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The Russian government may be terrorizing Ukrainian civilians, inching closer to NATO territory, and soliciting military support from China, but at least it also has America’s biggest bow-tie-wearing clown helping it sell the invasion to Russian citizens!
- Russian forces have continued to bombard Ukrainian cities relentlessly, striking residential buildings in Kyiv and Kharkiv on Monday. A convoy of at least 160 cars finally managed to leave Mariupol, but trucks carrying relief for the 400,000 civilians trapped there remained stuck 40 miles outside the city. One of the pregnant women photographed fleeing Mariupol’s bombed maternity hospital has died, along with her baby.
- In an alarming escalation on Sunday, Russia launched a missile strike on a Ukrainian military facility just 15 miles from the Polish border, killing at least 35 people and wounding 134 others. That marked the closest attack so far to a NATO member country, and came a day after Russia warned that it would view Western deliveries of arms to Ukraine as “legitimate targets.” Much of the military aid from the West passes through Poland into western Ukraine, and Russia asserted that the targeted facility was a storage base for that equipment.
- In other ominous developments, unnamed U.S. officials told reporters that Russia had asked China to provide military assistance and economic support, and told allies that China had conveyed willingness to entertain the request. Both Russia and China have denied those reports. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday that there will “absolutely be consequences” for China if it helps Russia evade Western sanctions, and on Monday spent at least seven hours in talks with China’s top diplomat in Rome.
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Further peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have paused without a breakthrough, though Ukrainian officials have hinted at possible progress.
- Ahead of Monday’s talks, a member of the Ukrainian delegation said that Russia was “starting to talk constructively” and that “some concrete results” might be in reach within a few days. (Seems unlikely, given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s whole deal, but hope is hope!) Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will deliver a virtual address to Congress on Wednesday, giving Republican lawmakers one more chance to restrain themselves from tweeting life-endangering screenshots.
- The GOP and its main propaganda network continue to do themselves proud: A leaked Kremlin memo from March 3 directed Russian media outlets to “use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson,” since he so helpfully blamed the U.S. and NATO for Putin’s war. While Carlson later tried to walk back his worst Ukraine takes, he’s since picked up the QAnon conspiracy theory about secret Ukrainian bioweapon labs funded by the U.S., broadcasting false claims that Russian and Chinese officials have also happily promoted, all in service of justifying the invasion.
It should be a scandal for Fox News that its hosts have bolstered Putin’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine, and for the whole GOP that it hasn’t shunned the disgraced former president who tried to withhold military aid to Ukraine and hailed Putin as a “genius.” Americans are overwhelmingly united against Putin’s aggression, but a latently pro-Putin party is just an election away from regaining power.
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Take Action Today: Protect Trans Youth
Lawmakers have introduced and advanced anti-trans bills in state legislatures across the country – putting 2022 on track to be another horrific, record-setting year for attacks on trans rights, especially trans youth rights.
ACLU lawyers and advocates are monitoring and fighting back against these gratuitous attacks – but we need supporters like you to join the fight as well. Sign our petition today to protect trans youth.
Here's where some of the most critical threats are unfolding:
- Texas: Governor Greg Abbott’s recent directive that providing lifesaving care should be considered child abuse and parents should be prosecuted blatantly violates the rights of trans youth and their parents. And despite a Texas judge granting relief for parents seeking medically necessary treatment for their trans kids, the state of Texas is doubling down and has already appealed.
- South Dakota: South Dakota passed the first anti-trans bill of 2022, SB 46. This bill bans transgender girls from being able to play on sports teams that affirm their gender.
- Arizona: Multiple anti-trans bills have been pushed in Arizona, including: SB 1165, which excludes trans girls from participating in sports at the grade school, high school, or collegiate level.
- Indiana: Lawmakers in Indiana are trying to push trans students out of school sports in the state with bill HB 1041.
- Alabama: Alabama’s criminal medical ban (SB 184/HB 266) passed the Senate and is awaiting a committee hearing in the House. The state is also considering HB 322, which would bar all trans youth from using public school restrooms that align with the gender they live as.
These bills represent a nationwide, coordinated campaign to push trans people out of public life. To be clear, these bills will not stop youth from being trans. They only make it harder to access the support, education, and community that all young people need. It's a cruel and needless assault on the health and safety of kids just trying to grow up – and that's why the ACLU is pushing back relentlessly. Will you join us?
With strength,
The ACLU Team
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Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has almost certainly doomed Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination to the Federal Reserve Board. Manchin said Monday that he couldn’t support her because of her stance on climate-change and energy policy: “Her previous public statements have failed to satisfactorily address my concerns about the critical importance of financing an all-of-the-above energy policy to meet our nation’s critical energy needs.” Raskin has focused on the economic risks connected to climate change, and called for the Fed to change the way it regulates energy producers. Fossil-fuel companies aren’t wild about that, and have made generous donations to 12 Senate Republicans who boycotted a committee vote on Raskin’s nomination (holding up four other Fed nominees in the process). Guess who else rakes in fossil-fuel donations, and profits personally from his family’s West Virginia coal company? The White House said Monday that it would press ahead with Raskin’s nomination, but she would need at least one GOP vote. Despite her two previous bipartisan Senate confirmations, it’s not at all likely she’ll have one.
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- Idaho has become the first state to pass a Texas-style six-week abortion ban, to be enforced by private citizens. Gov. Brad Little (R-ID) hasn’t commented on the copycat bill, but has previously signed another six-week abortion ban.
- Ginni Thomas, the right-wing activist wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, admitted that she attended the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally but claims she left before Donald Trump’s speech because she got cold (more like in-brrr-ection) (don't unsubscribe), and denied reports that she had a role in organizing the event.
- Texas ultimately rejected at least 16,800 mail ballots in this month’s primaries, tossing out about 15 percent of all mail ballots returned across 14 counties, thanks to Republicans’ new voter-suppression law.
- The Democratic super PAC American bridge has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Trump of spending political funds on a 2024 presidential bid without formally declaring his candidacy.
- Marina Ovsyannikova, an employee of a Russian state-run TV channel, stormed a live broadcast of Russia’s most-watched news show yelling “stop the war!” and holding a sign that said “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you.” Ovsyannikova was detained by police after her protest, which quickly went viral online in Russia.
- American documentary filmmaker Brent Renaud was killed in Ukraine on Sunday when Russian forces opened fire on his vehicle outside Kyiv.
- Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall has been hospitalized after he was injured while reporting near Kyiv on Monday.
- Squatters on Monday occupied a London mansion that reportedly belongs to a sanctioned Russian oligarch, declaring that it now “belongs to Ukrainian refugees.”
- Former president Barack Obama tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday, but said that he felt fine aside from a scratchy throat, thanks to being vaxxed and boosted.
- Pete Davidson will board the next phallic flight of the Jeff Bezos Not-Quite-Space Express, to study the effects of not-quite-space on a different type of rich white guy.
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The Omicron variant has fueled China’s worst COVID outbreaks since the virus first emerged in Wuhan, which, while teensy by American standards (U-S-A!), have prompted strict new lockdowns as authorities try to maintain their “zero-COVID” strategy. China reported 2,125 new cases across the country on Monday, and officials have placed the 17.5 million residents of Shenzhen into lockdown for at least a week after the city reported just 150 new cases over the weekend. (Shenzhen is a major manufacturing hub, and the new lockdown could mean more supply chain complications ahead.) Authorities in the province of Jilin have barred its 24 million residents from leaving, the first provincial lockdown in China since January 2020, and cities across the country have shut down nonessential businesses and restricted travel. The limitations of a zero-COVID policy against Omicron have already become evident in Hong Kong, which has recorded the highest daily death toll in the world in recent days, in large part because much of its vulnerable population is unvaccinated.
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The Colorado House has passed a bill that would make the right to an abortion part of state law.
A Los Angeles hospital has donated 200 boxes of medical supplies to aid Ukrainians.
The DNC hauled in more than $14.4 million in February, marking the best February in DNC history.
A team of entomologists has found a way to lure horny murder hornets to their doom with murder-hornet sex pheromones.
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