March 4, 2022

Late Morning Update:

The New York Times' live updates of developments Friday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here.

From CNN's live updates Friday, also linked below: "Russia has used cluster bombs, widely banned artillery in Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Friday. 'We have seen the use of cluster bombs and we have seen reports of use of other types of weapons which would be in violation of international law,' Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Friday.... Cluster bombs -- which not only deliver an initial explosion on impact but also contain multiple smaller bombs that spread over a wide area -- are largely condemned by the international community due to the risk of civilian casualties when they're used in populated areas. US President Joe Biden's envoy to the United Nations [Linda Thomas Greenfield] has accused Russia of preparing to use banned weapons, including 'cluster munitions and vacuum bombs,' in Ukraine. And she issued a stark warning to invading Russian soldiers.... CNN teams in Ukraine have also spotted Russian thermobaric 'vacuum bombs' launchers this past week."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday reinstated the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of helping carry out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. The vote was 6 to 3, with the court's three liberal members in dissent. The bombings, near the finish line of the marathon, killed three people and injured 260, many of them grievously. Seventeen people lost limbs. A law enforcement officer was killed as the brothers fled a few days later. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar's older brother and accomplice, died after a shootout with the police. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in Boston, upheld Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's convictions in 2020 on 27 counts. But the appeals court ruled that his death sentence should be overturned because the trial judge had not questioned jurors closely enough about their exposure to pretrial publicity and had excluded evidence concerning Tamerlan Tsarnaev." CNN's report is here.

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Putin's War Gets Dirtier

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Friday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Ukraine entered a second week of war against ... Vladimir Putin's invading forces with parts of the country's largest nuclear plant on fire and its southern cities encircled by the Kremlin's troops, as the humanitarian catastrophe wrought by Russia's assault becomes increasingly apparent. Later in the morning, Ukraine's nuclear inspectorate said Russian forces had captured the plant, which is a key supplier of the country's electricity. A regional military leader said nuclear safety at the Zaporizhzhia site was 'ensured as of now,' while local authorities said the fire was extinguished as of 6:20 a.m. local time. Washington and Kyiv said there had been no increase in radiation levels. Ukrainian officials said the blaze broke out after Russian shelling, while President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of 'nuclear terror.'" ~~~

     ~~~ The Guardian's live updates are here. A roundup of the top stories as of 1:00 pm Ukraine time is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The AP's live updates for Friday are here. CNN's live updates are here: "NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg denounced on Friday the 'brutal' Russian invasion of Ukraine, and condemned attacks on civilians and on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Enerhodar, southeastern Ukraine.... 'This just demonstrates the recklessness of this war and the importance of ending it and the importance of Russia withdrawing all its troops and engaging good faith in diplomatic efforts,' Stoltenberg [said]."

William Broad, et al., of the New York Times: "A fire broke out early Friday at a complex in southern Ukraine housing Europe's largest nuclear power plant after Russian troops fired on the area, the Ukrainian government said. Security camera footage verified by The New York Times showed a building ablaze inside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex near a line of military vehicles. The videos appeared to show people in the vehicles firing at buildings in the power plant. Ukraine's state emergency service later said the blaze went out after 6 a.m. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine accused the Russian military of deliberately attacking the complex and said an explosion there would have been 'the end for everybody, the end of Europe.'... The fire had not affected essential equipment at the plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Twitter, citing its communication with the Ukrainian government. It said that personnel at the plant were 'taking mitigatory actions.'... President Biden spoke with Mr. Zelensky about the fire.... Local reports later said that emergency crews had gained access." An AP story is here. MB: CNN reports that Ukrainian plant personnel are operating the plant "at gunpoint."

Loveday Morris, et al., of the Washington Post: "A Russian siege and hours of shelling have battered rail links and bridges in a key Ukrainian port, its mayor said Thursday, cutting off water, power and food to the city. 'They impede the supply of food, create a blockade for us,' Vadym Boichenko, the mayor of Mariupol, wrote in a Telegram message. As workers waited for a respite from the barrage to begin restoring electricity, the city council said it would try to negotiate a cease-fire and a safe corridor to bring in supplies and evacuate civilians.... The city of more than 400,000, which lies on the Sea of Azov near the Russian border, remained under Ukrainian control but was encircled by Russian troops, Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov said. Russia was slashing access to Ukrainian ports to extend control over the country's southern coastline."

Missy Ryan & Emily Rauhala of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken will highlight Western unity in confronting Russia's invasion of Ukraine during a tour of Europe this week, as the Biden administration seeks to deter ... Vladimir Putin from widening his military assault. The top diplomat, in a visit [to Brussels] as well as Moldova, Poland, and the Baltic states, will also bring a message of American support to countries within closest reach of Russia's military...."

Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News: "The Biden administration will allow Ukrainians in the US to apply for temporary protected status, shielding them from deportation and allowing them to obtain work permits as Russia continues to invade and bombard their home country, officials announced Thursday."

Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "Unshaven and wearing a military T-shirt, a haggard President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Thursday hosted his first news conference since the war began, inviting journalists into his office building, now fortified with sandbags. In an animated briefing, Mr. Zelensky, whose defiance has made him a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion, laid out the state of negotiations with Russia, voiced pride in his people, pleaded for a no-fly zone and spoke frankly about fear of dying. Beyond the answers Mr. Zelensky provided to questions, pulling a chair close to attending journalists, the news conference seemed intended to signal that his battered government is at least still functioning a week into the war, despite increasingly dire conditions in Kyiv.... Mr. Zelensky's negotiator at the talks [with Russia], Mykhailo Podolyak, said later Thursday negotiations wrapped up with an agreement on cease-fire corridors for civilians to escape heavy combat, but no progress on a settlement."

Howard Altman of Military Times: "Ukraine armed forces have been striking that long line of Russian troops heading to Kyiv while the Russians have used thermobaric weapons against Ukrainian cities, the head of Ukraine's defense intelligence agency tells Military Times.... Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon on the condition of anonymity, a senior defense official said the Pentagon has indications Ukraine forces are targeting the convoy...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Rick Noack of the Washington Post: "... Vladimir Putin called French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, in what appeared to have been a markedly more tense exchange than previous conversations between the two leaders. The 90-minute call failed to deliver a diplomatic breakthrough, and a senior French official said it left Macron convinced that 'the worst is yet to come' and that Putin aims to take control of all of Ukraine. 'Your country will pay dearly because it will end up as an isolated country, weakened and under sanctions for a very long time,' Macron told Putin, according to a French official, who added that Macron 'called on Vladimir Putin to not lie to himself.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Anton Troianovski & Valeriya Safronova of the New York Times: "As ... Vladimir V. Putin wages war against Ukraine, he is fighting a parallel battle on the home front, dismantling the last vestiges of a Russian free press. On Thursday, the pillars of Russia's independent broadcast media collapsed under pressure from the state. Echo of Moscow, the freewheeling radio station founded by Soviet dissidents in 1990 and that symbolized Russia's new freedoms, was 'liquidated' by its board. TV Rain, the youthful independent television station ... said it would suspend operations indefinitely. And Dmitri A. Muratov, the journalist who shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year, said that his newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which survived the murders of six of its journalists, could be on the verge of shutting down as well. 'Everything that's not propaganda is being eliminated,' Mr. Muratov said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: On CNN, a young Ukrainian woman said she had written on social media to some of her Russian friends about Russia's brutal war on Ukraine, and they didn't believe her. So it would appear that many Russian people, not just old folks in the steppes, are not getting the news.

Ellen Nakashima, et al., of the Washington Post: "Some key countries in East Asia are joining with the West to take what is for them the exceptional step of imposing significant financial sanctions, officials and analysts say, brought together by outrage at Russia's invasion of Ukraine and concern over China's growing aggression in the region. 'We want to demonstrate what happens when a country invades another country,' said one Japanese official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Clifford Krauss of the New York Times: "Lukoil, Russia's second-largest oil company, appeared to distance itself from ... Vladimir V. Putin on Thursday by calling for a 'fast resolution' to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The statement most likely reflects the company's desire to protect its extensive overseas operations, which include a network of more than 200 franchised gas stations in states like New York and New Jersey. Lukoil is one of the most recognizable Russian brands in the United States. Many lawmakers in Washington are pressing the Biden administration to ban the purchase of Russian oil by U.S. companies and to impose sanctions on Russian energy companies. Shares of Lukoil on the London Stock Exchange have fallen more than 40 percent since mid-February."

Tiffany Hsu of the New York Times: "As Russia is trying to cut off the flow of information in Ukraine by attacking its communications infrastructure, the British news outlet BBC is revisiting a broadcasting tactic popularized during World War II: shortwave radio. The BBC said this week that it would use radio frequencies that can travel for long distances and be accessible on portable radios to broadcast its World Service news in English for four hours a day in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and in parts of Russia.... Millions of Russians are also turning to the BBC, the broadcaster said. The audience for the BBC's Russian language news website reached a record 10.7 million in the past week, more than tripling its weekly average so far in 2022, the company said. Visitors to BBC's English language website from within Russia surged 252 percent to 423,000." ~~~

     ~~~ So Then. Sian Cain of the Guardian: "Access to BBC websites has been restricted in Russia, hours after the corporation brought back its shortwave radio service in Ukraine and Russia to ensure civilians in both countries can access news during the invasion.... According to Globalcheck, a service that tracks internet censorship..., the availability of the entire BBC website was at 17% of normal levels in Russia, which suggests some services have been blocked. BBC Russia also reported that Meta, formerly known as Facebook, also appeared to be blocked, as was Google Play."

Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "The production company behind RT America will close up shop and lay off employees, signaling a potential end for the Kremlin-funded media outlet aimed at U.S. audiences.... In the United States, RT America has lately covered Russia's bloody invasion of Ukraine as a minor incursion intended for defensive purposes, drawing increasingly loud criticism.... On Tuesday, the cable television distributor DirecTV cut ties with the network.... YouTube, TikTok and Facebook parent company Meta have all blocked access to RT content on their platforms in Europe.... While RT America's audience in the United States is hard to quantify, and was probably modest, the network received significant distribution via the amplification of social media posts by conservative media companies." CNN's report is here.

Larry Neumeister of the AP: "A former CNBC and Fox News employee has been arrested in London for his work as a television producer for a Russian media baron tied to aggression in Ukraine over the past eight years, particularly in Crimea, U.S. prosecutors announced Thursday. Jack Hanick, 71, also known as 'John,' was arrested in London on Feb. 3 in what U.S. Attorney Damian Williams described as the first-ever criminal indictment charging a violation of U.S. sanctions resulting from Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.... Williams said Hanick worked for years for Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev -- the founder of a Russian Orthodox news channel, Tsargrad TV -- even after U.S. sanctions banned U.S. citizens from working for or doing business with him."

Amy Wang & Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: "President Biden signed into law Thursday a bill that ends forced arbitration in workplace sexual assault and harassment cases, allowing survivors to file lawsuits in court against perpetrators. In a White House ceremony with members of Congress, Vice President Harris and former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson in attendance, the president said the secrecy of arbitration benefits companies, not victims, and keeps many of those impacted in the blind about an issue that needs more illumination.... The new law will nullify agreements between employees and their employers in which the employees waive their rights to sue in the case of sexual assault or harassment and instead are required to settle their disputes by arbitration."

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "President Biden said Wednesday night that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is carrying out 'a cynical and dangerous campaign' by directing state officials to investigate families for child abuse if they allow their children to medically transition genders. 'This is government overreach at its worst,' Biden said in a statement. 'Like so many anti-transgender attacks proliferating in states across the country, the Governor's actions callously threaten to harm children and their families just to score political points. These actions are terrifying many families in Texas and beyond. And they must stop.' Biden said his administration is taking several steps to protect transgender children in Texas. Among them was an invitation Wednesday by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for families to contact the department's civil rights office if they were 'targeted by a child welfare investigation because of this discriminatory gubernatorial order.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Michael Schmidt & Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "A career National Security Council staff member under ... Donald J. Trump, who was pushed out of her position after she refused to go along with an effort to use the powers of the federal government to silence one of Mr. Trump's chief critics, has been rehired for the post by President Biden, two people briefed on the matter said on Wednesday. The staff member, Ellen Knight, had told a federal judge in 2020 that senior White House lawyers had pressured her to falsely claim that a book by Mr. Trump's former national security adviser, John R. Bolton, contained classified information to keep its contents from becoming public." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jacob Bogage & Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The Internal Revenue Service plans to hire 10,000 employees in a push to cut into its backlog of tens of millions of tax returns by recruiting for jobs across the agency that have gone unfilled for years, according to four people familiar with the plan.... The agency plans to use money from its existing budget, a large share of it from coronavirus stimulus funding, to pay for the new hires, to be made over the next two years. The number of new jobs would represent a 14 percent increase in the IRS workforce.... The IRS entered the tax season this year with 24 million unprocessed paper returns and correspondence, almost all dating back to the 2020 filing season.... A government official said the IRS does not expect to resolve the backlog until the end of 2022."

Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had a terse reaction on Thursday to GOP Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) heckling President Biden during his State of the Union address on Tuesday: 'I think they should just shut up.'... '"Let me just say this. I agree with what Sen. Lindsey Graham said: "Shut up."'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The Washington Post's report is here.

Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: "The House on Thursday passed a bill that would expand health-care eligibility for veterans who were exposed to burn pits and other toxins during their service in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill, which could provide health coverage for up to 3.5 million veterans, was passed on a vote of 256 to 174, with 34 Republicans joining all Democrats.... The U.S. military used burn pits throughout Iraq and Afghanistan to dispose of waste, medical and hazardous materials, and jet fuel, exposing veterans to toxins that have caused long-lasting medical problems. Veterans who have been exposed often face difficult disability benefit claims processes with the Department of Veterans Affairs to get necessary health care.... 'Tax cuts for the rich, cancer for our veterans,' [Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of Republicans' priorities.]"

Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico returned to work in the Senate on Thursday morning, barely a month after suffering a major stroke that left him hospitalized for weeks and sent a chill through fellow Democrats clinging to a 50-50 majority. Luján, 49, walked in and out of a Senate Commerce Committee meeting without assistance, where he was greeted with a bipartisan standing ovation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Katie Benner & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The Justice Department is facing mounting pressure to prosecute ... Donald J. Trump after the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack laid out its argument for a potential criminal case on Wednesday night, placing Attorney General Merrick B. Garland squarely in the middle of a politically charged debate over how to hold Mr. Trump accountable for efforts to overturn the election.... In publicly sharing its work, the committee has only escalated expectations that Mr. Trump will be prosecuted, regardless of whether its evidence meets the standard that a federal prosecutor must clear to secure a unanimous guilty verdict.... However, the filing was not necessarily a path to prosecution. The committee made its claim in the context of the court fight that prompted it -- a dispute over a subpoena for documents written by [right-wing lawyerJohn] Eastman. The standard it must meet to invoke crimes is much lower than it would be for prosecutors to win a criminal conviction, legal specialists said." A related Politico story is here.

Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "A data expert for ... Donald Trump's campaign told him bluntly not long after polls closed in November 2020 that he was definitely going to lose his campaign for reelection. In the weeks that followed, multiple top officials at the Justice Department informed Trump that they had closely examined allegations of fraud ... -- and had found them simply untrue. And in the days leading up to the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, even Trump's loyal vice president, Mike Pence, repeatedly conveyed to Trump that he did not believe the Constitution gave him the power to overturn the election.... These and other new details were included in a legal brief filed late Wednesday by lawyers for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as they began to build a case that Trump was knowingly misleading his followers about the election and pressuring Pence to break the law in the weeks and hours before the assault. According to the panel and others, at least 11 aides and close confidants told Trump directly in the weeks after the election that there was no fraud and no legal way to overturn the result.... [Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said in an interview,] '... all of this evidence makes it certain that [Trump] had consciousness of guilt as he proceeded to try to overthrow the election result.'"

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "On Wednesday night, we got the first formal indication of [the House January 6 committee's] primary target: establishing that ... Donald Trump committed two federal crimes in his efforts to retain power despite losing the 2020 presidential election.... [In this post,] we'll walk through the case presented by the committee in the document produced on Wednesday. We'll also contextualize it with other recent legal activity that hints at more significant culpability for Trump allies and maintains a risk of civil repercussions for the former president." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Uh, Barr Didn't Exactly Resign. ~~~

     ~~~ Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: "Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr said ... Donald Trump became furious after Barr told him there was no evidence that the 2020 election was fraudulent. 'I told him that all this stuff was bulls[hit]... about election fraud. And, you know, it was wrong to be shoveling it out the way his team was, Barr said in an interview with NBC News's Lester Holt...." Gregorian's account covers pretty much everything Barr said in the clip above. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) There is a longer excerpt of Holt's interview here, wherein Barr again lets us know what a swell guy he is. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Rep. Adam Schiff, (D-Calif.), appearing on MSNBC, pointed out that when Trump's own attorney general told Trump he had lost the election, and further laid out point by point how each conspiracy theories Trump was pushing was bullshit, Trump could no longer pretend his actions to overturn the elections were based on a belief the results were fraudulent. Therefore, Barr has provided even more proof of Trump's consciousness of guilt & criminal intent.

Felicia Sonmez & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob has issued a subpoena to Kimberly Guilfoyle, the partner of Donald Trump Jr. In a statement, the panel's chairman, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), said the committee had subpoenaed Guilfoyle to testify because she had'backed out of her original commitment to provide a voluntary interview.'" The Guardian's story is here.

Guardian & Agencies: "Donald Trump has reached an agreement with the the New York attorney general's office that will temporarily spare him from having to answer questions under oath as part of an investigation into his business, as the former president's appeal process in the case continues."

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: Guy Wesley "Reffitt, 41, is the first defendant out of more than 700 to go on trial in connection with the Capitol attack, and in the past two days the prosecution has documented how he drove to Washington with a fellow member of a Texas militia and, armed with a pistol, led a pro-Trump mob in an advance on the police outside the building.... On Thursday, [his] son, Jackson Reffitt, faced his father from the witness stand in Federal District Court in Washington, testifying against him in a remarkable tableau that captured the painful rupture in one family -- and in some ways the nation -- caused by the events of Jan. 6, 2021. 'He said, "If you turn me in, you're a traitor,"' Jackson Reffitt told the jury.... '"And traitors get shot."'"

Jan Hoffman of the New York Times: "Members of the billionaire Sackler family and their company, Purdue Pharma, have reached a deal with a group of states that had long resisted the company's bankruptcy plan -- a crucial step toward funneling billions of dollars from the family's fortune to addiction treatment programs nationwide, according to a court filing on Thursday. If Judge Robert Drain, who has presided over Purdue's bankruptcy proceedings in White Plains, N.Y., approves the agreement, the Sacklers would pay as much as $6 billion to help communities address the damage from the opioid crisis. In return, Sackler family members would get the prize they insisted upon for nearly three years: an end to all current and future civil claims against them over the company's prescription opioid business."

Beyond the Beltway

Florida, Where Women, Gays & Teachers Are Second-Class Citizens. Patricia Mazzei & Alexandra Glorioso of the New York Times: "Florida legislators voted to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy on Thursday, a move that would severely restrict access to the procedure in a state that for decades has been a refuge for women from across the South.The bill -- modeled after a similar abortion ban in Mississippi that the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to uphold -- now heads to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis as part of a sweeping push by Republicans to put the state at the forefront of the nation's culture wars. Other legislation on the verge of passage includes banning instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity in some elementary school grades, and allowing parents to sue public school districts if students believe that their teacher sought to make them feel discomfort about a historical event because of their race, sex or national origin." The AP's report is here.

Idaho, Where Women Are Second-Class Citizens. Caroline Kitchener of the Washington Post: "The Idaho Senate on Thursday approved a Republican bill to ban abortion after six weeks, positioning Idaho to become the first state to copy the restrictive Texas law that has prohibited most abortions in the state. The vote was 28 to 6.... If it passes the Republican-led House and is signed by Gov. Brad Little (R), Idaho's abortion ban could take effect as early as April, several months before the Supreme Court is expected to rule in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the case that will determine the constitutionality of Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban and determine the future of Roe." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Assuming the Supremes rubber-stamp the Mississippi abortion law, we will have "two Americas" under the law, one where women are valued and one where women & minorites are the pawns of white men. The Republican party is forcing the United States back into the dark ages that most Americans are too young to remember. I don't think they're going to like it.

Kentucky, Where It's Okay for Cops to Shoot up the Neighborhood. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "The only officer to be charged for his actions during the fatal police raid on Breonna Taylor's apartment was found not guilty on Thursday of endangering three of Ms. Taylor's neighbors by firing bullets into their home during the botched operation. Jurors acquitted the former officer, Brett Hankison, whose bullets did not strike anyone, on all three counts of wanton endangerment after deliberating for about three hours."

Wisconsin. Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "A divided state Supreme Court approved election maps Thursday that were drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers but will let Republicans keep the upper hand in races for the Legislature. Thursday's decision was 4-3, with Justice Brian Hagedorn breaking from conservatives and joining liberals to form a majority. The decision built off of a November ruling that said the justices would make as few changes as possible to the maps that have been in place since 2011. Those maps are heavily Republican, so the November ruling ensured whatever maps the justices chose also tilted that way. Sixty of the 99 Assembly seats will lean Republican and 22 of the 33 state Senate seats will lean Republican, according to a December analysis of the maps by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Those margins are similar to what Republicans enjoy now."

News Ledes

CNBC: "Job growth accelerated in February, posting the biggest monthly gain since July as the employment picture got closer to its pre-pandemic self. Nonfarm payrolls for the month grew by 678,000 and the unemployment rate was 3.8%, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. That compared with estimates of 440,000 for payrolls and 3.9% for the jobless rate. In a sign that inflation could be cooling, wages barely rose for the month, up just 1 cent an hour, or 0.03%, compared with estimates for a 0.5% gain. The year-over-year increase was 5.13%, well below the 5.8% Dow Jones estimate as more lower-wage workers were hired and 12-month comparisons helped mute more recent gains."

Washington Post: "A massive explosion and fire leveled a Silver Spring-area apartment building Thursday morning, sending 10 people to the hospital and leaving others missing as authorities searched the smoldering rubble. Three people were rushed to the hospital in critical condition, while seven others suffered less serious injuries, Montgomery County Fire Chief Scott Goldstein said at a Thursday afternoon news conference. Goldstein said several people remained unaccounted for and that K-9s had alerted people might trapped below the collapsed jumble of brick, steel, glass and concrete at the Friendly Garden Apartments. About 100 people were displaced by the explosion, including 35 in the building that was destroyed.... Two other apartment buildings were damaged in the six-building complex and are not safe to inhabit for the time being.... The cause of the blast was under investigation...."

March 3, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Howard Altman of Military Times: "Ukraine armed forces have been striking that long line of Russian troops heading to Kyiv while the Russians have used thermobaric weapons against Ukrainian cities, the head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency tells Military Times.... Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon on the condition of anonymity, a senior defense official said the Pentagon has indications Ukraine forces are targeting the convoy...."

Rick Noack of the Washington Post: “Russian President Vladimir Putin called French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, in what appeared to have been a markedly more tense exchange than previous conversations between the two leaders. The 90-minute call failed to deliver a diplomatic breakthrough, and a senior French official said it left Macron convinced that 'the worst is yet to come' and that Putin aims to take control of all of Ukraine. 'Your country will pay dearly because it will end up as an isolated country, weakened and under sanctions for a very long time,' Macron told Putin, according to a French official, who added that Macron 'called on Vladimir Putin to not lie to himself.'”

Ellen Nakashima, et al., of the Washington Post: “Some key countries in East Asia are joining with the West to take what is for them the exceptional step of imposing significant financial sanctions, officials and analysts say, brought together by outrage at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concern over China’s growing aggression in the region. 'We want to demonstrate what happens when a country invades another country,' said one Japanese official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity....”

John Wagner of the Washington Post: “President Biden said Wednesday night that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is carrying out 'a cynical and dangerous campaign' by directing state officials to investigate families for child abuse if they allow their children to medically transition genders. 'This is government overreach at its worst,' Biden said in a statement. 'Like so many anti-transgender attacks proliferating in states across the country, the Governor’s actions callously threaten to harm children and their families just to score political points. These actions are terrifying many families in Texas and beyond. And they must stop.' Biden said his administration is taking several steps to protect transgender children in Texas. Among them was an invitation Wednesday by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for families to contact the department’s civil rights office if they were “targeted by a child welfare investigation because of this discriminatory gubernatorial order.”

Michael Schmidt & Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "A career National Security Council staff member under ... Donald J. Trump, who was pushed out of her position after she refused to go along with an effort to use the powers of the federal government to silence one of Mr. Trump’s chief critics, has been rehired for the post by President Biden, two people briefed on the matter said on Wednesday. The staff member, Ellen Knight, had told a federal judge in 2020 that senior White House lawyers had pressured her to falsely claim that a book by Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, John R. Bolton, contained classified information to keep its contents from becoming public."

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "On Wednesday night, we got the first formal indication of [the House January 6 committee's] primary target: establishing that ... Donald Trump committed two federal crimes in his efforts to retain power despite losing the 2020 presidential election.... [In this post,] we’ll walk through the case presented by the committee in the document produced on Wednesday. We’ll also contextualize it with other recent legal activity that hints at more significant culpability for Trump allies and maintains a risk of civil repercussions for the former president."

Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had a terse reaction on Thursday to GOP Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) heckling President Biden during his State of the Union address on Tuesday: 'I think they should just shut up.'... '"Let me just say this. I agree with what Sen. Lindsey Graham said: "Shut up."'"

Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico returned to work in the Senate on Thursday morning, barely a month after suffering a major stroke that left him hospitalized for weeks and sent a chill through fellow Democrats clinging to a 50-50 majority. Luján, 49, walked in and out of a Senate Commerce Committee meeting without assistance, where he was greeted with a bipartisan standing ovation."

Uh, Barr Didn't Exactly Resign. Dareh Gregorian of NBC News: “Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr said ... Donald Trump became furious after Barr told him there was no evidence that the 2020 election was fraudulent. 'I told him that all this stuff was bulls[hit]... about election fraud. And, you know, it was wrong to be shoveling it out the way his team was, Barr said in an interview with NBC News's Lester Holt.... Barr told Holt his last day almost came on Dec. 1, after ... the Associated Press published an interview [in which Barr said,] ... 'To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.'... Barr said Trump called him into a meeting that day in his private dining room.... Barr said he told Trump the Department of Justice had investigated and found no evidence to support the various conspiracy theories that Trump and his legal team were pushing. 'He was asking about different theories, and I had the answers. I was able to tell him, "This was wrong because of this."'... Trump listened, but 'he was obviously getting very angry about this.' Barr said he told Trump, 'I understand you're upset with me. And I'm perfectly happy to tender my resignation.' Barr said Trump then slapped his desk and said, 'Accepted. Accepted,' Barr recalled. 'And then - boom. He slapped it again. 'Accepted. Go home. Don't go back to your office. Go home. You're done.'”

~~~~~~~~~~

Putin's War Crime

The New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in Russia's war are here: “A miles-long convoy of Russian military supply trucks and attack vehicles that has come within 20 miles of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, 'has made little discernible progress in over three days,' according to an intelligence assessment released by Britain’s defense ministry on Thursday.” ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Thursday are here: "Russian troops have seized a key government building in the Black Sea port of Kherson, a Ukrainian official said Thursday, as Moscow tightened its grip on Ukraine’s southern coastline, slashing access to key shipping hubs.... The mayor of Mariupol, another strategic port, said hours of shelling has blocked water, power and food supplies." ~~~

     ~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Thursday are here: “Talks between Ukraine and Russia will kick off in a couple of hours, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an online post. Earlier, Belarusian state news agency Belta quoted chief Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky as saying the second round of talks would start in Belarus at 1200 GMT. A Russian negotiator has previously said that a ceasefire was on the agenda, but Ukraine has said Moscow’s demands are unacceptable and Russia must stop bombing Ukrainian cities before any progress can be expected.... Kherson’s mayor, Ihor Kolykhaiev, said in a Facebook post early on Thursday that Russian troops were in control of the city hall and that residents should obey a curfew imposed by what he called the 'armed visitors'.”

Peter Granitz of NPR: "The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday approved a nonbinding resolution condemning Russia for invading Ukraine and demanding that it withdraw its military forces. The vote came after a series of speeches during which the majority of countries called on Russia to end the violence in Ukraine.... The resolution passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 141-5 with 35 abstentions. The five countries that voted against it were Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea." ~~~

~~~ Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., speaks to the General Assembly ahead of the vote to condemn Russia: ~~~

Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "In all, about 20 countries — most members of NATO and the European Union, but not all — are funneling arms into Ukraine to fight off Russian invaders and arm an insurgency, if the war comes to that. At the same time, NATO is moving military equipment and as many as 22,000 more troops into member states bordering Russia and Belarus, to reassure them and enhance deterrence.... Western weaponry has been entering Ukraine in relatively large but undisclosed amounts for the last several days.... Russian troops are trying to surround cities and cut off the bulk of the Ukrainian army east of the Dnieper River, which would make resupply [through Poland] much more difficult.... However proud Brussels [i.e., the E.U.] is of its effort, it is a strategy that risks encouraging a wider war and possible retaliation from Mr. Putin.... World wars have started over smaller conflicts...."

Júlia Ledur, et al., of the Washington Post: "Nearly 1 million refugees have left Ukraine, according to data from UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency. The exodus is set to become Europe’s worst humanitarian crisis in a century, already on par with the number of refugees who were displaced from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in 2015. If fighting continues, as many as 4 million — roughly 10 percent of the Ukrainian population — could be displaced in the coming weeks, Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said Monday."

Katie Benner of the New York Times: "The Justice Department announced on Wednesday the creation of a task force to go after billionaire oligarchs who have aided President Vladimir V. Putin in his invasion of Ukraine, part of an effort by the United States to seize and freeze the assets of those who have violated sanctions." MB: I'm sorry the DOJ is so slow on its feet. If they had moved a bit faster, the U.S. might have its own super-yacht. ~~~

~~~ Philip Oltermann of the Guardian: “France’s finance minister has announced the country has seized a yacht linked to Rosneft boss, Igor Sechin, in the Mediterranean port of La Ciotat, as German local authorities denied reports they had also seized the $600m superyacht belonging to Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov.... The [French] finance ministry said the yacht was owned by an entity of which Sechin had been identified as the main shareholder. 'No yachts have been confiscated,' a spokesperson for Hamburg’s economic authority told the Guardian. 'A handover [of the yacht to its owner] is also currently not planned. No yacht is going to leave the port that is not allowed to do so.'” ~~~

~~~ Earlier. Giacomo Tognini of Forbes: "Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov was sanctioned by the European Union on Monday. Two days later, Forbes has learned from three sources in the yacht industry that one of his prized possessions — the 512-foot yacht Dilbar, valued at nearly $600 million — has been seized by German authorities in the northern city of Hamburg. The ship has been in the Hamburg shipyards of German shipbuilding firm Blohm+Voss since late October for a refitting job. At 15,917 tons, it's the world's largest motor yacht by gross tonnage, and is typically manned by a crew of 96 people. Dilbar boasts the largest swimming pool ever installed on a yacht as well as two helicopter pads, a sauna, a beauty salon, and a gym. Its plush interiors have more than 1,000 sofa cushions and it can host up to 24 people in 12 suites."

Steven Goff of the Washington Post: “Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich said Wednesday that he will sell Premier League soccer club Chelsea, the latest fallout in the sports world from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.... Abramovich, 55, was under growing scrutiny because of his reported ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Sunday, as Russia’s attacks in Ukraine intensified, Abramovich handed “stewardship and care” of Chelsea to the club’s charitable foundation. Within 72 hours, though, he decided to sell a club that he had purchased in 2003 for about $185 million and is now worth an estimated $3.2 billion.... In his statement, Abramovich said he has established a foundation in which net proceeds from the sale of the team will benefit victims of the 'war in Ukraine.'” MB: Why doesn't the U.K. just seize the club?

Florida (Yes, Florida.) David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement: “Governor Ron DeSantis ... is refusing to divest the Sunshine state of $300 million in Russian-owned companies – investments it controls – while attacking President Joe Biden on Ukraine and Russia, as The New York Daily News reports. On Monday DeSantis declared, 'when Trump was president' Russia 'didn’t take anything.'... DeSantis also has not criticized Trump for calling Putin a 'genius.' The Daily News notes DeSantis 'appears to be isolated among governors from both parties and across the political spectrum in refusing to take any concrete actions against Russia.'...” ~~~

~~~ AND DeSantis Thinks It's Macho to Knock France. Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: “Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, has said France would not put up a fight if Russia invaded, as it did in Ukraine. 'A lot of other places around the world, they just fold the minute there’s any type of adversity,' DeSantis told reporters at a press event at South Florida University in Tampa on Wednesday. 'I mean can you imagine if he [Vladimir Putin] went into France? Would they do anything to put up a fight? Probably not.'... DeSantis also said Republicans under Trump 'funded a lot of weapons for Ukraine … that has helped them put up a fight'. He did not mention that Trump’s first impeachment trial was for seeking dirt on his political rivals by withholding military aid – to Ukraine.”

The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "... fierce Ukrainian resistance continued to deny the Kremlin the easy victory it had anticipated, even as Russian forces advanced in the south while edging closer to a capital buffeted by fear. They were also intensifying the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, potentially altering the war’s dynamics by increasing the human toll. The Russian military was bearing down on several Ukrainian cities, including Kherson, a port near the Black Sea, whose capture would mark the first major city to come under full control of President Vladimir V. Putin’s forces since the invasion began last Thursday. Russia claims it is fully in control of the city, but Ukrainian officials said the municipal government was still in place. Neither claim could be independently verified." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

OPEC Takes Advantage of a Crisis. Stanley Reed of the New York Times: “With the price of a barrel of oil soaring, the group of oil producers known as OPEC Plus declined to take steps to cool the market at its monthly meeting on Wednesday. In a statement that had surreal qualities given the surging prices in recent weeks, the group, which includes Russia, said current fundamentals and the outlook for the future pointed 'to a well-balanced market.'” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Edward Wong & Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "A Western intelligence report said senior Chinese officials told senior Russian officials in early February not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, according to senior Biden administration officials and a European official.The report indicates that senior Chinese officials had some level of direct knowledge about Russia’s war plans or intentions before the invasion started last week.... China held the closing ceremony of the Olympics on Feb. 20. The next day, Mr. Putin ordered more Russian troops to enter an insurgent-controlled area of eastern Ukraine.... For months, some American officials tried to recruit China to help avert the war." MB: An interesting article on the Russia-China dynamic.

Marc Fisher of the Washington Post: Russia's brutal war on Ukraine has "reverberated around the globe, steering history in a new direction and switching up 75 years of relations among some of the world’s most powerful and wealthy countries.... The war in Ukraine has almost instantly restructured global power dynamics, in part because of Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling and in part because the world has become so much more interconnected in recent years — in trade, technology, media and politics." MB: At the same time, Fisher acknowledges that the "new world order" may have a brief shelf-life. What he doesn't say is important, too. Fisher never specifically mentions that a war executed specifically to obliterate the emerging democracy in a sovereign nation sends shudders through every other liberal democratic (or quasi-liberal democratic) society. And he never suggests that at least part of the reaction to Putin's war of aggression is a sudden realization that liberal democracy really is in peril.

Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration is asking Congress to approve $32.5 billion to bolster Ukraine against Russian aggression and shore up the United States in the battle against the coronavirus. The official request arrives as Democrats and Republicans continue to tussle over a broader aid package that many lawmakers hope to append to a still-forming deal to fund the government.... To aid Ukraine, the Biden administration is calling on lawmakers to approve $10 billion.... For the pandemic, meanwhile, the Biden administration is requesting about $22.5 billion from Congress to replenish key public health programs as a safeguard against future variants of the coronavirus...." Related story linked below, under "The Pandemic, Ctd."

** William Saletan of the Bulwark contrasts President Biden's vision of the U.S., as laid out in his SOTU speech, with Donald Trump's views, expressed in his CPAC speech and other recent remarks. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Republicans like [Gov. Kim] Reynolds [Iowa] want to align the GOP with Ukraine while burying the GOP’s record of apologizing for Trump’s embrace of Putin throughout the Ukraine scandal.... Llong before Reynolds was tapped [to give the GOP response to the SOTU address], she offered [an] absurd whitewashing of Trump’s appalling corruption, which was only one of an extensive series of official acts that aligned with Putin’s interests against those of Ukraine, the West and democracy." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jeanna Smialek of the New York Times: "Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, told lawmakers on Wednesday that the central bank is poised to lift interest rates at its meeting this month as it tries to cool down high inflation — saying that while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is ramping up economic uncertainty, it isn’t yet shaking the Fed off its course. Mr. Powell, testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, said the economic path ahead remained unsettled as Russia invaded Ukraine and the world reacted."

About Trump's "Big, Beautiful Wall." Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "Mexican smuggling gangs have sawed through new segments of border wall 3,272 times over the past three years, according to unpublished U.S. Customs and Border Protection maintenance records obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act. The government spent $2.6 million to repair the breaches during the 2019 to 2021 fiscal years, the CBP records show. While the agency has acknowledged that smugglers are able to hack through the new barriers built by the Trump administration, the maintenance records show damage has been more widespread than previously known, pointing to the structure’s limitations as an impediment to illegal crossings."

** Josh Dawsey, et al., of the Washington Post: “Lawyers for the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol said in a court filing Wednesday that ... Donald Trump and key allies engaged in two potential crimes during their effort to overturn the election: conspiring to defraud the United States and obstructing an official congressional proceeding — the counting of electoral votes. The alleged criminal acts were raised by the committee in a California federal court filing challenging conservative lawyer John Eastman’s refusal to turn over thousands of emails the panel has requested related to his role in trying to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to reject electors from states won by Joe Biden. Eastman has cited attorney-client privilege as a shield against turning over the documents.... The committee argued in that filing that Eastman’s claim of privilege was potentially voided by the 'crime/fraud exception' to the confidentiality usually accorded attorneys and their clients, which holds that communications need not be kept confidential if an attorney is found to be assisting their client in the commission of a crime. They asked the judge deciding whether to release Eastman’s emails to privately review evidence the committee has so far gathered....” Politico's story is here. Rick Hasen has excerpted a large block of the WashPo story. ~~~

     ~~~ Juan Cole of Informed Comment: "The filing argues that many of Eastman’s emails to which it seeks access are to persons other than Trump and wouldn’t be affected by privilege, even if Eastman had been Trump’s lawyer, which they dispute. They say there is no evidence that he represented the former president. Their relationship appears rather to have been that of two politicians.... In addition, they say, they can’t find any evidence that Eastman worked as a lawyer for Trump in the sense of like, you know, preparing for a court case or some other actual attorney stuff.... To break Eastman’s claim to privilege, they are alleging that he and Trump were plotting a crime together, to wit, the overthrow of the elected US government. The Committee reviews some of the evidence it has gathered for this criminal conspiracy[.]... The committee [also] is saying that [on January] Trump was using Twitter to egg on the insurrectionists, of whose rioting he was already aware.

Kyle Cheney & Nicholas Wu of Politico: The January 6 committee is "redoubling [its] focus on how [its] own GOP colleagues may have helped Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election. Recent court filings, subpoenas and conversations with members of the Jan. 6 select committee show they’re homing in on interactions that Republican members had with Trump and his allies in the weeks preceding the riot. One critical pressure point is the committee’s search for communications between members of Congress and John Eastman.... Investigators are pressing Eastman to prioritize turning over emails to or about members of Congress and their staffs, including 14 GOP lawmakers specifically identified by the committee.... Also on the committee’s radar: Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani’s contacts with members of Congress, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro’s claims about recruiting members of Congress to delay the election certification, and attempts by lawmakers to reach Trump on Jan. 6 to ask the rioters to stand down." ~~~

~~~ No-Show. Ryan Nobles, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump's onetime trade adviser Peter Navarro did not appear for his scheduled deposition on Wednesday with the House select committee investigating January 6, Navarro tells CNN.... In a statement provided to CNN, Navarro claims he did not show up for his deposition because of executive privilege issues.... Navarro predicts that his case is headed to the Supreme Court by saying, 'that unconstitutional dog won't hunt at the Supreme Court, where this case is headed -- and I welcome an expedited review.'"

** Quinn Owen, et al., of ABC News: "Joshua James, 34, of Arab, Alabama, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges on Wednesday as part of deal with prosecutors contingent on his cooperation with the U.S. government in their ongoing prosecution of defendants who were involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The plea deal is the first of its kind for a Jan. 6 defendant.... The plea agreement directly implicates Oath Keeper founder and militia leader Stewart Rhodes, among others, in a conspiratorial plot to stop the transfer of power ahead of President Joe Biden's inauguration.... James acknowledged he and others collected firearms at hotels on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and were ready to use them to prevent Biden from becoming president. James admitted that he was instructed along with other Oath Keepers to 'be prepared, if called upon, to report to the White House grounds to secure the perimeter and use lethal force if necessary against anyone who tried to remove President Trump from the White House, including the National Guard or other government actors']..." They had a lot of firearms. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Barbara McQuade, appearing on MSNBC Wednesday night, said that the plea was significant in that (1) it's the first conviction for sedition, and (2) James has a lot of info to share about the Oath Keepers' operations in the insurrection. McQuade also noted that James was one of the Oath Keepers who had been in Roger Stone's "security detail" during the lead-up to the insurrection.

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “... prosecutors on Wednesday opened the first criminal trial stemming from the [January 6] Capitol attack, saying that [Guy Wesley] Reffitt was at the forefront of the pro-Trump crowd that stormed into the building as lawmakers were certifying the results of the 2020 election.... Prosecutors said ... Reffitt not only helped lead a mob up a staircase of the building, but also recorded himself narrating his role in the advance. 'We’re taking the Capitol before the day is over, ripping them out by their hair,' Mr. Reffitt said on camera.... 'I just want to see Nancy Pelosi’s head hitting every step on the way out.'” Prosecutors played video of Reffitt's threat in their opening remarks. MB: He's a great dad, too: “children plan to say their father threatened them after he returned to Texas in order to keep them from turning him into the authorities.” Worth clicking on the page just to see the photo of that fat pink porker dressed in what he called “full battle rattle,” body armor & gear he wore to the insurrection.

Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson will begin on March 21, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday, a timetable that could put President Biden’s first pick for the nation’s most influential court on track to be confirmed by mid-April. The announcement came as Jackson, currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, began her gauntlet of one-on-one meetings with key senators. She sat down Wednesday morning with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and was scheduled to meet later in the day with Judiciary Committee chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and the panel’s top Republican, Charles E. Grassley (Iowa)." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: “Last week, on the very day President Biden announced his nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) issued a statement expressing his earnest concern that 'Judge Jackson was the favored choice of far-left dark-money groups.'... Even for McConnell, a five-time Olympic gold medalist in hypocrisy, this was special. There is perhaps no human being more responsible for the tsunami of unlimited, unregulated 'dark' money that has corrupted and consumed American politics than Addison Mitchell McConnell III. Nobody worked harder to thwart campaign finance limits and to block the disclosure of contributors’ names. One Nation, the dark-money group McConnell effectively controls..., raised more than $172 million in 2020.... It’s difficult to overstate the extent to which the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United and subsequent decisions have distorted and corrupted politics. So it’s only fitting that the distortion reaches into the high court, too.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Bonus: Accompanying fab photo of Mitch smiling -- or something -- while standing alongside Judge Jackson.

Laura Meckler of the Washington Post: “Lawmakers in at least 17 state capitols and Congress are pushing legislation that would require schools to post all instructional materials online. Their goal, at least in part, is to enable parents who distrust their children’s schools to carefully examine teaching materials — enabling protests or, in some cases, giving people fodder to opt their children out. That includes materials on race and racial equity but also any other topic that might spark disagreement.... Transparency legislation also is pending in Congress, with House Republicans, led by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), promising to pass it as part of a 'parents bill of rights' if they take control after the November midterm elections.”

Tik Root of the Washington Post: “For the first time, the international community has agreed on a framework to curb the world’s growing plastic problem. A resolution adopted Wednesday by the United Nations lays out an ambitious plan for developing a legally binding treaty to 'end plastic pollution.'... It calls for the creation of an intergovernmental negotiating committee to hash out details of a treaty by the end of 2024.... The committee’s mandate includes all phases of the plastic life cycle — from design and production to waste management. It comes at a time when the world produces billions of pounds of plastic waste annually — about 353 million tons in 2019....”

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here.

Tony Romm of the Washington Post: "Three dozen Republican senators told the White House on Wednesday that they may be unwilling to approve new coronavirus aid until they first learn how much money the U.S. government has already spent. The early warning arrived in a letter led by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), just days after the Biden administration asked Congress to approve $30 billion to boost public health as part of a still-forming deal to fund the government and stave off a shutdown at the end of next week."

Yasmeen Abutaleb, et al., of the Washington Post: “The White House unveiled a new pandemic road map on Wednesday that calls for better surveillance of new variants and dispensing antiviral pills 'on the spot' when someone tests positive, but rules out school and business closings. The plan was released hours after President Biden announced a pandemic reset in his State of the Union address, asserting that the wide availability of vaccines and therapeutics had made the threats more manageable, while taking pains to avoid last summer’s premature victory lap. The 96-page road map is part of a broader White House strategy to move the country from crisis footing and convince Americans that their lives can return to normal amid the president’s tanking approval ratings and Democratic anxiety that nosediving cases and school reopenings have not buoyed a dyspeptic public.” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) 

Marie: I did not intend to link the next story, as we already have abundant evidence that Ron DeSantis is a horrible human being. But the story of DeSantis's refusal to divest Florida of Russian assets inspired me: ~~~

~~~ Florida. Tori Powell of CBS News: "Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday asked a group of students attending a press conference to remove their face masks. The governor ... said their mask-wearing is 'COVID theater.' 'You do not have to wear those masks,' the governor said to students standing behind him at the University of South Florida, according to The Associated Press. 'I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it's not doing anything. We've got to stop with this COVID theater. So if you want to wear it fine, but this is ridiculous.'... Some of the students took off their face masks for the event, while others continued to wear them."

Beyond the Beltway

Alabama. Richard Goldstein of the New York Times: Authorine Lucy Foster, who in 1956 became the first Black person to attend the University of Alabama, has died at the age of 92.... [She] lasted only three days of classes at Tuscaloosa. When mobs threatened her life and pelted her with rocks, eggs and rotten produce, the university suspended her, ostensibly for her own safety. Several weeks later, it expelled her.... The University of Alabama did not drop its ban on Autherine Lucy Foster until 1988. She enrolled soon afterward as a graduate student and attended commencement ceremonies in May 1992, when she received a master’s degree in education.... In 2019, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university. And less than three weeks before she died, the university named the building of its college of education in her honor. It had earlier been named for David Bibb Graves, a former Alabama governor and Ku Klux Klan leader."

Illinois. Andy Rose of CNN: "Michael J. Madigan, the former speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday on 22 federal charges related to racketeering, bribery and attempted extortion, prosecutors said. The indictment accuses Madigan, 79, of using his political power to obtain bribes and steer business toward his private Chicago law firm, Madigan & Getzendanner, according to the Department of Justice. Many of the allegations in the indictment relate to claims that Madigan illegally influenced the Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd), northern Illinois' primary electric utility, and it supported him in return. Madigan served as the leader of the Illinois House of Representatives for 38 years, the longest tenure for a state speaker in modern US history. He was also the chair of the Illinois Democratic Party before resigning last year." MB: A nice reminder that Chicago Democrats are still as corrupt as Republicans everywhere.

New York. Jan Ransom & William Rashbaum of the New York Times: "For all of the alarms that have been sounded over rising violence and disorder on Rikers Island..., two [recent] cases raise an astonishing prospect: that the levels of brutality experienced by detainees over the past year might have been even worse than was previously known.... Injuries suffered by ... two detainees in August and December ... occurred at a time when Rikers Island was already under intense scrutiny for its high rates of violence, and as members of Congress were calling for the Biden administration to step in.... After the coronavirus pandemic first swept through, thousands of correction officers stopped going to work. Gang members gained control over some housing areas, and other detainees were left to fend for themselves, often going without food or basic health care. Rates of violence rose sharply. At least 16 people died after being held in the jail system last year — many in preventable ways — and on Sunday Rikers Island recorded its first death in 2022....

North Carolina. Definition of a Bent Cop. Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: William “Spivey, the former police chief in Chadbourn, N.C., who has been charged with more than 70 felonies, went boating on the [Lumber R]iver ... and had left a note ... indicating he wanted to die by suicide, [his wife Eve] Waddell told [Columbus County] detectives. But the boat, which was afloat, was empty, the authorities learned, and Mr. Spivey ... was missing.... Shortly after midnight on Feb. 24, the authorities said they found Mr. Spivey, 36, hiding near an apartment complex in Loris, S.C., and charged him with obstruction of justice for staging his death.... Last spring, Mr. Spivey was charged with ... stealing or destroying evidence, embezzlement and opioid trafficking, stemming from his time as the police chief in Chadbourn, a town of 1,500 people about 120 miles south of Raleigh. [Jon] David, the district attorney [for three counties], said that Mr. Spivey repeatedly raided the department’s evidence room, stealing drugs and thousands of dollars. He also stole firearms and sold them to friends and relatives, Mr. David said.” And more! (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Texas. Maria Paul & Casey Parks of the Washington Post: "A Texas judge on Wednesday partially blocked enforcement of Gov. Greg Abbott’s order to treat gender-affirming care as child abuse, court documents show. The decision by Judge Amy Clark Meachum stems from a lawsuit filed on Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas and Lambda Legal, the LGBTQ legal advocacy group. The lawsuit seeks to block a statewide directive ordering the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFSP) to investigate parents who allow their children to medically transition genders for possible crimes. Meachum’s ruling grants a temporary restraining order to the plaintiffs represented in the case, but it does not prevent Texas from investigating other parents. The judge will consider that question in an additional hearing on March 11."

Texas Congressional Election. Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "Rep. Van Taylor (R-Tex.) on Wednesday abruptly dropped his reelection bid, acknowledging in an email to supporters that he had engaged in an extramarital affair. The announcement came one day after Taylor was forced into a runoff against former Collin County judge Keith Self (R), who took 26.5 percent of Tuesday’s primary day vote to Taylor’s 48.7 percent. News of Taylor’s affair with Tania Joya, a former Islamist militant who now works to 'reprogram' other extremists, had circulated on conservative websites in the days leading up to the primary. Joya told the Dallas Morning News that she and Taylor had an affair from October 2020 to June 2021." ~~~

     ~~~ Patrick Svitek of the Texas Tribune: "All [of Taylor's] challengers focused on Taylor's 2021 vote for a proposed bipartisan, independent commission to probe the events of Jan. 6.... [Self] criticized Taylor for voting to certify the 2020 election results and vowed support for a "full forensic audit" of the election in Texas. Taylor ... faced a competitive general election battle last year and stumped as 'Mr. Bipartisan.' But redistricting turned his district into a Republican stronghold, providing more fertile ground for primary opposition." MB: That is, representation in the district is going to shift from "Sort of a Right-Wing Jerk" to "Right-Wing Jerk." ~~~

The congressman having the affair with the ISIS bride was the normal candidate in that GOP primary. -- Tim Miller of the Bulwark, in a tweet (via Steve M.) ~~~

     ~~~ Steve M.: "The GOP candidate who'll advance to the general election, Keith Self, will probably win the seat (it's an R+6 district). He says he ;will demand a full forensic audit is conducted in Texas,' even though Donald Trump won the state by five and a half points. He also complains that Taylor 'voted to strip our nation’s history from the United States Capitol' -- a reference to those Confederate monuments. So, yes, it would have been better if the guy who had the affair with the 'ISIS bride' won the primary."

March 2, 2022

Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "... fierce Ukrainian resistance continued to deny the Kremlin the easy victory it had anticipated, even as Russian forces advanced in the south while edging closer to a capital buffeted by fear. They were also intensifying the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, potentially altering the war's dynamics by increasing the human toll. The Russian military was bearing down on several Ukrainian cities, including Kherson, a port near the Black Sea, whose capture would mark the first major city to come under full control of President Vladimir V. Putin's forces since the invasion began last Thursday. Russia claims it is fully in control of the city, but Ukrainian officials said the municipal government was still in place. Neither claim could be independently verified."

OPEC Takes Advantage of a Crisis. Stanley Reed of the New York Times: "With the price of a barrel of oil soaring, the group of oil producers known as OPEC Plus declined to take steps to cool the market at its monthly meeting on Wednesday. In a statement that had surreal qualities given the surging prices in recent weeks, the group, which includes Russia, said current fundamentals and the outlook for the future pointed 'to a well-balanced market.'"

** William Saletan of the Bulwark contrasts President Biden's vision of the U.S., as laid out in his SOTU speech, with Donald Trump's views, expressed in his CPAC speech and other recent remarks.

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Republicans like [Gov. Kim] Reynolds [Iowa] want to align the GOP with Ukraine while burying the GOP's record of apologizing for Trump's embrace of Putin throughout the Ukraine scandal.... Long before Reynolds was tapped [to give the GOP response to the SOTU address], she offered [an] absurd whitewashing of Trump's appalling corruption, which was only one of an extensive series of official acts that aligned with Putin's interests against those of Ukraine, the West and democracy."

Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson will begin on March 21, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday, a timetable that could put President Biden's first pick for the nation's most influential court on track to be confirmed by mid-April. The announcement came as Jackson, currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, began her gauntlet of one-on-one meetings with key senators. She sat down Wednesday morning with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and was scheduled to meet later in the day with Judiciary Committee chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and the panel's top Republican, Charles E. Grassley (Iowa)."

Yasmeen Abutaleb, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House unveiled a new pandemic road map on Wednesday that calls for better surveillance of new variants and dispensing antiviral pills 'on the spot' when someone tests positive, but rules out school and business closings. The plan was released hours after President Biden announced a pandemic reset in his State of the Union address, asserting that the wide availability of vaccines and therapeutics had made the threats more manageable, while taking pains to avoid last summer's premature victory lap. The 96-page road map is part of a broader White House strategy to move the country from crisis footing and convince Americans that their lives can return to normal amid the president's tanking approval ratings and Democratic anxiety that nosediving cases and school reopenings have not buoyed a dyspeptic public."

North Carolina. Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: William "Spivey, the former police chief in Chadbourn, N.C., who has been charged with more than 70 felonies, went boating on the [Lumber R]iver ... and had left a note ... indicating he wanted to die by suicide, [his wife Eve] Waddell told [Columbus County] detectives. But the boat, which was afloat, was empty, the authorities learned, and Mr. Spivey ... was missing.... Shortly after midnight on Feb. 24, the authorities said they found Mr. Spivey, 36, hiding near an apartment complex in Loris, S.C., and charged him with obstruction of justice for staging his death.... Last spring, Mr. Spivey was charged with ... stealing or destroying evidence, embezzlement and opioid trafficking, stemming from his time as the police chief in Chadbourn, a town of 1,500 people about 120 miles south of Raleigh. [Jon] David, the district attorney [for three counties], said that Mr. Spivey repeatedly raided the department's evidence room, stealing drugs and thousands of dollars. He also stole firearms and sold them to friends and relatives, Mr. David said." And more! (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

~~~~~~~~~

State of the Union Address:

     ~~~ Here's a transcript of the prepared speech, via the White House.

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "Appearing before a joint session of Congress at a fraught moment in modern history, [President] Biden called for a united resistance to defend the international order endangered by Russian aggression and warned the oligarchs who bolster Mr. Putin's regime that he would seize their luxury yachts and private jets.... While the guns of Europe overshadowed the political disputes at home that have weighed down his presidency, Mr. Biden sought to use his first formal State of the Union address to persuade glum Americans that the country is making impressive progress containing the coronavirus pandemic and rebuilding the economy. ~~~

~~~ [Girls Behaving Badly.] "... the discord of today's politics erupted in the House chamber in ways that would have once been unthinkable. When Mr. Biden talked about immigration reform, Representative Lauren Boebert, a far-right Republican from Colorado given to angry spectacle and conspiracies, tried to start a 'build the wall' chant but was joined only by a like-minded colleague, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia. Later in the speech, when Mr. Biden was paying tribute to American troops in flag-draped coffins, Ms. Boebert interrupted again. 'You put them in -- 13 of them!' she shouted...." MB: According to the WashPo report, linked below, "Democrats began booing and one shouted, 'Kick her out!'" ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's report, by Maegan Vazquez, is here.

Matt Viser & Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post: "The House chamber was filled with blue and yellow hues, with women in dresses and scarfs and with men wearing bright ties and ribbons on their lapels, honoring the colors of the Ukrainian flag and providing an evocative image of the type of American support that President Biden highlighted in his remarks.... In a country that has few unifying moments, members from both sides of the aisle repeatedly stood and applauded together in support of Ukraine, or when he announced that the United States was closing its airspace to Russian planes.... But despite the opening moments of unity for an ally under attack and the waning presence of the pandemic in the chamber, the political tensions and fissures in the nation were still evident.... Sen. Joe Manchin III, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia who has derailed some of the Biden administration's top priorities, sat on the Republican side."

Aamer Madhani & Josh Boak of the AP report their takeaways from President Biden's SOTU address.

"We're Going to Be OK." Jonathan Lemire of Politico: "President Joe Biden unfurled a resolute defense of democracy in his first State of the Union address on Tuesday, declaring that the United States would act as a leader for the free world as it rallies with Ukraine against a brutal Russian invasion. With a war raging an ocean away, Biden vowed that the United States would emerge from years of division and disease to protect and expand freedoms at home and abroad."

New York Times reporters liveblogged the SOTU. Prior to the address, the Times has printed excerpts from the President's prepared remarks. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates are here.

Zeke Miller & Colleen Long of the AP: "President Joe Biden will vow to make Vladimir Putin 'pay a price' for Russia's invasion of Ukraine in his first State of the Union address, rallying allies abroad while also outlining his plans at home to fight inflation and the fading but still dangerous coronavirus.In addition to recounting U.S. and allied economic sanctions against Russia, Biden planned to announce that the U.S. is following Canada and the European Union in banning Russian planes from its airspace in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine, according to two people familiar with his remarks[.]"

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The Ukrainian ambassador to the United States and the whistle-blower who exposed Facebook documents about the company's handling of misinformation will be among President Biden's guests in the House chamber during the State of the Union address, White House officials said Tuesday. Ambassador Oksana Markarova and nine other guests will be seated in the first lady Jill Biden's box, officials said...." MB: A slap in the face to Mark Zuckerberg, to be a villain called out in the same breath as the barbarous warmonger Vladimir Putin.

A Snide, Screechy, Whiney, "Rebuttal." Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa delivered a scathing Republican rebuke of President Biden's State of the Union address on Tuesday, casting his presidency as an unwanted remake of 'That '70s Show,' complete with 'runaway inflation,' rampant crime and a rampaging 'Soviet army.' Ms. Reynolds, who was chosen by Republican Senate leadership to deliver the party's official response, portrayed the populist revolt against mask mandates and remote learning as a 'pro-parent, pro-family revolution,' hoping to harness the backlash ahead of this year's midterm elections. The governor, who has been in that office since 2017, used her address to preview themes, poll-tested and echoed by conservatives on social media, that are likely to be repeated by Republican candidates across the country as they seek to seize control of Congress two years after the party lost the White House and Senate. That included stoking fears that the Biden administration -- and Democrats -- want to control what children can learn in school and whether parents should have a say."

The Protest That Wasn't. Zachary Petrizzo of the Daily Beast, republished by Yahoo! News: "Only a handful of protesters inspired by anti-vaccine mandate trucker convoys in Canada showed up in the nation's capital Tuesday afternoon for the 'Stage of Freedom' event near the Washington Monument. Despite the initial hefty estimate that upwards of 3,000 attendees would show, only 12 rally-goers had actually assembled for the gathering just hours ahead of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address Tuesday evening. The right-wing rally's organizer, MMA fighter and Maryland gubernatorial hopeful Kyle Sefcik, opened the event -- where press and police massively outnumbered protesters -- by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before launching into a lengthy speech mixing shameless self-promotion with grievances aimed at the truckers who didn't show up."

~~~~~~~~~~

Putin's Crimes Against Humanity

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Wednesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Russian forces continued their deadly assault on key Ukrainian cities early Wednesday, prompting some locals officials to warn that their cities were near the breaking point. Russian tanks entered the Black Sea port of Kherson, where the mayor said the city was 'waiting for a miracle' to stay out of enemy hands. As Russia faced stiff resistance from Ukrainian military and civilian defenders throughout the country, the capital, Kyiv, endured overnight attacks, according to military analysts. A massive convoy of Russian tanks and combat vehicles remained stalled about 20 miles north of the city's center as the invading force grappled with fuel and food shortages." ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's live updates for Wednesday are here.

Where Have All the Young Men Gone? Helene Cooper & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "Moscow may be losing [as many as 400] soldiers daily in [Vladimir] Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine, American and European officials said. The mounting toll for Russian troops exposes a potential weakness for the Russian president at a time when he is still claiming, publicly, that he is engaged only in a limited military operation in Ukraine’s separatist east.... The bodies of Russian soldiers have been left in areas surrounding Kharkiv. Videos and photos on social media show charred remains of tanks and armored vehicles, their crews dead or wounded.... Ukraine has said its forces have killed more than 5,300 Russian troops.... One American official put the Russian losses as of Monday at 2,000, an estimate with which two European officials concurred.... For a comparison, nearly 2,500 American troops were killed in Afghanistan over 20 years of war. For Mr. Putin, the rising death toll could damage any remaining domestic support for his Ukrainian endeavors."

Daniel Uria of UPI: "Ukrainian forces foiled a plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky amid Russia's invasion of the country, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council chief Oleksiy Danilov said Tuesday. Danilov announced that a unit of Chechen special forces sent to assassinate Zelensky was 'eliminated' after the president had warned last week that Russian 'sabotage groups' had entered the nation's capital, Kyiv, and were hunting for him and his family.... Danilov said Ukraine received intelligence about the assassination plot from Russian Federal Security Service -- or FSB -- agents who oppose the war."

Jeff Stein & Yeganeh Torbati of the Washington Post: "Senior Biden administration officials are preparing to dramatically expand the number of Russian oligarchs subject to U.S. sanctions, aiming to punish the financial elite close to President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine, according to three people briefed on internal administration deliberations. Officials at the White House and Treasury Department are working on producing a list of names that is expected to overlap in part with the lineup of Russian oligarchs who were newly subjected to sanctions by the European Union on Monday, the people said.... America's sanctions are expected to be more complicated than those imposed by the E.U., targeting not just the individuals but also their family members and companies they own...."

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: Vladimir Putin "is betting that division within the United States will sap American resolve and thereby sow disunity between the United States and European democracies -- allowing him to crush Ukraine's democracy and potentially others. And Republicans are giving him what he wants. They are so determined to see President Biden fail that they would let President Putin succeed.... [As Biden spoke of unity during his SOTU speech,] Republican lawmakers sniped at him on Twitter. 'Joe Biden sought to appease Vladimir Putin from the very beginning,' wrote Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). 'Biden is empowering our enemies.'" And so forth. MB: Cruz's charge, of course, is insane, especially given Donald Trump's long history of fawning over Putin. But lies are of the essence of their scheme. ~~~

~~~ Say, Let's Ask John Bolton. Cameron Joseph of Vice: "Former President Trump's top national security adviser thinks his old boss did 'a lot of damage' to U.S.-Ukraine relations during his time in office -- and emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton said Trump's delay of military aid to Ukraine in 2019, as he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for dirt on then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, made clear to Putin exactly how little Trump cared about Ukraine.... Bolton spoke with VICE News about his experiences within the Trump administration as Trump bullied Zelensyy, the impact that had on Ukraine's ability to deter or fight off an invasion, and his thoughts on Trump recently calling Putin a 'genius.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Caroline Vakil of the Hill: "In an interview on right-wing Website Newsmax, "Former national security adviser John Bolton pushed back against the idea that former President Trump's behavior discouraged Russian military aggression while he was in office, saying, 'It's just not accurate to say that Trump's behavior somehow deterred the Russians.'... [Bolton] claimed the former president did not know where Ukraine was on a map and said he believed Russia did not take more aggressive actions while Trump was in office because Russia 'didn't feel that their military was ready.... The fact is that he barely knew where Ukraine was. He once asked John Kelly, his second chief of staff, if Finland were a part of Russia." MB: Finland, of course, is nowhere near Ukraine.

Ilya Marritz of ProPublica: "... Russia has been working for years to influence and undermine the independence of ... [Ukraine]. As it happens, some Americans have played a role in that effort. One was ... Donald Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Another was Trump's then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani." Marritz outlines what Manafort & Giuliani did.

From the New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in Russia's war on Ukraine, also linked early yesterday: "Africans who had been living in Ukraine say they were stuck for days at crossings into neighboring European Union countries, huddling in the cold without food or shelter, held up by Ukrainian authorities who pushed them to the ends of long lines and even beat them, while letting Ukrainians through.... Plagued by poor morale as well as fuel and food shortages, some Russian troops in Ukraine have surrendered en masse or sabotaged their own vehicles to avoid fighting, a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday. Some entire Russian units have laid down their arms without a fight after confronting surprisingly stiff Ukrainian defense, the official said.*... The United Nations appealed on Tuesday for some $1.7 billion to aid millions of victims of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and address the escalating destruction of critical infrastructure.... About 100 diplomats, many from Western countries, walked out of a speech by Russia's foreign minister [Sergey Lavrov] at the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday in protest over his country's invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva led the walkout, which left a largely empty conference hall...."

     * Marie: I heard on the teevee that a number of Russian soldiers thought they were going to Belarus for military exercises & had no idea they would be attacking Ukraine in a live war.

Yuras Karmanau, et al., of the AP: "Russian forces stepped up their attacks on crowded urban areas Tuesday, bombarding the central square in Ukraine's second-biggest city and Kyiv's main TV tower in what the country's president called a blatant campaign of terror. 'Nobody will forgive. Nobody will forget,' President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed after the bloodshed on the square in Kharkiv." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Who's the Nazi? Isabelle Khurshudyan, et al., of the Washington Post: "A Russian missile strike that appeared to target a TV tower in Ukraine's capital on Tuesday also hit the nearby Babyn Yar Holocaust memorial, the site of a World War II massacre, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Twitter. Five people were killed in the strike, according to Ukrainian officials. 'To the world: what is the point of saying "never again" for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar? At least 5 killed. History repeating ...' Zelensky tweeted.... Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement that Israel would help to rebuild the site."

Maureen Breslin of the Hill: "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday received a lengthy standing ovation after delivering an emotional speech via video to the European Parliament calling for Ukraine to be granted membership to the European Union. 'I don't read from paper, the paper phase is over, we're dealing with lives. Without you, Ukraine will be alone. We've proven our strength; we're the same as you. Prove that you'll not let us go. Then life will win over death, Zelensky said to representatives of the 27 EU member states." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Army Maj. Gen. Mike Repass (Ret.), in a Washington Post op-ed, explains that Ukraine's resilient defense against Russia is no accident: "Over the past seven years, the Ukrainian leadership has been very clear-eyed about reforming its government to prepare for this moment. The Ukrainians have reshaped their national defense structures to cooperate with NATO militaries more easily and have made important leadership, doctrinal and tactical changes. They have also built Territorial Defense Forces and instituted programs to involve others in the common defense."

David McHugh of the AP: "The International Energy Agency's 31 member countries agreed Tuesday to release 60 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves -- half of that from the United States -- 'to send a strong message to oil markets' that supplies won't fall short after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The board of the Paris-based IEA made the decision at an extraordinary meeting of energy ministers chaired by U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. She said in a statement that U.S. President Joe Biden approved a commitment of 30 million barrels and that the U.S. is ready to 'take additional measures' if needed." (Also linked yesterday.)

Sarah Fischer of Axios: "DirecTV plans to drop RT America from its lineup in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a spokesperson said.... DirecTV rival Dish said in a statement earlier this week it's 'closely monitoring the situation.'" MB: Whatever that means. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Samuel Stolton of Politico: "U.S streaming giant Netflix has responded to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine by saying that it will not comply with new Russian rules to carry 20 [of Russia's] state-backed channels." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: While Donald Trump is now absurdly claiming that he stood strongly behind NATO & Ukraine, he did much more than just try to extort Volodymyr Zelensky by withholding military aid till Zelensky made up a story that would hurt Joe Biden. "In episode after episode, Trump aligned our interests with those of Russian President Vladimir Putin and against those of Ukraine, NATO and the West.... As early as 2017, Trump began voicing the conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.... Trump pushed out Marie Yovanovitch in 2019, after his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani mounted a smear campaign against her.... Well before extorting Zelensky, Trump alarmed officials by freezing military aid to Ukraine that Congress had appropriated, but without meaningful policy justification.... [Trump] withheld a White House meeting from Zelensky.... [Trump] turned Ukraine policy over to Giuliani." (Also linked yesterday.)

Eric Wemple of the Washington Post reports on how busy Fox "News" national security correspondent & fact-checker Jennifer Griffin has been debunking Fox hosts' & guests' misinformation about Putin's war on Ukraine. Wemple notes that in one of her debunking forays she referred to a guest as having spewed "so many distortions"; Wemple thought "So Many Distortions" would be a good slogan for Fox "News."

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol on Tuesday subpoenaed a half-dozen lawyers and other allies of ... Donald J. Trump who promoted false claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 election and worked to overturn his loss. Those who were sent subpoenas for documents and testimony participated in a range of attempts to invalidate Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory, including filing lawsuits, pressuring local election officials to change the results and drafting proposed executive orders to seize voting machines.... Among those summoned was Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who the panel said 'promoted false claims of election fraud to members of Congress' and participated in a call in which Mr. Trump tried to pressure Georgia's secretary of state to '"find" enough votes to reverse his loss there.'"

Mitch in Charge. Amy Wang, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday publicly rejected a proposal by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who last month released a '11-point plan to rescue America' that has drawn criticism from several prominent Republicans. McConnell insisted that if Republicans win the majority in November, he will decide the party's course, staking out a defiant stance against ... Donald Trump's efforts to oust him as the GOP leader. At a Senate GOP leadership news conference Tuesday afternoon, McConnell seemed to take issue not only with Scott's plan -- which included a proposal for all Americans to pay some form of income tax -- but also with the fact that Scott, a member of the leadership team, had released one purporting to represent the Republican Party." Politico's report is here.

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "A federal judge [Jed S. Rakoff] on Tuesday refuted Sarah Palin's claims that The New York Times defamed her in a 2017 editorial, concluding in a written opinion that the case should be dismissed because she had 'wholly failed to prove her case even to the minimum standard required by law.' It was the latest development in a case that unfolded with unexpected twists last month, culminating with Ms. Palin's motion for a new trial after several jurors said they had seen news reports of the judge's unusual decision to announce that he was preparing to dismiss the case while they were still deliberating."

Marie's Sports Report. James Wagner of the New York Times: "Major League Baseball canceled the first two series of the 2022 regular season on Tuesday after the league and the players' union failed to reach a new collective bargaining agreement. After nearly a year of negotiating, including a week of daily talks between the league and the players' union in Florida starting Feb. 21, the sides could not come to a new pact by M.L.B.'s self-imposed deadline of 5 p.m. Tuesday in order to begin the 162-game season on March 31 as scheduled. Commissioner Rob Manfred announced the cancellations in a news conference on Tuesday." MB: It deeply saddens me when millionaires can't get along with billionaires.

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "President Biden, looking to usher the nation out of the coronavirus crisis into what some are calling a 'new normal,' used his State of the Union address Tuesday night to sketch out the next phase of his pandemic response, including a new 'test to treat' initiative aimed at providing patients with new antiviral medications as soon as they learn they are infected."

Louisiana. Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler. Katy Reckdahl & Sophie Kasakove of the New York Times: "Across New Orleans, in a combination of joy, defiance, trepidation and celebration, Mardi Gras returned on Tuesday with one eye on the pain of the past two years in a city especially hard hit by the pandemic and the other very much looking forward to strutting, parading and moving on. Last year, all Carnival parades were canceled, and celebrations were scaled back to small, same-household gatherings and decorated porches known as 'house floats.' But this month, New Orleans's Carnival celebration returned in full swing, raising hopes about the city's resurgence from devastating pandemic losses."

Beyond the Beltway

Georgia. Richard Fausset & Tariro Mzezewa of the New York Times: Marcus Ransom, the jury foreman & the only Black person on the federal jury that convicted three white racists of hate crimes in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, talks to New York Times reporters.

Montana. A-Hunting He Will Go. Joshua Partlow of the Washington Post: "On public land north of Yellowstone National Park late last year, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) shot and killed a mountain lion that was being monitored by National Park Service staff, after hunting dogs had chased it up a tree. The mountain lion hunt, which has not been previously reported, occurred on Dec. 28.... Less than a year earlier, Gianforte killed a Yellowstone wolf in a similar area that was wearing a tracking collar, prompting an outcry among environmentalists.... One person familiar with the incident told The Post that the mountain lion was kept in the tree by the hunting dogs for a couple of hours while Gianforte traveled to the site...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Nevada. Jesus Jiménez of the New York Times: "Gov. Steve Sisolak of Nevada was accosted at a Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas on Sunday by a man who recorded the confrontation in a video in which he threatens to 'string you up by a lamppost.' In the video, the man asks Mr. Sisolak, a Democrat, for a photo together. The governor agrees, and the man puts his arm around him before going into a profanity-laced rant and calling the governor a 'new world order traitor.'... The man follows the governor and his wife into the parking lot of the restaurant, accusing Mr. Sisolak of treason and working for China. The governor's wife, Kathy Sisolak, who was born in Nevada, is of Chinese descent, according to the governor's website.... The governor's office said the confrontation was being investigated...."

Texas. Here's a liveblog of Texas primary election results. "Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas will face Beto O'Rourke in the fall. The state's embattled attorney general, Ken Paxton, is headed to a runoff with George P. Bush.... A 28-year-old liberal immigration lawyer [Jessica Cisneros] was headed for a runoff in May with Representative Henry Cuellar, South Texas's 17-year incumbent, after neither candidate on Tuesday was able to muster 50 percent of the vote in the state's most closely watched House primary.... Monica De La Cruz, a Republican with ... Donald J. Trump's backing, won her party's nomination in what is likely to be one of the most closely watched House races of the midterms. The race for the Democratic nomination will go to a runoff: Ruben Ramirez, a lawyer, was leading a crowded field with no candidate over 30 percent." CNN's report is here. The Texas Tribune's report is here.

Texas. Casey Parks of the Washington Post: "A Texas family and a psychologist filed a legal challenge Tuesday, asking a district court to block an order that directed state officials to investigate families for child abuse if they allow their children to medically transition genders. In a letter sent last week to state health agencies, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) noted that the Office of the Attorney General had determined that providing medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy could 'legally constitute child abuse' under Texas law.... According to the suit filed Tuesday, the department has begun investigating families -- including one mother who works for the department responsible for the investigations.... The day after Abbott issued his order, Jane Doe was placed on leave from the Department of Family and Protective Services, court documents say. Two days later, a child protective services investigator visited the family's home.... The plaintiffs, who are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Lambda Legal and the law firm Baker Botts, argue that Abbott has circumvented the legislative process in an 'attempt to legislate by press release.'"

Wisconsin. Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "A Republican report on the 2020 election in Wisconsin endorsed a host of debunked claims of fraud and false assertions about lawmakers' power to decertify President Biden's victory, lending credence to the conspiracy theories that have gripped Republicans in the state for more than 16 months. The claims in the report, commissioned by the Republican speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly and written by a conservative former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, immediately reopened a rift among Republicans in one of the nation's most narrowly divided battleground states.... [Former state justice Michael] Gableman presented his findings to the Wisconsin Assembly's elections committee during a hearing Tuesday. He directly contradicted a legal analysis conducted by the Legislature's lawyers in November that found there is no basis in law for decertifying an election."