A MAKE-UP CALL?

In striking down AFFIRMATIVE ACTION in higher education yesterday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority said it had to do so because the Constitution forbids any form of racial distinction.

With a single opinion, the justices overturned decades of precedents that upheld race-conscious admissions policies as consistent with the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and ignored the reality of modern America, where prejudice and racism endure.

Affirmative Action was the legal system’s version of a “make-up call” in sports.

For those unfamiliar, a make-up call occurs when a referee or umpire recognizes that he or she had made a previous egregious error in penalizing one of the opponents in a game and then consciously or unconsciously makes things “right” by leaning the other way on the next judgement call against the other team.

At least in the sports version, the make-up call involves the same competitors throughout; under Affirmative Action, the beneficiaries are rarely the ones who suffered the most historically.

For its proponents there NEVER would have been a logical end to it. There is ALWAYS some wrong in the distant past that requires a ‘make-up call.’

Diversity of skin color is NOT the same thing as diversity of economic backgrounds.

Pay attention to the rhetoric of Ivy League administrators, they rarely mention economic mobility as their main concern. Rather, the Ivies, over the decades, have been using a splash of color through affirmative action to self-rationalize!!! their own internal preferences for legacies, athletes and children of elites.

RARE PERFECTION

Performed by a “damn Yankee!“

THE “GHOULMAN” COMETH

Rudy “Ghoulman” Giuliani, who served as “the former guy’s” personal lawyer, was interviewed last week by federal prosecutors investigating the Orange Despot‘s efforts to overturn the ’20 election, numerous media/news outlets are reporting.

The session with Giuliani, the people familiar with it confirmed, touched on some of the most important aspects of the special counsel’s inquiry into the ways that Trump sought to maintain his grip on power after losing the election to Joey Biden.

The voluntary interview, which took place under what is known as a proffer agreement [a written agreement between federal prosecutors and individuals under criminal investigation; it allows the individuals to provide information about crimes with some protection against prosecution]; was a significant development in the election interference investigation led by Jack Smith, the special counsel, and the latest indication that Smith and his team are actively seeking witnesses who might cooperate in the case.

I just hope Rudy remembers the one cardinal rule of working with the government: The government can lie to you, but you can NOT lie to them…because if you do, you’ll be charged with a laundry list of crimes from the start.

And, oh yea, do NOT use cheap shoe polish for hair dye…awful look when you’re sweating!!!

American politics is the world’s worst reality contest…and the one the old Lobsterman can’t take his eyes and ears away from – 24/7/365.

You NEVER have to change the channel…

AN ORANGE DIVERSION

Facing multiple intensifying investigations [I’ve lost count], Donald John Trump has quietly begun diverting!!!!!!!!!!! more of the money he is raising away from his ’24 presidential campaign and into a political action committee that he has used to pay his personal legal fees.

The change, which went unannounced except in the fine print of his online disclosures, raises fresh questions about how Boy Orange is paying for his mounting legal bills – which could run into millions of dollars – as he prepares for at least two criminal trials, and whether his PAC, Save America, is facing a financial crunch.

Trump has ALWAYS merged his politics with alleged legal activities??? where he must hire vast legal teams to find a way to keep him out of jail.

During his time on Planet Earth, he has created enterprises that turned out to be unethical and often illegal which his gullible patrons paid for.

NOTHING has changed with Trump except now he uses illegal political strategies for his own power and the fleecing!!! of donors.

Do DJT ‘cult’ followers really think they are reelecting Trump to represent them as president??!

To those of us with cognitive ability, it’s clear that Trump is really buying a “get out of jail” free card.

Dance, Donnie, dance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

h/t: Campaign Legal Center.

THE MAJOR MILITARY QUESTION

After the short-lived mutiny led by the head of the group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, it is NOT clear whether The Wagner Group will still be a fighting force on the battlefield with its fate now in question.

To some Ukrainian forces, soldiers from Wagner were the best-equipped fighters they had seen since Russia invaded Ukraine last year; to others, it was their training that distinguished them: Ukrainian soldiers recalled battlefield stories of aggressive tactics or a sniper downing a drone with a single shot.

It is too soon to determine the long-term implications of the feud between Prigozhin [where is he?!!?] and the Russian military establishment.

For now, the uncertain status of Wagner is bound to be a relief for Ukrainian soldiers. Though the front lines in Ukraine are likely to remain unchanged in the short term, depending on how events unfold in Russia, the Ukrainian military may be able to capitalize on the chaos and weakening morale to try to make some gains, according to independent analysts.

If any of the Wagner troops are allowed to serve in the Russian Army, it would seem, they will simply be treated and utilized as expendable “Shock Troops,” in a manner that would be quite similar to the way that Prigozhin himself treated the convicts which he had recruited directly from Russian prisons.

This would be the functional equivalent of the Russian Army conducting ‘mass executions,’ but without making a show of manifestly squandering those lives.

Either way, the Wagner fighters could/will be neutralized!!! as any sort of lingering threat to Putin, whether or NOT the regime sticks to the promises that he, Putin, will pardon the Wagner troops who mutinied.

h/t: Forces and Defense One.

CONTINUITY or CALAMITY?

Wolf Blitzer reporting from London…

Holy Gary Gasparov!

Seeds of a Russian Revolution over the weekend…

Must-watch television…

The old Lobsterman could NOT get enough!!!

Clam chowder; pizza slices; red & green grapes; bags of chips; hot dogs with raw onions w/ tons of mustard; apple turnovers, and litters of Sprite ZERO.

A wise man once said, “We don’t know what we don’t know.”

NOTHING could be closer to the truth as regards what’s going on inside Russia at the moment.

Translation: nothing, in fact, is has it seems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whatever Yevgeny Prigozhin intended his rebellion to achieve, it proved short and senseless. Less than 24 hours after he sent his tanks and troops bounding down a main highway toward Moscow, the mercenary chief [and sanctioned thug!] was persuaded to turn them around and take refuge himself in Belarus…yet to be seen in public in over 30-plus hours.

I remind everyone…Prigozhin is the epitome of a post-Soviet villain. He spent most of the 1980s in prison, made a fortune in the no-holds-barred gold rush of the first post-Soviet years, got close to Putin in part by catering his state dinners [honest fact].

Among many other evil deeds, Prigozhin built The Wagner Group, which first emerged in 2014 during Russia’s invasion of Crimea and has ALWAYS been closely aligned to Vlad “The Bad.” Since then, the mercenaries have fought missions in Libya, Syria and the Central African Republic, which the Kremlin encouraged but did NOT want to own.

Now this morning, one is hearing, and reading, about numerous theories circulating on social media that the entire rebellion was a charade??!!! from the start, maybe even staged by Putin for some convoluted reason.

It is impossible to know, and may remain so for a long time. Given the madness of invading Ukraine to begin with, and the incompetence of the Russian military, anything is possible.

The only element missing over the weekend was another moronic one-on-one interview by Bret Baier with the Orange Despot on his assessment of the overall situation surrounding his pal.

 

AN ENDLESS RESERVOIR

The gift that keeps on giving…

The comb-over gets nastier by the day!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“J6” and ITS OWN ECOSYSTEM

A far-right ecosystem of true believers has embraced “J6” as the animating force of their lives since the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Insurrection on the Capitol completed its work, roughly six months ago.

They attend the criminal trials of the more prominent rioters charged in the attack; gathering to pray and sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” on the outer perimeter of the District of Columbia jail, where some two dozen defendants are held.

Last week, dozens showed up at an unofficial House hearing [a carnival show!!!] convened by a handful of Re’Trump’lican lawmakers to challenge “the fake narrative that an insurrection had occurred on Jan. 6,” as set forth by Jeffrey Clark [a certifiable sick puppy], a witness at the hearing and a former Justice Department official who worked to undo the results of the ’20 election.

The 90-minute sideshow, within the great Whiteway, was a through-the-looking-glass alternative to the damning case against “the former guy” presented last year by the 1/6 committee.

In this farcical version advanced by five House Re’Trump’licans who attended the hearing – Matt Gaetz [why isn’t he in jail??!], Paul ‘Need a tooth pulled?’ Gosar, Ralph Norman, Marjorie Taylor Greene [NO description needed!] and Troy Nehls – as well as conservative lawyers and Capitol riot defendants, “J6” was an elaborate setup to entrap?????? peaceful Trump supporters, followed by a continuing Biden administration campaign to imprison and torment innocent conservatives.

ALL things considered, their loudest-in-the-room tale of persecution rather than prosecution might be dismissed as fringe nonsense had it NOT migrated so swiftly to the heart of presidential politics.

As we ALL are aware, the Orange Despot has pledged to pardon!!!!!! some of the 1/6 defendants if he returns to the White House, and his chief challenger for the ’24 Republican nomination, Ron “Con” DeSantis of Florida, has signaled he may do the same.

More than half, or 58%, of self-described conservatives say that 1/6 was an act of “legitimate political discourse” rather than a “violent insurrection,” according to a poll by The Economist.YouGov, taken three months ago.

The old Lobsterman can’t wait to have a front row seat to witness events and circumstances over the next 18 months as Donald John Trump and his camp followers spread their verbal landfill on why Boy Orange did NOT and does NOT – recognize any distinction between himself and the office of the presidency.

He is it and it is him.

What this means in practical terms is that as Trump runs for president, he has promised to bring key parts of the federal government under his control as soon as he takes office; he wants to clear out as much of the executive branch as possible and swap professionals for “true” believers – a new crop of officials whose chief loyalty is to the power and authority of Donald Trump, rather than their office or the letter of the law. 

h/t: TheEconomist.YouGov. [11-14 March ’23].

IT’S NOW SHOWTIME

A glaring under-reported story…

Ukrainian forces are using American-made Bradley fighting vehicles to destroy Russian armor with anti-tank missiles. And, they are deploying combined arms tactics – synchronized attacks by infantry, armor and artillery forces- that they learned from American and other Western troops.

Translation: We, the United States, are getting more and more in grained with, and in, the battlefield of Ukraine.

Well, it’s, finally, showtime for the 36,000 Ukrainian soldiers – nine brigades – that have been armed, equipped and trained outside of Ukraine over the past several months by the United States and its NATO allies.

Biden administration officials are hoping the nine brigades will show that the American way of warfare: using combined arms, synchronized tactics and regiments with empowered senior enlisted soldiers is superior to the rigidly centralized command-structure!!! that is the Russian approach.

How these Western-trained troops perform over the next few months, military experts say, will help determine the success of Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive to push Russian forces out of occupied territory.

Their performance will also demonstrate whether the tens of billions of dollars in weapons that Ukraine has received from its allies, including $40 billion from the Biden administration, is managing to transform the Ukrainian military into a NATO-standard fighting force.

h/t: Forces and Defense One.

SAMMY THROWS HIS PUNCH!

In an extraordinary salvo in a favored forum, Justice Samuel Alito defended himself in a pre-emptive article, responding to questions about his travel with a billionaire who frequently has cases before the Supreme Court, in the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal before the news organization ProPublica posted its account of a luxury fishing trip in 2008.

Alito’s response comes as the justices face mounting scrutiny over their ethical obligations to report gifts and to recuse themselves from cases involving their benefactors. The latest revelations are sure to intensify calls for the court to adopt more stringent ethics rules!??!!

ProPublica had sought comment from the justice, who instead turned to The Journal to make two main points: that he was NOT required to recuse himself from those cases, or to disclose the travel.

The Swamp continues to expand its shoreline!!!

It is painfully apparent that some justices have lost their way [just as some pols have!], displaying brazen arrogance and utter disregard!!! for the sacred Constitutional and Judicial Oaths they swore to uphold.

Instead of guarding and interpreting our Constitution, some would rather emulate ancient Roman senators counting their piles of sesterces and hobnobbing with their wealthy patrons.

If the Founding Fathers could have only foreseen what has become of their wonderful experiment, they would have burned the Constitution [NOT literally] and rewritten it with many more conditions imposed on ALL three branches of government.

In God We Trust…ALL others request separate checks…