Friday: Hili dialogue

September 27, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the first Friday of Autumn: it’s September 27, 2024, and National Corned Beef Hash Day. While I love corned beef sandwiches, I spurn the cured meat when it’s in hash or served as a chunk of meat with cabbage.

It’s also Ancestor Appreciation Day, Native American Day, National Butterbrot Day, Save the Koala Day, Hug a Vegetarian Day, National Chocolate Milk Day, and World Tourism Day. 

Here’s a koala rescue!

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 27 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*New York City mayor Eric Adams has been indicted for bribery and fraud after a three-year investigation of corruption charges. Oy!

Mayor Eric Adams was defiant on Thursday in the face of five federal charges of bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations, insisting he would stay in office and imploring New Yorkers to hear his defense.

The indictment against him, which was unsealed on Thursday morning after a search of the mayor’s official residence, followed an investigation that started in 2021. Prosecutors said the scheme had begun when he was a top elected official in Brooklyn and continued after he became mayor.

JAC: You can download the 57-page indictment here. It looks bad for Adams, and if he’s convicted he’ll probably never leave jail (he’s 64: Beatles age). Here’s a huge  (>90%) discount he got for a hotel in Istanbul: part of the benefits he got in Turkey.

More from the piece:

The investigation focused on whether Mr. Adams, 64, had conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign campaign contributions in exchange for acting on its behalf.

Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that Mr. Adams had been “showered” with gifts that he knew were illegal.

“This was a multiyear scheme to buy favor with a single New York City politician on the rise: Eric Adams,” Mr. Williams said at a news conference. “Year after year, he kept the public in the dark.”

Mr. Williams discussed the indictment moments after Mr. Adams finished a raucous news conference at Gracie Mansion surrounded by supporters. Mr. Adams cast himself as a victim and urged New Yorkers to be patient.

He said he would not resign despite numerous calls from elected officials — and hecklers who constantly interrupted and called him a disgrace. “I ask New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense,” Mr. Adams said.

Mr. Adams had “sought and accepted improper valuable benefits” since at least 2014, when he was Brooklyn borough president, according to the indictment.

The benefits included luxury travel — free and discounted Turkish Airlines tickets and free meals and hotel rooms — from wealthy foreigners and at least one Turkish government official, prosecutors said. He traveled on the airline even when it was inconvenient, they said, including a 2017 flight to France from New York that first stopped in Istanbul.

Mr. Adams tried to hide the gifts or make them appear as if he had paid for them, according to the indictment. Their value exceeded $100,000, prosecutors said.

This is the result of a three-year investigation, and they also raided Adams’s house for evidence. I’m not a New Yorker, but still. . . how do people think they can get away with such stuff.  The arm of the law is slow, but it bends towards justice.

*The Washington Post, in its morning newsletter, highlights a published article called “Harris flubs manufacturing jobs claim in MSNBC interview.”

“All told, almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during his presidency, starting before the pandemic hit, making Trump one of the biggest losers ever on manufacturing.”

— Vice President Kamala Harris, in an economic speech in Pittsburgh, Sept. 25

“Even before the pandemic, he lost manufacturing jobs, by most people’s estimates at least 200,000.”

— Harris, a few hours later in an interview with MSNBC

This is a good example of how a cleverly phrased line in a speech can get bungled when a politician tries to repeat it later off the cuff.

In the speech, Harris’s phrasing was defensible. But the wording in the interview was wrong.

Donald Trump’s economic record before the pandemic was pretty good, with steady growth in overall jobs. But in 2019, the year before the pandemic, manufacturing went into a mild recession, and the number of manufacturing jobs fell nearly 50,000 from January 2019 to February 2020.

While president, Trump never acknowledged this dip and instead kept insisting manufacturing was on an upswing. From February 2017, the first month of jobs data in his presidency, to the time the pandemic struck in March 2020, manufacturing jobs increased about 400,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — though Trump kept rounding up to 500,000 even as jobs were shedding.

The Harris campaign clearly wanted to signal that the manufacturing sector was troubled under Trump before the pandemic struck. So her speech took a figure for total manufacturing jobs losses “during his presidency” — nearly 200,000, after the pandemic — and inserted the phrase “starting before the pandemic hit.”

That’s correct, as phrased.

In the interview, however, Harris dropped the caveats and simply said: “Even before the pandemic, he lost manufacturing jobs, by most people’s estimates at least 200,000.”

That’s wrong. As we noted, before the pandemic Trump could claim a gain of 400,000 manufacturing jobs.

And there’s another one, too, which is more deceptive:

Another dubious claim in the MSNBC interview:

“I am not mad at anyone for achieving success, but everyone should pay their fair share. And it is not right that the teachers and the firefighters that I meet every day across our country are paying a higher tax than the richest people in our country.”

This is a two-Pinocchio claim.

Harris is referring to a 2021 White House study that concluded that the 400 wealthiest taxpayers paid an effective tax rate of 8 percent. But that estimate included unrealized gains in the income calculation. That’s not how the tax laws work. People are taxed on capital gains when they sell their stocks or other assets. So this is only a figure for a hypothetical tax system.

According to IRS data on the top 0.001 percent — 1,475 taxpayers with at least $77 million in adjusted gross income in 2020 — the average tax rate was 23.7 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers (income of at least $548,000) paid nearly 26 percent.

As for less-wealthy Americans, few, such as teachers or firefighters, pay even the lowest rate of 10 percent because of deductions, exemptions and the like.

It’s only fair that if people call out Trump for his whoppers (and yes, they are lies. like the “they are eating the dogs” trope), that Harris be subject to being called out, too (I’ve already noted some of Trump’s lies in the debate). If you’re going to chastise me for criticizing Harris before the election, save it. Instead, tell the Washington Post!

*Two days ago I reported that Marcellus Williams, convicted of murder in Missouri but with so much excupatory evidence (hair, DNA, fingerprints and footprints from the crime scene didn’t match Williams) that both the prosecutors and the victim’s family asked that his life be spared because he seemed to be innocent.

But of course he was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday evening. Such is the power of retributive punishment—and the drive to ignore evidence.

Marcellus Williams, whose murder conviction was questioned by a prosecutor, died by lethal injection Tuesday evening in Missouri after the US Supreme Court denied a stay.

The 55-year-old was put to death around 6 p.m. CT at the state prison in Bonne Terre.

Williams’ attorneys had filed a flurry of appeal efforts based on what they described as new evidence – including alleged bias in jury selection and contamination of the murder weapon prior to trial. The victim’s family had asked the inmate be spared death.

The US Supreme Court’s action came a day after Missouri’s supreme court and governor refused to grant a stay of execution.

The high court offered no explanation for its decision, which is common for cases on its emergency docket. There were no noted dissents in two of Williiams’ appeals. In a third, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have granted the request to pause the execution.

. . . . Recently, the top prosecutor in St. Louis County joined Williams’ attorneys in asking for the conviction to be overturned after new testimony from the 2001 trial prosecutor and recent DNA testing showed evidence contamination.

But the article added this:

Other evidence that helped convict Williams “remains intact,” the attorney general said.

“The victim’s personal items were found in Williams’s car after the murder. A witness testified that Williams had sold the victim’s laptop to him. Williams confessed to his girlfriend and an inmate in the St. Louis City Jail, and William’s girlfriend saw him dispose of the bloody clothes worn during the murder,” the attorney general’s office said.

Okay, so things are complicated. But based on the lack of DNA matches, footprint, hair, and fingerprint matches, at the very least Williams deserved a new trial. I’m surprised that the
Supreme Court, including a liberal justice, let the death penalty stand.  Wouldn’t it be great if the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty illegal as a Constitutional violation of Eighth Amendment prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishment”? (Even the victim’s family favored imprisonment over execution.)  But that won’t happen.

*The other day I posted about a writer, Elisa Albert, whose panel on “Girls Coming of Age” was canceled at the at the University of Albany’s New York State Writer’s Festival because two co-panelists refused to participate because Albert was a “Zionist” (note that the panel was not on Zionism!). The Free Press‘s morning newsletter reports some fallout about one of those Jew-haters who couldn’t abide discussing things with a Zionist:

Fallout After “Zionist” Canceled from Author Panel

On Tuesday, my colleague Joe Nocera reported on a troubling incident at a book festival in upstate New York. Author Elisa Albert was slated to chair a panel at the festival, but the event was canceled after the two other participants refused to appear alongside a “Zionist.” Today, Joe reports on the latest fallout from the row: 

Aisha Abdel Gawad is not having a good week. In the days since her refusal to take part in a panel at a book festival over the weekend because the moderator, Elisa Albert, was a Zionist, she claims (without offering proof) that she had become “the target of a campaign of intimidation, defamation and death threats.”

At the Greenwich Academy in Connecticut, where Gawad teaches high school English, the school circled the wagons, sending an email to parents defending her—and including a statement Gawad wrote insisting that she opposes antisemitism—and she dropped out of the panel only because “it did not feel like a productive forum for me.” (Quick reminder: The topic the panelists were supposed to address was “Girls Coming of Age.”)

But the Greenwich Academy also added that it would “continue to monitor the situation” and “respond accordingly” if new information came to light. The Free Press has learned that the academy took another step that has not been reported: It called recent graduates to ask them about Gawad’s English classes.

In addition to her day job at the Greenwich Academy, Gawad had also recently been named a writer-in-residence at the Wilton Library in Wilton, Connecticut. After reports of the controversy at the book festival emerged, officials in Wilton, including the library’s executive director Caroline Mandler, received some 2,000 emails from citizens upset about Gawad’s residency, which includes a $30,000 stipend.

“Ms. Mandler,” the email read in part, “will you put up a sign on her office door to warn ‘Zionists’ to stay away? Will you ban books that offend her? Should Jewish patrons wear yellow stars lest she accidentally speak to a ‘Zionist’?”

Late Wednesday afternoon, Mandler announced that after a meeting of the library’s board, Gawad would no longer be its writer in residence. The library’s press release noted that because she had only started on September 4, she hadn’t had time to direct any programs.

Presumably, she hadn’t had time to collect the $30,000 either.

Actions have consequences. This is not a case of freedom of speech, but of a hateful writer who wouldn’t share a stage with a Zionist. It’s perfectly within the Wilton Library’s ambit to cancel Gawad’s writer-in-residence gig. And, frankly, I think she deserved it.

*Here is an intriguing and depressing title from the Torygraph, “I was in a Hezbollah tunnel—this is what awaits Israel” (archived here)

As I took my first steps into the vast tunnel, stretching from an opening in the Galilee region deep into the bowels of the earth, the air turned sour and dusty.
The vast tunnel, discovered by Israeli forces and promptly sealed off in 2019, was half a mile long and 260 feet deep – all of it dug with handheld drills by Hezbollah fighters, piece by piece.

It was May 2020 when I toured the tunnel with an Israeli army commander, a time when a full-scale Israeli invasion of Lebanon was only a vague possibility.

But with a possible ground invasion looming, the tunnel offers just a glimpse of the type of enclosed, difficult territory Israeli troops will be facing. It is also just one component of Hezbollah’s vast arsenal, which also includes huge quantities of precision strike Iranian missiles smuggled into Lebanon via Syria.

Had the tunnel not been discovered, Israel suspects it would have been used to launch a surprise assault on the north, perhaps to capture hostages and then take them back to Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s tunnel network is now feared to have grown even vaster and more sophisticated in the four years since its discovery, posing a challenge for Israel should it opt for a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

Israel estimates that the tunnel network, which can be used for hiding shock troops for attacks or moving supplies, stretches for hundreds of kilometres.

. . . . Hezbollah recently published footage that showed a truck mounted with rocket launchers passing through long, winding tunnels. The same slick propaganda clip also features Hezbollah troops driving on motorcycles through tunnels surrounding a command centre, Imad 4, passing posters of Hassan Nasrallah, their leader.

Here’s the Hezbollah video

I tell you, with all Hezbollah’s missiles, sophisticated weapons (thanks to Iran) and these tunnels, Israel is going to have a tough fight. No wonder Israelis see this and Gaza as existential battles.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron are off on a quest, with Hili guiding. Szaron’s cyst has returned, and the vet says he has to have a small operation to remove it along with the surrounding tissue. But the vet added that there is nothing to worry about; it’s not a tumor. Still, I’m worried. I love Szaron, as he’s the world’s most affectionate cat.

Hili: We are going east, to the birth grove.
Szaron: And then?
Hili: And then we are going west.
In Polish:
Hili: Idziemy na wschód do brzozowego lasku.
Szaron: A potem?
Hili: A potem na zachód.

*******************

From Cat Memes:

. . . and another cat meme from Jesus of the Day:

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:

From Masih.  You can’t get more frustrated than this!  Sound up to hear the rage of this schoolgirl!

One from me. Don’t forget that SJP’s “Week of Rage” begins on Monday:

From Divy: Cat t.v.!:

From reader Su; the Kiffness has made a song out of Trump’s insistence that “They’re eating the dogs”. It’s another work of genius!

Meryl Streep speaks out against the misogynistic theocracy of Afghanistan (she could have added Iran):

From the Auschwitz Memorial:

A tweet from Dr. Cobb, showing a crazy cat who needs to be brought to the attention of The Kiffness. Sound MUST BE UP!

 

15 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  1. … both the prosecutors and the victim’s family asked that his life be spared because he seemed to be innocent.

    Except that the DNA has now been matched to a member of the original prosecutor’s team, who handled the knife after the original tests had been done. And the prosecutor who called for clemency was not involved in the case (either originally or now), and, after the match of the DNA to the original prosecutor’s team, has now withdrawn his suggestion that the suspect is innocent. And the victim’s family do not think he’s innocent, they have not asked for acquital, they asked for life without parole. And the weight of evidence against him, from multiple witnesses and from him being in possession of the victim’s property, really is damning. And all this does seem to have been properly considered by the courts. So, one can oppose the death penalty on principle, but this is likely not a miscarriage of justice.

    1. Thank you, Coel, for making the effort to speak knowledgeably about this case.
      My main objection to the death penalty remains that they could hang the wrong guy but your posts have changed my thinking on the question of hanging this guy.

        1. In the British Empire, my cultural tradition, hanging was the only method of execution ever used after beheading went out of fashion for the aristocracy. It’s a figure of speech.

          It’s up to the people of the state or country to decide how they want to incapacitate their murderers. Not my business. (Not my precious as my philosopher friend Viminitz puts it.) There is an intellectual difference between saying, sincerely in both cases, “This man was wrongly executed under the state’s own law because its justice system admits it made a mistake and seems determined to let it go uncorrected,” on the one hand and, on the other, “This guilty man properly convicted should not have been executed because executions are wrong in principle.”

          Some anti-death-penalty activists seem to be saying, “End justifies the means and truth doesn’t matter. We raise spurious doubts about cherry-picked facts used to convict all capital murderers because we want the ever-present risk of wrongful conviction to be brought to focus on each one to get his sentence commuted on emotional grounds. We get away with it because no one is going to read the trial transcript and the charge to the jury, and the jury doesn’t publish reasons.” That’s a whole other story. We saw this in the discussion between Glenn Loury and John McWhorter over the partisan movie, The Fall of Minneapolis.

          I don’t sleep well when a clear pig-headed injustice has been perpetrated. I sleep better with Coel’s facts. All I’m doing is thanking him.

    2. I said he needed a new trial. There appears to be no match of DNA to the suspect, and if the conviction rests on that match, or a match of footprints or hair, then, as I said, I said a new trial is in order.

      And yes, he was killed, so that WAS a miscarriage of justice. Unless, that is, you think that killing someone is “justice.”

      1. … and if the conviction rests on that match …

        It doesn’t. The DNA in question comes from a re-test done (at the request of the accused lawyers) many years after the original trial and conviction. It didn’t form part of the original prosecution’s case.

  2. Mayor Eric Adams criticized the recent immigration increases in New York City :

    x.com/michaeljknowles/status/1839134098511770051?s=46

    Communists mad.

    1. You may have nailed it.
      This is small potatoes compared to many other occurrences that get a slap on the wrist or outright ignored. I’ve seen, and reported to authorities, worse infractions when I was on a public school board with no action taken. When there is allowable discretion in prosecution, that discretion will be used to the utmost political benefit.

      Don’t get me wrong – I’d throw any public servant in jail who abuses the office for personal gain, with zero tolerance. The law should be applied equally to all.

      1. The sin he committed that is not always and everywhere being committed by many politicians (on both “sides”) is speaking against the Democrats who obviously have a stranglehold on MSM, and their chosen version of “the truth”. He will pay!

  3. So, it looks as though public officials who receive gifts such as free or reduced travel benefits designed to curry their favor, and fail to report them, are subject to criminal prosecution.

    Hmmm…

  5. Harris’ claim that firefighters pay more in taxes than the rich is not “dubious” or a “two-Pinocchio” claim.” It is a lie and she knows it. This is an example of why I’m disappointed in the WaPo.

  7. Well, you’d have to bribe me, too, to stay in that Turkish hotel room!

    Correction? — October 7 days of Celebration of Vile Terrorism, is a week from Monday, not, technically “next” Monday, though my wife says “next Tuesday” when she means a week from the actual next Tuesday. I ask her, if “next” means a week later, what do you call the one coming up next? In 40 years, I’ve never gotten an answer. (Well, I’ve gotten “answers” but not suitable for this audience.)

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