Nemesis follows... eventually

On Saturday, the unthinkable happened; although with 20-20 hindsight, not entirely surprising after all.  Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the Wagner Group mercenary army, mounted the first serious challenge to Vladimir Putin's autocratic grip on power. 

Over the last several months Prigozhin had become increasingly and publicly critical of Putin, suggesting he was increasingly confident of his own power and his indispensability to Putin.

The Wagner group, in recruiting from Russia's prisons, turned out to be a more effective fighting force than Putin's regular army. As the war on Ukraine  bogged down, Putin begin to rely increasingly on the Wagner Group to backstop his regular army's failings and in so doing ceded power to Prigozhin.

As Prigozhin's confidence grew, along side his frustration with the Russian bureaucracy that seemed to be starving his mercenary army of military supplies, so did his impatience and his criticism of Putin. The feud between Prigozhin and Putin's Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff came to a head on Friday June 23rd when Russia’s Federal Security Service issued a warrant for Prigozhin’s arrest.  The following day, confident of his own invincibility, Prigozhin ordered his private army to advance on Moscow in what looks very much like an attempted coup. 

Things escalated quickly. Putin appeared on national television branding Prigozhin as a a traitor.  And then almost as quickly as it began it was seemingly over.  A deal brokered by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko allowed Prigozhin to take sanctuary in Belarus in return for Prigozhin ordering his army to return to barracks. 

      

But while the situation seems to have de-escalated, the political landscape in Russia is now very different  from what it was 72 hours ago.    

Although Prigozhin's immediate challenge to Putin has subsided, he has not disappeared. The incident exposes the fragility of Putin's power. It highlights the weakness of the Russian army and the lack of support for the war in Ukraine, particularly among Russia's regular soldiers. 

Politically that gives Putin another headache. The war was in part his way of bolstering public support as the economy faltered and democratic freedoms were eroded. As support for the war evaporates and the bold claims Putin made at its outset ring increasingly hollow, he must rely increasingly on the authoritarian control of a police state.  In making a deal with Prigozhin rather than capturing and trying him for treason, Russians can now see Putin's invincibility for the myth it has now become.   

All of which creates a volatile inflection point. While Russia is preoccupied with an internal struggle for power,  Ukraine may benefit in its effort to expel the invasion. At the same time, Putin may become increasingly desperate in an attempt to hold on to power, leading him to act with increasing unpredictability.  The invasion of Ukraine was seen by many as an act of irrational hubris; that does not auger well for what Putin may do next.

Academic Freedom?

Many of my colleagues have been lamenting the infringement of academic freedom in red states which are passing laws preventing the teaching of subjects related to race and gender.  

What is striking but not perhaps surprising is that very few made the same augment about infringement of academic freedom when AB1460, a law mandating the teaching of ethnic studies in the CSU was passed three years ago.

Apparently infringement of academic freedom is only problematic when it's a policy that many of my colleagues don't like but is perfectly fine when its one they support.  

It appears that hypocrisy is alive and well on the left as well as on the right.   

Farewell Rat Boy

 

Yesterday I had to say a very sad goodbye to Rat-boy. He was 15 and had been suffering from a thyroid problem for the last four years.

Rat was our second Sonora rescue after Buddy. His early preoccupation was climbing into my waste-paper bin, a pastime he kept well into his second year.

He and Tab-tab were great buds until Tab-tab and Buddy began feuding and we had to find Tab-tab another home (where I understood from Judith he is the center attention and of is very happy).  Rat was a gentle soul, would come when called even when it wasn't meal time. 

Until his middle years, he was also a playful cat...   The last month he'd lost a lot of weight (yesterday he was down to 7lb 6oz) and was eating almost nothing despite all the varieties of tempting foods I had to offer. At first I thought it was just not wanting to eat with the others, but it became clear that despite being hungry he'd lost his appetite and could not stomach almost any of the cat or human food I tried to tempt him with.  Quite suddenly yesterday he had a terrible episode of violent convulsions and although he perked up a little and ate two tins of pate, Wes Whitman agreed that it was his time. So sadly he made one last very quite one way trip to Mono Way Veterinary Hospital. Usually he hated travelling but this time he was quiet; I think he knew this was his final journey. At 5:10pm he was put to sleep with his head in my hand, and went to join Mrs, Mookie, George, Bullwinkle, Buddy, Vic and Judith on the other side.

Consequential? Not as much as one might expect

Donald Trump was indicted yesterday on thirty-one counts of Willful Retention of National Defense Information (in layman's terms, 'espionage'), and another six counts of obstruction of justice and conspiracy. For anyone not is a position of national power and influence, this would appear to be an open and shut case. Trump had no right to retain classified information, lied to the authorities investigating the case and tried to cover up his wrong-doing, allegedly.

But Trump is not an ordinary individual in two ways that matter in this case.  First he is a national figure, at present the front runner in the Republican presidential primary. While justice is supposed to be blind, the Justice Department cannot proceed without at least considering the political implications of bringing the case. While Trump's notoriety should not influence the pursuit of justice, it clearly influences the process by which justice might be arrived at. For example, Jack Smith, the Special Council tasked by Attorney General Merrick Garland with investing the case, is hoping to move the process forward quickly to avoid it dragging on into 2024 and the presidential primaries. It appears too, that he has been meticulous in his collection of evidence and the building of the case to ensure that any claims that this is a shoddy, politically motivated "witch hunt" might be easily laid to rest. 

The other way Trump differs from many other criminal defendants is in his brazen attacks on the legitimacy of the judicial system and the judicial process. Just as may autocrats, when deposed and  brought to trial, claim the the system under which they are being prosecuted has no legitimate right to hold or try them, so Trump is making the same argument. Of course the difference is that when a dictator is deposed, there is often a question about the legitimacy of the judicial system in which they are being tried; but that is certainly not the case in America.  Trump has and will continue to claim he is the victim, that the charges are trumped up and politically motivated, and are only being brought by the "elites" to bring him down. He will raise money for his presidential campaign on the back of the indictment. And he will try every trick in his extensive play-book to delay the proceedings so that he can leverage his court case into his victim-hood narrative as he campaigns for the nomination and likely the presidency. 

While much of the punditry has been focusing on the legal implications of the case, ultimately the outcome may be largely irrelevant. If Trump is not convicted, he will claim it as a victory that demonstrates not only his innocence, but a vindication of his claims to have been persecuted.  If he is convicted, he will claim that his is yet further evidence of his being victimized by his political opponents who have manipulated justice to their own political ends. Politically, Trump makes hay either way.  

Since the verdict may not matter much, his inability to find a legal team experiences in dealing with espionage cases may not matter much either. What he is probably looking for is a team that is prepared to risk everything (think Sydney Powell or Rudy Giuliani) while being adept at brazening things out in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing. Ultimately, while I'm sure he'd like to be acquitted, he is looking for a victory in the court of Republican public opinion, not the legal system, betting that the former matters more than the latter.   Yes, the indictment is consequential, but less in terms if its legal implications than its political ones.