Fani Willis Is an Embarrassment to Black People and Proof That DEI Hurts Us

By Kira Davis. Feb. 16, 2024

As a Black woman and working professional, I've never been a huge fan of affirmative action and the recent rise of critical theory, and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives has only bolstered my resistance. While it may seem necessary to some in order to right the wrongs of the past, I can sum up why these measures are an unmitigated disaster for hard-working Black Americans in two words:

Fani Willis.

Willis is the prosecutor in one of the nation's major cities and most high profile cases against former President Donald Trump. Her position and the historic nature of the case she is prosecuting put her in an elite class most Black people will never even dream of reaching.One would expect such a person to be polished and classy, and able to remain soeven while responding to an uncomfortable barrage of questions on the witness stand.

Instead,what we got was a defiant, childish, sour woman who spoke with the sophistication of teenage girlat her first college party.

It wasn't simply that she sounded angry—she also sounded stupid.

As I watched her testimony with my husband, an unspoken dread passed between us, weighted by a certain type of sadness. We understood instinctively thatwe were watching result of a diversity-first systemthat ends up elevating the weak while simultaneously besmirching the strong.

Willis is an elected official, but to even be in a position to run for one of the highest offices in her state means she has passed through elite job after elite job. She has received degrees, awards, and accolades.

How on earth, then, does such an "accomplished" woman sound like a freshman college student while participating in the trial of the century?Her foul demeanor and childish expressions only serve to magnify the grotesque consequences diversity hiringhas for Black America in general.

Every time someone like me seeks professional advancement, I am forced to wonder how many people in the room think I shouldn't be there before I've even opened my mouth. I will have to swallow offenses I should really be battling, because I must battle not only my professional challengers,but the specter of the "angry, defiant black woman" who only got her job because she's not white. Many of my colleagues will look at any complaint I have as frivolous and rooted in entitlement. I must be my best, and then be even better than my best, because of the pathetic expectations Willis and her counterparts have sown on behalf of the rest of us.

We will forever be forced to carry Fani Willis on our backs into every professional situation.

Diversity-first hiring does the oppositeof what I'm sure we all hope it really could do. It does not even the playing field. Instead, it puts all of Black America behind, left once again to prove to the elites in charge that we are more than our skin color.

I was deeply ashamed and discouraged to watch Willis' performance on the witness stand. As many inroads as I have tried to make in my own industry for Black content creators,I am doomed to be haunted by the inherent distrust sown by diversity-first practices.

It isn't fair of others to cast those aspersions on me simply because of my skin color, but that's just how it is. I must deal with the world the way it is, not the way I wish it would be.

And what I wish it would be is a world in which I would be judged on my merits, and my complaints and diverging opinions would be judged likewise.

Shame on Fani Willis and every corrupt person who allowed her to take the path of least resistance just to fill a quota.You've doomed us all.

A pox on your houses.

(Kek, I wholeheartedly agree!)

https://www.newsweek.com/fani-willis-embarrassment-black-people-shes-proof-that-dei-only-hurts-us-opinion-1870598

Donald Trump Is Blessed With the Very Best EnemiesOpinion Josh Hammer

Published Feb 16, 2024 at 6:00 AM

On the one hand, Donald Trump, the former and perhaps future president of the United States, seems uniquely hapless. He lost an election unlike any other before—one in which insecure mail-in balloting proliferated, many states made constitutionally dubious changes to their voting procedures, and Big Tech put a decisive and perhaps outcome-altering thumb on the scale. Even worse, Trump last year became the first former president to be criminally indicted—four separate times.

Tough luck, for sure. But on the other hand, there is one thing that should provide no small amount of solace to Trump and his many supporters. As we are seeing unfold across the country in real time,Trump is truly blessed with the best enemies. For all of Trump's bad luck, he is also aided right now by some very, very good luck.

Consider some of the current biggest enemies of Trump, as he marches through the Republican presidential primary and looks toward a general election rematch with President Joe Biden.

First, there is Biden himself.The nominal president of the United States is an indescribable embarrassment to the nation—physically corpse-like, palpably senile, chronically misinformed, utterly lacking in judgment, and generally clueless as to where he is and what words emanate from his mouth. He is a disgrace to his office, and it is a shocking public disservice that his wife and handlers even permit him to seek re-election in such a debilitated state. Special Counsel Robert Hur's report filed last week, in which he explained that one reason he is not recommending criminal charges against Biden is because he is mentally unfit to stand trial, is an astonishing open admission of the harrowing reality Democratic Party elites have frantically tried to hide.

Second, there is former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump's final competitor in the Republican presidential primary.Haley is the very embodiment of all that was wrong with the pre-Trump GOP: She is a laissez-fairefundamentalist out of touch with Republican voters' concerns and priorities, a strident neoconservative personally corrupted by the military-industrial complex (viz., Boeing), an enthusiast for mass immigration who is guided not by voters' clearly expressed desire to close the border but by corporations' desire to keep it open, and a coward when it comes to the righteous prosecution of the culture war against the forces of civilizational arson.Haley's caricaturable nature makes her a perfect foil for Trump.

Third, there is Alvin Bragg, the Soros-funded lawyer in New York City now prosecuting Trump on the laughable grounds that "hush money" payments ex-Trump fixer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election amounted to falsified business records in furtherance of … well, something.Bragg's indictment never actually stipulates what the records were falsified in furtherance of—and Bragg needs an additional crimein order to (1) overcome the falsified recording crime's three-year statute of limitations and to (2) enhance to a felony what would otherwise be a mere misdemeanor. Bragg's is a remarkably frivolous case, and the fact that this is how he expends prosecutorial resources in a metropolis now in the throes of a generational crime epidemicmakes him another ideal foe for Trump.

Finally, there is Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, whose courtroom meltdown this week, and the likelihood that she lied in court about the timing of her extramarital affair with her own appointed special prosecutor,has crystallized what already seemed likely: The Georgia prosecution, which once seemed the most dangerous of Trump's four criminal cases, is imploding. Willis came across as highly unprofessional during Thursday's hearing on her possible disqualification from the case. She snapped at Trump's attorneys, and she was warned numerous times by the presiding judge. At this point, Trump's Georgia case is not reaching a verdict before the election; the only questions are whether a trial commences at all, andwhether Willis ends up being the one to go to jail instead of Trump or his codefendants.

It is often said that it is better to be lucky than good. Donald Trump could still be derailed by Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal probe in Washington, D.C, and he is about to get smacked by an unjust verdict in New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud case.But everywhere else Trump looks, Lady Luck seems to be shining.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-blessed-very-best-enemies-opinion-1870478

Donald Trump Is Blessed With the Very Best EnemiesOpinion Josh Hammer

Published Feb 16, 2024 at 6:00 AM

On the one hand, Donald Trump, the former and perhaps future president of the United States, seems uniquely hapless. He lost an election unlike any other before—one in which insecure mail-in balloting proliferated, many states made constitutionally dubious changes to their voting procedures, and Big Tech put a decisive and perhaps outcome-altering thumb on the scale. Even worse, Trump last year became the first former president to be criminally indicted—four separate times.

Tough luck, for sure. But on the other hand, there is one thing that should provide no small amount of solace to Trump and his many supporters. As we are seeing unfold across the country in real time,Trump is truly blessed with the best enemies. For all of Trump's bad luck, he is also aided right now by some very, very good luck.

Consider some of the current biggest enemies of Trump, as he marches through the Republican presidential primary and looks toward a general election rematch with President Joe Biden.

First, there is Biden himself.The nominal president of the United States is an indescribable embarrassment to the nation—physically corpse-like, palpably senile, chronically misinformed, utterly lacking in judgment, and generally clueless as to where he is and what words emanate from his mouth. He is a disgrace to his office, and it is a shocking public disservice that his wife and handlers even permit him to seek re-election in such a debilitated state. Special Counsel Robert Hur's report filed last week, in which he explained that one reason he is not recommending criminal charges against Biden is because he is mentally unfit to stand trial, is an astonishing open admission of the harrowing reality Democratic Party elites have frantically tried to hide.

Second, there is former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump's final competitor in the Republican presidential primary.Haley is the very embodiment of all that was wrong with the pre-Trump GOP: She is a laissez-fairefundamentalist out of touch with Republican voters' concerns and priorities, a strident neoconservative personally corrupted by the military-industrial complex (viz., Boeing), an enthusiast for mass immigration who is guided not by voters' clearly expressed desire to close the border but by corporations' desire to keep it open, and a coward when it comes to the righteous prosecution of the culture war against the forces of civilizational arson.Haley's caricaturable nature makes her a perfect foil for Trump.

Third, there is Alvin Bragg, the Soros-funded lawyer in New York City now prosecuting Trump on the laughable grounds that "hush money" payments ex-Trump fixer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential election amounted to falsified business records in furtherance of … well, something.Bragg's indictment never actually stipulates what the records were falsified in furtherance of—and Bragg needs an additional crimein order to (1) overcome the falsified recording crime's three-year statute of limitations and to (2) enhance to a felony what would otherwise be a mere misdemeanor. Bragg's is a remarkably frivolous case, and the fact that this is how he expends prosecutorial resources in a metropolis now in the throes of a generational crime epidemicmakes him another ideal foe for Trump.

Finally, there is Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, whose courtroom meltdown this week, and the likelihood that she lied in court about the timing of her extramarital affair with her own appointed special prosecutor,has crystallized what already seemed likely: The Georgia prosecution, which once seemed the most dangerous of Trump's four criminal cases, is imploding. Willis came across as highly unprofessional during Thursday's hearing on her possible disqualification from the case. She snapped at Trump's attorneys, and she was warned numerous times by the presiding judge. At this point, Trump's Georgia case is not reaching a verdict before the election; the only questions are whether a trial commences at all, andwhether Willis ends up being the one to go to jail instead of Trump or his codefendants.

It is often said that it is better to be lucky than good. Donald Trump could still be derailed by Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal probe in Washington, D.C, and he is about to get smacked by an unjust verdict in New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud case.But everywhere else Trump looks, Lady Luck seems to be shining.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-blessed-very-best-enemies-opinion-1870478

>>20425242

Kek

Alvin Bragg's Case Against Trump Should Have Been Dismissed | Opinion

Published Feb 16, 2024 at 7:201/2

On Thursday, February 15, Acting Justice Juan Merchan in the Manhattan trial court orderedthat Alvin Bragg's 34-count felony case against former president Trump, alleging falsification of business records regarding hush money he paid to adult performer Stormy Daniels in 2016, proceed to trialscheduled for March 25, 2024.

It is no accident that the trial date is scheduled for three weeks after Super Tuesday, when sixteen states and territories, representing almost three-quarters of the delegates needed to win the GOP nomination, hold their primaries, and right before five more states hold their primaries on April 2. At best, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Trump or any presidential candidate to campaign and raise money while in the middle of criminal trials. In fact, during the hearing, Justice Merchan said that he spoke twice last week to Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court in D.C., who is overseeing Trump's January 6 criminal case, which special counsel Jack Smith is pushing hard to start as soon as possible.

Though it was inevitable that at least one of Trump's many upcoming trials was going to start and almost certainly finish before the November 5, 2024 election, in perhaps a bit of political luck for Trump, Bragg's case is the weakest and least relevant to Trump's time in office, and thus fuels Trump's political claim that Democrats weaponized the justice system to "persecute" him in order to prevent his returning as president. It seems that Trump's strategy of appearing in court and attacking what his supporters view as a biased legal system is still paying political dividends for him, as it keeps him atop the nation's political attention.

Bragg's case alleges that Trump, through his former fixer Michael Cohen and the Trump Organization, falsified business records with the intent to defraud and commit another crime. Trump allegedly violated federal campaign finance laws when he paid Daniels $130,000 through Cohen to sign a NDA about their alleged sexual encounter—something we have to glean not from the indictment but from Bragg's statement that Cohen pled guilty to campaign finance violations; Cohen, who paid Daniels the money out of pocket, labeled his invoiced reimbursements as "legal services" instead of something like "reimbursement for settlement payment re: extra-marital sex."

Bragg turned this single transaction, which normally would have been one misdemeanor charge, into 34 separate felony counts with a maximum combined sentence of 136 years by throwing in the federal charge and aggressively subdividing each invoice, check, deposit, etc. into its own charge.

All Bragg needs is a conviction on one of the 34 counts to destroy Trump.

Justice Merchan's opinion apparently ignored several important points of law. For example, it seems to contradict the U.S. Supreme Court's body of cases which limit criminal fraud cases to depriving traditional property interests such as money, not something ephemeral. That's assuming there actually was an intent to defraud, because the only person whom the incorrect labeling affected was Trump himself.

In fact, Bragg's indictment never specifies what the "another crime" is, which is a minimum requirement for any indictment, let alone one of this magnitude.

Also, it is doubtful that Bragg may charge the federal crime. State prosecutors may not prosecute federal crimes because under Article II of the U.S. Constitution, only the president, through his Department of Justice, has that power. Imagine that a district attorney decided to prosecute Hunter, Joe, and Jim Biden for FARA violations because he or she felt that the DOJ was protecting them, or a district attorney in Arizona or Texas decided to prosecute illegal aliens for violating the Immigration and Nationality Act or the Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, which would contravene the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Arizona v. United States (2012)…

https://www.newsweek.com/alvin-braggs-case-against-trump-should-have-been-dismissed-opinion-1870620

>>20425269

2/2

Prior to Bragg's indictment, SDNY prosecutors investigated Trump's alleged campaign finance violations, as did the Federal Election Commission, but both declined to pursue the case because Trump used his own money, not campaign finance money, and because reimbursing someone for a hush-money payment does not fit the definition of an in-kind campaign contribution. In fact, candidates do not have to disclose expenses that would have been incurred even if no campaign existed; it is highly likely that Trump would have paid Daniels regardless just to avoid any marital strife or embarrassment to himself and his family.

Furthermore, because Cohen paid Daniels on October 26, 2016, 13 days before the election, and Trump did not complete his reimbursement payments until December 5, 2017, Trump would not have had to report the payment to the FEC, assuming he had to at all, until February or March of 2017 at the earliest, well-after the 2016 election ended.

Moreover, Bragg's assertion that disclosure of the payment would have affected the electoral outcome is wrong; in 2016, Trump lost the State of New York by more than 20 points, a ginormous margin; disclosure would not have made a difference.

Again, imagine that a district attorney decided to charge Tony Blinken and Hunter Biden for an illegal, undisclosed in-kind campaign contribution when they lied in October 2020 to conceal that the abandoned laptop actually belonged to Hunter ("earmarks of a Russian information operation").

It seems clear that Bragg twisted the law to bring this case only because the defendant is Donald Trump. A state court system that truly enforced the rule of law would stop its prosecutors from abusing their discretion as Bragg did.

Justice Merchan should know better because he worked as an ADA under legendary district attorney Bob Morgenthau. A justice system with fairness and integrity would put the brakes on the rush to convict the former president. As Justice Robert H. Jackson once said, a prosecutor who singles out "some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass" is where "the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies," and that such a prosecutor "has a perverted sense of practical values, as well as defects of character."

John Yoo is the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He served in the U.S. Department of Justice from 2001 to 2003. John Shu is a legal scholar and commentator who served in the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

https://www.newsweek.com/alvin-braggs-case-against-trump-should-have-been-dismissed-opinion-1870620

>>20425275

We are dead as a country, the Leviathan is lose in our country and world, and has joined with 100s of other countries to destroy us and our freedoms.

How can this ever be shut down?