Eric Felten “debunks,” “discredits,” and reveals as “baseless,” the Democrats’ impeachment case

The New Neo Posted on by

At RealClearInvestigations, Felten makes a point about the language of the Democrats’ impeachment case:

The repetitions that immediately stand out in the House report are the adjectives that dismiss the president’s defense well before that defense is made. Assertions or questions involving Ukraine made by Trump or his attorney Rudy Giuliani are typically prefaced with the words “debunked” or “discredited,” and usually followed by the characterization “conspiracy theory.” “Debunked” appears 22 times in the report; “discredited” 15 times; “baseless” 16 times and “conspiracy” 56 times. A few of those uses are by Republicans – Giuliani is quoted as saying the impeachment inquiry is “baseless” – but the vast majority are by Democrats to dismiss Trump’s claims.

The whole thing is well worth reading.

The impeachment trial: sorry, but for the most part…

The New Neo Posted on by

…I don’t plan to watch the proceedings.

I will report if anything big happens. And watch a clip or read a transcript. But watch it in real time? No thanks.

Some of the reason for that is my general antipathy to speeches and grandstanding and talk talk talk. But some of it is that this particular proceeding is deeply offensive to me. I already know a lot about its genesis, the Democrats’ allegations, and the GOP defense. I’m with the GOP defense, in particular Alan Dershowitz’s point of view.

I’ve noticed that many people have a simple way of looking at these things, and it goes something like this: Do I hate Trump? Then get rid of him, by hook or by crook. “Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil.”

They don’t think the “Devil” will ever turn ’round on them, if they trash the law and make a mockery of the rules.

This attitude of ends justify means is not entirely the province of the left, by the way. But I’ve seen it much more commonly on the left than among conservatives.

Many people – probably a majority – are not all that interested in process and don’t consider it particularly important. What they want is results. That’s human nature. Plus, to value process they have to understand the reason it’s so important. And to understand that, most people have to be taught (see *NOTE below). They are taught quite the opposite these days.

Few of us could stand upright in these winds, if they really start blowing.

[*NOTE: Do people really have to be taught to value process? I believe that most children do have a sort of innate interest in process in the sense of fairness – they want the rules to be fair, and often scream “It’s not FAIR!” if they feel that the rules have been bypassed in a way that hurts them. But how many children are willing to cheat in order to win, especially when very young? I think quite a few. And how many would fail to insist on the application of a fair rule if it means that they themselves lose instead of win? Especially when young, I believe quite a few. Maybe a majority, although I don’t know. But I think that most children do have to be taught to value the process itself when the cost is that they will lose at times.

That’s part of what games and sports are for. And it’s one of the many reasons that sports and games in which everyone wins are not a good idea. That fails to teach a person to endure the pain of losing, and to follow rules nevertheless.]

On the impeachment trial

The New Neo Posted on by

From Scott Johnson:

The Russia hoax collapsed in the senile display of Robert Mueller before the House Judiciary Committee on July 24. On July 25 President Trump had the congratulatory telephone call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky that somehow became the subject of a complaint submitted by a fake “whistleblower.”…

As the Russia hoax was a pretext for undermining Trump, the Ukraine thing is an obvious pretext for the continuation. Both episodes are shot through with such dishonesty and bad faith it is no coincidence (as the Communists used to say) that Adam Schiff has been out in front of each…

The Federalist Papers cover the constitutional mechanism of impeachment in numbers 65 and 66. Their sobriety and prudence provide a telling contrast with the spectacle before us. The observation of Publius in Federalist 65 reads like an eternal verity: “it ought not to be forgotten that the demon of faction will, at certain seasons, extend his sceptre over all numerous bodies of men.”

On being late: part 2

The New Neo Posted on by

Part one was certainly a comment-generator.

No, I’m not going to write another long post on the subject of being late. At least, not today. And I’m not sure there’s anything still left to say about the subject after this weekend’s lengthy back-and-forth.

However, completely by chance, yesterday I came across this T-shirt:

There are many variations on the theme on Amazon and elsewhere: color, style, script, men’s, woman’s, you name it.

It got me wondering: is this a case of the phenomenon some people were talking about in the earlier thread when they claimed that those who are habitually late seem to think it’s cute? I had no doubt there are some people like that, but the existence of all these T-shirts has made me think there are more of them than I’d originally thought.

Or – is it that the people wearing the T-shirts aren’t bragging, but rather issuing a warning to others? Or even apologizing in advance (although the absence of an “I’m sorry” would argue against that)?

Or – and this is my own leading theory at the moment – are the majority of these shirts purchased as gifts by exasperated friends, lovers, and relatives of the habitually late?

MIGA

The New Neo Posted on by

From the stable genius a few days ago:

I think “Make Iran Great Again” is a brilliant slogan.

But have you noticed that no one’s talking about Iran anymore? I don’t mean literally no one, but I’m referring to the huge MSM brouhaha that had Trump leading us directly into WWIII by killing Suleimani, compared to the crickets now. When the MSM thought it would hurt Trump, it was all Iran all the time. But that didn’t happen fast enough, so the caravan has moved on to the impeachment trial.

“Likable” Bernie: Hillary doesn’t think so

The New Neo Posted on by

In a new documentary about Hillary Clinton, she has this to say about Bernie Sanders:

He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.

It’s often the case that people – including or maybe especially politicians of the Democratic persuasion – show a remarkable lack of self-awareness of their own flaws, character traits, and reputations. If Hillary doesn’t realize that she herself is singularly unlikable, her opponent Barack Obama’s famous put-down-in-guise-of-compliment should have made it more clear:

(And by the way, in that clip I find Obama extraordinarily unlikable, but I guess not a lot of people shared that belief.)

Clinton is renowned for her unlikability. And what on earth did she get done about which she might feel genuinely proud? I think Bernie’s got a lot of problems, but being less likable than Hillary doesn’t appear to be one of them.

Earlier in this post I wrote that Hillary and others show a remarkable lack of self-awareness of their own flaws, character traits, and reputations. But that’s not necessarily what’s actually going on. Perhaps they know full well, and are merely following the old rule of the best defense is a good offense and pretending that their own flaws are to be ascribed to their opponents and/or enemies.

Hillary no doubt detests Donald Trump with a white-hot passion. But I doubt she’s got any love for Bernie, with whom she fought in 2016 for the nomination she felt was rightly hers. For that matter, in 2008 she probably had to swallow a lot of pride and anger to work for Barack Obama after the elections, but was able to do so because she calculated that it would advance her career. Saying something nice about Bernie doesn’t seem to be in her interests, so she feels very comfortable ascribing to him those traits for which she’s been criticized.

Since I’m of a certain age, one of the memories sparked by this whole exchange is this slogan fromwhat seems like simpler days:

Rallying for the 2nd Amendment

The New Neo Posted on by

I think this title sums it up nicely: “Virginia Pro-2nd Amendment Protest Was Peaceful, Despite Hysterical Predictions by Democrats and Media”:

Well, over 22,000 people attended the rally. It was peaceful with no arrests. State of emergency, eh?

Imagine that. Over 22,0000 people with guns and not one shooting or crime. Hhhmmm..it’s almost as if these passionate gun supporters care about laws and other people, unlike criminals.

The supporters protested against new gun regulations by the Virginia legislation. This includes “universal background checks, a ban on military-style rifles and a bill that would allow authorities to temporarily take guns from people deemed dangerous to themselves or others.”

The protestors believe it won’t stop with that, and I agree.

The “hysterical predictions” of the left may or may not have been secret desires, as parodied in this Babylon Bee satire: “Media Offers Thoughts And Prayers That Someone Would Start Some Violence At Gun Rights Rally.”

The Times endorses the two major women candidates still standing

The New Neo Posted on by

The NY Times doesn’t know exactly what it likes, but it knows it likes the women. Calling the decision “a break with convention” – rather than a mark of waffling indecision – the paper has endorsed both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar.

The Times wants to give each Democratic camp a candidate. Here’s the way the paper describes the split in the Democratic Party:

Some in the party view President Trump as an aberration and believe that a return to a more sensible America is possible. Then there are those who believe that President Trump was the product of political and economic systems so rotten that they must be replaced.

In other words – what passes as “moderate” these days for Democrats, and what is even more radical. The Times goes on to add the moderate/”progressive” distinction but to reject it (properly, I believe), because the editors write:

But when we spent significant time with the leading candidates, the similarity of their platforms on fundamental issues became striking.

Nearly any of them would be the most progressive president in decades on issues like health care, the economy and government’s allocations of resources. Where they differ most significantly is not the what but the how, in whether they believe the country’s institutions and norms are up to the challenge of the moment.

In other words, they’re all way to the left of anything we’ve experienced before. But some believe they can pull the country way to the left while working at least somewhat within the system and not having to change it overly (the slowly boiling frog theory), while the others are for a more fundamental and obvious break with all the checks and balances so carefully built into our system.

Later on the editors add their carefully-worded green light to the more radical of the radicals:

The history of the editorial board would suggest that we would side squarely with the candidate with a more traditional approach to pushing the nation forward, within the realities of a constitutional framework and a multiparty country. But the events of the past few years have shaken the confidence of even the most committed institutionalists. We are not veering away from the values we espouse, but we are rattled by the weakness of the institutions that we trusted to undergird those values.

Ha! The right could say the same as those last two sentences in particular, only we’d talking about the actions of the Times and the rest of the left, as well as the Democratic Party. In fact – to repeat a phrase we’ve heard often – that’s how you get Trump.

However, I actually don’t think it’s the “weakness of the institutions” that is at fault. It’s the fact that, just as the Founders knew, we need much more than institutions to be able to continue to safeguard our liberty against those – very much including those on the left such as the Times – who would undermine and even destroy them. We need a people who are well educated in American history, civics, and the way our government works and/or was designed to work, and we need to understand and counter the incessant campaign to undermine the values that support that liberty.

I wonder how many people care what the Times thinks. By “people,” I of course mean voters in the Democratic primary, not Republicans. It is Democrats who will decide the issue, not the Times, so perhaps it doesn’t matter whether the paper chooses Warren or Klobuchar or someone else or no one at all.

However, what I see as having led to this split, is this:

(1) The paper wanted to choose a minority person of color, and since none are left they had to go with the next best thing, a woman – or two women. Never a white man!

(2) The paper’s editorial board was itself split rather evenly between the slow radicals and the quick radicals, and thus the two endorsements.

(3) The paper is disturbed by the weakness of the field in general and in particular the so-called moderate side. Biden really alarms them, with his baggage and his fogginess, so Klobuchar is almost the only one left. They fear Warren cannot win, so they must choose an alternative, and they hope that their august gray weight can influence the entire moderate wing to swing to Klobuchar and coalesce behind her.

[ADDENDUM: The Times calls Warren a “gifted storyteller.”

Ha! Takes one to know one.]

On being late

The New Neo Posted on by

First, a confession: I am habitually late. But only a little bit – usually between five and ten minutes.

I have never been late for a plane. I have never been late when it really really mattered. But I am consistently late for other things, and this is the case even though it’s not something I’m aiming for and in fact I’m often trying very hard to be on time.

I’ve known for many years that one big reason I’m late is that I try to do too much. I know, I know; that sounds like the classic self-aggrandizing type of excuse (“I’m late because I’m just so intent on packing in a lot of tasks”), but it’s true. I tend to think I have time to squeeze in one more errand, and I usually don’t, but I never learn.

That must mean I’m some sort of optimist about time – which is really odd because most people would not say that optimism is one of my most salient characteristics. But it seems I usually underestimate the amount of time it will take me to do something, overestimate my own efficiency, think that traffic and parking will be easier than they really are, and assume that the traffic lights will turn green rather than red.

But the other day I arrived early to something, and it struck me (not for the first time, either) that part of my problem is that I don’t really like being early. I don’t like sitting in a theater waiting a half hour for it to fill up. I don’t like cooling my heels at a restaurant until the other party shows. I don’t like waiting in line for the doors to open. It’s not that I consider these things dreadful or intolerable, but they make me uncomfortable and antsy.

Of course, you might say I sacrifice my friends’ comfort to preserve my own. But that’s not really true, either, because – at least consciously – I really am trying to be on time, and I feel bad when I’m late and keep someone waiting, even if for only a few minutes. So there are two feelings at war with each other: the desire for punctuality and to spare the other person, and my own time-budgeting weaknesses and impatience at waiting. I must be trying to hit that exact sweet spot between the two, which I actually sometimes achieve but mostly don’t. Ater all, it’s a very tiny target.

I seem to be ruled by Hofstadter’s Law, which goes like this:

It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Law professor Terry Smith’s crusade to disenfranchise voters he sees as racist

The New Neo Posted on by

I suppose at this point nothing that emanates from the race-baiting Trump-hating crew (some of whom are lawyers and law professors) should shock me. But Terry Smith’s efforts seem particularly pernicious.

The following descriptive passage was written by Noah Berlatsky and appeared as an op-ed at NBC, but in it Berlatsky is referring to work done by law professor Terry Smith:

If the Trump era has taught us anything, it’s that large numbers of white people in the United States are motivated at least in part by racism in the voting booth. Donald Trump ran an openly racist campaign for president…Trump made it clear in his campaign that “Make America Great Again” meant that America was greater when white people’s power was more sweeping and more secure. White voters approved of that message by a whopping 58 percent to 37 percent…

Terry Smith, a visiting professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, offers a different response in his new book, “Whitelash: Unmasking White Grievance at the Ballot Box.” Rather than excuse racist voters or try to figure out how to live with their choices, he argues that racist voting is not just immoral, but illegal. The government, Smith says, has the ability, and the responsibility, to address it…

Smith argues that it’s in line with the Constitution and with years of court rulings. For example, Smith points out that racist appeals in union elections are illegal and that an election in which one side uses racist appeals can be invalidated by the National Labor Relations Board. Similarly, in the 2016 case Peña v. Rodriguez, the Supreme Court ruled that when a juror expresses overt bigotry, the jury’s verdict should be invalidated…

“When voters go to the booth, they’re not expressing a mere personal preference,” Smith told me. According to Smith, voters who pull the levers to harm black people are violating the Constitution. If the Constitution means that overt racist appeals undermine the legality of union elections, it stands to reason that they undermine the legality of other elections, as well.

Read the whole thing, and reflect on the fact that Terry Smith is indeed a law professor. And he’s not alone; a significant amount of this sort of “reasoning” – which law professors, of all people, should know uses false analogies and is antithetical to liberty as well as the Constitution – is offered by law professors these days. And why is NBC publicizing this sort of thing? I assume it’s with the goal of moving the Overton Window and making such thoughts more acceptable.

I wonder what Smith would say about the black voters who vote for Trump – would he disenfranchise them, too, or do they get a pass because of their race? Or maybe he assumes they don’t exist?

I became curious about Terry Smith, and when I Googled him I found a motherlode of fascinating information. He was let go by DePaul because of a rather interesting controversy:

Distinguished Professor of Law Terry Smith agreed to part ways with the university following an agreement with the university’s lawyers to end his civil rights lawsuit…

Smith said in his lawsuit that he had “suffered significant abuses” in retaliation for his outspokenness on racial issues within the law school. The university defended itself by saying Smith had acted aggressively and inappropriately toward other faculty members…

Johnson said that the latest edition of the Faculty Handbook was used against Smith, and could be used similarly against other faculty of color, citing a new rule that says a professor could be charged with
misconduct for displaying a “pattern of extreme aggression and intimidation towards colleagues.”

“As a person of color, I feel that section of the handbook makes faculty of color especially vulnerable,” Shelby said. “Sometimes the way that we communicate is seen as outside of the norm, but it’s very normal for us.”

“If you get charged with extreme aggression and intimidation against colleagues, that is a very substantive charge,” Johnson said. “What the hell does that even mean? What’s extreme to you may not be extreme to me. (…) Black men in particular and people of color in general are always pegged as threatening, intimidating, aggressive, just because of our appearance.”

Sumi Cho, a law professor and ally of Smith’s, was also brought up on this misconduct charge. “It’s no coincidence that a black man and Korean woman were the first targets of a misconduct charge involving a pattern of extreme aggression and intimidation of colleagues,” Johnson said.

So black men are allowed to be more aggressive because it’s part of their culture? WTF? Smith is asking to be evaluated by different rules as to what is aggressive and intimidating, because he’s a black man and his own standards are different. If a white person said something like this about black people, that person would be in mega-trouble.

It took me a while and several articles to discover at least a little bit of what Smith is actually accused of saying. Details were very hard to come by, but I struck a bit of pay dirt here:

Professor Terry Smith, an African-American labor law and voting rights scholar, is seeking $3 million in damages in a civil rights lawsuit filed against the law dean Jennifer Rosato Perea, former DePaul president Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider and the university in February 2018.

Smith’s lawyer argued before a federal judge that the university should discontinue its ongoing attempt to terminate Smith for what it describes as a pattern of bullying and harassment until the suit is resolved. Eric Rumbaugh, who is representing DePaul in the case, argued that the school should not have to wait to move forward with firing Smith because his continuing “incivility” is an “existential threat” to the law school.

Smith felt the school had discriminated against him because he criticized its lack of racial diversity, passing him over for appointment to certain posts and committees. This part seems key:

One of the central controversies of the suit surrounds the tenure applications of Julie Lawton and Daniel Morales, two professors of color in the law school. Smith maintains he opposed their promotion because he harbored serious doubts about their qualifications, but Lawton and Morales said he only opposed them because they didn’t share his views on racial politics within the COL, court records show.

“Professors of color” can mean quite a few things, but Julie Lawton is black, and my guess is that Daniel Morales is Hispanic, but that doesn’t appear to have protected them from Smith’s wrath. Au contraire:

At a March 5, 2015 faculty meeting, Smith allegedly attacked and ridiculed other members of the law school. He accused Lawton of “disbelieving the concept of institutional racism,” and she asked him, for the second time, to leave her alone.

According to Lawton’s statement, he replied by saying, “I don’t give a fuck what you want! Who the hell are you to tell me that I can’t criticize you!”

In her statement, Lawton said Smith and Cho had attempted to characterize them as “a racial token pandering to the white establishment.”…

On Aug. 31, 2017, Rosato opened and authored her own investigation into the tenure controversy, despite the Telman report already clearing Smith of any wrongdoing five months earlier. She released the report in November 2017.

The report concluded that Smith, “acting in concert with Professor Sumi Cho, proceeded to carry out an orchestrated campaign to derail the Lawton and Morales tenure candidacies,” and that he engaged in “a pattern of bullying that rises to the level of extreme intimidation and aggression.”

Speaking specifically about Rosato’s investigation, a university spokesperson said, “the investigation was conducted fairly and objectively, according to the university’s established disciplinary process. It was motivated only by the desire to get to the bottom of the complaints about bullying, discord and toxic behavior, and to address those complaints in a way that protects the community and enables the law school to move forward together.”

Other law faculty, notably Maggie Livingston, the chair of the Tenure and Promotion Committee, claim Smith frequently used profanity and acted inappropriately and unprofessionally in the lead-up to the tenure votes. Livingston said in the report that Smith told her that “he had no use for any of [the candidates]” and called them “motherfuckers.”

The issue here is how much leeway should be given to professors to insult each other publicly or to harass each other. What sort of behavior is beyond the pale? What constitutes intimidation? How does race enter into it, if it does? In this case, both the accused, Smith, and his targets, the new professors, were “persons of color,” and that may have accounted for the bitterness and nastiness of Smith’s accusations – that he saw them as betraying what he sees as the proper politics for such people – his politics.