In The Mailbox: 04.01.21

Posted on | April 1, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.01.21

Glad everyone enjoyed the April Fools joke this morning. We’d never done one before, and Lord knows we could use a few yuks these days, no matter how cheap.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

Especially anything pooped out by Cardi B.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Bacon Time: A Question For Those Of You In The Rx Industry
357 Magnum: Another Failure Of The Victim-Selection Process
EBL: Penguins
Twitchy: New Coke Complaint As Its CEO Bashes Georgia Election Law – Company Needs Answer For Its Racist ID Requirements
Louder With Crowder: Shot – Delta CEO Attacks GA Voter Integrity Law; Chaser – GA House Votes To Revoke Delta’s Tax Breaks
Vox Popoli: No Wonder They Want Her Out, also, A Wholly-Owned Subsidiary
Gab News: Have Faith! The Kids Are Christian Nationalists

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Biden Plans Afghanistan Train Wreck
American Greatness: Gender Equity Bill Threatens Liberty
American Power: Marc Morano, Green Fraud
American Thinker: H.R 1 It’s Worse Than You Think, also, Let’s Celebrate The Federal Government On April Fools Day
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Travelogue Day 5
Babalu Blog: Communist PartyOf Cuba’s 8th Congress – The Old Castro Elite’s Last Gambit
BattleSwarm: Islamist Insurgency Besieges Mozambique City
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted Americans, also, Industry Group Representing Big Tech Demands Starlink Be Blocked In India
Cafe Hayek: COVID Tyranny
CDR Salamander: Ukraine Back In The Scan
Da Tech Guy: Holy Thursday Thoughts – A Chance To Serve Jesus Or To Serve The Deep State, also, Vaccine Passports Would Be Unconstitutional, Immoral, & Unscientific
Don Surber: Chauvin Case Shows We Need A Jury Protection Service
First Street Journal: Political Correctness In The Lexington Herald-Leader (and Part Two), also, President Biden Wants To Tax The Working Class To Subsidize Their Bosses’ Electric Cars
The Geller Report: Man Slashes Jewish Family (Including 1-Year-Old) In Manhattan, also, Democrat Victims – 80 Unaccompanied Illegal Alien Children Found In Arizona Desert
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, How Confident Are They?
Hollywood In Toto: How French Exit Never Stops Surprising Us, also, Why The Unholy Is Solid But All Too Familiar Horror
The Lid: Democrats Are Exploiting Pandemic To Push Socialism On America
Legal Insurrection: Rep. Gaetz Produces Documents That Seem To Substantiate His Claims Of Extortion, also, RI State Rep Calls For Keeping Critical Race Theory Out Of Schools
Nebraska Energy Observer: Maundy Thursday
Outkick: GA Gov Kemp Roasts Biden On All-Star Game Stance, also, ESPN’s Mark Jones Lies About Jacob Blake Being Unarmed
Power Line: Biden Administration Solicits Random Federal Employees To Go To The Border, also, America Is Back?
Shark Tank: Federal Prosecutor’s Letter Corroborates Gaetz’ Extortion Claim
Shot In The Dark: None Dare Call It Slander
STUMP: Mortality With Meep – Ranking The States (And NYC & DC) By Excess Mortality
This Ain’t Hell: Equity For Military Working Dogs, also, PTSD Turns Air Force General Into Pedophile
Transterrestrial Musings: REgenerating Teeth
Victory Girls: Biden Spendapalooza Does Not Please Occasional Cortex
Volokh Conspiracy: Justice Alito Pokes Justice Sotomayor Over Canons Of Construction In Facebook v. Duguid
Weasel Zippers: Occasional Cortex Claims Using “Surge” To Describe Border Crisis Is Racist, also, Whoops! CNN Says The Quiet Part Loud And The Loud Part Quiet
The Federalist: White House Doubles Down On Lies About GA Election Law, also, Rubio Rips “Woke Corporate Hypocrites” At Delta For Ignoring Uighur Genocide While Whining About GA Election Law
Mark Steyn: COVIDStan Forever

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Category: Linkagery

What Was George Floyd Doing?

Posted on | April 1, 2021 | Comments Off on What Was George Floyd Doing?

Most people seem to believe that Derek Chauvin is going to be found guilty, simply because of the emotional content of the testimony, and I suppose they’re right. Today, the prosecution called George Floyd’s girlfriend as a witness, and she boo-hooed during most of her testimony, which was characterized in the media as being about her and her boyfriend’s “struggle with addiction.” Excuse me if my eyes just rolled out of my head, but where was all this sympathy for drug users back when I was a teenage dope fiend? If I had gotten myself killed by cops while being arrested back in the day, I’m pretty sure nobody would have rioted on my behalf. Just another dead teenage dopehead — so what?

The emotional components of this trial, with George Floyd turned into a martyr for “social justice,” and Derek Chauvin treated as a symbol of “systemic racism,” may well indeed suffice to produce a guilty verdict, but on the other hand, maybe facts still matter. And the fact is that George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose, with three times the lethal level of fentanyl in his system. It was obvious to Chauvin and the other cops on the scene that Floyd was under the influence of something, but they had no way of knowing that he had swallowed enough fentanyl to kill himself. However much emotion is generated by the video of Chauvin with his knee on Floyd’s neck, that’s not what killed him.

But let’s talk about something else that’s quite relevant to this case, namely, what was George Floyd doing at that store?

You can click here to read a detailed timeline of events. The fact is that George Floyd arrived at that store in the company of two career criminals, Morries Lester Hall and Shawanda Renee Hill. Early media accounts of Floyd’s death described Hill as Floyd’s girlfriend, even though he had another girlfriend, Courteney Ross, who was the one who testified at the trial today. Both Hill and Hall had records:

Morries Lester Hall (42) would flee Minneapolis two days after the incident and hitchhike to Houston, Texas, where he was originally from. He had outstanding warrants for his arrest in Minnesota. He had a previous arrest record and convictions in Minnesota for first-degree felony assault, burglary, aggravated robbery, and multiple domestic assault charges between 2012 and 2018. He would be detained in Houston and interrogated by Minneapolis investigators there pending extradition. He also had a criminal history in Texas. He was wanted for being a felon in possession of a firearm. . . .
Shawanda Renee Hill (45) . . . had a previous arrest record and convictions for check forgery, felony theft, disorderly conduct, solicitation for prostitution, and stalking and domestic abuse between 1997 and 2016.

Courteney Ross testified that she believed Hall and Hill were supplying Floyd with drugs. They also had evidently involved him in attempting to pass counterfeit currency, which was why the cops were there.

This wasn’t made clear in the media accounts of the events leading up to Floyd’s death. What happened was that Floyd and Hall went into the store while Hill waited outside in the SUV Floyd was driving. Floyd bought a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 while Hall attempted to buy some electronic equipment with more counterfeit $20s. The clerk who dealt with Hall spotted the counterfeit and refused the purchase. Then the store manager, realizing Floyd had entered the store with Hall, asked the clerk at the tobacco counter to check the $20 Floyd had given him, and learned that it was also counterfeit.

Then two store employees, seeing Floyd still outside leaning on the hood of the SUV, go out to confront him, demanding he return the cigarettes and the change he’d gotten. Floyd refuses. The two employees go back inside the store, then return with a third employee. Again, Floyd refuses to return the cigarettes and the change. One of the employees takes down the tag number of the SUV, and then they go back inside the store. It’s now about 8 p.m., roughly 15 minutes after Floyd first entered the store. At 8:01, one of the employees calls 911:

Operator: 911 what’s the address of the emergency?
Caller: This is ah 3759 Chicago AV.
Operator: How can I help you?
Caller: Um someone comes our store and give us fake bills and we realize it before he left the store, and we ran back outside, they was sitting on their car. We tell them to give us their phone, put their (inaudible) thing back and everything and he was also drunk and everything and return to give us our cigarettes back and so he can, so he can go home but he doesn’t want to do that, and he’s sitting on his car cause he is awfully drunk and he’s not in control of himself.
Operator: Okay, what type of vehicle does he have?
Caller: And…. um he’s got a vehicle that is ah…ah he got a vehicle that is ah…one second let me see if I can see the license. The driver license is BRJ026.
Operator: Okay, what color is it?
Caller: It’s a blue color. It’s a blue van.
Operator: Blue van?
Caller: Yes, van.
Operator: Alright blue van, gotcha. Is it out front or is it on 38th ST?
Caller: Ah it’s on 38th ST.
Operator: On 38th ST. So, this guy gave a counterfeit bill, has your cigarettes, and he’s under the influence of something?
Caller: Something like that, yes. He is not acting right.

You see that the store employee mentioned Floyd’s intoxication — he was “not in control of himself . . . not acting right.” As it turned out, he had taken fake Percocet tablets that were actually a mixture of fentanyl and methamphetamine. This was the garbage dope Hall was apparently dealing, and also, it seems, running a counterfeit cash operation.

Possession of counterfeit currency is a federal crime that can get you up to 15 years in prison. A lot of people, upon hearing that the cops were called on Floyd because of a fake $20 were like, “They killed him for $20,” but several other fake $20s were found in the SUV, and there hasn’t been much reporting on the investigation of that crime, but this incident might have been the tip of an iceberg of a much larger conspiracy. Somebody in Minneapolis was circulating counterfeit currency, and the role of Morries Hall in this crime cannot be ignored.

Of course, the underlying crime — the reason the cops were there — is being ignored by the media, who are promoting the narrative that the real crime was Derek Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck, despite the evidence from the toxicology report that Floyd was already dying of an overdose (and complaining “I can’t breathe”) before the cops put him on the ground. The reason they put him on the ground was because he refused to get in back of the squad car, and they decided to call for EMS because he appeared to be in a state of “excited delirium” which we now know was due to his drug overdose. But the emotional nature of the testimony at the trial is intended to cancel out these known facts, to make the jurors convict Chauvin of murder even though it was the fentanyl that killed Floyd who was, by the way, a criminal:

Between 1997 and 2005, he was convicted of eight crimes. He served four years in prison after accepting a plea bargain for a 2007 aggravated robbery in a home invasion.

That’s nine crimes total, that we know of, before he tried to pass counterfeit currency that day and — oh, by the way, another crime — possession of the illegal narcotics that killed him.

Please explain to me how dopehead criminals became secular saints in our culture. When did this happen? Because as I say, when I was a teenage dopehead, nobody treated me like a saint, and if I had died of an overdose with a cop’s knee on my neck, no one would have rioted.

Maybe I was being oppressed, but was too stoned to know it. Also, I’m pretty sure I saw Excited Delirium open for Cheap Trick in 1979.

Category: Crime, Minnesota, Racism

The Other McCain Sells Out

Posted on | April 1, 2021 | Comments Off on The Other McCain Sells Out

— by Wombat-socho

So long, and thanks for all the links.

DATELINE LAS VEGAS
After a shocking early morning phone call from Stacy in which he revealed that he had sold the blog to Jeff Bezos of the Washington Post for an undisclosed amount of money “and other valuable considerations”, possibly including a minority stake in the Hagerstown Suns minor league baseball team, it is my unhappy duty to inform you that this will be the last post at The Other McCain. Family spokesman Kirby took the phone and said there would be more details in a later video post on YouTube, “but right now Stacy has to talk the Ewok off the ledge.”

Smitty had no comment, but sources speaking on background to the Navy Times revealed that the former Admiral of the Afghan Sea had been recalled to duty, promoted to Commodore, and would be sent on a three-year accompanied tour of the Little America Antarctic base where he would be in charge of efforts to root out alleged multi-racial white supremacists in Neu Schwabenland.

As for your resident burrowing marsupial and linkmongler, I am sitting in my hotel room surrounded by half-naked cosplay girls and bemusedly examining the packing slip on this box I received from Amazon Prime late last night. Thirty silver eagle coins, a case of fishnet stockings, five pounds of See’s Chocolates, a gallon of Astroglide…a man could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that.

UPDATE: Stacy’s news conference.

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Category: Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption, How This Here Internet Thingy Works, Weimar America

In The Mailbox: 03.31.21

Posted on | April 1, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 03.31.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The Ninety Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1308
357 Magnum: It’s Not Unethical When Democrats Do It
EBL: Duct Taped Bunny
Twitchy: Gov. Kemp Fires Back At Delta CEO For Taking Cue From “Partisan Activists” & Virtue-Signaling About Election Law
Louder With Crowder: Six-Month-Old Child Thrown Into Rio Grande By Smugglers, Saved By Brave Border Patrol Agent
Vox Popoli: If You Want Hopium, also, Oh, Shut Up, Trumps
Gab News: The GOP Is Dead, Long Live American Populism

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Lifting Heavy Weights & Fighting The System
American Conservative: Bad Omens From Buckley’s Biographer
American Greatness: TX Coronavirus Cases Drop Over Two Weeks After Restrictions & Mask Mandate Lifted, also, Loudoun County School Advisory Board Demands Firing Of Teachers Who Disagree With Critical Race Theory
American Thinker: The Supreme Court – Cowards, Crooks, Or Compromised?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Communist Cuba’s Economic “Reforms” Make Matters Worse, Spark Protests
BattleSwarm: Red China Perfidy Update
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, FAA Says It Will “Lead” Investigation Into Yesterday’s Starship #11 Crash
Cafe Hayek: Again, If Pundits Are So Smart, Why Aren’t They Super-Rich?
CDR Salamander: Is Mozambique On Your Hot List?
Da Tech Guy: Life Imitates Python & Other Holy Week Monday Thoughts Under The Fedora, also, The Left & The Purgatory Line
Don Surber: Blame Democrats For The Stomping Of Asians
First Street Journal: Big Brother Will be Watching You!
Fred On Everything:
The Geller Report: YouTube To Remove “Dislike” Feature As Biden White House Gets Massively Ratioed, also, Black Man Who Brutally Beat Old Asian Woman Is Convicted Murderer On Parole
Hogewash: A Change In Staffing, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: PolitiFact Gaslights Readers On Late Night’s Comically Obvious Liberal Bias
The Lid: Wildlife Conservation Programs Funded Almost Entirely By Hunters & Gun Owners
Legal Insurrection: GoFundMe Takes Down Page Of Virginia Parents Fighting Critical Race Theory Curriculum, also, Democrats Abandon Attempt To Steal IA-2
Michelle Malkin: The Global Trace & Track Regime
Nebraska Energy Observer: A Harlot’s Way 5 – The Cross
Outkick: Kevin Durant Apologizes For Social Media Slams Of Michael Rapoport, also, Two More Women File Lawsuits Against Deshaun Watson
Power Line: Chauvin Trial Day 2, also, On Race, Britain Leads The Way
Shark Tank: Senate Bill Would Ban Chicom Manufactured Solar Panels
Shot In The Dark: Opportunity Stumbles
The Political Hat: Defining The Term “Transgender Child”, also, Critical Race Theory Vs. North Carolina
This Ain’t Hell: Ninth Circus Strikes Again, also, New Rules For Trans Troops
Transterrestrial Musings: Spaceship 3, also, Chuck Lauer
Victory Girls: Beyond Jim Crow – Democrats Circle Back To Slavery
Volokh Conspiracy: Wisconsin Supremes Strike Down Governor’s Emergency Decrees
Weasel Zippers: Officials Say Border Problems Began When Biden Stopped Work On The Wall, also, NYT Actively Trying To Dox George Floyd Jurors
The Federalist: CNN Claims There’s No Way To Tell If A Baby’s A Boy Or A Girl, also, Democrats Oppose IDs For Voting But Insist You Carry A Vaccine Passport
Mark Steyn: Digging The Holes, also, Hug Stasi & Vaccine Passports

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Category: Linkagery

Anatomy of a Smear

Posted on | March 31, 2021 | Comments Off on Anatomy of a Smear

When this story first broke Tuesday, I didn’t know what to make of it, and even after Rep. Matt Gaetz went on Tucker Carlson to defend himself, I still wasn’t sure what the truth was. After another 24 hours, however, the picture is becoming clearer: A scammer named Bob Kent, who has raised money supposedly to help free an American citizen named Robert Levinson from prison in Iran, evidently realized Gaetz’s father is rich, and decided to make him the target of an extortion scheme.

Allegedly, I hasten to add, because this complex story involves a lot of accusations and counter-accusations that I can’t fully evaluate. But if the story laid out by Emily Brooks and Joseph Simonson in the Washington Examiner is accurate, apparently Kent came up with the idea of telling Gaetz’s father that the congressman was under investigation by the FBI for sex trafficking. In return for funding Kent’s project of rescuing Levinson from Iran, the elder Gaetz was told, his son would be guaranteed a pardon by Joe Biden. Crazy.

The “sex trafficking” part of the thing involved an allegation that Gaetz had paid for a 17-year-old girlfriend’s interstate travel, but he says he hasn’t had any 17-year-old girlfriends. Assuming that this denial is truthful, then Gaetz is the victim of a crime, not a perpetrator.

However, we must wait and see what shakes out because (a) Gaetz is a bachelor, (b) he’s been known to date younger women, and (c) one could imagine how this might lead to trouble, even if it doesn’t actually amount to “sex trafficking.” Still, at this point, it looks like Gaetz is the target of a politically motivated smear, which the New York Times was willing to assist. There has even been a guilt-by-association element to the smear, with outlets reporting on Gaetz’s acquaintance with Joel Greenberg, a local Florida politician who actually did get charged with sex trafficking last year. And so what? There is zero evidence that Gaetz (or anyone else) knew what Greenberg was doing with his “sugar daddy” accounts.

I hesitate to go all-out defending someone in Gaetz’s situation because it may turn out he is guilty of something, but from what I’ve seen so far, this looks like an elaborate smear job. We shall see.

Category: Florida, Scandal

The Late, Great G. Gordon Liddy

Posted on | March 31, 2021 | Comments Off on The Late, Great G. Gordon Liddy

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” as the famous line from an old Western says, and G. Gordon Liddy was certainly a legend.

Most famously, Liddy was the man in charge of the so-called “Plumbers,” assigned to stop national-security leaks in the Nixon administration after the “Pentagon Papers” were published. It must be remembered, when we are discussing the Watergate scandal, that Nixon was trying to bring the Vietnam War to a successful conclusion by forcing the Communists to negotiate a ceasefire agreement. The so-called “peace” movement in the United State was an impediment to that effort, despite the fact that no one was more eager than Nixon himself to end U.S. involvement in Vietnam. By 1972, Nixon had drastically reduced the size of the U.S. troop deployment to Vietnam, but he was at all times an enemy of Communism, and the Commies were doing everything they could to undermine Nixon’s presidency. This is crucial to understanding why the “Plumbers” morphed into a dirty-tricks squad, engaged in intelligence operations against the Democrats in 1972.

The great irony of the Watergate break-in is that it was completely unnecessary. Nixon was on his way to a re-election landslide over the hapless George McGovern, and no dirty tricks were needed. Liddy never denied his responsibility in the scandal that destroyed Nixon’s presidency, but famously refused to cooperate with the investigation:

Mr. Liddy refused to cooperate with prosecutors and Congress, and was sentenced in March 1973 to a 20-year prison term for conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping. President Jimmy Carter commuted Liddy’s sentence in 1977 and he was released after 52 months behind bars.
By his own account, the Liddy of the Watergate break-in was a product of the culture wars of the 1960s. “The nation was at war not only externally in Vietnam but internally,” he said in his 1980 autobiography “Will,” which sold more than 1 million copies. “I had learned long ago the maxims of Cicero that ‘laws are inoperative in war’ and that ‘the good of the people is the chief law.’ ” . . .
Mr. Liddy refused to testify before the grand jury investigating Watergate, saying he had not been raised to be “a snitch or a rat.” But his silence failed to prevent the disintegration of the coverup after Nixon’s reelection in November 1972. When [James W.] McCord began to cooperate with investigators in March 1973, Dean and other Nixon aides concluded that it was every man for himself and negotiated their own immunity deals.

How many people do you know who would be willing to go from a White House job to federal prison, rather than turn snitch?

Liddy believed he had done his patriotic duty, and if that meant he must go to prison, so be it, but his code of personal honor did not require that he act as a witness against others involved in Watergate. Liddy never hesitated to denounce John Dean as a selfish coward after Dean became a chief witness against Nixon in the impeachment investigation.

“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” — that’s all you need to know, when it comes to situations like this. Trying to get a break from prosecutors by ratting out your accomplices is a punk move, and whatever you say about G. Gordon Liddy, he was no punk.

Some 20 years ago, I was first interviewed as a guest on Mr. Liddy’s talk-radio show, which at its peak reached an audience of 10 million. I returned for many other interviews with “The G Man,” who famously described himself as “virile, vigorous and potent” into his 80s.

Mr. Liddy relished his reputation as a right-wing tough guy, a scourge of liberals everywhere, and his success in talk radio let him have the last laugh against those who tried to destroy him. Think about this — is John Dean a hero to anyone? No, but Mr. Liddy was a hero to millions who shared his belief that re-electing Nixon in 1972 was a patriotic duty, and if that duty involved a few dirty tricks against Democrats . . .?

Well, he served his time in federal prison, but he was no punk.

R.I.P., G Man.

Category: Celebrities

‘Insurrection’? Most Capitol Rioters Probably Won’t Face Prison Time

Posted on | March 31, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘Insurrection’? Most Capitol Rioters Probably Won’t Face Prison Time

This should have been obvious from the start: Trespassing and disobeying police commands are the only charges likely to stick against most of the Trump supporters involved in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Most of them just got swept up in the excitement of the moment and certainly were not part of an “anti-government” conspiracy. This reality was obscured by a lot of prosecutorial bluster and media hype:

Americans outraged by the storming of Capitol Hill are in for a jarring reality check: Many of those who invaded the halls of Congress on Jan. 6 are likely to get little or no jail time. …
In recent days, judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys have all indicated that they expect few of these “MAGA tourists” to face harsh sentences.
There are two main reasons: Although prosecutors have loaded up their charging documents with language about the existential threat of the insurrection to the republic, the actions of many of the individual rioters often boiled down to trespassing. And judges have wrestled with how aggressively to lump those cases in with those of the more sinister suspects. . . .
The prospect of dozens of Jan. 6 rioters cutting deals for minor sentences could be hard to explain for the Biden administration, which has characterized the Capitol Hill mob as a uniquely dangerous threat. … Justice Department prosecutors sent expectations sky-high in early statements and court filings, describing elaborate plots to murder lawmakers — descriptions prosecutors have tempered as new details emerged.

(Hat-tip: Hot Air via Instapundit.)

Joy Pullman at The Federalist points out that the FBI has been missing a lot of terrorists while it has been devoting such enormous efforts to investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot:

For that investigation, USA Today says, “agents in all but one of the FBI’s 56 field offices have been drafted to track down” people who attended the Capitol protest that day, the vast majority of whom peacefully protested. “Investigators who typically work cases involving the trafficking of drugs, child pornography and sex have taken calls from rioter’s angry ex-wives and former girlfriends and employers turned tipsters.”
Meanwhile, the FBI and other investigators appear to be hiding the truth about the one death that occurred in connection with this havoc that hasn’t yet been definitively proven to be an accident, besides the rioter a police officer shot to death.
It also appears the FBI is using its police power to prosecute people in connection with the Capitol riot who participated in no violence, including one who never went inside the Capitol nor harmed any person or public property, according to Julie Kelly’s reporting of court documents. His true crime appears to be belonging to a group in which some members believe, according to the federal indictment, that “the federal government has been co-opted by a cabal of elites actively trying to strip American citizens of their rights.”

Read the whole thing.