RIP Betty White

The New Neo Posted on by

Betty White died just a couple of weeks short of her 100th birthday, and as far as I can tell she was healthy to the end and died in her sleep. Here’s a fairly comprehensive piece about her life.

White was a fixture on TV for many decades, and she had great great dimples. I first remember her from the show “Password,” which I loved as a child, and then “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” where she played the sweetly venomous Sue Ann. Then of course “Golden Girls.”

From the article:

“I’m the luckiest person in the world. My life is divided in absolute half: half animals, half show business,” White once told TV Guide. “I have to stay in show business to pay for my animal work!”

RIP.

Mugged by reality? Not so fast

The New Neo Posted on by

I keep wondering whether many people who voted for Biden still would vote for him again.

Yes, I know that his approval ratings are low, particularly with conservatives and independents. But among Democrats, he still has majority approval, although it’s dropped:

Among Democrats, Biden’s approval rating in the spring stood in the mid-90s, but in several recent polls, it has fallen into the low 80s. The drop among self-identified liberals was even bigger—just 66 percent approved of the president’s performance in a recent Monmouth poll, compared with 88 percent in April…

To investigate the roots of Biden’s Democratic discontent, I ventured to pockets of Brooklyn where his 2020 vote was nearly unanimous…

What I found among this heavily white, mostly college-educated set was not so much anger as ennui. When I asked co-op members how they thought Biden was doing, the most common response was a sigh and a one-word “Fine” that sounded more exasperated than enthusiastic. “He’s up against a lot,” Jennifer Percival, a 42-year-old speech pathologist, told me. “We’re just trying to hang in there with him.”

My thoroughly unscientific survey uncovered no mass exodus from Biden’s corner in Park Slope. Some progressives said he had even exceeded their expectations, citing an agenda that was more ambitious than Biden had initially campaigned on, as well as the passage of the COVID relief bill and the more recent bipartisan infrastructure package. Others blamed the media for the president’s unpopularity and noted that much of what ails Biden—the COVID resurgence, inflation, Democratic infighting—is out of his control…

Of the 20 people who agreed to be interviewed over the course of an afternoon, not one said they disapproved of Biden’s performance. But there were more subtle shifts that offered hints of a broader trend that national polls could be detecting. A few progressives said they were unsure about Biden’s performance, after being much more supportive in the spring, and many others said they approved of the president but felt less hopeful about him—and about the country—than they did earlier in the year.

I find this extraordinary but unsurprising. A mind is a very very very difficult thing to change.

The author of that piece went to poorer black neighborhoods in Brooklyn, too, and the story was similar, although:

…[T]hey were quicker to voice ambivalence or dissatisfaction in his performance…

…But multiple Democrats in East Flatbush brought up student loans, saying they were disappointed that the president had not acted to forgive them, as progressives like Warren have lobbied him to.

Lisa Ellison, 48 and a home-health aide, described her opinion of Biden as “borderline.” “Everything he said he was going to do for us he hasn’t done,”

So much of the disapproval among Democrats is probably because he’s not leftist enough, or at least not successfully leftist enough.

My own very informal and extremely incomplete polling has been similar. Biden is “fine,” said the one person I asked.

However, in terms of local politics rather than national, I was talking to two family members who are residents of a bluer-than-blue city that’s been having enormous crime increases, and both spontaneously brought up that fact and complained bitterly and at length. I found it interesting, though, that they didn’t seem to connect this to leftist Democratic rule. I didn’t ask them point blank, but – knowing them well – I’m convinced that they would never even consider voting for a Republican or a conservative.

As Zell Miller said, for some people political identity is “like a birthmark.” I wrote about that in a post back in 2005, and I added:

…[A] liberal political identity tends to be so much more than a political identity–it’s also a moral and personal identity. Liberals tend to equate their own position with such abstract (and non-political) qualities as goodness, kindness, lack of bigotry, intelligence–oh, a host of wonderful virtues. Any identity that is so identified is going to be particularly difficult to shed. Do some conservatives feel this way about their identity? Of course. But my impression is that it is a feeling even more basic to the political identities of liberals–at least the ones I know, and I know quite a few.

My sense is that this is one of the main reasons that my attempts to talk to my friends have so often been met with rage: to many of them, my espousing of any conservative causes means 1) I must be a bad (i.e.: selfish, racist, classist) person; and 2) if I ever were to convince them of the rightness of my arguments, they would be faced with leaving the fold, also, and becoming a bad person, too. Much better to let the whole edifice remain in place than to remove one little brick and risk the whole thing toppling down.

Twas ever thus. I would revise one thing about that passage, though – for whatever reason, my attempts to talk politics with friends are not usually met with rage anymore, although it happens on occasion. Perhaps I no longer even try to talk with those who would be likely to fly off the handle, or perhaps they’re mostly used to me by now.

Those Whitmer kidnapping defendants and proving entrapment

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Bauxite” writes in the Whitmer entrapment thread:

If the facts show that the feds sought out these defendants because they were weak and vulnerable, that will increase my sympathy for them. They will still have a very tough task proving entrapment as a defense.

Agreed, because – as I’ve written before – despite the presumption of innocence in criminal cases, entrapment is an affirmative defense that must be proven by defendants, and which requires a high burden be met: not only that the government introduced the idea for the crime, but also that the defendant was not already willing or predisposed to commit the crime. It seems very difficult to prove that latter part of the standard, and therefore the situation is ripe for government abuse.

As I also have written before, long ago when I was in law school, entrapment disturbed me very much. It was clear that the law had been used to frame and abuse people, and at the time the left agreed because back then it was mainly the left who’d been the targets in recent years.

Bauxite continues:

If a private citizen or group sought out weak and vulnerable accomplices for a criminal enterprise in the same way that the FBI did here, the accomplices would have behaved in exactly the same way as these defendants, yet there would be no entrapment defense for them. I doubt that there would be any serious argument that these hypothetical private accomplices should be acquitted.

Even with totally private actors, defendants who are only tangentially involved sometimes do get off. What’s more, with private actors the evidence is more difficult to obtain, because – unlike with FBI participation – things are not ordinarily recorded. The FBI makes sure it has evidence, and what’s more it knows the required elements of any crime. This gives it a great advantage, especially over young and naive “plotters.”

Bauxite adds:

I completely agree that it matters, and matters a great deal, that the Whitmer defendants were led astray by the government rather than by a private criminal. But that doesn’t mean that the Whitmer defendants didn’t choose to commit a crime.

I don’t have time to go back and read all the articles I’ve already read about the Whitmer kidnapping defendants, but here’s some more background [my emphasis]:

He was referred to as “Captain Autism,” the accused ringleader in the alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

But with a nickname like that, the defense argues, it’s clear the man’s codefendants didn’t take him seriously, or believe that he could commit a crime — like hatch a plan to snatch and kill the governor.

That was entirely the FBI’s doing, the defense maintains, not Adam Fox’s.

“No one would have conspired with Adam Fox because no one believed he had any ability to form, much less carry out, a plan,” the defense argues in a new court filing that outlines how it plans to fight the government in the upcoming trial that highlights the growth of extremism in America.

With the trial three months away, the defense this week asked the court for permission to let jurors hear 258 statements that it believes will prove the FBI planted the kidnapping idea in the suspects’ heads, egged them on with hateful comments about Whitmer and her COVID-19 mandates, and choreographed all the events that led to their arrests at a warehouse in October 2020.

Plus, not only were they drawn into a plot that the government appears to have wholly concocted, they were barely “participants” at all. in the sense of committing a crime. What crime was committed here? Kidnapping conspiracy – because little actually happened except what the FBI did. Yada yada yada talk talk talk.

More [emphasis mine]:

Prosecutors say the men cased Whitmer’s vacation house at night, planned to blow up a nearby bridge to slow down police, drew up a map and bought night goggles, and talked about taking her out on a boat and stranding her in Lake Michigan — and even scooping her up in a helicopter and flying her away to some unidentified location.

None of that is believable, the defense has argued, maintaining that the defendants were merely engaged in tough talk and fantasy play, and had no real plan to harm the governor. The FBI hatched the kidnapping idea, and used paid informants to manipulate the defendants into carrying out a scheme that they never came up with or agreed to be a part of, the defense maintains.

Among the statements the defense wants the jury to hear is a comment that an FBI agent made while interrogating an undercover informant from Wisconsin who had embedded himself in the group.

“We have a saying in my office. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story,” the agent allegedly said in the Dec. 10, 2020 conversation. The defense said this comment shows the FBI disregarded the defendants’ “unequivocal objections” to a kidnap plan.…

The defense also wants jurors to hear a comment from one of Fox’s codefendants, Ty Garbin, who in July 2020 allegedly said, “Captain Autism can’t make up his mind.”…

The defense also wants jurors to hear statements that it says show the suspects were opposed to the kidnapping scheme.

“Perhaps none is more direct than a statement by (defendant) Daniel Harris, who told the lead informant and others: ‘No snatch and grab. I swear to …God.'”

The defense also wants jurors to hear a July 7, 2020, conversation, when someone in the group of defendants said they were “not cool with offensive kidnapping” and others agreed.

The defendants face the possibility of life imprisonment on these charges.

It’s a funny thing – and I don’t mean funny ha-ha – how the very same principles and concerns that made me a liberal long ago makes me a conservative by the standards of today.

What are you doing New Year’s Eve?

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t usually do much of anything on New Year’s Eve, although I used to always try to watch the ball go down on TV. Staying up late is no problem for me, since I’m a night owl and always have been.

This year I’m going to continue my tradition and not do much of anything in the evening, and this year I bet a lot more people than usual will be doing the same. I plan to drink a tiny toast to the end of 2021, a year I’m pretty sure most people are not going to look back at with fondness.

But even when young, I had an aversion to New Year’s Eve. The idea of a night when you were supposed to have fun or else. The reminder of the speedy passage of time. The drinking. The obligatory midnight kiss, which wasn’t a fun moment if you didn’t like your date.

Once or twice I went to Times Square to see the ball go down in person. Curiously, those were some of my better New Year’s Eves. Maybe it was the people I was with those nights. We ate at Tad’s Steaks, just for laughs, but Tad’s wasn’t bad at all.

And two years ago the very last Tad’s in New York City closed down. I had no idea any of them had lasted that long.

So let’s drink to Tad’s:

The cafeteria-style chophouse is known for hawking inexpensive meat-and-potato dinners on red trays — meals that cost little more than $1 each when the first one opened in 1957. A steak lunch today can be had for as little as $9.

At its height, Tad’s had eight New York locations out of 28 nationwide. But come Jan. 5, 2020, the red neon sign in the window advertising “broiled” steaks at 761 Seventh Ave. will go dark — as will the vast grill that played host to smoky “steak shows,” where dozens of cuts could be grilled at once during the thick of lunch hour.

Happy New Year, everyone! Here’s to a wonderful 2022, full of love, joy, and good health!

[NOTE: Some of this appeared in a previous post.]

Buh-bye, de Blasio

The New Neo Posted on by

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Before I read this article on de Blasio’s leavetaking, I had forgotten that he got his big break in 2013 when frontrunner Anthony Weiner imploded in a sexting scandal. That may help a little to explain how New Yorkers elected de Blasio, but why they re-elected him is a bigger mystery. And yes, I know it’s a deep blue city. But still.

When I read this sentence – “During his first inauguration speech, de Blasio pledged a ‘dramatic new approach’ to running the world’s greatest city” – I misread it briefly as “de Blasio pledged a “traumatic new approach'”, which I think fits a lot better.

The article goes on to list de Blasio’s failures.

Let’s see what new mayor Eric Adams will do.

Scott Adams on voting fraud

The New Neo Posted on by

This is somewhat my attitude, too, and has been from the start:

It’s never going to happen, though. The government will never be required to prove fairness. How could that be done, anyway? It’s like proving innocence. The most that can – and should – happen is that states put effective protections against fraud in place.

But when many protections against fraud are removed or undermined, as they have been in some states over the years and especially immediately prior to the 2020 election, and there is no reliable way to prove fraud after the fact even if it has occurred, then trust in the voting process is gravely and perhaps fatally undermined.

Which is exactly what occurred.

Ghislaine Maxwell found guilty in the Epstein case

The New Neo Posted on by

No surprise here:

“The road to justice has been far too long. But, today, justice has been done,” US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement. “I want to commend the bravery of the girls — now grown women — who stepped out of the shadows and into the courtroom. Their courage and willingness to face their abuser made this case, and today’s result, possible.”

Maxwell’s lawyers had argued in closing statements that she was an innocent scapegoat in the Epstein saga — while prosecutors convinced the 12 jurors she was a “sophisticated predator” who exploited young, vulnerable girls.

The Oxford-educated heiress — youngest child of the late publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell — was convicted on nearly all counts, including sex-trafficking of minors, the top charge that carries a maximum of 40 years in prison.

Everyone seems to think there’s no doubt about Maxwell’s guilt. That is probably the case. But what troubles me is how little I know of the details of the evidence against Maxwell. Granted, I haven’t researched the case in great depth, but my efforts to find out more than the bare bones of the women’s testimony have been largely unsuccessful.

I know there were four accusers in the trial, and three of them were anonymous. I understand the reasons for that – they were minors at the time of the offenses. But they are no longer minors and I know almost nothing about them. For example, when did they come forward? Did they know each other? Had they read or heard of the testimony of the others when they came forward, or not? Did their testimony change over time? What corroborative evidence was there, if any, to back up their claims?

You may think I’m being picayune here, but I would say this about any such case. I’m consistent, anyway.

One question I had – were the accusers also involved in civil suits against Epstein and/or Maxwell? – is partially answered on Maxwell’s Wiki page. There have been multiple civil suits – one by the named accuser in the criminal trial, and others perhaps by some of the other accusers. All of the suits are of fairly recent vintage, although the offenses occurred many years ago.

I have no trouble believing that Maxwell is every bit as evil as her portrayal in this trial and in the civil suits. But for her, and for any other person so accused, I’d want to know a lot more information than seems readily available. In addition, of course, there’s the question of the protection of the names of the adult men who participated in the abuse of these minor girls. Draw your own conclusions there.

[NOTE: The allegations in this case remind me of the very sordid doings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, which I outlined previously in this post.]

Defense claims entrapment in the Whitmer kidnapping plot case

The New Neo Posted on by

The defense is saying the alleged Whitmer conspiracy kidnap plotters were entrapped by the FBI. I can’t find the actual document filed with the court, but here’s a report:

Defense lawyers Saturday said there was no kidnapping conspiracy.

“…the government initiated this case, despite the fact that it knew there was no plan to kidnap, no operational plan, and no details about how a kidnapping would occur or what would happen afterward,” the lawyers wrote.

Informants were the driving force in a case, cultivating a “sense of patriotism and right-doing,” before FBI agents arrested the men in October 2020, according to the defense team.

“…informants, of course, not only contacted the defendants face to face but also coaxed, persuaded, cajoled, played on sympathies, cultivated friendships, took advantage of the defendants’ financial conditions, and suggested that the offense they proposed ‘would further a greater good,'” the lawyers wrote.

“These defendants had no desire whatsoever to kidnap anyone,” they added.

I’ve written many posts about this case before, and from what I’ve learned so far I agree with the defense.

Here’s Frei on the same subject:

Frei believes the defendants’ chances of prevailing on this issue are small. I agree, unfortunately. Entrapment is an affirmative defense that must be proven and there is no presumption in favor of it. Therefore it’s an uphill battle, because although the burden of proof for defendants’ guilt is on the prosecution, the FBI agents and informants probably have plenty of such proof of defendants’ acquiescence in the supposed plot, and the standard for proving entrapment is a tough one to meet. Also see this [emphasis mine]:

Entrapment can be a difficult defense to assert because it requires the defendant to establish that the idea and impetus for the crime was introduced by government officials, and the defendant was not already willing or predisposed to commit the crime. It is also important to note that entrapment can only occur with a government official, such as an FBI official or a police officer, not a private individual. Additionally, since it is an affirmative defense, the criminal defendant has the burden of establishing that entrapment occurred.

The huge miscarriage of justice in the Potter case

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a good summation by Andrew Branca of the travesty of the Kim Potter conviction:

it’s my professional opinion that the conviction of Potter on charges of manslaughter is a blatant miscarriage of justice based on the fact that manslaughter in this case properly required proof beyond a reasonable doubt of reckless conduct, that reckless conduct in this case properly requires the conscious disregard by Potter of an unjustifiable risk of death or serious bodily injury to Daunte Wright, and that the jury was presented with exactly zero evidence that Potter consciously disregarded the risk that resulted in Wright’s death.

Indeed, it was uncontested throughout the trial that Potter never even knew she had a gun in her hand during her encounter with Wright, and one cannot consciously disregard a risk that one does not know exists.

To the extent that Potter ought to bear responsibility for unintentionally killing Wright, that responsibility is at worst based on negligence, the unknowing creation of an unjustified risk, and subject her to merely civil liability. Absent a conscious disregard of risk, for which no evidence exists in this case, her conduct cannot qualify as recklessness raising criminal liability…

This distinction…is extremely old and well-established law…

Branca adds that the prosecution was allowed to misstate the law in order to convict Potter, and the judge did not correct their statements and did not give the jury the proper law in her instructions prior to their deliberations.

A travesty, indeed. I keep writing about this verdict because it troubles me greatly in terms of the disregard of the law in order to get a political outcome. It has tremendous repercussions in terms of police reluctance to do their job. Who does this hurt the most at this point? Poor minority groups who are the main victims (and perpetrators) of violent crime.

Alan Dershowitz weighs in as well:

“Horrible tragedy, not a crime. It’s not a crime to make a mistake, and she was falsely convicted of anything.”

Judge Regina Chu “acted lawlessly” in denying bail for Potter, and Democrat state Attorney General Keith Ellison engaged in “a complete abuse of justice,” Dershowitz told co-hosts Carl Higbie and Amanda Brilhante.

“This judge acted lawlessly,” Dershowitz said. “The law in Minnesota is you are entitled to bail pending appeal, if your appeal isn’t frivolous – and it isn’t frivolous – and not likely to flee – she’s not going anywhere – and if you’re not a danger people,” Dershowitz said, noting the judge has failed to strictly apply those criteria to a repentant 26-year police veteran.

“She engaged in completely lawless behavior, and I think if Potter’s lawyers appealed the denial of bail immediately to the appellate courts, she may very well be released, pending appeal.”

I agree with his analysis of the law, but I disagree with his prediction about Potter’s likelihood of release on bail if the denial is appealed. My disagreement isn’t based on law; it’s based on politics.