This is Just Dumb

President Joe Biden (D) says there are only two alternatives vis-à-vis Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

You have two options. Start a Third World War, go to war with Russia physically. Or two, make sure that a country that acts so contrary to international law ends up paying a price for having done it[.]

Biden-Harris went on to admit that sanctions can have no immediate effect.

Leave aside the simple fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin is perfectly willing to “pay a price;” he’ll still have Ukraine after ponying up.

No, the problems here are two. One is that effects of sanctions that take effect (maybe) at some time in a nebulous future do Ukraine no good in the present with Ukrainian men, women, and children dying now. Ukraine—soldiers and civilians alike—is fighting for its survival against Russia as the latter’s soldiers invade and kill now. Biden knows this.

The other problem is that there is at least one additional alternative: sending serious arms, ammunition, and training in serious quantities to the Ukrainian military. So far, what Biden—and the weak European government men and women—are delivering is insultingly limited quantities: the ammunition amounts, for instance, that they deign transfer are good only for a few days.

A bonus alternative: cyber attacks against Russian government-military communications. Hacks into Russian financial facilities to completely drain (or simply to completely corrupt) the financial holdings of Putin and his oligarch cronies and of the officers and their civilian counterparts of the General Staff of the Russian Defense Ministry.

Interested readers can think of more. It’s appalling that Biden-Harris cannot. Or chooses not to.

Another Judge Gets One Right

Recall that the Fairfax County School Board, last year, changed the admissions policy for its elite Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology from one of straight merit to one of discrimination to favor some racially preferred children and to disfavor some racially…not preferred…children. This racist policy was objected to in court by a broad coalition of average American residents of the county. In US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Judge Claude Hilton waved the racism flag and struck the racial preferences scheme.

Hilton ruled in part [citations omitted, emphasis added],

The Board’s main problem is its focus on the goal to have TJ [Thomas Jefferson] reflect the demographics of the surrounding area, described primarily in racial terms. Far from a compelling interest, racial balancing for its own sake is “patently unconstitutional.” The Board cannot transform racial balancing into a compelling interest “simply by relabeling it ‘racial diversity.'” The school districts in Parents Involved tried various verbal formulations to deflect from their intent to racially balance schools through race-based transfers. The Board here did not even bother with such “verbal formulations.” Board members and high-level FCPS [Fairfax County Public Schools] actors did not disguise their desire for TJ to represent the racial demographics…. Whether accomplished overtly or via proxies, racial balancing is not a compelling interest.

And

…steps…could have been implemented before the Board defaulted to a system that treats applicants unequally in hopes of engineering a particular racial outcome.

And

The proper remedy for a legal provision enacted with discriminatory intent is invalidation.

We may be making progress toward correcting the blatantly racist policies of the Left.

The ruling can be read here.