Cosby is still guilty

While Bill Cosby's accusers are understandably upset, to put it mildly, by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturning his conviction for sexual assault, it's crucial to remember that the court didn't find that the evidence against him was false. The court didn't find that he didn't do the things he was accused of doing.

No, the court vacated his conviction because a prior prosecutor gave Cosby what I've heard described as a "handshake" promise that the disgraced comedian's testimony in a civil matter wouldn't result in criminal charges. The state high court ruled that Cosby should never have faced the trial that ended in his conviction and imprisonment.

If ever one were justified in saying somebody got off on a technicality, this would be the time.

Now, I can frankly agree with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's vacating of the conviction. Cosby relied on the prosecutor's word, it seems. If you're pissed that he got off, blame the original prosecutor, one Bruce L. Castor, Jr. I don't know if he should have entered into the agreement with Cosby in the first place, but having done so, he should have made that fact clear to his office. Sloppy, Mr. Castor.

(It's of some interest that after leaving his prosecutor job, Castor went on to cover himself with glory — or something — defending the domestic Dear Leader during the latter's second impeachment trial. If Senate Republicans hadn't had the fix in from the beginning, Castor would very likely have cemented his place in history for a shambolic "defense" that led to the first presidential impeachment conviction. Castor is not my idea of a fine legal mind, nor does he seem to be detail-oriented.)

However, let me repeat that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court didn't find what was revealed at trial to be untrue. And what was revealed at trial convinced a jury to convict Cosby.

Cosby did the things of which he was accused.

He no longer has this criminal conviction on his record — but he is in no way innocent.

Evacuate our Afghan allies

My God, are we still fussing over how, or even whether, to evacuate the Afghanis who helped us during our long war in Afghanistan?

Apparently so, according to George Packer's piece in The Atlantic.

In the past few weeks, the outlook for Afghans who helped the United States in Afghanistan has gone from worrying to critical. As U.S. and NATO troops leave the country with breathtaking speed, the Taliban are attacking districts that had long been in the Afghan government’s hands, setting up checkpoints on major roads, and threatening provincial capitals. Many of the 18,000 Afghans who, along with their families, have applied for Special Immigrant Visas will soon have nowhere to hide, no armed force standing between them and their pursuers.

I don't know how President Biden made the decision to extricate U.S. forces from Afghanistan by 11 September 2021 (Packer says that informed opinion is that most will be gone by the 4th of July). I won't second-guess the decision, as I can imagine very good reasons for it. However, it would be unconscionable for the U.S. to abandon those Afghanis who put their lives on the line for us.

Packer cites possible reasons for the administration's foot-dragging:

No doubt an administration that polls poorly on immigration fears a public backlash, particularly as America approaches the bitter 20th anniversary of September 11. Evacuation would require the suspension of all kinds of standard procedures. There is always the risk of fraud, and perhaps of allowing an enemy combatant into the United States. The spectacle of evacuation might induce Afghan security forces to panic and desert in even larger numbers than they’re deserting now, causing a rush to the airports and borders and a collapse of the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Most of these reasons strike me as abject moral cowardice that should not be tolerated in our government.

The immediate obstacles include legislative ones: Congress controls how immigration occurs. Congress must act swiftly to bend those rules. Guam has offered itself as a place where the necessary processing of immigrants (to keep out enemy combatants, for instance) can take place, rather than forcing all of it to take place in Afghanistan. The logistics of getting everyone out who needs to get out are manageable but becoming more difficult every day.

Mr. Biden, get your administration moving on this. You created this situation. You must address this consequence of your decision.

U.S. credibility and honor are at stake. Do we stand by those who have helped us, or not?

Awkward question about gun safety

The killing of nine innocent victims at the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) light rail yard in San Jose, California on 26 May was horrific. The gunman, himself a VTA employee, possessed what police later discovered to be a veritable arsenal, including more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition. He also appears to have tried to divert emergency responders away from the light rail yard by setting his house on fire (via a delayed-ignition mechanism) at approximately the same time he was starting his rampage. Clearly, he planned very carefully for his murder spree.

The gunman committed suicide as police closed in so we will never hear a reason for the slaughter from his lips. However, statements from his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend suggest that he was volatile — possibly mentally ill, though he was never diagnosed. Moreover, the Wall Street Journal reported that the gunman had been detained by Customs officials in 2016 after returning from the Philippines; per the San Francisco Chronicle, the officials "found a notebook expressing hatred for his workplace, along with books about terrorism".

The Santa Clara County district attorney says Homeland Security never contacted San Jose police to report the 2016 encounter.

“I am concerned about an individual who has books about terrorism and is so angry at their coworkers that they are writing it down, not typing it but taking pen-to-paper and writing down how angry they are. Now that’s not a crime to do those things but it is certainly something for a D.A., for a police chief, would be of interest."

The D.A. has a point. On the other hand, what exactly would local officials have been able to do?

The Second Amendment, as the modern-day SCOTUS has interpreted it, offers a virtually unfettered right for private citizens to own firearms. There are very limited circumstances under which someone may be permanently barred from gun ownership, or have his or her weapons' temporarily seized (under so-called "red flag" laws). However, the exceptions are extremely narrow.

And when it comes right down to it, what law would have allowed police either to seize this guy's weapons, or to prevent him from buying them, prior to his rampage?

That's the awkward question this incident raises. It's why gun-safety advocates would be well-advised not to use this tragedy to argue for strengthened gun-safety legislation.

Yes, this guy was volatile and angry. However, this country has no shortage of volatile, angry people, and most of them, even if they own guns, don't shoot other people. (At least, that's my impression; if you've done the research to prove me wrong, speak up.)

Unfortunately, the ones who do pop their cork kill more than enough of the rest of us. Shooting sprees that kill four or more people at once (the definition of "mass shooting" used by some incident trackers) grab the headlines but a lot more of us die one or two at a time, often at the hands of someone we know.

So, absent the ability to read minds or peer into the future, shootings large and small will plague us. Prudent laws (limiting magazine size, for instance) might reduce the damage but ultimately shootings are unavoidable so long as private gun ownership is treated as sacrosanct.

(By the way, don't start with that "if everybody were armed we'd all be safer" crap. The idea that "good guys with guns" can neutralize the threat of "bad guys" is simpleminded horseshit that would leave the country hip-deep in bodies.)

This lamentable situation has convinced me that the Second Amendment must go. Moreover, its repeal must be followed by the drying-up of the unfathomably large surplus of firearms already in private hands. Neither of these things is likely to happen in my lifetime but nevertheless, that's my hope.

(I'll offer one alternative to repeal of the Second Amendment: an ironclad rule that gun ownership be licensed at least as strictly as driving, with periodic psychological exams to determine emotional fitness to operate guns safely. I doubt any such examination is possible today or will be possible in my lifetime.)

The ones who control gun violence

I tried to muster some horror, some sorrow — any emotion, really — when I heard about the shooting deaths of eight people at an Indianapolis FedEx facility.

Honestly, though, I couldn't.

No disrespect meant to the Indianapolis victims but we've all been here before. People die at the hands of non-police gun wielders literally every day in this country.

I've written angry, frustrated posts again and again and again in this blog; search for "gun control" to see them. I just went over those posts, and the tragedy of our time is that from 2012, when I wrote the first one, to 2018, when last I was moved to comment, right up to today, not a goddamned thing has gotten better.

Why? Because too goddamned many of you are single-issue voters who will crucify your (generally Republican) elected representatives if they even gesticulate vaguely in the direction of legislation making guns a little more challenging to own. As I wrote in 2015:

The problem wasn't and isn't with the majority of us. It was and is with the minority that believes any regulation is an abridgement of the Second Amendment.

You folks are the ones who need to get over your absolutism on the subject of gun ownership.

You folks are the ones with blood on your hands.

And you folks are making the rest of us angrier and angrier, thus making us more, not less, likely to countenance drastic overreach in gun-safety legislation — maybe even Constitutional amendments. You should think about our concerns before we stop giving a shit about yours.

Okay, done speaking to the Second Amendment absolutists.

For the rest of us, since it would be foolish to wait for a come-to-Jesus moment among Second Amendment absolutists, our only option is to become as single-mindedly focused as they. If you live in a county or state whose elected officials fear the wrath of gun-rights groups (not just the NRA), you will have to become a single-issue voter. You must tell your representatives, "You will only get my vote if you work your ass off to make meaningful gun-safety legislation happen" at either the state or federal level.

(It will, of course, be a much more effective strategy if you can corral a few thousand of your family and friends to do the same.)

By the same token, you must work to defeat even your favorite representative if he or she is a Second Amendment absolutist or provides aid and comfort to them.

Incidentally, one sign that your representative has the wrong mindset is the beyond-stupid argument, "This bill wouldn't end gun violence". Of course no single law will end gun violence. No single law or safety measure has eliminated injuries and deaths from car crashes, either — but we have a lot fewer than we did. The same common-sense logic applies to gun-safety legislation, too. Pretending to hold out for a miraculous bill that would fix everything insults voters' intelligence.

The path toward a less bloody future is blocked by Second Amendment absolutists: they control the level of gun violence in this country through their irrational intransigence. If they can't be unburdened of their paranoia, the rest of us will have no choice but to match their fanatical zeal to defend their weapons with our own fanatical zeal to defend our lives.

The empty suits

Let's not beat around the bush: the Senate Republicans who voted to acquit Donald Trump of the impeachment charge for the 6 January 2021 insurrection dishonored their oath of office. They refused to carry out their responsibility to defend the Constitution, not to mention the country, from a domestic enemy — Donald J. Trump.

It is patent bullshit that the impeachment trial was unconstitutional because Trump was no longer in office. The impeachment itself occurred while he was still in office. Nothing in the Constitution bars an impeachment trial after an officeholder has left that office. There is no law that bars such a trial, either. In fact, the Senate has conducted such trials in the past, though not of a president. (Incidentally, the only reason the Senate trial didn't start while Trump was still president is that Mitch McConnell flatly refused to reconvene the Senate until the day before Biden's inauguration.)

"Impeachment after leaving office is unconstitutional", though, sounds plausible as a defense, if your audience either (a) doesn't know much about what happened or (b) is deeply motivated to find Trump innocent no matter what.

Acquittal was dishonorable. Yet people — even senators — want to think of themselves as honorable. So why did those Republican senators vote to acquit?

The popular answer is, they fear Trump's sway over Republican voters. And if the subject at hand had been a simple legislative issue, like a particular bill, I could understand that fear.

But the subject at hand wasn't a bill. It was the role the former president played in fomenting violent insurrection.

Incessant angry lies by Trump and his allies hadn't altered the process of certifying the electoral results (though they came disturbingly close). Violence was the only logical recourse for the 6 January 2021 rallygoers, who took Trump seriously and literally.

The election was nearly undone by a violent mob acting under the influence of lying propaganda. That should make anyone who took the oath of office — which, no matter the office, calls above all for upholding the Constitution — mindful of what that oath means. Peaceful transfer of power is at the heart of the constitutional order. If the transfer of power between elected officials can be disrupted by a mob, the Constitution is an empty document.

The senators who voted to acquit not only did not hold to account a man who fought to overturn the constitutional order, they encouraged future sociopaths who will see a roadmap to autocracy if they can only emulate Trump's strengths (demagoguery most of all) while avoiding his conspicuous failings.

If you — I'm talking to the Senate Republicans who voted to acquit — can't uphold the primacy of the Constitution over a single man, how are you fit to hold office?

For that matter, why do you hold office?

What good do you think you do in office, when at the moment the country needed you most, you chickened out of doing the right thing?

Whatever you think you stand for, you don't stand for the constitutional order. You're an electoral tautology, wanting to hold office because you hold office.

You're an empty suit.

A little kindness

Sometimes you don't realize how dirty the air around you is until you can take a breath of clean air. You might know something's wrong but be unable to pin down what until that magic moment someone opens a window.

It took watching the inauguration and coverage of the new administration's first day to clarify what made Trump so uniquely appalling. If you watched Biden's remarks today — particularly his remarks to the thousand or so staffers he swore in virtually — what would strike you was his unfailing kindness. Yes, there was also dignity and clarity, two other qualities sorely lacking in Trump's public persona, but kindness above all.

Trump made everything toxic. You could not disagree with him solely on policy: if you disagreed with him, you became his personal enemy and he would stop at nothing to destroy you, not merely defeat you in the current debate. He is a mean man who inspires intense dislike.

Whatever you think of Biden's policies, you're probably as relieved as I am that we won't be subjected to the petty and nationally humiliating outbursts the deeply unkind Trump made a hallmark of his term.

I hope the political air gets cleaner quickly.

I breathe a little easier now

The clock has ticked over past noon, meaning that Donald J. Trump is no longer president. He no longer has the power of the U.S. presidency at his disposal.

A weight has been lifted off our shoulders.