The Houston police killing suspect

The New Neo Posted on by

There has been so much news lately that I haven’t covered everything or even close to everything that’s of interest. One very sad event that caught my attention – but that I haven’t written about until now – was the January 23 assassination of Harris County Pct. 5 Constable’s Office Corporal Charles Galloway. It was an especially cold-blooded killing that occurred during a traffic stop, in which the officer hadn’t even gotten out of his car yet when he was murdered by the man he’d stopped, who then sped off.

My first thought was that there probably was a camera that recorded the whole thing. But initially the police were mum about that. My second thought – because of the Houston location – was that this was more likely than not a Hispanic man, possibly in this country illegally, perhaps involved with the drug trade. I’m just playing the percentages here.

Then yesterday I noticed this article, which answered a few of my questions.

Yes, there was a camera. Yes, the suspect is Hispanic: name (or possibly alias, it’s reported) of Oscar Rosales. He’s older than I thought, 51. A woman who is reportedly his common-law wife and her brother received his car and washed it down, and they were charged with felony tampering with evidence, probably mostly to get information from them. There was nothing about whether Rosales is a citizen, but my guess was no. He’d been working as an auto mechanic, but there was no information on previous arrests. My guess was yes

This was interesting and indicated the police knew quite a bit they weren’t telling:

Chief Finner says authorities learned that Rosales has tried in the past to change his appearance and he may try to do that again.

“Oscar Rosales is the name he is known by now. It is not known under that name where his true citizenship is, what his true criminal history is, but this photograph tells you who we are looking for,” said District Attorney Ogg. You can’t run from your own photo.”

My thought was: you can’t? You rather can, I think – especially if you cross the border into Mexico, which I assumed had occurred.

I checked again today, and was pleased to read that Rosales has been arrested:

The U.S. Marshals Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force, in conjunction with Mexican authorities, arrested Rosales without incident in Ciudad Acuña, which is located on the border with Del Rio, Texas.

Houston police say they are working with law enforcement partners to begin the process of returning Rosales to Harris County. Rosales, 51, is facing a capital murder charge.

I suspect we’ll learn more about Rosales – including whether that’s his real name. And I suspect he will have a significant criminal history both in this country and perhaps in Mexico. I would be curious about his immigration status, as well.

Justice Breyer set to retire?

The New Neo Posted on by

That’s the report, anyway. It doesn’t come from the horse’s mouth, but it makes sense that he would leave when Biden (or his Democrat replacement) is president and the Senate is controlled by the Democrats. Breyer reliably votes with the liberal bloc, and so his retirement wouldn’t change the balance of the Court because of course Biden would appoint someone equally liberal – or more likely even further to the left.

Biden has previously “pledged” that he would appoint a black woman. And of course, that sort of promise has worked out so well with his vice president. Naturally, I’d prefer a less extreme-left candidate. But realistically, it probably makes little difference who he nominates because any liberal/left nominee – black or white, male or female, very extreme or not-so-extreme – would almost certainly be voting the same way on every issue or nearly every issue (that doesn’t hold true for justices appointed by Republicans, but I certainly don’t have to tell you that).

Last March, Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection wrote a post discussing some of Biden’s proposed eleven nominees. You can take a look at all eleven here. According to this tweet, the first tranche of his prospective nominees are all far left. No surprise whatsoever.

Speaking of surprises – will the Republicans in the Senate try to block whoever is nominated? These days, nominees are approved by a simple majority vote. That means if the Democrats stick together on this, it doesn’t matter what the GOP does.

I suspect that the Republicans in the Senate won’t choose that hill to die on. If they don’t fight it, though, their base might be angry. But if they do fight it, it gives Democrats their favorite rallying cry of “Republicans are sexist and racist!!!” – which they will employ no matter what, anyway.

Open thread 1/26/22

The New Neo Posted on by

I had thought of Buster Keaton as an old man with a saggy face until I saw his silent movies, which I encountered when I was in law school. I was stunned at what he had looked like when young: his strangely elegant solemn face, his agility, and how funny he was. I even developed a bit of a crush on him, much to my surprise:

Remember these guys? Durham vs. Horowitz?

The New Neo Posted on by

When I read the title of this article – “Durham vs. Horowitz: Tension Over Truth and Consequences Grips the FBI’s Trump-Russia Reckoning” – I had to jog my memory to even recall what it might be talking about. That’s how long ago Russiagate seems to have happened, because so much has intervened.

But of course, I remembered – and you probably do, too. Here’s the main thesis of the piece [emphasis mine]:

As he documents the role of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in generating false allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, Special Counsel John Durham has also previewed a challenge to the FBI’s claims about how and why its counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign began. At stake is the completeness of the official reckoning within the U.S. government over the Russiagate scandal – and whether there will be an accounting commensurate with the offense: the abuse of the nation’s highest law enforcement and intelligence powers to damage an opposition presidential candidate turned president, at the behest of his opponent from the governing party he defeated.

I’m going to go out on a limb (a fairly stout limb, I think) and say that no, there will not be anywhere near such a reckoning. Whatever happens further, it will be too little too late. Great damage has already been done, and so far the perpetrators have gotten away with it, with more than a little help from their MSM friends. They must think it was well worth it.

The article is long, but the main point is that Durham thinks Russiagate was far more tainted even from the beginning than Horowitz indicated in his report. You may recall that the report criticized the FBI for many of its Russiagate actions, but it also said that there had been a valid predicate for opening the investigation, although a weak one. Apparently, Durham thinks that even that little bit of legitimacy is bogus.

To accept that the FBI’s decision to open the Trump-Russia investigation was well-founded, one has to stipulate that the nation’s premier law enforcement agency decided to investigate a presidential campaign, and then a president, based on a low-level volunteer having “suggested”, during a barroom chat, “some kind of suggestion from Russia” that contained no mention of the alleged Russian hacking or stolen emails that the Trump campaign was supposedly conspiring over. One would also have to accept that the bureau was not influenced by the far more detailed claims of direct Trump-Russia connections – an alleged conspiracy that would form the heart of the investigation – advanced in the widely-circulating Steele dossier.

Adding to the questions surrounding the FBI’s basis for opening a Trump-Russia counterintelligence probe is that, upon doing so, the Crossfire Hurricane team didn’t bother to contact the campaign volunteer whose vague “suggestion” supposedly triggered it. Instead, the FBI expanded the probe to multiple other figures in the Trump orbit. Although no intelligence connected them to Downer’s vague tip, all three shared the distinction of being named as Russia conspirators or assets in the Steele dossier.

Those three were Carter Page, General Flynn, and Paul Manafort.

It’s roundup time again

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Dream on, Newt:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says that the January 6 Select Committee has broken several laws, and its members could face jail time should the GOP take back Congress in November…

Gingrich accused the committee of “running over the law” and “pursuing innocent people” without justification.

“It’s basically a lynch mob,” Gingrich said.

“I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down. The wolves are gonna find out they’re now sheep, and they’re the ones who are, in fact, I think, going to face a real risk of going to jail for the kind of laws that they’re breaking,” Gingrich added.

I think Gingrich is way out over his skis on that one. It’s not that I don’t think they’ve probably broken the law. But who would prosecute them; the DOJ? Nope.

(2) I had wondered what was going to happen to WalkAway founder Brandon Straka, after I learned he’d been arrested for his participation in January 6th. Now the news is out: three months’ home confinement, three years’ probation, and a $5K fine.

(3) I haven’t quite kept up with wokeness in ballet, but this statement by the Princeton University Ballet doesn’t surprise me. Before quoting it, I want to add that ballet at most colleges isn’t very good, although there are some (when I last checked: University of Utah, Indiana University at Bloomington, and a few more) that have very good ballet and dance departments. It’s somewhat of special thing, as might be expected in a university setting. Nevertheless, many colleges and universities do have some dance, which is often part of the physical education department. Here’s Princeton:

Ballet is rooted in white supremacy and perfectionism. We are all entering this space with a mindset that what we see as perfect is a white standard. Unlearning that will be difficult but rewarding. Before we begin detailing our action plan, we want to acknowledge that our leadership and those who composed this plan are all white.

No, it’s not the Babylon Bee. It goes on for quite some time, including this:

We would also like to open a conversation about body image and take steps to heal and deconstruct the harmful and racialized ideas about body image that many of PUB’s members enter the company with just by virtue of being a ballet dancer. Historically, PUB has been neutral on this issue, and while body neutrality is something some may strive for individually, it is not realistic or helpful for a group of ballet dancers who have internalized damaging ideas about how they should eat and what they should look like.

There are actually quite a few well-known black ballet dancers these days. But yes, body image is a huge issue in dance – and I might add an inescapable one that is inextricably tied into ballet itself. When the body is the instrument, the way that body looks is the bottom line. Duh! Anorexia has been rampant in ballet for many decades, and it really is an issue. But so is everything about the body and the way it looks: length of legs and arms, for example, or of neck, and of course weight, and just about anything else. It cannot be escaped, because there are esthetics that are most pleasing in ballet and create the most elegant and beautiful line, plus one cannot even achieve any expertise in ballet without certain physical characteristics such as turnout, which tends to go with a certain hip structure.

(4) Dartmouth caves to Antifa’s threats of violence by canceling a scheduled event on left-wing violence. Left-wing violence? Does not compute.

[ADDENDUM to #3: This woman was not the least bit troubled by the “whiteness” of ballet. Amazing story.]

On crime, “progressive” DAs, and self-defense

The New Neo Posted on by

You may have heard of the murder of Brianna Kupfer:

Los Angeles police Lt. John Radke said Kupfer was working alone inside the store around 1:30 p.m. when she was killed.

“She sent a text to a friend letting her know that there was someone inside the location that was giving her a bad vibe,” Radke said. “Regrettably, that person did not see the text immediately.”

Her body was found in the store by a customer about 15 minutes after the text was sent. Radke said the attack appeared to be completely random and unprovoked…

Smith was seen on surveillance video walking away from the store through a rear alley. Surveillance cameras also caught him casually shopping about 30 minutes later at a nearby 7-Eleven store. He was also spotted shopping at other stores before and after the killing, police said.

I don’t quite understand why the article seems to be indicating that, had the friend seen the text right away, it would have made any difference. Whether or not that friend would have called the police because Kupfer felt a bad vibe (and I think probably not), I’m not at all sure that the police would have responded had the friend done so.

Smith is said to have a history of mental illness. However, he also was a habitual criminal, or at least suspected criminal:

Smith, who is jailed in lieu of $2 million bail, has an extensive criminal history dating back more than a decade, with more than a dozen arrests in three states.

He has previous charges out of California, North Carolina and South Carolina. Online records obtained by FOX News show at least 11 arrests in Charleston, S.C., dating back to 2010, including a pending case for allegedly discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle on Nov. 13, 2019.

Smith has a long history of arrests. But as you can see in this more detailed article that purports to list all of them, some are rather minor and some far more serious. But it doesn’t appear that he’s served any time in prison. Why not? We don’t know. It’s not because all his arrests occurred in Los Angeles County under George Gascon, either. Many occurred in South Carolina in particular, and some in North Carolina.

“Progressive” LA DA Gascon has set bail at two million dollars, and has said this:

“Those who show no compassion for human life will face serious consequences,” Gascón said in a statement. “The murder of Brianna Kupfer has left Los Angeles County devastated and my office is reaching out to her family to provide any services they may need.”

Gascon is eager to distance himself from this one, and in fact from Smith’s arrest record it doesn’t appear that LA is the main jurisdiction that dropped the ball on Smith. But Gascon has created an atmosphere of winking at and excusing criminals, and that probably mattered, too. Plus, see this commentary on the situation:

Los Angeles district attorney George Gascón would gleefully charge someone who acted even in obvious self-defense if the politics of the situation demanded it, which is to say if the racial calculus met certain criteria. The same is true of Kim Foxx in Chicago, Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, and any of the other “progressive” prosecutors holding office across the country.

Consider what the response would have been had Brianna Kupfer, after sending the ominous text message to her friend, had armed herself with a gun and shot her assailant at the first sign of his knife. Today in some quarters she would be branded as a privileged white girl from Pacific Palisades who fired out of inordinate fear of a black man innocently shopping for furniture. Absent video of the man assaulting her, Gascón would likely have charged her.

But she would be alive, which is better than what actually happened.

I have a quibble with that: from what I’ve read, it seems that knife attacks can be very swift and even armed police have been killed by knife-wielding criminals who only showed the knife at the last moment. But the basic idea is correct, which is that self-defense has been strongly discouraged in many jurisdictions, and that in self-defense cases the race of the participants seems to matter greatly to “progressive” DAs.

You may have noticed that the stock market is down

The New Neo Posted on by

So here’s a thread to discuss it.

Why is it down today?:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 1,000 points Monday as financial markets buckled in anticipation of inflation-fighting measures from the Federal Reserve and fretted over the possibility of conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Stocks extended their three-week decline on Wall Street and put the benchmark S&P 500 on track to a so-called correction — a drop of 10% or more from its most recent high. The price of oil and bitcoin fell, and so did the yield on 10-year Treasury notes, a sign of investor concern about the economy.

“Investor concern” – you better believe it. I think that any investor who isn’t concerned must have been on a desert island for quite some time.

I’m surprised the economy and the market aren’t in even worse shape. It’s not just the effect of long-term COVID lockdown and lack of leadership. It’s that the current administration seems to be purposely driving the country off a cliff.

And maybe they are, if you believe they’re motivated by the Great Reset. Then again, never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity and incompetence. On the other hand, malice and incompetence aren’t mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, though, if the Biden administration is malicious, it’s also been rather competent at accomplishing its goals.

Sometimes you just know it will be a hit: Stayin’ Alive

The New Neo Posted on by

Instant hit:

…[The Bee Gees’ tech guy Karl Richardson] also has a clear recollection of how he first came to hear ‘Stayin’ Alive’: “I distinctly remember Barry saying ‘Boy, Karl, have I got a song for you,’ and sitting down to play ‘Stayin’ Alive’ on an acoustic guitar. It was like a chant and it was unbelievable. I said ‘Barry, don’t forget that rhythm. That’s a number one record.’ I knew, five bars in, no questions asked. You couldn’t get past the intro without knowing it was a smash.”

I’ve watched a lot of people react to the song on YouTube. Usually within about 5 seconds their faces light up with a big big smile. I played it recently for some jaded forty-somethings who were asking for a song to dance to, and although when I said “Stayin’ Alive, of course” they protested that it was hopelessly cheesy, within those same five seconds of hearing the first few notes they were smiling and laughing and enjoying themselves.

More:

One thing that distinguished the Bee Gees from traditional R&B was their characteristic rhythms. “A lot of that was Barry’s right hand,” Richardson says. “I mean, every one of those records has some form of acoustic guitar with Barry going ching-ching-ching. Whether it’s hidden or not, it’s there, driving the track along.”

The Bee Gees’ father was a professional drummer and bandleader.

Think the song is simple? Think again. Here’s what I consider a fascinating video that breaks it down by separating out the tracks. One of the things it demonstrates very clearly is Barry’s right hand going “ching-ching-ching” to drive the rhythm (as well as Mo’s bass line). It also shows the brothers recording on one mic, which often puzzles analysts who aren’t aware that they did it not “to save space on tracks” (as this reactor speculates) but for the simple reason that it was the way they learned to sing and to “sense” each other. Most groups record their parts on separate tracks and then assemble them, and although the Bee Gees did that for the musical portions they did not do it for the singing. Of course, if one of them made a mistake they had to all start over again. But they were known to be pretty much error-free when they sang. After all, they’d been professional singers as a trio since early childhood.

This is a slightly different version than the one that was released (you can find the more familiar version here), but not all that different. He starts by playing the song, but if you just want to listen to the separate tracks you can skip to 7:40, and I think it really starts getting especially interesting at 13:40 and just keeps building after that.

And by the way, the drum track that sounds simple (labeled “drums left drums right”) is the first drum loop ever created. Their drummer had to go deal with a sick relative, and so they proceeded without him by coming up with the idea of taking a short drum part from another of their songs and looping it.

That was done in 1977, and it wasn’t unusual for Bee Gees’ songs to have that sort of complexity of instrumentation and voices, even quite a while prior to that. And yet their songs often sound simple and inevitable, which I think is part of their genius.

Yep, I wrote “genius.”