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The U.S. and Europe have rolled out yet another round of economic sanctions against Russia, just as Russian forces have widened their attacks in their invasion’s third devastating week.
- President Biden on Friday called on Congress to join the E.U. in suspending normal trade relations with Russia, in the West’s latest move to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin. That revocation would end Russia’s “most favored nation” status, a World Trade Organization classification that exempts a country from tariffs. Biden also announced that the U.S. will ban imports of Russian seafood, vodka, and diamonds, denying Russia more than $1 billion in revenue.
- Russian forces expanded their offensive to western Ukraine for the first time on Friday, striking two airfields (including one just 70 miles from the border of Poland, a NATO member) and residential buildings. As Russia shifts its tactics, the stalled 40 mile-long military convoy outside Kyiv has largely dispersed into the woods, potentially regrouping for an imminent assault. The U.N. human rights office said that it had received “credible reports” of Russia using cluster bombs in populated areas, which could constitute war crimes.
- Today in Nuclear Nightmare Fuel, an NPR video analysis found that last week’s attack on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear plant in Europe, came closer to catastrophe than early assessments suggested. Russian forces recklessly fired heavy weapons straight toward reactor buildings, contrary to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) initial comments. Nuclear experts have also raised concerns about the employees held hostage at both Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl, who are completely exhausted and trapped in worsening conditions.
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On the information side of the war, the Biden administration has launched an unprecedented TikTok Content Offensive and Russian-Facebook tensions have escalated further.
- The White House on Thursday briefed 30 TikTok stars with large followings about the war in Ukraine, hoping to use influencers to combat disinformation on a platform where it’s been proliferating. (Among them, surreally, was Aaron Parnas, the son of Lev “Fraud Guarantee” Parnas, who helped Rudy Giuliani pressure Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on the Bidens.) Meanwhile, YouTube on Friday announced that it will now block access to Russian state-funded media channels worldwide, after blocking some of those channels in Europe last week.
- Meta has royally pissed off Russia by temporarily allowing users in some countries to post calls for violence against the Russian military, Putin, and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Posts like “death to the Russian invaders,” which would normally be prohibited, will be allowed to stay up. In response, Russia announced it will block access to Instagram (having already blocked Facebook), and Russian prosecutors have asked a court to designate Meta as an “extremist organization.” (Take it away, Clickhole.)
Economic sanctions have torpedoed the Russian economy, but have yet to show any sign of altering Putin’s senseless agenda. More than 2.5 million Ukrainains have fled the country since the invasion began, according to the U.N., and most military experts fear that Russian attacks will only continue escalating in the days ahead.
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Political Experts React is back! This week, host Dan Pfeiffer is joined by the founder of ASO Communications Anat Shenker-Osorio to break down political ads about education and critical race theory, and discuss what a strong democratic message on education might look like. Check out the video on Crooked Media’s YouTube channel and subscribe to never miss an episode.
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The Texas Supreme Court has effectively snuffed out abortion providers’-last best hope for stopping the state’s vigilante-enforced abortion law. The all-GOP court unanimously ruled that state medical-licensing officials have no authority to enforce the six-week ban. Back in December, the Supreme Court dismissed the bulk of the case brought by Texas abortion providers, allowing them to proceed only with the portion against those officials. Now that the Texas Supreme Court has closed off that path, abortion providers have no one left to sue in federal court, just as the unconstitutional law’s authors intended. Other challenges to the law, like state-court lawsuits against the anti-abortion groups likely to go ham on enforcement, are still pending, but Friday’s ruling means that the stunningly harmful ban will remain in effect for the foreseeable future. Here’s where you can help Texans access care, if you’re able.
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- A Texas judge has issued a statewide injunction temporarily halting investigations under Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) order that equated gender-affirming care for trans kids with child abuse. Texas had opened nine investigations as of Thursday. More than 60 companies, including Apple, Google, and Capital One, have urged Abbott to drop the policy.
- Fox News has run with the suggestion from the office of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) that liberal opponents to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill are pedophiles, delightfully mainstreaming the kind of QAnon conspiracy theories that inspire believers to show up at pizzerias with assault rifles.
- In other deranged right-wing moral panics, a Mississippi assistant principal was fired for reading a book called I Need A New Butt! to second-graders, the most appropriate-imaginable audience for butt-centric literature. Here’s the PEN America petition to protest his firing.
- A judge has rejected Donald Trump’s effort to countersue E. Jean Carroll over her defamation claims, ruling that Trump is engaged in a bad-faith effort to delay her case going to trial.
- The Biden administration has yet to appeal a federal judge’s ruling that would require it to deport unaccompanied minors seeking asylum under Title 42. The order is set to go into effect at midnight.
- Disney CEO Bob Chapek announced that the company will suspend all political donations in Florida, and apologized to employees for Disney’s shitty (lack of) response to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
- Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) now says that the Senate budget-reconciliation process shouldn’t be used to make a ton of big policy changes, after spending months “negotiating” a budget-reconciliation bill with a ton of big policy changes.
- Congress retained a GOP-backed ban on marijuana sales in Washington, DC, in Thursday’s government funding bill, a provision that’s stymied local leaders since DC voters passed a ballot measure to legalize weed in 2014. It’s another beautiful day to give DC statehood!
- ISIS has announced that its new leader is Abu al-Hassan al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, the brother of its slain former caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
- Democratic leaders have drafted a proposal that could overhaul the presidential nominating process and revoke Iowa’s first-primary privileges after the great Caucus Debacle of 2020.
- Grimes, who just had a secret baby with Elon Musk, is now reportedly dating Chelsea Manning??? We regret getting sucked into this haunted news cycle but it’s too late now, we’re in too deep, see you on Monday when Grimes gets married to a Boston Dynamics robot dog.
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The Postal Service-reform bill that Congress just passed includes language that would enable a postal-banking system, but Postmaster General Louis DeJoy would have to either take action or get canned. The bill gives USPS the authority to “provide property and nonpostal services” to federal-government agencies, as long as it raises for the Postal Service, apparently overriding part of a 2006 ban on non-postal products. That would allow USPS to start selling things like hunting and fishing licenses, or bus and subway passes, and potentially offer prepaid cards for federal benefits and federal credit programs in partnership with the Treasury Department. Post offices would become more useful, convenient hubs, the agency would pull in more revenue, everyone wins! Unfortunately, DeJoy would need to take the initiative to get those programs rolling, which might conflict with his larger project of destroying the USPS for profit.
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Mariana Vishegirskaya, one of the pregnant women photographed fleeing the bombed Mariupol maternity hospital, has given birth to a healthy baby girl, Veronika.
The EPA has unveiled a new rule aimed at combating smog pollution from power plants that drifts across state lines.
The Biden administration has restored California’s authority to set its own emissions rules for cars, reversing a Trump-era policy.
Public defenders are running for prosecutor in several states this year, in some cases in districts that haven’t seen a contested election in decades.
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