Trump pardons Dinesh D'Souza.

Will be giving a Full Pardon to Dinesh D’Souza today. He was treated very unfairly by our government!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2018

AND: From WaPo:

The president, who has issued a series of pardons in recent months, said he is also considering leniency in number of other cases, including those of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (D) and Martha Stewart, the author and television personality....

Trump later told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One that he is considering commuting the remainder of the sentence of Blagojevich, who was convicted in 2010 on charges relating to the selling of President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat.

[Blagojevich's b]ragging about getting something in return for a Senate appointment, Trump said, was “a stupid thing to say—but 18 years?”

Popular TV shows canceled for political reasons...

...  that's what I googled as I was thinking about ABC's canceling of "Roseanne." I realize we could argue about whether reacting to an expression of racism is political, but: 1. Racism and the pressure to strictly sanction it is political, 2. "Roseanne" has been under attack all through its reboot season because Roseanne has expressed support for Trump, and 3. That's what I googled, because I wanted to know what else might belong in the same category as the canceling of "Roseanne."

I mean, you've got a very popular show. It's making money for the network. Some large segment of the American public wants to watch the show. Under the circumstances, it's a big deal to ax it. Has it even happened before.

The main thing that came up in my search was the cancelation of "Last Man Standing," one year ago. At Vox, Todd VanDerWerff wrote "5 reasons ABC might have canceled the Tim Allen comedy Last Man Standing/Only one involves Trump."

It’s not often a network cancels its second most-watched comedy in a sudden, surprising move. Usually, if a show that important to a network has to go out, it’s granted some sort of “this will be your final season” reprieve.... The cancellation has left some conservative pundits wondering if Last Man Standing was canceled because Allen himself is conservative, and his character on the series is as well....

I think there are a bunch of really good business reasons for the show to end — but I also don’t know that its increased reputation as “a sitcom for Donald Trump supporters” didn’t hurt it just a little bit...

Any time the only show of one type or another, even if it’s “the only sitcom headlined by a major Trump supporter,” leaves the air, it’s hard not to wonder.

There's also the old Bill Maher show, "Politically Incorrect":

CPAC wants nothing but distance between itself and Dinesh D’Souza.

Via Mediaite:

Dinesh D'Souza sentenced to 8 months in a "community confinement center."

So that's some sort of place that's not a prison. The government wanted prison time.

Megyn Kelly has some trouble with Dinesh D'Souza's America/child molester analogy.

"Look at it this way: If I was in a family and I believed my dad was some kind of serial killer or a child molester, I would still love him. He would be part of my family, but I’d do everything I could to prevent him from doing evil actions. I would think that would be good for the world and for my dad. So with Obama, he believes he is doing the world a favor and America a favor by controlling this rogue elephant that is the United States."

"Politically Incorrect was an American late-night, half-hour political talk show hosted by Bill Maher that ran from 1993 to 2002..."

"... first on Comedy Central and then on ABC. Four guests (usually including at least one comedian) would debate topics across the political spectrum in what Maher once described as 'The McLaughlin Group on acid.' Of the 1300+ episodes produced, 190 can be viewed on YouTube."

At the link (to Metafilter) there are links to those 190 videos, with the date of the show and the names of the guests. What a great resource! What did Bryan Cranston and Little Richard talk about on June 14, 2002? Don't you want to know what Phil Hartman brought to the table on March 14, 1997? Ray Davies (with Suzanne Somers!) on April 29, 1998. Way too many crazy match-ups to mention them all in this little post, so I'll leave you with this:

Politically Incorrect was cancelled by ABC in 2002, thanks to an incident that happened six days after 9/11. Maher and political conservative Dinesh D'Souza had this conversation on the show:

"I did reimburse them," Dinesh D’Souza admitted, pleading guilty in federal court yesterday.

"I knew that causing a campaign contribution to be made in the name of another was wrong and something the law forbids. I deeply regret my conduct."

Trailer for the new Dinesh D'Souza movie, "America."

"D’Souza Case Is Political, Lawyer Says."

Headline at the NYT. Excerpt:

[The lawyer, Benjamin] has filed court papers contending that... there was “good reason for concern” that Mr. D’Souza, the author of the best-selling 2010 book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” was “selectively targeted for felony prosecution because of his outspoken, vigorous and politically controversial criticism and condemnation” of the president and his administration.

Mr. Brafman said that a review of similar campaign finance violation cases shows many were typically not referred for felony prosecution and where they were, it often took several years. “The speed with which the authorities responded to the conduct in this case is virtually unprecedented,” he wrote.

"This is clearly a case of selective prosecution for one of the most common things done during elections, which is to get people to raise money for you."

"If they went after everyone who did this, there would be no room in jails for murderers," says Alan Dershowitz (about the prosecution of Dinesh D'Souza).

The Justice Department's tactics remind Dershowitz of the words of Stalin's secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria, who said, "Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime."

"This is an outrageous prosecution and is certainly a misuse of resources," charged Dershowitz. "It raises the question of why he is being selected for prosecution among the many, many people who commit similar crimes. This sounds to me like it is coming from higher places. It is hard for me to believe this did not come out of Washington or at least get the approval of those in Washington."

Is the prosecution of Dinesh d'Souza politically motivated?

"It is not clear from the court documents what led investigators to Mr. D’Souza in a fund-raising case involving relatively small donations, in a race that ended in a blowout win for Ms. Gillibrand. Ms. Long raised about $785,000 in the race."

Well, he made that movie attacking Obama, but when I read what his lawyer is saying....

"Mr. D’Souza did not act with any corrupt or criminal intent whatsoever.... He and the candidate have been friends since their college days, and at most, this was an act of misguided friendship by D’Souza."

... I think it looks pretty much like a confession that D'Souza committed the criminal acts. What's the defense? That he's a good person who meant well and enjoyed camaraderie with the beneficiary of his illegal acts? I don't think campaign finance laws work that way, but maybe I'm wrong. Personally, I avoid campaign finance because I think the law is set up to snag people on all sorts of weird details. I'm troubled by that, because it means that you can't run for office unless you have plenty of legal advice, so how do you begin to run for office? It's really oppressive. But if there's going to be oppression like that, it can't be an out that you didn't mean to violate any law, can it?

Since the legal minefield intimidates most of us out of engaging in fund-raising at all, those who do venture forth should be blown away by every infraction, don't you think? Being a famous movie-maker who looks like he's on an enemies list shouldn't save you.

(We saw D'Souza's movie, and I blogged about it here and here.)

ADDED: Thanks to Instapundit for linking to this post and for expanding on the reasons for suspecting that the answer to the question in my post title is yes. I can see in his comments section (and perhaps also in mine) that some readers are having trouble understanding my point, which is similar to what I say about legalizing marijuana. Laws need to be enforced neutrally, across the board, or we need to be free of them. When the executive authority spares its friends or, worse, targets its enemies, what is revealed is the insufficient or fake commitment to rules that bind everyone and that deter rule-followers (like me) from engaging in activities we might want to engage in. I want to smoke out this insufficient or fake commitment to campaign finance law by challenging government to prosecute all violators. If that challenge is unmet, we deserve different laws.

AND: It's really quite unfair, when some candidates spent lots of money carefully avoiding violations of the law and forgo contributions that would violate the law, for another candidate to get away with violations. But it doesn't undo the unfairness to prosecute some and not others. It only breeds more disrespect for the law. When government is churning out a lot of rules — especially in an area that burdens political and free-speech rights — it has a special obligation to commit to equal and predictable enforcement of the law. Otherwise it looks like these laws exist for the purpose of deterring political participation and to punish political enemies.

Why didn't those Hollywood lefties pick "2016: Obama's America" for the documentary Oscars?

Here's some ripe PR. Dinesh D'Souza put out the bait and Slate took it:

A total of 126 documentaries were eligible for an Academy Award this year, and a selection committee recently narrowed those down to 15 hopefuls for five nominations. Dozens were snubbed, but the producers of 2016: Obama's America say their film's exclusion is evidence of something more sinister.

The anti-Obama film directed by Dinesh D'Souza was roundly panned by critics, though it rode word of mouth to a $33 million gross. D'Souza said the film's success would have resulted in a nomination if it weren't for Hollywood's bias. "Liberal political ideology, not excellence, is the true standard of what receives awards," he said.

Obviously, there's no reason why D'Souza's movie — even if it was popular — should be a finalist instead of those other movies — which we know little or nothing about, but which the selection committee supposedly watched and judged according to a set of principles about what makes a movie Oscar-worthy. Big box office is never the key to winning an Oscar, and in the documentary category, there are some traditional standards that skew toward more neutral, historical/scientific presentations.

I'm sure D'Souza knows all this. It was savvy of him to leverage the occasion to get attention for his film, and I suspect Slate knows that. Slate will get attention for debunking D'Souza, even as it give him the publicity he wants. Everybody wins.

ADDED: You can, of course, purchase the movie, but if I were recommending documentaries that weren't nominated for Oscars, I'd have plenty of others ahead of that. ""Grey Gardens" and "Fast, Cheap & Out of Control" to begin with.

Is there some rule that says you can't get engaged while still married?

You broke up with your wife 2 years ago. You're on the path toward divorce. The legalities aren't tied up. Can't you promise to marry the new woman in your life? What's the morality problem— beyond the basic moral problem of divorce?

Looking at the pictures of Dinesh D'Sousa and Denise Joseph, I can't help suspecting that some people are bridling at the difference in age, beauty, and — perhaps — race.

D'Souza resigns from the presidency of King's College over the issue of having a fiancée before his divorce is final.

Weird. Did they drum him out of there or is he better off without them?

According to several sources at the college, members of the King’s faculty and board alike had grown hostile to D’Souza’s presidency over what they saw as a failure to earn his reported million-dollar salary. D’Souza has spent much of the past few months promoting his documentary, 2016: Obama’s America, and his high profile in the media was seen as rarely benefitting the college.

Embarrassing divorces. Does anyone really care? Didn't they mostly only want his name? If so, if the name stopped meaning what they wanted it to mean, it's time to cut off the million-dollar salary. Move on.

"If I were Michael Moore and I were to make a film that was the No. 2 political documentary of all time, I would be on every network."

"I would be on Meet The Press, and I would be profiled in The New York Times, and I would be all over MSNBC. Instead large sectors of the press are refusing to cover the film. They are just pretending it doesn’t exist."

Bill Maher defends Eastwood: "He went up there without a net, on a tightrope... he did a bit with just an empty chair and killed."

"He committed to it, it was consistent, and it worked."

Maher is speaking as a standup comedian, knowing how hard it is. Halfway through the video clip at the link, Jason Alexander — wearing William Shatner's toupee — breaks in to say famous people could "urinate" on themselves and people would accept it as a good routine. Maher says no, at most they'd give you 1 minute to get funny; Eastwood worked that comic routine 10 minutes, successfully, and that was impressive. And Maher loathes Eastwood's political position. So that's impressive.

Also on last night's show, Maher talked to Dinesh D'Souza about his movie "2016: Obama’s America."

Fish politics, insect politics.

You may know I'm a longtime fan of the 1986 movie "The Fly," especially the part where the main character, the scientist-turned-fly, has his rant about "insect politics." ("Have you heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects don't have politics.... they're very brutal. No compassion.... no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first insect politician. I'd like to, but.... I'm an insect.... who dreamed he was a man, and loved it. But now the dream is over, and the insect is awake.")

I'm always alert to stories that can take my blog tag "insect politics."

And I love lawprof/public intellectual Stanley Fish, who's written many cool books and in recent years has been doing a column on the NYT website. I was already delighted to see that Fish had put up a new column on the Dinesh D'Souza movie "2016: Obama's America," but my delight bubbled over into ecstasy when I arrived at the insect politics:

"There are no conspiracy theories about Obama’s birth, religion, Social Security number, passport, or college transcript."

"Instead, there is a deep dive into Barack Obama’s known Communist associates, his late father’s avowed socialism, and his mother’s radicalism," writes David Weigel, about the Dinesh D'Souza movie that did so well at the box office over the weekend. Weigel, a political writer, not a movie reviewer, makes a go of fact-checking the movie. (Has the Obama campaign responded to it yet?)

Obama, according to D’Souza, was an anti-colonialist. “He adopted his father's position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder,” wrote D’Souza. “Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America.”...

The movie is based on a book by D'Souza, which I ignored at the time, because I didn't see much basis to think that Obama had absorbed his father's ideas. Obama did — oddly (aptly?!) — call his book "Dreams From My Father," but he spent almost no time with his father. Though I read "Dreams," I hadn't thought much about the pathway of the father's "dreams" into the son. The movie made mesee that pathway: the mother.

Stanley Ann Dunham was drawn to Obama Sr. when she was 17. The association didn't last long and didn't have much reality to it, but she nurtured the dream version and taught it to young Obama. Her second husband disappointed her, after they moved to Indonesia, the third world country that fit with her young dreams, because he turned to Western-style politics and commerce. Obama heard Lolo and Ann arguing about her refusal to attend dinner parties where he wanted to network with Westerners to advance his career. In this setting, Ann plied the young Obama with stories about his father and his — really, her — ideas about the rich and the oppressed.

We saw the movie "2016 Obama's America" in Madison, Wisconsin.

Of all places. There were about 50 people in the audience for the 12:40 show. I talked to a couple women who thought they'd arrived at a pro-Obama movie and then, half way through, realized it was against him. One wisecracked "I'm a Republican now." And then, again, in a humorous tone, "It almost makes you pro-colonialism."

I said Dinesh D'Souza was not against anti-colonialism but against the kind of anti-colonialism that developed in the 20th century and involved left-wing, collectivist ideology unlike the anti-colonialism of the American founding. One of the women said, "That's pretty complex," as if that wasn't the idea spelled out extremely clearly over the course of the 90-minute movie they'd just watched.

The movie is doing quite well:

Mr. D'Souza's co-director, John Sullivan, said in an interview that even he was surprised by the strong weekend showing. He credited talk radio, a bastion of conservative thought, as a key megaphone for the film....

Mr. Sullivan said that, perhaps counterintuitively, some of the movie's strongest earnings have originated at a theater in Manhattan's Union Square, far from any conservative stronghold. 

Don't exclude the possibility that people are wandering in there under the impression that they're going to a pro-Obama show. Why else would it be playing in Madison/Manhattan/Leftytown?

It fits with the movie's theme that Americans didn't try to learn more about Obama before voting him into the Presidency. If we didn't take much care about that, why would you expect us to pay any attention to what movie seat we're plunking our asses into?

ADDED: Here's what I think is the key clip that's used in the movie: