Daily Digest |  |
- America’s BLM-induced homicide spike
- Will Trump be able to make the arguments he wants on impeachment?
- Noor conviction affirmed
- History Re-Runs
- North Korea Comes to America
| America’s BLM-induced homicide spike Posted: 01 Feb 2021 02:51 PM PST (Paul Mirengoff) During the second half of 2020, we noted from time to time that homicides were increasing dramatically in American cities — a trend that coincided with BLM protests against the police. Now, the nationwide numbers are in. Homicide rates were 30 percent higher in 2020 than in in 2019, according to a new report by Professor Richard Rosenfeld and two others. This represents more than 1,268 additional murders (in a sample of 34 cities). According to Professor Paul Cassell, this is the largest single-year increase in recorded American history. The previous largest was 12.7 percent in 1968, another horrible year. What explains the shocking increase in homicides? Rosenfeld offers two explanations: the COVID-19 pandemic and the anti-police protests following the death of George Floyd that caused “de-policing.” Cassell demolishes the first explanation. It’s true that homicides increased somewhat during the Spring, before Floyd’s death. However, that’s normal because better weather typically coincides with more homicides. The significant spike began in the last week of May. Floyd died on May 25. Indeed, Rosenfeld’s report acknowledges that homicide rates increased “significantly” in June, “well after the pandemic began, coinciding with the death of George Floyd and the mass protests that followed.” Another study has shown that as of the end of May, “s]ome types of serious violent crime seemed unaffected by the pandemic onset, notably homicide and shootings.” In Chicago, for example between January 1 and May 28, 2020 there were 191 homicides. During the same time frame in 2019, the number of homicides was 192. But on May 31, as we touched on here, eighteen people were murdered and dozens more were shot in Chicago, making it the single most violent day in six decades. We’re left, then, with one explanation for the spike in homicides — “de-policing” triggered by the anti-police protests and rioting. This de-policing is evident from decreases in arrests and in stops. And it’s related not only to a pulling back by the police in response to protests and riots, but also to increases in police officer retirements (due to demoralizaton) and decreases in funding. The decline in stops is noteworthy because, while homicides and shootings rose dramatically in the last seven months of 2020, other crimes decreased. These included robbery, residential burglary, non-residential burglary, larceny, and drug offenses. That’s the normal pattern when there’s a decrease in stop-and-frisks because, as Cassell says, “proactive policing (e.g., stop-and-frisks) plays a uniquely important role in deterring the carrying of illegal guns and thus preventing firearm crimes.” Thus, in 2016, when stop-and-frisks fell dramatically in Chicago following an agreement between Chicago Police and the ACLU, homicides and shootings increased sharply, while most other crimes did not. Cassell concludes:
We would see such action, too, if Black lives really mattered to Black Lives Matter.     |
| Will Trump be able to make the arguments he wants on impeachment? Posted: 01 Feb 2021 11:49 AM PST (Paul Mirengoff) Over the weekend, the legal team that was to represent Donald Trump at the impeachment trial resigned. According to this report, the lawyers on that team did not want to argue that Trump won the election. Instead, they wanted to focus on arguing that impeaching a president who has already left office is unconstitutional. To me, such a focus would be bad lawyering. Good lawyering would be to argue in the alternative: A former president cannot be impeached, but even if he could be, this former president committed no impeachable offense. Moreover, good lawyering would focus on the second these arguments, not the first because (1) enough Senators (45 of them) have already signed on to the first argument and (2) that argument is a technicality and therefore less than fully satisfactory to the client. But wouldn’t arguing that Trump won the election in the context of this impeachment trial be tantamount to attempting to justify the rioting? That’s the view of Steven Vladek, a law professor. He tweeted:
The answer to both my question and Vladek’s is “no.” The article of impeachment includes this allegation:
(Emphasis added) Thus, the door is wide open for Trump to argue that the statements he made about the election aren’t false. Indeed, the burden should be on the House managers to prove that the statements are false — something I doubt they can do (just as I doubt Trump can prove his statements are true). A better defense might be to argue that it’s not impeachable to state one’s opinion about whether an election was stolen and whether the result of the election should be “accepted” as the fair and just outcome. But again, one can argue in the alternative as follows: It’s not impeachable to exercise one’s free speech rights in the manner that Trump did and, in any case, Trump’s statements weren’t false. With the door thus open to arguing that the election was stolen, Trump still faces the problem of finding lawyers to make the argument. The problem is exacerbated by assertions by mainstream media organs, Never Trumpers, and bar association grandees that, somehow, it’s improper for lawyers to make election fraud arguments on behalf of the president. It’s okay, and even commendable, for lawyers to represent 9/11 terrorists and all manner of rapists and murderers, but beyond the pale to represent a president who wants to question whether Joe Biden was fairly elected. My quaint view of these matters is that all of the above should have vigorous representation. No lawyer should be required to provide that representation, but neither should any lawyer be discouraged from, or be criticized for, providing it. Democrats and their media allies are trying to make an affirmation that Biden won the election fair and square into the equivalent of a loyalty oath. George Stephanopoulos’ embarrassing attempt to extract such an affirmation from Rand Paul is a good example. The attempt is working in the sense that many among the elites are being cowed. In fact, according to this report, the new lawyers Trump has found for the impeachment trial aren’t willing to make the election fraud argument, either. But I doubt that attempts to take election fraud arguments off the table are working in the sense of persuading the voters (many millions of them) who believe the election was stolen that actually it was not. In fact, efforts to end debate by fiat are likely to be counterproductive if the goal is to persuade.   |
| Posted: 01 Feb 2021 11:36 AM PST (Scott Johnson) I covered the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor for the murder of Justine Ruszczyk over three weeks in 2019. Ms. Ruszczyk had called the police to intervene in what she thought might be an assault occurring behind her house late on the evening of July 15, 2017. Noor killed Ms. Ruszcyk when she ran up to the officer’s patrol car as it stopped at the end of the alley behind her house. After his conviction I offered “Notes on the Noor trial.” I last reported on the case in “At the Noor sentencing (4).” Rereading it this morning brings back the emotional impact of the case on me and others I spoke with in court during the proceedings. Justine was beloved. She was a happy woman who brought happiness wherever she went. Her killing by Officer Noor is incomprehensible except insofar as Noor did not belong on the police force. (All of my reports on the trial can be accessed here.) The case was heard by a three-judge panel including Judges Michelle Larkin, Matthew Johnson, and Louise Bjorkman. The case has been on appeal to the Minnesota Court of Appeals for a while. Today the court affirmed the conviction in a 2-1 decision (embedded below). The one dissenting judge dissented from Noor’s conviction for third-degree murder; he concurred in the court’s resolution of all the other issues raised by Noor on appeal and therefore concurred in Noor’s manslaughter conviction. I think the three judges who heard the case are among the best in Minnesota’s appellate courts. It is to be hoped — I hope — that the Minnesota Supreme Court will refrain from further review. It has gone steeply downhill over the past ten years of Democratic appointments to the court. State of Minn v Noor by Scott Johnson on Scribd   |
| Posted: 01 Feb 2021 10:03 AM PST (Steven Hayward) Today’s foundational texts are the famous Marx quote about history repeating itself first as tragedy and then as farce, and Santayana’s axiom that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. • On the first, we have the ever-farcical liberals going from stepping on rakes to stepping on land mines. Or in this case, Vice President Kamala Harris telling the people of West Virginia that they need to clean up the “abandoned land mines” in the state. Somebody alert the estate of Princess Diana, who made abandoned land mines her global social cause. It’s actually even worse than this, as Harris made her comments in an appearance in West Virginia that appears to have been, as Politico describes it, a ham-handed attempt to pressure West Virginia’s dissident Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin, but, to continue with Politico‘s account:
This reminds of me of the first week or two of the Clinton Administration in 1993, when an “anonymous senior White House aide” (who was likely either Stephanopoulos or Rahmbo Emanuel) told Time magazine that they’d simply “roll over” Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had expressed initial skepticism about the Clinton plans for health care reform. President Clinton had to ring up Moynihan to apologize and smooth things over. You’d think the Biden White House, given his long years in the Senate, would be more politically astute than this, but then. . . Well, let’s just say these particular “land mines” blew up in their face. • In the “doomed to repeat itself” department, I see that this week’s target of the Reddit Revolution is silver, whose price is soaring on the market today, reaching $30 an ounce at one point this morning. Once again, I am old enough to remember the last time someone tried this—Nelson Bunker Hunt and his brother in 1979-80, when they attempted literally to corner the market on silver, accumulating an estimated third of the world’s physical supply of silver, and running the price from about $6 an ounce to $50 an ounce in the space of a few months. Then the inevitable happened: it all crashed back to earth in March 1980. And because the Hunt brothers had bought much of their silver on margin, the crash cost them billions. Most of today’s Robber-Redditors have probably never heard of the Hunt brothers or their great silver escapade. It’s a fine line between a short squeeze and losing your shorts. But they’ll find this out eventually. Meanwhile, a chart of long-term, inflation adjusted silver prices, where you can see the Hunt bubble bursting:
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| Posted: 01 Feb 2021 09:25 AM PST (John Hinderaker) If you think that totalitarian dictatorships are home to the ultimate sycophants, the reaction of the American press to the Biden administration may cause you to reconsider. Then there is this paean to Kamala Harris. Watch it if you dare:
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