TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE, BILLY

Former Attorney General Billy Barr has a memoir that rolling out; in it, Billy reflects on how “the former guy” lost the ’20 election because of lack of self-control and being self-indulgence.

And, Billy wants absolution for the obvious??!

Barr also urges his fellow Re’Trump’licans to pick someone else as the party’s nominee for the ’24 election, calling the prospect of another presidential run by the Orange Despot “dismaying.”

Full Disclosure: I have NOT read the book, just the publisher’s highlights.

“Donald Trump has shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed,” Billy writes.

Barr was a Trump facilitator and basically undermined the Mueller report that emboldened Boy Orange even more; Billy was/is directly responsible for many of the unscrupulous and possibly illegal actions Trump took while residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The country entrusted Billy with serving the nation’s interest as our chief law enforcement officer.

Instead, what we got was a bloated piece of crap who repeatedly bent the law to serve a single individual who – again and again – broke our nation’s laws gleefully and with impunity!!!!!!!!!

DEADLINE MONDAY

It’s roughly two hours before BOTH sides meet – again – to attempt to try to complete a collective bargaining agreement by the end of business, as per the stated threat of Major League Baseball (MLB), or the scheduled March 31st Opening Day gets cancelled.

As stated in earlier postings, this means players losing their pay, and presumably the owners – contending that spring training must last four weeks and that three days will be required to ratify an agreement before camps open – will take a similar approach with each day that passes, and the corresponding games slated for 31 days later.

But…

That’s just a guess on the old Lobsterman’s part.

In my opinion, today represents too much ground to cover on too many matters.

As best I can determine, NO formal proposals were/have been exchanged, which means that, technically, they must execute considerable work on nearly every core economic issue, including the competitive-balance tax; the minimum salary; the pre-arbitration bonus pool; mitigating service-time manipulation; the draft lottery; the number of teams in the expanded playoffs; and, an international draft as well as arbitration and revenue-sharing.

There also exist field-of-play issues, with MLB looking to shorten the time between proposal and implementation for such innovations as the pitch clock.

It’s times like this that I wish I could have ’round-table discussions’ with the likes of Jackie Jensen, Jim Piersall, Dick Gernert, Leo Kiely, Billy Consolo, and Del Wilber.

JOEY’S ADDITIONAL SANCTIONS

Effective immediately, the Biden administration announced additional sanctions against Russia’s central bank, a move that prohibits Americans from doing any business with the bank as well as freezes assets within the US.

This comes after the US, the EU, the UK and Canada, over the weekend, announced they would restrict Russia’s ability to use its central bank reserves.

Over the weekend, the US, European allies and Canada agreed to remove key Russian banks from the interbank messaging system, SWIFT, an extraordinary step that will sever the country !!! from much of the global financial system.

Moscow’s exclusion from SWIFT, which stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, means Russian banks won’t be able to communicate securely with banks beyond its borders.

TALKS UNDERWAY…

Russian and Ukrainian diplomats began talks earlier today, local time, on the Belarus border, according to the office of Ukrainian President Zelensky.

Zelensky, who was NOT attending the meeting, said that Ukraine would push for “an immediate cease-fire and the withdrawal of troops,” according to the statement from his office, which came as the Ukrainian army and citizen volunteers fought to repel Russian advances on multiple cities for a fifth day.

Also, this morning, the United Nations refugee agency reported that the fighting throughout the country has driven more than 500,000 people from Ukraine into neighboring countries.

Despite Russia‘s military problems so far, and mounting international sanctions and pressure of Russia‘s economy and currency, the chances of a cease-fire being agreed to at today’s talks were uncertain and extremely doubtful.

In the five days of the offensive, Russia so far has NOT seized any big Ukrainian city, and dozens, if NOT hundreds, of Russian troops have been taken prisoner; their videos posted on social media so that their families in Russia could find out about their fate.

Social media and TikTok has changed the surface truth of what’s happening “on the ground.”

“without preconditions”

Ukrainian President Zelensky, just in the last couple of hours, announced that Ukraine and Russia would conduct the first diplomatic talks since the Kremlin-launched invasion, with delegations from BOTH countries meeting at the Ukrainian border with Belarus.

The two countries would meet near the Pripyat River “without preconditions,” Zelensky’s office said in a Telegram message.

This news comes within the backdrop of tensions continuing to escalate, with Putin stating today that he had put his nuclear deterrence forces into high alert, attributing the move to “aggressive statements” from the West against Russia.

The White House called the order an example of “manufacturing threats that don’t exist.”

Over four days of fighting, the United Nations’ refugee agency said earlier today that 368,000 people have fled Ukraine.

In a sign of how the war is quickly upending Europe’s status quo, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a major boost in defense spending, saying it was time to “invest significantly more” in security and protecting democracy.

ON-TIME START TO ’22…doubtful

Baseball news from yesterday was NOT good!

Owners essentially rejected in full a three-plank counterproposal the players made early yesterday afternoon. The players’ response was one of outrage, to the point they were debating last evening whether or NOT to return to the table today.

An on-time March 31st start to the regular season is pinned to the owner-imposed deadline of Monday for a new collective bargaining agreement to be in place.

what’s his mental state…REALLY?

Whatever it is, Putin’s actions seem at cross-purposes with his goals; he says he wants to keep Ukraine out of NATO, and NATO out of Ukraine.

Although Ukraine is NO closer to joining the alliance than it was, the Russian ex-KGB thug has galvanized the West into opposing Russia and supporting Kyiv.

Putin has dragged his nation into a war that NO one but Putin seems itching to fight. 

And while the sanctions announced by the US, the EU, Britain, Canada, and Japan may NOT bring his regime crashing down soon, they will certainly make Russians poorer and unhappier.

To an outsider looking in, like the old Lobsterman, the conflict represents a continuation of Putin’s efforts to govern by presenting Russia as threatened by external forces bent on its destruction, and himself as the only leader who can successfully oppose them.

On top of the current mess, Russia has experienced almost eight years of a collapsing economy…so someone a lot smarter than me will have to walk me through the temperament of Vlad “The Bad” and his mental calculus of “Hey, everyone, let’s go to war!!!”

I think it’s been universally accepted, by most rational and sane adults [we know the exceptions!], Putin has spent much of the last decade restructuring Russian politics around the idea that the nation faces existential threats from outside its borders, aided by traitors within.

Putin’s gamble is that a combination of military success, a powerful propaganda machine and widespread repression will keep domestic discontent under control and, crucially, keep the elites on his side.

It’s possible that the gamble will succeed, that the fusion of domestic dictatorship and imperial ambition may prove effective. 

Color me skeptical!!!

AWAITING

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell goes before Congress next week, and you can bet ALL your cryptocurrency that the markets will hang on his every word as regards how Ukraine could/would/will affect Fed policy.

His schedule, at the moment, calls for Powell to deliver his testimony on the economy to the House Committee on Financial Services on Wednesday morning, and then again to the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday.

The important February employment report is to be released on Friday.

Putin, oil and raring inflation…what do have to say, Mr. Chairman??!

VERY LITTLE is KNOWN…

The apparent goal is regime change, based on what we can see, hear and read about as regards the chaotic mess going on in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Zelensky is saying that fighting continues in many cities across the country, and that the fate of the nation is “being decided right now.”

He posted a video of himself earlier this morning, at daybreak, local time, unshaven, on the capital’s streets, appearing resolved to remain in Kyiv even as Western officials warn about the possibility of his being captured or killed.

As the Russian assault entered its third day, Kyiv was still in Ukrainian government hands.

Outmanned Ukrainian forces are holding on to their capital even after hours of street fighting that included explosions, air attacks and steady bursts of gunfire.

While some Ukrainians [able-bodied males – 18-60 years of age] have picked up arms and created home-improvised weaponry, there are ALREADY visible signs of a mass exodus – some 100,000-plus have fled to Poland alone, with an equal number displaced inside Ukraine.

The US and its European allies are turning to the United Nations General Assembly after Russia vetoed a US-backed Security Council resolution condemning the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine yesterday.

Secretary of State Blinken said on Twitter late last night that the US would pursue the matter in the General Assembly, “where the nations of the world can, will, and should hold Russia accountable and stand.”

Eleven of the Security Council’s 15 members voted in favor of the resolution, while the United Arab Emirates, India and China abstained – a result that the US said was proof of Russia’s diplomatic isolation following its assault on Ukraine. Russia is one of the five permanent members of the council with veto power.

A resolution in support of Ukraine can still pass in the 193–member General Assembly, where NO member state has a veto. 

In absorbing ALL of what’s going on, one thing is perfectly clear to the old Lobsterman: The moment that Putin gave the green light for his troops to set foot in Ukraine, after his unhinged speech claiming Ukrainians don’t have a right to a country, this authoritarian midget, hopefully, affectively created an instant Univeral Resistance Movement.

Which is to say, there is/may be much that citizens of Planet Earth and international businesses can do – continue publishing/broadcasting/reporting events in real time; strenuously calling out disinformation; boycotting businesses, events, sponsorships, etc. with the slightest modicum of connective tissue to Russia; and, lastly “tar and feather” ALL camp-followers of the Orange Despot …as well as the revolting triple-wide pant load himself.

SCOTUS NOMINEE

The major news outlets, moments ago, are reporting Biden will nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the first Black woman nominated to be a justice on the nation’s highest court.

The court has seen only two other Black justices and only four women in its 232-year history.

Jackson, 51, served as a district judge and an appeals court judge in the District of Columbia, one of the country’s busiest jurisdictions, with oversight of cases involving Washington, DC government affairs, including government overreach. She was appointed as a district judge in 2013, and to the appeals court in June 2021.

Jackson would be the first justice with a background in criminal defense to join the court in more than a half century. The last justice to have such a background was Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was named to the bench in 1967; he left the court in 1991.

She joined the DC Appeals court last June after eight years as a federal trial judge in the nation’s capital, where she wrote more than 550 opinions, including one from 2019 in which she ruled former White House counsel Don McGahn did NOT have absolute immunity from having to testify in a congressional investigation of the Orange Despot.