Crooked Media - What A Day: The backhand of Oz

 -Ginni Thomas, normal Supreme Court spouse

Russia’s war in Ukraine appears to have turned a corner from “reckless, world historic catastrophe” to “the underdog is now mocking its tormentor.”

• It started with what appeared to be a wild, somewhat terrifying leak from U.S. intelligence sources on Thursday, who wanted the world (and presumably Russia) to know that the intelligence it has shared with Ukraine has allowed Ukraine to pick off Russian generals like sitting ducks. It touched off a guessing game about why, exactly, American officials would want to blow up deniability about something that might send Vladimir Putin off the deep end. Was it a one-off move by a rogue source? Or a deliberate strategy?
   
• We may (may) have gotten our answer later the same day, when multiple, different outlets published similar leaks, in which American officials claimed credit for providing Ukraine the intelligence it used to sink Russia’s flagship missile cruiser, the Moskva, last month. That lends credence to the theory that the leaks are intended to wrongfoot and demoralize Russian forces.
   
• At the same time, Ukraine has some extra spring in its step. President Volodymyr Zelensky has begun dictating conditions for a ceasefire to Russia, insisting Ukraine will reject any ceasefire agreement that doesn’t include a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from its territory.

We can see this shift in momentum reflected in alliances (Ukraine’s with the entire free world, Russia’s with one former Soviet republic.)

• The leaders of the G7 nations, including President Biden, will host a video conference with Zelensky on Sunday. The virtual summit is meant to pre-empt Russia’s May 9 Victory Day (its annual celebration of victory over the Nazis) with a show of western solidarity. Many analysts have worried that Russia will peg a major escalation in Ukraine to Victory Day, though U.S. officials have not articulated that threat publicly, the way they have at other junctures when they had intelligence pointing to Russian aggression. 
   
• On the other hand, Putin’s only friend, Belarusan President Aleksandr Lukashenko told the Associated Press, “I feel like this operation has dragged on,” adding that it was time for the “war,” to “end.” Careful readers will detect a few subtle ways that this departs from the official Russian line that its war isn’t a war, and that its not-war is going splendidly.   

The same dishonest right-wingers who insisted liberals were exaggerating the Republican threat to Roe v. Wade now say we’re exaggerating the threat to other, similar rights. Apart from sending the goalposts sailing over the horizon, though, who are you gonna believe? The people who were right? Or the people who were lying? Well, nobody can say for certain what’s going to happen, but liberals are right to worry. The leaked Supreme Court opinion by Samuel Alito cut the legs out from under the whole idea that the liberty interests outlined in the 14th amendment protect people’s personal decisions—not just abortion, but marriage, contraception, and “every other decision related to the notion of privacy,” as President Biden said. And when you think through the Court’s apparent notion that there’s no right to abortion, and states have a compelling interest in prohibiting it, it’s a quick leap to the idea that they might also have the power to prohibit the sale, purchase, or use of contraception. And since Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, only to be replaced by Amy Coney Barrett, and Anthony Kennedy (the pivotal vote to enshrine the right to same-sex marriage) retired so Donald Trump could appoint Brett Kavanaugh, it’s unclear whether there’d be five votes to uphold that right should states begin trying to limit or eliminate it. 

• Rudy Giuliani bailed on his scheduled testimony before the House January 6 committee, in defiance of his subpoena, because the committee wouldn’t let him record the interview. 
   
• Donald Trump reportedly egged Elon Musk on to purchase Twitter, which Musk obviously went ahead and did solely for Free Speech Reasons, according to Trump’s hired lackey Devin Nunes. Musk says the whole thing is made up. 
   
• The American Bar Association has asked law schools to make the LSAT optional. 
   
• Disgraced former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is trying to derail the Senate candidacy of Trump-backed Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Oz, by citing Oz’s ties to Turkey and pretending to oppose Republicans with close ties to foreign governments on principle. Another real let-them-fight situation.
   
• When he was still president, Donald Trump tried to order the Pentagon to recall retired generals who had criticized him and subject them to military tribunal; he also wanted to bomb suspected drug labs in Mexico and then lie about it. 
   
• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) can run for re-election to federal office despite being an insurrectionist, said some stupid judge. 
   
• Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) wants the TV Parental Guidelines Advisory Board to update its television ratings system to let parents know if programming has gay stuff in it so they can shield their children from it. 
   
• The Republican-dominated Ohio redistricting commission has resubmitted partisan gerrymanders to the state supreme court that the state supreme court has already tossed out.
   
• An Indiana Republican who murdered his wife and dumped her body in a creek received enough primary votes to appear on the school board ballot for Boone County in November. 
   
• Not much to do here but quote the headline: “National Zoo says a wild fox killed 25 of its flamingos and a duck.”

In Joe Biden’s America, the rich get poorer and the poor get richer, but you probably won’t ever hear that from political journalists who mostly take their cues from Republicans insisting inflation is the only thing that matters. Inflation is obviously part of the story of the Biden economy, but the other half is a durably robust labor market that has created lots of upward pressure on low-end wages. The result is that many of the people we normally think of as hit hardest by inflation have seen their incomes rise enough to keep pace with, or even outpace, it, while the super rich have lost over a trillion dollars in wealth thanks to an asset sell-off driven by inflation and the concomitant increase in interest rates. These trends won’t last forever, but they’re the story of the moment. The Department of Labor’s monthly employment report showed the economy added 428,000 jobs in April, while inflation slowed, all while the Federal Reserve just increased interest rates to bring inflation down even further.

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Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) paid a visit to a local abortion clinic to boost morale and they TikTok’d. 

This California abortion provider saw the writing on the wall, so she underwent training to provide second-trimester abortions, and moved to a purple state where the right to abortion will likely survive, anticipating that many women from red states will travel there, and need to terminate their pregnancies in their second trimesters. 

Starbucks is shook by the success of the Starbucks union drive. 

A judge in Nashville, TN, has vacated the seemingly wrongful murder conviction of a man accused of setting the fire that killed his girlfriend 30 years ago.