My latest newsletter explains that I have been working on a (currently 8000+ word) post about Radley Balko’s ridiculous mischaracterization of Coleman Hughes’s article about the Derek Chauvin trial. BUT, given that it’s taking so long to get out, I thought I would first toss out a short (OK, maybe not so short, as it’s 4000+ words) review of Coleman’s new book on colorblindness. 2700 free words — and for the paid subscribers, another 2000+ words and a book giveaway.

First, an excerpt from the free portion:

[T]here is genuine reason to believe that adherents of neoracism believe that white people are inferior, and that historically marginalized races are superior. And people seem to take this for granted, like there is nothing unusual about it. This is not a healthy attitude for society.

The whole notion of black racial superiority can take very odd forms, though. It can actually manifest itself in a way that sounds very much like the ravings of a traditional white supremacist. For example, a former chancellor of the New York City schools used a book to teach administrators that deems traits like “perfectionism,” “objectivity,” and “worship of the written word” to be a part of “White Supremacy Culture” that should not be taught to black students. Coleman notes:

The National Museum of African American History and Culture even included a graphic in its website (which was later removed) claiming that hard work, self-reliance, and the nuclear family were attributes of “white dominant culture.”

Doesn’t it remind you of that classic Ryan Long sketch with the woke guy and the racist who agree on everything?

You can easily imagine these guys looking at each other and chanting in unison: “perfectionism, hard work, and self-reliance are attributes of white culture!” Wow, you believe that too?! How great is that?!?!

I actually think the portion for paid subscribers is more interesting, as it has my (minor) criticisms of the book, which mostly revolve around Coleman not applying a critical enough lens to some of the arguments of the Ibram X. Kendi crowd. Fortunately, I have some Substack articles of my own that fill that gap.

Plus, the free book giveaway. As of the publication of this post there are still two unclaimed copies.

Read it here. Subscribe here.

I posted this morning about my recent prediction that the sheep in this country who bleated their disapproval of the Trump New York indictment would change their tune. The latest evidence comes from Mark Joseph Stern, in his piece I Was a Skeptic of the Stormy Daniels Prosecution. I Was Wrong. Stern is a commentator for whom I have no respect (I am calling him a sheep, remember), so don’t think my citation of his piece signals approval of him or anything he said. But his conversion further portends the direction of the rest of the crowd of mindless woolybacks.

When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought criminal charges against Donald Trump in 2023, I was highly skeptical of his decision. It seemed at the time that other indictments would soon follow, and that they would rest on far firmer legal ground than this one. Over the past year, though, I have realized that my initial doubts about Bragg’s indictment were misplaced.

. . . .

Last year, I was uncertain whether this scheme, while sordid, rose to the level of a felony offense. I am now convinced that, if proved that he took these actions, it surely does. The falsification of business records is, by itself, a misdemeanor under New York law, but it’s a felony when it’s done with the “intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” In his indictment, Bragg claims that Trump lied about the payments with the intent to violate election law, which is what elevates the crime to a felony.

As an aside, I would love to challenge Stern to point to me exactly where, in the indictment he linked, he finds the claim that Trump lied about the payments with the intent to violate election law. I do not find that claim in the indictment. Do you? And, in fact, there are other possible underlying crimes Bragg has cited, like tax fraud. But please, let’s allow the bleating to continue:

Initially, I was suspicious of this theory; what election law, exactly, was the former president attempting to violate? The district attorney’s initial statement of facts was hazy on this crucial point, raising the possibility that he couldn’t tie the underlying fraud to a state or federal statute.

Turns out he could. Bragg has argued, convincingly, that the former president intended to violate at least two election laws—one state, one federal. First, Bragg asserted that Trump and Cohen ran afoul of the Federal Election Campaign Act by making unlawful campaign contributions (in the form of a payoff) at the direction of a candidate (that is, Trump). Cohen already pleaded guilty for this very act in federal court, so it is hardly a stretch to accuse Trump of intending to break the law by participating in the crime. Second, Bragg argued that Trump ran afoul of a New York election law that forbids any conspiracy “to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.” The district attorney claimed that Trump intended to violate this statute by committing fraud in order to secure his own victory in 2016.

There is nothing especially creative about these theories; they are not an example of prosecutors stretching the law to its breaking point so it can fit over the facts of a questionable case. The application of both federal and state election codes, and their interplay with the underlying violation of New York’s business records law, is straightforward.

Stern has completely missed the theory about tax fraud being another potential underlying crime. That’s OK. You guys aren’t reading Stern for insight into the Bragg prosecution. If you want that, you’d read my Substack, where I covered the tax fraud theory in detail.

On the eve of the trial, it is now apparent that the prosecutors are on firm legal ground. They have effectively neutralized Trump’s plan to kill the case before it can be tried on the facts.

Yeah, well, it was apparently to many of us long before the eve of trial. But the herd had not yet moved in the direction of praising the New York case. Now it is starting to move in that direction. So it’s safe for sheep like Stern to move with the crowd.

I just hope New York prosecutors have more than Michael Cohen, because otherwise these sheep are headed for the mutton house.

But I think the prosecutors have it. I’m not worried. And if I become worried, you’ll be the first to know.

Because I’m not a sheep.

Jury selection in Donald Trump’s New York prosecution for felony falsification of business records begins today. Regular readers know that, while I have acknowledged that this case is the least consequential of the four criminal cases Trump faces, I believe the case is legally sound. I have written many lengthy pieces on my Substack (and one at The Dispatch) defending the prosecution, which — if the prosecutors have more than Michael Cohen, and I think they do — may turn out to be a substantial case indeed.

I said in February: “it is also a real possibility that about a month from now, the Conventional Wisdom will start to turn. And that people will realize: hey, this actually is a serious case after all.”

OK, it took a couple of months (I thought the trial was going to start in March) but I think it’s starting to happen. As an example, I present to you the case of one Jed Shugerman, who took to the pages of the New York Times last year to declare the case a “legal embarrassment” but now is backing away from that opinion. Shugerman was interviewed for a piece that came out in the New Yorker yesterday and his comments are enlightening:

Last year, after the indictment was announced, a Boston University law professor named Jed Shugerman wrote a blunt Op-Ed in the Times titled “The Trump Indictment Is a Legal Embarrassment.” Shugerman is no Trump fan; he just had questions about the strength of the case. “Even if it survives a challenge that could reach the Supreme Court, a trial would most likely not start until at least mid-2024, possibly even after the 2024 election,” he wrote.

Part of this skepticism had to do with the novel way in which Bragg brought the charges against Trump. In New York, falsifying a business record is a misdemeanor. The crime can be bumped up to felony status, however, if it is done to aid and conceal a so-called underlying crime. In the Trump case, the underlying crimes referred to in the charging documents include violations of federal election law, to which Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to in 2018. Trump’s case is historic, not only because it is the first of its kind involving a former President but because it involves an unusual legal maneuver: reaching to federal law to bolster the state charges of falsifying business records. “Stretching jurisdiction,” Shugerman called it. And yet the law professor acknowledges now that he underestimated the case. “I still think people, well-intentioned people, have graded this case on a curve,” he said. But he’d been persuaded by arguments that he’d heard from colleagues and friends. “I’m now more willing to say that it’s fair for the prosecution to go forward, and for Trump to have his day in appellate court,” he said. He, too, thinks a conviction is likely.

Note the part I have bolded. This is a perfect example of the herd mentality that I alluded to in February. It’s not entirely clear whether he is saying he was persuaded by others last year, or now. My guess is: both. But either way, he’s going with the herd, and his new opinion suggests that the herd is changing its mind.

For some time, I have been in a distinct minority of legal commentators saying I thought this case had substance. But the herd said otherwise. Shugerman, in bleating his friends’ and colleagues’ opinion on the pages of the New York Times, made much of the argument that the case was preempted by federal law. But if you’re a reader of my Substack, you know that a federal judge made short work of that argument (about which I had been publicly skeptical) in an opinion that Donald Trump never even bothered to appeal. The trial judge in New York reaffirmed that he agreed recently, as I explained in another Substack piece. With developments like these, and with the trial judge throwing out just about every argument that the herd relied upon last year, the herd is beginning to sing a different tune — and Shugerman is right there with them.

I predict you’ll be seeing a lot more of this, as the herd begins to learn that PREEMPTION ARGUMENT BAAAAD, BRAGG CASE GOOD.

On Thursday I appeared on the “Beg to Differ” podcast hosted by Mona Charen, politics editor for The Bulwark. I had a great time talking about the Bragg prosecution of Trump, as well as issues about abortion and the failed attempt to impeach Joe Biden.

Having survived the Brett Kimberlin episode and prosecuted Mexican Mafia figures and such, I was not eager to be on camera, so Mona gave me a pass and let me keep my camera off. But you can listen to the audio at the home page for the podcast, here. You should be able to listen without a subscription. The episode can also be viewed on YouTube with a sort of hilarious looking silhouette of a fella in a suit in the shadows to represent me.

My goal was to avoid just blathering without purpose. I wanted any listener to come away knowing some facts or set of facts that they did not know going in. Let me know how you think I did on that score.

[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First new item

Arizona’s new but old abortion law:

The Arizona Supreme Court gave the go-ahead Tuesday to prepare to enforce a long-dormant law that bans nearly all abortions, drastically altering the legal landscape for terminating pregnancies in a state likely to have a key role in the presidential election.

The law predating Arizona’s statehood provides no exceptions for rape or incest and allows abortions only if the mother’s life is in jeopardy. Arizona’s highest court suggested doctors can be prosecuted under the 1864 law, though the opinion written by the court’s majority didn’t explicitly say that.

The Tuesday decision threw out an earlier lower-court decision that concluded doctors couldn’t be charged for performing abortions in the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The attorney general said she will not enforce the law. The abortion ban won’t go into effect immediately.

The middle ground view on abortion in the U.S. continues to be allowing a reasonable period of time in which an abortion is legal, exceptions for rape and/or incest, and if the mother’s life is endangered.

Even MAGA candidates running for office are flip-flopping and pushing back on Arizona’s new law:

Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake is actively lobbying state lawmakers to overturn a 160-year-old law she once supported that bans abortion in almost all cases, a source with knowledge of her efforts told CNN.

Lake is pushing for GOP lawmakers in her home state to repeal the law while leaving in place legislation signed in 2022 by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey that would restrict abortion to within the first 15 weeks of a pregnancy.

Second news item

The level of childish self-centeredness is a sad commentary on today’s pro-Palestinian protesters:

A graduation dinner at the home of the University of California Berkeley Law School’s Dean Erwin Chemerinsky devolved into an ugly incident after a Palestinian American Berkeley Law student who was invited to the dinner picked up a microphone and stood before the gathering…The purpose of this cartoon was to encourage students to protest a student dinner that Chemerinsky was scheduled to hold at his home.

About that dinner, as described by Chemerinsky:

On April 9, about 60 students came to our home for the dinner. All had registered in advance. All came into our backyard and were seated at tables for dinner. While guests were eating, a woman stood up with a microphone, stood on the top step in the yard, and began a speech, including about the plight of the Palestinians. My wife and I immediately approached her and asked her to stop and leave. The woman continued. When she continued, there was an attempt to take away her microphone. Repeatedly, we said to her that you are a guest in our home, please stop and leave. About 10 students were clearly with her and ultimately left as a group.

The dinner, which was meant to celebrate graduating students, was obviously disrupted and disturbed. I am enormously sad that we have students who are so rude as to come into my home, in my backyard, and use this social occasion for their political agenda.

Note:

Remarkably, the student said she had a First Amendment right to protest in Erwin’s home. Erwin, ever the teacher, actually said “the First Amendment does not apply.”

SMDH.

This clip shows the protester was asked to leave repeatedly and refused, even after the homeowners threatened to call police. She held on to the mic, risking pulling an older woman down. She said that because she was a Muslim women, she could not be touched. pic.twitter.com/hrvQ38J7Ep

— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) April 11, 2024

Third news item

Ukraine in a vicious quandary:

Forced back, Ukraine is now digging in to stop a collapse across the war’s front lines as Russian attacks and American delays leave Kyiv and its allies to confront the possibility of a painful defeat.

A $61 billion aid package has been stuck in Congress for months, leaving Ukraine exposed on the front lines — running out of ammunition and men — while its energy system now faces an onslaught that is exposing its depleted air defenses.

The shortages forced Kyiv’s military to withdraw from a key eastern city in February, and with no progress in Washington, Ukrainian soldiers are now desperately trying to hold on to their positions along some 600 miles of the front line.

“Nothing has changed: We did not have any shells then, we don’t have any shells now,” said artillery sergeant Andriy, who was part of Kyiv’s retreat from Avdiivka in February after months of intense fighting. “The Russians continue to push in packs, without stopping,” Andriy, who did not want his last name revealed as he was not authorized to speak publicly, told NBC News last week.

Reportedly, Speaker Mike Johnson is in talks with the White House about advancing an aid package. However, it doesn’t look too hopeful:

House Republican Leader Steve Scalise told reporters that Johnson had been talking with White House officials about a package that would deviate from the Senate’s $95 billion foreign security package and include several Republican demands. It comes after Johnson has delayed for months on advancing aid that would provide desperately needed ammunition and weaponry for Kyiv, trying to find the right time to advance a package that will be a painful political lift.

“There’s been no agreement reached,” Scalise said. “Obviously there would have to an agreement reached not just with the White House, but with our own members.”

Two things: Johnson faces pressure from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has threatened to oust him as speaker if he pushes ahead with Ukraine funding, and per the report:

The Republican speaker is set to travel to the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Friday to meet with Trump and has been consulting him in recent weeks on the Ukraine funding to gain his support — or at least prevent him from openly opposing the package.

This:

Congressional Republicans intend to travel to Normandy to honor the D-Day dead. But that gesture will be hollow—and worse than hollow—if they have failed to act to help the people of Ukraine in their life-and-death struggle.

Fourth news item

O.J. Simpson passed away yesterday after battling cancer. Fred Goldman, father of Ron Goldman, whom Simpson was accused of killing, responded to the news of Simpson’s death:

Simpson was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, capping off what legal analysts described at the time as the “trial of the century.”

…

“The only thing I have to say is, it’s just further reminder of Ron being gone all these years,” Fred Goldman said in a phone interview. “It’s no great loss to the world. It’s a further reminder of Ron’s being gone.”

It’s funny how those of us of a certain age remember exactly where we were when the infamous chase on the 405 freeway happened.

Fifth news item

U.S. officials warn Israel:

Israel is bracing for a worst-case scenario that U.S. officials believe could materialize within just hours — the possibility of a direct attack on Israeli soil by Iran in retaliation for a strike almost two weeks ago that killed seven Iranian military officers. Iran has vowed to take revenge for Israel killing its commanders, who were hit by an April 1 strike on the Iranian embassy in Syria’s capital.

Two U.S. officials told CBS News that a major Iranian attack against Israel was expected as soon as Friday, possibly to include more than 100 drones and dozens of missiles aimed at military targets inside the country.

The officials said it would be challenging for the Israelis to defend against an attack of such a magnitude, and while they held out the possibility that the Iranians could opt for a smaller-scale attack to avoid a dramatic escalation, their retaliation was believed to be imminent.

—Dana

[guest post by JVW]

I first encountered this last month in The Spectator but didn’t bother to write about it, but now that National Review has fleshed it out in greater detail I think this is a good opportunity to discuss Senator Bernard Sanders’ (Democrat Socialist – Vermont) truly batty idea to use federal legislation to lower the workweek from 40 to 32 hours while requiring that companies keep workers’ wages at the current levels. In other words, Lunchpail Larry and Hairnet Heidi would receive their current paycheck for working only 80% of their current workload. Overtime pay would begin on the worker’s thirty-third weekly hour, not the forty-first weekly hour spelled out in current law.

I don’t have to tell readers of this blog (with perhaps a few exceptions) what an ignorant and truly fanciful idea this is. We’ve known for a long time that the Granite State Gramsci was an economic dunderhead, a freeloader who has spent most of his adult life on the public payroll, an ideologue who has zero clue as to how private enterprise works and who labors (but not really) under a Marxist assumption that economic nirvana comes about when workers are paid more to accomplish less. To be fair, if I had drawn a legislator’s paycheck for most of my life I might be inclined to believe the same, but that’s a discussion for another time.

It doesn’t really faze me much to know that we have a United States Senator so woefully ignorant in the working of markets, so easily swayed by garbage academic studies conducted by disingenuous hacks intent upon muddying the waters with half-baked nonsense, so smugly certain of government’s ability to discover and implement the perfect solution to all that ails us. But let’s not discuss Elizabeth Warren just now, and please allow me keep the attention upon the elderly Maple Syrup Maoist. Bernard Sanders is a particular kind of useless, a shallow thinker recycling ideas that have failed elsewhere for the past 150 years as well as a rank phony and utter hypocrite living the high life while pretending to be a man of the people, even as the fruits of his ideology ensure that the people suffer from oppressive government. Writing at The Spectator, Charles Lipson sees no end to unintended consequences of Comrade Sanders’ meddling:

What do you think would actually happen if such Bernie’s law were passed, enforced and found constitutional? (None of those would actually happen, of course.) The immediate effects would be another 25 percent price increase for labor-intensive products, a huge burden on low-income consumers and an additional incentive to replace more expensive workers with machines and computers.

The substitution of capital for labor is an on-going process, but Bernie would supercharge the effort and create incentives for innovators to come up with products, machines and computer programs that performed those tasks at lower costs. The more expensive the tasks, the greater incentive to figure out ways to save money on them.

Bernie’s Magic Pay Raise would create a major incentive to hire people off-the-books (for the true market price) or to have them work extra hours that way. It would create new incentives for employers to hire workers as individual subcontractors, rather than wage workers. And, of course, it would lead to tens of thousands of court cases where employees were sued for violating the new wage rules. Since the wages would be above market rates (otherwise there would be no need for a mandate), the yearly increases would lag inflation so that real wages would gradually return to market rates.

Just so, and the ability of progressives to ignore the pretty obvious unintended consequences of their nutso legislative daydreams speaks to either cluelessness or dishonesty, or perhaps even both. For his part, Kevin Hassett at National Review eviscerates the “academic” studies used to bolster the insipid case for less work at the same wage:

As for the workweek, the 2023 study that has been cited extensively in the media was performed by researchers from Boston College, the University of Cambridge, and a self-described “progressive” think tank based in the U.K. called Autonomy. The study’s key finding is that 92 percent of the 61 surveyed companies (which were all in Britain) reported that they were continuing the four-day workweek after a six-month trial in 2022, and 18 companies said that this change would be permanent. For the 24 companies that supplied sufficient data, revenues on average went up 35 percent over a comparable period in a previous year.

How could the results be so positive? One sign is that the participating companies (11 percent of which were charities or non-profits) do not appear to have been randomly selected for the trial, but rather were “recruited.” In other words, the study examines the impact of the four-day workweek on companies that wanted to try it. A sign of possible sample-selection bias can be seen in a footnote disclosing that, “Initially, 70 companies had signed up to take part in the pilot — however, 9 of these did not begin the trial.” The most common reason for this was “a sense that the organization was not sufficiently prepared. . . . Other reasons include[d] difficulties measuring performance in some departments, struggles with the ‘great resignation,’ and two companies who decided shorter working hours were not right for them.” Of course, companies that really need workers to show up for the full five days would not have signed up in the first place.

Imagine you are considering a new weight-loss pill which claims to yield the most productive results yet observed. Would you be interested in knowing if the 100 people who had tested the regimen were volunteers who had eagerly signed up for the study and perhaps — just perhaps — had also at the same time instituted of regimen of healthier eating and moderate exercise, versus 100 people who were forced into the study and might resent having to participate? Doesn’t this seem similar to hand-selecting 61 eager companies willing to try out a 32 hour week versus foisting it upon the entire business world irrespective of participant buy-in?

And when you dig into the study, plenty more red flags emerge. In addition to the self-described “progressive” think tank, the study was conducted with the help of a New Zealand-based company called 4 Day Global and a UK outfit known as 4 Day Week Campaign. I don’t know about you, but those names make me suspect that both groups had incentive to ensure that the 32-hour workweek was successful. They recruited 70 companies for the pilot, but nine of them apparently couldn’t get their shit together and had to bow out, suggesting that the transition isn’t particularly easy to implement in all cases. Furthermore, the survey admits that “between 44-51 [participating organizations] provided survey data for the performance analysis of this report.” Excuse me? What the hell happened to the other 9-16 companies? And what does it tell us that they can’t even zero in on a precise number between 44 and 51? “Well, it might have been 44 organizations, but it could have been 46 or 48, perhaps 49 or 51.” What sort of data collection nonsense did these clowns employ? Presumably they mean that there were three separate phases of data collection, and not all organizations participated in each phase. Is this study starting to sound more and more like utter junk?

Finally, what if a mere three of the 61 participants had a really bad experience and ended up closing shop or laying off employees. After all, there are apparently at least ten participants who gave no data at all, and five participants confirmed that they no longer organize around a 32-hour workweek. And remember that these are companies who wanted to be a part of this study. If just three of them closed or had significant layoffs, you’re looking at anywhere up to five percent of employees in the study losing their jobs because of the shift to a 32-hour workweek (assuming that the size of the organizations is averaged across all participants). If that failure rate was the norm and if moving to a 32-hour workweek jumped the U.S. unemployment rate from the current 3.8% up to 8.8% in just one year’s time, would that really be considered an acceptable consequence of giving people one more day off per week? Given the smallish size of this study, the fact that the researchers don’t have a full picture of what happened to every single participant again speaks to the shoddiness of the methodology and the unreliability of this whole endeavor.

Thanks to some apparent skittishness among Senate Democrats at considering this bill in an election year and the fact that the House is at least nominally still under the control of the GOP, we can be reasonably sure that the 32-hour workweek isn’t coming any time soon. But today’s socialist flights of fancy have a crazy tendency to end up being tomorrow’s standard Democrat orthodoxy, so look for this crackpot Vermonter’s idea to be around long after the old codger has shuffled off to the one place where socialism actually works.

– JVW

[guest post by JVW]

This story is one week old; somehow I missed it when it was published in CalMatters last Thursday. I heard about it today on the wonderful “Radio Free California” podcast and found the story too insightful not to share it with everyone. As usual, bolded emphasis comes from me:

For their 2004 home opener, the San Francisco Giants invited a special guest to throw the ceremonial first pitch: Gavin Newsom, then just a few months into his first term as mayor of San Francisco.

As Newsom took the pitcher’s mound, wearing dress shoes and a button-down shirt underneath his custom Giants jersey, the announcer informed the crowd that “he played first base for the University of Santa Clara and was drafted by the Texas Rangers.”

The introduction was quickly overshadowed by Newsom nearly hitting a photographer with the ball. But it left a lasting impact on a few attendees that day — a group of former Santa Clara University baseball players who were struck by the glowing treatment of Newsom’s resume.

“It’s kind of the standing joke that Newsom played on the team,” said Vince Machi, who arrived at Santa Clara in 1985, the same year as Newsom, and played baseball for three years. “There’s always been kind of a joke between the guys who stay in touch.”

[. . .]

Through his rise over the intervening two decades, his baseball career has provided Newsom a triumphant narrative to push back on the perception that his upbringing was privileged and easy: The high school standout scouted by the major leagues, who overcame his dyslexia and academic shortcomings to earn a partial scholarship to Santa Clara University before an injury forced him to find a new purpose.

[. . .]

Newsom told the story himself again in January on the podcast Pod Save America: Because of poor test scores, he was headed to community college until he got a call from the Santa Clara University baseball coaches. “It was literally the ticket to a four-year university. It changed my life, my trajectory,” he said.

But former coaches and teammates said that biography, repeated again and again through interviews and glossy magazine profiles and coverage of his 2021 baseball-themed children’s book on overcoming dyslexia, has inflated Newsom’s baseball credentials, giving the impression that he was a more accomplished player than he was.

Most notably, Newsom never played an official game for Santa Clara University; he was a junior varsity recruit who played only during the fall tryouts his freshman and sophomore years, then left the baseball program before the regular season began. He does not appear on the Broncos’ all-time roster or in media guides published by the athletic department to preview the upcoming season.

Gavin Newsom is a liar about things both great and small. He is, I will remind you, a man who claimed to have gone into alcohol rehabilitation when his first marriage floundered in the aftermath of reports of his infidelity, only to later acknowledge that he had not actually checked into a rehab facility and remained a social drinker. He is the poster boy for the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do stereotype of obnoxious politician, repeatedly being discovered engaging in actions he has otherwise denounced. And of course, contrary to his stories of being raised by a single mom (after she and his father divorced) and barely being able to make ends meet, we hear a story about how he really managed to get into Santa Clara University despite a mediocre academic record (spoiler alert: it likely was not for his prowess as a ballplayer):

A deeper look at his recruitment also reveals that Newsom’s admission to Santa Clara University — like so many of his formative opportunities — was substantially boosted by friends and acquaintances of his father, William Newsom, a San Francisco judge and financial adviser to the Gettys, the wealthy oil family. One associate connected Newsom to the baseball program when he was in high school, while his father’s best friend, then a member of the university’s board of regents, wrote him a letter of recommendation.

The man is the walking, talking embodiment of the “privileged white male” whom progressives (especially feminists and the racial grievances crowd) are forever demonizing. Only Gavin actually deserves it. And his “ex-teammates” — or, you know, the guys with whom he attended a few practices and perhaps played a few scrimmage games — have a none-too-forgiving view of the governor’s decades-long habit of allowing his baseball history to be so grossly inflated:

Some Broncos players from the era, who said they still regularly get asked about Newsom when people find out they played baseball at Santa Clara, wanted to correct the record.

“He didn’t earn it. He didn’t earn the right to say it,” said Kevin Schneider, who pitched for two seasons and now runs a pitching academy in San Francisco. “I worked my ass off. So did everyone else on that team. For him to just go all these years, to say he did something he didn’t that takes not just talent but also dedication and effort and sacrifice, it’s not right.”

The story goes on with more detail about young Gavin’s high school baseball career. He was likely “scouted” by some Bay Area baseball talent evaluators who scouted hundreds of kids throughout Northern California each year, but was nowhere talented enough to be drafted or signed as a free agent straight out of high school. The story of his acceptance to SCU weaves between the coaching staff’s very moderate interest in him as an athlete and the important people who contacted the university on the boy’s behalf with letters of recommendation, including ex- and future-governor Jerry Brown and Newsom Family friend John Mallen, who just so happened to be on the Board of Regents of the university. Another family friend, investment banker and former SCU ballplayer Bill Connolly is thought to be the person who first contacted the coaching staff and encouraged them to recruit the Redwood City high schooler. Mr. Connolly just so happened to be a major financial supporter of SCU baseball, which may have helped Gavin secure a $500 athletic scholarship.

Read the whole story if so inclined. The governor has for years refused any and all requests to talk in detail about his baseball past, and his press agents repeatedly claim that their boss has consistently been truthful about his playing days (he hasn’t), that he was a legitimate recruit (he might have been, but 13 freshmen were on the roster for SCU in the 1985-86 season and none of them were named Gavin Newsom), and that any misconceptions about the length and breadth of the governor’s baseball career at SCU is somebody else’s mistake, but not theirs. In that latter claim, Team Newsom uses the same excuse that Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut trotted out to explain away how he managed to build a political career being described as “a Vietnam War combat veteran” when his whole military service had been performed statewide: somebody else said it, and I just never corrected the record.

Actually, the story as told by CalMatters suggests a lot which comports with what we know about Gavin Newsom’s character. At least one former SCU ballplayer of that era remembers Newsom as a fairly gifted athlete, but one who didn’t really seem to apply himself to the rigor of NCAA athletics, hoping instead to get by on natural ability and luck. Newsom would undergo ulnar nerve surgery in the fall of 1985, yet for whatever reason didn’t bother to rehabilitate his arm under the supervision of the SCU training staff or coaches, which suggests he was already disassociating from the team. Perhaps he determined that the grind of college athletics was just too much in those days before the NCAA placed limits on the amount of practice time to which athletes could be subjected. But if that’s the case then he’s been dishonest for years in claiming that the end of his baseball career was traumatic and left him lacking a sense of purpose.

Either way, it’s an interesting story and continues to paint a picture of a person who places far more stock in being somebody than in doing something. In our messed up times a chronic narcissist like him will probably eventually end up in the White House, perhaps sooner rather than later.

– JVW

[guest post by JVW]

California, if nothing else, is an abject lesson in the perils of living in a mono-party state. Democrats have dominated the state legislature since 1975, save for a brief respite in 1995-96 when the GOP had a narrow Assembly majority, though a quisling GOP Assemblyman voted to keep Democrat Willie Brown as Assembly Speaker. But other than that fluke of political chicanery, it’s been Democrats running things in the capitol building, and for most of the time since 2013 they have enjoyed a super-majority which allows them absolute power to steamroll their political opponents.

Thus, it will come as no surprise to anyone that part of that steamroller is the ability to avoid having members ever cast a “no” vote. A piece from CalMatters explains how this works, and provides ample clues to why it ought to be considered an affront to democracy:

Mike Fong has cast more than 6,000 votes since he joined the state Assembly in 2022 and never once voted “no.” Pilar Schiavo is newer to the Assembly, but she has yet to vote “no” after more than 2,000 opportunities.

Remarkably, their Democratic colleagues in the Legislature are not much different. Using our new Digital Democracy database, CalMatters examined more than 1 million votes cast by current legislators since 2017 and found Democrats vote “no” on average less than 1% of the time.

Why? It’s not something they want to talk about. Democrats have had super-majorities in both legislative chambers since 2019, so most votes involve bills from their political colleagues. But the legislative leaders and lawmakers contacted by CalMatters declined repeated requests to explain a pattern that might appear like a rubber stamp for deals made out of public view. And it seems to be sanctioned by leaders.

“There’s only two fucking buttons on your desk: There’s a green button, and there’s a red button,” then-Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon told the California Labor Federation last year in remarks reported by Politico. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, the green button is the labor button. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the green button means you’re doing the right thing, and the red button means that you’re an asshole.”

Rendon’s office declined to comment or make him available for an interview.

That’s a pretty good outline of why the California Legislature has become such a joke. Instead of casting a “no” vote on a contentious issue that might rile up a key constituency of the Democrat caucus, legislators remain silent at strategic moments, knowing that their party has enough votes to spare. This allows the legislator to have it both ways: no record of him supporting a bill which might anger one important lobby group, yet also no record of him voting against the bill which might anger another important lobby group. The piece points out that last year there were 15 bills which died on the Assembly floor, not because they were voted down but for a lack of sufficient numbers of Democrats willing to go on record with a “yes” vote.

And this gamesmanship often happens on very important bills, the most notorious example of which was last summer, when anti-incarceration leftists in the Assembly withheld votes in a committee to advance a bill which increased penalties for people convicted of trafficking minor children. Fortunately in this case the media took notice and the outcry was enough to embarrass Democrats into reconsidering and ultimately passing the measure. It’s worth noting that the initial inclination was to let it die, not from receiving a majority of “no” votes, but from failing to receive enough “yes” votes as cowardly ideologues refuse to cast a controversial vote either way.

And even when a majority politician does go on the record with a vote, they reserve the right to revoke that vote if it doesn’t turn out to be necessary:

In another example last year, the former chairperson of the Assembly Public Safety Committee cast a “no” vote to kill a bill, AB 367, that would have led to longer prison sentences for fentanyl dealers. Seconds later, he withdrew his vote after all five of his fellow Democrats on the committee killed the bill by not voting.

The then-chairperson, Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a Los Angeles Democrat who is running for Los Angeles City Council when his term expires this year, didn’t return a message from CalMatters.

He told the committee last spring that he was a mortician during the crack cocaine epidemic, so he empathized with families who lost loved ones to fentanyl, but he sided with activists who testified that people of color have unfairly and disproportionately borne the brunt of harsh sentences for drug crimes.

“Our communities were decimated by the War on Drugs,” he said.

I’m sure that many of his constituents might point out to Assemblyman Jones-Sawyer that their communities are also “decimated” by the crisis of opioid addiction. Nevertheless, I can almost respect him for casting the “no” vote (even if I mostly disagree with him on his rationale), but I have nothing but contempt for his decision to change his vote to “not voting” once it became clear the bill wouldn’t pass the committee. That is the sort of garbage which understandably gives the public such a low opinion of our elected officials.

The article goes on to record the huge number of Democrats who fail to vote rather than vote “no” on bills, and lists some whose numbers are ridiculously out of whack. The new Assembly Speaker, Robert Rivas, has cast only nine “no” votes in his more than 12,000 recorded votes over the past six years, compared to 673 times in which he failed to vote. Naturally he and other vote-shirkers did not respond to the reporter’s request for comment.

Republicans fail to vote at a higher rate than even Democrats do, but given that they are the super-minority party and have very little influence on the bills that reach committee desks and the chamber floors, it’s somewhat more understandable if not really that admirable. James Gallagher, the Assembly’s Republican leader, told CalMatters that oftentimes the Republicans might be interested in supporting a certain bill, except they have concerns about the language of the legislation or else want to address potential unintended consequences of the bill. Of course those concerns are almost always ignored by the majority and Republicans are not given the opportunity to offer amendments. Thus, even though Republican members don’t necessarily oppose a particular bill, they might have enough ambivalence about it to decide that neither a “yes” nor a “no” vote is appropriate. Assemblyman Gallagher suggests that instead of allowing for the non-voting option, members should be forced to formally announce that they are abstaining from voting, since that would clarify whether the member was absent from the chamber that day or whether they were present and not willing to go on the record.

But I like what former Democrat Assemblyman Mike Gatto has to say. While acknowledging that oftentimes withholding a vote avoids angering an activist group or risking reprisals from party leadership or just disappointing a friendly colleague, he still counsels fortitude: “When people talk about how a very strange or poorly conceived proposal made it all the way through the Legislature, the answer is because very few people stood up and said, ‘This is bunk.’ When people do, and they do it with something as clear and unambiguous as a ‘no’ vote, it encourages other people to have the same courage to tell a lawmaker, politely, that this idea might not be the best one.”

Amen to that.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

Let’s go!

First news item

IDF investigation into deaths of seven WCK workers:

The IDF fired two senior officers and reprimanded a top commander as it admitted a catalog of failures in a drone strike on an aid convoy in Gaza, including that it killed aid workers who had survived an initial attack.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Friday that “those who approved the strike were convinced that they were targeting armed Hamas operatives,” calling the attack “a grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification.”

It said the strike was carried out in “serious violation of the commands and IDF Standard Operating Procedures,” and dismissed a major and a colonel in reserve. Three other IDF officials were formally reprimanded: the commanders of the brigade and division involved, and the commander of the Southern Command, who bore “overall responsibility.”

Meanwhile, the World Central Kitchen is calling for an independent investigation into the tragedy.

Related

A warning to Israel:

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warns that Israel risks becoming indistinguishable from Hamas if it continues to fail to protect civilians amid the Gaza war.

“What happened after October 7 could have ended immediately if Hamas had stopped hiding behind civilians, released the hostages and put down its weapons, but Israel is not Hamas. Israel is a democracy; Hamas, a terrorist organization. Democracies place the highest value on human life, every human life. As it has been said, whoever saves a life, saves the entire world,” Blinken says during a press conference in Brussels, quoting a Jewish proverb.

“That’s our strength. It’s what distinguishes us from terrorists like Hamas. If we lose that reverence for human life, we risk becoming indistinguishable from those we confront.”

Second news item

Ukraine on the move:

Ukrainian officials claimed Friday they used a barrage of drones to destroy at least six military aircraft and badly damage eight others at an airfield in Russia’s Rostov region. Russian defense officials, however, claimed they intercepted 44 Ukrainian drones and that only a power substation was damaged in the attack.

The Associated Press could not independently verify either side’s claims.

The assault appeared to be one of Kyiv’s biggest air attacks in the war, coming as its forces stepped up their assaults on Russian soil. Russia has also escalated attacks on civilian infrastructure, including Ukraine’s power plants, in recent weeks, signaling a new and potentially dangerous phase in the conflict as both sides struggle to achieve significant advances on the ground.

The overnight attack targeted a military airfield near Morozovsk in Russia and was conducted by Ukraine’s Security Service in cooperation with the army, Ukrainian intelligence officials told the AP.

Related

About the House Speaker and that long-awaited aid package for Ukraine:

House Speaker Mike Johnson is pledging to act on Ukraine aid when lawmakers return to Washington next week, but behind the scenes the Louisiana Republican is still undecided on the best path forward and keenly aware of his narrow majority and the threat to his speakership that looms.

It’s a confluence of issues that sources say has left Johnson entertaining a series of options as the speaker has continued his outreach to members about how to proceed during the two-week recess.

“He’s got a gun to his head right now,” Rep. Don Bacon, a swing-district Republican, said of the speaker. “But we need to have a Churchill, not a Chamberlain right now. He could be on the right side of history.”

Third news item

Donald Trump’s conditions for a debate with President Biden:

Asked by Hewitt whether he thinks Biden will agree to a debate before their expected rematch in November, Trump replied: “I don’t think so, but I hope he does … You know that white stuff that they happened to find, which happened to be cocaine in the White House? I don’t know, I think something’s going on there, because I watched his State of the Union, and he was all jacked up at the beginning. By the end, he was fading fast. There’s something going on there.”

“I want to debate,” Trump continued. “And I think debates, with him at least, should be drug-tested. I want a drug test.”

Hewitt asked the presumptive GOP nominee if he was suggesting that Biden is using cocaine.

“I don’t know what he’s using, but that was not ― hey, he was higher than a kite,” Trump replied.

“He’s obviously, he’s being helped some way, because most of the time he looks like he’s falling asleep,” Trump added. “All of a sudden, he walked up there ― and did a poor job ― but he was all jacked up.”

Fourth news item

Israel on high alert:

Israel’s military was on high alert Thursday as the country braced for Iran’s promised revenge after an Israeli strike in Damascus this week killed senior Iranian commanders and stirred fears of widening war across a region on edge.

The strike — in broad daylight, on a diplomatic building adjacent to Iran’s embassy in Syria — was an escalation in Israel’s multi-front battles against Iranian-backed groups, which have intensified during its war in Gaza. The Israeli strike drew threats of retaliation from Tehran’s leaders and condemnation from their Arab neighbors. The European Union, which also condemned the strike, said in a statement that “further escalation in the region is in no one’s interest.”

“We will make them regret this crime and other similar ones with the help of God,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a statement Tuesday, the day after the attack.

Fifth news item

Scotland authorities clarify nutty new law:

Social media comments made by JK Rowling challenging Scotland’s new hate crime law are not being treated as criminal, Police Scotland has said.

The Harry Potter author described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.

The new law creates a new crime of “stirring up hatred” relating to protected characteristics.
The force said complaints had been received but no action would be taken.

Reacting to the news, Ms Rowling posted on X: “I hope every woman in Scotland who wishes to speak up for the reality and importance of biological sex will be reassured by this announcement, and I trust that all women – irrespective of profile or financial means – will be treated equally under the law.

“If they go after any woman for simply calling a man a man, I’ll repeat that woman’s words and they can charge us both at once.”

Good on Ms. Rowling.

More speech, not less.

Have a good weekend.

–Dana

Bonus item from JVW

This is absolutely heartbreaking video from a stroll around Oakland’s Lake Merritt. If you’ve ever been to that city, Lake Merritt is slightly east of downtown and is bordered by nice townhomes and condominiums in a mostly upscale neighborhood. I have taken this very walk a few times, fortunately before it apparently went all to hell. So very sad, and a complete indictment on a very left-wing city in an increasingly left-wing state. This is from the Twitter feed of Seneca Scott, who proclaims himself “the Mayor of Gotham Oakland.”

🚶🏾‍♂️WEEKLY WALK THROUGH DYSTOPIAN OAKLAND 🔥🌆

LAKE MERRITT – THE CROWN JEWEL OF OAKLAND

This week, I visited Lake Merritt to highlight the concerning conditions our beloved crown jewel is facing. Here are some crucial points:

1. The state of the playground 🤬😔 – How can we let… pic.twitter.com/55LiILawjw

— Seneca Scott (@SenecaSpeaks21) April 6, 2024

[guest post by Dana]

President Biden had a strained conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu on the heels of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers killed by Israeli military forces. (WCK head José Andres said that “he believed the seven aid workers killed by the strike in Gaza were targeted “systematically, car by car.” An investigation is underway.)

“President Biden emphasized that the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable,” the White House said in a statement. “He made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers. He made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps.”

Additionally:

John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, said the president wants to see “concrete tangible steps” to reduce the violence against civilians and increase access for humanitarian aid to Gaza. He said the White House expects Israel to make announcements of specific changes within hours or days.

But Mr. Kirby would not outline specific metrics for judging Israel’s response or what Mr. Biden would do if not satisfied. “What we want to see are some real changes on the Israeli side and, you know, if we don’t see changes from their side there will have to be changes from our side,” he said.

BREAKING: Biden told Netanyahu an immediate ceasefire is essential to stabilize & improve the humanitarian situation & protect innocent civilians & he urged Netanyahu to empower his negotiators to conclude a deal without delay to bring the hostages home, the White House says

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) April 4, 2024

Hamas should be feeling pretty encourage right about now.

—Dana