Trump and the New York show trial

The New Neo Posted on by

All Americans should be outraged about the show-trial nature of the charges of fraud against Trump in New York. The persecution is obvious and blatant. The tragedy is not really the biased prosecutor and judge, although of course these are awful. The larger tragedy is the acquiescence and approval of so many people who don’t recognize it for what it is, and that our free press has no interest in informing them about what’s going on, because the target is the hated Trump.

And I suppose that more and more people probably have become unaware of what a show trial even is. In fact, they are unaware of the most basic facts of our government, in a survey from a year ago:

Americans’ understanding of basic facts about the U.S. government declined for the first time in six years, as fewer than half in a new survey could name all three branches of government.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s annual Constitution Day Civics Survey found a significant drop in the percentage of Americans who could name all three branches of government — executive, legislative, and judicial — falling by 9 percentage points from a year earlier.

About a quarter of Americans surveyed could not name a single branch.

The survey also found a decline in the number of respondents who could name any of the five freedoms guaranteed under the First Amendment.

Freedom of religion was named by 24 percent of those surveyed, falling from 56 percent from the previous survey. Those who named freedom of the press also declined sharply down by 30 percentage points from 50 percent in 2021.

Abysmal ignorance, and no accident. Education in these areas has been purposely dumbed down.

But then there’s literature – although again, I wonder how many people read the original anymore:

‘It’s a pun!’ the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed, ‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’

‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.

‘I won’t!’ said Alice.

Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’

Would that that last sentence were the case.

Andrew C. McCarthy – no lover of Trump – harshly criticizes the trial in an article entitled “With Trump Already Found Guilty, His New York Fraud Trial Begins” and sutitled “This isn’t a judicial proceeding; it’s a partisan farce.”

I’m not sure about that word “farce,” because isn’t a farce supposed to be humorous? At any rate, here’s the way the piece begins:

The Bolshevik bloc of the Democratic Party is having its fantasy prosecution of Donald Trump play out in real life in New York City. There, in state attorney general Letitia James’s civil-fraud case against the former president, the trial will begin today even though Trump was already found guilty and sentenced to corporate death last week by a robed apparat named Arthur Engoron.

It doesn’t sound like the same Andrew McCarthy who a few years ago thought James Comey and the FBI would treat Trump fairly. But these current proceedings outrage him, and rightly so.

The same for Alan Dershowitz, who speaks about it in this podcast:

Open thread 10/3/23

The New Neo Posted on by

All of it amazes me. But the one-handed stuff amazes me the most. Yes, the smaller woman (she is supposedly 15 but looks younger) is very light. But she’s not so light that it makes sense that another not-so-very-big woman can hold her up with one arm; I’m talking about minutes 0:32 to 1:07, and 1:55 to 2:00. And then there are those crazy crazy backbends.

Jamall Bowman: pulling the fire alarm and then pulling our legs?

The New Neo Posted on by

What a long strange trip it’s been.

To wit, you’ve probably read quite a bit about this:

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), a former school principal who pulled a fire alarm in the U.S. Capitol complex moments before the House was scheduled to vote on a bill preventing a government shutdown, did so because he thought it would “open the door.” …

However, Bowman spent ten years as a school principal in a state that requires 12 fire alarm drills per school year.

Bowman’s office similarly issued a statement claiming he did not know he would trigger the fire alarm by pulling it.

“Congressman Bowman did not realize he would trigger a building alarm as he was rushing to make an urgent vote. The Congressman regrets any confusion,” his spokeswoman said in a statement.

Bowman’s only 47 years old, so it’s unlikely to be senility. And yet it’s an odd crime to commit when under surveillance, and Bowman must have known that cameras would catch an image of him in the act. Did he think that no one would care? Or was he having one of those foggy, distracted moments, like when you put your keys in the fridge?

The NY Post has some photos of the alarm, described this way:

The bright red alarm is clearly marked with the word “FIRE” — and is right next to two signs that provide explicit details on how to open the emergency door at the Cannon House Office Building, photos show.

“Emergency Exit Only!” the signs read. “Push until alarm sounds (3 seconds). Door will unlock in 30 seconds.”

The strident socialist New York lawmaker, whose gaffe was caught on surveillance video, simply needed to turn his head to the right to see the glaring signs.

Hmmm – he’s a socialist. And according to Wiki, he was the principal for a Bronx public school called Cornerstone Academy for Social Action. He is described as being against standardized testing, and “Bowman’s school policy used a restorative justice model to address the school-to-prison pipeline.” Maybe he expected that his alarm-pulling stunt would be met by “restorative justice”?

[NOTE: See also this.]

It’s Senator Laphonza Butler till the next election

The New Neo Posted on by

You might ask – who’s that? I certainly had never heard of her before. But Butler fits the previously declared identity boxes – a black woman- and Newsom has said she’s a temporary placeholder. However, she’s certainly not barred from running in 2024 should she so choose.

But Butler is not merely her intersectional identity boxes:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler to fill the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, elevating the head of a fundraising juggernaut that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights, according to a person familiar with the decision.

Butler was also involved in Kamala Harris’ failed 2020 presidential campaign. The campaign was disastrous, but then again she ended up as VP.

Butler is apparently a lesbian, and although I do not care one way or the other, that’s another identity box she checks. However, there was a little problem with the issue of residence – Maryland or California – but that will be fixed.

The appointment doesn’t really make a difference in terms of Senate votes. No matter who Newsom had picked, that person would have voted with the Democrats on every single measure. Butler will do so, too.

Open thread 10/2/23

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s not just October; it’s October second. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s amazing how fast time goes these days. I even saw a few leaves yesterday that had turned color – the early birds.

The Name in the Stone – updated [BUMPED UP]

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m still working on Gerard’s book, and I thought I’d mention a few things that came up in the comments of my earlier post on the subject.

The basic structure of the book was decided on by Gerard, and I’m following that with a few modifications. He’s the person who seems to have wanted it to be called The Name in the Stone, after the lead essay – one of his most well-known – about his uncle of the same name who died in World War II and was lost at sea, Gerard’s discovery of a monument in New York’s Battery Park with his name on it, and an earlier incident in his family about the names.

So that title is a given, as far as I’m concerned.

I know that Gerard also liked books – real books – from his time in the publishing business as editor at Houghton Mifflin, as well as his career as literary agent, but also because he was really into aesthetics and liked the look and feel of a good book. Since this one will be self-published and designed by me, I’m trying to get something that isn’t a piece of junk. There will also be an ebook version for those who prefer that sort of thing, but I consider the hard copy to be primary. One decision involves paperback versus hardcover. I’d prefer the latter, but the price would just go up and up, and prices are already high enough so it might end up being a paperback.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of fiddling with cover design. Again, that would be Gerard’s bailiwick. But it’s my task at the moment, and I’ve actually been having fun with it and a website called Book Brush. It’s the best one I’ve found for the purpose, and I’ve tested quite a few. Lots of fonts and colors and choices galore, so many that it’s become a big time-waster for me.

I started out – as shown in my recent post on the subject – with a very prinitive prototype (before I found Book Brush). My idea was to have a photo of the name on the monument, but unfortunately the photo I have is blurry, and it’s very hard to take a photograph of that part of the monument because it’s in shadow and very high up. Scaffolding and a very good camera and lighting would be needed. Later, with Book Brush, I tried all sorts of variations, and they all were blurry (and probably would be pixelated in the actual book cover) and not very pleasant to look at.

So I think I’m jettisoning that idea in favor of something else. What will that “something else” be? I’ve tried many possbilities and have fastened – for the moment – on some sort of attractive stone. Not a gravestone; just stone itself. Here are just a few samples from the many many I’ve designed; I have lots more. Some of these are more finished than others in terms of the back cover (on the left in all the photos) and the spine, but the finished product will have a lot more verbiage on the back than these do. I’ve included one of the “monument” ones, too, but as I said I think the finished product would be way too blurry to use that photo. Imagine these as 9 X 6 books.

What do you think?

Physical anthropologists, beware – the woke brigade has come for you

The New Neo Posted on by

From the party of science-non-deniers:

The world’s largest anthropological conference with the American Anthropological Association and the Canadian Anthropology Society had hoped to answer [the question of making sex distinctions through skeletal remains] in a panel using science we’ve had since the dawn of humanity.

The event would have discussed “Sex identification whether an individual was male or female – using the skeleton is one of the most fundamental components in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology.”

The panel was canceled, because it was thought to indicate that “sex and gender are simplistically binary, and that this is a fact with meaningful implications for the discipline.”

Well they are – in the physical and biological sense. And the distinctions are easy to make with skeletal remains, not difficult. But we can’t have that, if it hurts someone’s feelings. As one of the canceled panel members (Elizabeth Weiss, a professor at San Jose State) said:

The field has been nose-diving into an ‘off the rails’ agenda, with activists pushing for some facts to be replaced with feelings. As anthropologists have developed more precise metrics to determine the sex of the human skeleton they study in the field, the more they get attacked for knowing and being able to determine those differences.

Truth is not necessarily considered an objective goal and the victims’ narrative is more important than facts.

This is Soviet-type stuff she is describing. Science as determined by politics is not science, it is propaganda. But since post-modernists don’t believe in objective truth, it doesn’t matter to them and truth must be stamped out if it conflicts with their agenda.

That’s why it’s so very very ironic that Democrats consider themselves the pro-science party and condemn the right as anti-science.

The proper response to this complaint was not to cancel the panel, it was to say “If you can’t stand truth, you shouldn’t call yourself a scientist.” My guess, though, is that it was canceled mainly because the cost and need for security would have increased exponentially had they kept the panel on the schedule. The activists are well aware of that dynamic, too.

[Hat tip: Instapundit.]

What effect is the NY fraud ruling likely to have on Trump’s businesses? Plus, the MAL valuation issue

The New Neo Posted on by

This NY Post article attempts to answer the question. We already know that, whether Trump lied or not, there was no victim and none of the lenders claimed damages. But this discussion is about a different angle of the case:

Only a few decisions have ever been issued on whether New York courts have the right to revoke business certificates based on violations of the civil fraud law that Engoran found Trump broke, according to Leitman Bailey.

The lawyer said there are at least two similar New York cases, with one 1959 ruling in which a judge stripped a disc-jockey school of its business licenses because it deceived students about what they were qualified for after completing the program.

In another 1974 case, a judge revoked the business license of a company that posed as the New York Office of Consumers.

But none of these cases fit the profile of Trump, Leitman Bailey said.

“Nothing like this has ever happened before in the history of New York,” Leitman Bailey said of Engoron’s ruling.

Or, I would wager, in the history of the US.

All of the legal experts The Post spoke to agreed that Engoron’s ruling is nearly unheard of – which may account for the lack of clarity on how it will be implemented.

“It’s exceedingly rare,” Florence said. “Judicial dissolution almost never happens.” Instead, corporations usually “die” in bankruptcy cases, she said.

Trump is so very special, his victimless crimes so very heinous, that an exception must be made.

Why does Engoran think it’s okay to do this? Because he knows that half of America – and almost all in the MSM – will applaud with vengeful glee? Because he knows that the ground has been laid with seven years of describing Trump as a person beyond the pale, uniquely and deeply evil? Because he knows that the NY appeals courts are politically biased, as well? Because he wants to put the “guilty of fraud” label on Trump now, prior to the 2024 election, in order to affect him negatively, even if his decision is eventually overturned? Because if it happens quickly enough, before an appeal can occur, the properties will be liquidated by the receiver and the financial damage to Trump will be irreversible?

Here is a comment to the Post article:

So in 2023 America a single judge can just cancel a business with the stroke of a pen? … And even if NO ONE was hurt by this? If this is allowed to hold then we are truly done as a country.

More:

Business certificates are issued by the state to prove a company’s validity and are used for business transactions.

They can be thought of like a birth certificate is for a person, former financial-crimes prosecutor Diana Florence told The Post.

When the judge canceled them, it was like being given “death certificates” — with the ruling amounting to a “corporate death penalty,” Florence said. …

“We are going to see the name Trump coming off of a lot of buildings in New York,” [Cornell law professor] Hockett predicted. “The Trumps will no longer be a real estate family in Manhattan.” …

Trump has already said he plans to appeal the ruling which, two lawyers said, is likely to stop the cancellation of the business certificates from taking effect immediately.

An appeal could be filed as early as this week, landing in New York’s mid-level appeals court called the Appellate Division, Hockett said.

Both Florence and veteran real estate lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey believe that will trigger a stay of Engoron’s ruling while the appeal plays out — which could take up to two years to decide.

And then there’s that $18 evaluation of Mar-a-Lago, which seems on the face of it to be absurdly understated. I don’t have my finger on the pulse of Palm Beach real estate (more’s the pity), but I actually do know a couple who live there and are attempting to sell their rather small and very modest non-oceanfront property for many millions, because that’s what the traffic will bear. Then there’s handy dandy Zillow; here’s a screenshot:

Real estate evaluations are notoriously fluid. But I don’t care how many restrictions and encumbrances are on that property; it’s worth a lot more than eighteen million. And yes, you can get someone to say otherwise – or to say just about anything, I suppose, especially if it hurts Trump. More here:

One prominent Palm Beach real estate broker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Post, “It’s utterly delusional to think that property is only worth $18 million.”

The insider added, “If that property were on the market today, I would list it at around $300 million, minimum … at least. He also has the separate golf course minutes away.” …

He cited a basic Palm Beach Assessor valuation that ranged from $18 million to $28 million between 2011 and 2021, with industry sources saying it fails to take into consideration the fair market value. This valuation is far from Trump’s 1985 purchase price of $10 million, $8 million less than what the judge declared it was worth today.

It is also important to note that Trump got a deal on Mar-a-Lago nearly 40 years ago. At the time the historical estate was listed at $20 million.

There are also nearby comps.

To put it in perspective, a 2-acre wooded lot at 1980 S. Ocean Blvd., just 5 minutes from Mar-a-Lago, is currently listed for $150 million. Mar-a-Lago, situated at 1100 S. Ocean Blvd., dwarfs this lot tenfold and operates as a commercial business with around 500 members as part of the golf club. …

Forbes had appraised the property, which is made up of 128 rooms, at approximately $160 million in 2018 following extensive renovations and its exclusive Palm Beach location on Billionaires’ Row. The property includes a 20,000-square-foot ballroom, five clay tennis courts and a sprawling waterfront pool.

And in the five years since, Palm Beach properties have only increased in value.

Maybe Forbes should be found guilty of fraud. And yes, that’s sarcasm.

The Trump fraud case highlights the use of a broad law in novel ways to target Trump and only Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

Andrew C. McCarthy is no Trump fan, but he certainly recognizes prosecutorial and judicial overreach when he sees it:

The ruling by a New York State judge on Tuesday, putting Trump out of business in the Big Apple, the longtime center of his real-estate empire, illustrates two things.

First, to what will be the surprise of absolutely no one, Trump has a strained relationship with the truth. Put less charitably, he lies. …

Second, while the civil law, like the criminal law, makes fraud illegal, the New York State statute at issue in Judge Arthur F. Engoron’s 35-page ruling is nightmarishly broad and draconian.

Executive Law 65(12) outlaws engaging in “repeated” and “persistent” fraud in business dealings. Well, okay, but if one engaged in such an egregious pattern of behavior, surely we’d expect to find some victims, right? At least one victim? I mean, if you’re going to incinerate a multibillion-dollar international conglomerate, shouldn’t there be, you know, a bank that lost, if not millions in depositor savings, at least a few bucks? Especially if, as in James’s case, at issue are more than a dozen years of financial dealings.

But here: There’s no victim. No harm to any creditor or investor. No bank or insurance company brought in to say, “Donald Trump ruined us … or at least profoundly damaged us … or maybe, you know, shaved a few shekels off some middle-manager’s annual bonus.”

A case obviously brought against Trump in order to destroy him, a case that involves facts that indicate it would not be brought against anyone else. Pure political revenge, and transparently so.

McCarthy adds:

In tone and substance, [the opinion of the judge expresses] real venom. I was a prosecutor for many years, so I can’t say I’ve never seen such overt judicial loathing of a defendant and/or his counsel. But on those rare occasions, one usually finds sociopathic defendants who’ve committed heinous crimes, or lawyers whose tactics skirt the lines of suborning perjury and the like. Here, there is nothing like that. There is just … Trump. …

Putting aside the lack of harm, Engoron and James are not just stripping Trump of his earnings. They are putting him out of business. Not just him but his two adult sons, some other Trump Organization executives, and the Trump Organization, including the array of entities operating under its umbrella. Without proof of any crime or any damage, New York State is imposing the corporate death penalty.

McCarthy makes a very interesting point at the end of his piece:

Whatever you think of Donald Trump, the existential punishment is wildly out of proportion with the negligible harm. For a non-crime, in which no one suffered harm — in which misrepresentations were made not to saps but to sophisticated financial actors who do their own due diligence on valuations — progressive Democrats are closing down a long-established business of a man who, before he became their political enemy, was celebrated as an iconic New York real estate broker.

This raises two questions: First, how many businesses would emerge unscathed, under the law as New York interprets it, from the kind of examination Trump endured due only to unabashed partisanship? Second, why conduct business in New York if progressive bullies reserve the right to annihilate you over trifles?

In other words, this case could have a chilling effect on business investment in New York. It certainly should, for anyone paying attention. My guess, though, is that most Democrats would think this is only ever going to happen to Trump or his supporters, and that’s perfectly fine because they deserve that and worse. Those Democrats think the crocodile will never circle back to eat them.

Trump’s lawyers say they will fight this:

According to Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba, Trump intends to appeal the judge’s “fundamentally flawed” ruling immediately. Trump might also ask for an immediate trial suspension.

I hope it is granted, but if the appeals court is as biased as the trial court, it won’t be.

More:

The decision effectively barred New York-based businesses controlled by prominent members of the Trump Organization from conducting business in the state by removing their company certificates.

According to Engoron, the decision to revoke business certificates affects any company controlled or owned by Trump, his sons Donald, Jr. and Eric, and former employees of the Trump Organization Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney.

That would spell the end of operations for renowned Trump properties, including the Midtown Manhattan-based Trump Tower, the Westchester County-based Trump National Golf Club, and the 927-foot-tall Wall Street office building known as The Trump Building.

Together, the companies provide jobs for hundreds of individuals and account for a sizeable chunk of the holdings of the Trump Organization.

These holdings are all in New York; the court has no power over holdings in other jurisdictions. Again, I wonder how many people will stop investing in New York and will go elsewhere. My reply to McCarthy’s question, “how many businesses would emerge unscathed, under the law as New York interprets it, from the kind of examination Trump endured?” would be “Virtually none.”

Dianne Feinstein dies at 90

The New Neo Posted on by

RIP.

Feinsteins career was “filled with firsts,” as this article reminds us:

She was the first woman president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the first woman mayor of San Francisco, and one of two of the first women elected to the U.S. Senate from California.

She was a senator for 30 years, a Democrat “stalwart,” as some articles have dubbed her. That was certainly the case; she only seemed a tad less to the left than most of her Democrat colleagues because they moved so far from the Democrat norms of the 90s.

Lately she had become very frail and obviously infirm. Her husband had died in 2022, and I’m going to assume that took a toll, too. There’s been plenty of speculation about her replacement, as well. That’s why this sort of article seems preposterous to me:

There is a phenomenon in politics whereby if someone is old and infirm but remains alive for a while in a diminished state, they can almost persuade people that they are immune to death.

So it was with John McCain, who died at 81 from a vicious brain cancer that left no hope of recovery, but whose actual death still sent a deep shudder through the political world. So, too, was it with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose death at 87 after multiple battles with cancer shattered her admirers and pitched the Supreme Court rightward.

And so it was this week with Dianne Feinstein …

Actually, all those people were ill for quite some time before death, and what to do when their time came had been a near-constant topic of conversation while they were still alive. That was certainly true of Feinstein.

Many people thought that perhaps Kamala Harris would be replacing her, since Newsom – who gets to appoint Feinstein’s successor, at least until the next election – has specified, a la Joe Biden, that it would be a black woman, and since the party would dearly love to remove Harris from the second-in-command position. I have long said it won’t be Harris, because she would never accept such a demotion. Now it seems even less likely to be Harris, because Newsom has declared that he’ll appoint someone temporary, just until the 2024 election determines a successor:

Newsom’s choices all run political risks.

A handful of Black women in office have been floated as possibilities, including Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell.

Lee and others lashed out at Newsom earlier in the month after he indicated he would select a caretaker instead of picking from the current slate of candidates.

“The idea that a Black woman should be appointed only as a caretaker to simply check a box is insulting to countless Black women across this country who have carried the Democratic Party to victory election after election,” Lee tweeted.

Not that any Democrat in the state will stop voting for Democrats, or for Newsom himself if he happens to end up being the Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2024.