When Stalin was cautioned, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, that the Yalta Agreement contravened plans for the Soviet annexation Central Europe, he famously rejoined, “Never mind. We’ll do it our own way later.”  So it is today for Vladimir Putin.  Having resorbed Crimea with nothing more than a gaggle of pipe-wielding thugs, Vlad thought his quest to procure the rest of Ukraine would be best served by shooting down a commercial jetliner.   The United States and European Union swiftly condemned the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17, while Taiwan, in an act of solidarity with Ukraine, crashed one of their own passenger aircraft.  President Ma Ying-jeou told reporters his nation “well knows the fear and anxiety of being gobbled up by one’s hegemonic neighbor.”

In the grand timeline of history, it wasn’t long after Judge Greene broke up AT&T, that the TelCo giant began clawing back some of her severed parts.  So while it may be understandable that Putin is trying to put the band back together, one is left to wonder, now that Russia’s westward creep is sharing the stage with the off-Broadway revival of the 1948 Palestine (Arab-Israeli) War, whether Mr. Peabody has set the Wayback Machine to the Truman Administration.

David Plouffe, President Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, thinks so.  Plouffe called the Supreme Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby that employers who claim a religious objection are exempt from providing contraceptive coverage to employees “A 1950 decision in an America of 2014.”  “The notion,” he expanded, ”that five older men will say that some business can dictate health choices… for millions of women… can be a huge issue.”

An issue more profound, however, is that the Court has firmly established itself as a purely political organization (I would concede to those that cite Bush v Gore – a ruling that erased its own precedent by virtue of being “limited to the present circumstances” – as the moment of conception), a body which comes to a conclusion based on pure ideology and then strains to defend itself by cobbling together incongruent case law fastened by flawed logic.  The Hobby decision hinged on the notion that a private company’s religious beliefs were satisfactorily preserved when the government used the “least restrictive alternative” – e.g. the use of Form 700 by religious nonprofits to pass contraceptive coverage to insurance companies or third party administrators – to implement the law.  Yet only days later, the court granted an emergency injunction to Wheaton College, allowing the evangelical school to refuse complying with the very Obamacare “workaround” used to support Hobby.

Wheaton contended that the mere affirmation of religious objection was anathema because it precipitated outside coverage of birth control.   That’s like saying orthodox Jews can simply ignore don’t walk signs on the way to Sabbath services.  While the wanton hypocrisy so blatantly displayed by the majority might be de rigueur in Congress, it didn’t sit well with the dissenters.  Justice Sotomayor: “Those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at our word.  Not so today.  After expressly relying on the availability of the religious-nonprofit accommodation to hold that the contraceptive coverage requirement violates [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] as applied to closely held for-profit corporations, the Court now, as the dissent in Hobby Lobby feared it might, retreats from that position.”  Never mind all that high-minded verbiage; the logical extension of the Court’s dictum means investment banks controlled by Muslims could refuse to pay for porcine heart valves, entertainment companies run by Scientologists needn’t pay for anti-depressants, and bookstores owned by Christian Scientists would be excused from providing any medical coverage whatsoever.  What is most disturbing is that life-long appointees are imposing their ideology with impunity, and that the rule of law is no longer sacrosanct.  In effect, then, Messrs. Putin and Stalin have already extended their reach.

 

 

Only weeks ago, in sharp contrast to the somber reality of the moment, it appeared Anthony Weiner and Elliot Spitzer would transcend their corresponding peccadilloes (sexting and wearing dress socks while whoring) to become, respectively, Mayor and Comptroller of the Big Apple.  Dyspeptic at the prospect, The New York Observer described the dyadic revivication as the Boxer Rebellion.  Yet out on the West Coast, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was slinging arrows at a different sex-crazed Jewish pol, namely San Diego Mayor Bob Filner.  Boxer demanded that Filner resign in the wake of multiple accusations of harassment, writing, “The latest revelations regarding your behavior toward women… have shaken me to my core.”  Soon thereafter, it became de rigueur for media types and local businesses to foment anti-Filner sentiment; even Hooters announced that Filner would henceforth be barred at the door.  That Hooters is the furthest thing from a bastion of women’s rights has already been highlighted by several lawsuits, perhaps none more pointed than a federal complaint brought by assistant manager Jarman Gray who contended a female “visiting training manager” told his waitresses, “If you need the extra money, go right ahead and suck a dick or fuck a customer is the money is right.”  Nonetheless, momentum has heavily shifted away from Filner – who is being sued by his own city – as a formal recall is under way.

Because I’m the last guy who wants to reanimate that whole Tupac-versus-Biggie debate, I’ll decline to surmise which story, East or West, brings more heft.   What is undeniable is the feckless attempt (think: Whiz Khalifa) offered by Middle America to join the fray.  To wit: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) was caught tweeting then deleting “ilu” to a 23-year-old blonde during President Obama’s State of the Union address.  He later disclosed that young model was not in fact an object of affection, but rather his illegitimate daughter.  He recounted a romantic liaison with Frank Sinatra, Jr.’s ex-wife nearly a quarter century ago, and his more recent discovery of his progeny, one Victoria Brink.  Saying he was “proud to be her dad,” the Congressman even took Brink to last year’s White House Christmas (Kwanzaa?) Party.   Subsequently, a Springer-esque paternity test prompted a crestfallen Cohen to lament he was “stunned and dismayed” to discover Victoria’s biological father to be Texas oilman John Brink.

Admittedly, the story had the most zing when it seemed Cohen harbored a young paramour, but it got only weirder, if less salacious, in its intermediate stage.  The final truth proved both vacuous and pathetic.  In the end, Cohen was seen more as a patsy than a villain (think: Manti Te’o), especially when measured against those libidinous kikes Barney Frank and Dominique Strauss-Kahn.  Yet the irony in all this is that Cohen’s district lies only a stone’s throw form the Mississippi state line, across which the question of whether the girl you are fracking is or is not your daughter remains wholly immaterial.