On the media and Russiagate

The New Neo Posted on by

I ordinarily get my news by reading. That’s not just a result of the internet or of my political change; it’s something that’s always been true of me. I’ve always found TV news to be too shallow, and I prefer reading in general anyway.

What’s even more curious was that I have always had a certain dyslexia for news personalities. Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley were practically the only TV newspeople I could have identified in my youth, and I couldn’t have told you what network any of them were on. And that was back in the days when it was quite a simple thing to do, because there were really only three choices: ABC, NBC, and CBS. But that tells you how little I cared about network news.

These days, with the proliferation of stations as well as the swelling of coverage hours to fit an all-news-all-the-time cycle, it’s even more complicated and difficult to know all the personalities, but I don’t make much of an effort.

All that of that is a lead-in to the fact that, during the Trump administration and the years of Russiagate coverage, I haven’t watched much TV news at all. Therefore I saw only a smidgen of the constant barrage of over-the-top accusations on stations such as MSNBC (Rachel Maddow in particular) or CNN.

Oh, I read quite a bit about the sensationalist TV news coverage itself, and sometimes I watched a small video clip. But I certainly had no desire to follow the TV news in real time because the little I did see made me cringe. I left it to others for the most part to cover the TV coverage.

It turns out that it was even worse—even more vicious and unremitting and mendacious—than I’d thought, and I’d already thought it contained plenty of all those ingredients.

And it also turns out that the coverage by some of these stations is one of the main reasons that viewers have been so completely gobsmacked by the findings of the Mueller report. Again, that’s something I expected to happen, but the extent and depth of it has somewhat surprised me.

It was fun for the MSM while it lasted. And it swelled their ratings to a phenomenal extent. They are now trying pivot to other related aspects of Trump’s supposed perfidy, and are refusing (as far as I can tell) to acknowledge any wrongdoing or error on their part that isn’t somehow Trump’s and/or the Republicans’ fault. I wonder if the newspeople even can admit error to themselves. I doubt it.

If you’ve read my change story you’re aware that a great deal of it was fueled by my late-in-the-game perception that the MSM had been lying to me for a long long time. Once a person realizes that, there’s usually no turning back. The trust is broken and that’s that, and the person is open to reading (or viewing) other things and other news sources with a critical and skeptical eye and evaluating each story on its own merits.

I wonder whether the MSM ever thought their coverage ultimately ran the risk of losing them viewers. I also wonder whether they believed their own tales that the Mueller report was bound to find that Trump had colluded with Russia. Ordinarily I think they’re well aware of when they are lying, but in this particular instance my guess is that a lot of them actually believed these particular lies. Wishful thinking played some part in it, and of course the collusion story drove ratings. But I think the press, or at least some significant percentage of people in the press, believed their informants who, after all, were supposedly privy to inside information on this matter.

Adam Schiff, for example, was lying through his teeth, brazenly and with a straight face and with full knowledge of the falsehood of what he was saying because there was nothing in the briefings that backs up his stories. I am sure there were other people like Schiff feeding the press scoops; he was just the most visible and vocal one of them dishing the dirt. And no doubt there were “authorities” in the FBI or the DOJ or people with close connections to those institutions who were also blabbing to the press and feeding them outright lies in order to sway the public.

If so, then many people in the press might be feeling somewhat duped and betrayed as well. Of course, they won’t let it stop them from going on and on and on this way. But over time it may make it harder for them to trust their sources and report with conviction on what they’re being told.

[ADDENDUM: Ace points out that, even now, no one in the MSM seems to be calling Schiff a liar. That does indicate that most of them probably knew he was lying all along, which certainly would not surprise me although I’m not totally sure it’s the case. It’s possible, for example, that they can’t accuse Schiff of lying now, even though they didn’t know it at the time, because (a) it would make them look like fools and dupes, and (b) it would help the right too much.

This is the old “knaves vs. fools” question, and as usual, you can’t go wrong if you answer “both.”]

The woman who can’t feel pain or experience anxiety

The New Neo Posted on by

Many many decades ago I read about the rare people who don’t feel pain, and learned that it’s a dangerous condition. They tend to hurt themselves and not be aware of it, so they can be in a lot of trouble and not know it. It seems that pain has a very clear function, although sometimes it can keep giving us the signal long after the danger is passed, and lead to the horror of chronic pain.

Here’s an article about a woman who at 71 has never felt pain in her entire life. The genetic mutation she has that causes this is a newly-discovered one, and doctors are studying it to learn if there’s anything about it they can apply to the rest of us who feel pain. One of the most curious aspects of her particular situation is that, although she does injure herself quite a bit (I first wrote “hurt herself” rather than “injure herself,” but then I changed it because the word “hurt” didn’t seem quite right), she heals pretty quickly and ordinarily without scars. Another is that she has literally never felt anxious, and doctors believe this might be physiologically caused.

It would seem to be a wonderful thing to not be able to feel pain. But many years ago, when I was quite young, I read that lepers used to sometimes lose digits in their extremities not because the disease made their fingers or toes fall off, but because they lost sensation there and didn’t know they were injuring themselves. Just now I wondered whether this was some myth I’d heard, or whether it was actually the case, and I found this:

Leprosy attacks the nerves in the cooler parts of the body, particularly those that relate to the hands, feet and face. The result is a loss of sensation in these areas meaning a person is at much greater risk of injury as they cannot feel pain. A stone in a shoe may go unnoticed or a burn while cooking with the resulting injury and infection sometimes severe enough to cause the bone to ‘shorten’. The feet of a leprosy-affected person are prone to ulcers and, if not treated properly, can lead to amputation.

Pain may not seem like a friend, not by a longshot. But to a certain degree it is necessary and protective.

I imagine something similar is true for anxiety, which tells us to be wary of potential danger and to try to avoid it—although, like pain, anxiety can sometimes get out of hand.

“There is no Pravda in Izvestiya”: the left probably thought that controlling the media was a victory

The New Neo Posted on by

The left has been in near-total control of the MSM for quite some time now. No doubt they thought that was a victory, and it certainly has given them some victories that I don’t think would have otherwise occurred if there had been an equal number of voices on the right in the MSM.

But the media can get control of the entire shebang, and if it isn’t competent at its propaganda—if it doesn’t pick and choose but is too flagrant in its willingness to lie for the good of the Party, if its lies are too easy to see as lies—then the entire enterprise can actually sabotage the Cause and result in the public’s distrusting it.

And then the public’s perception of the media can turn into something resembling the general perception of Pravda, widely considered by the Soviet public during the days of the USSR as being a ludicrous and mendacious government mouthpiece:

The miserable former citizens of the old Soviet Union had an expression – “There is no Pravda in Izvestiya and there is no Izvestiya in Pravda” – which, roughly translated, reads “There is no Truth in News and there is no News in Truth.” Pravda was the news organization of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union and Izvestiya was the news organization of the Soviet government. Pravda is “Truth” in Russian and Izvestiya is “News.”

Of course, during the days when the Soviets had an especially ruthless and iron grip, it almost didn’t matter what the people thought. In a way, the more ludicrous Pravda was, the more it showed the people how little power they had to change anything, and represented their leaders’ laughing in their faces.

But—at least so far—Americans still retain relative amount of liberty. That may not last, but at present it could make a big big difference.

Years ago we thought that maybe the blogosphere would make a big enough difference, too. I think it has helped, but not nearly enough. And Twitter and Facebook have been dominated by the left, which has the goal of censoring the right, and they have also facilitated the leftist desire to organize mobs of SJWs to attack those people simpatico to them who are just not extreme enough to suit their fancy.

What’s happened to social media in the political sense is an example of Robert Conquest’s second law in action:

Any organization not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing.

And what’s happening to the press right now can be seen as an example of his third law:

The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.

[ADDENDUM: I just saw this piece by Lee Smith in Tablet, entitled “System Fail: The Mueller Report is an unmitigated disaster for the American press and the ‘expert’ class that it promotes.” Here’s an excerpt:

The media criticism of the media’s performance covering Russiagate is misleadingly anodyne—OK, sure the press did a bad job, but to be fair there really was a lot of suspicious stuff going on and now let’s all get back to doing our important work. But two years of false and misleading Russiagate coverage was not a mistake, or a symptom of lax fact-checking.

Russiagate was an information operation from the beginning, in which dozens of individual reporters and institutions actively partnered with paid political operatives like Glenn Simpson and corrupt law enforcement and intelligence officials like former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr to smear Trump and his circle, and then to topple him. None of what went on the last two years would have been possible without the press, an indispensable partner in the biggest political scandal in a generation.

The campaign was waged not in hidden corners of the internet, but rather by the country’s most prestigious news organizations—including, but not only, The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC. The farce that has passed for public discourse the last two years was fueled by a concerted effort of the media and the pundit class to obscure gaping holes in logic as well as law. And yet, they all appeared to be credible because the institutions sustaining them are credible.

My impulse is to say “you mean were credible.” And yet that would be a cheap shot by me. I personally know many many many intelligent people who still (at least until this moment) read one or both of those papers and/or watch one or both of those networks every day or close to it, and believe what they say (and will not under any circumstances watch or read sources on the right, ever). You might say that those people have closed minds. But they would say that they don’t want to waste time filling their heads with lies. Which of course is ironic, but the dilemma is that if a person doesn’t read the other side, the leftist mouthpieces can retain quite a bit of their luster.

Which probably is one of many reasons why the MSM cannot admit the magnitude of what it did with Russiagate. Its only hope is to spin, spin, spin and to hope its readers buy its spin on what happened, rather than blame the press.

But I’m wondering if the MSM’s Russiagate hype represents a bridge too far, even for loyal readers of the MSM. Smith certainly seems to think so, because he also writes that for the MSM, “Russiagate is an extinction level event.” Time will tell, I suppose.]

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Kim Foxx’s recusal from the Smollett case: not a recusal-recusal

The New Neo Posted on by

Oh my:

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx did not “formally” recuse herself from the Jussie Smollett case — she only did so “colloquially,” prosecutors said on Wednesday.

“Colloquially”? As in, “Not really; just pretending”?

More:

“Out of an abundance of caution, the decision to recuse herself was made to address potential questions of impartiality based upon familiarity with potential witnesses in the case,” Foxx’s spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said on Feb. 20.

Top aide Robert Foley released a separate statement, saying Foxx “had conversations with a family member of Jussie Smollett about the incident and their concerns and facilitated a connection to the Chicago Police Department, who were investigating the incident.”

But Ellis clarified that Foxx’s recusal “was a colloquial use of the term rather than in its legal sense.”

“Instead, in an abundance of caution, Fox informally separated herself from the decision-making over the case and left it to her Assistants, as happens in 99.9% of all cases handled by the Office,” Ellis said.

The why did she mention it at all?

I think I have the answer: she mentioned it in order to give the false appearance of a real recusal when none had occurred. After all, no one expects the State’s Attorney to use a legal word such as “recusal” in some sort of colloquial sense; everyone would think she meant it in its technical legal sense. I’m not sure what conversational circles Foxx and Ellis hang around in, but let’s just say the word “recusal” doesn’t usually come up in any colloquial sense at, say, my monthly book group, when we’re eating dinner and shooting the breeze.

“Hey, I think I’ll recuse myself from dessert”? Nah, doesn’t happen.

I very much doubt that Foxx thought any of these machinations of hers would ever be revealed. Which in a way is odd, because she must have known or certainly should have known that the decision to let Smollett off, as well as the fact that she didn’t even give the mayor or police superintendent a heads-up beforehand, would cause widespread anger, dismay, and outrage, and that it could blow back right at her. And it’s not as though she’s been a stranger to controversy, either, so there’s no excuse for such naivete.

[NOTE: The pressures brought to bear on Foxx to drop this may have been very powerful. Here’s the tale being told; I don’t know how much of it is true, but it sounds plausible. After reading quite a bit about Foxx, including an interview I quoted at length yesterday, I think Foxx is certainly ultra-liberal and inclined to drop charges in minor cases, but she’s no fool and surely she knew this was no minor case. So as I said, I think pressure is the answer.]

[NOTE II: The title of this post is a reference to this statement by Whoopi Goldberg.]

Attkisson does the heavy lifting

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a list that Sharyl Attkisson has compiled of press falsehoods related to Trump.

It’s impressive—I mean on Attkisson’s part. A lot of work was involved in that.

But in a way it’s impressive on the press’s part, too (hmmm—is that a semi-pun? “impressive; press”?)—impressive in the sense that their errors (accidental and/or deliberate) represent a remarkable demonstration of extreme carelessness and/or monumental deceptiveness.

To keto or not to keto?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve already expressed my own experience with very low-carb diets, many times. Simply put: I can’t stand them and I lose very little weight on them, and what’s more they make me feel ill. If you say to me “but oh, you can eat all the bacon you want!” I respond by pointing out that I already eat all the bacon I want, and it’s about four servings a year.

If that.

But people swear by low-carb and in particular keto diets. I do believe that for some reason the diet works for some people. Fine, have fun. But for the rest of us it’s a sort of torment, and an unrewarding one at that.

So here’s an article about research on the diet. It seems pretty spot-on to me.

My summary version is this: diet is a very individual thing, and different people respond differently to the same diet. And for most people with a tendency to gain weight, losing it long-term (or even short-term, for some) is very very difficult, no matter what they do.

Bon appetit!

The Chicago Way and the Kim Foxx Way

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the most interesting things about the dropping of the Smollett prosecution as well as the absurd reasons the prosecutors have given for doing so is that their explanations probably aren’t good enough to convince any child past the age of 10. In other words, the prosecutors not even trying to make us think they’re telling the truth. They either are too lazy to come up with a better story to explain themselves, too stupid, too non-creative—or they want us to know they don’t care what we think, they want us to see that they can do whatever they want to do and don’t really have to explain to the public in a way that’s believable, because power is power and power does what power wants.

Any tyrannical one-party regime tends to get that way, because nothing stops them from doing so. Democrats have been in power in Chicago for practically forever, and the city’s been corrupt for as long as I can remember, too, and even earlier.

Chicago corruption doesn’t usually get such national attention, but the Smollett case was and still is a big national story, and so all of America is listening and watching. And most of America doesn’t like what it hears and sees, and that includes quite a few people who usually support whatever Democrats do.

The spectacle of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson calling out the prosecutors in scathing terms was initially a surprising one for people who don’t follow the ups and downs of Chicago politics (and that would include me), but it is just part of a more longstanding feud in that city between prosecutors on the one side and police and the mayor on the other.

Here’s a glowing background interview with Kim Foxx, the State’s Attorney for Cook County, from a group called the Center for Court Innovation. Foxx’s policies as head prosecutor for Chicago seem to have played a big role in the Smollett debacle, and this will give you some idea of what went on prior to that [emphasis added]. Everything that is in quotes except the lead paragraph are statements made by Foxx in response to the interviewer’s questions:

Foxx’s surprise victory in 2016 [she defeated the incumbent Democrat in the primary, which just about guaranteed her victory in the general] helped to ignite the movement to elect prosecutors promising something other than more “tough on crime” policies—a movement that has now racked up some notable victories…

As you talk about reform, it is the ability for me to do some things that, probably the law says I have to do one thing, I get to exercise my discretion to do another. My choice and what charges to bring, or conversely not to bring…

It’s a loaded concept that could be either used for good or evil. I don’t know what the balance looks like other than to start with: I think people should show what they’re doing so that we can start asking the question of should you or should you not be doing that? Should you or should you not be allowed to do that?

…I think it’s important to start with my biography of where I come from, even more so like the racial demographic of being the first African American woman in this position, and we know that people of color, women of color are vastly underrepresented in elected prosecutor’s offices, so it’s really significant. But I do think of equal important significance is the fact that I come from a community that is very similar to me and the folks in Chicago who experienced high incidents of crime and violence in their neighborhoods…

I see so many people who go into law enforcement and prosecution with this hero complex, this, “I want to save the day.” The designation of who wears the white hats versus who wears the black hats. That often makes my stomach churn because it is this belief that you are coming to save someone. Even in the worst of times in the projects, when I lived there, it was a community rich in love and support. Everything that was happening there, there was still this fabric. We didn’t need people to save us, we needed people to support us and that, I think, is a big distinction for people who have a healthy distance from communities like that…

That’s what we’re trying to do: engage our attorneys with narratives, not just of mine, but of people who’ve been impacted by the system. Getting our people out of courtrooms into the community to sit, to listen, and really do some self-reflection on: what do we really factor when we talk about this work? Are you really factoring what’s in the best interest of the community or what you think is a punishment fit for a crime?

Let me pause for a moment here and add that the only “community” for which the disposition of the Smollet case seems to have been in its best interests would be a rather small one: the community of “Empire,” actors, and Jussie Smollett and family. And I’m not even sure about the latter; I think it might have been better for him to have paid his dues in some way and moved on.

This certainly didn’t help the black community as a whole, whose valid reports of hate crimes against them are not going to be given more credence now. It doesn’t help the left, some of whom seem almost embarrassed by it as this point, although embarrassment is not too common for them. It doesn’t help to heal any racial divides. And I doubt it will dissuade people from making false accusations in the future. It seems to be about patronage and corruption, and probably is, and that can’t possibly be good for any community, including that community of one named Kim Foxx.

More from the interview:

…My election was really about talking about the criminal justice system in a way that we hadn’t talked about it before. Largely prosecutors’ races, and races in Cook County, the messaging was largely for people who lived in neighborhoods not impacted by violence. The target audience were some of our suburban communities who had deep fears about violence in the city of Chicago and wanted to make sure that violence was contained, that their communities were safe, that’s who the targeting was for.

This was a race that I wanted to make sure that we were targeting people who were actually impacted by violence, actually who lived in those neighborhoods, who had people who were both perpetrators and victims in their families, in their same bodies, and saying to them, “This system should be fair to you.”

We have 86 percent of the people who were in our jail in 2016 when I ran, were black and brown. Most of them had a sense that the justice system only viewed them as an instrument and not as a person. So I ran the race talking to those communities, talking about the fact that I had more in common with the people who come through our justice system than the people who work in the office, and saying that you should expect more. I think for me turning the page was that this was an office that had to be inclusive of the entire county; that we had to recognize that the disparities that existed were unacceptable and that we had to be intentional about doing something about it.

…I think you have to be honest. The relationship between our office and the community was broken because we weren’t honest with the people that we worked with. The justice system in Chicago long before Laquan McDonald, had been broken, and the relationship had been broken. I think that the conversation in the last four years since his death has certainly been elevated, but this is a city that has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars related to cases of police misconduct. This is a city that actually teaches a curriculum in Chicago public schools about police torture as a result of litigation that had been ongoing related to the torture of black men on the south side by Chicago police.

…I have a really good working relationship with the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, Eddie Johnson…I’ve never been anti-law enforcement, I am law enforcement. I am anti-bad law enforcement. That is dangerous to our communities.

…People are saying, “Well, you’re soft on crime.” Let me show you what we’re doing. I think when you do that, it dispels what people want to say about you, because I think people wanted to have a narrative about what it meant for a black woman to have this job, a black woman from the projects to have this job—”I heard she’s going to let everybody black out of jail.”

Again, I’ll pause to reflect that the fact that Smollett was let off certainly does nothing to disabuse people of that notion in the last sentence of that quote. It’s interesting, though, that is this case, criticism of the decision seems to focus less on the color angle and more on the idea that Smollett was released because of connections, money, and the privileges associated with all those things.

There’s much much more in the article; it’s a really long interview. The bulk of it is about violent crime in Chicago and how to treat perpetrators accused of violence (mostly poor and black perpetrators), and of course the Smollett case most definitely does not fall into that particular box. The general message is of a kinder, gentler prosecutor attitude, and that somehow this will help everyone.

It’s hardly worked out that way. What has happened with the Smollett case is that now just about everyone holds the Chicago prosecutor’s office in contempt. And as for transparency, this case is the opposite of transparency as far as the actions of the prosecution are concerned.

Here’s the way most people probably react:

After Foxx had to recuse herself from the case for playing Obama Celebrity Friends, Joseph Magats, the first assistant state’s attorney, took over.

“The fact that (Smollett) feels we have exonerated him, we have not,” Magats told the Tribune. “I can’t make it any clearer.”

You can’t make it any clearer? Well, I can’t make this any clearer.

Smollett is a star. Your boss jammed herself up some way we don’t know about. But she jammed herself. And so, you cut him a deal.

You made the deal to expunge him. You let him work off “community service” with a couple of days doing odd jobs at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. I hoped he sold a few Jesse Jackson action figures. But then Rainbow/PUSH said it had no idea his volunteer work had anything to do with the criminal case.

Foxx hasn’t helped herself any with statements such as this:

“I think that there is a lot of confusion,” Foxx said at WBEZ, adding that there was a “slim” chance Smollett would have received jail time in the case. “There’s some people who were never going to be satisfied unless Mr. Smollett spent many nights in prison.”

Nope, Ms. Foxx. Oh, probably there are “some people” who felt that way. But most people whose comments I’ve read or heard never really expected that to happen, although they would have liked it. They expected a deal of some sort that kept him out of prison. But that deal was expected to contain some rather conventional elements such as admission of wrongdoing, probation, that sort of thing. Maybe even a substantial fine instead of a wrist slap that amounts to almost nothing to a person with an income such as Smollett’s.

Leaving Foxx behind there’s plenty more, and you’ve probably read some of it. But since this post is already getting interminable, I’ll just give you two links:

The FBI may be investigating another aspect of the Smollett case, the hoax letter.

Who’s Tina Tchen and why did she intervene on behalf of Smollett?

Demeanor under fire

The New Neo Posted on by

During the Kavanaugh hearings, one of the things that came in for a lot of criticism and even ridicule on the left was Kavanaugh’s emotionality. But his affect was completely understandable for someone in his position, someone who was falsely and publicly accused of acts that could not be definitely disproved and could ruin his career (and his life, and that of his family) when he was seemingly at the peak of said career. Under the circumstances, Kavanaugh was probably more restrained than most people would be.

And yet it’s true that he wasn’t the very model of cool calm and collected. And that became a Thing: his demeanor is so heated it proves he’s guilty.

There’s no logic whatsoever to that, of course. It’s just a ploy. And I assure you that, had Kavanaugh’s demeanor been calm, he would have been criticized for not being outraged in the way an innocent man would have been outraged. It’s a lose/lose situation.

Would some people have been able to stay calm? Probably, but just a small number—a number so very small and a group unusual enough that in the case of Lindy Chamberlain, her calm demeanor in the face of a false accusation that she had killed her daughter probably helped send her to prison (see this for a review of the case, if you’ve forgotten or have never heard of it).

And although staying calm in the face of turmoil and strife is something one wants in a leader or a judge, staying calm all the time and keeping one’s mouth shut and a neutral expression on one’s face is not always possible—or even desirable—when that leader is him or herself accused of terrible crimes. Appropriate outrage has a definite place, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the dispatch of one’s duties.

Which brings us to Trump and one of the games that the press and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) were playing with him:

The Left and the media were never willing to credit the idea that Trump sincerely believed that he was being treated unfairly — because he was…

Trump is a creature of the media and cares a lot about what is said of him. So imagine him sitting in the White House and watching the media constantly suggest that a smoking-gun Russia-collusion revelation is just over the horizon, that the walls are closing in, that he might be guilty of one of the worst political crimes committed in the history of the republic — and all the while knowing that it wasn’t true.

It’s very easy to be relaxed about someone else’s reputation. We saw this during the Kavanaugh controversy when progressives were outraged that Brett Kavanaugh got emotional about being falsely accused of gang rape. Trump, apparently, was supposed to be cool and nonplussed about being accused of treason.

Of course, he wasn’t, and got caught in an endless feedback loop with the press. He’d be presumed guilty in the coverage, he’d lash out, and then commentators would take his reaction as further evidence he was guilty. For two long years.…

It didn’t occur to anyone that he might be acting out of a sense of aggrieved (although often self-defeating) innocence.

Oh, really? I don’t think they’re that stupid. Of course it occurred to them. And I can assure you that if and when someone on their side is similarly smeared and reacts by behaving in an outraged manner, the press will consider it normal and an indication of innocence.

I don’t think I’ve ever, either in my writings here or in my private life, considered someone’s angry demeanor at being accused of something to be evidence of that person’s guilt. Nor do I assume that calmness is evidence of guilt either—people have different temperaments and react differently to similar situations. I consider evidence to be evidence of guilt. And although a person’s demeanor can indicate guilt, appropriate emotions should not lead people to conclude guilt, and people are also notorious for misjudging guilt/innocence based on demeanor.

What was done to Trump by the press was part of their gotcha game, that’s all. They either felt he was guilty and therefore everything he did or said was evidence of guilt, or they didn’t think he was guilty (or weren’t sure) but had no hesitation to be part of a frame-up anyway.

Prosecutor attempts to explain the dropping of charges against Smollett

The New Neo Posted on by

[See ADDENDA below.]

[NOTE: This post is a companion piece to my previous one today on the subject of the dropped charges against Jussie Smollett.]

Now the prosecutor in the Smollett case has come forth and given these statements on the dropping of the charges:

[NY Times reporter] Bosman wrote on Twitter that [prosecutor Joe Magats] said “he saw no problems with the police investigation or the evidence against Smollett. The charges against Smollett were dropped in return for his agreement to do community service, he said, and for forfeiting his bond to the city of Chicago.”

By the way, earlier reports said that Smollet supposedly had already done the community service so he doesn’t have to do any more, and the bond forfeit is for $10K, which is basically chump change to Smollet.

More:

“Here’s the thing — we work to prioritize violent crime and the drivers of violent crime,” Magats told the Times. “Public safety is our number one priority. I don’t see Jussie Smollett as a threat to public safety.”

“We stand behind the investigation, we stand behind the decision to charge him and we stand behind the charges in the case. The mere fact that it was disposed of in an alternative manner does not mean that there were any problems or infirmities in the case or the evidence,” he added.

He’s trying to head off the idea that anything untoward, some sort of shady backroom deal, went on. He’s also trying to shut up Chicago Mayor Emanuel and Police Superintendent Johnson, who both have been very vocal and unequivocal in their condemnation of this prosecutorial decision (see my earlier post). And of course Magats is trying to stop Smollett from continuing to proclaim his great innocence and truthfulness.

I don’t think Magats’ efforts to paint this as an ordinary practical run-of-the-mill dropping of charges will work. The picture right now is of a famous person getting off for no valid reason, when everyone—the mayor, the police chief, and now apparently the prosecutor who dropped the charges—believes he’s guilty.

I think Magats’ stated reason for doing this—that Smollett isn’t a “threat to public safety” because he didn’t commit violence—is absurd on its face. Not only is the offense with which Smollett was charged a very serious one for several reasons, such as wasting police resources and the possibility of the arrest of an innocent person, but this particular story could easily have sparked violence because of its inflammatory nature and its explicit political overtones. If Smollett is guilty of this offense—and all signs point to that conclusion—his crime is not the exact equivalent of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, but it’s not all that far behind.

I also think—although it remains to be seen—that even a lot of the people who originally believed Smollett and then felt deceived and changed their minds are not suddenly going to flip right back into believing him now. They’ve been jerked around too much already, and now that the prosecutor is making it clear that there is no paucity of evidence nor were there any “infirmities” in the case, this entire episode will just serve to increase cynicism about the entire system of justice.

[ADDENDUM: More here.]

[ADDENDUM II: The Chicago police union wants an investigation:

The Fraternal Order of Police [FOP] on Tuesday unleashed its anger at Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx after charges were dropped against Jussie Smollett and renewed its call for a federal investigation into Foxx’s “interference” in the case.

“The conduct of her office from the very beginning of this cases was highly, highly suspicious,” Martin Preib, the FOP’s second vice president, told the Chicago Sun-Times.

“The entire country is outraged by it. The evidence is overwhelming that he was legitimately charged in this case. This decision [to drop the charges] appears to be utterly arbitrary, capricious and suspicious.”…

In renewing the call for a federal investigation into what he called Foxx’s political “interference” on behalf of the Smollett family, Preib argued that the state’s attorney’s office’s decision to drop the charges “only gives more foundation to our claims.”

Foxx’s initial request that Johnson transfer the case to the FBI came after an influential supporter of the “Empire” actor reached out to Foxx personally: Tina Tchen, a Chicago attorney and former chief of staff for former first lady Michelle Obama, according to emails and text messages provided by Foxx to the Sun-Times in response to a public records request.

Foxx recused herself from the investigation after facilitating conversations between Smollett’s family and the Chicago Police Department.

“The entire country is getting a window into the absurdity of the Chicago political and legal system,” Preib said…

The FOP was a strong supporter of former State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, who was ousted by Foxx in the unrelenting furor over the court-ordered release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video.

The FOP has long accused Foxx and her political patron, County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, of being soft on crime.

Preib said it was too soon to say whether the FOP would recruit and back a challenger to defeat Foxx in 2020.

“We’ve still got a lot of time. . . . The media in Chicago has pretty much treated her with kid gloves from the get-go. She vacated two convictions of a Spanish Cobra gang member in February and the media didn’t write one story about it,” he said.

“They have not looked into so much of what we’ve criticized about her administration. We hope the national media will do that now.”

This time, what happens in Chicago may not stay in Chicago. This may be business as usual there, but other people have certainly taken notice at this point.

No wonder Chicago police are angry. This isn’t the first time they’ve had the rug pulled out from under them in a case on which they’ve worked hard. With Smollett, it just has gotten more national attention. But the police worked their butts off to investigate the original claims thoroughly, and then to investigate the hoax and get good evidence, and now—without their having even been given a heads-up in advance—the charges are dropped in a very high-profile case. This time, the essence of the case is that the public and the police themselves were lied to and toyed with. The dropping of the charges is a big FU to the police, among other things.]

House veto override fails; the wall is going ahead

The New Neo Posted on by

The House tried to stop the allocation of funds for the border wall, but Trump vetoed that and now the House has failed to override his veto:

The House failed Tuesday to override the first veto of President Trump’s tenure, a vote led by Democrats seeking to uphold a measure unwinding the president’s national emergency declaration at the southern border.

The chamber voted 248-181 to override the veto, falling short of the roughly 290 votes, or two-thirds majority, needed. Trump issued the veto earlier this month to push back on a rebuke from Congress over his bid to reallocate Pentagon funding to build a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The vast majority of Republicans in the lower chamber stood with Trump on Tuesday over the veto. But 14 GOP lawmakers opted to break party lines and rebuke the president’s emergency declaration for a second time…

GOP Reps. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), Francis Rooney (Fla.), Dusty Johnson (S.D.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Justin Amash (Mich.), Fred Upton (Mich.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Jim Sensenbrenner (Wis.), Greg Walden (Ore.), Mike Gallagher (Wis.), Will Hurd (Texas), John Katko (N.Y.) and Fitzpatrick joined all Democrats in voting for the measure.

I’m assuming that the issue of the constitutionality of Trump’s emergency declaration will end up in SCOTUS eventually. I’ve already written this post expressing my opinion on the legality of Trump’s declaration.

Charges against Jussie Smollett dropped

The New Neo Posted on by

The Jussie Smollett hate crime case, and then hoax hate crime case, has been one of those highly-publicized stories that captured the attention of the American public. It had everything: Maga-hatted haters, a gay black actor alleging a beating with homonphobic and racist slurs, and then an unraveling in which all the evidence seemed to point to it being a hoax perpetrated by the alleged victim himself, with the help of two Nigerian brothers.

I remember reading (although I don’t know where, I recall it being in more than one place) that, because it was Chicago, Smollett would never be tried and if tried he would never do time. Now that appears to be the case. Whatever his guilt or innocence, the charges have been dropped by the prosecutor. Here’s the reaction of the city of Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, and its police superintendent:

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his city’s police force Tuesday afternoon, denouncing prosecutors for dropping charges against “Empire” star Jussie Smollett and slamming the episode as a “whitewash of justice.”

Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and Emanuel said they were not only furious with the outcome of Tuesday’s surprise hearing but also blindsided by the decision itself, with the officials only learning Smollett wouldn’t face charges for allegedly faking a hate crime at the same time the public found out.

“Where is the accountability in the system? You cannot have – because of a person’s position – one set of rules applies to them and another set of rules apply to everyone else,” Emanuel said. “Our officers did hard work day in and day out, countless hours working to unwind what actually happened that night. The city saw its reputation dragged through the mud…It’s not just the officers’ work, but the work of the grand jury that made a decision based on only a sliver of the evidence [presented]. Because of the judge’s decision, none of that evidence will ever be made public.”…

Johnson slammed the prosecution for not consulting with cops and hinted the episode could further strain the relationship between the department and the DA.

“I don’t know what’s unusual for the state’s attorney but we found out about when you all did,” Johnson said. “Prosecutors have their discretion of course, we still have to work with the state’s attorneys office — We’ll have conversations after this.”

But Johnson made sure to add, unequivocally: “At the end of the day it was Smollett who committed this hoax.”

Ordinarily I don’t come to a judgment about a case that hasn’t been tried, but when the city’s Democratic mayor and black police superintendent say something like that in a case with this particular set of allegations, attention needs to be paid. It tells you just how deep the rot may go in Chicago, a city that already had a long-time reputation for very shady machinations.

What actually happened? Well, there’s this:

The actor reportedly reached a deferred prosecution deal with prosecutors that removes the charges.

And then we have this:

For unclear reasons, Judge Steven Watkins ordered the public court file sealed.

Also see this:

A furious Johnson said prosecutors brokered a deal with Smollett in secrecy.

“I’m sure we all know what happened this morning,” Johnson said at his press conference. “Do I think justice was served? No. What do I think justice is? I think this city is owed an apology.”

“At the end of the day, it’s Mr. Smollett who committed this hoax, period,” Johnson said. “I heard that they wanted their day in court … so America could know the truth, and they chose to hide behind a secrecy of a brokered deal to circumvent the judicial system.” …

Emanuel noted that “a sliver” of the evidence was presented to a grand jury, which indicted Smollett. He said Smollett used race and privilege to “get off scott free” and that the actor has shown no remorse or accountability for his actions.

“A person using hate crime laws that are on the books to protect people who are minorities, and you turn around and use them to advance your career?” Emmanuel said. “Is there no decency in this man?”

[NOTE: Some of the rumors are detailed here. I don’t think we’ll ever know what happened; certainly the sealing of the records certainly doesn’t make it any easier.]