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:

Andrew C. McCarthy on full disclosure of the whole thing

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: expat.}

Andrew C. McCarthy writes (and please read the whole thing):

Trump antagonists [are now] clamoring for full disclosure of the special counsel’s final report. Mind you, when skeptics of the Trump-Russia investigation asked what the criminal predicate for it was, and on what basis the Obama administration had decided to monitor the opposition party’s presidential campaign, we were admonished about the wages of disclosure — the compromise of precious defense secrets, of deep-cover intelligence sources and methods. Why, to ask for such information was to be an insurrectionist seeking to destroy the FBI, the Justice Department, and the rule of law itself. Now, though, it’s only the uncharged president of the United States at issue, so disclose away!

Well, if we’re going to have disclosure, fine. But let’s have full disclosure: Mueller’s report in addition to the FISA applications; the memoranda pertinent to the opening and continuation of the investigation; the testimony in secret hearings; the scope memorandum Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein issued on August 2, 2017, after failing to cite a crime when he appointed Mueller — let’s have all of it…

The Justice Department and FBI did not need a special counsel to conduct a counterintelligence investigation of Russia, or a criminal investigation of, say, Michael Flynn or Paul Manafort…The president is not above the law, and if there is evidence that he committed a crime, he should be investigated. But there has to be evidence that he committed a crime.

There wasn’t…

In sum, we have endured a two-year ordeal in which the president of the United States was forced to govern under a cloud of suspicion — suspicion of being a traitor, of scheming with a foreign adversary to steal an election. This happened because the Obama administration — which opened the probe of the Trump campaign, and which opted to use foreign counterintelligence spying powers rather than give Trump a defensive briefing about suspected Russian infiltration of his campaign — methodically forced its suspicions about Trump into the public domain.

It is not just that FISA warrants were sought on the basis of the Steele dossier, an uncorroborated Clinton-campaign opposition-research screed that the Obama Justice Department and FBI well knew was being peddled to the media at the same time. There was a patently premeditated stream of intelligence leaks depicting a corrupt Trump-Russia arrangement.

After Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, Obama, after doing virtually nothing about Russian aggression for most of eight years, suddenly made a show of issuing sanctions, seizing Russian assets, and expelling Russian operatives. He then rushed the completion of an intelligence assessment that would ordinarily have taken months to complete, so that it would be issued on his watch; and presto: The public was told not only that Russia interfered in the campaign, but that Russia did so because Putin was trying to get Trump elected…

The intelligence assessment provided Obama’s intelligence agencies with a pretext to brief President-elect Trump on the Steele dossier. That, in turn, gave the media — previously skittish about the dossier’s sensational, unverified allegations — exactly the news hook they needed to publish it. Weeks later, as the FBI continued relying on the unverified Steele dossier in FISA-warrant applications, the FBI director, in public testimony, not only disclosed the existence of a classified counterintelligence investigation but gratuitously added that Trump’s campaign was a subject of the probe and that an assessment would be made of whether any crimes were committed — signaling to the world that Trump was a suspect in what would be, if proved, one of the most heinous crimes in American history. Then, finally, more leaks to the media triggered the appointment of a special counsel in the absence of actual evidence that the president had committed a crime.

You want disclosure? Me too. But let’s see all of it.

If you’re in the habit of sending articles to friends who might not agree with you politically, and if you have any friends open to reading such things, this piece of McCarthy’s might be a good one to send them.

After Mueller: what now?

The New Neo Posted on by

I just published a post that reflects my belief that the left and other Trump-haters (as opposed to mere Trump-critics) won’t be able to stop going down the road they’ve been on ever since Trump became president.

But there is another way they could go, at least theoretically:

I think trout will swim down Great Ormond Street (see reference) before those who’ve been beating and beating this drum will ever admit to wrongdoing or even error. But I guess we’ll see. In the meantime we have:

As for those who actually perpetrated the mess, those in the FBI and DOJ and Steele and others instrumental in spinning the web of intrigue, they should pay in some way but will they? The American public has been steeped in outrages, like the metaphorical frog in boiling water, and perhaps it has grown indifferent to such things. However:

Now, Mueller’s investigations leave one major mission unfinished: meting out justice to the intelligence, congressional, FBI and DOJ officials who appear to have used a political dirty trick to falsely weave an unproven narrative of Russia collusion.

Unverified political opposition research never should be treated as actionable intelligence or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) evidence, as it was in this case.

Just hours before Mueller’s report arrived, new evidence emerged of just how egregious the FBI acted in the early days of the Russia probe.

Fox News’s brilliant reporter Catherine Herridge obtained new text messages Friday showing Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and his chief lawyer, Lisa Page, were discussing credibility issues and “bias” about a key human source whose work was to support the FISA warrant used to first spy on the Trump campaign in October 2016.

Those credibility issues likely were hidden from the judges who approved the warrant of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page (no relation to Lisa Page). As I have reported, the FBI also possesses emails showing concerns with the evidence it was going to use to support the FISA warrant.

The article goes on to list some of the other important failures to disclose in the application for the FISA warrant, which is required to disclose any exculpatory evidence and yet did not. Then:

Such omissions are so glaring as to constitute defrauding a federal court. And each and every participant to those omissions needs to be brought to justice.

An upcoming DOJ inspector general’s report should trigger the beginning of that accountability in a court of law, and President Trump can assist the effort by declassifying all evidence of wrongdoing by FBI, CIA and DOJ officials.

I wouldn’t suggest sitting on a hot stove till that happens, though.

I keep wondering what the political fallout of this will be. Will it cause a significant number of voters who still trust the media and the Democrats to turn on either or both? I simply don’t know. I will say that I’ve long been impressed (and I don’t mean that in a good way) by the ability of most people to stick to their beliefs in the face of what would seem overwhelming evidence that they need to make a change.

The never-ending Mueller investigation ends, but once the needle goes in…

The New Neo Posted on by

…it never comes out.

The Russian collusion allegations have gone on about as long as the Trump presidency, the Mueller investigation nearly as long. These things, and the hopes they both reflect and engender, have sustained the left and never-Trumpers of all parties for a long long time. They are like a drug, and as with any drug, one can become addicted or at least dependent.

An addiction begins to end when the drug is withdrawn, but the addict can and often does substitute another. Democrats have been preparing the new drug, much like the old one: Congressional investigations. And if the Mueller report isn’t released to the public they will say there is something (or perhaps many things) that is being hidden, something important. If it is released to the public they will comb through it, much as they did with Sarah Palin’s garbage, looking for a smoking gun (mixed metaphor, I know) or at least a faint whiff of smoke. No doubt they will find something to feed their habit.

They don’t just believe Trump is guilty; they know he’s guilty. And if he’s guilty, what difference does it make if he was framed? And if the frame doesn’t work, keep looking for the real crime they absolutely know is there. And if they can’t find it, try another game of innuendo and smear. They are doing noble work.

Yes, I know that some are operating even more cynically than that. This latter group doesn’t believe Trump is really guilty of anything except some marital infidelities, having a big mouth, winning an election he should have lost, and trying to dismantle the structure they’re carefully built up for a long long time. But there are a goodly number who are convinced, even now, that Trump is the most uniquely evil man to ever hold the presidency, right up there with the demonic tyrants of history, and must be stopped.