Crooked Media - What A Day: A bushel and OPEC

- Former Speaker of the House and guy who knows a thing or two about being a faux-pious philandering slimeball, Newt Gingrich, on his deep confidence in Georgia GOP senate candidate Herschel Walker

New developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine are tipping in Ukraine’s favor, but the Kremlin is doing everything in its power to tell a different story. 
 

• Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the illegal annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian regions into law. The new law incorporates around 18 percent of Ukraine’s territory into Russia. To put it in perspective, it’s Europe’s biggest land annexation since World War II. Not great! But as we covered last week, Russia doesn’t even really know where the new borders will be, and can’t seemingly maintain military control of the territory. In a new positive development, a brigade of Ukrainian marines appears to have expelled Russian forces from a town in the south of the country as of yesterday, yet another sign of the continuing success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive.  
   

• President Biden announced plans yesterday to provide an additional $625 million in military aid to Ukraine. The package includes additional advanced rocket systems which have been credited with helping the Ukrainian military gain momentum in the war with Russia. The White House said in a statement that “President Biden also affirmed the continued readiness of the United States to impose severe costs on any individual, entity, or country that provides support to Russia’s purported annexation.” In the East, Belarus’ opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (have you ever seen so many vowels???) said today that she believes Russian military setbacks in Ukraine could shake the hold on power of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a staunch Putin ally. Tsikhanouskaya fled to Lithuania in August 2020 after a disputed election in which Lukashenko claimed a victory the West viewed as fraudulent. 
   

• Russia has devised yet another way to spread disinformation about its invasion of Ukraine, using digital workarounds that allow its war propaganda videos to evade restrictions imposed by international governments and tech companies. Russian state-controlled media accounts have used these new methods to spread dozens of videos in 18 different languages, all without exposing any seams that would reveal their source. The English-language videos are now circulating on Twitter and of course far-right U.S. hubs like Gab and Truth Social. These videos spread conspiracy theories from the Kremlin blaming Ukraine for civilian casualties and claiming that residents of the four areas forcibly annexed by Russia welcomed the occupation. 

As the war rages on, the impacts are being acutely felt across Europe, where millions face a gas crisis that could make for a devastating winter.
 

• European Union countries agreed today to impose a price cap on Russian oil along with other new sanctions as a response to the illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory and president Putin’s repeated threats of nuclear force. The deal was struck in Brussels, and includes curbs on E.U. exports of aircraft components to Russia and limits on the country’s steel imports. The bloc will impose a ban on transporting Russian oil by sea to other countries above the price cap and are aiming for a December 5 deadline, when an E.U. embargo on most Russian oil will take effect. The price for the cap has yet to be set. 
   

• Europe may face an even more severe energy crisis next year after it will invariably drain its natural gas reserves to get through a characteristically cold winter. European countries have filled storage tanks to around 90 percent capacity after Russia cut gas supplies. Europe has historically relied on Russia for around 40 percent of its natural gas, and the worst months of winter are expected to drain about three-quarters of their reserves by March. There’s no telling how long this war will endure, or how many winters Europe will have to suffer through on a limited natural gas supply. Germany has pledged to offset the cost by subsidizing power bills next year, but all of Europe is bracing themselves for a level of pain. 

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OPEC has announced a significant cut in output in order to raise oil prices, rebuffing the Biden administration’s pressure campaign to dissuade putative Middle Eastern allies from drastically cutting oil production. OPEC representatives in Vienna agreed to an even larger oil-production cut than the White House had feared, to the tune of two-million barrels per day beginning in November. This drastic cut amplifies geopolitical tensions in a time that’s already pretty friggin’ tense! The Biden Administration bent over backwards to try to convince Saudi Arabia to produce more oil to compensate for the global shortage caused by turning off Russia’s spigot, but Saudi Arabia rejected those requests, leaving the White House uncertain of next steps. By sheer coincidence, Saudi Arabia is also a huge investor in Jared Kushner and wants Donald Trump to be president again. Russia (also fond of Trump!) will directly benefit from this cut, as lower production will drive up prices and bring in cash to finance their war on Ukraine. The White House released a statement that it will consult with Congress on additional mechanisms “to reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices.” Hands tied, the Biden administration is preparing to reduce sanctions on Venezuela in order to allow Chevron to resume pumping oil there. Either way it seems, the United States is put in a position of falling at the feet of murderous dictators for oil, and maybe that repeated exercise in humiliation will finally push us over the edge to invest in energy alternatives.

A federal appeals court (the lawless, right-wing Fifth Circuit, specifically) ruled today that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program violated United States immigration law, a major blow to the program that provides deportation protection and work permits to nearly 600,000 adult children of immigrants who lack legal status. Despite the ruling, a previous judge’s order to leave the program intact for current beneficiaries was upheld, and the appeals court did not order the Biden administration to shut the program down. 

Thousands of people in Somalia have died due to an extreme and prolonged drought there. The United Nations says some half a million children are at risk of death from malnutrition. 

The family of a cinematographer shot and killed by Alec Baldwin in a tragic accident on the set of the film “Rust” has agreed to settle a lawsuit against the actor and movie producers.

President Biden traveled to Florida today to view the damage caused by Hurricane Ian and meet with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). 

The damage left in Hurricane Ian’s wake is still fresh, and researchers say that the resulting contamination in the water supply could damage aquatic ecosystems for months or longer, and pose an immediate threat to the health of Floridians. 

Lawyers for the Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes plan to argue that jurors cannot find him guilty of seditious conspiracy because all of the actions he took on January 6 were “in preparation for orders he anticipated from the then-president,” which never came. Okay! Good luck with that!

An appeals court granted a Justice Department motion to expedite its appeal in the special master case involving documents seized in the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, a blow to disgraced former president Donald Trump.

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Elections matter. And the elections this November could affect the course of our country and our democracy for decades to come.

But, attacks on voting rights continue to escalate and, as has long been true, Black Americans are the main target. We’re seeing everything from racially-motivated block-the-vote efforts to so-called “election integrity group” volunteers (many of them armed) confronting people in their home demanding that voters tell them how they voted in the last election. 

The ACLU is doing everything in our power to protect free, fair, and robust elections. We’re acting swiftly and decisively to push back against voter suppression and expand voter participation. But, we need you with us.
 

Join the ACLU to help us fight to protect voting rights and expand voter participation.

Threats to our democracy must be met with a vigorous defense of the right to vote and our other fundamental freedoms. That’s exactly where the ACLU’s resources are focused right now. We’re going all-in to:

• ✅ Pursue legal challenges to sweeping voter suppression laws.

• ✅ Engage in Secretary of State races and judicial elections in key states helping voters assess which candidates are likely to preserve, protect, and expand civil rights and civil liberties.

• ✅ Ramp up our far-reaching mobilization efforts to encourage robust voter participation in the 2022 and 2024 elections and beyond.

Become an ACLU member today to stay up to date on the fight for free and fair elections. Join today.

Thanks for your support,

The ACLU Team

New scientific research published yesterday found that enzymes found in the saliva of wax worms can degrade one of the most common forms of plastic waste. Gross! But good news nonetheless. 

A new type of manmade coral reef has been deployed off the coast of Antigua and Barbuda in the hopes of restoring the ocean ecosystem there and reversing some of the effects of climate change, which has killed almost all of the islands’ coral reefs. 

A new Cook Political report shows 10 House race rating changes with 7 in favor of Democrats. 

This year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to three scientists for work in a field known as “click” chemistry, which allows molecular building blocks to be snapped together and create complex molecules, which could have huge implications for the future of medicine and pharmaceuticals. I won’t pretend to understand any of that, but it sounds important!