(This above masterpiece is from that innocent time when Robert Mueller investigated the goniffs.)
* * * Who doesn’t love a perp walk, when an alleged suspect has to walk past a raggle-taggle media mob? As a news reporter, back in the day, I stood on a city sidewalk and yelled questions at suspects and lawyers. Sometimes somebody would even say something. I’ve been waiting for the ultimate perp walk for over four years, when the alleged perpetrator would have to bluster his way through the scrum, the way Messrs. Manaforte and Flynn and Stone had to do. The way the porcine little accomplice Barr will have to do one of these days. At least once a day, I ask my favorite news monitor: “Did they get him yet?” Every so often, I watch the Youtube masterpiece, “From Russia With Love,” depicting many of the villains of recent years (but not the racist Stephen Miller; why not the racist Stephen Miller?) I love the Vampira smile of the blonde turncoat, lurking in the shadows. Actually, a lot of us are waiting for the big one. It may just be coming. But on Thursday I had to settle for the dumpy accountant Allen Weisselberg to get hauled into court, although the NYT made it clear the charges included the the Trump organization, not just the figures guy. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/nyregion/allen-weisselberg-charged-trump-organization.html?searchResultPosition=2 Everybody knows Weisselberg is the major facilitator for the shady Trump and his family – the phony “university,” the crooked “foundation,” the real-estate scams that now have residents lobbying to have the chiseler’s name chiseled off crumbling Trumpian facades. Now Weisselberg has been summoned by the district attorney of New York City. By mid-day, I had not seen a sidewalk scrum like the ones that nice Michael Cohen had to endure, but still, there was Mr. Weisselberg, court-mandated mask on, hands cuffed behind his back, being guided through a public hallway -- no tie on Mr. Weisselberg. Trés déclassé I am sure somebody has told him his interesting options. To flip, or not to flip. “Mr. Weisselberg, we know you were merely following orders, weren’t you?” This isn’t even the worst stuff suspected of Donald John Trump. The rape charge. The payoffs. The racist policies in those badly-made buildings he and his father slapped up. And, if some legal mind wanted to try, the potential charges of dereliction of duty in the half a million avoidable American deaths in the ongoing Covid pandemic. And the sending of thugs (or, as Republicans call them, tourists) down Pennsylvania Ave. to tear apart the American government. That’s all out there, gettable, somehow. But right now, white-collar crime will do. Just for openers. Al Capone on tax evasion. The timing is perfect – just before the birthday of an idealistic country, not always perfect, but a beacon to the world, nonetheless, and now, maybe again. “Mr. Weisselberg, you’ll be doing your country a favor. You could be a patriot." Something to ponder over the long weekend. Happy Fourth of July, Mr. Weisselberg.
Ed Martin
7/1/2021 01:11:13 pm
Although the sentiment is far different, I am reminded of the song, “Ah, yes, I remember it well…”
bruce
7/2/2021 12:49:46 pm
ed....different sentiment but ironic given that chevalier was named as a collaborator during ww2. hope monsieur trump isn't the 'victim' of the same thing from his esteemed mr weisselberg.
Dave Kaplan
7/1/2021 01:41:45 pm
Salient stuff, George. 7/1/2021 04:42:01 pm
Trumps long history of business failures and ripping people/country, off may finally finally come home to roost. Who is readily willing to go to jail for him?
Ed
7/1/2021 04:46:43 pm
Weisselnerg is, — following trump-omerta. His whole family may be in too deep.
Brian Savin
7/1/2021 07:36:24 pm
Don’t fan a witch hunt, George. There is a serious challenge about to be waged against the 2020 election results in six states. God help us, because the challenge has extraordinary factual underpinnings, some of which I have reviewed, along with many Wall Street digital sector analysts. Our country is entering a period of potentially serious trouble. Let’s get together before the Rubicon is crossed and demand serious neutral review of the unfolding evidence. If this election challenge is willfully ignored by the so-called “mainstream” media it may light an explosive reaction. That can be avoided, but not for much longer. It’s quite possible we face a stormy confrontational period of civil strife.
Ed
7/1/2021 10:47:25 pm
Be careful with the Kool Aid, Brian.
bruce
7/2/2021 09:39:23 am
brian....
bruce
7/2/2021 10:33:19 am
my apologies....i was so excited about brian's escape from the forces of darkness that it could be interpreted as 'his supporters' meant biden's not the previous inhabitant, mr donald trump. the man who did such a magnificent job keeping covid off america's shores and shoring up the country's rep in the world after that treacherous muslim kenyan--remember trump's investigation found amazing things in hawaii about hussein obama!--he was going to release those facts as proof. i was away when he did, i guess. word is that putin weeps himself to sleep every night since that phony election took trump away from him. 7/2/2021 10:39:34 am
Bruce, we can always count of some common sense from Canada.
bruce
7/2/2021 10:48:40 am
alan,
Ed
7/2/2021 02:29:03 pm
Bruce, Happy Canada Day after. My Facebook posts reached “Canucks” in time! (Forgive!). And if GV has a birthday July 4, I still wont shoot off fireworks, neighbors dogs are nervous.i
Ed
7/2/2021 04:22:15 pm
Missing words. Like soccer journalism, WITHOUT GEORGE. 7/4/2021 04:55:25 pm
Lin Manuel Miranda had picked up Ron Charnow's Hamilton as a last-minute read, luckily for us. (Any book by Charnow is an informative read). He gave a book talk about Hamilton at the NY Historical Society without the use of any notes.
bruce
7/4/2021 04:58:42 pm
alan,
bruce
7/4/2021 09:17:50 am
to my fellow north americans....happy independence day from north of the border where we're still struggling under the yoke of socialism.
Ed
7/4/2021 03:50:22 pm
Bruce, “erratic behavior.?” Has Brian hacked your account? Pres. Spent three hours talking with people affected by Miami collapse, talked as long as they wished, not just a photo op, but real person to person comtact. On the other hand you Canadians have a way of kidding…..
bruce
7/4/2021 04:49:06 pm
ed, 7/4/2021 05:08:47 pm
Quebec is a great city with a wonderful old section. Visited both when I was single and married.
bruce
7/4/2021 06:30:42 pm
alan,
Ed
7/5/2021 07:53:32 pm
I wonder if George ever says to himself, “Its my fault, I never should have appealed to literate readers.”
bruce
7/5/2021 08:05:29 pm
ed,
Randolph
7/6/2021 06:22:16 am
Bruce,
bruce
7/6/2021 09:08:11 am
randolph, Comments are closed.
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QUOTES
Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online. The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal…. After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness. The progress stems mostly from three factors: First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot. Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.) Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year. “Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.” That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.” That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data. One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines. Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks. Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths. The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions. Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately Republican and white. Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.) *** From the great Maureen Dowd: As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop. But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels." --- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing. *** "Putting out the paper," we called it. Much more than nostalgia. ---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html Categories
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