Now we learn that we have a federal police force that is not accountable to the public

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: Cornflour and sdferr.]

We have likely learned the name of the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021:

Now a new name has surfaced in the Babbitt imbroglio — Lt. Michael L. Byrd — and while USCP Communications Director Eva Malecki won’t confirm he is the shooter, in this case she isn’t denying it.

In a little-noticed exchange, Byrd was cited by the acting House sergeant at arms during a brief discussion of the officer who shot Babbitt at a Feb. 25 House hearing. Both C-SPAN and CNN removed his name from transcripts, but CQ Transcripts — which, according to its website, provides “the complete word from Capitol Hill; exactly as it was spoken” — recorded the Capitol official, Timothy Blodgett, referring to the cop as “Officer Byrd.” His name is clearly audible in the videotape of the hearing…

Byrd appears to match the description of the shooter, who video footage shows is an African American dressed that day in a business suit. Jewelry, including a beaded bracelet and lapel pin, also match up with photos of Byrd.

In addition, Byrd’s resume lines up with what is known about the experience and position of the officer involved in the shooting — a veteran USCP officer who holds the rank of lieutenant and is the commander of the House Chamber Section of the Capitol Police.

Following the shooting, Byrd’s Internet footprint was scrubbed, including his social media and personal photos…

In February 2019, Lt. Byrd was investigated for leaving his department-issued Glock-22 firearm unattended in a restroom on the House side of the Capitol…

Some general information was already known from videos – such as, for example, his physical description. But his name has been kept secret, and the details of any investigation have been kept secret as well. This is shocking, compared to the rules for disclosure of the facts about similar actions by the regular police. To me, that’s actually the most important revelation that has come in the course of learning about Ashli Babbitt’s killing.

For example, from the same article:

…Congress has exempted the USCP from Freedom of Information Act requests…

Unlike other police forces, USCP does not have to disclose records on police misconduct.

More than 700 complaints were lodged against Capitol Police officers between 2017 and 2019, but brass won’t say what the alleged violations were or how the department resolved them. They also won’t disclose how many complaints are in any individual officer’s file.

While the USCP has an inspector general, he does not make reports public, unlike other agency watchdogs. His report on Jan. 6 remains secret.

Critics say the 193-year-old agency is in dire need of reform. They point out that even the Secret Service complies with FOIA requests and releases reports and audits by its internal watchdog. The Capitol Police, in contrast, won’t even reveal how many sworn officers it has on hand.

“Unlike the [D.C. Police] and the vast majority of local police forces, the USCP provides little public information about its activities,” complained Daniel Schuman, policy director of the D.C. watchdog group Demand Progress, in a recent letter to the heads of the congressional panels who have oversight authority over USCP.

D.C. law requires police to identify the officer involved in a police shooting within five business days after an officer-involved death or serious use of force. Officials must publicly release the names and body-camera recordings of all officers involved in the death or use of force. The law does not cover the Capitol Police, however, even though D.C. Police work in conjunction with that agency on homicide cases and fatal traffic accidents.

The Babbitt shooting has thrust this double standard into the national spotlight.

Double standard indeed.

The explanation for not revealing the name is the fear of death threats. Well, the same is true for every single police officer whose name is released after killing someone in an encounter – in particular, for white police officers killing black suspects. And yet their names are ordinarily released very quickly; there is no such consideration for their safety, or at least any concerns about safety are considered to be overridden by the public’s need to know.

Why are the Capitol Police different? Why are they even less accountable than the Secret Service? I believe it is because they are Congress’s special police force, and Congress made the rules exempting them. And now – as reported yesterday – this special protected force is going to be expanded to other parts of the US.

Note that after the near-murder of Steve Scalise, and the attempted murder of several other GOP members of Congress, no such expansion of the Capitol Police occurred. And yet that incident was far more dangerous and threatening to members of Congress than anything that happened on January 6th. In fact, on January 6th, the only killing that occurred was at the hands of a Capitol Police officer, for reasons that have yet to be elucidated for the public.

The Capitol Police will be expanding outside DC

The New Neo Posted on by

What could possibly go wrong?

The January 6th Capitol incursion was the gift to the left that keeps on giving. Then again, was it even a gift, or was it an event partly-orchestrated and steered by the FBI? Either way, the left has made very effective use of it. I don’t think I know a single Democrat who isn’t convinced that it was a highly dangerous insurrection and just the tip of the white supremacist Trump-supporter iceberg.

On the 6th or 7th of January, one of the first thoughts I had when I read the news was: “Reichstag fire.” I was hardly alone in that thought; it was actually rather obvious to anyone with at least a smattering of history concerning the rise of the Nazis and their consolidation of power. About a month later, I wrote a post entitled “We’ve had the Reichstag fire – what’s next?” Here’s the passage that concludes that post:

These developments are just another reminder that, brilliant as the Constitution is and brilliant as the men who devised it were, a constitution cannot rein in a people who have lost their virtue and who support a party that believes the ends justify the means. And the Founders knew that they could not protect us indefinitely from that.

That was written five months ago. Yesterday we got the following news:

The United States Capitol Police (USCP) will open new regional offices in response to increased threats to members of Congress since the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the police agency announced Tuesday.

The first announced two field offices will open in California and Florida, with additional states expected in the “near future,” acting USCP Chief Yogananda Pittman said in a statement Tuesday. The purpose will be “to investigate threats to Members of Congress.”

…In a follow-up statement to Fox News, USCP revealed the new offices will be in the Tampa and San Francisco areas because that’s where many of the threats are concentrated and more offices are on the way.

I thought that sort of intelligence was the province of the FBI – an agency that has earned distrust in recent years. But why would they need augmentation by the Capitol Police (who also didn’t cover themselves with glory on January 6th)?

And why San Francisco, except that it’s the home of Nancy Pelosi? Is the city now a hotbed of alt-right militant radicalism? I find that especially hard to believe. If you want to look at actual violence against members of Congress, rather than threats, look no further than Rand Paul and Steve Scalise. And yet I find it hard to believe that this expansion of the Capitol Police will focus much on threats to members of Congress on the right, although the article does cite attacks on the home of Republican Representative Nancy Mace as an example of the problem they are trying to counter:

Members of Congress have reported having to take extra security precautions at their homes in response to the increased threat level. In one instance, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., had to call the police in Charleston after her house was vandalized over Memorial Day weekend with profanity and anarchist symbols.

More [emphasis mine]:

“Throughout the last six months, the United States Capitol Police has been working around the clock with our Congressional stakeholders to support our officers, enhance security around the Capitol Complex, and pivot towards an intelligence-based protective agency,” [USCP acting director] Pittman said.

And yet the Capitol Police had plenty of intelligence prior to the January 6th incursion that told them something of the sort was planned – in fact, the FBI may indeed have helped plan it.

This emphasis on intelligence seems to be a way to use the January 6th event to spy even more pervasively and effectively on Americans. Unfortunately, at this point there’s no reason to trust them to have our interests at heart.

The President of Haiti has been assassinated

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m surprised it doesn’t happen there more often, actually, because Haiti is such a mess of a country. The authorities say they don’t know who is responsible for the assassination, but here’s the story so far:

A squad of gunmen assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and wounded his wife in an overnight raid on their home Wednesday, inflicting more chaos on the Caribbean country that was already enduring gang violence, soaring inflation and protests of his increasingly authoritarian rule.

Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who confirmed the killing, said the police and military were in control of security in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas where a history of dictatorship and political upheaval have long stymied the consolidation of democratic rule.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Joseph called for an international investigation into the assassination, said that elections scheduled for later this year should be held and pledged to work with Moïse’s allies and opponents alike…

Bocchit Edmond, the Haitian ambassador to the United States, said the attack on the 53-year-old Moïse “was carried out by foreign mercenaries and professional killers — well-orchestrated,” and that they were masquerading as agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration…

Haiti has asked the U.S. government for assistance with the investigation, he said, adding that the assassins could have escaped over the land border to the Dominican Republic or by sea.

I doubt the culprits will be found, and Moise had plenty of people who wanted him dead so there’s no lack of candidates. Haiti is such a mess already that I doubt this event will have any international repercussions of any magnitude; it will just add to the confusion and strife of the country.

[NOTE: A personal note – I have a vivid memory of Haiti from a trip I took there with my family in 1962. Yes, I was a kid, but even then it impressed me as a very poverty-stricken and yet beautiful place. At the time, it was under the sway of despot “Papa Doc” Duvalier, whose photo graced many stores and even the modest home of our all-day cab driver, whose family we met. As a young teenager I later learned something of Haiti’s sad history through Kenneth Roberts’ novel Lydia Bailey, which is set in the time of the Haitian revolution.]

It looks like New York City will have a law-and-order mayor

The New Neo Posted on by

Ex-cop Eric Adams has been declared the winner of the NYC Democratic primary. That probably makes him the next major of the city. But Eric Adams, who is black, is somewhat conservative (by NYC standards) despite being a Democrat. He certainly is conservative compared to predecessor de Blasio – but then, so are most people.

Just before the race was called, Adams said in a statement that “while there are still some very small amounts of votes to be counted, the results are clear: an historic, diverse, five-borough coalition led by working-class New Yorkers has led us to victory in the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City.”

“Now we must focus on winning in November so that we can deliver on the promise of this great city for those who are struggling, who are underserved, and who are committed to a safe, fair, affordable future for all New Yorkers,” he said.

I don’t know that New York has been affordable for a long time, but prior to de Blasio’s tenure it was relatively safe.

This was a ranked-choice vote, marked – and marred – by the erroneous (or purposeful) counting of 135,000 invalid “test” votes that led Adams to successfully question initial results. The present tally is uncomfortably close, but gives him the requisite over-50% in order to avoid futher tallying in which the last-place winner is thrown out and the ranked-choice votes re-counted.

Adams’ GOP opponent will be a familiar name to some: Curtis Sliwa, who founded the Guardian Angels over 40 years ago:

In May 1977, Sliwa created the “Magnificent 13”, a group dedicated to combating violence and crime on the New York City Subway. At the time, the city was experiencing a crime wave. The Magnificent 13 grew and was renamed the Guardian Angels in 1979. The group’s actions drew strong reactions, both positive and negative. Membership of the Guardian Angels showed 80 percent of them were either Black or Hispanic in ethnic origin. Unarmed, the group required training in karate and fulfillment of legal requirements for citizens’ arrest for all members before they were to be deployed.

Adams, who is heavily favored to win, was a state rep from Brooklyn and more recently that borough’s president. Here’s a quote from his policing days back in 1999:

Lying is at the root of our training. At the academy, recruits are told that they should not see black or brown people as different, but we all do. We all know that the majority of people arrested for predatory crimes are African-American. We didn’t create that scenario, but we have to police in that scenario. So we need to be honest and talk about it.

Interesting. Very interesting.

Adams was a Republican between 1997 and 2001, but has been a Democrat ever since. He was an opponent of “stop-and-frisk” but now supports it. Then again, he and several other state legislators “wore hooded sweatshirts in the legislative chamber on March 12, 2012, in protest of the shooting of Trayvon Martin.” His record is a mix of more liberal and more conservative positions, but in running for mayor he has declared himself an opponent of “defund the police.”

In addition, Adams (or a ghostwriter) recently wrote a book about how he became a vegan and improved his health immensely after being diagnosed with Type II diabetes.

Adams’ primary victory is an indication that New Yorkers are fed up with the increasing crime in their city. Then again, he won the primary by a small margin:

In a tally by the New York City Board of Elections on Tuesday, Adams held a slim 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent lead over [ Kathryn] Garcia after holding a 51.1 percent to 48.9 percent lead last week.

If you look at the graph in this article, you can see how ranked-choice works. It looks to me as though Adams won handily if only first-choice votes had been counted, but in the recurrent rounds of recounting the gap narrowed considerably between Adams and Garcia.

It seems to me from reading this endorsement of Garcia in The Daily News (the right-leaning NY Post endorsed Adams) that Garcia was hardly the most leftist alternative to Adams, either. So the results generally appear to be a victory for more moderate Democrats.

That NY Post endorsement mentions two more elements of Adams’ law-and-order program:

Adams would reinstate an anti-crime unit to crack down on guns and gangs.

He’d also push Albany — where he served as a state senator — to reform the no-bail law to allow for judges’ discretion to lock up dangerous, recidivist criminals.

In other words, he plans to stop some of the slide that New York has experienced as a result of far-left policies. I wish him luck.

CNN still characterizing the January 6th Capitol incursion as a “deadly riot”

The New Neo Posted on by

And I suppose it was deadly to Ashli Babbitt – although it was neither the riot nor the rioters that killed her.

Other people died that day, but not because the riot was “deadly” – they died of natural causes.

All of this is known. I also documented it on this blog, and in several posts I questioned the use of the phrase “deadly riot” – for example in this post written about three weeks after the incident.

Even back then, it was clear that the main person supposedly killed by the rioters, Officer Sicknick, probably had not died at their hands. But it took months for official word to come out on that score, and even now outlets such as CNN are intent on using the word “deadly” not to refer to Ashli Babbitt’s killing by an unnamed Capitol Police officer, but to subtly suggest to readers that something about the rioters themselves caused a number of deaths when that was not the case. It’s an all-important part of the “insurrectionist” narrative that will not die.

You won’t find Babbitt’s name in that CNN article I just linked. Nor will you even find Officer Sicknick’s name. The word “deadly” just floats out there in the headline and the reader can fill in the blanks: “Lawmaker donates suit he wore to clean up Capitol riot to Smithsonian, 6 months after deadly insurrection.” Here’s part of the article:

Six months after the [January 6th] attack, Kim announced that he would be donating the suit he wore in the now infamous moment he was captured cleaning up the damage done to the Capitol to the Smithsonian as the museum builds its exhibit documenting what happened on January 6. His comments and donation illustrate how many lawmakers are still processing the violent riot, which shook Capitol Hill, abruptly halted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory and eventually led to arrests of more than 500 people

In a tweet on the subject, Kim adds: “Jan 6 must never be forgotten. While some try to erase history, I will fight to tell the story so it never happens again.” And indeed, the Democrats are dedicated to making sure the American public won’t forget the Democrats’ own version of what happened that day. I am pretty sure that the Smithsonian exhibit will conform to that version of history as well.

There’s more along those lines in the article, including a quote from a sanctimonious and Orwellian Adam Schiff:

“Six months ago, a violent mob stormed the Capitol trying to undermine our democracy. Lives were lost and countless more endangered” Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff who was chosen to serve on the select committee alongside Cheney, tweeted. “And Republicans are desperate as ever to keep the truth of that dark day hidden. Enough. It’s time to follow the facts, wherever they lead.”

Note also the construction “lives were lost” – which is certainly true but is also meant to be misleading – and the characterization of Republicans as lying, as “desperate to keep the truth of that dark day hidden.”

[NOTE: The CNN article also writes of Liz Cheney that she “was ousted from her House GOP leadership position earlier this year over support for impeaching Trump.” Another untruth. After she voted in Feburary to impeach Trump, there was a vote on whether she should stay in her leadership position and she won that vote overwhelmingly, 145-61. Later, however, there was her fist bump with Biden, and this:

It’s at a boiling point,” said one GOP lawmaker to The Hill. “This isn’t about Liz Cheney wanting to impeach Donald Trump; this isn’t about Donald Trump at all. It’s about Liz Cheney being completely out of synch with the majority of our conference.”…

“As we’re focused on unifying the Republican conference and our mission to win back the majority, she is focused on the past and proving a point,” the lawmaker told The Hill. “She is alienating herself from the conference, and I have to imagine if she doesn’t resign there will be a new vote in the near future and the result will be lopsided in the opposite direction of what it was before.”

Cheney had also tweeted that “she will campaign on impeaching Trump ‘every day of the week.'” In the eyes of Republicans in Congress, that meant she shouldn’t be leading the fight for 2022. But the Democrats and the MSM tried to make her ouster about the impeachment vote, and CNN continues to perpetuate that untruth because it suits their own propagandist purposes.]

Nikole Hannah-Jones tells UNC Chapel Hill “Never mind.”

The New Neo Posted on by

UNC caved and offered Hannah-Jones tenure, but all for naught. She said thanks but no thanks; I’ve got a better offer, you see – from Howard University:

“I am so incredibly honored to be joining one of the most important and storied educational institutions in our country … ” Hannah-Jones said in a statement. “One of my few regrets is that I did not attend Howard as an undergraduate, and so coming here to teach fulfills a dream I have long carried.”

If she carried that dream so very long, why didn’t she fulfill it earlier? As far as I can see, nothing stopped her from going there either as an undergrad or a graduate student. Instead, she went to Notre Dame for her undergrad work (History and African-American Studies) and in 2003 a journalism master’s from – wait for it – UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media in Chapel Hill. If she had the credentials for Notre Dame and Chapel Hill, I assume she would have had no difficulty getting into Howard instead. And yet I see no evidence that she tried to do so.

More:

Hannah-Jones will also found a Center for Journalism and Democracy at Howard. She said it will aim to train journalism students from historically Black schools to “accurately and urgently [cover] the challenges of our democracy with a clarity, skepticism, rigor and historical dexterity that is too often missing from today’s journalism.

“Clarity, skepticism, rigor and historical dexterity that is too often missing from today’s journalism” – that last one, “historical dexterity,” would be an interesting way to describe the historical errors, distortions, and inaccuracies that constitute the creative fiction that is Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project.

Hannah-Jones isn’t content to rest there. As you might imagine, she accuses UNC of racism in their treatment of her, and says she hopes it will be a lesson to them:

The Pulitzer Prize winner said she believed a decision about tenure for her at UNC was delayed because of political opposition to her work and discrimination against her as a Black woman.

Can’t possibly be because her work was criticized by the vast majority of historians, left and right, and is a piece of pure and destructive propaganda. No; it’s because they’re racists. And Hannah-Jones washes her hands of them, although she has some further advice:

“It’s not my job to heal the University of North Carolina,” she said. “That’s the job of the people in power who created the situation in the first place.”

The university is sick, you see, and needs healing. But Hannah-Jones isn’t going to save them – they will have to abase themselves further without her, which is indeed what they seem prepared to do:

Susan King, dean of the UNC-Chapel Hill journalism school, who had championed tenure for Hannah-Jones, said she was disappointed to lose her to another university. “We wish her nothing but deep success and the hope that UNC can learn from this long tenure drama about how we must change as a community of scholars in order to grow as a campus that lives by its stated values of being a diverse and welcoming place for all,” King said in a statement.

UNC journalism faculty members lamented what had happened to Hannah-Jones and said they support her choice. “The appalling treatment of one of our nation’s most-decorated journalists by her own alma mater was humiliating, inappropriate, and unjust,” more than 30 professors and others affiliated with the Hussman School of Journalism and Media wrote in a blog post. “We will be frank: It was racist.”

How many universities in the US still have academic integrity? A very small number, I’d say.

Applying the same principles to both sides

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the things that led to my political change was that I took the principles I’d always held dear and applied them to new information. That process led me to reconsider my political affiliation and changed my voting tendencies. It was lengthy process, but it was a rather simple one conceptually: if you believe in certain principles, you must apply them fairly.

I said it was simple conceptually. But that doesn’t mean it’s simple to execute. In fact, I’ve come more and more to believe it’s very difficult. However, although I probably err to a certain degree, it’s something I am deeply dedicated to attempting to do and I think I often come somewhat close to succeeding. But a lot of people don’t even try. They are partisans above all else, whether they are fooling themselves and thinking they’re being objective or whether they’ve jettisoned any pretense of objectivity and think that the ends justify the means.

That’s another reason I detest those members of the MSM who are partisan to the core but don a false cloak of objectivity without ever demonstrating it. And that’s why I especially value those writers and speakers who actually do stick to their principles no matter where it leads them. For some, it leads to supporting or at least defending people with whom they aren’t politically simpatico but whom they see as correct in a certain instance. And it leads them to criticizing the intense and duplicitous partisanship of much of the press.

Among such principled and objective people are Alan Dershowitz, Glenn Greenwald, Johnathan Turley, Sharyl Attkisson, Bari Weiss, and at times Matt Taibbi. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, but those are the figures who immediately come to mind. I don’t always agree with them, but I’ve been impressed by their often-successful attempts to be fair. It’s sad when people like that are the exceptions rather than the rule, but that’s the way it is.

Which brings us to this article from a few days ago by Jonathan Turley:

We have previously discussed the concerted and often embarrassing blackout in the media on stories involving Hunter Biden’s influence peddling during his father’s tenure as Vice President. That includes the burying of the laptop story and the growing contradictions over his father’s denial of any knowledge or involvement in his shady business dealings. Even recent reports that Hunter may have paid prostitutes with his father’s account were blacked out by mainstream media which exhaustively pursued any story related to the Trump children and their dealings and life styles. Now, however, there is a major allegation that Hunter used access to his father to seal previously unknown deals with Mexican businessmen, including Carlos Slim. A picture shows Hunter with the businessmen in the Vice President residence with his father.

As in the past, Americans interested in such stories have had to rely on the foreign press or a couple domestic sites for such information.

The new emails include references to the use of Air Force II by Hunter Biden to pursue the deals — a similar pattern revealed with regard to the China dealings. The emails detail a number of visits to Mexico, including a February 2016 flight on Air Force II with his father. On the plane was his business partner Jeff Cooper, who ran Illinois-based SimmonsCooper. That is one of the largest asbestos litigation firms in the country and Hunter was given 3 percent of Cooper’s venture capital firm Eudora Global, according to emails. President Biden’s brother (who featured in past controversial deals) was also reportedly involved in some of these efforts.

Turley describes the “blackout in the media on stories involving Hunter Biden’s influence peddling ” as “often embarrassing.” In this I beg to differ with him. Turley would be embarrassed to do this, but the members of the MSM and social media (let’s not forget the latter) who have instituted the bloackout are not the least bit embarrassed, although I’m pretty sure they’re not happy to be exposed as doing so. But I believe they are secure (and even proud) in the knowledge that their coverup was successful in electing Democrat Biden (and his aides) and in ridding the nation (hopefully permanently) of the dread Trump. They are also content in their belief that most people don’t even know how the media has prostituted itself along the way. That’s part of what a coverup is all about.

Happy Belated Birthday, Thomas Sowell

The New Neo Posted on by

Thomas Sowell turned 91 on June 30, and he seems sharp as a tack. I wish him many more healthy years, in part because I admire him so much and in part because we need him more than ever. As the linked article says:

Beginning in 1972 with Black Education: Myths and Tragedies, Sowell has weighed in on how to better the lives of Black Americans in a series of books that were mostly sneered at or ignored by the establishment left but are looking increasingly prescient in a new age of American race politics—this one propelled not by recidivist poor Southern whites but by power-seeking Northern white elites and their oligarchical sponsors.

Fifty years ago, Sowell was already denouncing the trends that now afflict fashionable movements like Black Lives Matter: pursuing symbolic results rather than real ones, choosing white guilt over Black advancement, and seeking special treatment instead of equal chances. Sowell knows that racism still persists, but he refuses to blame the gap between Black and white social outcomes on white supremacy, choosing instead to look to the ways that history shapes both group cultures and individual choices.

One of Sowell’s targets is equity, our current fetish—a word that now means trying to match the number of minority jobholders in every field to their proportion in the general population.

And yet most people probably have no idea who Sowell is.

Sowell was one of the very first thinkers I encountered during the course of my political change experience, and he was probably the most formative one. When I initially read his work – I think it was the book The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy – it was with a happy sigh of recognition and relief as well as admiration. Finally, here was someone who was voicing clear, intelligent, common-sense versions of thoughts, some of which were new to me but some of which I’d already had in extremely inchoate and amorphous form but had never been able to articulate or order. He made perfect sense, and I couldn’t imagine why everyone in the world didn’t agree with him.

Unfortunately, they didn’t.

Notice also that subtitle – of a book first published in 1996 – “Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.” That’s an excellent example of Sowell’s ability to distill – into a short phrase, sentence, or paragraph – a complex and highly insightful as well as illuminating idea. He’s been doing that for about fifty years, and his body of work holds up very well.

So Happy Happy Birthday, Thomas Sowell. Long may you live and grace us with your clear-headed wisdom.