Attempted juror bribery in Minnesota

The New Neo Posted on by

Here are the circumstances:

A juror in a huge pandemic fraud trial reports receiving a bag full of $120,000 with a promise of more where that came from if she acquits seven defendants who allegedly stole $40 million from a fund created to feed poor children during the pandemic.

The seven defendants are part of a huge federal criminal complaint alleging that 70 individuals stole more than $250 million of pandemic relief funds.

“This is completely beyond the pale,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said in court on Monday. “This is outrageous behavior. This is stuff that happens in mob movies.”

The case is in Minnesota, and the 7 accused individuals were part of agencies such as “Feeding Our Future.” More here:

Defense attorneys called the attempted bribery “un-American,” “very troubling,” “horrific” and “unprecedented,” but they had argued against detaining the defendants, none of whom have been in custody since the start of 2023. One has a GPS ankle monitoring device.

Brasel said they will be detained until investigators can figure out if one of them leaked the list. Defendants and their family members watching in the gallery cried and hugged as U.S. Marshals escorted the defendants out.

Brasel said the jurors are concerned about their families’ safety and the juror whose home was approached is terrified. “The juror remains at risk for retaliation,” she said.

The mysterious bagwoman said there would be a similar payoff if the juror voted for acquittal, but instead the juror turned the money in to authorities.

The first article I quoted doesn’t mention some salient facts in the case, and the second article I quoted doesn’t mention it until paragraph fourteen, but here’s what I’m talking about:

Said Shafii Farah, Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, Mohamed Jama Ismail, Abdimajid Mohamed Nur, Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin, Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff and Hayat Mohamed Nur were charged in 2022 with wire fraud, money laundering and other charges. They have connections to a Shakopee restaurant, Empire Cuisine & Market.

Shakopee is a suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Even back in 2017, when this article was published, it had a significant and growing Somali population, and I’m going to assume these seven defendant are members of that demographic.

The defendants allegedly hauled in quite a bit of money:

The six men and one woman received more than $40 million for 18 million meals distributed at 50 food sites across Minnesota — from Rochester to St. Cloud — in 2020 and 2021. Prosecutors allege about 10% of that money was spent on food and defendants ran a “brazen” fraud scheme that created numerous shell companies to launder money, submitted rosters of made-up children’s names and inflated meal claims.

Prosecutors also say some of the defendants gave kickbacks to other people in the scheme disguised as consulting fees, leading to bribery charges. They said defendants spent the money on themselves, including a $1 million lakefront Prior Lake property, luxury cars and gold jewelry.

Your pandemic funds, hard at work.

Israel announces the death of four hostages

The New Neo Posted on by

Three are elderly men and one middle-aged. The announcement is somewhat mysterious:

The Israel Defense Forces announced on Monday that it had confirmed the deaths of four Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity, following the gathering of new intelligence findings.

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a press briefing that the military could not immediately confirm the circumstances of the deaths of Chaim Peri, 79, Amiram Cooper, 84, Yoram Metzger, 80, and Nadav Popplewell, 51, but that it would investigate their deaths fully.

“We estimate that the four were killed together, in the Khan Younis area, several months ago, while being held by Hamas terrorists and while IDF forces were operating in Khan Younis,” he said.

“I know that difficult questions will arise regarding the circumstances of the deaths,” Hagari added, appearing to reference the possibility that the four had been mistakenly killed by IDF troops or Israeli airstrikes.

It is unclear whether the IDF discovered the bodies and whether part of the investigation will involve forensics on the bodies, or whether the intelligence has been gathered from captured Hamas operatives or from other informants. Three of the men were in a video released in December and the other in May. Hamas claimed the three were killed in an Israeli strike. That could actually be true, and if so it would be squarely on the shoulders of Hamas. Or it could be a false claim by Hamas. There is no way to get the truth from them; that’s why Israel is trying to figure it out. I wish them luck with that.

Hamas’ kidnapping of the hostages on October 7 set this all up, and it was obvious (or should have been) from the start why they did it and what their plan would be regarding them. The precedent set long ago by Israel was to release an enormous number of terrorists for one hostage, thus guaranteeing the taking of more hostages. Hamas scored a great coup on October 7 by taking so many, and in particular the children, the elderly, and the women.

This was guaranteed to create the maximum pressure on Israel to do anything, anything, to get them back. The hostages were Hamas’ insurance policy against being obliterated by Israel – that, and “international opinion” and “international law,” which would inevitably side with Gaza.

Once a person is under the control of kidnappers, all bets are off. The person can be tortured, raped, and/or killed at the kidnappers’ will. The kidnapper can hold out for a very high ranson price. In the case of Hamas, we don’t even have proof of life for the hostages, since even the very few who have been in videos are not holding recent newspapers, for example. Hamas is drunk with its own sadistic power, and knows the extreme value of its captives. It is willing to squeeze the last drop of agony out of the situation for the families, the Israeli government, and Israel’s sympathizers.

And many in Israel are cooperating by blaming the Israeli government for not doing enough – that is, for not utterly capitulating, or not waving a magic wand that causes the hostages to come home.

I can’t locate it at the moment, but I recall Caroline Glick saying in a video that there are actually more families of hostages who are saying to Israel’s government to not make any deal that would compromise the war effort than who are demonstrating to the government to free them at any cost. But that latter group is making the most noise and getting the most media coverage. And how can we blame that group, when their loved ones continue to be in such terrible peril? I can’t blame the families, even though I think that were the government to actually do what they say it would be disastrous. But they are suffering to an almost unimaginable degree, and their desire to have their loved ones rescued overrides everything.

How many hostages do I think are still alive? I think probably at least thirty, mainly young women who have been kept as sex slaves. Perhaps some men are alive, too, but nowhere near as many. However – and I think this is an important thing to remember – I don’t know that we’ll ever see many or even any of them again alive (or even dead), no matter what kind of “deal” may eventually be made. Since we don’t know who’s alive and who’s dead of the ninety or so hostages about whom Israel still has little to no information,, Hamas can do whatever it wants with them or with their living or dead bodies. Hamas has total power in terms of the hostages – including the withholding of information, the better to torment Israel and the families ever more exquisitely.

Fisking Biden’s “peace deal” speech

The New Neo Posted on by

A very depressing and yet insightful podcast from Caroline Glick:

And from her sister Bonnie Glick, we have this article. Here’s an excerpt that reminds us that something similar had come through a different source a few weeks earlier:

Out of thin air, on May 6 Hamas agreed to the ceasefire terms. Only, what actually happened was that the terms they agreed to were not the negotiated terms that the US, Qatar, and Israel had seen. Indeed, Egypt edited the ceasefire terms in such a way that Hamas would get a “win” and say they accepted the terms, but the terms, as edited, were outrageous.

Here’s the heart of Bonnie Glick’s essay:

Egypt built a formidable border wall, something Donald Trump could not even imagine in a fever dream for America. It is impenetrable, militarized, and closely guarded with Egyptian troops and security forces. The way through it for Gazans seeking to get out of Gaza? Baksheesh. Upwards of $5,000 per person. It has also been a gateway for international aid and smuggling into Gaza resulting in over $88 million in profit to the holder of the border keys.

The holder of those keys is a Bedouin tribal leader named Ibrahim al-Organi, now the wealthiest man in northern Sinai. But how could an ex-con smuggler rise to a position of border control prince? Through connections to the Egyptian government, Organi has cultivated extremely close ties with Egyptian President al-Sisi, and more significantly, with al-Sisi’s son, Mahmoud. General Mahmoud al-Sisi is the Deputy Chief of Egyptian intelligence and he sits on Organi’s board.

Here’s another good discussion of the Biden forces’ unilateral declaration of a peace plan:

Some people disagree with much of this. One is David Horovitz (note the “v” rather than the “w”). His piece is extremely convoluted in its reasoning and he practically ties himself in knots trying to express what he’s saying, but here’s the headline and subtitle: “Biden’s fateful, carefully timed, and highly complex challenge to Netanyahu and Hamas: It seems the PM is being asked to choose between his own interests and Israel’s, while Hamas is urged to consent to its own demise. But maybe there’s a more limited US game plan.” That’s a mouthful, but I think this is the gist of it:

All of the above brings us to the possibility — I stress, the possibility — that Biden himself and his team do not actually envisage the Israeli proposal playing out as specified, and are in fact seeking more immediate goals with only a vaguer hope of long-term fateful change.

The Israel-Hamas conflict is a zero-sum game: Israel wants to destroy Hamas; Hamas wants to survive and get back to destroying Israel. Neither side will agree to terms that definitively thwart its core goals.

By extension, therefore, complete clarity from Biden would have doomed the deal he is more realistically trying to achieve — which may be for the implementation of the first phase, but perhaps only the first phase, of a hostage-truce agreement.

That way, at least many of the living hostages get to come home from Hamas captivity.

That way, just possibly, too, a modicum of calm is restored at Israel’s northern border.

That way, more humanitarian aid enters Gaza. Global hostility to Israel recedes at least a little. Smotrich and Ben Gvir leave the coalition and Gantz stays. All good news from the Biden administration’s point of view and, it believes, from Israel’s too.

Even this more limited process does not obviate the danger of Hamas securing the release, early in phase one, of extremely dangerous terror chiefs into the West Bank, a marked escalation of terror from that front, and Hamas terminating the deal early, with very few hostages released.

Ya think? In other words, the whole thing is absurd. We don’t even know how many living hostages there are, and Israel is supposed to negotiate for “players to be named later”? And give up hundreds and hundreds of terrorist/murderers in the bargain? And stop fighting? And do Biden or Obama or Blinken et al actually think Hezbollah will stop the pressure on Israel for more than a short while (if that) in order to fool the world into thinking something has changed? The whole proposal is sickening, and sickeningly cynical, even as an idea.

At the mention of Lebanon I’m reminded of something else that Biden said when he debated Sarah Palin back in 2008, in the good old days when he possessed whatever faculties he had at his best. To refresh your memory:

Said Biden of the Bush administration’s supposed Middle East follies:

“When … along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, ‘Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.”

Huh?

Assuming that Biden was referring to when, in 2005, American and French pressure helped the Lebanese people kick Syrian troops out of Lebanon, who ever thought NATO occupation of that deeply divided country was a good idea?

As if America’s NATO allies would have gone in the first place.

But hey, as long as it makes Biden sound presidential.

After that debate, the MSM praised Biden’s horse manure to the skies. They’re still doing it.

A tiny pause

The New Neo Posted on by

I usually finish my posting in the late afternoon, barring important breaking news. Today, though, I have some commitments for the next few hours and plan to post more in the evening.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s really too much news these days to cover fairly, even in a roundup. But here’s some of it:

(1) One less hostage body for Hamas to use as a cynical bargaining chip; one more Israeli dead on 10/7. RIP.

(2) Biden, that stalwart democracy defender, is readying an executive order about people entering over the southern border and claiming asylum. If I”m not mistaken, this is the sort of thing he said he couldn’t do without Congress, but that was a ploy to be able to label the GOP members of Congress as not cooperating with limiting the flow of people across the border. The AP covers this with an article headlined: “Biden prepares a tough executive order that would shut down asylum after 2,500 migrants arrive a day.” Biden, so “tough” on those “migrants.” This is obviously announced that way with a keen eye to the 2024 election and anger at Biden’s previous policy on illegal aliens. The order concerns those claiming asylum only, which as far as I know used to be a fairly small percentage of entrants across the southern border but in recent years is claimed by just about everyone who is apprehended coming in that way. The rules for asylum have relaxed, and the courts are so overwhelmed that claimants can be here years before their cases are heard (if they appear at all at that point).

(3) The pandemic was big business not just for the pharmaceutical companies, which one would expect, but also for the NIH:

New data from the National Institutes of Health reveal the agency and its scientists collected $710 million in royalties during the pandemic, from late 2021 through 2023. These are payments made by private companies, like pharmaceuticals, to license medical innovations from government scientists.

Almost all that cash — $690 million — went to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the subagency led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, and 260 of its scientists.

This was double the amount typical of pre-COVID times.

And there’s also this.

(4) The Hunter Biden gun trial is in the jury selection phase. Note that Hunter is being tried for something that has nothing to do with Joe. Note that he is being tried in Delaware, a solidly Democrat state and one in which the Bidens have had enormous influence for many many decades. This is IMHO a show trial, but a show trial of the opposite kind from the ones to which Trump is being subjected. This trial is going forward in order to give the appearance of even-handedness – “see, even the president’s son is not above the law.” But I predict Hunter will get the equivalent of a wrist slap. What’s more, Hunter almost certainly did commit a bona fide crime, and not just one, either.

(5) Eric Clapton put down his copy of The Protocols long enough to opine:

British rock guitar legend Eric Clapton moved one step closer to Roger Waters territory last week, telling an interviewer that “Israel is running the world, Israel is running the show.”

The 79-year-old musician, who has recently performed playing a guitar painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, was interviewed on May 22 by David Spuria, an American Youtuber who hosts the popular Real Music Observer show.

Talking about the recent campus protests in the US against Israel, Clapton criticized the Senate hearings in which university presidents were asked about antisemitism on campus.

“I was so enthused about what was going on at Columbia [University] and elsewhere. And then what I couldn’t believe, because it freaked me out, were the Senate hearings, which were like the Nuremberg trials, you know?” he said.

Indeed, oh brilliant one. Just like the Nuremberg trials.

(6) Dershowitz has suggestions for the Trump appeal.

Try to enjoy June

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s a beautiful day outside where I live.

I’m going out. Recent political and world events have been quite miserable, but I’m trying not to let that destroy my enjoyment of things – like spring and summer, friends, family, the arts, nature, all those wonderful things that help make life worthwhile.

In case you’re at home stewing, I suggest you do the same.

The left gaslights the right about the Trump verdict: But our sacred institutions!

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s the way the left’s game is played. It’s not just about the Trump verdict – for example, they have used the same technique in connection with accepting the results of the 2020 election. But it is very much in evidence right now in regard to the NY verdict against Trump:

(1) The left alters or ignores the usual rules, which destroys trust in an institution in order to “get” their opposition.
(2) The institution can be almost anything: the FBI, presidential elections, or the legal system, to take a few recent examples.
(3) The right responds by criticizing the compromised institution and the left.
(4) The left acts shocked, SHOCKED that the right has stopped respecting the hallowed institution that is a pillar of our government and society.

Case in point, Joe Biden trolling us yesterday about Trump’s remarks:

President Joe Biden on Friday called former President Donald Trump’s reaction to his conviction in New York on criminal hush money charges “reckless” and “dangerous.”

“It’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged, just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden said at the White House, hours after Trump held a press conference condemning the criminal case. …

This jury was chosen the same way every jury in America has chosen,” the president said. “Five weeks after careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict.” …

“Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years,” Biden said. “And it literally is a cornerstone of America, our justice system … justice should be respected.”

“And we should never allow anyone to tear it down. As simple as that. That’s America. That’s who we are. That’s who will always be God willing.”

Joe Biden, gaslighter-in-chief. And these are the talking points parroted by Democrats right on down the line (or maybe it’s Biden who is the parrot – no matter).

It’s almost a thing of beauty, really. Destroy the institution – in an obvious way – and then gaslight the public by saying it’s the other side’s objections that are “tearing down” the institution that you have already trashed.

Another way to put it: the fox says that he guarded that henhouse most assiduously, and anyone who says otherwise is questioning the integrity of foxes – a sacred principle on which our republic rests.

The left, which long ago (or not so long ago) questioned the methods of the FBI, the DOJ, the police, and the government in general, now finds these things beyond criticism. The MSM is, of course, in agreement with the left. For example, see this AP story headlined, “Republicans join Trump’s attacks on justice system and campaign of vengeance after guilty verdict.” Note also the Orwellian reversal, because it is the left that has attacked and perverted the justice system to get vengeance on Trump and also to run election interference against him.

From the article:

Embracing Donald Trump’s strategy of blaming the U.S. justice system after his historic guilty verdict, Republicans in Congress are fervently enlisting themselves in his campaign of vengeance and political retribution as the GOP runs to reclaim the White House.

Almost no Republican official has stood up to suggest Trump should not be the party’s presidential candidate for the November election — in fact, some have sought to hasten his nomination. Few others dared to defend the legitimacy of the New York state court that heard the hush money case or the 12 jurors who unanimously rendered their verdict.

And those Republicans who expressed doubts about Trump’s innocence or political viability, including his former hawkish national security adviser John Bolton or top-tier Senate candidate Larry Hogan of Maryland, were instantly bullied by the former president’s enforcers and told to “leave the party.”

Republicans POUNCE!

This is probably as good a place as any to link to this article by law professor Steven Calabresi, entitled “President Donald Trump’s Manhattan Convictions are Unconstitutional.”

And here’s Alan Dershowitz from yesterday:

The left thinks it will be able to stand upright in the wind that would blow:

Biden’s fake Israel/Palestine peace deal

The New Neo Posted on by

Many years ago, when I was in my twenties, I had a friend who lived in a far-away city. We kept in touch by phone and letter (how quaint). It was many years before ordinary people had cellphones, so we called on landlines.

My friend and her boyfriend had lived together for about a year. I knew him, too, although not very well. But we’d spent time together when I had visited one summer.

One day I phoned and the boyfriend answered. He said my friend was busy but he’d get her in a moment, but in the meantime I should congratulate them. “What for?” I asked.

“We’re engaged to be married!” he said excitedly. And so I congratulated him, and we talked about it for a bit. Then he went and got my friend and put her on the phone.

“Congratulations!” I said.

“For what?” she asked guardedly.

That confused me. But I answered, “For your engagement, of course.”

“Did he tell you that?” she said.

More confusion on my part. “Why not; is it a secret?” I asked.

“We’re not engaged,” she said, with more than a touch of anger and irritation. “In fact, we’re breaking up. I’m planning to leave, and he knows it. He’s trying to shame me into staying by telling people we’re engaged.”

That was memorable enough as a twisted ploy that I’ve recalled it all these years since. And I was reminded of it when reading the story about Biden announcing a supposed peace deal to which the Israelis had agreed. Not so fast, said Netanyahu:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have rebuffed President Joe Biden’s ceasefire offer to end the military operation against the terror group Hamas in Rafah.

Biden presented it in his televised speech Friday as a new Israeli proposal, but it’s clear that was not true. He did it as the Sabbath was starting in Israel and used that quiet time to gather international support for what supposedly was a new Israeli proposal—but it was all a deception. Israel’s Prime Minister was forced to break Sabbath silence to tweet that Israel’s position had not changed and Hamas could not remain in power.

Biden declared Friday that it was “time for this war to end,” suggesting that Israel should halt all military operations against Hamas in Gaza. The president’s offer calls for a “full and complete ceasefire,” a move that would keep Hamas in power.

Biden declared it was an ‘Israeli offer,’ a claim since rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. A senior Biden White House official also contradicted the president, stating that Biden was in fact pushing a deal favored by Hamas. The unnamed staffer told CNN that Biden’s offer was “nearly identical to Hamas’ own proposals.”

And don’t tell me this is due to senility on Biden’s part. I have been consistently saying that although Biden is cognitively challenged, he is not senile – and although he is very much under the sway of advisors, he still has agency and makes decisions on his own. He was Obama’s henchman from 2008 on, when he was not senile but merely the same mendacious, corrupt, sly, narcissistic, nasty guy he always has been.

Another thing I’ve been saying from the start is that Biden will be the Democratic Party’s nominee in 2024. They would have liked to have replaced him, but couldn’t find a way to do it, and the possible replacements don’t poll any better. So I predicted and continue to predict that he will stay, despite the fact that more and more Americans are onto his vile game. The left is counting on one or both of two things to pull him across the finish line and be elected president: lawfare against Trump, and fraud/”rigging” of the election.

The “evil” category

The New Neo Posted on by

For most of my blogging career, I’ve had the category “evil” on my right sidebar. As I write this, there are only 118 entries there. Ordinarily, I’ve kept the designation for things like the Holocaust or terrible crimes rather than politics, but this recent trial and verdict in NY (or actually, all the lawfare against Trump) strikes me not just as being motivated by politics but as partaking of evil.

For example, when I saw Biden’s “duping delight” smile yesterday, it occurred to me that this is one of the manifestations of evil. It was turned into a campaign advertisement by the Trump crowd, and rightly so:

Evil comes in many guises. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”