JustOneMinute

The Maltese Phantom - Good One

OK, the notion that the Maltese Professor, Joseph Mifsud, is an asset or associate of Western intelligence agencies rather than the Russkies is taking hold. Obviously this is a BFD requiring a Maximum Cone of Silence from the Legacy Media since if we learn that the current pretext for the FBI Russian investigation was a British intelligence operation well, yikes - that will surely put the 'special' back in "special relationship".

My favorite part of the linked story is this non-denial denial:

In the January interview, Roh asked Mifsud if he was working for MI6. “No,” said Mifsud, “no, never, I was never an agent.”

Lawyers who think in terms of principals and agents may find that to be satisfactory. However, in the spy novels I read "agents" are folks like James Bond, with the extraordinary background and special training. "Assets" can be anyone recruited by the agents. For example, the other professor in the news, Stefan Halper, was an asset but not an agent.

Send better denials.

 

Dying In Darkness, UK Edition

Mark Steyn tells us about Tommy Robinson, 'disappeared' in Leeds, England for protesting outside the trial of what I believe to be the Huddersfield grooming gang. Here is May 2017 coverage - its The Sun, so NSFW Page Three promos adorn the sidebar. Use discretion. Or show your colleagues and give HR a chance to write you up for an Islamaphobic/misogynistic twofer!. [Or see the Huddersfield Daily Examiner.]

In any case, we glean that the Huddersfieled group was yet another deplorable example of multi-culturalism run amuck in England, engaging in a long-time child sex abuse ring.

A day later, the judge's order of silence has been lifted after press protests. However, without a decoder ring this BBC coverage is pretty cryptic - apparently Tommy Robinson was arrested for engaging in behavior that might disrupt a trial. What trial? Don't ask.

The Daily Mail also seems to have found work for displaced Pravda editors, since their coverage is equally opaque. If the court ordered the topic of the trial kept secret could the press report that? Hall of mirrors.

To be fair, it is possible that both papers are hiding the facts in the linked videos. As if I have time.

Anyway, people arrested with a subsequent media blackout can't happen here! Until the "hate speech = violence" mindset migrates from the campus to the newsroom, anyway. Meanwhile we know the "Democracy Dies In Darkness" will be all over this, with hard hitting coverage of... hmm, a baseball trade? 

Gone Fishin'

I have no desire to see the great Mike Trout this October in a one-game wild card playoff against the Yankees. He'd look great playing one game in Fenway, however.

Away We Go

Happy M Day weekend.

Off Again On Again

The flailing NY Times has forgotten the last two years:

Trump Says North Korea Summit May Be Rescheduled

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Friday that his administration was back in touch with North Korea and the two sides may reschedule his summit meeting with Kim Jong-un, perhaps even on the original June 12 date, a stunning reversal just a day after the president canceled the get-together.

"Stunning"? For a normal President, sure.

Nobel Peace Prize On Hold

Its a no go on the NoKo summit. I presume this is posturing subject to possible revision. 

Trump Collusion

Andrew McCarthy explores the origin story for the Trump Collusion investigation. His gist - the Papadopoulos ex-post rationalizations notwithstanding, it has to have started with Carter Page, probably in early spring.

For a different perspective, David French has a 'pox on both sides' piece pointing out that Team Trump had plenty of suspicious actors and Team DoJ had plenty of partisans.

Thursday will see the big meeting between DoJ reps and two senior House Republicans to review classified information about Halper, the professor and 'spy' in the Trump campaign.

Meanwhile, I am holding out hope for my own madcap speculation. Remember Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese Professor who told George Papadopoluos about Russian dirt on Hillary? Perhaps one day we will discover that he was a British MI6 asset posing as Russian-connected and trolling in search of malcontents. In the highly unlikely (but wildly entertaining!) event that this is true and goes public, well, we'll need a bigger fan to process all that will hit it.

OH, WELL: Let me update my Mifsud speculation from "madcap" and "highly unlikely" to "good enough to put in print if you're Mark Steyn":

Mifsud is said to have ties to high-ranking figures in Moscow, but there seems to be more prima facie evidence of ties to high-ranking figures in London. That's Professor Mifsud above with my old friend Boris Johnson, Britain's Foreign Secretary, at some Brexit event last October 19th. On October 31st Joseph Mifsud disappeared and has not been seen since. I know how he feels: The same thing happened to me twelve days after I lunched with Boris at The Spectator in early 2006. Is (was) Mifsud an FSB asset? An MI6 asset? Both? Neither? Well, there's more circumstantial evidence of Mifsud's ties to British intelligence, including multiple meetings with, inter alia, Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee.

Huh.

Say What?!? Yellow Peril 'Journalism' Return To The NY Times

I will never pretend to have the mental agility required to keep pace with progressive standards of political correctness but even as troglodyte such as myself can see this is wrong: the NY Times has a guest piece essentially arguing that every Chinese person abroad is a national security threat because they're a potential cog in a vast Chinese intelligence effort.

If Trump had said this about, say, Muslims, to pick an example nearly at random, the denunciations from the left would be endless. But the Chinese abroad all have a dual loyalty problem? What is this, a Roosevelt revival with internment camps? No more visas for Chinese students? No more tech jobs for the Chinese?

Well. The guest piece offers a warning without policy recommendations. I can't wait to see the reaction after the Times editors get around to reading it.

A snippet:

China Has a Vast Influence Machine, and You Don’t Even Know It

By Yi-Zheng Lian

Mr. Lian, a native of Hong Kong, is a former lead writer and chief editor of the Hong Kong Economic Journal.

...

Rather than coercing, China manipulates, preferring to act in moral and legal gray areas. It masks its political motives behind laudable human-interest or cultural projects, blurring the battle line with its adversaries. When the job is done, the other side may not realize it was gamed, or that a strategic game was even going on.

If this sounds like the stuff of conspiracy theories, it’s because there is a conspiracy afoot, and it isn’t theoretical. The Confucius Institutes and Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.) cells being established on campuses outside China are but a few dots in this picture — when the whole lot are properly connected they outline a vast, smooth-running machine that taps Chinese people throughout the world to spread its influence and harvest intelligence in the service of the Chinese state.

And the conclusion:

Seven decades ago, Mao’s United Front was instrumental in catapulting the Chinese Communists to power. Since then, China’s influence machine has become infinitely more resourceful — and far more global.

They are everywhere!

 

Trump v. Mueller

Writing in The Weekly Standard, former Solicitor General Ted Olson reviews the groundwork for subpoenaing a President. His gist: based on (scant) past precedent Mueller would need to demonstrate a specific need for information only the President has; a 'let's chat' fishing trip would not pass muster.

Based on what we have seen so far I imagine there are folks out there hoping that Mueller is angling to have Trump invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and then contort that into an obstruction charge. Strange times!

Sunday Open Thread

Here we go again.

Wedding Bells!

I know we are all up at 7 Eastern to watch the Royal Wedding!

I am very excited to see the knot tied because I still believe that the marriage of Meghan Markle may be our last, best hope to get 'Suits' cancelled.

Another School Shooting

The NY Times has coverage. Per the Texas governor, the shooter had a clean record so there were no obvious missed warning signs. Also, potential accomplices are in custody.

Weapons were a shotgun and a revolver, obtained from his father.

Jumpin' Jim Comey, He's A Gas, Gas, Gas

Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist tells us about the coolest code-named project ever - Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI campaign to investigate and spy on the Trump campaign.

ERRATA: This is deep in the story and a minor point but I love the image if the NY Times wordsmiths defending this:

Another New York Times error was the claim, repeated twice, that Page “had previously been recruited by Russian spies.” In fact, while Russian agents had tried to recruit him, they failed to do so, and Page spoke at length with the FBI about the attempt before the agents were arrested or kicked out of the country.

Hey, college coaches recruit all sorts of players who end up elsewhere, so why assume that "recruited" means "successfully recruited", amirite? And if Times readers accidentally draw the wrong conclusion, well, that is Resistance Journalism.

That Nobel Prize Talk Was Fun While It Lasted

The North Korea we have come to know and loathe returns.

Say What?!?

Per The Hill, Mueller's Russian novel is taking yet another plot twist: Deripaska is an oligarch who hired, fired and sued Manafort and may be a witness against him.

But now we learn that in 2009 the FBI worked with Deripaska and let him finance an attempt to rescue an FBI agent from Iran. OK, I like where there head was but they liked Deripaska for this becasue he had business in Iran and (probably like a lot of his peers) had underworld connections. Those connections led to State Department travel restrictions and eventual US sanctions, but now he is on Mueller's side against Manafort? I can't tell the colluders without a scorecard.

And a Bonus Baffler - was subcontracting to Deripaska even legal?

Melanie Sloan, a former Clinton Justice Department lawyer and longtime ethics watchdog, told me a “far more significant issue” is whether the earlier FBI operation was even legal: “It’s possible the bureau’s arrangement with Mr. Deripaska violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the government from accepting voluntary services.”   

George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley agreed: “If the operation with Deripaska contravened federal law, this figure could be viewed as a potential embarrassment for Mueller. The question is whether he could implicate Mueller in an impropriety.”

Now that sources have unmasked the Deripaska story, time will tell whether the courts, Justice, Congress or a defendant formally questions if Mueller is conflicted.

Mini-bafflers - was the Antideficiency Act invoked as part of the Iran-Contra debacle, with arms, hostages and cash moving off-book? [Yes, cameo appearances] And why is it always Iran? C'mon, send better baddies!

MORE: The Hill linked to a long Dec 13, 2013 NY Times piece about the FBI agent, Robert Levinson, who had specialized in Russian organized crime. In their telling he retired from the FBI in 1998 in order to make more money in the private investigations sector; he then re-aligned with the CIA as a consultant in 2006.

The Deripaska connection:

By mid-2008, the F.B.I. was fully engaged in the hunt. At that time, two F.B.I. agents met at a Paris hotel with a powerful new player who became secretly involved in the effort: Oleg Deripaska, one of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen.Mr. Deripaska’s entry into the case held great promise. He headed an international mining and metals empire with business ties to Iran.

His involvement also came with a price. The State Department had refused Mr. Deripaska a visa because of allegations linking him to organized crime — accusations he has denied. But Mr. Birshtein, the Toronto businessman, had approached the F.B.I. with a plan: He would persuade Mr. Deripaska to join the search and, if they succeeded, both would get their entry problems resolved.

Mr. Deripaska said he would put up millions to fund the venture, but he insisted that his role be kept secret. However, word that big money was in play made its way to Iran. Suddenly, a man with family connection

s to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted that he could engineer Mr. Levinson’s release for a hefty price. F.B.I. officials were so confident about the plan that they told Mrs. Levinson to stay by the phone for a call from her husband. It never came.

Mr. Deripaska, who was scheduled to meet in 2009 with bankers in the United States, wanted to collect on his end of the deal. The State Department, after two heated meetings with Justice Department officials, refused to issue him a visa, according to government officials. The F.B.I., hoping to keep him in the game, made an end-run around State Department officials and issued him a visa under a special program, allowing him to enter the country twice.

In 2010, during a visit to New York, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then the president of Iran, was asked about Mr. Levinson by reporters. He said his government knew nothing of the former agent’s fate but offered to help find him.

Happy Mother's Day

Away we go.

Saturday AM.

Having lost two straight my Yankees are no longer projected to win 140 games. Probably down to about a 70 win season. Oy.

Blue On Blue At Yale

This incident at Yale is regrettable but watching the anti-racists tear up the white feminists does reflect the strains in the Democratic coalition.

The flailing NY Times coverage opens with a laugh line:

A Black Student at Yale Was Napping in a Common Area, and a White Student Called the Police

"Napping". Hold that thought.

A black graduate student at Yale who fell asleep in her dorm’s common room said she had a disturbing awakening this week when a white student flipped on the lights, told her she had no right to sleep there and called the campus police.

...

Ms. Siyonbola, 34, who is earning her master’s degree in African studies, said that she had camped out in the common room to work on a “marathon of papers.” On Monday night, she decided to take a nap.

Around 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, she said, someone came in and turned on the lights, asking: “Is there someone in here? Is there someone sleeping in here? You’re not supposed to be here.”

Hmm. When I am sleeping at 1:30 in the afternoon I am napping. When I am out at 1:30 AM, that is "sleeping". There is a lot more backstory at the Yale Daily News.

In any case, Yale's location exposes it to the New Haven urban crime problem. The Daily Beast ranked it (in 2012), with UPenn, as the most dangerous of the Ivies and 13th most dangerous in the nation. Another college survey site has more on crime at Yale, but here is the summary:

Overall Crime Stats: 266 Incidents Reported

Yale University reported 266 safety-related incidents involving students on or near campus or other Yale affiliated properties in 2016. Of the 2,795 colleges and universities that reported crime and safety data, 2,439 of them reported fewer incidents than this.

 

Based on a student body of 12,385 that works out to about 21.48 reports per thousand students. In 2016, 1,855 colleges and universities reported fewer incidents per thousand students than did Yale.

New Haven is Connecticut's leading city for homelessness as well (as of 2014), although whether that spills over to people sleeping on campus is beyond me.

As to the target of the current two-minute hate, Sarah Braasch is an accomplished woman:

Sarah has two summa cum laude engineering degrees (aerospace and mechanical) from the University of Minnesota, as well as a JD from Fordham Law, and she is a member of the NYS Bar.  Her secularism and women’s rights advocacy (including with Ni Putes Ni Soumises in Paris, France) led her to obtain an MA in Philosophy, to address the sub-human legal status of the world’s women at the source, the philosophical foundations of law. 

Doesn't really fit the profile of a typical Trump voter. However, the outrage community managed to get a paper she wrote for The Humanist taken down recently. The Google cache had it as of May 6, 2018 and it is still here. Here is the rationale for the takedown:

We have removed the article “Lift the Veil, See the Light” by Sarah Braasch (published in the Sept/Oct 2010 issue of the Humanist magazine) from our website after it was brought to our attention that it contains racially offensive argumentation. The article was part of a point-counterpoint on the topic of laws barring Muslim women in France from wearing face-covering veils. In the article in question, which argues for the ban, the author equates the small number of slaves who wanted to remain with their owners after emancipation with women who choose to be “slaves” in abusive, misogynistic, or otherwise patriarchal religious traditions. She makes this analogy–which we have judged to be inaccurate and racially offensive–to argue that if human beings are conditioned to accept indignity, suffering, and an inferior position in society then that society has an obligation to make laws to correct that. While the author’s final point is one some humanists might champion, the analogy to American slavery is definitely not.

Well, OK. From "Lift the Veil, See the Light":

WE WERE STUDYING the American Civil War in one of my middle school social studies classes when we were charged with the task of debating the pros and cons of slavery. I know, in retrospect it seems a bit odd to me as well. But, in a sense, what better way is there to learn about any historical subject than to debate it? And rather than debate the subject from the perspectives of late twentieth-century teens, we approached it as if we were abolitionists or southern plantation owners during Abraham Lincoln's presidency. 

I was placed on the pro-slavery side of the argument. 

Oooh, stop hating, hater! Pretty sure this wouldn't be done today but she says it was the late 80's. The key bit seems to be this:

I read about the trials and tribulations of both escaped and freed slaves. I read about the cruel world waiting to pounce mercilessly upon penniless, illiterate, and uneducated former slaves. About how former slaves were torn from the stability of family and community and the paternalism of the slave owner (including the legal protections afforded slaves). About how former slaves struggled to rebuild their lives in a world that didn't want them.

And then I had a eureka moment. Some--not many, but some--of the slaves didn't want to stop being slaves. A small number wanted to remain with their owners or return even after being freed. 

I knew I had just won the debate. And indeed I did. I led our team to victory. The pro-slavery contingent defeated the abolitionists because, in a democracy, in the land of the free, who are we to tell people that they can't be slaves if they want to be? Who are we to tell someone that she has to be free?

OK, what? Her endpoint is that in France a no burqa law makes women free whether they want it or not and that is a good thing. Isn't that the opposite of the point she is making here?

Well, yes - she switched sides and no longer accepts the :some want to be slaves" view:

It's ironic that I had to acquire that argument from a Time Life book, because I was living that argument. I was a slave who extolled the virtues of being a slave. I was a slave who insisted that I had chosen slavery of my own free will, of my own volition, as a conscious and educated choice. Because, you see, I was a Jehovah's Witness who had been brainwashed from birth to believe that God had created me subhuman--below man. I had been indoctrinated to accept this truth as part of God's divinely ordained scheme for mankind (not humankind), to serve the men in my family and community, and nothing more. I had been inculcated to wait patiently for my post-Armageddon blessings in the hereafter or suffer the dire consequences in the here and now, including demonic attack. 

...

I decided that I didn't want to hate myself anymore, no matter the cost. Even if it meant rejecting God's plan for me. I chose to claim my humanity, my personhood, my human and civil rights. While I was still a teenager myself, I walked away from everything and everyone I had ever known. I made a new life for myself. A human life, not a subhuman, slave life. It was anything but easy and at times seemed like an impossible choice. I know that death and even suicide sometimes seemed easier. And now I think that maybe it shouldn't have to be that hard to be human. Maybe we should make it a little easier to reject slavery. 

She has become an ardent feminist but that won't help her now. The outrage community has decided she is a racist and a hater, so away she goes. Let's see what Yale does.

 

Drain The Cohen

C'mon, man:

Cohen, touting his access to President Trump, convinced companies to pay millions

If I'd wanted grifters and hustlers around the President I'd have backed Ms. Foundation.

Wednesday AM

Lots to take in, so I am hitting the road for a bit. This NY Times explainer on Trump's goal with Iran is surprisingly sympathetic.

Behind Trump’s Termination of Iran Deal Is a Risky Bet

WASHINGTON — For President Trump and two of the allies he values most — Israel and Saudi Arabia — the problem of the Iranian nuclear accord was not, primarily, about nuclear weapons. It was that the deal legitimized and normalized Iran’s clerical government, reopening it to the world economy with oil revenue that financed its adventures in Syria and Iraq, its missile program and its support of terrorist groups.

Now, by announcing on Tuesday that he is exiting the nuclear deal and will reimpose economic sanctions on Iran and companies around the world that do business with the country, Mr. Trump is engaged in a grand, highly risky experiment.

Mr. Trump and his Middle East allies are betting they can cut Iran’s economic lifeline and thus “break the regime,” as one senior European official described the effort. In theory, America’s withdrawal could free Iran to produce as much nuclear material as it wants — as it was doing five years ago, when the world feared that it was headed toward a bomb.

I do love this Nixon-to-China, Nixon detente with Russia summary of Obama's strategery towards Iran:

And it is a clear example of Middle East brinkmanship that runs counter to what President Barack Obama intended when the nuclear deal was struck in July 2015.

Mr. Obama’s gamble in that deal — the signature foreign policy accord of his eight years in office — was straightforward. He regarded Iran as potentially a more natural ally of the United States than many of its Sunni-dominant neighbors, with a young, educated Western-oriented population that is tired of being ruled by an aging theocracy.

By taking the prospect of nuclear weapons off the table, the Obama administration had argued, the United States and Iran could chip away at three decades of hostility and work on common projects, starting with the defeat of the Islamic State.

It did not turn out that way. While the deal succeeded in getting 97 percent of Iran’s nuclear material out of the country, Iran’s conservatives and its military recoiled at the idea of cooperating on any projects with the West.

Months before it became clear that Mr. Trump had a decent shot at being elected, the Iranian military increased support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria; it expanded its influence in Iraq and accelerated its support for terrorist groups. And it doubled down on deploying cyberattacks against targets in the West and in Saudi Arabia, embracing a weapon that was not covered by the nuclear accord.

So Obama wanted to be Nixon, hoping that giving the Iranian hardliners $100 billion upfront and more money over time would prompt liberalizing reform. Because China and Russia never happened, I guess. Hey, Barry, the '70's called - they want their foreign policy back.

Conversely, Trump wants to go Reagan on Iran. 

Time will tell.

And Now Over To The Primary Watch

Three states have Senate primaries today fraught with promise and peril. I'll be watching the Yankees scuffle with the Red Sox and the Pelicans, briefly, but enjoy!

Sanctions Watch

We can start the day with an Iran Watch. Trump is slated to announce his decision at 2 PM. 

Low Carb Diets Reduce Insulin And Sugar Swings? No Way.

Thank heaven for science:

How a Low-Carb Diet Might Aid People With Type 1 Diabetes

...

Most diabetes experts do not recommend low-carb diets for people with Type 1 diabetes, especially children. Some worry that restricting carbs can lead to dangerously low blood sugar levels, a condition known as hypoglycemia, and potentially stunt a child’s growth. But a new study published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday suggests otherwise.

It found that children and adults with Type 1 diabetes who followed a very low-carb, high-protein diet for an average of just over two years — combined with the diabetes drug insulin at smaller doses than typically required on a normal diet — had “exceptional” blood sugar control. They had low rates of major complications, and children who followed it for years did not show any signs of impaired growth.The study found that the participants’ average hemoglobin A1C a long-term barometer of blood sugar levels, fell to just 5.67 percent. An A1C under 5.7 is considered normal, and it is well below the threshold for diabetes, which is 6.5 percent.

“Their blood sugar control seemed almost too good to be true,” said Belinda Lennerz, the lead author of the study and an instructor in the division of pediatric endocrinology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “It’s nothing we typically see in the clinic for Type 1 diabetes.”

Wait - if my body doesn't produce insulin but I cut back on my bodies need for insulin, mismatches between blood sugar and injected insulin can be reduced? Who could have guessed, other than anyone?

About 1.25 million Americans have Type 1 diabetes, which occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin to regulate blood sugar levels. Managing the condition requires administering insulin throughout the day, especially when consuming meals high in carbs, which raise blood sugar more than other nutrients. Over time, chronically elevated blood sugar can lead to nerve and kidney damage and cardiovascular disease.

The standard approach for people with Type 1 diabetes is to match carb intake with insulin. But the argument for restricting carbs is that it keeps blood sugar more stable and requires less insulin, resulting in fewer highs and lows. The approach has not been widely studied or embraced for Type 1 diabetes, but some patients swear by it.

A popular reason it has not been studied is that it's a pain in the neck:

Dr. Joyce Lee, a diabetes expert at the University of Michigan who was not involved in the study, said the findings were impressive and merited further follow-up, and that patients who wanted to explore a low-carb approach might do so while being monitored by their health care team. But she also noted that the patients in the new study were a “highly motivated” group, and that it would be difficult for many people to adopt the restrictive regimen they followed.

“The reality is that it’s really hard to do low-carb, given our cultural norms,” said Dr. Lee, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan.

In the course of wondering about the reach of the low carb diet approach a few years ago I spent a few moments at the American Diabetes Association website. I am sure my memory is paraphrasing this a bit harshly but their basic message was relax, diabetes doesn't need to be a burden! You can eat the same Sorry American Diet that is ruining everyone else's health. Yeah, have some ice cream after you finish that pizza - just remember to give yourself a double shot of insulin.

As I said, there might be some hyperbole there. My computer has been glitchy lately but this should be the ADA website. Google says so, but it won't load for me.

Enforcing The Law? Nooooo!

The NY Times puts a toe in the morass of Dem messaging as they ponder the enforcement of current gun laws:

In Fight Against Violent Crime, Justice Dept. Targets Low-Level Gun Offenders

Uh oh. I'll never find it but some wag observed that on the topic of gun control Democrats always want to ignore current crime statistics and pass tougher gun laws with the hope of locking up all the annoying rednecks on Duck Dynasty.

It's a puzzle. I would say that Black Lives Matter and others have raised valid points about Incarceration Nation, especially as it relates to our War on Drugs. On the other hand, if the Feds go after felons with guns they are inevitably going to be pursuing a group in which black males are over-represented.

Awkard! "Let's pass tougher gun laws but not enforce them against minorities" is unlikely to be a catch-fire message. On the other hand, "Let's lock up more ethnics!" may not play to the Democratic base.

Well. I'm sure the Democrat's Late Night Comics Brigade will come up with something, probably involving Sarah Palin or Trump's hair.

Pressing on, I love the Times coverage of their second "woe is me" example of victims of the Sessions crackdown:

On Jan. 1, 2017, police in York, Pa., stopped Steven Gray, 46, whom they said was carrying a pistol. Mr. Gray was charged in federal court last April with illegally possessing the firearm, which he denied was his. A forensic investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives found no discernible DNA on the weapon. Mr. Gray, who had a prior felony drug charge, was convicted and faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced in the coming months.

“Sometimes it appears they’re just looking for numbers,” his lawyer, Thomas Thornton, said of federal prosecutors, who denied the accusation.

Hmm, "a prior felony drug charge". A trivial possession bust? Not exactly, per the York Dispatch, which tells us that

Court records reveal that in 2015, Gray pleaded guilty in York County Court to felony drug dealing.

And there is more:

Police later determined the handgun had been reported stolen from New Hampshire in 1995, documents state.

So we have a guy who pled guilty in 2015 to a drug dealing charge who is now in illegal possession of a stolen handgun and the Times wants to go easy on him? Just who do they want to arrest?

Well, nobody, maybe. The Fox Butterfield school makes a glorious return with this marvelous "Why bother locking up criminals?" moment:

“Enforcement isn’t always the solution to those different types of crimes,” said Inimai Chettier, director of the justice program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice [link]. “The result might be to increase the federal prison population without a correlating reduction in crime.”

It might be! But speaking as a non-felon not in illegal possession of a gun, I'm not afraid to find out.

Sunday Evening

The traditional MYGA (Make Yankees Great Again) open moaning. Too bad you can't win the World Series in May.

Resistance Journalism, Kerry The Shadow Secretary, And The Logan Act

From the Boston Globe we learn that former Secretary of State John Kerry won't let go:

Kerry is quietly seeking to salvage Iran deal he helped craft

WASHINGTON — John Kerry’s bid to save one of his most significant accomplishments as secretary of state took him to New York on a Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, where, more than a year after he left office, he engaged in some unusual shadow diplomacy with a top-ranking Iranian official.

He sat down at the United Nations with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to discuss ways of preserving the pact limiting Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It was the second time in about two months that the two had met to strategize over salvaging a deal they spent years negotiating during the Obama administration, according to a person briefed on the meetings.

It's not just Iranian officials either:

Kerry also met last month with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and he’s been on the phone with top European Union official Federica Mogherini, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal the private meetings. Kerry has also met with French President Emmanuel Macron in both Paris and New York, conversing over the details of sanctions and regional nuclear threats in both French and English.

Now, wait - didn't we hear hyperventilating about the Logan Act during the Trump transition, when Michael Flynn spoke with the Russian Ambassador about sanctions? Indeed we did - this Times op-ed piece is a classic of the genre:

Why the Trump Team Should Fear the Logan Act

By Daniel Hemel and Eric Posner

The Logan Act makes it a crime for a United States citizen, “without authority” from the federal government, to communicate with foreign officials in order to “influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government” in a dispute with the United States or “to defeat the measures of the United States.” A conviction can result in a prison sentence of up to three years.

The statute, which has been on the books since the early days of the republic, reflects an important principle. The president is — as the Supreme Court has said time and again — “the sole organ of the nation in its external relations.” If private citizens could hold themselves out as representatives of the United States and work at cross-purposes with the president’s own diplomatic objectives, the president’s ability to conduct foreign relations would be severely hampered.

Oh, scary! Eventually the WaPo ran a "return to reason" piece explaining that the law is often cited but never used, and there is no reason to think Kerry's situation will be any different.

However, let's note the "Resistance Journalism" as the Boston Globe tackles this:

Kerry’s activities could raise questions if they are perceived as a direct effort to counter current administration foreign policy.

The Trump administration got entangled with controversy when Michael Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, tried to undermine Obama policies in the administration’s last few weeks. His actions appeared to some legal experts to violate the Logan Act, an obscure 18th century law meant to crack down on private citizens acting on behalf of the United States during a dispute with foreign governments.

The Logan Act prohibits US citizens from having private correspondence with a foreign government “with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government . . . in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.”

Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, said the law is a red herring — since it’s never been used to prosecute anyone — and almost certainly would not apply to anything Kerry is doing.

“The act only applies to conduct that is designed to ‘defeat the measures of the United States’ or influence the conduct of foreign governments,” Vladeck said. “If all Kerry is doing is working to keep in place something that’s still technically a ‘measure of the United States,’ I don’t see how the statute would apply even if someone was crazy enough to try it.”

Wow. Resistance Legal Advice is as bad as Resistance Journalism. The US is trying to enlist its European allies in an effort to twist Iran's arm into agreeing to a tougher supplemental deal. Here is NBC News, Apr 30:

European officials have been negotiating for weeks with State Department officials to try and craft a compromise that would keep deal alive. They were close enough that Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Ford told reporters at a nuclear conference in Geneva that the U.S. was not “aiming to renegotiate [the deal] or change its terms. We are seeking a supplemental agreement.” Macron visited with hopes of nailing down the agreement reached at the working levels. Trump’s press comments seemed to undermine Ford's statement.

Just maybe Kerry is meeting with European leaders in coordination with the State Department. I would not rule that out and I can see why neither Kerry nor Pompeo would advertise it.

But if he is whispering to the Euros at cross-purposes to the State Department then the idea that the Logan Act does not apply is ludicrous, the Boston Globe and their legal advice notwithstanding. Clearly Kerry is attempting to influence foreign leaders with respect to a dispute with the US, to wit, whether and how to modify the current deal with Iran.

Kerry won't be charged, nor should he be - this law strikes me as absurdly broad, since Kerry surely has free speech rights. Wikipedia includes this:

There has been little judicial discussion of the constitutionality of the Logan Act. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Waldron v. British Petroleum Co., 231 F. Supp. 72 (S.D.N.Y. 1964), mentioned in passing that the Act was likely unconstitutional due to the vagueness of the terms "defeat" and "measures," but did not rule on the question.^[2]

Whatever. The history of the Logan Act is fascinating. Logan himself was a private citizen negotiating with a new revolutionary French government during our Quasi-War with the French. NO, this was not a war over the Quasi-stones; the war was undeclared. The US suspended repayment of our war loans from France, which we claimed were owed to a now-defunct regime. Two years of naval hostilities followed. 

Like They Can Help Themselves

Cong. Adam Schiff, ranking Dem on the House Intel Committee, urges Dems to pretend (at least until November) that impeachment of Trump is not their unifying goal. Uh huh.

The NY Times comments are interesting. There is a lot of passion for the notion that Trump is a threat to the rule of law. But what is missing is any sense that Hillary was at least as grave a threat. With five lockstep liberal Supreme Court justices to back her, her demonstrated disregard for the FOIA (Freedom of Information Aspiration, I guess), the National Archive Aspiration, Congressional subpoenas, and her experience with DoJ coverups of her very own crimes, the idea that she was a grave threat to the rule of law should be taken very seriously by anyone pretending to care about such things.

But I found this CBS commentary while wondering why our friends on the left are so unruffled by Hillary's history. I'm sure in some cases it is pure partisan posturing. But it might be simple ignorance - the CBS piece was one of the very few leftish outlets Google offered me with a mention of the Stzrok text describing how Obama was revised out of Comey's statement exonerating Hillary.

I really wonder if the NPR/NY Times/NBC News audience, which presumably consider themselves to be well-informed, even knows about this. Maybe not.

ERRATA: CBS News/AP had this in a story about next text messages, buried deep:

One of the messages references a change in language to Comey's statement closing out the email case involving Clinton, Mr. Trump's Democratic opponent in the 2016 presidential election. While an earlier draft of the statement said Clinton and President Barack Obama had an email exchange while Clinton was "on the territory" of a hostile adversary, the reference to Obama was at first changed to "senior government official" and then omitted entirely in the final version.

NBC News buried it a few days later deep in a story about those whacky Republicans and a "secret society". By way of contrast, the Times managed to cover the 'secret society' banter but couldn't bring themselves to mention the Obama revisions.

Yet More On Trump And Campaign Finance Violations

The flailing NY Times surprises us with some recent history that is both helpful to Trump and a bit of a ghastly memory for their Blue readers. The topic is Trump and whether the payoff to Stormy Daniels was a campaign finance contribution (coming as it did before the election) or just a noble attempt to spare Melania and Barron a barrage of humiliating coverage.

Do campaign finance laws apply?

A threshold question is whether the payment to the actress, Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels, was intended to influence the election by suppressing a claim that could hurt Mr. Trump’s chances. If so, the transaction was most likely covered by federal campaign finance laws.

...

Recent history suggests that it can be tricky to prove that the motive behind such a payment was political rather than personal. In 2012, the Justice Department prosecuted John Edwards, the former Democratic senator from North Carolina, over payments from wealthy donors that were used to hide his pregnant mistress while he ran for president. Mr. Edwards’s lawyers argued that he was instead trying to hide the affair from his wife.

In the end, a jury acquitted Mr. Edwards of one charge while deadlocking on the other five, and prosecutors opted not to seek a new trial. Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, said that after the Edwards mistrial, federal prosecutors will be reluctant to go forward with similar cases unless they have “documentary proof, a smoking gun, that a payment was in fact election-related.”

Having seized Cohen's records, Mueller may well have that smoking gun. Or not. But evidently a jury was capable of being persuaded that an upcoming election is not the only motive for the mysteries of human behavior. My new favorite for virtually unfounded speculation is this: Trump's pre-nuptial agreement with Melania had some sort of a ten year transition after which the marriage was put on a different footing (I have read about this, or perhaps learned it from Law and Order). In addition, Trump's pre-nup subjects him to financial penalties for extreme public humilation. What, unimaginable? I just imagined it!

Cohen would know all about the pre-nup, I further hypothesize. Maybe he wanted to keep the story quashed before the election, maybe he wanted to spare Melania and Barron a public shaming, maybe he wanted to save Donald a nice chunk of change, or maybe all three. Or make up your own rationale! What, I'm the only fiction writer here?

Giuliani Engaging In Ex Post Rationalization

The flailing NY Times listens to Rudy's latest defense of Trump and leaps to the obvious, unsupported, unimaginative conclusion - Trump lied:

Giuliani Says Trump Repaid Cohen for Stormy Daniels Hush Money

WASHINGTON — President Trump reimbursed Michael D. Cohen, his longtime personal lawyer, for a $130,000 payment that Mr. Cohen has said he made to keep a pornographic film actress from going public before the 2016 election with her story about an affair with Mr. Trump, according to Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of the president’s lawyers.

That statement, which Mr. Giuliani made Wednesday night on Fox News, contradicted the president, who has said he had no knowledge about any payment to the actress, Stephanie Clifford, to keep quiet before the election.

[Read what Mr. Giuliani said here.]

Asked specifically last month by reporters aboard Air Force One whether he knew about the payment, Mr. Trump said, “No,” and referred questions to Mr. Cohen. He was then asked, “Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?”

“No,” Mr. Trump responded. “I don’t know.”

Please - are there no M*A*S*H fans out there? I remember a classic bit that went roughly like this:

Radar, the company clerk, hands the hapless Col. Blake some papers.

"What am I signing Radar?"

"I'd tell you sir but then you'd know."

"Oh, right". Takes pen, signs.

If I wrote a check for $130,000 I would know where it went and why. But if I were a billionaire with a long time fixer whose role was to make problems go away, I might well have gotten out of the habit of asking where the money was going and why. Plausible deniability was not invented by Trump. Nor was implausible deniability.

That said, I actually think Rudy has opened a new can of worms. Here is what he told Sean Hannity:

When I heard of Cohen’s retainer for $130,000, he was doing no work for the president. I said, “Well, that’s how he’s repaying it, with a little profit and a little margin for paying taxes for Michael.

That sounds to me like an ex post rationalization invented by Giuliani, not an explanation offered by Trump or his attorneys. Giuliani's apparent claim is that Trump was paying a retainer, expenses weren't itemized, so the campaign finance issue can be dodged by claiming this retainer payment was for that expense by Cohen. If it can be shown that Cohen routinely declined to itemize certain "discretion required" expenses then that argument might fly. On the other hand, if Cohen routinely billed for his retainer and all sorts of unseemly expenses the argument is weaker. 

In any case, the Times does have nearly enough to state flatly that Trump lied. There is no reason to assume Trump set up Cohen as his fixer and cut-out and then kept himself apprised of his every unsavory move. But then again, I am not a Resistance Journalist.

Take The Fifth (And Pass Another Over Here)

Should Trump agree to an interview with Mueller? If I am reading this Times story correctly, no sane lawyer would let him. Here we go on the genesis of this list of questions for Trump from Mueller:

Mr. Dowd had argued that Mr. Trump was too busy running the country to sit for an interview, especially if he was not a target of the investigation, according to a person briefed on the encounter.

Mr. Mueller replied that he had to question Mr. Trump to determine whether he had criminal intent when he took actions like firing Mr. Comey and raised the possibility of subpoenaing Mr. Trump to appear before a grand jury, the person said. News of Mr. Mueller mentioning the subpoena was first reported by The Washington Post.

If Mueller can't make the case without talking to Trump what sane lawyer would agree to an interview? Of course, the Secret Service won't let Trump's legal team handcuff him to his desk and the political advisors may have a different take, but still.

As to a grand jury subpoena, the political scuffling over that would be epic. And if Trump ends up in front of the grand jury (with none of his lawyers present, if normal rules apply) can he just invoke combinations of the Fifth Amendment and executive privilege and refuse to answer anything? And then what - if a judge rules he must testify, they jail him for contempt?

Or would Trump be disciplined enough to keep quiet? It's very easy to imagine him rising to his feet and shouting "Do you want the truth?"

Well. Go long popcorn.

For the "He's a genius" file, Dowd's observation that Trump is too busy ought to be a way to flatter Trump into taking a pass on a Mueller interview. Trump has China, NAFTA Iran and North Korea are all coming to a crescendo. Convincing him he is indispensable to those deals and should focus on that rather than prepping for what Trump views as Mueller's "witch hunt" ought to be easy for anyone who knows Trump at all.

Give Them (And Me) A Break

Here's a terrific topic for a barstool debate - should women with hyperandrogenism be allowed to compete as women? (Bonus Question: Should that be "women" with hyperandrogenism...").

If you're still with me, the NY Times is two papers in one on the new IAAF rules currently roiling women's track and field. Here is an opinion piece saying these rules are "essential" because its not fair to the girls to force them to compete with biologically quirky women with elevated testosterone levels; here is a piece using the word "absurd" to describe the new rules, so the drift is clear.

Since sometimes even barstool debates and sports talk radio have a factual foundation, here is a Times recap of the new rules and an incomplete description of the underlying biology. But let me bash through to the key point argued in favor of the new rules:

A lot has been written about intersex athletes who identify — or are identified in their legal documents — as women. What is important to know is that there are many different intersex conditions, but the I.A.A.F. is only concerned with the subset that involves athletes who are biologically male. They are “in between” only with respect to the pre-birth underdevelopment of their external genitals. Intersex athletes who are biologically female aren’t affected by the rules.

Specifically, the athletes who are the focus of the I.A.A.F.’s rules are those who have testes. Starting in puberty and as adults, their testes produce sperm, not eggs, and supply testosterone in quantities that biologically female bodies and their ovaries never come close to producing.

OK, that seems unfair. OTOH, life is unfair, as the author of the "absurd" article fairly notes:

But the truth is that no elite athlete’s body can be called fully “typical” in a statistical sense, and every other type of inborn advantage is allowed in sports. You can be born with natural advantages in terms of muscle development, oxygen processing, vision — all of those are allowed, without question. We’d never entertain the idea that Michael Phelps should be barred from swimming competitions because his extraordinary “wingspan” gives him an advantage.

No kidding. Anyone who has watched five minutes of the NBA wonders how it is fair to ask anyone to compete against LeBron James. However, back to the "essential" article:

In competitive sport, winning and room at the top are what ultimately matter, so relative numbers are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter that there are 100 females and three males in a girls’ race if the three males win spots in the final or on the podium because they are males. The unusually high incidence of intersex athletes in the women’s middle distances and their reported 100 percent win share in the women’s 800 meters at the Olympic Games in Rio show their disproportionate power. Indeed, it is because they clustered in the middle distances that these events are the initial focus of the rules. Their supremacy was proof of principle. 

Hmm. As noted, the controversial advantage was only confirmed in the middle distances, i.e., 400 meters to one mile (1500 m in the Olympics.) Sprints, as well as the 5k, 10k and marathon are unaffected by the new rules.

Which leads me to a stupid idea that no one would ever suggest and might be too dumb even for the IAAF: maybe here in the United States we should do careful genetic testing on the men's side of track and field, because it seems pretty clear that white boys are not able to hold their own against young black men in the sprints. Conversely, the US may need some affirmative action to overcome white privilege, or something, because, based on the NCAA finals, young black men are woefully under-represented in the men's 'mile', one of the glamour events of the sport. Some screenshots to lighten the mood:

Or - brace yourself for a Bold Idea! - we could just let the runners run. If IAAF-acceptable women can't win the 800 meters, let them move to a different event. Embrace friggin' diversity! Or let them switch to soccer, or field hockey, or some other damn thing. My goodness, Mike Trout chose centerfield over life as a wide receiver or running back, but probably would have washed out as a sprinter. He Moved On! At high speed, as noted.

I will take a guess that hyperandrogenism is not a condition that comes with a lot of other life advantages. Why close the door on one area where these women can shine?

I would be delighted to see US advertisers raise a stink about sponsoring Olympic events that are so hostile to the alternatively enabled. if our friends on the left want to make themselves useful for a change, this would be a great topic for them to pick up.