Friday, August 04, 2017

Irony meets Justice. Plus: Does the Constitution forbid unmasking the newsfakers?

Dershowitz has this to say about Mueller's grand jury in DC:
“It gives the prosecutor a tremendous tactical advantage… the case now can be brought not in Northern Virginia, which is a swing area, sometimes Democrat, sometimes Republican… but the District of Columbia, which is always solidly Democratic and has an ethnic and racial composition that might be very unfavorable to the Trump Administration.”
Dersh won't come right out and say it, but he doesn't want this administration's fate to be decided by a bunch of African Americans. Me? I love the idea. I think it's bloody marvelous. Trump got into office via the most flamboyantly, openly racist campaign I've ever seen, and I'm old enough to recall Wallace in '68. Agent Orange should have had sufficient imagination to foresee the karmic consequences.

Irony, meet Justice. Justice, meet Irony. I think you two are going to get along. In fact, I hope you have a long and happy marriage.

Does the First Amendment protect Russia? Here's an interesting conundrum...
The FBI monitored social media on Election Day last year in an effort to track a suspected Russian disinformation campaign utilizing "fake news," CNN has learned.
On Election Day, dozens of agents and analysts huddled at a command center arrayed with large monitoring screens at the FBI headquarters in Washington watching for security threats, according to multiple sources.
FBI analysts had identified social media user accounts behind stories, some based overseas, and the suspicion was that at least some were part of a Russian disinformation campaign, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.
The FBI declined to comment for this story.
For the FBI, this was uncomfortable territory, given the First Amendment's free speech protections even for fake news stories. "We were right on the edge of Constitutional legality," a person briefed on the investigation said. "We were monitoring news."
Is that really on the edge of legality? What's wrong with monitoring? I monitor news. So do you.

To monitor the news is not to censor the news. Identifying the true origin of an alleged "news" story is not the same as intruding on an individual citizen's right to privacy. Identifying a foreign nation as the source of a widely-distributed bit of newsfaking is no reason to shout "Orwell!" at the FBI.

The FBI and the intelligence community never had any moral qualms about investigating jihadist propaganda. I have no doubt that the American intelligence community knows a thing or two about the people who produced Dabiq and Insight. (A few paranoid souls have suggested that the American intelligence community created Dabiq and Insight.)

So why hesitate to tell the world just who was behind those pre-election "news" stories which falsely spoke of a police raid on Hillary's home? Why shouldn't the FBI reveal the true authorship of this story, which was reprinted by Infowars? Dunno about you, but I'd like to know more about the shit-shoveler who shoveled this shit into our faces.

The German government distributed a glossy magazine called Signal which was available in the United States until December of 1941. Personally, I would have had no problem with the continued distribution of that periodical in the U.S. even after the declaration of war. Why? Because there was never any secret as to who was behind Signal. Everyone knew that it was a Nazi magazine.

Hidden sponsorship of propaganda materials is a different matter.

I do not favor censorship, but in certain cases -- particularly those involving hostile foreign actors -- I think that the FBI would be doing the country a service if they pulled away the mask to show whatever lies beneath. I've read the First Amendment. Nothing in it forbids the Bureau from performing this function.

Ken Starr warns Mueller about turning a probe into a fishing expedition. Message to Irony and Justice: To celebrate your new union, do something fun and spontaneous -- like rolling up a blue dress and shoving it up Starr's butt.

(Kidding. I do not advocate violence against even the most hypocritical of prosecutors.)

10 comments:

Tom said...

Starr, in the brief summary version makes me laugh. If he went on to say, something like: as I learned to my everlasting shame and deep regret, prosecutors going fishing is very poor practice. Well, that would be different than the passive voice twaddle he allows himself in what is certainly a lament for his sorry, worthless reputation. He and Dersh are dirtbag cousins.

Too bad about Dersh being such a jerk, good law professor. According to a friend who was a student of his early in his carrer, he was the most brilliant of the faculty. I was surprised by this highly credible assessment. He always struck me as the Geraldo of criminal law, and then that plane ride with Jeffrey Epstein, et al.

Anonymous said...

"I've read the First Amendment. Nothing in it forbids the Bureau from performing this function."

Nothing in the entire constitution or the bill of rights authorizes, decrees or recommends an FBI to even exist. The spirit of it cringes at the very mention of such a thing.

Anonymous said...

Of the all the scums who played the public last year, I wish to know specifics,names and when of the alt_left role. I hope the FBI have the goods on them.

Anonymous said...

Mensch seemed to.percolate then nothing. One source?

Ben

becksterc said...

Yeah, unless it's a black jury like the OJ trial. He just wants to showboat and get his face out there. Basic media whore. For people like Dersh, irrelevant and invisible is worse than death. He's got a big Karma Bite coming.

Joseph Cannon said...

beck, the truth is...as angry as I am at Dershowitz, a large part of me still admires him. Or admires the man he used to be. His complete, slavish devotion to the cause of Israel (even after so many Israelis have devolved into a form of fascism) has changed him.

fred said...

Anon @ 5:46 AM... Nothing in the US Constitution makes any mention of domestic fire brigade services, local police, the FDA, hospitals, Parks and Wildlife, the Department of Education or the EPA. So what? They are no less necessary for a well functioning modern society than a national agency for catching criminals. Nothing 'cringeworthy' about any of this.

Amelie D'bunquerre said...

Joseph said, "The truth is...as angry as I am at Dershowitz, a large part of me still admires him." Moi aussi ... that Yeshiva kid would defend the proverbial indicted ham sandwich, and probably get it off. I also admire him because he ain't 'Al', he's always Alan. Er, when did he become Dersh? Sounds like Millennial hip.

Tom said...

Joseph, I now see what L. Mensch has: youth. This form the perspective of one long past forty.

Marc McKenzie said...

Dersh won't come right out and say it, but he doesn't want this administration's fate to be decided by a bunch of African Americans. Me? I love the idea. I think it's bloody marvelous.

Me too, Joseph. Me too. And what said about Trump's campaign was the bloody truth.

Too bad that the Steiners and the Bernie-or-Bust!-ers were too busy attacking Hillary to notice...and they are still clueless (or just ignoring it).