McGahn’s Weird Ethical Boundaries

Today I read that Don McGahn, our White House Counsel, is attracting spitballs for talking to Grand Inquisitor Mueller. At first, I didn’t understand the fuss. After all, White House Counsel is a government job, and from the title, one would think he was the attorney for the White House, not the president. If that’s true, then he shouldn’t be worrying about Donald Trump’s personal accountability or the accountability of any of his underlings. Those people would not be his clients.

I checked the all-knowing (!) Wikipedia, however, and I found that the WHC’s job (“White House Counsel” is so hard to type) is to “advise the President on all legal issues concerning the President and his Administration.” That’s very broad. It would appear to encompass efforts to impeach or prosecute the president or anyone who works for him.

Wikipedia also says the WHC is not supposed to get involved in the president’s “personal” legal affairs.

I’ll just say it. I don’t care if other lawyers say I’m stupid. I believe it is impossible for the WHC to “advise the President on all legal issues concerning the President and his Administration” without getting involved in the president’s personal legal affairs. It will not always be possible to disentangle them.

What if the president is indicted or threatened with indictment by a partisan prosecutor, based on things the president did in the course of his duties? Is the WHC supposed to sit on his hands with a sock in his mouth? I don’t think a good lawyer would be able to stand that. A threat to the president that may result in impeachment or conviction in court is certainly a threat to the administration itself and to the institutions of the White House and executive branch.

If Barack Obama had molested a 12-year-old, the WHC could have stayed out of it with no qualms. But what if one of his male aides had sued him personally for sexual harassment on the job? Hmm. That would be tied very tightly to the safety of the entire administration, and it could raise constitutional issues. It could be an attempt at voter nullification (like the frivolous attacks that drove Sarah Palin to quit), and the power to vote is a pillar of our political system. Is that purely personal?

Here’s what I think will happen. We will find out more about what Don McGahn said to Mueller’s flying monkeys, and it will turn out that McGahn did his best to walk a thin line between representing Donald Trump the president, plus his administration and the executive branch, and Donald Trump the man. Prosecutors being what they are, it will turn out that Mueller’s goons asked a lot of improper questions that were relevant only to things that were not closely tied to Trump’s presidential activities, and it will also turn out that McGahn refused to divulge anything.

I don’t know, but I’ll bet Trump would not want a government lawyer representing him with regard to personal problems. Government lawyers tend to be mediocre (judges in particular are notorious for their stupidity), and Trump can afford the best. On the other hand, he did pick Michael Cohen, and he is also relying on Rudy Giuliani, who seems to have forgotten how to practice law.

Place your bets, and we’ll see how good a fortune-teller I am.

More

Looks like I am not alone in wondering about the obligations of the government lawyers surrounding the president. Chris Christie has opined.

Chris Christie may be annoying, but he is also extremely sharp, and he was a federal prosecutor. That means he knows what Mueller is trying to do, because he used to do it to people, himself. Christie says Trump’s legal team is “C-level.”

Christie says Ty Cobb and John Dowd, who handled things early on, waived privilege unnecessarily. That’s malpractice, people. It’s a major thing. Christie thinks McGahn is now obligated to reveal things he could otherwise have kept to himself.

Alan Dershowitz also piped up. He is more gentle than Christie, saying Trump’s lawyers made “a tough call” that didn’t work out.

Dershowitz may be a legal genius (if such a thing exists), but Christie is no lightweight (oops), and unlike Dershowitz, he was a career attorney, not a professor who occasionally appeared in court.

Interesting stuff.

Well. Interesting for legal matters. That’s like saying “more interesting than a test pattern.”

You Can’t Debate With Dementia

I had an interesting conversation today.

I left The Compound without letting my dad know. I wanted some time to myself. I had an enjoyable time at Home Depot, and then I returned. When I got back, my dad said he wanted to discuss “our situation.” He didn’t say so, but he was angry because I went somewhere without him.

A few days ago, he said he wanted information on vascular dementia, so I wrote up a little report consisting of information from the web plus things from his own history. Then he read it, accepted the truth, and thanked me for my help. After that, elves and fairies flew out of my ears and sang the national anthem.

Be serious. Here is what he actually did: he demanded a second copy so he could make notes on it in order to prepare his defense. I am not kidding. He scribbled a bunch of stuff on it, and today he wanted to discuss it.

He was also upset because I was out of his line of sight for an hour. This is something new. He now feels I must be available all the time so I can respond to his summons within seconds. He says he could fall down and die in a ditch, and I wouldn’t know.

He is correct, to an extent. If he went on a walk and fell down in a ditch, I might not know for a while, but I would figure it out pretty soon, because I can track him on my cell phone. I have told him this dozens of times, but he always forgets. It goes like this:

Me: I’ll know if you have a problem because I track you on my cell phone.

Him: What?

Me: I’ll know if you have a problem because I track you on my cell phone.

Him: Did you say on your phone?

Me: Yes.

Him: How do you track someone on a phone? [his way of deriding me for not knowing what a phone does]

Me: It’s complicated, but trust me. It tells me where you are.

He doesn’t like it when I say things are complicated, because it means I know he can’t understand them.

Him: A phone? You use a phone to talk to people.

Me: I track you on my phone.

Him: What if I need to call you?

Me: You have a phone, but because of your dementia, you can’t remember how to use it, so you have to rely on me.

Him: I don’t have a phone.

Me: You have a phone. It’s on your belt.

Him: You mean this? The Samsung?

Me: That’s it.

Him: That’s not a phone. That’s a device for contacting people.

Me: It’s a phone.

Him: How do I use it?

Me: You don’t need to use it. Just carry it with you.

Him: Write me some instructions so I can use it.

I’m not falling into that trap. He will never be competent with a cell phone again.

Me: You have a manual you carry with you.

Him: Where?

Me: You keep it in your pockets.

Him: Where?

Me: I don’t know.

Him: I don’t have it.

Me: You must have lost it.

Him: Where is it?

Me: I don’t know. I didn’t have it.

Him: Can you get me a new one?

Me: I may be able to download it, but it will be bulky because it will be on typing paper.

Him: Jesus Christ! Can’t you get me a new one that’s the same size?

Me: I don’t know. I can find out.

Him: I’m asking you for something, and you’re giving me an argument!

Me: I’m not arguing. You asked if I could get you a new manual, and I told you the truth. I don’t know.

Him: That’s arguing!

Me: It’s not arguing.

Him: You’re still arguing!

By this time, he has sort of a point. I am now arguing that I’m not arguing. But I was right before he went in this interesting direction.

Me: I’m really not.

Him: Can you show me how to work the phone?

Here’s the thing: he will never be able to use the phone. On a good day, he might be able to read the manual and manage to call me, but most of the time, even with a manual, there is no hope, because he won’t realize he has the phone in the first place. He will never learn how to use the phone and remember it. If he could do that, he’d know how to use it now.

We had the argument about the manual maybe 6 times, and every time he asked the same questions, he behaved as though he had no idea he had just asked them minutes or seconds earlier.

Am I wrong to let him out of my sight for brief periods? No. I can’t sit and stare at him all day because I’m a human being with limitations. There is only so much I can do without losing my mind, and I have other things to do. He might fall down and die, but then he might do that right here in his own bathroom, 50 feet from me. Life will always be dangerous. You can’t make it perfectly safe. You decide what you can do with a reasonable effort, and you hope for the best.

He could fall down and die in a nursing home. It happens every day. The only way to keep him safe is to strap him to a bed.

After we talked about the phone, we had a long, pointless talk about the dementia report. He went through the list of causes of vascular dementia, and he asserted that he couldn’t have it because he didn’t have diabetes and didn’t smoke. He believed it was not possible for a person to have vascular dementia without every risk factor present.

I spent about 20 minutes repeating myself, explaining that he didn’t have to have every risk factor. Lawyer that he is, he focused on the word “your.” The article mentioned factors that increase “your” risk, and he concluded that “your” referred to him personally. He thought the article said he had all the factors. Since he didn’t have every factor, he believed he couldn’t have dementia.

He also denied he had other risk factors, such as high blood pressure, obesity, and high cholesterol. He takes several blood pressure pills every day, he’s nearly 50 pounds above his army weight (he used to be heavier), and he’s on a statin. He seemed to believe that as long as he took pills, the illnesses didn’t exist, and he said he wasn’t fat. While wearing a size 40 belt.

He kept misstating the definition of dementia. He insisted it meant he was “crazy.” That’s absolutely true, if you want to put it in the harshest terms possible, but most people wouldn’t see a dementia patient as crazy. They are forgetful. They sometimes have mild delusions. They can be combative and paranoid. But they don’t run up and down the streets naked, claiming to be Napoleon. Until things get really bad, they can speak and interact with others fairly well. When my aunt finally lost it, she started speaking gibberish and expecting people to understand it, but my dad isn’t there yet.

Most of us think “dementia” means “insanity” until we have to deal with demented relatives. My dad still holds onto the popular definition. “Demented” simply means “afflicted with a reduction in mental faculties.”

He kept insisting we couldn’t have the conversation we were having if he had dementia. I had to let him know that it wasn’t much of a conversation. I told him he kept asking the same questions over and over and forgetting the answers. I said we were talking about things we had talked about many times in the past.

I was very direct, because he needs to accept his diagnosis. If I go overboard unintentionally and hurt his feelings unnecessarily, it’s okay, because he’ll forget it later, and I can adjust my behavior next time. I’ll tell you something incredible. I could put on a chicken suit and walk around the room clucking and flapping my arms, and a week from now, it wouldn’t mean a thing.

The end of the document was a list of his recent hospitalizations. It was fairly long. He said he remembered two of them, but I know that’s not true, because he usually says he doesn’t remember them. He didn’t remember battling the staff at a nearby hospital at 5 a.m. and having to be restrained by security. I remember that just fine, because I had to drive over and try to help.

We have all heard of the 5 stages of grief: 1. denial, 2. anger, 3. bargaining, 4. depression, and 5. acceptance. It appears that dementia screws them up. How can you progress from one stage to another if you keep forgetting what’s wrong with you?

My dad is the kind of person who is generally angry, so #2 is a given. Beyond that, he seems to be stuck on #1. He’s trapped in an eddy, and from time to time, I get sucked into it with him. He decides I’m crazy because I say he has dementia, and then he expects me to defend myself, as though I were the one who diagnosed him and coined the term “dementia.”

My hope is that writing things down will reduce the time I spend going in circles. I want to be able to hand him a document when I see we’re in line for the same ride again. I know it will have some effect. The little notes I put up around the house work, and they’re documents. If, “Stay off the porch,” works, maybe the dementia report will work, too.

There is another strategy, and that’s walking away and telling him I don’t care if he wants to talk (i.e. argue), because we are going in circles and it’s a waste of my time. It works, but I try not to use it unless I have to.

His belligerence is a problem in more ways than one. It wastes my time and tires me out, but it also cancels out any possibility that I could spend time doing something enjoyable with him. If I’ve spent two hours cajoling and being bickered with, I’m not going to suggest we go for a drive. I’m going to go off to my sanctuary for the rest of the day. You only get a certain amount of my time per day, and how you use it is up to you. Once it’s gone, you can’t get it back and do something else with it.

Yesterday we spent two or three hours with a physical therapist. When she left, my dad wanted to go have lunch. No way! I was done. My daily quota had been used up. I had to recharge. To him, her visit was a good time. He got to talk to a younger woman, about himself. They did exercises together, and she taught him things. He was the center of attention. That’s fine, but to me, it was work, so when it was over, I was ready for some recreation.

He doesn’t understand that being with him is work. Every minute of it. There are no exceptions. If we have lunch, it’s work. If we drive to Home Depot, it’s work. If I’m working on the tractor and he wants to stand there and ask questions, it’s work. Work, work, work.

You can’t relax and enjoy life around a dementia patient. They ask questions and make demands nonstop. I can’t even order at a restaurant without problems. He demands that I tell him all about the menu, which he holds in his own hands. I say vague things like, “I’m sure it’s all good,” so I’ll get a few seconds here and there to look at the menu for myself. He likes to have me choose his food for him, so I pick things that won’t cause a problem. I have dishes memorized so I can toss them out without thinking.

I never say, “Gee, it would be nice to do something with my dad.” If I saw him once a week, I would look forward to doing things with him, but I’m always doing laundry, changing sheets, sitting in waiting rooms, being argued with about the same old things, and cleaning up filth which is extremely abundant even by demented-person-house standards. My dad’s hygiene habits were established long before he got dementia, and they are very bad, so they make him a more trying patient.

He has talked about traveling to Eastern Kentucky, for a final visit to the place where he grew up. Can’t do it. You can’t imagine what it’s like to travel with a demented person. He will never travel again, although I don’t tell him that. If I had three siblings to help, maybe.

When the therapist was leaving, I made her spend a few minutes with me alone. I made sure she understood how things were. I told her what unpleasant things to expect from him.

I said he would forget at least 80% of what she had told him (turned out to be 100%), and I said he might forget the whole visit (he did). I told her what he would be like when the company manners wore off. I told her what to expect simply because she was female. I also asked if I could leave them alone together. She understood completely. She said it was important for me to get away.

If she had told me I needed to supervise them, there would have been problems. He may end up having two therapists visit him every week. I can’t take care of him, haul him everywhere, and then sit at home and watch him get therapy. Too much. I would have had to choose between an intolerable new imposition or depriving him of helpful treatment, and I would have chosen myself, because without me, the ship sinks.

One of my challenges is to find a balance between letting an incompetent person run my life and treating another human being like an object. Some days I go too far one way, and other days, I go too far the other way.

It sounds horrible, but it’s not. The more control I get, the smoother things run. Most days, I manage to get enough time to myself to make life pleasant. My dad isn’t happy, but he never has been, and you can’t really be happy when you’re too demented to do anything but still competent enough to wish you could. He will feel better when he comes to accept his situation.

If you’re caring for a demented person, take my advice. Look out for yourself first. If you don’t function, nothing functions, and besides, you still have a life to lead. The person you’re caring for is really just a shell. He has no future, but you do. Your job isn’t to fix him or make his life perfect. It’s to mitigate his suffering until he dies. That’s it.

My dad will be gone soon, but I will not. I put myself first, because in my dad’s case, there is no longer anything there to invest in.

Demented people are like kids that get weaker and less intelligent instead of bigger and smarter, and at the end, they die. I have to keep living and working to improve my future. Sounds harsh, but it’s just reality.

The Only Trump Critic the MSM Won’t Touch

Someone help me understand why Donald Trump hired Omarosa Manigault-Newman.

I keep turning it over in my head. He knew she was…eccentric. That’s a nice word. He had no reason to think she could accomplish anything. She had no skills. There was no evidence that she was bright.

The most likely reason he chose her was her viability as a diversity scarecrow. He could point to her, along with people like Katrina Pierson and Ben Carson, and he could say, “I gave black people important positions.” Omarosa was exceptional, however, because she wasn’t really able to do anything.

Dr. Carson is a celebrated surgeon who has separated Siamese twins; as far as we know, none of them have grown back together. Pierson had her issues during the campaign, and she screwed up, but she did her job, and she was considered sufficiently competent to be rehired.

Omarosa had no track record. She was not an achiever. She became the “director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison,” which is sort of a nothing position, and during her time there, people say nothing is what she got done.

I suspect that “director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison” is sort of like “executive producer.” In Hollywood, “executive producer” means “person someone important slept with” or “relative of someone important.” It’s a job moviemakers give to people who aren’t expected to do anything. The White House has a press secretary, and that person is the President’s face before the public, so one wonders whether Omarosa’s title meant anything at all.

Maybe Omarosa’s hiring was Trump tossing her an affirmative action bone. On the other hand, maybe he was keeping an enemy close. Maybe she knew things he didn’t want to see revealed, and he figured giving her a high-paying, do-nothing job would shut her up.

Maybe Trump really did use the dreaded N-word. Or maybe he simply said things that were, as Penn Jillette puts it, “racially insensitive.” Maybe Trump gave Omarosa a job because he couldn’t have her dumped in the Potomac.

I don’t think Trump used that word, unless he was doing something silly like quoting a rap song or jokingly calling someone “my nigga.” Trump is a loose cannon, but he’s not a moron. Also, he says someone from The Apprentice has backed him up, saying no recordings of the radioactive word exists.

I think he gave this woman a job because he felt like it. She was someone he knew, and he likes working with his contacts. It looked good, giving a black woman with no qualifications a big title. I don’t think there is anything more to it.

It was a mistake to hire her, obviously. If she didn’t have dirt on him before she was hired, she certainly has it now, even if it’s imaginary dirt. Because she worked for him for a good while, she can make nutty claims about him, and they can’t be dismissed instantly. They have to be researched and debunked, and even if they’re disproven, many people will choose to believe the worst. There are millions of people who think Bush II dynamited the levees in Louisiana. No lie is too stupid to take hold in the minds of certain people.

One of the problems with keeping a vindictive, dishonest person close is that you give that person new opportunities to gather ammunition, and when you finally fire that person, her poisonous merchandise may be worth a lot more than it was when you hired her. Trump bought Omarosa’s loyalty for $180,000 per year, but she surely got paid more than that to write…I mean “dictate”…her book. It is said that she was offered a new job when she was fired, but the pay wasn’t substantially higher than what she got at the White House, so it’s no wonder she went for a book deal instead.

I’m not too impressed with Penn Jillette. He says he, himself, may not be a reliable source. If I were to paraphrase his remarks, I would put it like this: “Trump either said the N-word or other things that were highly racist, and I heard him, but you can’t believe me because I might not tell the truth, so I won’t say exactly what he said. But I feel sufficiently confident in what I’m saying to issue this bizarre indictment of my own credibility.”

Does he have Alzheimer’s now?

If you’re not sure what Trump said, you keep your mouth shut, don’t you? Or you say, “I’m not sure what he said.” You don’t say, “I heard him say really bad things, but don’t trust me.” That’s ridiculous. Either you know or you don’t. If you don’t want us to rely on you, what is the purpose of opening your mouth?

What is “racially insensitive”? It’s nothing. It’s a weasel’s way of saying, “Anything ranging from, ‘All blacks should be executed’, to, ‘I think classical music is better than jazz.'” It means nothing at all.

Ross Perot caught hell for using the phrase “you people” to address blacks. Maybe Trump said, “you people.” Maybe he said, “I think forced busing was a bad idea.” What does “racially insensitive” mean, in the absence of the actual words? It means Penn Jillette wanted to say something bad about Trump, but he wasn’t willing to be specific or be pinned down so Trump could defend himself.”

These days, “insensitive” is a useless phrase. The threshold of sensitivity has been lowered to the point where nearly any remark can be construed as insensitive. Also, our self-anointed liberal bellwethers have decided that all insensitivity is bad. It’s always wrong, and it’s almost always a firing, career-ending offense. That’s crazy. Sometimes insensitivity is just what the doctor ordered. Jesus said a lot of insensitive things, deliberately.

Sometimes, when a person is offended, it means that person is a jerk. Your state of offense is just as likely to highlight your own failings as those of the person who offended you. Being offended doesn’t speak well of you. It says nothing, without context.

The worst people I know are offended all the time. They use offense to control other people. They get furious over things the rest of us would barely notice. They cry like babies with diaper rash until they get their way. More often than not, the people who offended them are in the right.

Wife-beaters and child abusers are people who are easily offended. Bullies of all types are easily offended. We ought to quit using offense as a measure of a person’s moral rectitude.

When Penn Jillette says Trump said “racially insensitive” things, it means absolutely nothing to me. What were the things he said? Who considered them insensitive? All we know is that Penn Jillette felt like commenting.

Whether intentionally or not, Jillette is teasing us. Do you have something? If so, you should spill it or shut up.

I wonder if Jillette has financial troubles. Nearly all of the people who appeared on Trump’s reality show had career problems. We never saw George Clooney or Mark Zuckerberg on the show. Jillette has made a ton of money in his life, but a lot of entertainers have made fortunes and died broke.

Maybe he made some dumb investments. Maybe he needs free PR now. He hasn’t had a lot of big-time projects in the last 10 years. He does a lot of reality TV. He’s a giant among magicians, but they don’t seem to do all that well compared to actors and musicians. They have to keep clawing for work and coming up with gimmicks in order to hold our attention.

There has to be some explanation for his appearance on the show and his weird remarks.

This thing will play out eventually. Either the N-word will be confirmed, or it won’t. The one thing I feel safe in predicting is that Omarosa will have a very hard time finding work from now on. She’s getting a dead-cat bounce from her firing and book, but she is clearly poison to employers and coworkers, and she has nothing to offer to counterbalance the potential for trouble. She’s so crazy and unreliable, even left-wing news outlets are refusing to back her up.

Maybe she can become Jillette’s assistant. I know Donald Trump would love to see someone saw her in half.

…Every Time Two Fools Collide?

Florida has another “stand your ground” case. Or does it? And does “another” even make sense in this context?

I am tired of typing “stand your ground,” so from now on, it’s “SYG.”

Florida’s first controversial SYG case was that of George Zimmerman, who shot a violent criminal in self-defense and was then railroaded by prosecutors who went so far as to perjure themselves to get him indicted. Problem: SYG was not involved. The SYG doctrine says you are allowed to use deadly force against an assailant, without trying to flee. Trayvon Martin, the deceased, sat on his victim and beat his head on a concrete sidewalk. Zimmerman was not able to flee, so SYG was not triggered. If you can’t flee, you don’t need SYG to save you. You’re stuck, so you do what you have to.

Zimmerman appears to have lost his mind after his acquittal, and it’s easy to understand why. Franz Kafka could have written his story. The government, which is the entity one ordinarily goes to for justice, tried to nail him to a political cross. Liberals drove his parents out of their home. A second man tried to murder him and went to prison. Now he’s probably as crazy as liberals tried to make him seem during the trial.

The Zimmerman case did not involve SYG, but people who are dishonest or ignorant keep saying it did. Human nature is really something.

The new case involves a man who was attacked at a convenience store. Michael Drejka, a white Florida man with some sort of handicap, saw a black woman parked in a handicapped space. Mr. Drejka has a history of yelling at people who steal these spaces. While he was peacefully arguing his case with the lady, her boyfriend, Markeis (you see where we’re headed) McGlockton, came out of the store and attacked Drejka physically. He shoved him to the asphalt and stood over him.

From his position on the ground, Drejka pulled a pistol and shot McGlockton, who then died. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri (who supposedly has a law degree) declined to press charges, citing the SYG doctrine. He mealy-mouthed in his announcement, suggesting he didn’t agree with the law.

I will now point out the two issues with this case.

1. Mr. Drejka could not flee. He was on the ground in a heap, with a powerful man standing over him a few feet away. When you can’t escape, SYG is not a factor. This is not an SYG case.

2. When Mr. McGlockton saw Drejka’s gun, he backed up and appeared to be intimidated. It was pretty cowardly. He was brave as he could be when he ran out and attacked a handicapped man for no reason, but when he saw that he himself might take some punishment, he danced a different dance. Coward though he was, it appears that his shooting was not justified. Once an assailant gives up, you’re not allowed to shoot. It kills the right to self-defense.

It may be that Drejka was right to shoot. For all we know, McGlockton said something like, “Put that gun away, or I’ll take out my piece and blow your brains out.” Maybe he said, “You scared me, but I’m about to give you a beating anyway.” We don’t know everything that happened. The most likely explanation is that Drejka got mad and shot McGlockton for pushing him. That would be second-degree murder.

The decision not to prosecute is mystifying. The sheriff didn’t cite any facts explaining why it was okay for Drejka to shoot a man who was backing off.

Journalists hate the right to self-defense, and they really hate SYG, so they are playing up Gualtieri’s law degree. Their unspoken thesis is that a lawyer said it’s an SYG case, so that’s what it is, and now a man is dead because SYG legalizes murder. Journalists are fairly stupid, as we all know.

Here’s the problem with relying on Gualtieri’s law degree: he may be a bad lawyer. When a thousand people graduate from law school, the one with the worst grades is allowed to take the bar exam. When a thousand people take a bar exam, the person with the lowest passing grade is given a law license. Mr. Gualtieri is a bar member, so he must have passed the exam, but that’s not a powerful endorsement.

People with good prospects for jobs as attorneys generally do not become cops. It has probably happened, but it’s not normal. Police work–forgive me, police–is not intellectually demanding. Departments reject applicants for scoring too high on intelligence tests because they know smart people will get bored after a year of rousting bums and arresting the same wife-beaters over and over. I don’t know Mr. Gualtieri, but if he were a good lawyer, he probably would not be a sheriff.

In any case, he appears to be wrong about the McGlockton case, and it’s strange that prosecutors haven’t stepped in to change things.

If he’s restraining himself because he hates cowardly, violent people like McGlockton, I certainly understand. McGlockton deserved prison time and maybe a beating which Drejka could not supply. But the law is the law. You can’t kill an assailant who chickens out.

I don’t feel sorry for McGlockton. He got what was coming to him, whether the law says so or not. I don’t like violent criminals. If you’re going to go around attacking smaller people, don’t cry injustice when you get shot. He didn’t feel bad about the injustice he himself perpetrated.

I don’t feel sorry for Drejka, either. He could have waited for brave McGlockton to run away, and then he could have called the cops. It’s not that hard to refrain from shooting a person.

It’s unfortunate to see nearly everyone involved in this case get it wrong, but it’s something anyone who has been on earth for more than 15 years should expect. People are not that smart, and they are very biased. It’s a wonder we get so many things right.

On the Internet, I have seen some people defend McGlockton’s actions. “Get in my woman’s face, and I will put you down,” and so on. There are some cultures in which any verbal friction or refusal to submit is considered to be an excuse for a beating or killing. I have seen this attitude a lot among black people. For example, some believe you have to beat any non-back who says “nigger” or “nigga.” It’s not exactly uncommon among white southerners, Italians, and Hispanics, either. In come cultures, you’re supposed to use your fists every time someone makes you feel bad.

This is not how life works. It’s not a sustainable lifestyle. It’s how you keep yourself and your family on the bottom, and society is not going to accommodate your misconceptions. It can’t afford to.

Going back to the English common law, it has always been clear that mere words, short of threats of immediate violence, never justify physical attacks. If they did, weak people would essentially be gagged in their daily dealings. Big people would be punching folks in the mouth all the time, without redress. Life does not work that way. It’s intolerable, so we don’t tolerate it.

SYG is an excellent doctrine. The idea that we should have to try to escape from stronger or better-armed people is ridiculous. It compromises our ability to respond. While you’re trying to get away, you’re not going to be able to focus on fighting back, and it may cost you your life. I shouldn’t have to prove I can’t get away from a larger, younger, stronger man, or one who is better-armed, when I didn’t cause the problem. The burden should always be on the criminal. If you don’t want to get shot, obey the law like everyone else.

SYG promotes civility and lawful behavior. If you’re a criminal, and you see a weaker person with a fanny pack or a bulge in his pocket, you know you better obey the law. That’s a positive result. It’s better for criminals to die than it is for innocent people to be injured, raped, or killed. An innocent person shouldn’t have to sustain brain damage or a broken arm just to protect you from yourself. It’s more just for you to be shot, even if you die.

It’s too bad journalists keep trying to change the law. I suspect it’s because they know most violent crime in America is committed by minorities. A lot of minority criminals get hurt by people defending themselves. That’s sad, but who chose that paradigm? Not the innocent. Rewarding criminals and punishing victims will only make crime worse.

My prediction: Drejka will face a jury. Either that, or new facts will come to light. Notice I don’t say he will do time. There are jurors who would refuse to convict him, and he might get lucky so he can go off and shoot more people in parking lots. Prosecutors have to obey the law, so I think an indictment is coming, but jurors can do anything they want. Remember O.J.

It will be a nice experience for prosecutors this time. They won’t have to make anything up.

More

Looks like I’m not alone in my take on this. Here’s a Politico story which says even the NRA’s Marion Hammer disagrees with Gualtieri.

Gualtieri apparently thinks he was legally barred from making an arrest, and Hammer says he is wrong, as long as he had probable cause.

Ben Crump, the scavenger lawyer who helped Trayvon Martin’s family profit from his death, comments in the story: “This was a cold-blooded murder. This is not self defense. And communities of color, the black community, are very emotional about this issue with these stand-your-ground cases.”

What a crock.

Crump may not be smart, or he may be misrepresenting things deliberately because he hopes to cash in (or both), but he got it wrong. “Cold-blooded murder” describes crimes committed by people who are not angry. For example, if you shoot a stranger for money, it’s cold-blooded murder. If you’re mad because a criminal just shoved you onto the hard pavement of a parking lot, you can’t be a cold-blooded killer. Second-degree murder laws were written for the specific purpose of prosecuting people who don’t kill in cold blood.

Why does he say SYG is a special concern for blacks? It applies to everyone. It’s very much like ordinary self-defense: if you’re where you’re supposed to be, and you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re in no danger. If you’re in someone else’s house holding a crowbar, you have a problem. And you should.

As long as minorities commit the majority of violent crimes, they will form the majority of people killed in self-defense. That’s just how it is, and it will still be true even if SYG is done away with. Trayvon Martin would have been killed with or without SYG. His victim had no choice, and Martin made it happen.

This week we saw a remarkable BLM reaction to a completely justified killing. A chronic Minnesota criminal named Thurman Blevins was sitting around with an illegal gun hanging out of his pants. The cops told him to stop and put his hands on top of his head, and they warned that they would shoot. He ran, and while he was running, he pulled the gun on them. Guess what happened.

Still, the BLMsters are up in arms. They seriously believe shooting criminals who pull guns on cops is wrong. We can’t pay any attention to the excuse-makers. They are against ALL minority killings, except in the cases of minority Trump supporters, and they don’t care about the facts or the danger to innocent people.

Thurman Blevins ran from the police after they accosted him with probable cause to believe he was committing a felony. That obligated them to chase him. He pulled a gun on them during the chase and refused to drop it. That justified the shooting. It’s not a puzzle. In half a second, he could have turned and killed one of them. But BLM people are creating self-righteous memes calling for “Justice for Thurman Blevins.” Unbelievable.

Disaster is Better Than Catastrophe

It sort of looks like Trump attorney Michael Cohen has chosen disbarment over the threat of prison.

I call him “Trump attorney” and not “former Trump attorney” because he still has a duty of loyalty to his client. The duty of loyalty generally survives the client/attorney relationship, and it is not a trifle or merely a custom. It’s codified in ethical rules for attorneys.

Michael Cohen recorded conversations with Donald Trump, and he didn’t get consent. In Florida, this would be a crime. In New York, it appears to be legal. No matter where you are, it’s unethical.

A lawyer has a duty to put his client’s interests first. When the lawyer and the client have conflicting interests, the client wins. There is no conceivable reason for taping a conversation surreptitiously, except to put the other party at a disadvantage relative to yourself. Simply by making the recording, Cohen betrayed his client.

I wonder why almost no one is talking about this. Well…I don’t wonder. I know. Leftist journalists are so happy the recordings exist, they don’t care how they were created. We have seen this before. Someone committed a crime by stealing part of a Trump tax return and giving it to the press, and journalists could not have cared less. Democrats taped Newt Gingrich illegally and released the recording, and journalists were thrilled.

Mind you, these are the people who would call for impreachment and prison time if Donald Trump double-parked.

Cohen his turning on Trump, and he wants immunity from prosecution. I haven’t read that he wants immunity, but it’s obvious. Problem for Cohen: there is no such thing as immunity from bar discipline. A prosecutor or trial judge can’t order a bar association to ignore ethical violations. They don’t have jurisdiction. Even if Cohen is never charged with a crime, his proud, continuing violations of the rules of ethics are going to bring consequences.

Why does he fear prosecution? Dinesh D’Souza. Mr. D’Souza was convicted of making illegal campaign contributions. If Cohen paid an aging stripper off in order to help Trump get elected, he may have violated campaign finance laws. Because he did it for a Republican, if convicted in New York, he would probably get prison time. This is a place where you can get a slap on the wrist for armed robbery, but they take it very seriously when conservatives break the law.

Cohen may be playing it smart. If he catches a felony conviction, he will, at the very least, be suspended from practice. He will also go to prison. If he merely turns on Trump, suspension or disbarment is all he has to worry about. Better to lose your career than to lose your career and your liberty.

Even if the bar were to leave Cohen alone, who would hire him now? Only a moron. His other clients must be calling him, demanding that he destroy his recordings of them. They are surely dropping him and hiring new people. Who would hire a lawyer who turns on former clients?

He may be panicking. It may be that Mueller’s case against him is weak, and Cohen may not know it. It could be that a good lawyer would have figured this out for Cohen by now. It seems like Mueller gave Cohen a little squeeze, and Cohen burst like a pimple instead of considering his options. Maybe he’s a dream snitch.

I don’t know what kind of legal advice he’s getting. If I were him, I would hire a top criminal lawyer and go into seclusion. That’s what intelligent defendants do. Everything he says that hurts his defense can be used against him in court. All of his eccentric actions can be brought up. He’s not just his own attorney; he’s a future witness, via an exception to the hearsay rule (declarations against interest). He should hire a good lawyer and let him do the talking.

Cohen hired Lanny Davis, a former Clinton apologist who loves cameras. I have never seen any reason to believe Davis is a great legal light. Lately I’ve seen a lot of evidence that he’s a fool. He’s letting Cohen destroy himself. He should make a DVD called “Clients Gone Wild.”

Cohen went to the nation’s worst law school. He may not be the greatest lawyer on earth. You can be fairly dumb and get rich practicing law, if you have a ton of brass and you stay away from anything intellectually demanding. Maybe Cohen has no idea what he’s doing.

I should retract that. He definitely has no idea what he’s doing. If he knew what he was doing, he would not have paid off a stripper during a campaign. He would have researched the law and found out he was inviting prosecution. Oddly, his lack of foresight may have insulated Trump from prosecution while landing himself on the griddle. His rash payoff may put him in prison, and his slimy recordings may keep Trump in the clear. With the worst intentions, he may have done what a lawyer is supposed to do. He may have fallen on his sword for a client.

People are ridiculing Trump (of course) for criticizing Cohen’s underhanded recording practices. If they couldn’t criticize Trump for that, they would criticize him for breathing. Trump is absolutely right. There are times when a lawyer has to take steps to protect himself from a client, but you don’t do it by surveilling him without permission. There is no way to make that fly in front of a bar committee.

It’s okay for lawyers to protect themselves from attacks from clients. Lawyers have to think about malpractice a lot. It’s normal to document things you tell clients. It’s normal to document their consent when you do things for them. What Cohen did is different. He tried to set a client up for blackmail and prosecution.

A lawyer may oppose a former client in court, under certain conditions. He can’t go after a former client in the same open matter in which he represented him. Cohen is doing that now.

In order for Trump to get in trouble, Cohen will have to show that Trump knew in advance that Cohen was going to do something illegal for him, or he will have to show that Trump found out later and did something illegal to cover it up. It doesn’t look like that will happen. If not, there will be a lot of suffering in newsrooms.

Liberal journalists are like dogs forced to balance juicy Trump-shaped dog biscuits on their quivering noses. They may look all they want. They may smell the prize. Slobber may run down their cheeks. But they never get to taste. I don’t think they ever will.

I took a course in ethics, and I’ve had to consume a whole lot of continuing legal education materials related to ethics. I’m wondering what that was all about. Was I supposed to take it seriously? Maybe the joke is on me. Look how prominent lawyers act.

The Clintons are lawyers. Cohen is a lawyer. Michael Avenatti is a lawyer. They’re revolting. No sane person would trust any of them. Even Rudy Giuliani, a former mayor and prosecutor, is acting strangely. He practices in front of TV cameras, and he makes legal and factual claims he has clearly not researched.

You’re not really supposed to practice in front of cameras. Even when it’s within the rules of ethics, it stinks. If you’re determined to do it, you should be 100% sure you’re helping your client and avoiding provoking your judge.

Seems like Alan Dershowitz is the only attorney who even glances at the law before he talks on TV. I’m okay with his appearances, because he’s not involved in the cases he discusses. Why is he doing better work than the people who have the most at stake?

People are disappointing. My mom and Lex Luthor said, “People are no damn good.” I’ll just say they’re disappointing. This is not what the practice of law should look like. There are many lawyers all over the country, doing it right. It doesn’t have to be a TV circus. TV doesn’t make you a good lawyer. It may make you a rich lawyer, but if you’re on TV regularly, chances are, you’re a hack and a disgrace to the profession.

Relief Gives Way to New Problems

I appreciate all the helpful comments I received after writing about my dad’s fall.

It looks like he didn’t injure himself seriously. He’s home, and he will be seeing his primary care physician soon for a follow-up.

I am still researching ramps and so on.

I now think a ramp is a bad idea. Ramps are great for wheelchairs, but they aren’t a good solution for people who can still walk. It’s easier to walk up a few steps than it is to shuffle up a 10-foot ramp.

Right now, I’m looking into handrails. If he had handrails, he would be able to use the steps more safely. Also, nice handrails would be an improvement to the house. That’s saying something, because this is some kind of house. It’s very nice.

I have checked into tools for getting him off the ground. I’m very disappointed. The main thing that disappoints me is the price. Companies are selling $300 products for $4000, just because insurance pays for them. Human nature is really something. The other thing that’s disappointing is that they are generally made to lift people off beds. They generally won’t work for people who have fallen.

My initial solution to the problem was an air mattress. You stick it under the patient, which isn’t hard, and you turn it on. It blows itself up, lifting the patient to a convenient sitting height. I can plug it into his car’s AC outlet or a portable generator if he’s outside. I might do it. A good twin mattress would be light and handy.

I had another idea: a tubular A-frame with a manual lever hoist on it. Put it over him and crank the lever. Four pieces of aluminum tubing, a crossmember, a hoist, and a belt. It would work considerably better than a $4000 hoist, and it would be lighter and cheaper.

I believe the hospital made his condition worse. They wouldn’t let him move around. When you’re 86, the last thing you need is to lie in bed for two days. He seems stiff, and he has a harder time standing up. I didn’t see this coming. One more curve ball, courtesy of old age.

He now has trouble getting out of bed. I am hoping that’s temporary. Otherwise, I have to look at assisted living and attendants. There may be a good respite care place near me. That’s temporary assisted living, for people who are injured or ill. If so, that will be plan B, after keeping him here and hiring a part-time attendant.

I got him up, and I am having him walk and do his exercises. Hopefully, that will fix the problem for now.

Steps are Treacherous

This morning has been quiet, for a bad reason. My dad is in the hospital.

Yesterday, I took him to the grocery. When we got back, he tried to carry some bags into the house. While I was looking away for a moment, he fell on the steps on front of the house. The back of his head hit the walk, and he started bleeding.

I had him lie still while I looked him over, and then I managed to help him to his feet. If there is one thing harder than caring for an older person who isn’t together any more, it’s caring for one who outweighs you by 40 pounds.

A cloudburst started while he was on the ground, making the process that much harder.

I was afraid he was very badly injured. I took him to the ER, and they admitted him and gave him CT scans. I got home after 2 a.m. I’m not sure of the merits of the nearest hospital. I know ER visits take time, but 7 hours seem like a lot.

I had to tell them to clean him and change his underclothes. That should have been obvious. I also had to ask them to feed him.

It appears that he is not seriously hurt. I’m amazed, because he hit the bricks pretty hard.

Now, of course, I am thinking of the newly revealed holes in my caregiver strategy.

If he goes down again and can’t help me lift him, I am going to have a problem. I may have to use the tractor. I can’t figure out how other people handle this issue. I’m going to look it up.

I just realized I could have shoved an inflatable mattress under him and turned it on.

A tech at the hospital guessed what type of steps we have. Red brick. He said people have accidents on them all the time. I didn’t know this. How on earth could I have guessed? They seem like fine steps to me. Now I’m wondering what I can do to make them safer. I think he needs some sturdy temporary steps laid over them, with a handrail at the side.

I’m Googling, and it appears I can buy a temporary ramp with one handrail. Maybe that’s the thing to do.

He goes for long walks up our street, which has virtually no traffic. It’s a private road. What if he falls down a quarter of a mile away? I have a phone app that tracks him, but it won’t tell me if he falls, and he has trouble making calls.

I’m not sure what to do. I want him to be safe, but let’s face it: he’s going to die soon. Nothing I do can prevent that. And death–even death by accident–is part of life. It’s not an abnormal event that only happens to careless people.

I want him to enjoy himself, so I don’t want to keep him indoors or prevent him from walking, even if there is some risk. It’s better to die taking a pleasant walk near your beautiful farm than in a smelly bedroom where all you do is watch TV.

When you’re a caregiver, you never stop getting surprises. You can’t guess all the bad things that happen to old people, and you won’t automatically take all the right precautions. Does that mean you should opt for assisted living as early as possible? No. You have to think about quality of life, and things have to get pretty bad before being shoved into a senior warehouse becomes the optimal choice.

Maybe 30 years ago, we made one of our only two nursing home visits to his mother. The place smelled like urine and feces. An old lady who had no idea where she was was pushing herself around in a wheelchair with one foot, making noises and looking confused. My dad leaned over and whispered, “If I ever have to go to a place like this, kill me.” He probably still feels that way.

I don’t know what to do to minimize the risk of injury from falling. Should he wear a bike helmet everywhere? He would never go for that.

I wish I were doing a perfect job, but unfortunately, the first time you do this, you learn as you go.

I can’t get the nursing station at the hospital to answer the phone, which is not a big shock after last night. I’m about to throw some clean clothes into the car and see if I can bring him home.

If you have someone who is going to need care in the future, get ready for the unexpected. You can’t protect them perfectly, and when bad things happen that you could have prevented, it won’t necessarily mean you’re irresponsible. You can’t predict the future, and there are no schools that teach people how to look after their parents. You can’t anticipate everything. You do your best and accept what comes.

Our Expensive Friends the British at it Again

The news continues to amaze me.

Donald Trump is in the UK. I’m not sure why he bothered. He would have gotten a better reception at a La Raza conference. He is attracting all sorts of criticism.

Our good and barely affordable friends the English welcomed the president of the United States with a giant helium balloon resembling a diapered orange baby with the president’s face on it. Then a bunch of them went nuts because he “embarrassed” the queen (not really a queen at all, unless prom queens and homecoming queens are also real queens). Now they’re letting him have it because his security cost their taxpayers money.

That last one gives new resonance to the expression “tone deaf.”

I wonder if anyone reading this remembers a couple of little altercations known as World War I and World War II, and I wonder if they’re familiar with a US-funded organization known as NATO. For decades, we have been paying for Europe’s security, in exchange for their antagonism in international trade.

Trump played golf at his own resort in Scotland, and the security bill came to 5 million pounds. Let me see. What does one American fighter jet cost, before maintenance, fuel, and parts? We probably haven’t made a fighter for less than 5 million pounds since the Korean War. And they’re all over Europe, waiting to carry American men and women into the skies to die for foreigners who hate them.

Here’s a proposal: repay us for all we’ve done for you, and the US will reimburse you to the tune of 5 million pounds.

Here is what Trump did to “embarrass” the faux queen, who is actually a German relative of Kaiser Wilhelm: he got ahead of her while they walked together. This is a violation of “protocol.” As numerous Internet commenters have noted, “protocols” of monarch worship haven’t applied to Americans since the 1770’s.

Our forebears killed a lot of Englishmen to free us from the obligation to treat royals like gods. Thanks to them, I am the social equal of any royal, and so are you.

The British should be on board with our refusal to observe protocol. They, themselves, are rude to the queen all the time. When she visits the House of Commons, the Doorkeeper of Commons slams the doors in her representative’s face, in order to show the queen who’s boss. Also, she can’t enter when they’re doing business. The royals are washed up, and it’s okay–even important–to give the public little reminders.

What Trump did was completely appropriate, and I very much doubt the queen cares. She knows she’s not a real monarch, and she also knows the president is more important and more powerful than any British royal will ever be. Her job isn’t to rule. It’s to act as a sort of hostess. Like a geisha. Or a Wal-Mart greeter.

She’s very lucky to have her job and her immense holdings in 2018, and she knows it. Her grandchildren will not be kings or queens, and they won’t receive government salaries. Their fortunes will probably be nationalized. Unlike the salaries and pensions of presidents, they were obtained by force, at the points of swords and pikes.

It may be that Trump made a point of walking in front of the queen, to remind her and everyone else that he represents a nation of people who don’t kowtow to monarchs. If so, good for him. Won’t hurt her a bit.

She’s not a queen, and even if she were, she’s nothing to me or you. Just a lady who works for a country with interests that often conflict with our own. We are not British. If I were waiting in line at McDonald’s, and the queen came in, I would expect her people to stand behind me until I got served.

Here are some things the Trumps didn’t do to antagonize the queen: they didn’t give her a cheap iPod, they didn’t give her a cheap set of DVD’s that don’t work in UK players, and neither of them hugged her. The Obamas did all of those things. They also removed Winston Churchill’s bust from the Oval Office. The British lent it to us, and Obama moved it to an obscure location in the White House residence.

Obama’s dad was an African, and Africans don’t like Churchill very much. Thing is, Obama was the president of the United States, not Kenya. And his deadbeat bigamist dad wasn’t one one-hundredth of the man Churchill was.

Speaking of Churchill, President Trump is in trouble for posing for a photo in his chair. Some of the British are furious. They seem to think he hip-checked British security, dove into the chair without permission, and shouted “INSTAGRAM ME!” to his wife. Doubtful. The odds that he was not asked if he would like to sit in the chair are vanishingly small. Sooner or later, we will probably see the British government confirm that he was invited to sit.

Tomorrow is a business day. I expect that’s when they’ll get around to it.

Leftists are funny people. They agree that Churchill was a mass-murdering racist and war criminal, but they pretend to be upset when Trump sits in his chair, as though he were lying on top of Lenin’s corpse (which they truly revere) as a gag.

It doesn’t matter what Trump does. Criticism will follow. If he had bowed to the queen, the left would rip him for bowing. If he had refused to sit in Churchill’s chair, The Daily Mirror would tell us, “TRUMP TOO GOOD TO SIT IN WINNIE’S SEAT.”

He might as well attend all of his UK events naked with an entourage of prostitutes in fright wigs. The tone of the coverage, abroad and at home, will be the same regardless of what he does.

It must be unpleasant to be an Englishman who hasn’t swallowed the Kool-Aid. I know there are millions of people over there who wonder what kind of insanity has taken hold.

I feel like leftists are working to get Trump reelected. Their hatred and their lack of respect for democracy and our laws are offending people all over America.

In order to win in 2020, they have to attract people other than illegal aliens, witches, men who have had themselves castated, and millennial socialist airheads. They have to attract the center.

Admittedly, centrists are the dumbest people on earth, and they are highly gullible, but they are capable of shock and outrage, just like the rest of us. They must be asking themselves, “Do I want people like Bernie Sanders and Maxine Waters to have complete power over me? Do I want to keep the property I’ve worked for and give it to my kids, or do I want to risk putting my country in the hands of outright lunatics?”

Maybe we have a chance in 2020. It may be that the left’s hate will win that election for us, in spite of their willingness to naturalize a brick if it will vote for them. We might get one or two more Supreme Court justices, along with a number of federal judges. That would be very helpful.

If these things happen, look out in 2024 (or even earlier, if the left’s anti-democracy leanings result in an attempted revolution). The fury that would build during an 8-year Trump administration would be without limit. Post-election riots would be a given. If Trump wins again, I want to be at home in the country, armed and far from cities, on Wednesday, November 4. Better yet, I’d like to be with the Lord, in a world where leftism can’t exist.

Leftists hate democracy. That’s why they love revolutions and suspending elections. They talk about “the voice of the people,” but they have a long history of suppressing it in favor of the voices of a few elites. Leftists created the gulags and the killing fields. They’re not above overthrowing or killing our legitimate elected rulers or even other leftist elitists.

Leftists killed John Kennedy and Leon Trotsky. A leftist tried to kill FDR. A leftist killed President McKinley. A leftist rushed President Trump in Ohio, hoping to spit on him. A leftist rushed President Reagan while he was accepting an award, smashed the award, and tried to prevent him from speaking.

They think everything they do is right. That’s why they beat Trump supporters up. It’s why they thought it was okay to send a busload of criminals into Karl Rove’s yard.

Trump is doing fine. If he ruffles feathers in Britain, it’s a non-story. He’s not their president, and if the UK isn’t treating the US right, he’s obligated to fight them. If the PM wants to criticize America, great. She doesn’t work for us.

In the end, both sides will cooperate to hammer out agreements. No one is going to war over an armchair.

The Plutonium of Words

It’s amazing how we have decided to let leftists nuts appoint themselves unquestioned arbiters of all types of behavior.

This week, John Schnatter, the founder of Papa John’s is in the news. He was forced out as chairman because he used the word “nigger” in a phone call. He was talking about the NFL’s policy regarding kneeling during our national anthem. He said other people had bounced back from race-related PR problems. Specifically, he used these words: “Colonel Sanders called blacks ‘niggers.'”

You can’t say that word now, according to the nuts who put themselves in charge. In the past, the rule used to be that you couldn’t use it in a disparaging way. Now you can’t use it, period. You can’t even say, “It’s never acceptable to call someone a nigger.”

Of course, the rule doesn’t apply to black people. Why? Because we can’t get them to stop saying it, if you want the truth. The left’s excuse is that black people “own their blackness,” whatever that means.

You can still say kike, wop, the “C” word, spic, yid, redneck, cracker, and a whole host of other interesting words. If you’re a liberal, you can use the “C” word however you want. You can use it to describe the president’s daughter on national TV. No one else gets to use it. You can still say “redneck,” and Southerners are the biggest offenders. As for other slurs, you can’t use them to describe people, but you can say things like, “Michael Jackson shouldn’t have used the word ‘kike’ in a song.” You don’t have to say “K-word” and hope people figure out what you mean.

“Nigger” is apparently radioactive, or maybe it makes people burst into flames. When you hear it, stop, drop, and roll. Unless the person who said it is black. After you’re put out the flames, demand that someone be fired from his job.

A person with common sense can see why the bizarre new prohibition is a bad idea. If you can’t ever use the word, then we have to stop publishing Joseph Conrad’s The Nigger of the Narcissus. We have to burn some of Mark Twain’s books. We have to burn all the old copies of the original Roots TV series, which was full of white people using unfortunate language.

Quentin Tarantino must be in big trouble. Remember Pulp Fiction? He acted in that film as well as directing it. His character used the word “nigger” over and over in one scene. That film has to go. It’s too dangerous.

A lot of people who work for dictionary publishers need to be fired. Their books not only contain the word; they tell people what it means so they can use it more effectively.

Wikipedia has a whole page dedicated to it! RACISTS!

You know what? Leftists don’t get to decide what the rest of us can say. They have never had that right. If they want to criticize people for using the N-word to insult other people, fine. I’m right there with them. It’s an ugly thing to call someone. But they can’t prevent us from saying it when it needs to be said. It’s perfectly all right if you want to take your son aside and tell him he should never call anyone a nigger.

Here’s something weird: black people are allowed to call people who aren’t black “niggers.” How did that happen? I’ve been called a nigger. Totally serious. How did we end up here? How much crazier can we get?

My personal recommendation, and I hope you won’t call me crazy, is that we all quit calling each other niggers or niggas or niqqas or whatever other permutations exist. Let’s not do that, and if we need to discuss the word itself, let’s just man up and say it.

TALKING ABOUT the word is not the same as ENDORSING it.

If John Schnatter should be criticized for anything, it should be for making terrible pizza that costs a great deal of money. A large Papa John’s mess with a beverage will run you about 30 bucks now. That’s insane. It tastes like a sponge covered in ketchup. I had to eat a couple of them last month. Awful. Thank God I was hungry. I can’t believe the chain stays in business.

DiGiorno pizza is better, and you can get the equivalent of a Papa John’s large for 8 dollars. It’s not great, but “better than Papa John’s” is a low bar to clear.

Leftist weirdos: you are not in charge. You don’t get to tell other people what to say. “Illegal alien.” “Pro-life.” “American Indian.” Freedom to disagree is still “a thing,” as leftists like to put it. It’s not like God has ruled in your favor, granted an injunction, and denied our appeal. Deal with it.

If you’re black, feel free to discuss the words “redneck” and “cracker” in my presence. Actually, black people DO discuss these things with me, and I couldn’t care less. I would prefer not to have these terms applied to me, but if you want to talk about them, you will not get any objections from me. You don’t have to apologize or say “the R-word.” I don’t care. I am not trying to catch you offending me so I can silence you. I don’t recognize my right to silence anyone.

Enjoy your freedom of speech. Stand in the street in front of my house wearing a shirt that says “BLM” on the front and “Impeach 45” on the back. God bless you. I’m fine with it. You’re wrong, of course, but you can say what you want.

If anyone notices this essay, I’ll get criticized for writing it. No one will listen, and America will continue getting crazier. I won’t convince anyone. After I’m dead, people will realize I’m right. Until then, I’ll be lumped in with Lester Maddox. I still feel like speaking the truth. It’s not as if people like me had any chance of satisfying judgmental leftists.

Don’t PC my Childhood Joys

I made a huge mistake. I bought a movie so I could listen to the commentary track.

When I was a kid, Jeremiah Johnson was one of my favorite films. It was a sensational movie, full of violence and grossly exaggerated “mountain man” antics, such as a scene where a very old man deliberately leads a running bear into his own cabin as a joke. Jeremiah Johnson was full of Indians, and it made them sensational, too. They were scary people who committed atrocities.

I still like the movie. The other day, it popped up on Turner Classic Movies, and I watched it. It’s a bad film. No question about that. There is no story to speak of. There is very little dialogue. The characters are as thin as the fog on a bathroom mirror. But it’s entertaining to watch Robert Redford fight with Indians and wild animals, and there are a lot of funny lines. Also, who doesn’t love mountains?

I bought a Blu-Ray disk and started listening. Biggest problem: the commentary is supposed to feature remarks by Redford, but there is very little of that. I’m halfway through, and it seems like he disappeared 10 minutes in. The other commentators are director Sidney Pollack and writer John Milius. Who wants to hear from them? Not me. They’re boring. “I could only afford to show dailies twice a week.” “We had to use a split lens in this shot.” Wow. Edge-of-your-seat-stuff.

Here’s another issue: the things I’m learning are somewhat disappointing. This movie was made by far-left L.A. people fresh out of the Sixties, a swollen, malignant decade that mars our history like snot on a silk tie. They messed with the story in order to make Indians look better.

The film is based on the legend of Liver-Eating Johnston (with a “T”), a real human being who was born toward the end of the eighteenth century. I say “legend” because no one really knows how much of his story is true. He had some kind of beef with the Crow Indians, and he killed a bunch of them. They say he ate their livers because it was supposed to cause them problems in the afterlife. Something about their religion. A little silly, unless you think their religion is correct.

Film character Johnson SPOILER loses his pregnant Indian girlfriend (“wife,” if you respect 30-second coerced ceremonies) and his foster son to a Crow attack. His crime? He led an army expedition through a Crow burial ground so they could rescue some starving settlers.

What’s wrong here? Nothing, unless you know why the burial ground scenes were put in the film.

In the commentary, Pollack says it was very difficult to find a way to justify the Crow attack. Yes, “justify.” He was a coastal Sixties guy, so he was all about long hair, protesting, and picking on white people and Christians. He didn’t want to make Indians look bad.

Originally, there was no expedition to save starving settlers. It wasn’t in the script. The makers of the film came up with the expedition so they could say Johnson caused his family’s slaughter.

They didn’t want to show Crows swooping in and murdering the family for no reason.

As motivation, it’s pretty thin. If you went to my mother’s grave tomorrow and emptied a dumptruck full of horse manure on it, I wouldn’t even send you a nasty email. I would think you had a screw loose, and I would hope the sheriff would go after you and shut down your grave-vandalism operation, but that’s about it. Walking past a bunch of dead Indians suspended in trees doesn’t seem like grounds for murdering women and children.

It made Pollack happy, apparently, so he went with it. Isn’t this the soft racism of lowered expectations?

I’m not sure he realized he still made the Crows look bad. Oh, well.

Why do leftists love making excuses for Indians? They practiced slavery. They were incredibly violent. They invented scalping, regardless of what apologists say. They had tortures which lasted for days, making drawing and quartering seem tame. They used to cut people’s eyelids off and bury them up to the neck in the burning sun. They were big on human sacrifice.

To listen to leftists, you would think pre-Columbian America was like a liberal’s impression of Denmark. Everyone rode around in Smart cars wearing hemp clothing and carrying reusable shopping bags. They sat in their sustainable teepees on IKEA furniture, talking about yoga and the works of Robert Mapplethorpe. It was nothing like that. It was a place of conquest, sadism, and theft.

People like to say whites came here as illegal immigrants. Nonsense. First of all, there was no real government when whites arrived, so there was no such thing as a legal (or illegal) immigration process. There were scattered tribes here and there. Some claimed to own land. Some didn’t. Many welcomed whites. Many sold whites their land.

I was born in Kentucky. Kentucky was sold to whites a long time ago. Yes, sold. The British bought Kentucky. Look up the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix. Manhattan was sold to whites, too. A deal is a deal, folks. You can’t sell me your land and then call me a squatter. No Indian or tribe has any claim on my dad’s former house or the houses and farms of my relatives. Sorry, folks. We have clear title.

The British have a better claim to Kentucky than the Indians. America didn’t pay the British.

I live in Florida now. The US bought Florida from Spain, but Spain got it through conquest. That sounds bad, but a lot of Indians from other areas forced their way in, too. If my title and resident status are suspect, so is theirs.

Another point: there were something like 10 million people in North America when whites arrived. Think about that. North America is bigger than the former USSR. There are more than 10 million people in New York City. You can’t seriously claim 10 million people with no central government owned the whole subcontinent.

Sure, whites took Indian land, but they also bought land and took land no one had claimed, and Indians took land from each other.

Let me point something else out: if you’ve been on a hospitable, fertile subcontinent for thousands of years and the population is still only 10 million, something is wrong. A society’s failure to increase in number is an indictment of its general competence. It means most babies die.

North American Indians weren’t sitting around in safe places filling in coloring books when whites showed up. They were killing, raping, stealing, enslaving, and torturing, just like every other race on the planet. The idea that Indians wouldn’t murder a woman and child without provocation is absurd.

In the end, the movie gives a very poor impression of Indians, regardless of what Pollack and the others hoped. When white characters encounter Indians, they act like urban yuppies who accidentally got off the Broadway Local in Harlem and ran into the Crips. They are terrified. They mumble about torture and mutilation. They patronize the Indians and lie to them to avoid become victims of atrocities. They’re thrilled when they get away. This is not a good look for Indians, regardless of what the filmmakers thought. If anything, it appears to justify their subjugation.

It’s funny; it reminds me of the way women and kids react to wife-beaters. “Let it go. Just say whatever he wants.”

The Indians in the movie are exactly the kind of people I thought of when I got my concealed carry permit. Sick bullies who enjoy sadism.

The reason Johnson agrees to marry is that he is told the alternative is to have himself, his friend, his foster son, and even his horses cut open from crotch to throat with a dull deer antler. That’s not very nice.

There are only two Indians in the movie who aren’t utter idiots: Johnson’s girlfriend and a condescending Crow named Paints his Shirt Red. The rest are gullible and/or violent.

Oddly, the movie reinforces the classic movie-western notion that white people are good and Indians are bad. All of the violent acts committed by whites are committed in retaliation or self defense. The Indians threaten, injure, and kill people, and steal their goods, just for kicks. As we all know, white people did all sorts of rotten things to Indians, with no justification whatsoever.

Maybe the movie is really about the way urban-kid moviemakers feel when they leave Bel Air and the Upper West Side. But aren’t a lot of movies like that, to some degree? Look at our other westerns. We see a lot of Jewish and gentile yankee cowboys, reading lines written by Jews, fighting Jewish and Puerto Rican Indians. A lot of TV and movie characters are really urban Jews in gentile-face.

Why not be realistic? Have bad white characters and bad Indian characters. Projecting L.A. and New York sensibilities onto nineteenth century wilderness dwellers can turn a western into a movie about Hollywood itself.

I’m halfway through the disk. I may quit watching. “When I finished typing the script, I used an orange binder and drove it to the studio in a Ford Maverick.” Ho hum. Not what I signed up for.

Penny Wise and Pound Stupid

I’ve decided to punish humanity with a tool rant.

Back when I still had a real Internet connection, I put a video up on Youtube. In the video, I fixed up a $15 Harbor Freight wood plane, just to see if I could make it work. I got it to function, but I wouldn’t suggest anyone else try it.

A commenter said I should buy planes at garage sales. That set me off. The bag of pet peeves ruptured, and now I must rant.

Garage sales are only good for three types of people: mentally ill hoarders who buy crap, young people who live in poverty, and professional shoppers who snap up the best merchandise and put it on Ebay and Etsy.

That’s it. I will explain.

Say you’re 45 years old, and you decide you want a hand plane collection. To do woodworking well, you really need 4 or 5 planes, and you’re better off with a dozen. Different planes do different things well. Block planes are good for tight spaces and breaking corners. Jointing planes are good for jointing, obviously. Smoothing planes are good for, well, smoothing. Rabbet planes make rabbets. You can’t buy one plane and make it do everything. You’re going to need a bunch of planes.

You’ve already blown it by reaching 45 without collecting any planes. Now you have to catch up. Say you start going to garage sales.

Look at the paper or the web. There are no promising sales this week. Probably. Most of the time, the sales you read about look really bad. Action figures with missing arms and spit all over them, plus things like lamps with torn shades. IKEA furniture that ought to be burned. Maybe you’ll see a good sale in a couple of weeks. You may find 10 sales a year that are worth leaving the house for.

When you go to these sales, 9 of them will turn out to be losers. The other one will have one or two decent items.

To get those items, you will have to get up before the sun rises and do some driving. If you show up an hour after the sales start, the things you want will be gone. Tools go fast. Every city now has a fleet of professional shoppers who raid garage sales as early as possible and take all the good stuff. If you’re not there at the start, you’re dead. And what if you have two promising sales on the same day? You can get to one early enough to score, but you’ll be late for the other one

If you get the items you want, they probably won’t really be the items you want. By that I mean you won’t be able to choose brands and models. Want to collect a set of Stanley type 13 planes? Forget it. You’ll have to take a type 11, a 1990 plane from Home Depot, a Craftsman…whatever happens to be available. You will eventually get items that do what you want, but you’ll have to settle.

If you insist on good tools, you’ll have your woodworking shop equipped in about 20 years. During those years, you will have had to struggle without important tools. You will have had to forgo a lot of projects. You will become farsighted. You may get cataracts. You may get arthritis in your hands. You may need new hips. You’ll feel less like getting things done. The TV and the shuffleboard court will beckon.

You’ll miss out on the fun you would have had if you had bought your tools as early as possible.

You may drop dead, and then other people will buy your tools at your wife’s garage sale.

Now, IF you’re 20 years old and you have no money, by all means, go to garage sales. You can’t even afford Ebay. Do whatever you can. Your shop will be up and running when you’re 35. Your income will increase, so in a few years, you’ll be able to shop like a normal person and fill in the gaps in your collection. You’ll miss out on a few years of having a fully functional shop, but when you get it together, you’ll still have your eyesight, and your prostate won’t force you to leave the shop every 10 minutes.

If you’re a professional shopper, again, go to garage sales. These sales are for sellers who are too lazy to use Ebay and get good money. Buy items for five bucks each and resell them for fifty. It works. But expect to have every weekend ruined for the rest of your life. You will be up with the chickens every Saturday and Sunday, driving like a maniac, trying to beat the other Ebay bottom feeders.

Garage sales are also good for people who are just bored. If you enjoy getting up in the dark and driving around looking for bargains, garage sales are for you. If you do it long enough, you will eventually run into a few great deals on things you actually want. Just don’t get the idea that garage sales can replace Ebay.

Everything I said, nearly, applies to flea markets as well as garage sales. Have you ever been to a flea market at one p.m.? Most of the good stuff is gone, and everyone is leaving. Flea markets aren’t quite as bad as garage sales, because there are serious vendors who have so much merchandise they don’t empty out early, but on the whole, you should really be there when the gates open.

I like online shopping. Ebay. Etsy. Craigslist. Facebook Marketplace. A new service called Offerup. You can see what’s for sale. You don’t have to drive ten miles to find out.

Ebay and Etsy are somewhat expensive, but the other services aren’t bad. They’re for people who are too lazy to use Ebay. They fully expect to get less money.

I recently sold my dad’s NordicTrack ski machine for $80. I probably could have gotten twice that much on Ebay. I don’t care. I wanted it gone. I was ready to give it to Goodwill.

When you shop on Ebay, you’re really paying other people to shop at garage sales, estate sales, and auctions. They get up early and buy stuff cheap and offer it online. You lie in bed and bid on it later. They perform a useful service, so they deserve some profit.

I’ll go out on a limb and say no one has ever put together a good wood shop–with quality tools–exclusively from garage sales and flea markets in less than 15 years. I don’t see how it can be done. There must be plenty of people who have bought 25% or 30% of their tools at garage sales in less than 15 years, but I doubt you can do 90%.

A lot of people say, “Go to garage sales,” like it’s a brilliant tip. How many of them practice what they preach? It’s particularly rantworthy when someone who works for a big tool-related website recommends garage sales. Dude; you get tools for nothing. Manufacturers give you tools in order to corrupt your reviews. You’re not running around every weekend, pawing through boxes of other people’s 8 tracks and Cabbage Patch dolls.

Here is what I say: keep an eye on online sources like Ebay, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Offerup, and Etsy. Sign up for discounts on sites like MSC Direct, Travers Tool, and Wholesale Tools. After that, if you feel like puttering around with garage sales and flea markets, go ahead. You will find a few things you like, and you can add them to the tools you bought from sources that require less work and operate much faster.

In other news, I mastered my universe again today. I fixed my gate opener.

For years I fantasized about having a walled central Florida compound. Now I have a fenced northern Florida compound. Similar idea.

In fact, now that I think about it, I insist that everyone refer to it as “The Compound.” I’m also thinking of making everyone call me “The Colonel.”

I have an automatic gate. It’s a nice feature. It probably discourages thieves a little. It certainly prevents pedestrians from casing the joint. It’s not fun when it doesn’t work, however. After Hurricane Irma, I had to figure out how to disconnect the gate from the opener so I could leave it open.

A short time ago, a friend had a problem leaving The Compound. The gate would not open. I used the remote to help her. I figured it was a one-time thing. I was mistaken. It was stuck. It worked when I used the remote and keypad, but the sensor in the driveway was useless.

Driveway openers work using inductive loops. You put a big loop of wire in the ground under the asphalt, and when a vehicle goes over it, a current goes through the wire and alerts the opener.

Whenever you change the magnetic flux (magnetic field times the area, sort of) through a conductive loop, you get a current. This is how all of our electricity is generated. I’m not sure why a car moving above a loop generates a current. Maybe a car has a net charge or a magnetic field. Anyway, induction makes your gate opener work.

Now the question is bugging me. I’m Googling. It looks like gate opener loops are just metal detectors. You know how metal detectors have loops on them.

Okay, I found the answer. Inductive sensors aren’t passive. They have currents running through them all the time, producing magnetic fields. When a sensor gets close to a conductor, the field from the sensor induces currents in the conductor. This creates magnetic fields that come from the conductors, and the sensor detects these fields.

Lenz’s Law at work. I think. Ampere’s Law? Whatever. N’importe quoi. As Ampere would have said.

I wondered what could cause a wire loop to quit working, and the only thing I could think of was a broken wire. That would be bad. The wires are cheap, but someone has to come and remove the old wire from the pavement and insert the new one. They are embedded in slits made with diamond saws, and they are covered with tough sealant. I’m sure they’re not cheap to replace.

I called a few people, trying to get help. It was frustrating. The company that made the keypad kept me on hold for about four months. Repairmen said they could come by next week.

I’m not having random individuals walk into The Compound for a week.

I found a professional outfit that was willing to come by today, but by then I was on the warpath. I was Googling. I found out something interesting. Sometimes gate opener sensors have to be reset.

I took the golf cart (God bless the South) down the driveway, opened the gate opener box, and found a reset button staring me in the face. It works. I now have a functioning gate.

If you have a gate opener that doesn’t work, try to find the reset button before you do anything else. Try turning the power on and off at the circuit breaker. Try unplugging the sensor from the PCB and plugging it back in. If these things don’t work, and you can’t get tech support or a manual, call a repairman. Hope this is helpful.

Anything beats paying some doofus a grand for a wire you don’t need.

Profligate Mendacity

Today is Jim Comey’s day on the hot seat, and I have to get something out of my system. It’s something I’ve probably said before.

When Hillary Clinton was “investigated” regarding her intentional mishandling of classified information and her illegal, deliberate use of a private email server, Comey’s report said she was “grossly negligent,” which was kind, since the legal definition of negligence doesn’t include intentional behavior. Demoted FBI agent Peter Strzok changed it. The new phrase: “extremely careless.”

“Gross negligence” is a phrase lawyers use. They could use other terms to mean the same thing, but lawyers like to stick to specific, traditional phrases others have used before them.

Strzok isn’t a lawyer, but he works with the law every day, and he surely knows the legal importance of many phrases, including “gross negligence.” Also, he has been exposed as a fervent supporter of Hillary Clinton. He is very, very hostile to Donald Trump.

Strzok was worried about the Espionage Act of 1917, codified as 18 U.S.C. § 793. Under that law, what Hillary did would ground criminal prosecution if her acts were the result of “gross negligence.” Strzok wanted to avoid publishing a report about his idol which essentially said, “Clinton committed criminal violations of 18 U.S.C. § 793.”

What does “negligent” mean? It means “careless.” If you have a duty to exercise care, and you choose not to, you’re negligent.

What does “gross” mean, in legal terms? It means extreme. There is no real difference between “gross” and “extreme.” If I lend my car to someone I know has had 4 beers, I’m negligent. If I lend it to someone who has been smoking PCP all night and has a bag of hand grenades slung over his shoulder, I am grossly negligent.

Add it up, and you get this: “extremely careless” equals “grossly negligent,” but “gross negligence” is a phrase used in a statute Hillary Clinton violated, and “extreme carelessness” isn’t. Strzok chose to say something legally damaging–he had no choice about that–in a way that would smell less like fresh meat.

When Peter Strzok says Clinton was “extremely careless,” he’s like a criminal attorney who says his client is “fully culpable” for a murder while rejecting the word “guilty.” It’s a choice of words that sounds different but means the same thing.

Jim Comey determined that Hillary Clinton was grossly negligent, and an FBI agent who supported her bid for the presidency disguised his conclusion. This happened in July of 2016, at a time when Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president was in full swing.

Extreme carelessness is gross negligence.

That’s what I wanted to say.

If You Can’t Find Guilt, Create it

The other day I talked to my dad about the Manafort witness tampering thing. He has dementia, but he was a top-notch attorney in his time, and even though he can’t cope with current situations, he can still remember things from the distant past.

Anyway, I told him about the factual allegations Bob Mueller’s team put forth with regard to the new indictment. Basically, they say Manafort contacted some people who were potential witnesses, and one person hung up on Manafort before Manafort could say anything, because that person assumed–ASSUMED–Manafort was going to try to persuade him to do something illegal. The indictment doesn’t allege any facts that constitute illegal behavior, and that’s really something. A federal prosecutor got someone indicted without alleging that that person did anything illegal!

My dad was surprised. He pointed out that attorneys talk to their adversaries’ witnesses all the time. For example, they depose them.

There is nothing illegal about talking to a witness after you’ve been charged with a crime. It’s a bad idea, as Paul Manafort could tell you, and a judge may forbid you to do it in advance, but there is no law against it. The things alleged in the indictment appear to be legal. Of course, journalists being what they are, it may be that Judge Ellis told Manafort not to talk to witnesses and no journalist thought it needed to be mentioned.

I decided to look up the elements of federal witness tampering. Elements are items in a legal checklist. For example, if you want to prove negligence, you have to prove the defendant did four things. Those things are elements. If you only prove three, you lose.

Here you go:

(b) Whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to—

(1) influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding;

(2) cause or induce any person to—

(A) withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding;

(B) alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding;

(C) evade legal process summoning that person to appear as a witness, or to produce a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or

(D) be absent from an official proceeding to which such person has been summoned by legal process; or

(3) hinder, delay, or prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation?supervised release, parole, or release pending judicial proceedings;

shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

Let’s make it short and sweet. Mueller has to prove Manafort 1) CONTACTED people and 2) SUCCEEDED in delivering communications to them, in which he 3) TRIED TO INFLUENCE their cooperation with the court. That’s a fairly accurate summary which is easy to swallow.

You can see Mueller’s problems. He hasn’t alleged that Manafort succeeded in delivering barred communications to anyone.

A. The man mentioned in the indictment hung up, and he didn’t say Manafort tried to influence him.

B. Mueller hasn’t alleged that he knows what Manafort said to other individuals, so he hasn’t alleged facts that would prove Manafort tried to influence anyone.

When you write an indictment, you’re supposed to allege facts (not conclusions without facts) which, if proven, ground a guilty verdict. Alleging that someone committed murder, for example, doesn’t cut it. You have to say something like, “Defendant was observed striking the decedent in the head with a sling blade while eating biscuits with mustard.”

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure say an indictment must contain a “plain, concise, and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged.” Manafort’s team has already responded to the new indictment with a motion. I don’t know the contents, but I’ll bet it cites the lack of essential factual allegations.

Here’s what Mueller can convict Manafort of, if he succeeds in proving only what is contained in his factual allegations: Manafort contacted some witnesses. That’s not illegal.

Because Mueller has the one-sided, ridiculously unfair grand jury process on his side, and because he is known for coercing and ruining the lives of people who don’t cooperate, Mueller now has the tools to go fishing and back up his indictment. He got Manafort’s acquaintances to give him their phones, without warrants. They had seen the financial and personal devastation other innocent people had suffered at Mueller’s hands, so presumably, they would have done nearly anything to get him off their backs.

He filed a sleazy indictment without evidence, and he is using the threat of financial catastrophe and similarly weak indictments to scare people into letting him root around in private records to see if he can back his charges up.

This is not how the law is supposed to work. The authorities are supposed to have evidence that you’ve done something wrong before they search you. The feds don’t show up at your house, carry off your electronics and files, look at the contents, see if you’ve broken any laws, and then charge you. That would be unreasonable search and seizure. They’re supposed to wait for evidence of a crime and then use that evidence to ground warrants and indictments.

When Bob Mueller is around, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t work. He denounces you without evidence, and then he uses his own denunciation to force people to provide the evidence he needs. Welcome to 17th-century France.

Man. You can see why the Founding Fathers made things so hard on the government. They knew what we were up against. They knew US citizens would be tormented and abused by generations of heartless, ambitious, unethical bureaucrats.

I’m very glad no one I care about or know well has been charged with a crime that could require me to be a witness in the future. Imagine what could happen, if a friend of mine got a prosecutor like Mueller.

My sister was charged with some felonies. Thank God the State’s Attorney’s office didn’t work like Mueller’s office. No one sent me subpoenas, asking for all of our emails. No one called me in to “talk to me,” trying to get me to lie so they could charge me with my own felonies and force me to tell them everything I knew.

Maybe I had information they could have used. Maybe my sister sent me emails saying she was guilty. The prosecutor didn’t bother me, because like most prosecutors, he wasn’t overfunded and completely ruthless. We have to try to punish crime, but it’s not worth it if we make large numbers of innocent people utterly miserable.

Ken Starr didn’t act like this. I don’t recall any special prosecutor acting like this. Imagine the misery Ken Starr could have caused, had he chosen to coerce everyone who had knowledge of the Vince Foster, Whitewater, and Monica Lewinsky affairs. Leftists like to talk about the large number of indictments Mueller has produced, as if this proves Trump and his associates are evil people. It looks like all it proves is that Bob Mueller likes indicting people.

Bill Clinton committed perjury on camera, and he was not indicted.

I’m always glad I got out of practicing law. When I was practicing, I didn’t think much about the suffering of defendants. I filed motions and so on, and I didn’t consider the way it felt for people on the other side. I clerked for a patent lawyer who sued a disabled vet who stole some photos in order to advertise collectible Disney stamps over the Internet. I wouldn’t want to be involved in anything like that again. In many cases, simply being sued or charged is as bad or worse than losing a case.

I’ve been sued several times, and it’s no fun, especially when you’re innocent and your troubles are mainly due to your adversary’s lack of ethics.

Unless the judge short-circuits things, Mueller will get all the evidence he wants, and then he’ll find out whether Manafort did anything an ignorant jury will think is wrong. If so, he’ll prosecute him as hard as possible.

If Manafort is guilty, he will probably go to prison for breaking the law while trying to get rid of charges that never would have been filed had he not be associated with the Trump campaign. No murderers will be taken off the streets. No kids will be protected from drug dealers. No corrupt presidential campaign will have been exposed. Mueller will get a scalp no reasonable person cares about.

Even if the judge dismisses the indictment, which was apparently drafted without evidence, Mueller wins, because he has used his insinuations to get evidence which could lead to a better indictment.

I would really like to see Mueller held accountable for his scorched-earth tactics. He sets a scary example for other prosecutors, especially in an age when the criminalization of conservatism is very real.

Wake up and Smell the Bums

It’s not often a news headline makes me laugh out loud. It happened today. I went to Drudge and saw this: “SCHULTZ OUT AT STARBUCKS.”

Come on, man. What did you think was going to happen? You turned your stores into homeless shelters, and the homeless are not pleasant. They just aren’t.

On TV, every homeless person is a regular guy or gal who woke up one morning with no job and somehow ended up on the street in two or three days in spite of doing everything right. In the real world, nearly all homeless people are addicts, criminals, and/or mentally ill. They are generally unemployable. Many of them are violent and/or disruptive. Also, a large percentage of them smell incredibly bad.

It’s fine to be close to dirty homeless people when you’re doing sidewalk evangelism or social work, but dang, you don’t want them rubbing up against you with that distinctive months-old-feces-and-urine smell city dwellers know so well, while you’re trying to eat.

No one wants to have a relaxing discussion of the differences in the aroma notes of Kona and Ethiopian while sitting in a room where it smells like someone just deep-fried a diaper.

What of nonpaying “guests” who don’t smell or make trouble? Well, ask yourself this: “Do I really want to pay 5 dollars for coffee and then stand while someone who isn’t a customer sits and charges his phone at a socket I need?”

I’m not trying to pick on the homeless. They need ministry and thoughtful charity. They are not to be discarded. But they are what they are, and there are certain places where their presence, with the problems it brings, is intolerable.

In case you live in a dark, deep hole, Starbucks got crucified recently because a store manager called the cops on two young men who wouldn’t spend money and refused to leave. In the real world, this is called “trespassing” and “loitering.” No one can afford to run a business where random people fill seats intended for paying customers. But the men in the story were black, and somehow, our very confused public took up for them.

Starbucks apologized, set up some kind of feel-good charity in their names, and made every employee sit through insulting sensitivity training. Howard Schultz, the chairman of the board, directed managers to allow people to come in and hang out whether or not they spent money.

The big problem with this policy, obviously, is that Schultz could tell employees what to do, but he couldn’t order customers around. He was not able to force his customers to buy extremely overpriced and overrated coffee under the new conditions, and every intelligent person in management realized this.

This is an extension of the fundamental problem with leftism: you can’t force reality to cooperate.

It feels nice to tell people “yes” all the time, but there are consequences. If there weren’t, no one would ever say no. It takes backbone to be a conservative and remind people that some cuddly, fluffy ideas just won’t fly. Everyone can’t have a guaranteed minimum income. Restaurants can’t survive while paying burger flippers $15 per hour. Landlords can’t afford to maintain $10000 rent-controlled apartments that rent for $75. You can’t make hipsters and yuppies drink coffee next to transients and panhandlers.

I have been waiting for the Starbucks pustule to burst. It had to happen. You just can’t run a business like this. Even soup kitchens have to run certain people off.

It’s surprising that Starbucks fired Schultz instead of having him change his policy, but maybe they had lost confidence in him. Or maybe he was too proud to back down.

All over America, freeloaders must be frowning, or at least they will be later in the day when discarded newspapers trickle down to them. I guarantee you, there are thousands of people who were making elaborate plans to move into Starbucks during the daylight hours. Some of them are already ensconced there, like government employees, taking up room and contributing nothing. You know they are. Human nature is always predictable.

Imagine what a visit to Starbucks must be like in New York City right now. Ordinarily, Manhattan bums have to stand outside and glare and scream at you and expose themselves through thick, smell-proof windows as you eat. Now they’re sitting at tables with people, bumming right in their faces.

It would have been funny if Occupy Wall Street had moved into a Starbucks. Maybe they did. Imagine all those faux-liberal investors and bankers, trying to sip lattes surrounded by the Borderline Personality Drum Ensemble.

It’s too bad the policy didn’t get a fair shake, and by “fair shake,” I mean a good chance to turn Starbucks customers off of leftism permanently. After a month or two of Schultz’s Folly, a second Trump term would have been much more likely. Reality would have converted thousands. You know what they say: “A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged.”

It’s too bad we can’t have complete leftism for 6 months, just to make people sick of it. It would be a great experience, but it wouldn’t work, because you can’t get rid of leftism when you’re tired of it. Leftism is authoritarianism, and authoritarianism is ruthless about preserving itself. Gulags, killing fields, tiny free speech areas, university speech codes…they have all sorts of draconian tools to fend off rejection.

Liberty is much easier to get rid of than leftism, because free people can vote their liberty away.

I wonder what kind of details we’ll be hearing in the future. Probably none, unless there are leaks. Schultz is surely getting compensation, which he doesn’t want to endanger, and Starbucks definitely doesn’t want him to sue. Everyone involved will probably clam up. One hopes a Bradley Manning will appear.

The Schultz loitering policy is definitely what got him canned. Count on that. You don’t drop a costly hydrogen bomb of mismanagement on thousands of subordinates and then leave your job shortly thereafter unless there’s a connection. The sudden termination of your long and illustrious career is not an indication that you have happy shareholders.

Look for a quiet redefinition of the policy in weeks to come. It has already started; adjustments appeared while Schultz was still in power. By fall, Starbucks will be doing what it used to do a year ago or five years ago. They’ll run freeloaders off. I very much doubt they’ll make a sudden loud announcement. They don’t want to bring the snowflakes down on their heads.

Life is so crazy these days. I wonder what will happen next.

No Rehab for Conservatives

I am out of control today. I’m blogging AGAIN.

I feel like airing my important thoughts regarding the Roseanne Barr kerfuffle.

As background, I should note that Barr is unstable. This is not news. She has claimed to have 7 personalities, none of them all that alluring. If Tom Arnold is to be believed, she made a pretty terrifying wife. She has a history of offending people deliberately. She posed for a photo for a Jewish magazine, dressed as Hitler and baking cookies that looked like people with big noses.

She is Jewish herself. I guess she thought it was okay.

ABC hired her to do a reboot of her sitcom, knowing exactly who they were dealing with.

Barr just released a pretty nasty tweet. She compared Obama crony Valerie Jarrett to a baby resulting from the coupling of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Planet of the Apes. People are saying this was a racist remark. It is not undeniably racist, but I would put the odds at 80%. Jarrett is black, and Barr essentially said she looked like an ape.

Barr claims she thought Jarrett was white, which would make the remark harsh but not racist. Is that credible? Could be true, I suppose. Jarrett is light-skinned and has mostly Caucasian features. But she’s not THAT light-skinned. Best guess: Barr knew she was black.

I’m guessing. Everyone in Hollywood is certain.

ABC had a hit on its hands with the new show, and it seemed like many conservatives were happy about it. Not me. I am not sure how to get network TV on my pathetic DirecTV system. I don’t know which channels to look for. That tells you how much I care about network TV. I don’t think much about it, and if I did, I wouldn’t think a controversial sitcom controlled by a formerly liberal crank, which appears to endorse cultivating sexual perversion in troubled children, was good for conservatism.

Remember Milo Snuffelopoulos or whatever his name was? He was gay, and he was conservative. So exciting. We had our own gay! We owned one! It proved we weren’t homophobic. I guess. Anyway, to me, he was in the same category as Arnold Schwarzenegger: a so-called conservative who would one day bring us shame. I was right about that. I figured Barr was the new Milo.

Milo was very obnoxious, and his sexual morals were beyond the pale. People supported him anyway, just like they support Ann Coulter and Ted Nugent.

Is it okay to reject Milo and support Trump, who is an adulterer and a loose cannon? Yes. The reason is mathematical.

If I had to choose between Milo and Hillary, I would pick Milo. I might even pick Barr over Hillary. In a presidential election, you only have two real options, and you do your best. The realm of punditry is different. There is an inexhaustible supply of political noisemakers out there. None are indispensable.

Barr’s cleverly named Roseanne character is or was a Trump supporter. I am not sure why, because I haven’t seen the show. I thought the old show was the network equivalent of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman with a few twists, so I wasn’t interested. Anyway, Barr herself has clearly become conservative. Like Dennis Miller and other celebrities who have wrestled with the inner conservative voice and the conflicting desire to be liked by the cool kids, she has been moving to the right with time, and she, when not in character, says positive things about Trump.

This left ABC with heartburn. One the one side…money, money money! Mammon was pleased with his minions! On the other…intolerable show that doesn’t excoriate conservatives. The networks really hate wasting an opportunity to lie about us and bash us. Making us seem human seems dangerous to them. They canceled Tim Allen’s show even though it was a hit, and he didn’t even tweet beforehand. He was minding his own business.

Roseanne’s show was canned like one day after her tweet. By canceling the show, ABC succeeded in severely damaging the livelihoods of not one but a whole slew of political extremists. I am referring to Barr and the dozens of far-left liberals who also worked on the show. To ABC, wrecking a whole bunch of liberal lives was okay as long as Barr got it in the neck, too.

It reminds me of the way people responded to Trump’s truthful statements about Mexico. He lost contracts that involved goods made in Mexico. Trump stayed rich. Lots of Mexicans lost their jobs.
Okay. It’s not my job to advise other people on the best way to be petty and vengeful.

Barr is now criticizing her castmates, who have made it clear, in tweets, that they have no idea who this “Roseanne” person is or that they were working with her. I exaggerate. But they are using words like “abhorrent.” Barr is calling them out for their disloyalty.

At first, I thought Barr needed to knock it off. But now I think she has a point. She did a lot for these people. No one wants to see a Sarah Gilbert sitcom. Barr was the whole reason for the reboot. Even John Goodman couldn’t have done it. The people whose careers she boosted ought to think a little bit before stomping on her corpse.

Barr is not right, mentally. We all know that. Why not show a little patience, especially if you’re her “friend” and you’re getting rich off of her talent? She says she was out of her mind on Ambien. Is that true? Maybe it matters. What if it’s not true? What if Barr was just driven by her psychological problems? Mental illness isn’t something you can expect people to shut down at will.

How about this: instead of piling on her without hesitation, you suggest she confront what she did in an interview? What about having her talk to a therapist? Maybe this could be a helpful moment for mentally ill people everywhere. Maybe dozens of jobs and the welfare of a disturbed person are more important than an opportunity to grandstand.

“Disturbed” appears to be the right word for Barr. That is her reputation. Everyone in the cast was happy to let a disturbed woman be put in harness for their benefit. Now they’ve turned on her, in the space of one day, because she did what disturbed people should be expected to do.

A double standard has also been mentioned. I think that’s a credible point. Vile things leftist celebrities say generally go unpunished, much like the flagrant felony leftist David Gregory committed when he held up an illegal gun magazine on national TV.

I don’t care if the show survives or not. I will never watch it. I don’t think Barr is someone conservatives should get behind, either. I never have. I don’t think she’s a good person, and she is completely unreliable. But it’s revealing when the people of the loving, patient, tolerable left pounce on someone with a long history of serious psychological problems without even discussing the possibility that understanding is called for.

What would have happened had Barr tweeted something awful about Christians or conservatives? Nothing or nearly nothing.

I’m not happy with the atmosphere of anti-conservative hatred that forces us to meet higher or even impossible standards. It’s inevitable, though, so there is no point in getting wound up.

More

Roseanne Barr cited Ambien (a sleep drug popular with date rapists) as a factor in her strange, catastrophic tweet. Unbelievably, the makers of that drug decided to post a juvenile response. Nice way for a pharmaceutical company to treat a patient!

Here is the text of their tweet:

People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world. While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication

Whether Barr is right or wrong, it is childish and unwise for a drug manufacturer to go after a patient. Amazing. And besides, are they right?

Here’s a list of known Ambien side effects (to which Sanofi probably should not have drawn attention): “mental/mood/behavior changes (such as new or worsening depression, abnormal thoughts, thoughts of suicide, hallucinations, confusion, agitation, aggressive behavior, or anxiety).”

Hmm. “Abnormal thoughts.” “Aggressive behavior.” Those could fit.

I don’t need Ambien, but if I did, my new knowledge of the things it can do to ruin your life would discourage me from trying it.

Is it addictive? Might as well check, while we’re all raising awareness. Here is what Wikipedia says:

Abrupt withdrawal may cause delirium, seizures, or other severe effects, especially if used for prolonged periods and at high dosages.

I call that addiction. If you can’t stop taking it without seizures, your body needs it.

It sounds like it’s pretty good stuff, if you only take it once, you don’t kill yourself, you don’t hallucinate, you don’t become aggressive, you don’t have abnormal thoughts, and you don’t sleepwalk and fall down the stairs (another claimed side effect).

I can’t even guess whether Ambien causes people to say nasty things, but it appears to be within the realm of possibility, and even if it’s not, the manufacturer should not have stooped to the level of Twitter trolling.