Briefly Noted: Ukraine Update, SCOTUS
Doug Macgregor did another update on the Ukraine conflict that’s available on Youtube. It’s only about 24 minutes long, total, but it features some insightful discussion. For example, he goes into the role of Polish soldiers in the battles. There have been widespread reports that Polish troops in Ukrainian uniforms have played a significant role in the recent Ukrainian “offensives”. Here’s a possible example—one of many. Russian reports also detail the capture of Poles, although without specifying their unit organization and affiliation—are they true mercenaries or are they Polish soldiers either attached to Ukrainian units or forming their own units (as below):
In any event, Macgregor claims that there are as many as 10,000 Polish troops involved and that they are crucial to the recent Ukrainian attacks.
In that regard, he offered an interesting response to a question from Napolitano, who asked, in effect: Are Russian troops welcomed as liberators in the areas that they have captured. Macgregor responded (paraphrasing slightly): This isn’t like WW2. When the Red Army fought it’s way across Western Ukraine, Byelorussia (Belarus), and Poland to Berlin, most of the people in those regions, if asked, within 24 hours would have hoped for a return of the Germans. While that may be an exaggeration, it illustrates a fact that most Russians tend to ignore: Red Army atrocities were by no means limited to ethnic Germans, and Polish civilians suffered heavily from their depredations.
The point is that historical recollections such as these and more fuel Polish hatred and, yes, revanchism. There is the matter of the execution of many thousands of captive Polish officers at Katyń (and elsewhere), the claimed delay of the Red Army outside Warsaw during the Warsaw uprising, etc. Not to mention the years of the Cold War when Poland was dominated by the USSR (cf. here for an interesting account of that post war period, with regard to a hero of the Red Army, Konstantin Rokossovsky, who happened to be a Pole).
However, the fact is that for every Polish anti-Russian narrative there is usually a Russian counter-narrative—and vice versa. As in most conflicts between nations that stretch over centuries, there is plenty of room for recriminations, and neither side will be found without fault. My view is simply that the current Polish attempt to gain revenge on Russia through its alliance with the Anglosphere is misguided and could lead to later bitter regrets. Russia is going nowhere, and Poles need to find some way to live with that reality.
So, with that, Macgregor:
The other story I want to draw attention to concerns a topic that I’ve referred to several times quite recently: The major transformation of American political life that the Trump administration wrought. I referred to Trump’s remake of much of the federal appellate judiciary and emphasized the new appetite that the Trump SCOTUS has shown for taking on controversial cases in areas of the law that progs had hoped were “settled”—even overruling longstanding precedents. That dynamic is continuing, as Jonathan Turley wrote back in January:
Race and College Admissions: The Supreme Court’s Train Whistle Docket Just Got a Lot Louder
Last year, I wrote about the Supreme Court’s “train whistle” docket with cases on abortion, guns, immigration, and other issues barreling down the track. Well, that whistle just got a lot louder.
This week, the court accepted two cases challenging racial preferences in college admissions. As with abortion and guns, a majority appears to have formed to bring clarity to an area long mired in ambiguity. For critics, universities have used that ambiguity to evade limits in the use of race in admissions. If the conservative majority has been waiting for the most impactful cases and time to move, it clearly found them in Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina.
…
There is now a 6-3 conservative majority on the court, and Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito previously voted against the University of Texas.
…
Both the Harvard and North Carolina at Chapel Hill admissions criteria were upheld by lower courts. That was despite the acknowledgement of U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in the Harvard case that the criteria clearly disfavored Asian American applicants who “would likely be admitted at a higher rate than white applicants if admissions decisions were made based solely on academic and extracurricular ratings.”
In the North Carolina case, the challengers maintain that the data shows that an Asian American male in-state applicant with a 25 percent chance of admission to UNC would have a 67 percent chance if he were Hispanic and a 90 percent chance if he were an African American. For an Asian American male from out of state with a 25 percent chance of admission, the odds of admissions for an African American with the same scores would be 99 percent, according to their briefs.
If the court accepts this claimed disparity, it could use the case to show that the diversity rationale has been little more than a rationalization for racial discrimination.
With the court possibly moving against race-conscious admissions, universities are already discussing how to continue to seek diversity goals. Just as President Biden and some states are already moving on to “Plan B” for abortion rights in anticipation of a major ruling this year, schools appear to be adopting their own “Plan B.” The universities in the California system and other schools are moving to drop standardized testing in admissions, a move that will make it even more difficult to challenge race as a criteria without such test rankings.
The current docket reads like a list of “unfinished business” for the conservative majority. On abortion, the Court seems ready to ditch the pre-viability standard and perhaps Roe v. Wade itself. On gun rights, the conservative justices also noted a lack of candor in states evading prior limits and appears ready to bring clarity in its upcoming ruling.
Nothing in life involving such matters is entirely simple—neither discrimination nor colorblindness are without complications based in complex fact situations. In college admissions the issue of how objective the SAT test actually is at this point is disputed even by conservatives.
In any event, two tweets from yesterday:
The Trump era continues. No matter how dearly the American establishment wishes it would go away.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/eu-driving-polexit
Great commentary from MacGregor. Napolitano, on the other hand… what a simpleton. After all these interviews with the MacGregor he still comes up with dumbass questions. Case in point: comparing Russian control of the Donbas to Nazi control of Paris. I was surprised this didn’t warrant one of MacGregor’s famous sighs.