Sam Bankman-Fried will soon escort his hairdo into a federal courthouse
Americans nurture a long-running obsession with criminals, from Jesse James to John Dillinger to Bernie Madoff, so it’s no surprise that FTX charlatan Sam Bankman-Fried was able to enjoy a guilt-free series of softball interviews–and even a fawning ovation sponsored by the New York Times–in the days leading up to his arrest. It remains to be seen how well his “These aren’t my pants” defense (the same line used by street-level dope dealers everywhere) will hold up in federal court, given his exposure. SBF’s attorneys might consider having him write an “I’m Not Suicidal” statement before he ends up in a New York jail where the security cameras are out of service and the guards take frequent naps.
15 billion is a lot of other people’s money to lose at the craps table.
Nowhere is the American crush on criminal nitwits, even violent ones, on better display than in the state of Illinois, which has recently eliminated cash-bail. The reasoning behind the no-bail movement is that poor defendants, mostly black, can’t afford it, which is a strange new obsession among legislators who should be less concerned with poor criminals of any skin tone and far more concerned with law-abiding victims of any tax bracket.
What people really can’t afford is to be repeatedly victimized by crooks. In Cook County, Illinois, between 2017 and 2021, some 15,000 hoods were freed without bail and went capering—mostly in poor neighborhoods–again. Apparently, people in Cook County just love being robbed, burgled, carjacked, or even shot at, because last year 1002 people were murdered by gunfire, and as of November of this year 3258 people in Chicago have been shot.
Those numbers read like the casualty figures from combat in Bakhmut, even though Chicago has some of the strictest gun-control laws anywhere in America. They don’t appear to be working there, either, which one supposes can only be properly explained as very, very weird, given so many passionate assurances that gun laws reduce gun crimes.
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