Interesting Items 04/01

Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information.  Enjoy –

In this issue:

1. Foxx
2. Smollett
3. Sturgeon
4. GND Vote
5. White Bears
6. Decentralization
7. FIB

1. Foxx. We saw last week Chicago justice that was corrupt even for Chicago, when the Illinois prosecutor handling the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax dropped all charges, sealed the case, expunged the record, and attempted to destroy all files transferred by the Chicago PD to the prosecutor’s office.  Smollett was allowed to do 16 hours of “community service” for one of Jessie Jackson’s corporate shakedown groups.  Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, elected in part with $300,000 of campaign donations from a Soros affiliate (she is one of his vehicles to tear up law enforcement at the local level) dropped all charges Tuesday.  Foxx was under fire after exchanging text messages with a Smollett relative.  In response, she claimed she had recused herself from the case.  Turns out that recusal requires filing a form with the Court, which she never did.  In response, Chicago Police Superintendent and Mayor Emanuel gave a fiery press conference blasting both Smollett and Foxx.  The Mayor recanted the next morning, blaming the entire thing on Trump.  Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson who does not blink without permission from the Mayor, continued blasting away at both Foxx and Smollett.  This is where it gets weird, as the corruption extends all the way into the O’Bama Crime Family, with former Michelle O’Bama WH Chief of Staff Tina Tchen traded text messages with Foxx.  From the outside, it appears that Smollett is one of the Chosen Few in the intersectionality sweepstakes.  Intersectionality is the notion that you can build street cred by stacking victimhood chits.  Smollett has at least 5 – gay, black, communist mom, leftist, Trump-hating actor, and has all the right friends.  He is a fellow traveler with the O’Bamas.  Also looks like Kamala Harris and perhaps Cory Booker are involved.  Harris proposed anti-lynching legislation that was tabled last year.  Smollett commits his MAGA-inspired hoax, complete with a noose around his neck, and that legislation passes the senate via unanimous consent, helping her out in her presidential bid.  Harris was the Chair of Kim Foxx’s transition team.  Foxx has stated she would not have been elected without Harris’ help.  The funny part is that it appears that the Chicago police know what is going on and are not amused, as they turned a FOIA request for all materials on the investigation over to the requestor overnight.  The request came in one afternoon and all the materials were delivered the next morning, just ahead of the State DA order to expunge them.  Normal FOIA involves months to years of bureaucratic foot-dragging.  As of weeks’ end, looks like the Trump Justice Department (no longer referred to as (In)Justice as most of the Bad Actors are gone) is about to get involved.  It was a hate crime after all.  Whatever happens, this is going to be very, very ugly.  https://www.foxnews.com/us/who-is-tina-tchen-the-attorney-linked-jussie-smollett-messages

 

2. Smollett. So, who is this idiot actor and how does he get to dabble in the higher reaches of Chicago corruption?  It turns out that he learned everything he knows from his mother.  He said as much after the charges were dropped;

I have been truthful and consistent on every single level since day one.  I would not be my mother’s son if I was capable of one drop of what I’ve been accused of.

An American Thinker piece last week goes into precisely what being his mother’s son actually means.  For instance, lies are facts that will happen somewhere, sometime because America is racist and oppressive.  His mother was involved with the toxic underground of the 1970s including Black Panthers and black supremacists.  She was mentored by Julian Bond, a founder of the disgraced SPLC with numerous ties to various communist front groups.  She was tight with the top of the line black radical communists including Bobby Seale, Huey Newton and Angela Davis.  Smollett describes Davis as one of his dearest friends.  Smollett is a True Believer, just as dangerous and toxic as they come.  No wonder he gets to walk, for he is one with all the Right People.  https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/jussie_smollett_learned_how_to_lie_from_his_communist_mother.html

 

3. Sturgeon. A happy outcome for Alaska moose hunter John Sturgeon, with a 9-0 SCOTUS majority agreeing that 1980’s ANILCA actually means what it is written to say rather than what the National Park Service rangers want it to say.  The case grew out of an arrest on the Nation River in Yukon – Charley Rivers National Preserve, where park rangers decided Sturgeon who was using a hovercraft to navigate the rivers moose hunting could no longer use the hovercraft.  The arrest was forcible and needlessly ugly.  ANILCA gives the State of Alaska management ability on the waters of the state.  NPS was pushing that designation a bit.  Last week was the second time the case was in front of the SCOTUS, as it slapped down the Ninth Circus twice for not reading ANILCA correctly.  The second Ninth Circus opinion tied the newfound NPS power to their odious Katie John opinion dropped by Alaska Governor Tony Knowles in 2001.  When Sturgeon appealed this back to the SCOTUS, it worried native separatists a lot as they were afraid they were going to lose their racial preference for subsistence.  Fortunately for them the Kagan opinion on this specifically called out Katie John as something that would not be impacted by the opinion.  There are still problems with ANILCA, specifically who is in charge of subsistence, that will have to be solved by congress rather than the courts.  Perhaps they will get around to it someday.  All in all, a great outcome.  Single Americans rarely get in front of the SCOTUS twice on the same case.  It is even rarer when they win.  Everyone involved should be congratulated.  Sturgeon still has significant legal bills and is taking donations to defray those costs.  https://mustreadalaska.com/breaking-sturgeon-wins-supreme-court-on-river-access/

 

4. GND Vote. The Senate brought up AOC and Markey’s Green New Deal for a vote last week, much to the distress of its supporters, who referred to it as a stunt.  The vote against the resolution was 57-0 against.  All Republicans voted against it.  They picked up three intelligent democrats – Sinema (AZ), Jones (AL), and Manchin (WV).  Every single other democrat in the senate voted present, refused to vote on the measure at all.  This included every single democrat presidential candidate in the senate who fell all over themselves embracing it last month when AOC and Ed Markey proposed it.  Even Markey refused to vote for his brainchild.  The vote drove AOC into hysterics in the following days, deriding the vote while she tried to make the case for the importance of taking over the entire energy economy, transportation, and our homes and buildings.  Good on senate Republicans for getting these clowns on record.  It has been a long time since we have had a more spineless, gutless group of people elected as democrats in this nation.  And they call Republicans the Stupid Party.  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/26/senate-votes-down-green-new-deal-resolution-0-57/

 

5. White Bears. A new book by Susan Crockford was reviewed by a number of climate skeptic web sites last week.  It is entitled The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened.  Jo Nova suggests that an alternate title could be “How to hide 30,000 Polar Bears.”  It turns out that polar bear numbers are robust and growing, somewhere between 30,000 – 40,000 today, up from 10,000 in the 1960s.  And all we had to do was stop hunting them.  The science community promised a catastrophic decline in polar bear population by 2007 mostly due to manmade global warming due to CO2 emissions, aka climate change.  That decline never happened.  Crockford documents what led to the prediction and why it did not come to be.  She describes in detail scientific hubris, computer models, climate simulations, and toward the end, ignoring and hiding inconvenient facts (sound like the polar bear scientists learned a lot from the climate scientists).  She ends with a blunt account what abundant populations of white bears mean to locals who work and live in parts of the Arctic inhabited by polar bears.  Hint:  hunting (but not overhunting) may very well be in our future once again, if for no other reason than for maintaining simple public safety.  http://joannenova.com.au/2019/03/how-to-hide-30000-polar-bears/

 

6. Decentralization. One of the growing problems in the US is the outsized influence of big urban cities in states over the less populated areas.  The Foundation for Economic Education ran a piece on this using Washington State as an example.  The intro was the refusal of at least 12 sheriffs in Washington State refusing to enforce newly passed Initiative 1639, which raised legal age to purchase firearms to 21, expanded background checks, increased waiting period, and mandated weapons storage.  The ballot initiative was passed by 14 or 39 counties in Washington, mostly around Seattle (King County) and Spokane (Spokane).  King County accounted for 87% of the margin of victory for the initiative.  There were other initiatives on the ballot which passed or failed with similar results – a CO2 tax and a soda / grocery tax.  And as the urban areas continue to grow, how do we solve it?  FEE suggests one solution is radical decentralization.  Federalism works at varying degrees of success with the relationship of the states with the power centralization of Washington DC.  Can we apply this sort of thing at the state level using counties as analogues?  The FEE article proposes atomizing the entire country with counties now having the same authority as states.  I don’t think that will work very well.  OTOH, it is certainly possible to modify state constitutions so that counties can operate with the autonomy and authority that the states operate within the federal construct.  State politicians will most certainly fight this sort of move, as it tends to break up their acquired power.  But the move toward centralization of political power will continue and the fight between the cities and those who are not in cities will continue to fester and build.  Perhaps it is time to start decentralizing political power at the state level.  https://fee.org/articles/the-sheriff-revolt-on-new-gun-laws-shows-why-america-needs-more-decentralization/

 

7. FIB. One of the great powers used and well abused by the FIB is the ability to ask the same question over and over and over, compare responses, and charge the target with lying to investigators and obstruction if their responses do nor match up precisely.  This power abuses the very way human sensory input takes place, as we only use about 10% of what comes in and the brain fills in the other 90%.  This is why witness accounts of every single event vary at the time of the event and vary again over time.  The FIB summarizes its interviews in forms FD-302.  They do not record what is asked or answered, nor do they provide transcripts of these interviews.  Judges and juries are asked to reconcile what is in the 302 with what the target of the investigation now says what they said at the time.  Sometimes as we have seen in the case of General Flynn and other FIB targets in the Trump Collusion hoax, the 302s are modified after the fact (think Andy McCabe).  In essence, the refusal to record what a suspect and the investigator have to say and provide accurate precise transcripts allows the investigators to lie, cheat, steal and bluff in their pursuit of an indictment or conviction.  Many things need to change in the aftermath of the Trump Collusion hoax.  I would suggest repealing the penalty for lying to investigators would be high on that list, for if investigators and law enforcement can lie, why can’t everyone else?  And I would require every single interview with a suspect to be recorded by both parties – investigators / law enforcement and legal representation for the suspect. https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/03/18/is_an_fbi_interview_a_g-mans_license_to_lie_later.html

More later –

– AG