotic act “because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans”?

Well, how about: “Neither, Hillary, and what’s more, you know it was neither. Both suggestions are absurd. It actually was a group of organized terrorists who planned an attack, and succeeded in killing not just ‘some’ random Americans, but the ambassador and three protectors.”

I’ve long wondered why that part of the quote has been pretty much ignored.

Another worthless poll

The New Neo Posted on by

A WaPo-ABC News poll finds that:

Nearly 6 out of 10 Americans are not happy with Obama’s performance in dealing with the tens of thousands of minors who have arrived from Central America in recent months, overwhelming Border Patrol stations. All told, 58 percent disapprove of his management on the issue, including 54 percent of Latinos…

But as with other hot-button issues, congressional Republicans fare even worse in the court of public opinion, with 66 percent disapproving of the job GOP lawmakers have done to address the crisis. Almost as many Republicans disapprove of their party’s handling of the issue as say they approve, with negative ratings rising to a majority among conservatives.

Here’s the poll in its entirety: three questions. But the all-important one, both for Obama and for Congress—“do you think he/they is/are too lenient on allowing illegal immigrants in, or too tough?”—isn’t even dreamed of by the clever WaPo or the brilliant ABC.

And that’s the only question that would make any real sense of the poll. Without it, it’s just noise.

I can’t believe that the WaPo and ABC can’t figure that out, so I’ll just assume their purpose is to obfuscate. I’ve noticed that this is not unusual for polls in general. They often ask opinion questions without adding a single follow-up question to inquire as to the basis for the disapproval, and without that, the polls are nearly worthless. For example, what percentage of Obama’s growing disapproval rates is because respondents think he’s too far to the left, and what percentage is because they think he’s been not effective enough in getting his leftist agenda across? Inquiring minds should want to know.

We won’t be solving the Fermi Paradox any time soon

The New Neo Posted on by

The Fermi Paradox is scary any way you look at it. Are we alone in the universe, and if so, why? And if not, why haven’t we heard a thing?:

Continuing to speculate, if 1% of intelligent life survives long enough to become a potentially galaxy-colonizing Type III Civilization, our calculations above suggest that there should be at least 1,000 Type III Civilizations in our galaxy alone — and given the power of such a civilization, their presence would likely be pretty noticeable. And yet, we see nothing, hear nothing, and we’re visited by no one.

So where is everybody?

Welcome to the Fermi Paradox.

We have no answer to the Fermi Paradox — the best we can do is “possible explanations.” And if you ask ten different scientists what their hunch is about the correct one, you’ll get ten different answers. You know when you hear about humans of the past debating whether the Earth was round or if the sun revolved around the Earth or thinking that lightning happened because of Zeus, and they seem so primitive and in the dark? That’s about where we are with this topic.

It seems to me to be an excellent introductory article dealing with a complex subject. The author, whom I’d never heard of before, also has a blog. Surfing around there, I found this fascinating post on the author’s visit to North Korea.

Yes, you heard me right: North Korea. Read it. Ignore the gratuitous f-words. It’s a good article nonetheless.

Do you wonder whatever happened to this bill?

The New Neo Posted on by

In 2011 Senator Vitter of Louisiana introduced a bill to ban the automatic granting of citizenship to so-called “anchor babies” of illegal immigrants:

A group of conservative Republicans in the U.S. Senate have drafted a bill to stop “anchor babies” from automatically being granted birthright citizenship, ABC News reported Wednesday.

David Vitter of Louisiana, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas said that their bill requires the federal government to limit automatic citizenship to children born to at least one parent who is a citizen, legal resident, or member of the military.

Or this subsequent one from 2013?

I can’t find much about their final dénouement. My guess is that most either die in committee, or are voted down in the House, because not enough Republicans will support them, much less Democrats. And even if such bills were to somehow pass the House, Harry Reid would block them in the Senate.

In addition, I’m not sure whether, if they somehow managed to be passed, the Supreme Court would uphold them. This would depend on how the Court interprets the Fourteenth Amendment. According to this, the Court so far has only ruled (at least, up to the year 2009, when the article was written) that children who are born here of legal immigrants must be citizens, a proposition with which I have absolutely no quarrel. If you’d like to study the history of the Fourteenth Amendment and how it might apply if Congress were to pass a bill like that proposed by Vitter in 2011, see this, particularly the description of the Congressional debates at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was passed:

Howard said that the clause “is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States.” He added that citizenship “will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons”””a comment which would later raise questions as to whether Congress had originally intended that U.S.-born children of foreign parents were to be included as citizens.

There’s much more that’s relevant to the question of whether the Court would uphold a law such as Vitter’s, and on what grounds, here and here. The ultimate remedy for the Court’s ruling against such a bill’s constitutionality would be to pass a constitutional amendment, which would require a lot more support than a mere bill.

But wouldn’t it be worthwhile it to pass such a bill and see what the Court would say about it? I’m almost positive that most Americans would favor such a law, especially now with the border crisis exploding. The most recent poll I could find on the subject was taken in 2011, and that year 61% of respondents disliked the anchor baby rule as it stands. What’s more, only 28% agreed with the rule, and “Eighty-four percent (84%) of voters believe that before anyone receives local, state or federal government services, they should be required to prove they are legally allowed to be in the United States. Only nine percent (9%) oppose such a requirement.” And although it was Republicans and Independents who most wanted to change the law favoring anchor babies, even Democrats were evenly split on the issue. That’s fairly overwhelming support.

So laws such as those sponsored by Vitter would seem to have unusually wide appeal. Why then are they not passed? Well, you know why. From the same poll:

There are sharper differences of opinion as far as the Political Class is concerned. Seventy percent (70%) of those in the Political Class favor automatic citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, but 70% of Mainstream voters are opposed.

Mainstream voters also believe much more emphatically that those seeking government services need to prove they are in this country legally.

The Rasmussen report on the poll is behind a paywall so I don’t know how they define “Political Class” (the above quotes and facts are from a blog purporting to quote the Rasmussen report). But it seems clear that the interests of Congress involving business, lobbyists, and the Hispanic bloc have conspired to cause them to act against the interests of the American people as a whole on this issue.

Not only is the Vitter bill sensible, but it is also the position of many countries in the world:

To stop birth tourism, Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom have a modified jus soli, granting citizenship by birth only when at least one parent is a citizen of the country or a legal permanent resident who has lived in the country for several years.

Works for me. Only Canada of all the developed countries has a rule that resembles ours.

And I don’t care what race, ethnicity, or country we’re talking about. If the parent is a whiter-than-white illegal immigrant from Scandinavia I don’t want anchor babies of illegal immigrants to be given automatic citizenship. Same for wealthy Chinese mothers who come here to give birth and then return home, and whose kids will some day come to the US and be computer whizzes. I don’t care.

Our current policy not only encourages people without respect for the rule of law to come here to game the system and to reap benefits we cannot afford (illegal immigrant women who are pregnant or nursing can qualify for WIC, and their children can be on Medicaid), but it can only decrease respect for the rule of law in general. It’s time to take another look at changing the birthright citizenship rules and passing something like the Vitter bill. Too bad that even the Republicans seem to have no stomach for it.

More “stuff” from Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama in Austin: “You know it is lonely, me just doing stuff.”

That’s not a mocking paraphrase, nor is it an Onion article nor a scene from the movie “Idiocracy.” It’s a direct quote from our president:

Does this fool anyone anymore? Probably his intended audience: liberals, for example the rather-dazed-yet-smiley group of folks carefully placed behind him as he makes his speech.

To me, it’s a profoundly ironic comment by Obama, because he is indeed “doing stuff.” It’s just not the “stuff” the country would like him to do. It’s other “stuff”—such as working against the interests of the US. Ha, ha, pretty funny joke, right?

Also of some note is Obama’s use of his vernacular “I’m-just-folks” mode. Or alternately, his “I’m-a-young-hipster” mode. The telltale word is “stuff,” one of his favorites. I first noticed these propensities of Obama’s during the 2008 campaign. Obama is never more studied and controlled than when he’s being purposely casual.

Let’s not automatically assume that Hispanics who are already here are happy about the new flood of illegals

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been wondering why everyone seems to assume that all the Hispanics who are already here—legally or illegally—would be jumping with joy at the current flood of illegal arrivals.

It seems to me that maybe, just maybe, some not utterly insignificant number of them might relish neither the competition for jobs and/or welfare, nor the bad optics the unprecedented flood of the newly-arrived present—a prospect that could rile people up against Hispanic immigrants in general. There weren’t many things that could have turned even a small number of Hispanics away from support of Obama and Democrats (and perhaps even towards a Republican or two?). But Obama’s behavior so far during this crisis just might be able to accomplish that almost-impossible feat.

You think I’m crazy for saying it or even thinking it? Well, get a load of this from Michael Barone:

A Washington Post new [sic] story quotes Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke as favoring “greater emphasis on the interests of these children who are refugees from extreme violence” instead of “an acceleration of the deportation process at the expense of these children.” But the Post reporters note that “O’Rourke added that he has been surprised by the anger he has heard toward the immigrants of many of his El Paso constituents, who ‘feel like we can’t take care of everyone, and these children and their families are gaming the system.’ ” O’Rourke’s district, which includes most of El Paso County, is 79 percent Hispanic.

I don’t know much about intra-Hispanic rivalries, but could there perhaps also be no love lost between the older arrivals from Mexico and the newer ones from Central American countries?

Eric Holder keeps playing that race card

The New Neo Posted on by

Why not? It’s the only one he’s got.

Eric Holder, victim. Right. I don’t think even Holder believes it any more, if in fact he ever did.

Years ago there was a lot of talk about whether Obama would let Holder go, because Holder was caught up in so many controversies. I have always taken the position that it would not happen, and unfortunately that turned out to be correct. In February of 2010 I wrote:

…[M]y gut senses a close identification between Obama and Holder, an almost-Vulcan-mind-meld between them…

Holder serves a purpose for Obama. If there is an issue on which the President is somewhat loathe to express his opinion fully, perhaps because he knows it will be unpopular or controversial, I believe that Obama purposely uses Holder as cover, to draw the opposition’s criticism and deflect it from himself.

Perhaps the proper word for the relationship might be “surrogate” or “mouthpiece.” This is not to say that Holder does not have opinions of his own. I am not claiming he is a puppet. But his opinions are so closely in sync with Obama’s on these issues that for all intents and purposes they are one.

I see no reason to change my mind now.

There is talk of impeaching Obama but it will probably never be done. There is talk of impeaching Holder, and although it’s a bit more likely it will probably not be done either, unless Republicans think they have 2/3 of the Senate willing to vote to convict.

How likely is that? Not very, to say the least. Can you imagine the shouts of “racism” if either Obama or Holder were impeached? Apparently, being black makes a person unimpeachable—that is, unless that person is a black Republican, such as Clarence Thomas. Then that person becomes an honorary white.

The border: Clash of the Titan Interest Groups

The New Neo Posted on by

This is what happens when we don’t have one America: the Democratic Party creates its coalition by catering to a diverse group of ethnic interest groups, and some day the very special interests of those very special interest groups will clash.

In the following clip, we see a microcosm of the competing groups, as well as rifts within the black community itself. My guess would be that almost everyone speaking on the video is a Democrat, although I can’t be sure. But they certainly show a diversity of opinion and a great intensity of feeling about it, too, as well as some eloquence. The Vietnam vet has a quiet firmness. I can’t always understand what the guy on the left with the white hair and curly beard is saying, but the earnest younger man in the black shirt’s “This make no sense!” comes through loud and clear.

I absolutely agree with him. Our government’s reaction to what’s happening on the border makes no sense if we ordinary people look at it conventionally. But it makes plenty of sense to Obama and others in his party who think it will give them a permanent and unbeatable majority in the not-too-distant future, as well as placate the huge Hispanic voting bloc in the present. And if their formerly reliable ethnic group, African Americans, suffers as a result—well then, what are they going to do about it anyway? Turn Republican? After Democrats’ successfully branding Republicans as racist for several decades, that would be a tough pill for many black people to swallow, and the Democrat know it.

Towards the end of the tape, the soft-spoken guy on the right in the red shirt talks the hard leftist line of “Americans have caused all the ills of the world by interfering with it.” Thank you, Howard Zinn! The young woman with the tank top with the thin straps counters him at the very end by saying the US does some good, too.

It’s a little microcosm of America, complete with the drumbeats of the Native American demonstrators who are using the occasion to air their grievances as well:

The National Review has a good article on the topic of the clash between American blacks and the new arrivals. Not only will poorer black citizens bear the brunt of the jobs competition with these illegal immigrants, as well as competing for aid, they will be the ones on the front lines in terms of the invasion of their neighborhoods. No rich white liberal (and no rich black liberal, for that matter) is going to have to live next door to a houseful of illegal alien drug runners controlled by the violent cartels.

The people in this administration seem to think that anything they do is spinnable. And why wouldn’t they? That’s been their experience so far. I wonder about this one, though. People seem very angry, and it cuts across political and racial lines to a certain extent.

[ADDENDUM: Here’s another video that’s gotten even more air time, of a woman in Houston making much the same points, with a similar frustrated intensity.]