Persecution that’s disguised as prosecution

© 2024

By Don Frost

            Some months back I asked the question (without expecting an answer), “When banks grant loans hadn’t they first checked the applicants’ claims as to the value of their collateral?”

            To my pleasant surprise, columnist Byron York answered it, and I am deeply indebted to him for much of the research that went into this column. Yes, he said, they do check the applicant’s claims; they don’t just take his word for it.

            It’s simply a sound banking principle, part of routine due diligence. Everybody knows that, except the legal brains in New York State. Apparently, they thought several major banks took Donald Trump at his word when he exaggerated the value of the properties he cited as collateral when applying for loans.

            The state wouldn’t wait for defrauded banks to complain that they’d been duped. It volunteered to do their job for them: Investigate whether Trump had truthfully reported his wealth to them. Surprise! They found he’d overstated his wealth.

            This evil cannot be tolerated, New York State decided. Accordingly, it spent a considerable sum to prosecute Trump for falsely stating the value of his properties. He was found guilty and was fined $350 million which will expand to $450 when interest is tacked on.   

            Perhaps this is how New York figures to recoup their expenses for filing the lawsuit in the first place.

Or perhaps the Democratic attorney general of the state, Letitia James, had another purpose in mind when she launched the suit.

            Or perhaps Democratic Judge Arthur Engoron had another purpose in mind when he imposed a fine of such mind-boggling proportions.

            James and Engoron can repeat to their last breaths that Trump’s was not a victim-less crime. That will not make it so. James had no one to put on the witness stand to testify how they’d suffered at Trump’s hands. Her entire case was Trump’s numbers vs. the numbers of independent analysis of the value of his properties. Little noticed by the Trump-hating press was that all the loans not only were repaid on time, but the banks profited, and they remain willing to do business with Trump again.

            So what if Trump fudged the value of his properties when he applied for the loans? The banks due diligence had revealed their true value. But they granted the loans anyhow. And they made money. Move along; there are no victims to see here.

            Engoron, acting as judge and jury, issued a 92-page report explaining his actions. In it he admitted several things that make clear that Trump was right in accusing him and James of conducting a political witch hunt.

            This entire case was persecution disguised as prosecution.

            (For the record, I am no fan of Trump. I voted against him twice. I hope I never have to do it again. I do, however, believe in equal justice under the law. But more to the point, I am vehemently opposed to using the judicial system for political purposes and that is clearly what this lawsuit was all about. That crime is worse – more dangerous – than anything Trump did.)

            Engoron couldn’t cover up the politics that permeated this trial from start to finish. In his report he:

            Admitted that despite Trump’s fraudulent claims, the banks independently investigated those claims and happily granted him the loans he sought.

            Admitted there were no victims because the loans were repaid.

            Admitted that exaggerating Trump’s wealth – the alpha and omega of why the suit was brought – was not a serious offense.

            Admitted what he found unforgivable was Trump’s refusal to admit he was wrong to bloat the value of his properties. And that was why he imposed the draconian fine.

            It sounds awfully like Engoron was saying that if Trump had merely bowed his head and mumbled an apology for doing wrong, Engoron would have given him a slap on the wrist and sent him back to Mar-a-Lago.

            Think about that: The judge admits the charge against Trump was not serious, but he’s going to expose him to financial ruin anyhow (and, perhaps, cripple his presidential aspirations?) because he wasn’t contrite. As the Wall Street Journal put it, Engoron’s $450 fine was like “using a Hellfire missile to annihilate a shoplifter.”

            The verdict and Engoron’s fine had a chilling effect on the New York business community. Individually, they expressed fear that they would face similar crippling penalties should they err. This raised the frightening specter of businesses moving to less vindictive states. New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, reassured them. She acknowledged the outcome of the Trump case might make some businesses nervous, “but this is really an extraordinarily unusual circumstance that the law-abiding, rule-following New Yorkers who are businesspeople have nothing to worry about.”

            “Extraordinarily unusual circumstance.” Translation: Not to worry; we were after Trump, not you.

            Trump is appealing, though James promised she’s not going to wait for an appeal to play out. She’s going to start seizing his properties immediately.

            A vindictive attorney general and a petty judge. Shameful. Embarrassing. Disgusting.

            Trump may very well end up paying a heavy fine, but New York State and its legal bureaucrats exposed themselves as the biggest losers in this case.

            Hunter Biden is under investigation, his apologists claim, because his name is Biden. Engoron’s report, James’s actions, and Hochul’s assurances to New York business leaders make clear that Trump was sued and convicted because his name is Trump.

Racism still being ‘carefully taught,’ but there’s a twist

©2024

By Don Frost

            I recently watched, probably for the fourth or fifth time, the movie “South Pacific.” It reminded me of the beautiful message in one of its songs. In poetic simplicity it conveyed a truth every bit as relevant today as it was when the musical was released in 1958. It was sung by a young Marine officer expressing his regret for having rejected the love of a young Polynesian girl while denying his own love for her. The tune is called “Carefully Taught”:

            “You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear/You’ve got to be taught from year to year/It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear/You’ve got to be carefully taught.

            “You’ve got to be taught to be afraid/of people whose eyes are oddly made/and people whose skin is a diff’rent shade/You’ve got to be carefully taught.

            “You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late/before you are six or seven or eight/to hate all the people your relatives hate/You’ve got to be carefully taught!/You’ve got to be carefully taught!”

            Too late he was coming to terms with his own upbringing, fraught with the racial prejudices that have plagued mankind for thousands of years. Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein combined to put into song the heavy price people pay for their hates.

            People from every corner of the globe and of every race have practiced racism since the dawn of time. It will never be eradicated through a song, through reason or logic, and it most certainly will never be legislated away. But as we are human we must try; if we want a better world we must try.

            You have to be “carefully taught,” the lyrics warn against. We are still being taught to be racists. Today the lesson, though the same as it was in 1958, has been turned on its head. You see it in the news almost daily: “America is a racist country.” “America’s legal and social institutions are riddled with systemic racism.” Without openly saying so, headlines like “white cop kills black man” teach the racist lesson that – without a shred of evidence – the white cop killed the black man because he was black. The lesson comes screaming through that white cops hunt and kill innocent black men and boys. Nuances aside, it teaches that all white people hate all black people. That is being taught to us; oh, so carefully taught.

            It’s a filthy lie.

            America is not a racist country; we are not a systemically racist people; white cops do not indiscriminately murder black men. The result of this repeated lie serves to “justify” the hatred of black people for white people. This is not the lesson the song tries to teach.

            Wealthy professional race hustlers (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Colin Kaepernick as well as part-time race hustlers in the political arena, people like Maxine Waters, Cory Booker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others) reinforce the myth that all white people hate all black people. Crying “racism!” is their stock in trade. Without it they’d have to find honest employment.

            If what they preach/teach were true, how could they explain that it is impossible to legally discriminate against anyone on the basis of race or color; to apply unequal voter registration requirements; to enforce racial segregation in schools, public accommodations, in housing, and in employment? All of this was carved in granite with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and reinforced over the years since with supplemental laws that gave the original law more teeth, more specifics.

            Do white racists try to circumvent these laws? Of course. Repeating: Racism can never, will never be legislated away. So white racists will try. But if they do, the allegedly “systemically racist” American legal system will slap them down.

            In the past white racists could be open about their prejudices. No longer. Now they must hide their racism, expressing it in whispers among themselves.

            Americans are so terrified of being labeled racist we dare not say aloud things like, “It is despicable to call someone a nigger.” We must claim that even whispering the word is painful to hear or to say. So we are compelled to use the euphemism “the N-word.” (Writing “nigger,” even in this context, where clearly no racist insult is intended, subjects the writer, myself, to being, at the very least, shamed.)

            White America’s terror of being called racist is so profound every newspaper, magazine, and television news outlet in the country has adopted a policy of capitalizing black when it is a reference to race. But white is lower cased when it’s a reference to race. The rationale: White supremist groups capitalize white in that context as an expression of white supremacy. Think about that. Capital W is racist; capital B is not? This in “systemically racist” America.

            It is illegal to physically beat a black man. You can go to jail for that. It’s called assault. But if some court decides you did it because you just don’t like black people, time can be added to your sentence. It’s called “enhanced punishment,” a provision of a “hate crime” law, aka a Thought Crime. Think about that. In “racist America” you can be punished for thinking a racist thought.

            I used to work with a black racist. She was unabashed about her racism, her contempt, if not outright hatred, of white people. At times she was even boastful about it. We worked side by side in an office. I will not name her. When downtime occurred we chatted as office colleagues routinely do: How was your weekend; have you seen the vacation schedule yet; how about those Cubs? That sort of thing.

            One day, after returning from a trip to the Bahamas, she told me she got a bad sun burn. “For the first time in my life I felt sorry for white people,” she said. I laughed. It was a funny, banal observation. But over time I learned there was a dark side to her “humor.”

            She and her husband bought a house and I congratulated her on it. She volunteered that it was in a black part of town, adding, “I work all day with white people; I don’t have to put up with that when I go home.”

            In the same conversation she mentioned another black colleague who lived in a white part of town. “I told her she should move to my area,” she said. “I told her she should be with her own people.”

            It became known that she and several other people were being considered for promotion. She did not get it; a highly qualified man did. I watched her storm off to confront our boss who had the ultimate decision on this matter. When she came back she was grinning.

            “How did it go?” I asked.

            “I said to him, ‘Didn’t I get the job because I’m black or because I’m a woman?’” She was laughing. “He sputtered and stammered. I almost laughed.”

            Another time a street beggar was the topic: “My mother told me to never give a white beggar anything because he’s had everything his way his whole life.”

            I countered that it was a pretty racist attitude; that every legitimate beggar has a story; that being white doesn’t guarantee anyone blue skies, wealth, and happiness for life; that being white does not insulate people from tragedies that might reduce him/her to begging. I doubt I changed her attitude toward beggars. This was a lesson she learned at her mother’s knee; a lesson carefully taught.

            In time it became clear that she was just getting even with the race she’d been taught was somehow privileged; a race that “had everything his way his whole life”; a race that hated her because she was black. And so the cycle of racism continues. Was this Martin Luther King Junior’s dream? No. Racism will never end until white and black people stop trying “to get even”; until my former colleague and everyone like her is dead and buried. No one alive today will live to see it.

            Incredibly, black racism has become acceptable, approved, tolerated. It had been “carefully taught” by my former colleague’s mother and no doubt by her father as well. It is inconceivable that she is the only black racist in America. And white America has embraced black racism. White America dares not reject it, criticize it, or even admit it exists. Guilt? Possibly. Fear of being labeled a racist for condemning it? Certainly.

            That black racism has become acceptable can be seen in riots perfunctorily disavowed by the Black Lives Matter organization. Even white news reporters support it. With cars burning in the background in front of smashed storefront display windows, television reports on “the mostly peaceful civil unrest.” If that’s not acceptance of black racism; if that’s not giving rioters permission to continue, nothing will stop them and we have more of the same to look forward to.