Crooked Media - What A Day: From Don to Mark

 -Devin Nunes, on Donald Trump’s scam app, Truth Social, which doesn’t work

Russia’s game plan as it retreats from more territory in Ukraine appears to be something like war crime, deny, repeat. The sliveriest of silver linings is that the concentration of hostilities means some Ukrainians can venture back out into the world.
 

• A Russian airstrike on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk killed at least 50 people, according to Ukrainian officials, most of whom they said were attempting to flee to safer areas in the western part of the country. The station was packed with thousands of people, officials said, and video footage near the strike suggests the death toll could climb. The Russian defense ministry, which must be getting bored by now, called the allegation that Russia conducted the strike “a provocation,” and blamed Ukraine. War crime, lie, repeat. 
   
• Meanwhile, with every day that passes, the atrocities in Bucha seem less like an exception and more like the rule. In Makariv, another town near Kyiv liberated almost three weeks ago by Ukrainian armed forces, Russian troops shot 132 civilians, and destroyed almost half the city with munitions, according to the town’s mayor.
   
• That’s a terrible omen for Mariupol and much of the east, where Russia has directed so much of its violences. If and when those places are liberated, warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russian forces will leave behind another Bucha “on almost every street.”

The flipside of these terrible scenes, and the fear of worse to come, is that some Ukrainians have been given a reprieve.
 

• After weeks of shelling, sheltering, and evacuations, Russian forces are in full retreat from the periphery of Kyiv, where life is somewhat miraculously getting back to normal. “In Kyiv this week, instead of seeking shelter in the subway, people are now riding it,” the New York Times reported Friday, “it is running on all lines, though not all of the stops are open.”
   
• The Times highlighted one family in particular that abruptly evacuated from Kyiv when the invasion began, not knowing if they would ever return, now safely back in their home. But the return of relative calm has had a global ripple effect. A delegation of senior European officials, including the Slovakian premier, traveled to Kyiv, and were able to meet with Zelensky—a show of support that hasn’t been possible for several weeks. 

Check out a brand new episode of X-Ray Vision! This week, Jason and Rosie are joined by the Daniels, the writer/director duo behind Everything Everywhere All at Once, to discuss the multiverse as a story tool to explore morality, the brilliance of Hong Kong cinema, how the film pulled off its incredible stunt work, and the importance of telling inter-generational Asian-American stories. Plus, Jason and Rosie discuss the news that Warner Bros. is hitting pause on upcoming projects with Ezra Miller, theorize about the latest Ms. Marvel and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness trailers, and recap episode two of Moon Knight. New episodes of X-Ray Vision Drop every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. 

Two days after the presidential election, before news networks declared Joe Biden the winner, Donald Trump, Jr., texted then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows encouraging him to use Republican “operational control” over the vote-counting and -certifying processes to steal the election, and, once seated in an illegitimate second term, to “Fire [FBI Director Chris] Wray; Fire Fauci," replace Wray with Trump stooge Ric Grenell interim and instruct Attorney General Bill Barr to "select Special prosecutor on HardDrivefromHell Biden crime family." On the one hand, it seems bad that the disgraced former president’s son plotted with the Republican leadership to block the peaceful transition of power and turn his father into a tyrannical king; on the other hand he didn’t conduct this business on a laptop that mysteriously found its way into the hands of political enemies who are famous for spreading disinformation, so it’s hard to see why Fox News or any Republican in good standing with the party should care.

• A jury has acquitted the men who plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) on two felony counts, and deadlocked on two others, bring new salience to the old #CrimingWhileWhite hashtag.
   
• The Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog ordered career officials to remove incriminating information from investigative reports detailing abusive sexual behavior and domestic violence by the department’s employees. That inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, got his job as part of a broader campaign by Donald Trump to install loyalists in offices with jurisdiction over his corruption, but congressional Democrats only glancingly investigated that scandal and the Biden administration didn’t fire the tainted IGs when it took over. 
   
• A huge chunk of elite Washington (53 people that we know of) apparently got COVID-19 at the seamy annual Gridiron dinner, which is obviously terrible and we wish everyone well, but is, in another sense, biblically correct.
   
• After acquitting an insurrectionist by pretending to believe the defendant didn’t know rioting in the Capitol was illegal, Trump-appointed judge Trevor McFadden has sentenced another insurrectionist who pleaded guilty to probation and restored her gun rights.
   
• Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg’s trying to pretend he didn’t cut the legs out from under a fruitful investigation of Donald Trump’s financial crimes. 
   
• In dark linings around silver clouds news: The heaviness of electric vehicles will leave drivers of lighter, internal combustion engine cars vulnerable through the transition to EVs and make bikers and pedestrians at higher risk indefinitely!
   
• U.S. natural gas prices have hit a 13 year high on account of rising coal costs, tight supplies, and global concerns about [gestures erratically].
   
• It takes a lot of effort to disentangle and refute all of the lies Republicans have spun about Hunter Biden and his laptop, but it is possible.
   
• The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has barred Will Smith from attending the Oscars for 10 years, but left him eligible for Academy Award nominations, all but guaranteeing more plot twists in this story await us for a decade to come.

Justice Department prosecutors asked a federal judge on Friday to grant pre-trial detention of the two men (Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali) whom they’ve charged with impersonating Department of Homeland Security officers, in what appears to be an elaborate, heavy-handed effort to infiltrate U.S. security services, including the Secret Service, for reasons that remain strangely unclear. The impersonators were, most disturbingly, able to compromise multiple Secret Service agents with elaborate gifts, and had stashed a huge cache of weapons at a Washington, DC, apartment complex where they held leases for numerous units. Four Secret Service agents have reportedly been placed on administrative leave, but no one seems to know, or be able to say, whether they knew the angle Taherzadeh and Ali were working, who financed their scheme, or how dark their motives were. 

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.  

BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video, phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist, so you don’t have to see anyone on camera if you don’t want to. It’s much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can start communicating with your therapist in under 48 hours.

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.

President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson celebrated her confirmation with an event on the White House South Lawn. She will be sworn in when Justice Stephen Breyer vacates his seat. 

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) is a real one. 

A three-judge appeals court panel has reinstated President Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal workers, overturning a lower-court Trump judge ruling that had blocked its enforcement.

You’ve gotta watch Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) take apart Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Smarm, Insurrection).