February 24, 2024

Vol. 13, No. 2121

BAD SHOT: Wayne Lapierre, who transformed the National Rifle Association from an organization that taught marksmanship and gun safety into one of the most powerful political lobbying organizations in the country fighting for the absolutist right to own guns, was found in a civil court judgement yesterday to have bilked the NRA for millions of dollars in personal expenses and luxuries.

  It was an enormous victory for New York Attorney General Letitia James, who also just won a $355 million civil fraud judgement against Donald Trump. “For years, Wayne LaPierre used charitable dollars to fund his lavish lifestyle, spending millions on luxury travel, expensive clothes, insider contracts, and other perks for himself and his family,” James said in a statement following the verdict. “Today, after years of rampant corruption and self-dealing, Wayne LaPierre and the NRA are finally being held accountable.”

  The case against LaPierre was undeniable and he resigned before the trial began. The jury found that he had misspent $5.4 million, but he has already refunded some of that and must repay another $4.35 million.

  This has nothing to do with the legal case, but LaPierre once went elephant hunting in Botswana so anything bad that happens to him is a good thing. 

THE RUSSIA HOUSE: Responding to the likely murder of dissident Alexei Navalny, the Biden administration yesterday revealed its biggest package of sanctions against Russia since the start of the Ukraine war two years ago. The roughly 600 measures target Russia’s financial sector and military-industrial complex in an effort to hinder the Kremlin’s war machine.

  This happened as Navalny’s mother told the press that she was ordered to agree to a secret funeral for her son within three hours or he would be buried within the compound of the arctic prison where he died. 

  With Congress stalled on military aid for Ukraine, Biden is left mostly with sanctions to support the invaded country and called for renewal of military aid. “If Putin does not pay the price for his death and destruction, he will keep going,” Biden said. “And the costs to the United States — along with our NATO allies and partners in Europe and around the world — will rise.”

  The new sanctions target individual people, the credit card system as well as manufacturers of lubricants, robotics, ball bearings and batteries used by the Russian military.

THE WAR ROOM: Russian forces are attacking in four separate spearheads in Ukraine’s east, indicating a coordinated winter/spring offensive more aggressive than anything seen in more than a year, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

  Running low on artillery shells and manpower, Ukraine is weakening.

   A senior Russian Security Council member said in an interview that Russia would likely have to seize the capital Kyiv while identifying further territorial objectives, the ISW reports. Dmitry Medvedev said that the Ukrainian government “must fall, it must be destroyed, it must not remain in this world.” He reiterated the Russian demands for Ukraine’s “demilitarization,” “denazification,” and neutrality.

  Ukraine is not run by Nazis.

  The ISW also reports that prominent independent Russian milblogger Andrei Morozov committed suicide on February 21st after refusing orders from the Russian military command to delete his reports about high Russian casualties …. 16,000 deaths … in the taking of the city of Avdiivka. The death of any critic of the Russian government and military has to be regarded as suspicious. 

TO THE MOON: The company that put the privately built Odysseus lander on the moon now says that it tipped on its side while putting down. The company, Intuitive Machines, had initially Odysseus landed squarely on its feet, but now it seems the lander tripped on a rock and fell over.

   The company says that only one of the experimental payloads is on the downside of the lander and that it is still able to perform some of the experiments it was sent to do. But they are still trying to figure out what the craft is still capable of doing.

IT’S POLITICAL: South Carolina voters go to the polls today for their Republican primary in which Donald Trump is expected to trounce the state’s former governor, Nikki Haley. The polls have him up by 20 points or more, but Haley says she will stay in the race no matter wat happens.

  Haley seems to be posing herself as the alternative if something happens that prevents Trump from running, like a criminal conviction.

LAST FLIGHT: Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl that escaped the Central Park Zoo and became a Manhattan celebrity as he lived in freedom for just over a year, was found dead last night after flying into a building on West 89^th Street. He would have been 14 next month.

  Flaco flew away one night last February when someone cut the mesh surrounding his enclosure at the zoo. Flaco sightings became a thing as Manhattan residents fell in love with the freedom-loving bird that sometimes would perch on a fire escape in front of an apartment window.

THE SPIN RACK: Following the Alabama Supreme Court decision that an embryo is a person, a major embryo shipping company announced that it is “pausing” its business in Alabama. That comes after three major Alabama in vitro clinics also paused treatments.  — The Census Bureau says that an estimated 2.5 million people were forced from their homes in the US by weather-related disasters last year. 

BELOW THE FOLD:  Trophies of a headline hunter, from the New York Post: “Best star snaps of the week: The young and the dressless.”

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