Opinion
By Jeff Childers
04-24-24
Good morning, C&C, it’s Wednesday! Your midweek roundup includes: Trump trial update — state’s first witness lengthens out; Senate unsurprisingly passes Ukraine aid, but with a surprising amount of opposition; dour news of defections and worldwide arms shortages plague Ukraine’s shrinking battlefield options; Biden tries helping by picking a fight with China; FTC bans employer non-compete agreements; DeSantis slams Ukraine aid; Argentina’s chainsawing president makes budgetary history; and common sense shoots the moon in Tennessee.
🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞
🔥 The Wall Street Journal ran a stimulating story yesterday headlined, “Tabloid Publisher Testifies on Trump ‘Catch-and-Kill’ Deal.” Fueling more raunchy jokes yesterday than stars in the heavens, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s lawyers invested two days on the state’s first star witness, the unfortunately named tabloid publisher, David Pecker.
Many others have already inflated the obvious issue. But here at C&C we are above poking fun at Pecker’s name. We are more aroused by the legal issues than by middle-school jokes. So get your minds out of the gutter.
Picking witness order is a trial-strategy art form. I prefer starting and ending with the most titillating witnesses, crafting a top-to-bottom, tumescent narrative bookending my case. My first witness’s job is to seduce the jury; so the best first witness is usually the most likable one. Since the jury has already seen me during witness selection and opening statements, when the first witness takes the stand, the jury gets to meet my case for the first time. A strong, beguiling witness with a firm story makes a good first impression.
By all accounts, the state’s first witness, Pecker, showed a likable, gentle, grandfatherly personality. We don’t yet know whether Pecker will be a good pick for first witness, but Bragg’s team is sure spending a schlong time with the publisher. His testimony is expected to extend through Thursday (reports say today will just be procedural matters).
Pecker was a risky, if not bold choice for Bragg. Pecker testified he and Trump are long-time buddies. So Pecker will probably testify favorably to Trump, especially when it’s Trump’s lawyers turn to ask the publisher questions.
It’s not clear whether Pecker has helped or hurt the case so far. His role is to help the state establish Trump’s intent. On one hand, he testified that his National Enquirer worked with Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen in 2015, by running negative stories about other candidates and by buying up negative stories about Trump, stories that never ran. Most damaging, Pecker said they tried to keep the arrangement confidential, which the prosecution will argue shows a guilty conscience.
Guilty of what remains a fair question.
On the other hand, the Pecker described buying the doorman’s love-child tale, which Pecker admitted knowing was fake. But Pecker bought it anyway for $30,000. He also described former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal, who was shopping her sordid affair story to ABC.
Trump told Pecker he didn’t want to buy McDougal’s stupid story, because “anytime you do anything like this, it always gets out.” So Pecker insisted on buying McDougal’s story. Not Trump.
Significantly, Pecker also said he saw it as his duty to guard Trump’s campaign by helping keep damaging Trump stories out of the news. It was his duty — Pecker’s. In other words, he was gratifying himself; he had his own reasons to help.
Trump’s lawyers have not yet had their chance to cross-examine Pecker. His testimony on cross can be expected to be friendly to Trump, which creates a risk that Bragg’s first witness could become a flaccid disappointment for the state.
But before concluding the Trump-friendly tabloid journalist was the wrong first witness, consider Bragg’s other choices: a grifting adult actress who admitted in writing she’d lied about the affair, or a disbarred lawyer who hates Trump and has testified before that Trump never paid him to “hush up” anybody.
So far, the state’s first criminal prosecution of a U.S. president is off to a limp beginning, looking more like the government’s stereotypical midlife crisis and less like a serious criminal case.
🔥 The New York Times ran a story late yesterday afternoon headlined, “Senate Approves Aid for Ukraine and Israel, Sending It to Biden’s Desk.” Long past Joe Biden’s bedtime yesterday, around 6pm, the Senate approved 79-18 the $95M aid package to help stop border invasions in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan — pretty much everywhere except the United States.
Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Ok.) previously opposed the Ukraine aid but yesterday changed his vote and got on board. “Seventy-five percent of the bill, the total funding, stays within the United States,” Mr. Mullin defensively explained to Newsmax last night. “That’s what a lot of people don’t realize. This goes to our defense industry; this goes to replenishing our munitions.”
Sadly, that’s not a very strong argument. The $12B Ukraine actually gets for military aid is a tiny drop in the graft bucket. Last year, the U.S. and NATO dumped $200B into Ukraine’s Glorious Spring* Offensive (*summertime). But despite billions of warbucks, the GSO still failed spectacularly. What Senator Mullin expects a paltry $12B to accomplish, with fewer soldiers than in 2023, worse battlefield positions, and a stronger, better-equipped Russian army, is anybody’s guess.
Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Al.) argued that precise point, but he might have been talking to himself. “Pouring more money into Ukraine’s coffers will only prolong the conflict and lead to more loss of life,” Mr. Tuberville told the Senate yesterday. “No one at the White House, Pentagon or State Department can articulate what victory looks like in this fight. We should be working with Ukraine and Russia to negotiate an end to this madness.”
But like a nest of deaf adders, the other Senators stoppethed up their ears. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf cobra that stoppeth her ear. Psalm 58:4.
🚀🚀 Ukraine’s shrinking manpower problem is quickly draining the testosterone from the battlefield, not that it made any difference to the Senate. Consider yesterday’s dramatic headline from Forbes:
Two of Ukraine’s most celebrated and veteran brigades, the 47th and 67th Mechanized Brigades, both separately refused to fight this week and abandoned key strategic positions along the front lines. They were reportedly exhausted and upset about having had no real leave since being mobilized at the start of the war, and being forced unlawfully to soldier on past the ends of their contracts.
Ukraine only has about 100 brigades. It can’t afford to lose any, nevermind losing its two most experienced brigades. Even worse, the reason the 47th Mechanized threw in its battle towel was because when their relief brigade, the 115th, saw the scorched earth they were ordered into, they said ‘nope’ and stood down. That, apparently, was the last straw for the overworked warriors in the 47th.
So three Ukrainian brigades refused to fight this week at the worst possible times.
Forbes cogently noted that “billions of dollars of fresh weapons are on their way, but those weapons are useless if there aren’t enough deployed, orderly and well-rested units to use them.”
As we also have said, many times before. But deaf adders, shrinkage, and so forth.
Yesterday’s Guardian headline was even more dire:
And Foreign Policy also didn’t seem to think the exciting new aid package would make much difference for Ukraine, at least not this year:
The trouble appears to be that coming up with more high-tech weapons isn’t magic. You can’t just Venmo a couple billion over to the Military-Industrial Complex and — Shazam! — more tanks and bombs magically appear. The West isn’t exactly the world capital of manufacturing these days and it seems like everybody knows it:
“The problem is there is a huge shortage—worldwide—of artillery shells,” said Oleksandra Ustinova, a Ukrainian lawmaker. “The Europeans said they would provide us a million shells—they provided only 30 percent of those. The Americans have dried out their stocks, and they’re also delivering to Israel. And they are only ramping up the production line.”
Europe’s stockpiles are empty. Most of the output from the European Union’s initiative to get 1.4 million shells into Ukrainian hands—about half of which have already been delivered—won’t get there until the end of 2024. So Ukraine’s partners on the continent are searching under the couch cushions and looking for suppliers outside the European bloc to find enough artillery to keep Kyiv’s gun barrels hot.
But don’t worry, Ukraine will win any minute now. Somehow.
🔥 Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is working diligently to ensure that Americans can enjoy an apocalyptic wasteland of economic woe. Forbes ran the story yesterday headlined, “U.S. Is Preparing To Sanction Chinese Banks Supporting Russia, Report Says.”
More sanctions! On China. Biden’s beef with the Orient ostensibly is a complaint that China keeps selling Russia ordinary, non-military commercial goods, which Russia has cleverly adapted to using in its war effort. And Biden wants it to stop. “Just don’t,” he mumbled, or unrecognizable words to that effect.
So, try to follow me here, the geniuses in Biden’s Administration have come up with a brilliant plan. Right as China and Russia are trying to get their own international financial system off the ground, Biden is threatening to cut off China’s banks from the U.S.’s international financial system.
The predictable result will be China accelerating its BRICS program. Is Biden trying to help BRICS replace the dollar? That’s an honest question.
Anyway, can somebody explain to me why, after sanctions worked so well with Russia, we’re looking to do the same thing to China?
🔥 In more legal news, the Hill ran a story yesterday headlined, “FTC votes to ban noncompete agreements.” Following a year of public comment, the FTC just pulled the plug on all employee noncompete agreements of every kind. Boom.
It’s a fascinating idea, but it won’t hold up. It’s a cynical, election-year dodge to spike the economy a little before the courts predictably strike down the rule change. The FTC voted 3-2 on party lines yesterday to approve its new no-non-compete rule.
But even the commissioners realize the agency has no authority to do that:
While the dissenting commissioners said they did not support noncompete agreements carte blanche, they did not believe the agency had the authority to issue the rule without an express directive from Congress.
“Beginning with policy puts the cart before the horse,” FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson (R) said. “No matter how important, conspicuous and controversial the issue, and no matter how wise the administrative solution, an administrative agency’s power to regulate must always be grounded in the valid grant of authority from Congress. Because we lacked that authority, the final rule is unlawful.”
As a lawyer who often litigates non-compete agreements, I understand well the arguments on both sides. Employees argue that by definition, non-competes are anticompetitive, and suppress wages by job-locking people. Employers argue they invest a lot of money into training folks and developing employees’ skills, and letting staff in on secret formulas and techniques that would be harmful if competitors ever got ahold of them.
My take is that the law of non-competes is frequently inexplicable and often inefficient. Last year, for example, one of my clients wasted a half million dollars successfully defending a completely spurious set of lawsuits over non-compete agreements linked to some executives they didn’t even want anymore. So it’s not even clear on balance that non-competes are good for employers or employees.
As I said, there’s a 99% chance the FTC’s new rule will soon be stayed pending litigation. But during the short window of time before a federal court predictably stays the rule, employees might be able to quickly switch jobs in spite of their non-competes, or employers might be able to quickly hire people subject to one. I’m not offering legal advice. Get your own legal opinion. I’m only saying.
🔥 Yesterday, Governor DeSantis brought the heat to the Ukraine aid package — and the lack of any U.S. border package — criticizing Republicans in Congress for a “real failure.”
CLIP: Governor DeSantis slams Congress for Ukraine aid (1:06).
Here’s how the Governor put it:
“The Number One issue that our voters wanted them to address is the southern border and the massive influx of foreigners by the millions coming into this country … and Republicans basically just surrendered on the border. We’re doing more in Florida than Congress is. I mean, it’s just pathetic. They basically capitulated entirely on the border. And at this point, you’re not gonna see anything done on the border for the rest of this year. Are we just gonna let in another two million people and do nothing about it? I think it was a real, real failure.”
The Governor is not wrong, nor can I see how it could have been put any better.
🔥🔥 Agenzia Nova ran a story yesterday headlined, “Argentina, Milei celebrates the “historic” feat: balance sheet surplus in the first three months.” In three short months, Argentina’s controversial new president, economist, radical capitalist, and power tool aficionado Javier Milei has reversed the government’s long slide into chronic deficits — since 2008! — springing to its first quarterly surplus in that time.
Alternatively calling his de-woking approach to Argentina’s bureaucracy “chainsaw economics” and “shock therapy,” Milei achieved an historic $375M budget surplus by axing climate and culture agencies and eliminating wealth transfers between different parts of Argentina.
“We’re going to give everything to pull this country out of the hell we inherited,” President Milei explained. He is a wildcard. But things are always spicy south of the border.
Say what you like about Javier Milei and his wild hairdo, but we could use some chainsaw economics in this country, too.
🔥🔥 Tennessee’s woke liberals cried harder yesterday as conservatives received some more good news. The Tennessean covered it in a story headlined, “Tennessee House passes bill allowing armed teachers, sending measure to the governor.”
Yesterday, Tennessee’s super-majority House Republicans passed legislation permitting some trained teachers and school staff to carry handguns. The bill was passed despite the desperate wailing of Democrats, mushy-skulled students, and anti-gun activists.
As the Tennessean understated things, “the House floor fell into chaos.” The cops had to clear the gallery.
Tennessee Representative Justin Jones (D-52) posted a short video giving a taste of the drama on the Tennessee House floor yesterday (2:20). Jones, a woke activist democrat, called removing anti-gun protestors ‘fascist,’ although it wasn’t perfectly clear that Rep. Jones understands what the word ‘fascist’ means, despite receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Fisk University.
I blame Fisk for the mixup. Jones should at least ask for a partial refund.
Obviously (or, it should be obvious), the new law includes multiple redundant layers of safety protections, like criminal and mental background checks, 40 hours of weapons training, and prior school permission before teachers can carry guns into school. It also protects teachers who do complete all those requirements, so they can’t be doxxed and harassed by woke brownshirts, and so bad guys can’t figure out how many teachers at a particular school might be armed.
The Tennessean didn’t quote anybody who supported the bill, so you know its reporting was totally fair.
Believe it or not, about half the states now let teachers carry concealed weapons on campus, with varying degrees of rules and requirements. I bet you could guess which half of the states.
More conservative progress. Viva la counter-revolution! And local, local, local.
Have a wonderful Wednesday! Avoid all the Trump Trial penis jokes and get back here tomorrow for the next educational and elucidating roundup.
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© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
