JustOneMinute

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.

Falling Down

That's twenty minutes I can't get back. I just sat through the full Michelle Wolf effort at the White House Correspondents Self-Adoration Dinner and wow! I've seen my share of late night comedy monologues so the basic theme of Evil, Stupid Republicans is not exactly a surprising comic twist. But even knowing I would be seeing a howling lefty that was criticized for being harsh and unfunny, I was not ready for this.

Here's a transcript, which does not capture the sense of horror that spread over the room. There were plenty of awkward silences but at a guess (there will be no booth review by me) the nadir was this:

Mike Pence is the kind of guy that brushes his teeth and then drinks orange juice and thinks, “Mmm.” Mike Pence is also very anti-choice. He thinks abortion is murder, which, first of all, don't knock it till you try it. And when you do try it, really knock it. You know, you got to get that baby out of there.

And, yes, sure, you can groan all you want. I know a lot of you are very antiabortion. You know, unless it's the one you got for your secret mistress. It's fun how values can waver. But good for you.

But glancing through the transcript there were plenty of contenders for "Lowest Moment". Actually, spending time with that transcript might be a mistake too. Wolf happened, she was even worse than you imagined, move on.

ERRATA: The president of the WHCA apologizes, feels the hate in Twitter. Even the failing NY Times notes that there is a bipartisan flavor to the criticism.

Sunday Morning

It's the Marvel Universe and we're just living in it.

DNA, Horrible Criminals, Privacy And Less

The Golden State killer has been caught. That is a cold case from the 70's and 80's with a truly heinous criminal:

A series of rapes in an old gold mining area east of Sacramento in 1976 were first linked by the authorities for their geographic proximity, the similar description of the rapist — a white male with blond hair who was just under six feet tall — and the peculiar and cruel rituals that he inflicted on his victims. His victims included women home alone and women at home with their children. The suspect went on to rape women with their husbands present and then murder them both. He is also thought to have burglarized more than 120 homes.

He became an infamous figure, sometimes known as the Golden State Killer and other times as the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker. His planning was meticulous and he seemed to know precise details about his victims’ schedules. They described the gravelly, angry whisper that he used as he tormented them. He wore gloves and a mask and was a predator with quirks: As his victims lay terrified, he would pause for a snack of crackers after raping them. He placed a teacup and saucer on the bodies of some of his victims and threatened them with murder if he heard the ceramic rattle.

With communities panicking — at one point his assaults averaged two victims a month — the authorities hired a range of experts to help them break the case, among them a military special forces officer and a psychic.

Then, when the rapes and murders appeared to end in 1986, the case went cold.

Full details of the breaks in the case are not yet available but these details are very cool, in a "Oh my God, between DNA and Facebook we have no privacy at all" sort of way:

SACRAMENTO — The Golden State Killer raped and murdered victims all across the state of California in an era before Google searches and social media, a time when the police relied on shoe leather, not cellphone records or big data.

But it was technology that got him. The suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested by the police on Tuesday. Investigators accuse him of committing more than 50 rapes and 12 murders.

Investigators used DNA from crime scenes and plugged that genetic profile into a commercial online genealogy database. They found distant relatives of Mr. DeAngelo’s and traced their DNA to him.

“We found a person that was the right age and lived in this area — and that was Mr. DeAngelo,” said Steve Grippi, the assistant chief in the Sacramento district attorney’s office.

Investigators then obtained what Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney, called “abandoned” DNA samples from Mr. DeAngelo. “You leave your DNA in a place that is a public domain,” she said.

The test result confirmed the match to more than 10 murders in California. Ms. Schubert’s office then obtained a second sample and came back with the same positive result, matching the full DNA profile.

Huh. Normally a big limitation to DNA evidence is that, while it can confirm a match, it can only point to suspects already in a DNA database, normally for past arrests or convictions.

But tracking relatives though a non-criminal database? Clever, but questions about familial DNA matching have been and will be raised. And denials are everywhere:

Representatives at 23andMe and other gene testing services denied on Thursday that they had been involved in identifying the killer.

Let me note that in 2010 California busted the "Grim Sleeper" after getting a familial DNA match on his son from a criminal database. So the concept is not new but the use of a geneaolgy datbase rather than a criminal one seems to be.

Defensive Gun Use, The CDC, And The Media Cone of Silence

If you are aware of this recent story about the CDC and defensive gun use you are either well-read or a right-wing nut-job (I say this as one who lately has no time to read):

CDC Survey On Defensive Gun Use Was Never Publicized

By Virginia Kruta

Defensive gun use (DGU) happens more regularly in the United States than gun crimes, according to data the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) never publicized.

Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck has been arguing that point for a quarter of a century, saying that his own research led him to believe that DGU was far more prevalent than gun-control advocates claim.

The CDC’s data, collected a few years after Kleck’s survey, appears to corroborate his findings, Reason.com reported. The question asked in the CDC survey addressed the use or threatened use of a firearm to deter a crime. “During the last 12 months, have you confronted another person with a firearm, even if you did not fire it, to protect yourself, your property, or someone else?”

No spoilers here! But lets cut over to Reason.com:

CDC, in Surveys It Never Bothered Making Public, Provides More Evidence That Plenty of Americans Innocently Defend Themselves with Guns

CDC surveys in the 1990s, never publicly reported, indicate nearly 2.5 million defensive uses of guns a year. That matches the results of Gary Kleck's controversial surveys, and it indicates more defensive than offensive uses of guns.

Lest you wonder, yes - in 2013, following an executive order from Obama, the CDC did some studies on gun violence, including a look at defensive gun use ("DGU"). And yes, the report got some attention - here is Will Saletan at Slate in a review of the findings:

7. Guns are used for self-defense often and effectively. “Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year … in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” says the report. The three million figure is probably high, “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.” But a much lower estimate of 108,000 also seems fishy, “because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.” Furthermore, “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

So as of 2013 the CDC was willing to include a ballpark that encompassed their 1990s estimates.

And why is this news? Well, in one sense it is not - as best I can tell, and I am relying on their search engine, the flailing NY Times has mentioned neither the latest revelations nor the 2013 report on defensive gun use. FWIW, I did find this March 2018 piece calling for more CDC studies. The intro is oddly off-kilter:

Guns in the home protect families.

For decades, that has been an essential part of the National Rifle Association’s mantra in defending firearms ownership, repeated at congressional hearings, in advertisements and on T-shirts.

Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who once headed research on firearm violence at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wondered if there was any evidence backing the N.R.A.’s assertion.

“So we looked at the question, does having a gun at home protect your family or not?” Dr. Rosenberg recalled.

He was amazed by the answer. The landmark study in 1993 showed that bringing a gun into the home puts everyone at much greater risk.

“They were saying if you want to keep your family safe, if you are a real man, you will have a gun at home,” Dr. Rosenberg said. “Bringing the gun not only didn’t protect you, it put you at much, much greater risk.”

To this day, gun rights advocates dispute the study’s findings. The N.R.A. pushed Congress in 1995 to stop the C.D.C. from spending taxpayer money on research that advocated gun control. Congress then passed the Dickey Amendment in 1996, and cut funding that effectively ended the C.D.C.’s study of gun violence as a public health issue.

 

"To this day gun rights advocates dispute the study’s findings". As did the CDC seemingly, then and in 2013.

Well. No mention by the Times of the concern that the process will be politicized and the "wrong" results buried. Their national debate on guns never seems to wonder off script.

However, the Todd Frankel of the WaPO did address this in 2015 - his gist - the 2013 study reviewed the current literature (their high-end defensive gun use statistics seem to come from Kleck) but since it called for more study we can't really discuss it. Uh huh.

ERRATA: As an illustration here is the last month's Google News top hits for "Centers for Disease Control defensive gun use". Good luck finding any legacy media at all.

 And continuing...

Now What?

Don't eat waffles and don't walk on sidewalks. Really helpful life lessons.

The Narrative, The Whole Narrative And Nothing But The Narrative

The FBI sends investigators abroad all the time so if it is true that they have not interviewed our favorite Russian lawyer that is puzzling.

As to the substance of the fateful meeting between Don Trump Jr. and the Russian with dirt on Hillary, my thoughts are here. The gist: her "dirt" was prosecutors files making the case that Hillary and Obama had been duped (or bought?!?) when they decided to believe the Magnitsky supporters rather than Team Putin. Tump Jr's. record promoter friend knows a snooze-fest when he hears it so he did his record promoter thing and over-hyped it. Still, Jr. played along, so if - IF! - Mueller is taking the Russian collusion angle seriously he ought to be sorting this out.

Saturday Morning Arrives!

OK, I'm back! Although I had no trouble with other sites I have not been able to get on to Typepad for a few days. They did have some scheduled maintenance, so maybe it was a long 4/20 break. Or maybe I had some weird ISP issue from multiple home computers.

Bygones.

Barbara Bush Has Passed Away

The NY Times covers this and re-runs a lunch Frank Bruni had with two of her grand-daughters.

No Justice No Peace

Allahpundit is fascinating on the latest 5-4 Supreme Court "outrage".

The Gunny Has Passed

This is still one of the most OMG scenes in Hollywood history. A real USMC Drill Instructor playing a USMC DI. Whoa.

Scandal Surfing

Judy Miller writes on the Libby Pardon. She tells us that she believes Libby was the victim of an overzealous prosecutor (who knew?). She describes her ex post probing:

The first thing I learned was that John Rizzo, the CIA’s former general counsel and an agency lawyer for over 30 years, disputed prosecutor Fitzgerald’s assertion that Valerie Plame had been a super-secret covert agent, not well known outside of the intelligence community, and that the leak of her name had caused grave, if unspecified, harm to America’s national security. Rizzo told me in an interview and subsequently wrote in his own book [link to review] that “dozens, if not hundreds of people in Washington” knew that Plame worked for the CIA. Even more significantly, he said, a CIA damage assessment of the leak had produced “no evidence” that her outing had harmed any CIA operation, any agent in the field, or “anyone else, including Plame herself.” I also learned that the CIA assessment had been finished in late 2003 or early 2004, long before Libby was indicted or I went to jail. Though Fitzgerald knew this, Rizzo’s crucial CIA finding became public only after his book was published. But if the leak had caused no national security harm, why had Fitzgerald continued the inquiry?

First, as to the "no notable damage assessment", who knew? Well, not to say 'I told you so', but plenty of people. Back in October 2005 (following a Fitzgerald press conference) Andrea Mitchell and Bob Woodward reported simultaneously on what sounds just like the assessment Rizzo described. The Woodward version: 

WOODWARD: ... They did a damage assessment within the CIA, looking at what this did that Joe Wilson's wife was outed. And turned out it was quite minimal damage. They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn't have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger to anyone and there was just some embarrassment. 

So people have kind of compared -- somebody was saying this was Aldridge James or Bob Hanson, big spies. This didn't cause damage.

Six months later WaPo reporter Dana Priest, who picked up a Pulitzer for busting open the CIA secret prisons, offered this:

Valley Forge, Pa.: Hi Dana,

Thanks for doing these chats.

Now we are reading that Valerie Plame was involved with tracking nuclear proliferation/capabilities in Iran. Isn't this old news? (I seem to remember reading this same thing quite a while ago in the MSM - I don't generally read blogs)

From what you hear, was Ms. Plame working on Iran, how important was she to the tracking efforts, and how much has her "outing" really set us back?

Dana Priest: It was reported before that she worked on proliferation issues for the CIA. The leap in this new round of information is that her outing significantly impacted our current intel on Iran. I don't buy it. First, no one person who quit clandestine work four years ago is going to make that big of a dent in current knowledge. But also, nothing like this came up at the time of her outing and I believe it would have. Think we need some actual details. At present it just doesn't smell right.

The Rizzo no-damage assessment should not have been news

So why had Fitzgerald continued the inquiry? Ah, well! With the passage of time we have learned a lot about the in-house rebellion faced by Cheney and Bush in late 2003. Yoo had been replaced by Goldsmith as head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the DoJ. Goldsmith withdrew the legal opinions supporting the enhanced interrogation program and was gravely concerned with the warrantless surveillance program.

The famous hospital room showdown with Bushmen Card and Gonzalez, Acting AG Comey and recused, sick AG Ashcroft took place in March 2004. Right on the same timeline in December 2003 was the appointment by Comey of Fitzgerald, ostensibly to investigate "the truth" about the Plame leak but really (IMHO) to Get Cheney.

Cheney lost those fights and played a diminished role in Bush's second term, so Mission Accomplished (that's an ironic Bush-era reference, not a triumphalist Trump-era reference. or vice versa. Confusing, amirite?)

The contemporary parallels are obvious. The Hillary non-investigation was only sought by one side, the party not controlling the Executive Branch. Obama, Lynch at al threw grants of immunity like rice at a wedding, publicly and pre-emptively exonerated Hillary and eventually uncovered, geez, no crimes worth prosecuting. Imagine our surprise!

By way of contrast, the investigation into Trump has bipartisan support, since, as with Cheney, some establishment Republicans are on board. Well, it is Trump and the allegations are eye-catching. Still, as an ongoing phenomenon, the 'if you can't vote 'em out, cuff 'em and drag 'em out' doesn't seem like the ideal model of democracy in action.

Prague Summer Returns!

OK, the weather outside is frightful but it is Prague Summer in Washington. The proximate cause - a puzzling McClatchy report that Mueller has evidence that Trump lawyer WAS in Prague in August or early September of 2016. The controversial Steele dossier alleged that Cohen was there colluding with the Russians; Cohen denied it, Jake Tapper had sources backing the denial, and eventually Cohen showed Buzzfeed (the original publisher of the dossier) his passport, which had no entries to Europe at the time in question.

Presumably Tapper is tearing his hair out trying to pin this down, so go long Rogaine. (Pro Tip - don't attempt this sort of equity advisory work at home.)

In any case, I love a mystery! Phillip Bump of the WaPo explains that this is a Big Deal (No f-bombs in the WaPo, please):

But this contradiction between a clear allegation from the Steele dossier and the assertion that it wasn’t true by Cohen and Trump helped drive the idea that the dossier was broadly discredited shortly after its release. Pick out the Prague trip and nothing that follows could have happened. Put the Prague trip back into the mix? A lot of the other parts of that allegation now become possible.* What’s more, it undermines the credibility of those who insisted that the claim was completely without merit.

Look at it another way: If the central conceit of the Steele’s claim were accurate — that Cohen was working with agents of the Russian government directly to aid Trump’s candidacy — it would be very hard to argue that no collusion took place. That likely requires Cohen’s having been in Prague.

And of course, busting Cohen in a lie and cover-up of this magnitude would be impressive, not to mention, it would leave us wondering why he tried so hard to hide it.

Mr. Bump does a good job linking to the Tapper and Buzzfeed reports but leaves out a key caveat from the latter: Cohen might have a second passport, issued either by the US or a foreign country. In the spirit of St Patrick I will note that those of us with Irish heritage, in addition to our many other blessings, are often eligible for Irish citizenship and then a passport. That's contingent on parents or grandparents hailing from the Old Country; as a nice Jewish lad from Long Island Cohen is not an obvious candidate, although we know nothing about his grandparents.

Nor do we need to - Cohen is a slam-dunk for an Israeli passport under their Right of Return. Does he have one and would he occasionally use it for subtle travel abroad? Magic Eightball says "Why ask me? What are we paying these Trump-obsessed journos for, anyway?"

Yeah, my Magic Eightball when I was a kid was much pithier, too, but with wifi and cloud storage and everything - c'mon, get with the 21st century.

A POINT TO PONDER: From Buzzfeed:

Altogether, Cohen’s passport shows he has visited at least a dozen countries during the last eight years: St. Maarten, England, Scotland, St. Barthélemy, France, Italy, Anguilla, Georgia, Turkey, Hong Kong, Macau, and Kazakhstan.

What catches my eye is the absence of a mention of trips to Israel. People who travel to both Israel and some of its foes can get a second US passport to avoid awkward moments at immigration (an Israeli stamp will be a bar to admittance in some countries.)

I'm sure there are plenty of people, Jewish and otherwise, who have not gone to Israel. And Cohen's globe-trotting for Trump's businesses may have been limited since he is a US lawyer. (Team Trump has poked at a few things in Israel). but  But if he has mentioned in interviews a trip to Israel, that might be a clue. Or maybe one of his Facebook/Instagram followers could chime in? Hmm, he has two kids - have they posted family pics from the Wailing Wall? The journalistic ethics are dubious but the insight might be priceless. ("Journalistic ethics"! I know, right? I'm off to enjoy some jumbo shrimp.)

DETAILS, DETAILS: This passage from the McClatchy report is at best wildly misleading:

But investigators have traced evidence that Cohen entered the Czech Republic through Germany, apparently during August or early September of 2016 as the ex-spy reported, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is confidential. He wouldn’t have needed a passport for such a trip, because both countries are in the so-called Schengen Area in which 26 nations operate with open borders. The disclosure still left a puzzle: The sources did not say whether Cohen took a commercial flight or private jet to Europe, and gave no explanation as to why no record of such a trip has surfaced.

Cohen would not have needed a passport at the German-Czech border, so it is true that the Czech government may have no record of his presence in their country. However, Cohen would have needed a passport to enter the Schengen region in Germany, or wherever. Ask 'em all!

 

How Do You Like Them Apples?

I can't wait to see the rest of the Comey effort:

Damn, Comey tried his hand at poetry too:

Trump
Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes,
Trump switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me;
I stare hard at his face, a stare
That deflects off his brow;
I'm sure he's unaware of his
Dark, watery eyes, that
Glance in different directions,
And his slow, unwelcome twitches,
Fail to pass.
I listen, nod,
Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,
Beige T-shirt, yelling,
Yelling in his ears, that hang
With heavy lobes, but he's still telling
His joke, so I ask why
He's so unhappy, to which he replies . . .
But I don't care anymore, cause
He took too damn long, and from
Under my seat, I pull out the
Mirror I've been saving; I'm laughing,
Laughing loud, the blood rushing from his face
To mine, as he grows small,
A spot in my brain, something
That may be squeezed out, like a
Watermelon seed between
Two fingers.
Trump takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I've got on mine and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me; he switches channels, recites an old poem
He wrote before his mother died,
Stands, shouts, and asks
For a hug, as I shink, my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; 'cause
I see my face, framed within
Trump's black-framed glasses
And know he's laughing too.

-- James Comey

Bombs Away In Syria (And Detroit)

Another deterence strike on Syria. And in Detroit.

Scooter Libby Pardoned By Trump

Let's have the Fox News version just so we know what feedback Trump is hearing.

The WH press release notes that NY Times Jailbird Judy Miller recanted, or at least regretted, her trial testimony in a 2015 book. I would say she is less central to the story than she (or the Weekly Standard) imagine, but still.

BACK IN THE DAY: In 2013 NY Timesman Peter Baker wrote about the Bush years. Bush didn't pardon Libby because he (and his lawyers) thought Libby was guilty. OK, so did yours truly, although given the posing on both sides I would have been OK with a full pardon as Bush headed out the door.

NO ONE WILL EVER CARE BUT... It's a sidebar to a sidebar but Ms. Plame's pension details would go a long way to resolving her status under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. A key point is whether CIA rules had considered her as serving abroad in the the five years before the leaks. her pension gets an upward bump for service abroad, so there is an official CIA scorecard on that. Oddly (bit not inexplicably) Special Counsel Fitzgerald buried the pension info in court filings and discovery submissions. Why would he do that if it made his case for him? Puzzling.

Back when I was younger and even more enthusiastic, I did poke at the definition of "service abroad" for government employees. I never struck gold for CIA officers, but if Ms. Plame had been a geologist with classified status the case would be clear. State Department rules also distinguish between "travel abroad" and "service abroad". As to the CIA, who knows whether they wrote their own rules on this point.

"Thorny" First Amendment Issues

Even for the Age of Trump this story by the failing NY Times is a bit of a "wow":

Investigators Focus on Another Trump Ally: The National Enquirer

President Trump has long had ties to the nation’s major media players. But his connections with the country’s largest tabloid publisher, American Media Inc., run deeper than most.

A former top executive of Mr. Trump’s casino business sits on A.M.I.’s four-member board of directors, and an adviser joined the media company after the election. The company’s chairman, David J. Pecker, is a close friend of the president’s.

And in the Trump era, A.M.I.’s flagship tabloid, The National Enquirer, has taken a decidedly political turn, regularly devoting covers to the president’s triumphs and travails with articles headlined “Trump’s Plan For World Peace!” and “Proof! FBI Plot to Impeach Trump!”

Since the early stages of his campaign in 2015, Mr. Trump, his lawyer Michael D. Cohen and Mr. Pecker have strategized about protecting him and lashing out at his political enemies.

Yeah, yeah - in consequence, the National Enquirer's decision to pay for but not publish former Playmate Karen MacDougal's story becomes a suspect campaign contribution. The Times really pounds the table in defense of editorial discretion:

The federal inquiry could pose serious legal implications for the president and his campaign committee. It also presents thorny questions about A.M.I.’s First Amendment protections, and whether its record in supporting Mr. Trump somehow opens the door to scrutiny usually reserved for political organizations.

"Thorny questions". My goodness, the Times was bailed out in 2009 by Carlos Slim, a wealthy Mexican. Does this raise "thorny questions" about their commitment to undocumented immigrants? Of course not, because they say it doesn't. 

Now obviously, Mr. Slim knew the Times was reliably progressive when he bought them, so he didn't need them to change their views on anything. But the National Enquirer has been making money off of Clinton scandals for decades. Maybe the AMI people simply decided that, in mirror image to the Times Upper West Side readership, their readers wanted material that bashed Hillary and praised Trump. They do tell the Times it was a business decision driven by the popularity of Trump with their readership. Plausible? Sure. Legal? Say what now?

If all AMI did was pick a side in pursuit of an audience, my goodness. That is well worth investigating because we all know that the mainstream media would never trade sympathetic coverage for access that can boost prestige, circulation and ratings. Please.

As to aggressive coverage of sex scandals by the mainstream media, well, that may be ideologically contingent - back in 2007-08, John Edwards and Rielle Hunter were a tabloid-based open secret (gullible Media Matters link) for months before the "responsible" media decided to jump in. Why they might today rush to bash Trump based on mere allegations is hard to understand. No it's not. Is the National Inquirer being investigated for spiking a story which the Times would never lower itself to touch? Too thorny!

At this juncture, I must glumly acknowledge that the DoJ, with some establishment Republicans at the top, did persuade a judge to issue a warrant because something was afoot. I just hope that whatever they find is serious and convincing.

As to the 'thorny questions', the Times concludes with this:

At the center of the campaign finance inquiries will be whether the ties between Mr. Cohen, Mr. Howard, Mr. Pecker, Mr. Trump and others led A.M.I. to act more like a political supporter than a news organization.

The group that brought the federal election complaint, Common Cause, claims the payment for Ms. McDougal’s story was not a “legitimate press function” and therefore was not protected by rules exempting news organizations from campaign finance regulations.

The question represents tricky terrain for federal officials, given the protection journalists have under the First Amendment. “We always worry when investigators are making those judgment calls about whether your editorial process is legitimate or not, or is this legitimate journalism or not,” said Alexandra Ellerbeck, the North America program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Yet even the staunchest defenders of the press say fraudulent activity is not protected by journalistic freedoms.

“We are not, as media organizations, immune from the civil and criminal laws of the country,” said Sandra S. Baron, a senior fellow at Yale Law School and the former executive director of the Media Law Resource Center.

Hmm. Is paying for stories a "legitimate press function"? That is how the National Enquirer broke the case of the murderer of Bill Cosby's son. They also paid Rush Limbaugh's housekeeper for the scoop that got Rush busted for his oxycontin habit - I bet that looked legit to Common Cause.

To paraphrase slightly, the dark night of fascism is always descending on the right yet arriving from the left.

Here We Go Again

The traditional "This time we mean it" Yankees-BoSox open thread.

Or folks who want to taunt the Russkies can do that.

That Went Well

Let's have a traditional WTF is it now open thread. We can even talk about how overpowering the Yankees will be this season.

A Big Deal

The NY Times on the FBI raid on Michael Cohen's office.

Ken White on What It Means:

The Very Big News of the day: FBI Agents raided the law office of Michael Cohen, President Trump's lawyer who was involved in payment of $130,000 to adult performer "Stormy Daniels" for a nondisclosure agreement.

Recently I've been listening to the Podcast "Slow Burn," about Watergate. There's a fascinating theme throughout it: when you're living a historical event, how do you know? How can you tell when a development is a Big Deal?

This is a big deal. It's very early on, but here's some things we can already tell.

Read it all! But his gist is that this sort of warrant and search is extraordinary, requires extensive DoJ review, and could never be the result of a whim and a rogue. That leads one to infer there is a convincing and important 'there' there.

That said, as Constitutional coups go, this better be convincing and important. The folks who see this as Trump versus the Washington Establishment (and they (we?) are mutinous and multitudinous) won't be impressed by a criminal referral related to campaign finance violations around a 12 year old dalliance with a stripper (Hold the front page - Trump cheats on his wives and is a general sleaze!).

And the energy with which Trump has been pursued contrasts starkly with the "See No Evil" approach taken to Hillary. With Trump's attorney under fire, let's hand the mic to Andrew McCarthy on the deference Obama's DoJ gave to Hillary's "attorney" Cheryl Mills, who was involved in the email debacle as Hillary's chief of staff, not her counsel. Whatever, right?

Ahh, the stock market is up this morning on easing of trade tensions, the Thunder finally clinched a playoff spot, and the scuffling Yankees take on the Red Sox tonight. Lots of good news imminent!

All My Heroes Are Dead

All my heroes are dead and I don't feel so well myself. My main man in golf, Jordan Spieth, was on the verge of an epic, historic record-breaking comeback at the Masters. In brief,after seventeen holes on Sunday he was on the verge of setting records for all-time lowest single round record and biggest comeback, not to mention, winning the damn tournament. Instead, at the eighteenth tee he hit one into the tress, so ooops.

I flipped the channel in time to catch my Yankees trailing 8-7 in extra innings. Oh, dear! But a two walks and an error loaded the bases for Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, the 2017 homerun champions of the American and National League, the 2017 NL MVP and 2017 Al MVP runner-up. Suffice it to say the sky was brightening over Yankee Stadium.

So of course Judge taps back to the pitcher for an easy double play and Stanton strikes out for the fifth time that game. Ouch. And boo.

Both epic comebacks failed. But stock futures are up! And that comeback won't be foiled until tomorrow.

 

Saturday Afternoon

Go, Jordan Spieth!

Nick Kristof On Gun Control

Nick Kristof explains how to win a gun control argument. His approach seems to be, baffle them with statistics and misleading comparisons. To his credit, he finally acknowledges that the Times and other gun control advocates routinely include suicides when discussing gun deaths. He does not take that point to any logical resting place however.

My reaction:

Broadly, if the goal is to reduce gun suicides the talk about a ban on semiautomatic rifles and large capacity magazines is irrelevant - we don't have a national epidemic of people shooting themselves fifteen times and bleeding out. I should note that Mr. Kristof himself threw in the towel on an assault weapons ban a while back, but (unlike in boxing) a towel can always be picked up again, and semiautomatic rifle bans (broader than a mere assault weapons ban) are certainly being discussed in progressive circles.

Or if we swing the focus back to gun homicides, when the firearm is known (about 3/4 of the time), handguns are used about 90% of the time. Semiautomatic rifles aren't what the gangbangers on the mean streets of Chicago and St Louis are shooting at each other. Folks seriously concerned about homicides and suicides should be arguing about a handgun ban, and good luck with the pesky Heller decision, the politics and eventual enforcement there.

IMHO, what remains true is that many people have examined their lives and concluded that they are:

(a) not involved with criminal activity, especially drug-related;
(b) not in an abusive domestic relationship,
(c) not suicidal, and
(d) not living in a crime-ridden neighborhood

For those fortunate many, the most visible remaining risk of gun violence is a random shooting at a mall, theater, or (for kids and young adults) school.

That sort of mass shooting death kills about 26 people per year (on average since 1966, per the Washington Post). Recent headlines make me suspect the trend is not favorable, a Bold Insight supported by Grant Duwe.

My strong impression is that most of the current public outcry is about the 1% of gun deaths that are relevant to the lives of successful Times readers and suburban parents of school kids, not the 99% of gun deaths that actually kill people.

CALL ME CRAZY: An example of Statistics In Action: Here is Nick Kristof:

There is no constitutional objection to, say, universal background checks to obtain a gun. It’s crazy that 22 percent of guns are obtained without a check.

His link is to a study which does present that 22% figure (transfers in the past two years). As shown by a blue arrow, the dreaded "gun show loophole" was relevant in 3% of aggregate transfers and involved NO background check 22% of the time. Over the past two years the gun shows were 4% of transfers, none without a background check. So the loophole is rarely applied and the background check is rarely avoided, but whatever.

Meanwhile (highlighted in red) roughly 40% of transfers are purchases from a family member, friend or acquaintance (10%), gift or inheritance (25%) or unknown(4%). Call me crazy, but background checks on birthday presents from a devoted spouse to his or her significant other may not be the national crisis with which we need to contend.

Today's Sign Of The Apocalypse

The coming Africa crack-up.

YouTube Shooting

A woman seems to have wounded her boyfriend and others before killing herself at YouTube.

Loyola Out But The Good Times Roll On

My dearly departed dad, James Kelly (JK) Maguire passed away years ago but his long-ago prank is seemingly ageless.

Happy Easter.

Legal and Illegal

The Times settles an argument no one is making:

The Myth of the Criminal Immigrant

The Trump administration’s first year of immigration policy has relied on claims that immigrants bring crime into America. President Trump’s latest target is sanctuary cities.

“Every day, sanctuary cities release illegal immigrants, drug dealers, traffickers, gang members back into our communities,” he said last week. “They’re safe havens for just some terrible people.”

They quote Trump mentioning "illegal" immigrants, and one might wonder just what sort of sanctuary legal immigrants are granted in a sanctuary city, but the rest of the article is about all immigrants, legal or otherwise. That certainly pins down the question of whether tech engineers on H1-B visas are a crime risk. As to why Trump might need a border wall to keep out legsal immigrants, don't ask.

They do provide a fun chart:

I know they will like this chart too:

1993 was a peak year for crime, so baseline games are being played here. Still, case closed, right?

Time's Up On Wall Street

The NY Times exposes a horrific Morgan Stanley honcho. Geez, sexual harassers and abusers on Wall Street - who knew? My two cents, relying on my fading memory, is that Hollywood and the Legacy Media needed to clean their own houses in order to maintain a shred of credibility as the Trump Resistance. As a related example - Al Franken was getting a pass from his fellow Dem Senators until polls showed that the Democrats might actually win in Alabama if they showed a bit of consistency while screaming about the shenanigans of Republican nominee Roy Moore.

In any case, the political imperatives of Wall Street and Big Business are different, so they got off easy. So far.

Here To Help

They're from the Medicare branch of the government and they're here to help:

Medicare Is Cracking Down on Opioids. Doctors Fear Pain Patients Will Suffer.

Officials are close to limiting doses of the painkillers, but doctors say doing so could put older patients into withdrawal or lead them to buy deadly street drugs.

Jacob Sullum of Reason covered this in frightening detail.

 

Gun Control Made Simple

Retired Supreme Court Justice Stevens bloviates in the Times about gun control. Like many public speakers he warms up the audience with a joke:

John Paul Stevens: Repeal the Second Amendment

No, that is the headline, not the joke, Wait for it...

Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday.

Oh, please. Not since the last big march, or the one before that, or the one before that, or... no wait, that was the deplorable Tea Party rally.

Look, liberals live in cities. They have no trouble rousting the faithful for a quick bus ride and a bit of sloganeering. Later they watch themselves on the news and convince themselves that the country has spoken. Come election time they are shocked to learn about flyover country and the unreconstructed troglodytes lurking there. How has this escaped the learned Justice Stevens?

The headline is a spoiler but eventually he reveals his latest fantasy:

That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms. But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.

Does the Justice realize that "semiautomatic weapons" includes most handguns sold today? It's times like this that the aggressive ignorance of the gun controllers makes a sensible conversation difficult. 

As to repealing the Second Amendment, please - that would require a runaway Constitutional convention (exciting!) or a 2/3 vote in each chamber of Congress and then ratification by 38 states. Has he looked at an electoral map? 

Evidently not:

Overturning [District of Columbia v. Heller] via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.

That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday’s marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform. 

"Simple". Right, a Congress that won't expand background checks will vote to repeal the Second Amendment.

Back in Realityville, this is yet another reason for progressives to regret the nomination of the Hillary Clinton. Had she manged to eke out a 2016 win (YES, in the Electoral College - sort of like how the team with more first downs does not beat the team with more points) she could have picked the replacement to Justice Scalia. Five lockstep liberals would then have "interpreted" the reasonable regulation caveats of Heller to cast the Second Amendment into oblivion.

Well, we dodged a bullet, as it were. As to Justice Stevens' goal here, this may simply be a cry for help from a deranged mind. More charitably, his hope may be to plant the crazy flag so far to the left that the formerly ludicrous - e.g., a renewed assault weapons ban - seems sane by comparison. He's trying to crack open the Overton Window a bit.

A Hero In France

'Unhappy is the land that needs a hero' was never more true. Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame showed remarkable courage and character.

Saturday Afternoon

Here we go again!

McMaster Out, Bolton In

Maybe new NSA Bolton will deliver a Nixon-to-China endorsement, or at least grumbled acceptance, of the Iran deal? Here's hopng! Or maybe we can be scuffling with North Korea, Iran and China without a Secretary of State.

Corporate Fascism, But In A Good Cause!

The party of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders turns to the Big Banks to do their legislative lifting:

Citigroup Sets Restrictions on Gun Sales by Business Partners

Citigroup is setting restrictions on the sale of firearms by its business customers, making it the first Wall Street bank to take a stance in the divisive nationwide gun control debate.

The new policy, announced Thursday, prohibits the sale of firearms to customers who have not passed a background check or who are younger than 21. It also bars the sale of bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. It would apply to clients who offer credit cards backed by Citigroup or borrow money, use banking services or raise capital through the company.

The rules, which the company described as “common-sense measures,” echo similar restrictions established by some major retailers, like Walmart. But they also represent the boldest such move to emerge from the banking sector.

"Common sense". My common sense (not to mention the NY Times its bad self) tells me that age discrimination is illegal in New York and many other states. Is Citicorp dropping any clients who won't ignore the law, does their corporate policy apply in states where allowed but not New York, or is this a bit of a PR stunt abetted by agenda-driven cheerleading, aka "reporting"?

Yet Another Snow Day!

If I don't hurry outside and rev up the Greatest Toy Ever this snow, too, shall pass.

As Much As I Hate Seeing A Nazi Win Something...

The Republicans in Illinois-3 managed to draw some ghastly headlines which will be fodder for late night comedians and Paul Krugman. The NY Times manages a bit of fairness and balance:

Denounced by His Party as a Nazi, Arthur Jones Wins Illinois G.O.P. Congressional Primary

Say what?

Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier described as a Nazi by the Illinois Republican Party, won the Republican primary on Tuesday in the state’s Third Congressional District, a heavily Democratic district that includes part of Chicago and its suburbs, according to The Associated Press.

Mr. Jones, 70, unsuccessfully sought the nomination five times before, and his victory on Tuesday was a foregone conclusion after the Republican Party failed to draft another candidate to enter the race against him.

The Times coverage is decent but overlooks a lot. The short version is this: the incumbent, Dan Lipinski, is a pro-life anti-ObamaCare Blue Dog Democrat who was locked in a near-death struggle with a progressive challenger. The Nazi, Jones, had been kept off the ballot in cycles past by the invocation of technicalities. So the plan was to DQ Jones and let Republican crossover voters in the primary keep Lipinski alive. Since Lipinski won, barely, that part of the plan succeeded.

In 2016, for example, the Republican Party also failed to run a conventional candidate. Jones was the only one to submit signatures but the party managed to disqualify him to keep him off the primary ballot. They had the same plan for 2018 but Jones outmaneuvered them with a last-minute filing:

How did this happen? Jones, a perennial candidate, snookered the GOP.

Nobody else ran as a Republican in the primary because politics is a results-oriented business and the chance of a Republican winning are slim. The boundaries were drawn by Democrats to elect a Democrat. Rep. Dan Lipinski, the incumbent, will face Marie Newman in the Democratic primary, and one of those two will win on Nov. 6. There are other Democratic strongholds in the Chicago area featuring a lone Republican. It can be a Maytag repairman-like assignment.

...

Jones, who campaigned for the same seat in the 2016 primary, was removed from the ballot that year after the Illinois Republican Party found paperwork errors and filed a successful objection to his candidacy with the state Board of Elections. The GOP tried to do the same this election cycle, but Jones had cleaned up his paperwork. He also appears to have kept a low profile, collecting signatures to meet eligibility requirements by going door-to-door and then waiting until the Dec. 4, 2017, deadline to file. If only others had noticed.

And beyond that, Republicans were backing Blue Dog Democrat Dan Lipinski against a progressive opponent.

If [challenger] Newman decides to run in 2020, she’d be the favorite in the race. This cycle, an actual neo-Nazi ran unopposed in the GOP primary in the 3rd District. Because the state has an open-primary system, Republican voters in the district could have chosen to vote in the Democratic primary and back Lipinski. (The irony of a Bernie Sanders-backed candidate losing thanks to crossover votes in an open primary was not lost on Twitter.)

Sophia Olazaba, a field manager for the Newman campaign, said she doesn’t doubt that some Republican voters crossed over. “Even when we were canvassing, a lot of homes have had both Jeanne Ives and Dan Lipinski signs, so those people could have crossed over,” she said, referring to the GOP gubernatorial candidate whose entire campaign was premised on her opposition to legal abortion.

Another volunteer, Sabrina Ithal, also from the 3rd district, mentioned that the open primary format could have actually worked in their favor: “I converted quite a few Republicans who voted Democrat for the first time in 30-40 years today.”

The Susan B. Anthony List, a group that opposes legal abortion, made re-electing Lipinski a major priority, dumping big money into the race and working the ground to get out the anti-abortion vote on his behalf.

So the Republicans had a strategy - leave their primary line open, disqualify Jones if he showed up (a timeless Illinois ploy familiar to Obama fans and foes) and hope their voters kept Lipinski afloat. And it could have worked, just as Virginia could have advanced in the NCAA tournament.

But Jones stayed under the radar while gathering signatures, didn't flaunt his views, and filed on the last day. Ooops! From The Atlantic:

And just as the Illinois Republicans failed to find a challenger for Jones, another safeguard of the political system seems to have broken down, as well: The state’s ballot-access guidelines, which Mooney told me are intended to “limit the fringe element from cluttering up the ballot,” required Jones to get the signatures of 603 registered voters. I spoke with multiple people who signed Jones’s petition, and they were shocked to learn they had supported the candidacy of a former Nazi. “I probably just signed it because he asked me to,” said 63-year-old Linda Florczak-Wieser of LaGrange when I called her on Wednesday. Another voter from nearby Worth said she didn’t even recall signing the petition in the first place. And when I asked 93-year-old Alice Brunell how she felt about Jones’s views, the Bridgeview resident replied incredulously, “I didn’t know that!”

The peril and promise of these ballot access rules is that ordinary registered voters are empowered - the party bosses cannot unilaterally dismiss reform minded, "rage against the machine" candidates like in the good old days. On the other hand, sometimes shit happens.

It's easy to be an ex-post genius, but suppose the Republicans had run their own candidate but, because their energy and money was with Lipinski, the Nazi won anyway? Really bad.

Or suppose the Republicans opposed the Nazi, put some effort into it, and managed to see both Lipinski and the Nazi lose. Will that be helpful this November? 

The local Republicans had a plan that could have worked perfectly but didn't. That doesn't mean the alternative plans didn't also have paths to poor results.

Apparently Republicans will muster a write-in sacrificial lamb for the November vote. And Krugman, Oliver and the other progressive entertainers will have their fun.

MORE: Dan McLaughlin of NRO has lots more.

"A Very Capable School Resource Officer"

There are not good school shootings but this one in Maryland could have been worse, but for the intervention of the armed school resource officer:

(CNN)The school shooting was over in seconds. But it could have dragged on longer and proven deadlier were it not for the rapid response of a school resource officer.

When a 17-year-old gunman walked into Maryland's Great Mills High School on Tuesday, the swift action of the school's sole resource officer, Blaine Gaskill, was instrumental in bringing the incident to a quick end.

Gaskill's response was hailed as an example of exactly what a resource officer is supposed to do in such a circumstance, particularly when contrasted to the actions of the security officer in last month's shooting in Parkland, Florida. (In the incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, the armed school resource deputy waited outside the school building as the shooter gunned down students inside.)

...

As soon as the gunfire began, Gaskill rushed to the scene. He fired a round at the shooter, who also fired a round at the same time, Cameron said.

It's not yet clear whether the shooter, Austin Wyatt Rollins, was felled by the officer's bullet or killed himself.

"DFC [Deputy First Class] Gaskill fired at the shooter ... almost simultaneously as the shooter fired," Cameron said. "This is something we train, practice and in reality, hope would never come to fruition. This is our worst nightmare."

Gov. Larry Hogan called Gaskill "a very capable school resource officer who also happened to be a SWAT team member." "This is a tough guy who apparently closed in very quickly and took the right kind of action," he said. "And while I think it's still tragic, he may have saved other people's lives."

I think Gaskill will be making a trip to the White House.

Tech Panic

I need to figure out how to log on to my long-dormant Facebook account so I can delete it. Or Make America Great Again. Either way.

"Lacking Candor"

It's good to be a high-ranking FBI official, even if forced to resign.

Blue Eats Blue, California Style

OK, this is pretty funny, if you like weedy political arcana. Out in California they have open primaries where the top two finishers end up on the November ballot. In a number of House districts there are so many Democrats hoping to lead The Resistance this fall that a number of primaries are shaping up as two Republicans versus ten or so Democrats.

For those with a modest flair for math (i.e., not a lot of Blue consultants) this creates a real possibility that in swing districts the two Republicans will split around 50 percent of the vote and ten Dems will split the remainder. The two candidates with the most votes will be Republicans, which will make it hard for the Dems to win the seat in November. Ooops!

Once again, the left hand doesn't know what the far left hand is doing.

"Clinton Cash" Follow Up

Peter Schweitzer, the author of "Clinton Cash", has a new book coming. Since everyone else is aiming for Trump, he is following the lonely trail of the Obama Administration. Believe it or not, Joe Biden and John Kerry seemed to be helping their kids enrich themselves.