Trump Cans Comey CNN Goes Gorilla

Neither item of the news is surprising, really. The head of FBI should have been gone day one of Trump administration for incompetence and overstepping his mandate.  His handling of the Clinton email saga was atrocious, whichever way you want to look at it. In the Democratic version of the beef, his "re-opening" of the investigation into Clinton two weeks before the election day, was a capital offense (,and in the extreme form of denial, one of two major causes of her losing the vote on November 8th). In the Republican one, Comey in the summer gave a pass to a blatant breach of security and unconscionable handling of government secret documents by the former Secretary of State Clinton. Only last week, the FBI director raised some eyebrows again when it was revealed during the Senate hearings that the some of the classified emails on Huma Abedin husband's laptop did not get there via backup (accepted as a bona fide explanation, and by the disseminated by the Bureau in news releases) but via transmission over public network (obviously unencrypted) to secure a hard copy. So two GOP beefs against Comey, against one Democratic one.

      No sooner the news of firing Comey hit the airwaves, CNN had its take on it, which went on like this: "Trump fired Comey because the FBI was getting closer and closer to him. This was a cynical, Nixonian ploy to get the DOJ off Trump's back on his wheeling dealing American democracy away to Putin. "

Nothing surprising in this for the ongoing congressional investigations into Russian interference in last year's US election, which has come straight out of Kafka. Perhaps only Jeff Toobin, one of the CNN regulars who usually keeps his head above silly babblefests, who this time went completely bonkers, fuming about the absurdity of Trump's "firing Comey in May 2017 because he was nasty to Hillary in October 2016", an obviously stupid way to try to get rid of the Inquisitor just as he was to confirm the Bureau has incriminating evidence of the Donald fellating Putin. Toobin, turning colors kept bleating the instant litany of the Dems, that this act was to sabotage The Investigation (which has so far produced absolutely nothing that would warrant interest), and that a special prosecutor was needed who would be impartial, which in translation means:  ready to conclude the prosecution of the president without facts to the satisfaction of the combined force of  Democrats and NeverTrumpers and get the sorry SOB out of the White House where he had no business to be in the first place.

Of course, I am a cynic and therefore do not believe that the canning of Comey had to do with the botched Hillary-Abedin investigation. But unlike Toobin, I think the official case for getting rid of him is good and solid. The real reason though that Trump finally got his fill of the FBI chief is, I have convinced myself,  because both of them know that Trump has not been investigated by the FBI, and Comey during the Senate hearing last week played stupid and chose to dance around it when he could have simply and truthfully said: "No, president Trump himself is not being investigated by the FBI".  That would have been the end of the despicable charade. There was no collusion between Trump's team and Russia because the pathetic little non-items on Michal Flynn, Carter Page, Roger Stone or Paul Manafort that have bubbled up are far, far from anything even resembling some unseemly conspiracy.  Now, to believe that with the sentiments that Washington and the mainstream media have toward the sitting president, the blatant  effects of some vast Manchurian candidate conspiracy would have been hidden this long strikes me as far stupider than believing Trump fired Comey because of his inept handling of the Hillary Clinton emails investigation.

The Bonfire of the Vanities - Florida Flavoured

The Zimmerman legal saga would be as close as you can get to a perfect farce if it were not so tragic.  No matter how one looks at it there was a young life lost in the incident, and lost totally needlessly. The greater tragedy is what the incident bespeaks of:  the wide gulf that separates American communities, by their race or ethnicity, by wealth, by cultural values. The trial and the immediate aftermath of the trial serves also as a great exhibit of the seemingly irreconcilable left-right political chasm that makes it hard and sometimes impossible to have an intelligent discussion. What I mean by ‘intelligent discussion’ is one in which both sides have the capacity to understand the other side’s point of view and the ability to reflect on one’s own beliefs, not to say have a firm rein on one’s own passions and preoccupations.  

 Observed from the relatively benign, boring Canadian North, all this looks like reports from another planet. Mind you, there are Trayvon Martin T-shirts worn here also, and bumper stickers proclaiming that guns are feared only by the criminals. All the same, we have been blissfully spared the sharp edges of the inequalities, and racially motivated nastiness. They exist here also, but they are much more subdued and truly on the fringe. Canadians know the meaning and value of compromise.  It appears, the Americans these days do not.   Apparently, there are only two ways to see the fatal incident in which Trevor Martin was killed. One, he was a victim of a stalking racist vigilante who set upon him without a cause as he was ambulating peaceably home from a convenience store. Two, he was a punk (never mind of which race) who got what was coming to him after bashing the head of a blameless citizen, protecting the property of his neighbours against the depredations of hooded hoods such as himself.  There seems an absolute disconnect between these two narratives. No possibility of a compromise. A verdict that favours one side of the divide will immediately spark a mass outrage on the other. There has been from the start an attempt to portray the incident and its handling by the authorities as having deep racial undertones.

         At the outset, I was entirely on side with Trayvon Martin family’s and the African-American community outrage at the police letting George Zimmerman simply walk out.  This certainly did not feel right, and the assurances of the police that there were no grounds to detain the shooter since he was battered and claimed self-defence ring hollow to our Canadian multi-cultural sense of fairness.  How could the police be sure at that time that George did not, as Tom Mesereau, formerly  Michael Jackson’s defense lawyer, put it later, bring a gun to a fist fight ?  Of course they could not be sure.  Zimmermann should have been detained automatically, and subjected to thorough medical examination i.e. an assessment of his injuries and state of mind. Since he seemed eager to cooperate, a lie detector test should have been administered, or at least suggested. I understand and share in the bitterness and outrage which was entirely in place, and well in advance of any outside political agitation and far-flung political theories of how to read the incident.  A routine investigative detention (up to what Florida habeas corpus statute allows) should be de rigeur.  There is no other way to demonstrate law enforcement is serious about enforcing the law. Not just to the African American community; to everone !  It make sense not just politically, not just procedurally, but - I pray you - humanly. You don’t want to hurt the family further in their grief, by putting in question the value of the life of their tragically lost son.   

         I am led to believe it was this act of stupidity prefigured and poisoned the whole process as it unfolded.  It is clear that the Florida state officials felt deeply embarrassed and resolved to make up for the dreadful gaffe of not detaining the shooter  and examining immediately his physical and mental state. The problem of course is the remedy  they cooked up was far worse than the ill it was to cure:  indict Zimmerman without grand jury, on the basis of the worst possible conjecture we can make about his motive, and let the jury chill this down to a compromise solution. Surely, they will assume that George must be guilty of something. (Just look at the pics of him : does this spooked guy look innocent to you ?)   If the jury doesn’t buy the sordid vilification of Zimmerman, they will still shudder to let him go free, and give us manslaughter as a way to equity. And so it went, surely one of the ugliest prosecutions in American legal history.  I hope it is long remembered that the special prosecutor in the case called Zimmerman a murderer after the trial's verdict, when he was acquitted of the charges against him by the jury of his peers. Disgraceful and impeachable ! 

     One of the saddest roles in this melodrama must go to the media, and more specifically to the TV networks and even more specifically, to CNN (which I have watched the most), although , the first prize for yellow journalism will be claimed by NBC for the doctored tape GZ made to the police dispatch!  It is not just that the pundits failed to halt (or thoroughly embarrass) the attempted railroading of George Zimmermann by the state. They helped to set up the farce and collaborated with this cynical abuse of process, right down to a staged rehearsal of the jury verdict. I certainly was not surprised the overwhelming majority of the studio guests “voted” manslaughter on Piers Morgan's show - so as to suggest that this is how most Americans felt about it.  (Most post-verdict polls, even from liberal strongholds such as HuffPost, show the "not guilty" verdict being supported by the majority of Americans who have an opinion).   Similarly, the legal experts called to comment seemed to be open to embrace the manslaughter compromise.  It was shocking to see bright, accomplished, lawyers by and large conniving in this ludicrously improvised state's case against George Zimmerman, and often witless when it came the flagrantly underhanded tactics the prosecution used.

      Just one example that somehow did not get commented on (TMK) by the bright legal minds:   a seventeen-year old is not usually refered to as a child in the legal contexts of proceedings that took place in Sanford (as it would be for the puposes of a family court) where the shooting victim was six-foot-one and 140-150 lbs high-school footbal player. It would have been far more appropriate to call him adolescent or minor but the sleazy misnomer seemed to have been deployed to argue that Trayvon Martin could not pose a real physical threat to George Zimmerman, and to disqualify the evidence of battery the latter suffered at his hands in advance of shooting him dead.  Not being a lawyer myself, and not knowing the procedural tolerance stateside for prosecutotrial rhetoric, I can only observe that in Canada the opening statement by Bernie de la Rionda would likely have been followed not by the defense's rebuttal but by a motion for a mistrial on grounds that the prosecution was inflaming the jury against the accused ! 

   The badgering and scapegoating of George Zimmerman was constant and vociferous. In my reckoning, the worst offender was Piers Morgan. I have lost whatever respect I had for the man for the revolting animus he showed toward George Zimmerman, repeating ad nauseam the preposterous prosecutorial description of Trayvon Martin as a child "armed with Skittles and Arizona Tea".  Then there was Anderson Cooper, only slightly better, obviously having a more intelligent and guarded manner than Morgan. Nonetheless, his getting one of the jurors to talk and help her wade into series of statements to be picked apart and outed as racial bias and vile disrespect to a dead teenager was not helpful either. (Incidentally, I thought the interview was very interesting).   Clearly B-37 was over her head with Anderson who repeatedly ambushed her cleverly, in ways she was clueless about.  She had no idea what was going on when Anderson shot : "You really believe that ?" to her stated faith that George was afraid for his life. She thought Anderson was asking a question. 

       And then there is Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, now a legal analyst, who professed to have been stunned by the verdict and offered that justice took a day off.   She is alone among the CNN panelists who feels very passionately that Zimmermann should have been found guilty of a second-degree murder. She feels that the state proved beyond reasonable doubt that the act was one that manifested a depraved mind.  Ok, I guess it's a minority view. Problem is, she finds nothing wrong with Angela Corey's describing GZ as a murderer two days after the verdict that freed him while also believing that removing "Stand Your Ground" from the books would bring more civility to America.   But may I ask : what good are rules of law if we feel they are there only to advance our interests and aspirations ?  How can one speak of civility if one does not understand the idea of decency ? 

   Is it decent for a major television network to fan the flames of racial hatred by pouring scorn and degrading comments on a pathetic figure who unwittingly, by not more than his lack of judgment and common sense, destroyed one life outright and brought terrible insecurity into his own life and the lives of those dearest to him ?  Does this make the country better ?  You really believe that Sunny, Anderson, Piers ?  

  Is it decent to deny the public the facts of the case and the relevant background, or to scatter them so they become meaningless, instead of serving a factually correct, balanced, judicious view of what happened ?  Why could it not have been what it was, right from the beginning...a stupid, violent, avoidable clash of two guys clueless about what the other was really doing ?  How is it possible that after more than a year of CNN (and Reuters) knowing the Zimmerman's family background the question of racial profiling can even be raised ?  George's great maternal grandfather was black; he grew up with two black girls in the house in the care of his grandmother; he had a black business partner; publicly took up the cause of a black homeless man beaten by a police-chief's son.  Is this a profile of a racist, prowling in the night in search of a coon to lynch ?  Is it decent to compare George Zimmerman publicly to a Charles Bronson notorious serial killer vigilante character three days after he was set free and the president called the incident a tragedy ? Is this how Piers Morgan understands calm reflection and widening the circle of compassion and understanding across America's communities ? 

     I have been strongly reminded during the trial and in the wake of the verdict of a brilliant book by Tom Wolfe The Bonfire of the Vanities, a book about America corrupted by insane greed, the rage of the underprivileged preyed upon by corrupt race baiters, unscrupulous operators in the justice system and manipulators in the media (distilled into one character).  More and more, the Zimmerman process seemed like life imitating art. The only thing missing right now is the ending that would match the book's conclusion of the malicious prosecution of Sherman McCoy rendered in the movie by Morgan Freeman. Worth watching, worth reflecting on !

Cui Bono ?

        Two nights ago, CNN published the picture of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, which I presume was out of a deeply-felt sense of public duty, in order to prevent an indiscriminate massacre at the filmmaker's house.  It is obviously necessary to publish the pictures of those who are under multiple fatwas, threats and summons by foreign jurisdictions lest innocent people and American diplomats get hurt by the Muslim multitudes and its legally appointed leaders. Evidently  CNN doesn't want Americans who did not have anything to do with DaVideo to suffer through a case of mistaken identity.  By publishing the pictures of the culprits, and disclosong the hideouts of the miscreants who dare to mock Islam and its prpphet they ensure that in the righteous indignation of one and a half billion offended, the wrong people do not get beheaded. Makes sense, right ?

       No it does not make sense to someone who understands the word civilized.  The media (not sure it was CNN first) did reveal the identity of  Nakoula as the producer and director of The Innocence of Muslims. Fine, so far so good. Not so fine was the outing of his address. It added nothing to the story.  But the CNN's self-advertized caper removing Nakoula's burqa for all to see his face is nothing if not bad and incivil.  Surely, the news network's people know full well that this news increases the probabibility of a lethal assault on him. In view of this knowledge, the publishing of the picture was motivated by malice.

      There is very little that I agree with in the commentaries on the video, its intents and effects.  Both the President of the United States and the Secretary of State denounced the film as an attempt to "denigrate religious beliefs of others",  a phrase which more or less describes an offence under the present Turkish criminal code.  In view of this to say in the next breath that nothing justifies the attacks on US diplomats and our sovereign territory, is like saying 'but we protest being beaten too much !'   The Left generally sees the incident as a loony conspiracy of the Right to unseat Obama in  the upcoming election by stirring up trouble with Muslims.  Max Blumenthal writing in the Guardian professes to belief in a mystical connection of Nakoula to Anders Breivik, via the known "Islamophobes"  of the ultra-conservative strand of the American Copts, and the omnipresent spectre of the two-headed avenger of the Twin Towers, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.  Alas, Blumenthal thesis of a American Coptic conspiracy to destabilize "post-Mubarak Egypt" is now in tatters as the chief logistical support in the melodrama, Joseph Nasrallah, revealed he was deceived by Nakoula about the project and pointed to the clean record of his org, Media for Christ, in respecting Islam's religious symbols.
   
     For its part, most of the commentary on the Right is stuck on the image of Nakoula as a martyr for free speech unjustly harrassed by authorities.  Pamela Geller expressed the opinion that if Nakoula is sent to prison for violating terms of his parole he will be a political prisoner.  The ever-clever Mark Steyn noted that Nakoula was rushed to a midnight interview mere 72 hours after Morsi demanded the arrest of the film principals, he was 'rounded up at midnight by brownshirted men [spare me !] for making a movie that embarrasses El Presidente'.   Hell no ! Mr. Nakoula is a convicted meth manufacturer and fraudster, who is on parole. His parole contract prohibits him, among other things, to use false identities. He used a new identity of Sam Bacile and claimed to be an Israeli Jew for the purposes of this movie. If I understand correctly he still denies he is Bacile, even though this moniker resembles half a dozen other aliases he used and even a portion of his real name (Basseley). So if this guy violated his parole he should be in jail, irrespective what Mohammed Morsi wants or David Horowitz does not want done.  Mr. Nakoula has the right to free speech, true. His rights however do not free him from his legal obligations just because someone thinks he is a hero.

     It is interesting to observe that because of the opposing partisan obsessions the real story of Nakoula is not getting out.  The single most important factual item about his project is that he is the only one known to be responsible for the content of the video (purporting to be a trailer of a movie). None of the other named actors, and promoters of the drama had any input into writing or editing or creating Arabic subtitles or posting the trailer on Youtube.  On what we know, the movie appears to be Nakoula's own idea and product. He is the architect, editor, and production manager.  He obtained the logistical support of Nasrallah's organization under false pretenses, and sought support for his earth-shattering portrait of Mohammed from bumbling bugs like Terry Jones only when the deed was done.   To this advanced date of  demolition of US diplomatic facilities around the world, no-one has yet had the idea to inquire into the financing of his pathetic amateur movie.  How strange !  How strange no-one has yet asked (or at any rate, informed us) if it is true that imaginary Jew Bacile had a hundred Jewish sponsors doling out five million dollars as Nakoula apparently told Steve Klein.  Huh !  Surely there would be some records for revenue sharing in the anticipated world-wide distribution of the smash hit. No ?

      You see, what gets me about this is not as much that there are no hundred Jewish investors in the film. (I'll bet you my life savings on that.) What gets me is that no-one sees that the fictional Sam Bacile and his hundred Zionist mischiefmakers look suspiciously like a clumsy conspiracy ripoff of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which we know enjoys undying popularity in the Muslim world, especially in Egypt.  Now the question of all questions here is : cui bono ?  Who would find political comfort in an incendiary anti-Mohammed collection of skits which obligingly identifies Jews, Copts and Terry Jones as a stand-in for all Catholics and Protestants as perpetrators of a heinous crime against Islam on the territory of the U.S.A. ? Any ideas ?  

       I don't say that I know the answer to that question. I simply want the media asking it.  Maybe, Mr. Nakoula is just a lone straggler, whose idiocies are innocent of a design and unconnected to anyone. But maybe, just maybe, he is touch too dumb to be so clever that he or his handlers can play everyone for fool in his latest fraud.

      Now if you thinking what I am thinking: i.e. that The Innocence of Muslims is a nasty provocation by the Muslim Brotherhood, do not be scared off by their love for the prophet. It would not be an impediment to a devout Muslim to orchestrate hatefests of Jews, Copts and Americans any more than for the Nazis to use Van der Lubbe to accuse his fellow communists of burning down the Reichstag.