Trump made Bragg do it

The New Neo Posted on by

Is there no end to Trump’s superpowers?

For example, in the New York Times, law professor Jed Handelsman Shugerman writes:

The 34-count indictment — which more accurately could be described as 34 half-indictments — was a disaster. It was a setback for the rule of law and established a dangerous precedent for prosecutors.

This legal embarrassment reveals new layers of Trumpian damage to the legal foundations of the United States: Mr. Trump’s opponents react to his provocations and norms violations by escalating and accelerating the erosion of legal norms.

Trumpian damage.

Maybe Bragg can use “Trump made me do it” as a defense if and when he ever is made to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.

The very best woman is a biological man

The New Neo Posted on by

It seems to be the case in athletics. Mediocre male athletes can become champs by declaring themselves female. A man who has passed puberty has a lifelong advantage that doesn’t end even if that person starts taking female hormones.

One of the best examples is swimmer Lia Thomas, who was nominated by the University of Pennsylvania for 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year. Caitlyn Jenner (nee Bruce Jenner) was already a famous athlete prior to transition and did not do it for athletic reasons, but has received many honors originally meant for biological women:

In August 2015, Jenner won the Social Media Queen award at the Teen Choice Awards. In October 2015, Glamour magazine named her one of its 25 Glamour Women of the Year, calling her a “Trans Champion.”…

Feminist author Germaine Greer called Glamour magazine’s decision to award Jenner with a “Woman of the Year” award misogynistic, questioning whether a transgender woman could be better than “someone who is just born a woman.” Jenner also received criticism from individuals such as actress Rose McGowan, for stating – in a BuzzFeed interview – that the hardest part about being a woman “is figuring out what to wear”.

And USA Today named Rachel Levine as one of 12 “Women of the Year” in 2022.

Recently a person named Dylan Mulvaney has gotten a lot of publicity. I confess I hadn’t heard of Mulaney until a couple of days ago, but plenty of people had:

Mulvaney, who now has more than 10 million followers on TikTok and 1.7 million on Instagram, rose to prominence in March last year, when she started to chronicle her gender transition in her “Days of Girlhood” TikTok series. She was even chosen in October to be among a small group of young advocates invited to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House, where Mulvaney talked to the president about transgender issues.

As far as I can tell, Mulvaney is an intact biological male, but I can’t say I’ve investigated that issue in any depth. Mulaney has an acting background, and the whole thing appears to me to be an act (sincere or not, I also cannot tell). Caitlyn Jenner is not amused, by the way:

Caitlyn Jenner, who, like Mulvaney, is a transgender woman, joined in by sharing Blackburn’s tweet, writing: “@MarshaBlackburn thank you for speaking out and having a backbone — one of the best senators we have. Let’s not ‘normalize’ any of what this person is doing. This is absurdity!”

Here’s the sort of thing Mulvaney has done for Bud Light:

Tampax. Tampax.

Here’s Mulvaney for Nike women’s wear:

As I watch that video I get the distinct impression that Mulvaney is caricaturing women, or a stereotype of girlishness. Decades ago, such roles were played by actual women:

The right is in a bind

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Turtler” writes:

The End of America primarily isn’t happening because of Trump, but in spite of him. Moreover, his ability to “fade into the background” is limited not just by his ego (though there is plenty of that) but by a left wing propaganda machine that is simultaneously addicted to propping him up as a target and wants to utterly, publicly destroy him.

Trump emerged as a viable political figure because of the previous actions of the left since it’s been in power. After all, Trump had been talking about maybe running for office since the 1980s, but he correctly understood that the time was finally ripe for a run in 2016. One of the main reasons he was able to win that year is that the left didn’t have their full apparatus in place, probably because they underestimated his strength and the public’s dislike for their own favored candidate, Hillary Clinton.

They did not make that error in 2020, and they will not make it in 2024 no matter who runs. People who say that the destructive, manipulative, perhaps fraudulent, and “lawfare”-heavy tools of the left will be mounted against anyone who runs on the GOP ticket are correct.

That said, Trump has a lot of baggage that make him an especially rich target. He also has a lot of plusses along with his minuses. My opinion is that he probably is a worse candidate than DeSantis would be, but I’ve been wrong before and I might be wrong again.

That’s the problem – and it’s not just my problem. The 2024 election is, quite simply, impossible to predict no matter who runs on the GOP side. The tools of the left to prevent any candidate on the right from winning are many and varied; we cannot pretend otherwise. But another thing that is crystal clear is that the conflict on the right between people who have turned away from Trump (or never supported him in the first place) and those who think he must be the nominee is an old one that represents a basic split in the party that long predated Trump. Trump is not really the issue, but he is the lightning rod.

The left knows this, and exploits it.

On the Trump indictment

The New Neo Posted on by

Apparently there’s no there there.

Which may not matter. Nevertheless the indictment is exceptionally weak, even weaker than expected – which is saying something.

And it’s not just people on the right who are unimpressed by it:

And even this Vox writer is not what you’d call enthusiastic about the legal basis for the case:

Bragg, in other words, has built one of the most controversial and high-profile criminal cases in American history upon the most uncertain of foundations. And that foundation could crumble into dust if the courts reject his legal arguments on a genuinely ambiguous question of law.

What’s more:

…[S]omeone accused of falsifying business records may be charged with a felony if their “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”

In a vague statement made after Trump’s arraignment, Bragg claims the concealed records scheme “violated New York election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means.” But this legal theory is not mentioned at all in the indictment or the accompanying statement of facts.

That leaves the federal campaign finance violation that led to Cohen’s guilty plea.

But it is far from clear that a New York state prosecutor may charge Trump with a felony because he tried to cover up a federal, as opposed to a state, crime.

Then there’s the statute of limitations problem:

There’s also one more twist here. The statute of limitations for the felony version of the false records crime is five years, while the statute of limitations for the misdemeanor version is only two years. Trump’s final payment to Cohen occurred in December 2017, which was more than five years ago.

That said, New York law sometimes allows the clock to be stopped on these statutes of limitations when the defendant was out of the state, and Trump spent four years living in the White House before relocating to Florida.

As I said, though, none of this actual legal stuff may end up mattering in the end. It’s Manhattan-town, Jake.

Alan Dershowitz is extremely concerned, and I most definitely share that concern. However, he seems to think Bragg decided to do this on his own in response to public pressure. I don’t think that’s it at all; I think that this was a decision by a group of higher-ups in the party:

Chicago voters must think the city is doing just fine…

The New Neo Posted on by

…because they elected another leftist to replace Lori Lightfoot. The winner is Brandon Johnson, a paid organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union. That’s where his financial support came from:

Just a few months ago, Johnson was a relative unknown, even to some voters in the West Side district he represents on the Cook County Board.

He owes his meteoric rise to the millions in contributions and thousands of campaign foot soldiers provided by the CTU and its affiliates, SEIU Locals 1 and 73, SEIU Heathcare, AFSCME Council 31 and United Working Families.

That support in money and people allowed Johnson to rise above his greatest vulnerabilities: his past support for the concept of defunding the police; fears that his $800 million tax plan would be job killer that would drive businesses out of Chicago; and Vallas’ complaint that Johnson has “never run anything” bigger than a classroom.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

Even though I don’t see how viewpoints on abortion are relevant to a mayoral contest, that subject featured heavily in this election – as it did in the Wisconsin judicial election I wrote about earlier today (where it was more relevant). Here’s how the subject played out in the Chicago contest:

Despite an avalanche of business contributions that allowed him to outspend Johnson by a 2 to 1 margin, Vallas could not overcome his own statements — on talk radio, Facebook and Twitter — that left voters in this overwhelmingly Democratic city believing he is an anti-abortion, pro-voucher Republican.

Not even a slew of endorsements from high-profile Democrats featured in Vallas’ television commercials — including retired Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, retired U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin — were enough to erase that perception.

According to the article, it was young voters who put Johnson over the top in a race that was relatively close.

Kiss Wisconsin goodbye

The New Neo Posted on by

The Wisconsin Supreme Court is now controlled by the left. This is highly consequential:

The Democrat-backed candidate defeated her conservative opponent in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election of Wisconsin Tuesday night, giving the left a majority over the body that determines critical issues such as abortion and election integrity.

Election integrity. Wisconsin.

It wasn’t even close:

In a contest that smashed spending records for state judicial elections, Daniel Kelly, a former justice of the state Supreme Court, lost to Janet Protasiewicz, a circuit court judge from Milwaukee County, by approximately 10 points.

Abortion concerns apparently featured strongly in the results, but it’s that “election integrity” part that probably will have more far-reaching effects. Here’s what was at stake:

…[The newly flipped liberal Court will strike down Wisconsin’s current voter ID law. Additionally, proof of residency – which is required to register to vote – will be nullified. Furthermore, unmanned drop boxes, which were deemed illegal by the current conservative Court, will become legal. There will be drop boxes on every street corner in Madison and Milwaukee.

If those things happen, I doubt Wisconsin will ever vote anything but Democrat again in a presidential election. Although the Wisconsin legislature is currently strongly Republican, that wouldn’t stop a liberal Supreme Court from rulings such as those described.

I hadn’t followed the race closely till now, but apparently the fight was exceptionally bitter, as evidenced by Kelly’s concession speech:

“I wish that in a circumstance like this, I would be able to concede to a worthy opponent,” he said at an event held at the Heidel House Hotel in Green Lake. “But I do not have a worthy opponent to which I can concede.”

Kelly called Protasiewicz’s campaign “deeply deceitful, dishonorable and despicable.”…

…My concern is the damage done to the institution of the courts,” Kelly said.

“My opponent is a serial liar. She’s disregarded judicial ethics; she’s demeaned the judiciary with her behavior. This is the future that we have to look forward to in Wisconsin.”

Adding: “I wish Wisconsin the best of luck, because I think it’s going to need it.”

Here’s some of the background to the accusations about lying.

Fashion tracks our decline

The New Neo Posted on by

This is very Weimar Republic:

The three words that best describe Hunter Schafer’s Vanity Fair Oscars party look? Less is more.

Dressed in a bias-cut white silk skirt, a single ivory-colored feather and — crucially — nothing else, Schafer was bound to raise a few eyebrows. Google searches for the actor and model skyrocketed on Sunday night as her look hit social media. On Twitter, pictures of Schafer immediately received tens of thousands of likes, while her own Instagram post has now been liked more than 2 million times.

Schafer is a trans woman – that is, a biological male who identifies as a woman. In this case, a lot of surgery was obviously involved, and although I don’t know the details, clearly this person had a good implant surgeon. But the abdomen and hips are giveaways, as they so often are.

But my larger point is: this is fashion? It is mere sensationalism, although that gets old quickly and therefore escalation is necessary. What’s next?

Schafer is merely the continuation of a trend I first noticed many years ago towards women who look like men with breasts – that is, very flat stomach with prominent abs, slim hips, and big bosom. It’s a type of female body that does exist in nature but not all that often. However, a biological male with breast implants can achieve the goal more easily.

If you scroll down in that article past the two photos of Schafer, you will find a runway model wearing the same “outfit.” In some ways it’s even more disturbing than the Schafer photos. The red-headed model is apparently a biological woman, but she looks as though she is quite literally starving. I don’t just mean thin; I mean starving, wasting away.

Tres chic.

Charge-stacking against Trump: those 34 counts

The New Neo Posted on by

Andrew C. McCarthy wrote this four days ago, but it continues to be relevant:

Thirty-four counts … in a case, again, that federal prosecutors decided wasn’t worth charging at all.

This is a classic abuse of power. Unscrupulous prosecutors will sometimes camouflage with quantity their case’s lack of quality.

When serious crimes have been committed, prosecutors do not need to run up the score with a high number of counts. A single charge, or a handful of them, provides the court with more than enough years of sentencing exposure. Once convicted, a serious criminal in that kind of case will be incarcerated for a very long time — even for life.

By contrast, if prosecutors do not have evidence of a serious crime, by loading up an indictment with dozens of charges, they can try to signal to the eventual trial jury that the defendant must be guilty of something. They hope the jurors will assume that, even if the evidence doesn’t seem strong, the government wouldn’t have alleged so many crimes unless the defendant was a truly diabolical criminal.

This is a significant enough due process abuse that, in federal law, the Justice Department has guidance directing prosecutors not to engage in it…

It’s called “charge-stacking.” Because the jury has to vote on each charge, the idea is that it is unlikely they will acquit on every single one. So it improves the odds immeasurably, plus the MSM can play it up to make the accused seem to be a terrible person. That’s their specialty, with Trump.

From Ace:

Bragg just made it clear that the “34 charges” are just repetitions of the same charge. He’s charging him for signing documents making the same representation.

He’s saying it’s illegal to make payments to a lawyer claiming they’re for legal services, if they’re really for some other purpose.

Interesting — so we can expect Hillary Clinton to be frog-marched into jail, huh?

Actually, there’s an ever-so-slight variation on the Stormy Daniels theme with Trump:

The court documents detail 11 checks, including nine signed directly by Trump, that were used to bury three different accounts that could be harmful to then-candidate Trump’s presidential campaign.

Beyond a $130,000 payment to Daniels, prosecutors lay out a larger deal with American Media, Inc. (AMI), the publisher of the National Enquirer, to buy damaging stories about Trump.

Payments were also made to a doorman, who received $30,000 from AMI for information alleging Trump fathered a child out of wedlock, as well as a $150,000 payment to former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal.

I believe I’m correct in saying that doing that is not illegal. The alleged illegality has to do with the way the payments were labeled.

And this guy seems very amused by it all, as well he might be. Duping delight:

By the way, I haven’t seen reports of any gag order, so Trump’s speech will probably be delivered tonight as planned.

Trump’s arraignment: no one should be surprised by what is happening today

The New Neo Posted on by

Trump’s arrest and conviction for something has been a goal from the start. By “the start” I don’t mean from the day he declared his candidacy in 2015. At that point he was treated mostly as a joke and a loser by the left. Then later, they wanted him to be the nominee because they thought he didn’t have a chance to win in the general. But when he actually won they were flabbergasted and distraught – although “distraught” is way too mild a word for it. They were devastated, enraged, and then quickly energized. The self-described “resistance” took charge at that point, casting itself in the mold of the heroes of WWII who defied Hitler. And in that endeavor, anything and everything was allowed and encouraged.

That included the Beria approach: show me the man and I’ll show you the crime. To that end we saw two ridiculous impeachments, almost countless frame-ups, and now this: 34 counts related to falsifying records of the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, and a not guilty plea. That means that the leaks from the grand jury – and leaks of grand jury testimony are felonies, although no one connected with Trump’s persecution/prosecution will ever be charged for that – were essentially correct in their description of what the charges would be.

This is a travesty and an extremely sad day. But it’s a day that has been telegraphed for a long long time. I don’t see why Trump wouldn’t be found guilty, considering that this is a political trial in a blue blue city. Justice is irrelevant in this sort of thing; getting Trump is what matters.

Here’s the text of some quick notes of a draft that I wrote on 12/5/22

Imprisonment of Trump and family
Dreyfus type stuff
His life is already utterly changed and unfree. He gave up a lot but they want him to give up everything, including his liberty. And they may just succeed.

As with so many of my drafts, I never fleshed it out and finished it. Now I’ve decided to leave it in that raw form just to show how obvious it was that this day would happen. And I don’t think they’re anywhere near finished with Trump, or with his children for that matter.

Sorry to be so pessimistic. As usual when I’m pessimistic, I hope I’m wrong.