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.]

Russiagate: why did the press do it?

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday it was all about the Mueller report and the Barr letter.

Today the news and commentary seems to be focusing more on the press itself: whether the MSM will ever own up to the magnitude of their mistake/lies (I very much doubt it). How much their coverage of Russiagate has damaged their reputation, and with whom. Whether they even recognize how much this has damaged their reputation. What their next move will be.

And on and on and on—for a few examples, see this, this, this, this, and above all this from Matt Taibbi, who is most definitely not on the right and not a Trump-supporter in any way. And the MSM tries gamely but ridiculously to defend itself here, here, and in what is perhaps my favorite headline of all: “Trump Is Bullying the Media Into Falsely Exonerating Him of Russia Corruption.”

You cannot make this stuff up. But the headline writers at New York Magazine apparently can, and it’s not in parody.

The question I want to try to answer right now is why did they do it? Why the nonstop incessant seemingly-interminable beating of the “Trump is guilty of collusion and there is evidence” drum? By “they” I mean the MSM, more than the Democrats, although the two work hand in hand of course. Why did the media stick their collective necks out on such shaky-to-nonexistent evidence, knowing how tenuous it was, and that the day of reckoning might indeed come?

I offer the following reasons, not mutually exclusive (although some are):

(1) They truly thought Mueller would find collusion, either because they really believed Trump colluded with Russia, or because they thought Mueller was partisan enough to find collusion where none existed.

(2) It was a kind of tulip mania, a contagion that spread throughout their ranks, a wishful thinking squared and then cubed.

(3) They didn’t think of the future at all. There was only the eternal-seeming present, in which this story fed their own Trump-hatred and drove ratings. Their audience craved it, and so did they.

(4) They figured that if the day of reckoning and Trump’s exoneration ever came, they could spin it to their advantage (or at least deflect it), as they had done so many times before with so many other stories.

(5) They thought Trump would make many many more missteps, and one of those missteps might intervene to cause his downfall independently of this. And meanwhile, they had a great and ongoing story to keep them going.

(6) They were gearing this to Congress, and thought that a combination of all the Democrats and a significant number of Republicans would believe the story and impeach Trump or even impeach and convict him, even before Mueller was finished.

(7) I actually think this last one is the most important: Watergate.

Watergate turns out to have been the worst thing that ever happened to the press in my lifetime, although they probably think it was the best and the high point. It gave them not just delusions of grandeur but an actual example of their power to bring down the mighty with their metaphorical pens instead of swords.

Watergate was many things, but one of them was a triumph for the press. The press hated Nixon prior to Watergate, and in Watergate several elements came together: an actual wrongdoing with actual evidence of it by the president, an FBI informant with his own agenda, a GOP willing to take the high road and convince its own president to resign or be thrown out, and a public unjaded by all that’s happened since.

The press also became heroes, not only in their own eyes but generally. A movie was made in which Woodward was played by Robert Redford in his handsome prime, and Bernstein was played by the less-comely but still very popular Dustin Hoffman. Who could ask for anything more?

Only a few of today’s journalists were around back then (except as little children), but you better believe that Watergate was not lost on them nor was it lost on their professors at journalism school or school in general. The narrative was so compelling that I’m virtually certain that one of the main things that drove them in Russiagate was the desire for a repeat. They believed they had the ingredients, or at least the most important ingredients to them: a Republican president they hated, informants in the FBI and elsewhere, tales of secret machinations by the administration, and Republicans in Congress who they thought could be rather easily persuaded to turn on that president.

The fact that Russiagate was actually the un-Watergate probably did not even cross their minds. This was the reverse Watergate, the Watergate in which the president was not the perp, and the instruments of intelligence and justice were weaponized against him rather than that he made a blocked attempt to enlist them against his enemies. In the un-Watergate the press, instead of being able to successfully cast itself as the bold uncoverer of the terrible truth about the president, has been revealed to have been mainly in the business of amplifying lies about the president.

Trump recognizes Israeli sovereignty over Golan Heights

The New Neo Posted on by

The intent had already been announced, but now it’s official:

President Trump on Monday signed a proclamation officially granting U.S. recognition of Israel’s claim over the Golan Heights, reversing decades of American policy regarding the disputed territory between Israel and Syria.

Standing side-by-side with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, Trump said he was taking the “historic action” because Iran and terrorist groups “continue to make the Golan Heights a potential launching ground for attacks against Israel.”

“This was a long time in the making. Should have taken place decades ago,” Trump told reporters as he signed the proclamation in the Diplomatic Reception Room.

Trump cited a Monday rocket strike Israel said was launched by Palestinian militant group Hamas that injured seven near Tel Aviv as the type of incident he wants to prevent, saying “we do not want to see another attack like the one suffered this morning.”

The announcement offers a major boost to Netanyahu, who is facing reelection in two weeks in a race in which he has been shadowed by a slew of corruption indictments.

Netanyahu had his eight years in the Obama wilderness, and he must be awfully happy that Trump is now in office, even though it may not mean that Netanyahu survives the peril he faces politically and legally at home. But even that aspect must bond him with Trump, who has survived quite a bit himself so far.

Among other things, this act of Trump’s serves to highlight the differences between his attitude towards Israel and the current attitude of the Democrat Party towards Israel and towards Jews in general.

The Arab nations with whom we are allied almost certainly don’t care about this move of Trump’s or perhaps they even applaud it:

Yet, in Beirut — which classifies Israel as an “enemy state” and was invaded by its southern neighbour in 1982 — the reaction has been largely muted. On Friday, the top US diplomat met with Lebanon’s highest officials to discuss security in the region, including the role of Hezbollah, which the US considers a terrorist organization.

Some critical editorials were published in Arab newspapers on Friday morning. One Lebanese newspaper dubbed Pompeo the “ugly guest.” But besides these blips of opposition, Beirut and other Arab capitals appear unfazed by an announcement that seemingly marks a seismic shift in regional politics.

The shift actually happened a while back, when Trump took office. Maybe even before, although you wouldn’t know it from Obama’s outward behavior, and at that time it probably had more to do with internal Arab affairs. I think part of it is that a lot of Arabs in the region really are not especially keen on the Palestinians, and have got their own big problems:

In Syria, the Trump announcement dims the country’s prospects of restoring Israeli-occupied parts of the Golan Heights, after years of failed negotiations over the territory. Yet outward signs of outrage in the war-torn country are few and far between.

Most Syrians, said Syrian columnist Haid Haid, are “focusing on surviving.” In the northwest, Syrians struggle to take cover from incessant regime shelling.

And what of the strategically important Golan Heights themselves? I’ll leave it to Ted Cruz to explain:

Ah, how the mighty have fallen: James Comey’s Deep Tweets

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s James Comey’s tweet from yesterday:

There were a lot of great responses on Twitter from right and left. But probably the best, and certainly one of the most succinct, is this one by Lindsey Graham:

“But the Mueller report doesn’t exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice”

The New Neo Posted on by

That’s the talking point from the Democrats right now. And to be blunt, it’s a crock.

It very much reminds me of the “Kavanaugh didn’t prove he didn’t molest Christine Blasey Ford” mutterings of outraged Democrats after the attack on Kavanaugh fell though. But you can’t prove a negative. In law, there’s either evidence to sustain a charge or no evidence. Exoneration only can occur if you’re talking about something on the order of obtaining a video of the real perpetrator murdering the victim, or the fingerprints on the murder weapon being analyzed and found to belong to an entirely different person than the accused.

That sort of exonerating evidence simply is not possible in a case like this. And those who use the “it doesn’t exonerate him” reasoning as a talking point know full well it’s the case, and that what they’re saying is an aburdity. They just hope their intended audience can’t figure that out.

I wrote all of the above a moment ago, and just now I heard this from Rudy Giuliani. The whole thing is well worth listening to, but note what he says starting at around 9:50 (I’m putting it on a page that requires a click to get to it, because the video is one of those autoplay things that I detest): Continue reading →

Barr’s statement on the Mueller investigation

The New Neo Posted on by

Summary of Barr’s summary:

No further indictments recommended, no non-public indictments.

“The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

No conclusion by Mueller one way or the other as to obstruction of justice. But Barr and Rosenstein find no evidence to support charge of obstruction of justice.

That should be it, lights out on the accusations that have followed Trump like a shadow for his entire presidency.

But of course for the left it’s mere fodder for more innuendos and more investigations.

This is the part of Barr’s letter to which the left will desperately cling in order to salvage some shred of their original hopes and dreams re the investigation and Trump’s contemplated and eagerly-anticipated downfall:

In making this determination, we noted that the Special Counsel recognized that “the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,” and that, while not determinative, the absence of such evidence bears upon the President’s intent with respect to obstruction. Generally speaking, to obtain and sustain an obstruction conviction, the government would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person, acting with corrupt intent, engaged in obstructive conduct with a sufficient nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding. In cataloguing the President’s actions, many of which took place in public view, the report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct, had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent, each of which, under the Department’s principles of federal prosecution guiding charging decisions, would need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to establish an obstruction-of justice.

Trump tweets:

All the Tonys and Marias

The New Neo Posted on by

Of all the marvelous songs in the marvelous “West Side Story,” perhaps the most famous is “Maria.” Although it’s a great great song, it’s not my absolute favorite from the show, although I’d be hard-pressed to name my favorite because there are so many contenders.

“Maria” is not an easy song to sing, either. I’ve seen good singers struggle with it. Some of them are opera singers, who like to give “Maria” a go and often sound very beautiful.

But to me the greatest performer of the song was the original, Larry Kert. You may never have heard of him because they deemed him too old for the movie and instead chose (the to me forgettable) Richard Beymer, who had to be dubbed.

Fortunately, through the magic of YouTube, we have a film of the leads from the original stage version, although this was apparently made about ten years later, in 1967. I won’t bore you once again with why I almost always prefer stage musicals to movie versions, but the staged “West Side Story” certainly falls into that group, although the movie version is one of the better efforts at the genre.

Here you see Kert and Carol Lawrence, the original Maria. First you will see Kert singing “Maria” and then the duet “Tonight.” Give him a moment, just wait till he gets to his upper register. I like this version not only because the original cast album was the one I knew in childhood, but because I think his less-operatic tone is both beautiful and more believable as Tony (unfortunately, the sound quality of the clip is a tiny bit funky):

Here’s Richard Beymer lip syncing in the movie. The dubbing is done pretty well,, but it still bothers me. Dubbing never looks quite right; the breath and force doesn’t match the sound somehow. A lot of people love this version, though, so I’m presenting it to you:

Here’s an exceedingly beautiful concert operatic version by Julian Ovenden. I prefer Kert, but I very much admire this, too. What a tone! I think it’s the best operatic version I’ve found so far: