Crooked Media - What A Day: Breaking the gas ceiling

 -The pilots and flight attendants in Ted Cruz's fantasies

The U.S. and Europe have moved to ban or phase out imports of Russian energy supplies, stemming the flow of Western money into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war chest and setting the stage for the worst-faith GOP attacks you’ve ever seen. 
 

• President Biden announced Tuesday that his administration was banning all imports of oil and natural gas from Russia, effective immediately. “That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at U.S. ports and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin's war machine,” Biden said at the White House. The House prepared to vote on a new sanctions package that includes a ban on Russian oil (though Biden doesn’t need it to move forward), and Congress could finalize a nearly $14 billion aid package for Ukraine as soon as this week.
   
• Biden warned Americans that the ban would inevitably drive gas prices upward, pointedly calling the spike “Putin’s price hike.” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already caused the price of oil to skyrocket—the average price of gas in the U.S. hit $4.17 per gallon on Tuesday, a new record high. The same Republicans who demanded a Russian oil ban have simultaneously begun teeing up political attacks about the resulting gas prices, while declining to criticize their de facto leader for praising Putin, the lone maniac at fault, as a “genius.” What A Midterms!
   
• The U.S. will be acting alone in its full, immediate ban. The U.K. announced that it will phase out the import of Russian oil by the end of 2022, and the European Union presented a plan to cut its dependence on Russian natural gas by two-thirds this year. There’s a pretty inarguable moral imperative behind those steps: A new analysis from the Transport & Environment (T&E) think tank found that oil payments from European countries have bolstered Putin’s war effort by another $285 million every day.

Meanwhile, another set of major American corporations pulled out of Russia, and Poland livened things up with a rarely advisable War Surprise. 
 

• The Polish government on Tuesday announced that it was prepared to transfer its 28 MiG-29 fighter planes to the U.S. military, so that the U.S. could then provide them to Ukrainian pilots. Poland evidently didn’t give U.S. officials a heads up before making its announcement: “I saw that announcement by the government of Poland as I was literally driving here today,” Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “To my knowledge, it wasn't pre-consulted with us that they planned to give these planes to us.” Officials and legal experts weren’t immediately sure about whether the U.S. would be able to legally accept the planes and retransfer them to Ukraine.
   
• McDonald’s, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and General Electric all announced on Tuesday that they will temporarily suspend their operations in Russia, under mounting pressure on social media. Russia’s invasion has now driven more than two-million people out of Ukraine—half of them children, according to UNICEF. Many more civilians remained trapped in worsening conditions as Russian forces shelled evacuation routes. Up to 4,000 Russian soldiers may have been killed in the first two weeks of Putin’s war, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told House lawmakers on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky applauded Biden’s leadership in “striking in the heart of Putin's war machine” with his ban on Russian oil imports, and urged other world leaders to follow suit. Americans may not be able to avoid the costs of Putin’s aggression, but there’s no rule requiring anyone to take Republicans seriously when they try to pin the blame on Biden. 

Check out the latest episode of Offline! Kara Swisher joins Jon this week for a conversation about the ongoing war in Ukraine, how it marks the first true conflict of the internet age, and what makes Zelensky a compelling online hero. New episodes of Offline with Jon Favreau drop every Sunday wherever you get your podcasts.

The Florida Department of Health will recommend against vaccinating healthy kids against COVID, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced on Monday, taking the Ron DeSantis Pro-COVID Platform™ to impressive new lows. The new policy directly contradicts the CDC’s guidance, obviously, and health experts were aghast at the announcement. “This is the most heinous policy that I've experienced in my career, 40 plus years,” said Dr. Jeffrey Goldhagen, a pediatrics professor at the University of Florida in Jacksonville. About two-million cases of COVID have been reported in children ages five to 11, according to the CDC; more than 70,000 people in Florida have died, and more than 40 of those deaths were kids under the age of 18. During his confirmation hearing in January, Ladapo repeatedly refused to answer forthrightly whether he believed COVID vaccines were effective, raising fears of exactly this kind of dangerous anti-vax leadership.

• The Florida Senate has passed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, sending it to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for his signature. 
   
• The Idaho House has passed a bill that would make it a felony to provide gender-affirming care to minors, punishable by up to life in prison. 
   
• Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio has been charged with conspiracy in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. “Tarrio and his co-defendants...conspired to corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede an official proceeding, the certification of the Electoral College vote,” the Justice Department announced in a Tuesday statement. 
   
• The Amazon rainforest is nearing a critical “tipping point” at which most of the ecosystem could suddenly and irreversibly become savanna, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
   
• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has announced hearings on a plan to lower prescription-drug costs, as President Biden’s zombie Build Back Better agenda begins its rise from the dead. 
   
• Minneapolis teachers went on strike on Tuesday, seeking higher wages, caps on class sizes, and mental-health support for students. The strike will pause classes for about 30,000 public-school students.
   
• State Sen. Wendy Rogers (R-AZ), who has courted extremists and spoke at the white nationalist conference organized by Nick Fuentes, raised nearly $2.5 million in 2021, mostly from out-of-state donors. 
   
• Trinity Broadcasting Network, one of the world’s largest Christian broadcasters, will get into the news game (sorry, “news” game) with a show headed by Fox News alums. 
   
• In other exciting career shifts, former Fox News director Jack Hanick could go to prison for years for starting a new Kremlin propaganda network with a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
   
• A famous volcanic rock in Japan that was said to have contained an evil demon split in half over the weekend. Just a heads up in case any bad stuff starts happening for the first time in recent memory.

Between some critical recruiting failures and the new GOP agenda from hell—thanks Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL)!—Republicans may be bungling themselves right out of a Senate majority. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was unable to convince the most viable Republicans to run for Senate in Maryland, New Hampshire, and Arizona, and GOP candidates have struggled with weak fundraising in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. McConnell’s infighting with Scott over his brilliant plan to raise taxes on millions of seniors and low-income Americans hasn’t helped matters: Democrats have quickly incorporated the plan into fundraising appeals and nationwide campaign ads. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) kept the rake-stepping party going this week, saying that he’d still like Republicans to repeal Obamacare, stripping health care from millions of Americans, if they regain power. Democrats will still have an uphill fight to hold onto their fragile Senate majority, but the Republicans in Disarray could help them get there.

Relationships take work. A lot of us will drop anything to  go help someone we care about. We’ll go out of our way  to treat other people well, but how often do we give ourselves the same treatment? 

This month, BetterHelp online therapy wants to remind you to take care of your most important relationship– the one you have with yourself. Whether it’s hitting the gym, making time for your haircut, or even trying therapy, you are your greatest asset, so invest the time and effort into yourself like you do for other  people.  

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Give it a try and see why over 2 million people have used BetterHelp online therapy. This newsletter is sponsored by BetterHelp, and What A Day readers get 10% off their first  month  BetterHelp.com/crooked.

Congress has given final approval to the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, which will make lynching a federal hate crime after only 200 other attempts. 

Congress has also passed a Postal Service reform bill that will help alleviate the agency's financial woes and ensure six-day-a-week mail delivery.

The Smithsonian will return its collection of Benin bronzes to Nigeria, from whence they were looted. 

Happy International Women’s Day, a beautiful day to tell a transphobe to shut the heck up.