Harry Dunn Sequel Review: Slow Pacing, Terrible PR, Doom Production

He may look dumb but that's just a disguise 

He's a mastermind in the ways of espionage 

Ballad of the Uneasy Rider - Charlie Daniels (1973) 

Well, what do you know? The extradition came off at long last, so our International Man of Mystery may actually appear in a UK court someday. 

Yet, the UK tabloid reaction to this stunning advance of Justice has so far been oddly subdued, it seems to me. No national celebration either, such as attended every bit of the original Harry Dunn production. 

  

The Daily Mirror had as much detail as any, here, and at least one quote I haven't seen elsewhere. 

Both public and press seem fundamentally bored with our Agent Double O Aspergers, despite how the tabloid build-up of this case featured endless repetition of the terms 'intelligence soldier,' secret services, Official Secrets Act, SAS, and much more of an equally lurid appeal.  

Have the West Mercia Police lost all appreciation of the desperado they have taken in? I hope they're keeping him under constant observation in their most Mission Impossible type escape-proof cell, because I shudder to think what capabilities an 'intelligence solider' from the Texas National Guard could bring to bear on a rinky-dink police lock-up. (Check out the original movie in the Rambo franchise if you want details.)  

By the way, how unusual is it for the U.S. to agree to the extradition of a citizen to the UK for criminal prosecution? Not unusual in the least, it turns out. In fact, with the sole exception of the immune diplomat in the Harry Dunn case, the U.S. has approved every single extradition request from the UK. 

You can find this statement in the record of a question period in Parliament from 2020: 

"Since the [current extradition] treaty came into force [in 2007], the United States has never refused to extradite somebody sought by the U.K." 

That sounds definitive. So then, you might wonder, why does the Dunn family's spokesman and brain trust keep saying the opposite? From the Daily Mirror's story:

He said: “We all know America is highly reluctant to extradite nationals and we have had to move heaven and Earth to make that happen. It is a minor miracle to see the defendant back in our jurisdiction.” 

That's easy. Because telling self-aggrandizing lies is what he does. Expect plenty more.

Another quote from the Daily Mirror, this one from a prosecutor in the case, is just as self-aggrandizing if not exactly a lie.    

Prosecutor Kate Leonard said: “We worked closely with the US to ensure our extradition request was expedited.”

Really? Lets look at the timeline of key events. The crash occurred in July, 2023. The American driver skipped a UK court appearance and became a fugitive in December 2023. He was taken into custody in the U.S. on an extradition warrant in July 2024, and a leisurely ten weeks after that, in October 2024, he was picked up by West Mercia Police and returned to the U.K. His next court appearance is scheduled for November 2024. 

She calls that "expedited?" Hey, I work for a government too, but that is some slow-rolled process.

 

Frankly it's getting to be a struggle to maintain my interest in this one. Here's hoping our Texas National Guardsman will break bad and shake things up in that lazy low drive land.

 

Hillary Is No Stranger To Paranoid Conspiracy Mongering

It's no surprise, but Hillary Diane Rodham (and sometimes) Clinton is again raging about mis-dis-and-mal information, all of it targeted on her personally.

“I anticipate there will be a full-court press in October,” she said. “The digital airwaves will be filled. And why does that matter? Because the press that is pro-Trump anyway — oftentimes stories are put on digitally that then are picked up by, let’s say, at Fox and others. And then those stories are stories, so the mainstream press reports on them, and so that story then takes on a life of its own.”

Readers who were around during the Clinton Administration may recall that Hillary was exactly as paranoid then about unseen media influencers as she is now. 

Don't take my word for that. Please see this 2014 article from the left-wing Mother Jones that served up a retrospective about Hillary's fabulistic exposure of the "communications stream of conspiracy commerce" that bedeviled her back then:

In a 1995 internal memo, President Bill Clinton’s White House Counsel’s Office offered an in-depth analysis of the right-wing media mill that Hillary Clinton had dubbed the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Portions of the report, which was reported on by the Wall Street Journal and other outlets at the time, were included in a new trove of documents released to the public by the Clinton presidential library on Friday.

The report traced the evolution of various Clinton scandals, such as Whitewater and the Gennifer Flowers affair allegations, from their origins at conservative think tanks or in British tabloids, until the point in which they entered the mainstream news ecosystem. Making matters even more complicated was new technology, the report explained: “[E]vidence exists that Republican staffers surf the internet, interacting with extremists in order to exchange the ideas and information.” The administration even had a name for the process: “The Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce.”

You can read the whole crazy memo here. 

If Trump wins, I expect Hillary to go full Captain Queeg, complete with a strawberry statement: 

Ahh, but the stories! That’s – that’s where I had them. Fox laughed at me and made memes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with – digital logic – that Russians with a key to the Trump voters DID exist! And I’d have PRODUCED that key if they hadn’t’ve conceded the election on me! 

Really, that won't be far to fall from the state that she's in now.

Feds Indict NYC Mayor Who Accepted Too Much Turkish Delight

 

After much leaking and teasing by the U.S. Attorney's office, the feds have finally indicted the Mayor of Fun City, as they semi-sarcastically called it when I was growing up, and some of the charges are no fun at all. You may read the details here. 

I especially recommend page 48, wherein after the FBI found out the Mayor's personal cell phone was locked, the cyber-conscious Mayor explained that he had installed a new and more complex password on the phone just as soon as he learned the FBI wanted to seize it. You see, he wanted to make sure any evidence on the phone was preserved against accidental or deliberate deletion. He's a responsible citizen, you understand.

But then, despite his good intentions, wouldn't you know it but he forgot the new password! Well, he's a very busy man with a lot on his mind.    

The role played by Turkey in the Mayor's downfall is rather a surprise, especially since the Turks began lavishing gifts on him back when he was a lowly Borough President. They must be good judges of rising talent. 

And what did Turkey get back in exchange for all those gifts, bennies, and cash they passed to Mayor Adams? Mainly, it seems, they got to take some shortcuts on the new Consulate General they were building in Manhattan. For instance, they got to skip a final fire inspection. 

You know, I wonder if someone on the Turkish CG's staff shouldn't do some time in one of their Midnight Express prisons for that. Public corruption is all good clean fun between friends until you let it interfere with life safety. 

    

David Bowie's Top 100 Books -

I've always liked David Bowie's songs, movies, and his whole personality, so I'm distressed that it was only today I learned he once provided an interviewer with a list of his top 100 books.

Evidently, Bowie actually did read books. That list is not some airhead celebrity book club thing. And I think there are some surprising choices, especially along kinda cultural conservative lines.

Start with the number three choice: Room at the Top, the 1959 novel that kicked off an 'angry young man' wave of British novels with working class heroes rebelling at the social hierarchy. We have an overload of alienated young men again today, only today they don't seem to be producing quality literature. 

I'll overlook the Howard Zinn dishonest embarrassment because RATT and some of the other picks are just that good.

You expect to see classics like 1984 and The Iliad, so no surprise there. But Faulkner's As I Lay Dying? How did a modern English guy develop a taste for Southern Gothic? 

Seeing The Master and Margarita makes we wonder if there might be a Mick Jagger tie-in, since that book inspired The Stones' Sympathy For the Devil, the most historically literate rock song of all time.

Lolita is another one that might have a backstory. Most people who have heard of that book have no idea it has a political subtext. If you're one of them, then I highly recommend the memoir Reading Lolita In Tehran, or just watch this interview. 

Darkness at Noon, The Waste Land, and The 42nd Parallel are works of the political and cultural right, hands down. Really, Bowie was risking social banishment by including those on his list. Good for him.

Rebel Rebel, you continue to surprise and delight. 

  

She's Looked at Policing Speech From Both Sides Now

I really have looked at life and love "from both sides now."

Read an exclusive excerpt from my new memoir on @cbsnews.https://t.co/Snyq1QGEGa

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 16, 2024

Posts and posts of dis info
Mocking memes and hurty mots
And Trumpy GIFs from right-wing bros
I’ve looked at X that way
But now they only break the law
They need indictments, gags galore!
So many things I would have done
But civil rights got in my way

You can depend on Hillary to blurt out loud what more emotionally balanced politicians will keep to themselves and their inner monologues. 

Why stop at censorship when you can arrest your political foes?

Isaac Calderon Extradition Update is Rumor-Only For the Moment

“Now, the US Department of Justice has said officers from West Mercia Police can come and collect Mr Calderon.” But no one from the West Mercia Police or the DOJ is named or quoted, so that news is based on nothing but a shady lawyer’s mind reading. https://t.co/K3C8K3106k

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) September 12, 2024

The story is so far being carried only by BBC Hereford and Worcester, which sounds a bit provincial, and the bigger media are all standing back. 

 

Good for them, since BBC H&W is going out on a limb by trusting the Harry Dunn family's spokesman / advisor / PR hack and all-around hustler. Evidently, he professes to know the hopes of the West Mercia Police and also the mind of the U.S. Justice Department, which is rather more than a prudent journalist should take his word for. Until sources that have names and speak for the record say that extradition has been approved, don't believe it.    

Moreover, when it comes to extradition the U.S. Secretary of State, and not the Justice Department, has the sole authority to approve the removal of a U.S. citizen to a requesting country. The family's spokesman - so far - seems to lack insight into the SecState's mind. 

Extradition will probably be approved eventually, but nothing in the BBC H&W's story is credible. 

   

OBO Remakes Mexico

 

Or at least, our diplomatic premises there. See the current State Magazine for an article about how my good friends have done a clean sweep of our old and decrepit embassy and consulates there and replaced them with the new stuff.