April 2023 – Page 2 – Libertate Virtute (Virtue + Liberty)

The indictment of Donald Trump by Manhattan DA Bragg leaves America ... — Trump (l) and Alvin Bragg

“It’s legally pathetic.” — Law professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University School of Law on the Trump indictment on Bret Baier’s “Special Report” program, Thursday (3/31/2023). See the Turley interview below.

Yep, Bragg pulled the trigger. Alvin Bragg’s indictment crusade against Trump is more than legally pathetic. It’s more proof that the United States is descending into a banana republic. The moral distance between us and Putin’s Russia is shrinking.

Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s KGB chief and close confidant, once said, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Putin follows the same script, and now we must add Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and the Democratic Party’s vigilante posse to the list of the maxim’s adherents. But there’s a big “if”, if what has long been reported on the case is accurate. I’m skeptical of anything new on a case that has been combed and vacuumed by the party’s hitmen in the DOJ and Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance, Jr., for at least six years. All of it came to naught . . . until Bragg ascended the throne of vigilante-in-chief in ultra-blue Manhattan.

In a nutshell, the case appears to be the brew of a legally dead accusation (vaguely worded accounting entry) hitched to another murky, hypothetical federal one (an enigmatic federal campaign finance violation) in order to conjure a felony and escape the statute of limitations. Got that? And this from a guy whose campaign pledge was to get Trump. According to ABC News,

“During the campaign, Bragg spoke openly about the DA’s investigations into Trump and cited his experience in the AG’s office as a qualification. He won the election and assumed office in January 2022, becoming the first Black Manhattan DA.”

Who is Alvin Bragg? What You Need to Know About the Manhattan DA Who ... — Alvin Bragg campaigning for the office of Manhattan DA in 2021.

In an electoral cluster hot to hang Trump, Bragg was rewarded with the keys to power. Vendetta justice is chic in Manhattan. Good luck in gathering a fair-minded jury from that snake pit.

By the way, don’t let the 34 counts in the indictment fool you. In Turley’s words, it’s just “count stacking” by multiplying the same charge in each one of multiple evidentiary documents in Bragg’s possession – a favorite ploy to sell the unsaleable.

Funny thing about Bragg, he cares more about the vocabulary on an accounting ledger and federal law outside his jurisdiction than robbery with a deadly weapon within his jurisdiction. He was caught red-handed when the public learned of him issuing an office staff directive shortly after moving into his sinecure. It ordered staff to not prosecute certain crimes while ordering a downgrade of entire classes of assaults and robberies. Playing footsie with the statute books, five classes of armed robberies will be reduced to misdemeanor larceny and third-degree robbery charges – “forcibly steals property” – are to be dropped entirely. He works overtime to hang Trump on phantom charges while the city’s streets and subways become war zones. Let Christopher Herrmann, professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, paint the picture for Bragg: “. . . crime is up in New York City, and it’s up quite a bit.” And to think that Bragg is working to release the miscreants back onto the streets. Is this guy out this mind?

If anything, rather than pursue Trump, Bragg should be investigated because he is in open defiance of his oath of office and thus deserving of impeachment. He swore to the following oath upon taking office (see below): “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the State of New York, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of ……, according to the best of my ability.” Does “faithfully discharging the duties of the office” cover categorical refusals to prosecute certain categories of crimes? Bragg, with the wave of his hand, has, in effect, repealed entire sections of the New York state penal code. Sounds to me like Bragg is in open rebellion against his oath of office. Prosecutorial discretion doesn’t apply to blanket reductions in charging decisions and refusals to prosecute. Instead, that’s a DA with a Caesar complex itching for removal from office.

I can’t, with a straight face, look upon our role in monitoring the behavior of other countries as if we are a beacon of decency. Look at us: we advance racism under the guise of anti-racism; abortion up to and including infanticide is ballyhooed; our children are robbed of their innocence in curriculums littered in gay porn; child sexual mutilation is a protected activity in some of our states; much of Hollywood’s exports are a moral afront to other cultures; our elections aren’t a model to be emulated as we shotgun ballots hither and yon and have meltdowns counting them; our fiscal incontinence is putting us in the same category with Argentina; education in America for Americans is a scandal; and the world sees a form of justice that is already frighteningly familiar to them. Our moral high ground is collapsing into a sinkhole.

The foregoing indictment of our country, mostly brought to us by the neo-Marxists in our midst, is making us an embarrassment. Bragg’s indictment will in all probability add more shame to our growing ignoble reputation.

Trump Indictment

RogerG

Read more here:

* “Alvin Bragg made tough-on-Trump record central to campaign for DA”, Joseph Clark, The Washington Times, 3/31/2023, at https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/mar/31/alvin-bragg-made-his-tough-trump-record-central-hi/

* “What to know about the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Jr., who will be prosecuting Trump”, Iban Pereira, ABC News, 3/31/2023, at https://abcnews.go.com/US/manhattan-da-alvin-bragg-jr-prosecuting-trump/story?id=97989545

* “Let’s break down exactly what Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s memo says”, Nicole Gelinas, The New York Post, 1/11/2022, at https://nypost.com/2022/01/11/lets-break-down-exactly-what-manhattan-da-alvin-braggs-memo-says/

* “New York Constitution Article XIII – Public Officers; Section 1 – Oath of office; no other test for public office”, JUSTIA US Law, at https://law.justia.com/constitution/new-york/article-xiii/section-1/

* “The Trump Indictment: Making History in the Worst Possible Way”, Jonathan Turley, Jonathan Turley: Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks, 3/31/2023, at https://jonathanturley.org/2023/03/31/the-trump-indictment-making-history-in-the-worst-possible-way/

Nashville school shooting: Trans community fears backlash after attack ... — Nashville killer in hallway of Covenant School as she hunts for more victims (from school surveillance camera).

People pray during a community vigil held for the people killed during the Covenant School shooting on March 28, 2023, in Mount Juliet, Tenn. — People pray during a community vigil for the victims of the Nashville Covenant School shooting spree in nearby Mount Juliet, Tenn., on March 28, 2023. (photo: Andrew Nelles, AP)

This past Monday a young woman, age 28, walked into an elementary school in Nashville and murdered three children and three adults. I was nearly brought to tears watching the police body cam footage that shows courageous police officers in a frantic rush through the rooms and finally ending the madness by killing the shooter. The tears were for the shock and horror of children having to face another murderous miscreant. Quite frankly, it was hard to watch. Prayers go out to all the families who now have a huge hole in their hearts to bear, and to the parents of the killer who now must continue their lives knowing that their child is a mass murderer. Thinking about it, the sadness must be almost unendurable.

After these events, and even more horrifying, we’ve seen people too regularly jump to their agenda in grotesque exploitation. The president, Monday, went before the press to comment on the event and opened with a standup comedy routine and then shifted to his favorite hobby horse of gun control (see below). The bodies are still at the coroner, loved ones are devastated and groping for ways to cope, and a president shames himself before cameras and microphones. The White House scene was obscene.

We don’t know much at this stage about the shooter and her motive. It’s far too easy for us to join the crowd and connect the tragedy to our personal social and political hobby horses. I will try to refrain from doing that. Yet, there are certain aspects about the shooter to come to light that may or may not be relevant. Absent evidence, though, keep in mind that the known facts of her trans-identity as a man and the killing spree should be treated as unrelated at this moment.

But it doesn’t mean that killings by a trans person suddenly prevents us from continuing our public discussion on transgenderism and the strong possibility of a social contagion. Regardless of the outcome of this investigation, this debate must proceed for the stakes are too great for our children.

The argument against a trans social contagion relies on a suspension of common sense. Peer pressure and social media contagions apply everywhere else but magically they are blocked from operating on this topic. The entire advertising industry and cancel culture rely on the triggering aspect of peer pressure. People buy Coke over Pepsi (and vice versa) and censorship on campus is justified by alleged “hurts” that transmit through the social ether of the student body. Sorry, the argument lacks merit.

And other facts clearly point to a social contagion. Where is trans-identity most prevalent? It isn’t evenly distributed. Madeleine Kearns (see below) has followed the subject for quite some time. She noticed that California has young people identifying “as trans at a nearly 38 percent higher rate than the national average”. In the very progressive California city of Davis, according to numbers provided by the Davis Unified School District, the rate is three times that of California. What is there in the California social eco-system that is causing a teen rush to transgenderism? The scale of the increase suggests something more than children are now free to expose their inner trans self.

Trans-identity certainly happens everywhere but concentrations strongly imply a contagion is at work. A bump in the numbers not only occurs by geographical location but also by sex. Just a short time ago, it was boys who mostly suffered from gender-dysphoria. Now, it’s girls by two to one. What happened? Social media happened as other influences were locked down during the pandemic. Kids were isolated in long stretches with their cellphones. The isolation and the well-known sensitivity of teenage girls about their bodies brews a perfect storm.

Consider this: any husband will rue the day he ever suggested to his wife that she is getting a bit plump.

My position on the social contagion aspect of transgenderism is unrelated to the Nashville event. Her trans-identity didn’t pull the trigger. Until proven otherwise, trans people aren’t prone to murder any more than anyone else. The willingness to take life stems from something much deeper in the cranial recesses than gender dysphoria, genitalia, or chromosomes.

That said, we need to take seriously the fact that young people are intensely more impressionable than some gratuitously let on. Drag queen story hours, anal and oral sex picture books for adolescents, the instant networking of tweens/teens on their cellphones, the pervasive online content, and parental detachment from the lives of their children make for a toxic brew. Are we weaponizing normal tween/teen insecurities into rampant dissatisfaction with their bodies? Yes, we appear to be. Its modern manifestation is transgenderism.

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RogerG

Month: April 2023

Legally Pathetic

The Nashville School Shooting and a Trans Social Contagion