Pursuing vengeance: on prosecuting Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

I have been disturbed for quite some time by the attempts by Trump’s enemies to get him convicted of something. Almost anything will do.

First it was the effort to impeach him, which took many forms but never resulted in conviction. Concurrent with that were various attempts to get him on sexual grounds – Avenatti and Stormy Daniels, for example. Now that Trump’s out of office, there has been a predictable focus on a conviction for some crime or other. This centers on New York state, controlled by Democrats and a place in which Trump once lived and did a lot of business.

In case you’re wondering why Trump didn’t issue himself a pardon while in office that would cover future prosecutions, I’ll add that a president can only issue pardons for federal crimes and this is a state crime that New York is intent on pursuing.

Here’s an editorial by Missouri’s AG on the subject of the legal pursuit of Trump:

Now…New York Attorney General Letitia James is pursuing a contemptible criminal probe of President Donald J. Trump. Without any knowledge or facts, James campaigned for attorney general in 2018 on a promise to target President Trump, his family and his businesses. In her campaign, James claimed, without evidence, that the president conspired with foreign governments, obstructed justice, and committed money laundering. Promising to criminally prosecute political opponents with no evidence of wrongdoing is about as dangerous to the Republic and rule of law as you can find in the United States.

As recently highlighted by Donald Trump Jr. on Tucker Carlson’s show, AG James is now making good on her campaign promise to not only prosecute President Trump but also members of his family. This is an affront to justice. As the state’s chief law enforcement official, she is keeping her promise in an unprecedented political prosecution in search of a crime, with taxpayers footing the bill even as New York deals with a violent crime crisis…

…Trump Derangement Syndrome does not provide legal cover. The public rightfully expects prosecutors to carry out our responsibilities without political prejudice. Threatening political enemies with indictments, criminal investigations and incarceration to settle political scores shows a deep contempt for the rule of law.

I wish that most Democrats saw it that way. I haven’t discussed this issue with any of my Democratic friends, but I believe I’m on safe ground in assuming that the majority of them would have no problem with it. After all, they already know that Trump is guilty, so why not serve “justice” and prove it?

You can do some things legally that you shouldn’t do. Many tyrannies use the letter of the law to wreak tyranny. But people often wish vengeance on those they perceive as their enemies, and can justify things they would be against if the tables were turned.

Five tenets of CRT and what they mean

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the problems with discussing and debating CRT is that it’s a complicated set of teachings and beliefs about which people know very little, and which probably vary at least somewhat according to who is doing the trainings. The most pernicious aspects of CRT are often in the details of how the trainings and/or classes go.

Here’s a set of five supposedly basic tenets of CRT, as follows:

(1) Centrality of Race and Racism in Society: CRT asserts that racism is a central component of American life.
(2) Challenge to Dominant Ideology: CRT challenges the claims of neutrality, objectivity, colorblindness, and meritocracy in society.
(3) Centrality of Experiential Knowledge: CRT asserts that the experiential knowledge of people of color is appropriate, legitimate, and an integral part to analyzing and understanding racial inequality.
(4) Interdisciplinary Perspective: CRT challenges ahistoricism and the unidisciplinary focuses of most analyses and insists that race and racism be placed in both a contemporary and historical context using interdisciplinary methods.
(5) Commitment to Social Justice: CRT is a framework that is committed to a social justice agenda to eliminate all forms of subordination of people.

As with so much jargon, one can use these principles in a benign way or a destructive one. From what I know about CRT in actual practice, they tend to be used destructively and somewhat differently than the words in those five principles would indicate.

For example, let’s take principle #1: “CRT asserts that racism is a central component of American life.” Actually, CRT asserts that racism is the central component of American life and pervades every aspect of it.

Or #2: “CRT challenges the claims of neutrality, objectivity, colorblindness, and meritocracy in society.” Actually, CRT challenges not just the claims of those things, but also challenges the idea that they are worthwhile goals. CRT considers meritocracy, for example, to be utterly bogus and inherently racist and would like to eliminate it as a goal or standard. CRT would like to substitute color awareness and eliminate colorblindness. Same for objectivity and neutrality, which are defined as white values and inherently racist.

Or #3: “CRT asserts that the experiential knowledge of people of color is appropriate, legitimate, and an integral part to analyzing and understanding racial inequality.” Is there anyone who disagrees with that? I think you’d find very few people who don’t think that the experiences of black people and other minorities are worthwhile to hear. However, CRT actually asserts that this “experiential knowledge” is far more important than statistics in the aggregate – in other words, that anecdotal evidence (which, among other things, can be a misperception even if a sincere one) is of far more importance than anything else, and it’s only the anecdotal evidence of “people of color” that matters.

Here’s #4: “CRT challenges ahistoricism and the unidisciplinary focuses of most analyses and insists that race and racism be placed in both a contemporary and historical context using interdisciplinary methods.” That’s so jargon-packed that I can’t quite figure out what it refers to (“interdisciplinary methods”?). But my sense is that it tries to change history by bringing in a perspective that makes history into whatever the CRT people want it to show – a la the 1619 Project, for example.

On #5: “CRT is a framework that is committed to a social justice agenda to eliminate all forms of subordination of people.” More jargon that obscures what’s happening. “Social justice agenda” is an example of what Thomas Sowell referred to in his book The Quest For Cosmic Justice (highly recommended by me) as an endeavor that is doomed to create more problems than it solves. As Sowell writes:

In its pursuit of justice for a segment of society, in disregard of the consequences for society as a whole, what is called “social justice” might more accurately be called anti-social justice, since what consistently gets ignored or dismissed are precisely the costs to society.

The costs of achieving justice matter. Another way of saying the same thing is that “justice at all costs” is not justice. What, after all, is an injustice but the arbitrary imposition of a cost—whether economic, psychic, or other—on an innocent person? And if correcting this injustice imposes another arbitrary cost on another innocent person, is that not also an injustice?

Those who are promoting CRT leave out all the costs, and are mum about the anti-white racism inherent in those costs. However, word has been getting out lately, and more people (not enough, but more) are starting to understand what CRT is actually about in practice.

I’m just a prole at heart

The New Neo Posted on by

On a thread about the Steinman/Meatloaf song “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” commenter “mkent” wrote:

Neo: Honestly, I’m a bit astonished to see you go down this path, what with your reputation for your love of the ballet and other forms of high art. I’ve been told I have an eclectic taste in music, but going from ballet to disco to Jim Steinman is way out there — in a good way.

Ah, but I’ve always had exceptionally eclectic tastes, and not just in music. I like some reality TV, I must confess. One of my favorite movies is “Midnight Run,” a film which may have set some sort of record for the number of times the F-word is used. As a kid, I was a huge – and I mean huge – roller derby fan, knowing the names of entire teams and even the birthdays of some of my favorite skaters. I went to a live roller derby show at about the age of eight, escorted by the kindly housekeeper. That event was a very big deal for me, although I was disappointed that the armory (that’s where it was held) was so loaded with cigarette smoke from the crowd that I could barely see the action. And one of my childhood dreams was to become a hairdresser, although my parents made it clear that would not be acceptable.

I suppose my love for the Bee Gees might fit somewhere into all of that. Very déclassé, although it’s getting a bit more acceptable lately because their music is having a sort of renaissance as a result of the HBO documentary about them.

But I couldn’t care less what my tastes “say” about me and I never did, even when young. I liked what I liked, and I was neither good at dissembling nor inclined to do it. I never felt that running with the crowd was worth it and I’ve always been terrible at acting differently than I feel.

That latter characteristic has sometimes created problems in my personal relationships, although I’ve become better at tact as I’ve gotten older.

How about you?

Let’s just call him Flip-Flop Fauci

The New Neo Posted on by

I am so heartily sick of these people who lie and then lie about their lies and then lie about the lies about…well, you get the idea:

First Anthony Fauci told us not to wear masks because they don’t work. Then he told us we had to wear masks. Then he said he’d made his previous claim about not wearing masks because he didn’t want a mask shortage among medical professionals. And now he’s lying about that…

“The people who are giving the ad hominems are saying, ‘Ah, Fauci misled us. First he said no masks, then he said masks.’ Well, let me give you a flash: That’s the way science works. You work with the data you have at the time. It is essential as a scientist that you evolve your opinion and your recommendations based on the data as it evolves. That is the nature of science. It is a self-correcting process. And that’s the reason why I say people who then criticize me about that are actually criticizing science. It was not a change because I felt like flip-flopping. It was a change because the evidence changed. The data changed.”

To follow the trajectory of Fauci’s recommendations on just the topic of COVID and masks is to enter a looking-glass world in which everything Fauci says is SCIENCE and everything his critics say means that they are against SCIENCE. Science, c’est moi according to Fauci.

It’s tedious but also infuriating, and it’s an effective ploy with many people; I still know people who think that Fauci is great and it’s the Republicans who are the anti-science party.

The Iran deal and three new heads of state: Biden, Raisi, and Bennett

The New Neo Posted on by

There was never any question that part of the Biden administration’s agenda was going to be the restoration of the Iran-facilitating Iran deal the Obama administration pushed into being despite its unpopularity. And so these moves by the new administration should come as no surprise to anyone:

As Biden White House negotiators on Sunday resumed the European Union-sponsored talks in Austria’s capital Vienna, the top Iranian negotiator, country’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, is confident that a deal can be inked soon.

Zarif “says there is a ‘good possibility’ for an agreement in Vienna talks before end of current administration’s tenure” before August, the Qatari state-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera reported.

Earlier this month, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman disclosed that a “broad agreement” had been reached with the Biden administration on lifting of sanctions on Tehran, a pre-condition set by the Mullahs for reentering the 2015 nuclear deal.

The recent election of Raisi as Iran’s president doesn’t matter to Biden/Harris and/or the group in charge of the executive branch of the US right now. In fact, if they’re anything like the NY Times, they welcome it because his election supposedly favors resumption of the deal.

The Deal is the priority. It always was for the Biden administration. Whether it’s Obama calling the shots or some of his original foreign policy advisors, or even if Biden himself is somewhere in the mix, the Iran deal is clearly a top priority for this bunch.

Who’s Raisi? It’s not as though even the left is all that fond of him; certainly not groups such as Amnesty, anyway:

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Ebrahim Raisi’s election as Iran’s new president was a blow for human rights and called for him to be investigated over his role in what Washington and rights groups have called the extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.

Iran has never acknowledged the mass executions and Raisi has never publicly addressed allegations about his role. Some clerics have said the trials were fair, praising the “eliminating” of armed opposition in the early years of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

“That Ebrahim Raisi has risen to the presidency instead of being investigated for the crimes against humanity of murder, enforced disappearance and torture, is a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran,” London-based Amnesty Secretary General Agnès Callamard said in a statement.

It occurs to me as I read that passage that perhaps the Biden administration is admiring and even envious of Raisi. After all, after January 6th they’ve been intent on creating quite a few political prisoners themselves, although executions don’t seem to be on the agenda at this point (the exception might be Ashli Babbitt).

Israel has also had a change of executives, with Netanyahu out and Bennett and his diverse coalition in. But so far Bennett has taken a hard line on Raisi and the Deal, rhetorically similar to that of his predecessor Netanyahu:

Newly sworn-in Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday warned world powers against negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran after the election of a new president, Ebrahim Raisi, saying they should “wake up” before pursuing a deal.

During his first televised cabinet meeting, Bennett said Raisi would bring about a “regime of brutal hangmen,” Reuters reported. Raisi is under U.S. sanctions for human rights abuses, and Bennett claimed Raisi’s electoral victory was the result of influence from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, instead of a popular vote…

“Raisi’s election is, I would say, the last chance for world powers to wake up before returning to the nuclear agreement and understand who they are doing business with,” Bennett said.

“A regime of brutal hangmen must never be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction,” he added. “Israel’s position will not change on this.”

Especially since Israel is on Raisi’s and Iran’s hit list.

What would it take for the present US administration and “world powers” to “wake up” to the dangers? I can’t imagine. I don’t think there’s anything that would dissuade those currently shaping our foreign policy, anymore than the Obama administration was dissuaded from the Iran deal.

[NOTE: More here.]

Mark Steyn on three things we’ve lost during the past year

The New Neo Posted on by

Here are some excerpts from a speech Mark Steyn made in late April at a Hillsdale College seminar. The topic is some things Americans have lost:

One is equality before the law, something absolutely essential to a free society. In its place, we now have politicized law…

Second, border control. Functioning societies, at least since the Peace of Westphalia three centuries ago, have borders. America has no southern border and no plans to get one…

And third, dare I bring up the fact that it is a real question whether we can go back to agreeing to have open and honest elections? And if we don’t have open and honest elections, control of our borders, and equality before the law, then we don’t have the conditions for politics or free government.

I guess Steyn didn’t list “an objective press” because we haven’t had one in ages, if ever. If an objective press isn’t possible, how about a press that’s at least honest about its partisanship and doesn’t pretend to be objective when it’s not?

I agree with this summary from Steyn:

President Macron of France is not my favorite chap—he’s a sinister globalist for one thing. But he made an admirable stand when he announced that not one French statue would be taken down and not a single French street name would be changed, because they are all part of French history. And “Bingo!” as Peter Navarro likes to say, the statue toppling and street-name changing in France went away. Why can’t American conservatives show that kind of strength? The Senate Minority Leader says he personally would not be bothered if the historical names of U.S. military bases are changed. The editor of National Review says that he wouldn’t be bothered about taking down Confederate statues. But of course it doesn’t stop there—now they’re going for all the statues. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, McKinley, and on and on. The point conservatives need to grasp is, unless you’re prepared to surrender everything, don’t surrender anything.

I’ll end by pointing out that the Left wins because it seizes language. Take the policy of letting people vote who are not U.S. citizens and shouldn’t be voting. The Left calls this policy “counting every vote.” Therefore someone who wants to make sure voters are citizens is opposed to “counting every vote.” If we don’t take back the language, we will lose the truth…

Don’t surrender the language. Reclaim the language. It’s the first step to recovering our civilization.

The first of many on a very long road.

Former ethics chief under Obama is disgusted with Biden

The New Neo Posted on by

Walter Shaub was the head of the Office of Government Ethics under Obama (and under Bush, and very briefly under Trump till Shaub resigned the post). In his official capacity he was especially tasked with monitoring possible conflict of interests (or is it conflicts of interest?).

Here are some tweets Shaub has put up recently:

People on the right sometimes ask me why I try to understand the workings of the minds of people on the left. I think it’s obviously important: if you’re interested in changing minds politically you have to at least attempt to think about why people believe what they do. But sometimes I admit I’m flummoxed – thus, so many “fool or knave?” posts on this blog, and so many “maybe both” answers.

So with Shaub we have this: “A lot of us worked hard to tee him up to restore ethics to government and believed the promises.” I assume that the promises referred to there are the ones made by Joe Biden during his 2020 campaign. But why on earth would any intelligent person – except for the most naive and/or the most partisan – have believed the promises of a long-term corrupt political hack such as Biden? A person could hope, I suppose. But believe? The mind boggles.

So Shaub was either unintelligent, or non-observant, or naive, or hopelessly partisan, or all of the above or some combination of the above. He doesn’t seem as partisan as some now, though, since he’s criticizing Biden quite strongly here. But his partisanship shows when he offers what is probably one of the worst insults he can muster about those making excuses for Biden: “They sound just like MAGAS.”

Actually, Shaub, they sound just like hypocritical political hacks who refuse to apply the same rules to both sides. As an ethicist, surely you must know that?

Apparently not. Shaub actually does seem rather shocked at all of this, which is somewhat shocking in itself for a long-time participant in the federal government.

Glenn Greenwald: on January 6th and the FBI

The New Neo Posted on by

Glenn Greenwald has written some must-read pieces about the January 6th Capitol incursion, and here’a another. This one focuses on the role of the FBI – how much the agency knew, and how involved it was in the planning and even the execution of the so-called “insurrection.”

Greenwald has a lot to say because he was part of the campaign against FBI entrapment of would-be Islamic terrorists during the post-9/11 years. A few days ago, before I read Greenwald’s piece, I mentioned something similar in my post on the FBI’s role in January 6th:

Entrapment is a constant possibility in situations in which agencies such as the FBI infiltrate terrorist or other suspicious groups, supposedly in order to monitor them. I noticed many years ago that some of the Islamic terrorist attacks that were said to have been foiled in this country while still in the planning stages involved either entrapment by government agents or reason to suspect entrapment. And as recently as this past October, the story of the arrest of six men planning to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer seemed to feature FBI entrapment of the accused perps, as well.

But Greenwald offers a lot more detail on the subject, and he points out the double standards and hypocrisy of the media and Democrats on the subject. They were terribly upset with the FBI when the FBI was going against Muslims who might be entertaining jihad, but now the FBI is their bosom buddy because it’s focusing its dubious attention on the right.

Here’s Greenwald:

What would be shocking and strange is not if the FBI had embedded informants and other infiltrators in the groups planning the January 6 Capitol riot. What would be shocking and strange — bizarre and inexplicable — is if the FBI did not have those groups under tight control. And yet the suggestion that FBI informants may have played some role in the planning of the January 6 riot was instantly depicted as something akin to, say, 9/11 truth theories or questions about the CIA’s role in JFK’s assassination or, until a few weeks ago, the COVID lab-leak theory: as something that, from the perspective of Respectable Serious Circles, only a barely-sane, tin-foil-hat-wearing lunatic would even entertain.

This reaction is particularly confounding given how often the FBI did exactly this during the first War on Terror, and how commonplace discussions of this tactic were in mainstream liberal circles. Over the last decade, I reported on countless cases for The Guardian and The Intercept where the FBI targeted some young American Muslims they viewed as easily manipulated — due to financial distress, emotional problems, or both — and then deployed informants and undercover agents to dupe them into agreeing to join terrorist plots that had been created, designed and funded by the FBI itself, only to then congratulate themselves for breaking up the plot which they themselves initiated. As I asked in one headline about a particularly egregious entrapment case: “Why Does the FBI Have to Manufacture its Own Plots if Terrorism and ISIS Are Such Grave Threats?”

In 2011, Mother Jones published an outstanding, lengthy investigation by reporter Trevor Aaronson, entitled “The Informations,” which asked: “The FBI has built a massive network of spies to prevent another domestic attack. But are they busting terrorist plots—or leading them?” Aaronson covered numerous similar cases for The Intercept where the FBI designed, directed and even funded the terror plots and other criminal rings they then boasted of disrupting. A widely praised TEDTalk by Aaronson, which, in the words of organizers, “reveals a disturbing FBI practice that breeds terrorist plots by exploiting Muslim-Americans with mental health problems,” featured this central claim: “There’s an organization responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab and ISIS combined: The FBI.”

Please read the whole thing – it’s worth it.

One of the things that makes Greenwald’s pieces so good is that, whether you agree with him or not on each issue, he’s remarkably consistent in applying the same principles to each side. I value that, and it’s a practice I try to follow, as well. Greenwald also is a very clear writer, and he has a lot of information about the press in particular, from his many years as a regular journalist. He resigned from The Intercept, the outlet he founded, because the new chiefs wanted him to toe the party line much more and he wouldn’t do it.