Crooked Media - What A Day: It takes 702 to tango

Well, folks, we’ve got updates on the war on Ukraine for you, so strap in for non-stop laughs. 
 

• The founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin (who is honestly kind of a loose cannon so take everything he says with a grain of salt) said on Friday that the much-prized city of Bakhmut was “unlikely to fall” to his forces in the next two days as fighting in the region rages on. Ukrainian soldiers remain sequestered in a makeshift fortress on the city’s south side. Nevertheless, the city remains in ruins from months of intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces, and it has earned the #problematic nickname the “meat grinder.” Yikes. Russia has been trying to capture the city (the key to the whole region) for months. 
   

• Meanwhile, Russian forces have been fortifying their defensive positions for weeks in and around a nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, another city in southern Ukraine, according to the plant’s security-camera footage. Russia dug new trenches around the city and laid more mines ahead of an expected counteroffensive. Putin’s troops have maintained firing positions on top of some of the plant’s buildings for several months now. The war obviously poses great risks to nuclear facilities in the country, and some industry experts say they are alarmed by the situation unfolding in Zaporizhzhia, and that any damage to the plant could have dire consequences for the region, its people, and the fate of the global nuclear industry writ large. Nuclear reactors, if you can believe it, were not designed to be at the center of war zones!
   

• In an expected “dictators gonna dictate” turn of events, the Kremlin has put Karim Khan—the International Criminal Court prosecutor who issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for “allegedly” overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children—on a “wanted” list in an act of retribution against the Hague. The order states that the Kremlin’s interior ministry seeks to detain Khan, who visited Ukraine four times before targeting Putin. Kyiv has accused Russia of abducting more than 16,000 children since the war began. 

Other Western democracies remain consistent and firm in their support for Ukraine. 
 

• At the Group of Seven summit on Friday in Japan, President Biden informed the group’s leaders that the United States will support a joint international effort to train Ukrainian pilots to fly modern fighter aircrafts, including F-16s. Training will require months to complete, but the development could lead to Western fighter jets eventually being sent to Ukraine. It’s still unclear when the jets will be delivered. According to a Pentagon official, the Defense Department is finalizing the details. Back in March, the DoD brought two Ukrainian pilots to Arizona to test their abilities to fly fighter jets, and initially said F-16s were not necessary. Many continue to worry that the West sending the fighter jets will further escalate the conflict.
   

• In Hiroshima, the G-7 leaders laid wreaths at the city’s peace memorial, a tribute to the atomic-bomb attack in World War II. The nations agreed on more sanctions against Russia, and demanded a complete withdrawal of its troops from Ukraine. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to join them later this weekend as he continues to appeal to Western nations for military assistance. The group later released a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to standing with Ukraine against Moscow’s “illegal, unjustifiable, and unprovoked,” aggression. 

Apart from the group, the United States pledged to tighten export controls, and the Treasury Department expanded its sanctions authorities to target larger swaths of the Russian economy. The State Department announced a new spate of sanctions as well, and the United Kingdom said it will ban the import of Russian diamonds. Someone tell the Royal Family that they will have to source their blood diamonds elsewhere!

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Listen to the Dreamtown trailer now and subscribe to hear the first episodes on June 7th wherever you get your podcasts.

Negotiations resumed on Friday between President Biden and enfant terrible/House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the debt ceiling, which, you guessed it, still has not been raised. McCarthy’s lead negotiator announced in the middle of the day that talks were on “pause” which sent financial markets spinning as the looming June 1 deadline (when the government will run out of money and we will default on our debt for no reason other than Republican idiocy) draws closer. Did the dramatic pause have anything to do with disgraced former president Trump taking to Truth Social and saying, (apologies in advance for assaulting your eyes with this) “REPUBLICANS SHOULD NOT MAKE A DEAL ON THE DEBT CEILING UNLESS THEY GET EVERYTHING THEY WANT (Including the “kitchen sink”). THAT’S THE WAY THE DEMOCRATS HAVE ALWAYS DEALT WITH US. DO NOT FOLD!!!”?? That’s ultimately for you to decide. A few hours later, McCarthy and a White House official confirmed that talks would resume Friday night, and will likely continue through the weekend. Meanwhile, to Biden’s left, progressive lawmakers renewed their calls for the president to invoke the 14th amendment to avoid default, but Biden has told progressive supporters it ain’t gonna happen. [deep sigh]

Taking a break from his busy podcasting schedule, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has decided to use the power of his office to call for an investigation into Bud Light for partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Muvaney for a sponsorship, on the grounds that the company was “marketing to children.” Absolute culture-war gobbledigook as far as the eye can see. 

The Supreme Court dismissed a case on Thursday brought by Republicans seeking to keep disgraced former president Trump’s immigration policy known as Title 42 in place. Title 42 essentially allowed authorities to rapidly expel hundreds of thousands of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.  

A new analysis shows that a bill proposing to clean up all of California’s on-shore drilling sites would cost three times as much as the industry’s profits in the state. Oil delivers great results for us yet again!

South Carolina’s state legislature is inching ever-closer to passing a full abortion ban, after a six-week ban passed the House on Wednesday. 

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the only Black Republican in the Senate, has made his 2024 Republican presidential primary campaign official. 

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was warmly welcomed at an Arab summit on Friday after having been disinvited from the meeting for years. I guess the rationale was, “Mohammed bin Salman is already here, so who are we trying to fool?”

According to a newly-unsealed court document, the FBI has repeatedly misused a powerful tool of digital surveillance, to the tune of more than 278,000 times. That’s…so many times. The tool in question is a vast database called “Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act” (pretty clunky name there, fellas) and it’s been used against crime victims, January 6 insurrectionists (we’re willing to forgive the FBI for that), people arrested at protests after the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, and in one mind-boggling case, 19,000 donors to one congressional candidate. The FBI is saying whoopsie-daisy, this was all a “misunderstanding” between its employees and DOJ lawyers about how to properly use the database, but these abject failures in the rollout may make it difficult for the Bureau to drum up support in Congress for the law’s renewal, which is due to expire at the end of the year. It’s just…not a good time to be the FBI right now! The Foreign Intelligence Service Court, which oversees the database and its namesake law, stated that if the Bureau doesn’t perform better and iron out these massive issues, it will crack down and order modifications to FBI practices. The database is the crown jewel of the post-9/11 national security apparatus, but civil-rights advocates have long argued (rightly!) that the government cannot be trusted to use the system properly.

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Fulton County, GA, District Attorney Fani Willis indicated that her office will announce charges in its investigation of Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election in the last week of July. 

A federal judge blocked a partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue at airports in New York and Boston, writing on Friday that the deal would hurt competition and raise fares for customers. This is a big win for Biden’s DOJ, who has sought to enforce antitrust laws with great vigor over the past two years. 

Nebraska state-Sen. Megan Hunt (D-NE) excoriated her Republican colleague Lou Ann Linehan who complained about missing her grandson’s preschool graduation (get a life, Lou Ann) because Democrats had filibustered and “prolonged” debates about a grotesque bill that both restricts abortion and trans healthcare for minors. Hunt has a transgender son and did not mince words, saying, “you won’t come off this bill that hurts my son. You hate him more than you love your own family. And that’s why you’re here.” Get her ass, Megan!