RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/hillary-is-still-spreading-trump-putin-conspiracy-theories/

The Russian collusion hoax has been definitively discredited, but Hillary Clinton clings to it nonetheless, apparently hoping that the anti-Russian sentiment that the invasion of Ukraine has stirred up will help propel her into the White House in 2024. But the Left’s war with reality is leading Hillary, along with many other prominent Leftists, into increasing absurdities, and clinging to the Russia hoax only compounds the problem, making Hillary seem increasingly like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, the aging onetime film star who hasn’t realized that the glory has departed and that there will be no triumphant return to the bright lights.

At a symposium of sycophants at Georgetown University on Thursday, Hillary advanced the fanciful notion that everyone’s favorite bête noire, Vladimir Putin, was rubbing his hands in glee and waiting for Donald Trump’s reelection in 2020 to implement his plan to invade Ukraine. “He got his dreams fulfilled when Trump was elected” in 2016, said Hillary for what must be the twenty-thousandth time. “He, you know, decided that he didn’t want to face me as president,” she added. “So he did all the things we now know he did that are well cataloged.” Well refuted, also.

But as if aware that we have heard that song before, Hillary was also ready with some new material, too. “And I believe that if Trump had been reelected, Putin would have waited for Trump to do what he said he was intending to do, which was to pull us out of NATO.” That would have played right into Putin’s fiendish plans, you see. Hillary continued: “And that would have created such a vacuum that invading Ukraine, which he thought was going to be easy anyway, would be a fait accompli.”

https://newcriterion.com/issues/2022/10/affiramtive-action-democracy-the-supreme-court

On the consequences of racial preferences.

We live, allegedly, in a democracy of sorts. While it is not a plebiscitary democracy, in which every issue is put directly to the people, but rather a representative democracy, it is nonetheless supposed to be a system in which things that the populace wants generally get done, and in which things that the populace doesn’t want done aren’t. It has probably not escaped your notice that this is not a particularly accurate description of our society today.

In fact, one of the most striking things today is the extent to which things that are popular with the political class, but unpopular with the mass of voters, somehow become national priorities nonetheless. By large margins voters in America (and pretty much every other country) are opposed to mass immigration; elites, on the other hand, are very much in favor. Likewise, affirmative action, whether in employment, judicial appointments, or college admissions, is very unpopular, and yet it is the norm today, though sometimes thinly disguised. And, of course, the trans-rights movement, thanks to which female athletes have to compete against biological males, has been very much a top-down phenomenon, not one that arose because the masses demanded it.

Well, the masses are not always right, though I would have thought that the point of our system of government was to ensure, within constitutional limits, that they generally get what they want and are spared things they dislike. As noted, that’s not the case. But why?

In short, the source is what’s known as a principal/agent problem. In a representative democracy, governing isn’t done by the people, who in our system are the principals, but rather by their agents: presidents, members of Congress, judges, and, of course, the vast unelected bureaucracy. But these agents tend to do what they want, rather than what their principals desire.

In the field of corporate finance, this is known as the separation of ownership from control. In a sole proprietorship, the owner also controls the business. In a corporation, not so much. Shareholders own the company, but management effectively controls it. Management is supposed to act entirely and exclusively for shareholders’ benefit, not its own, but in practice managers are often more concerned with their own welfare than with increasing shareholder wealth. In theory, the board of directors, elected by shareholders, ensures that management does what it is supposed to do. In actuality, boards are more likely to be an arm of management than a fierce protector of shareholders. So you get fat salaries and limited consequences for failure, along with freedom for management to subordinate profit to posturing that gains managers social points in their own milieu.

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/10/03/from-affirmative-action-to-andy-warhol-buckle-up-for-a-wild-supreme-court-term/

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said, “It’s hard not to have a big year at the Supreme Court.” That is, of course, manifestly true for the highest court in the land.

Some years are bigger than others, however. That certainly was the case in 2021-22, with historic decisions on abortion, gun rights, climate change and other issues.

On Monday, the new term will begin with a lineup that promises another historic series of rulings — and even greater levels of rage directed at the court.

The last term showed that a stable 6-3 majority has taken hold on the  court. Even with the addition this term of Justice Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson, and possible swing votes from Chief Justice John Roberts or others, there are five conservative justices who have brought clarity to long-contested areas characterized by 5-4 divisions. That is likely to continue this term.

Here are just two of the “matinee” cases that could have a huge impact on both precedent and politics:

Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College

This case on the use of race in college admissions will be heard with a similar case in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina.

Since declaring affirmative action in admissions to be unconstitutional in 1978 in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the court has never achieved clarity on the constitutional use of race beyond barring any preference “for no reason other than race or ethnic origin.” Then-Justice Lewis Powell declared, “This the Constitution forbids,” but the court has been unable to say with any coherence and consistency what else it forbids in a line of conflicting and vague 5-4 rulings.