The Conversation -- March 1, 2024

Aamer Madhani, et al., of the AP: "The U.S. will begin airdropping humanitarian assistance into Gaza, President Joe Biden said Friday, a day after more than 100 Palestinians were killed during a chaotic encounter with Israeli troops. The president announced the move after at least 115 Palestinians were killed and more than 750 others were injured, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, on Thursday when witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire as huge crowds raced to pull goods off an aid convoy. Biden said the airdrops would begin soon and that the United States was looking into additional ways to facilitate getting badly needed aid into the war-battered territory to ease the suffering of Palestinians."

Can, Kicked. Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A federal judge in Florida held a hearing on Friday to consider a new date for ... Donald J. Trump's trial on charges of mishandling classified documents, but made no immediate decision about a choice that could have major consequences for his legal and political future.... Several decisions Judge [Aileen] Cannon has reached in recent months about the pacing of the case have made it all but impossible for the trial to start in May[, as originally scheduled].... Judge Cannon's decision about whether to go with a July date, an August date or something later in the documents case could have an effect on the timing of the election case, as well. Mr. Trump attended the hearing on Friday."

Rachel Weiner & Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a sentencing enhancement used against Jan. 6 defendants charged with felony obstruction, a decision that means that over 100 convicted rioters may have to be resentenced. The decision came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday when it upheld the felony conviction of a Jan. 6 defendant who stormed the U.S. Capitol, reaffirming a charge also lodged against ... Donald Trump that will soon be debated by the Supreme Court. It's not clear what benefit retired Air Force lieutenant colonel Larry R. Brock Jr. or any other Jan. 6 defendant will receive because of the ruling. Enhancements raise the range of suggested sentences judges must consider. D.C. judges usually sentence below those guidelines, and regularly make clear that their punishments would be the same without the enhancement. The ruling could have an impact in plea negotiations, eliminating one bargaining chip used by prosecutors when encouraging defendants to plead guilty without a trial. If the Supreme Court reverses or pares back the use of the obstruction charge, all of those cases would have to be reconsidered anew."

** The Great Putin Puppet Show. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "... the House Republicans' year-long attempt to impeach [President] Biden, it now seems clear, was based on a Russian disinformation campaign -- and House Republicans went along with it, either as useful idiots or knowing accomplices. The Republicans' star witness, Alexander Smirnov, has been indicted by a special counsel for fabricating the claim that Joe Biden received a $5 million bribe. He was apparently doing the bidding of Russian intelligence.... Before that, the Republican sleuths' other key witness, Gal Luft, went missing. It turned out he had been charged in a sealed indictment with arms trafficking and illegal lobbying work -- for China. He remains on the lam. Republicans have also relied on the accounts of one of Hunter Biden's former business partners, who was sentenced to prison for defrauding a Native American tribe, and of a convicted fraudster House investigators went to visit last week at a prison in Alabama.... They have produced nothing that shows Joe Biden was involved in any way in the businesses of his son.

"Now, House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) and his House Republicans, some of them citing Russia's talking points, are blocking funds for Ukraine's war effort that the Senate passed overwhelmingly. Are they unwitting tools of Moscow? Or willing conduits? At the very least, they don't seem to care that they are serving as Vladimir Putin's pawns." Read on.

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Zolan Kanno-Youngs, et al., of the New York Times: "President Biden and ... Donald J. Trump made dueling visits to the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday, with Mr. Biden challenging his predecessor to 'join me' in securing the country's southern frontier and Mr. Trump blaming the president for lawlessness at the border.... The president called on his predecessor to help pass a bipartisan bill in Congress that would significantly crack down on border crossings. Republicans, at Mr. Trump's urging, torpedoed the bill -- legislation that they themselves had demanded.... 'You know and I know it's the toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill this country has ever seen,' [Mr. Biden] said. 'Instead of playing politics with the issue, why don't we just get together and get it done.'... In Eagle Pass, which has become a common backdrop for politicians who want to show they are tough on immigration, Mr. Trump stood near a makeshift wall of razor wire and used the language of war to describe the border crisis. 'It's a military operation,' he said after touring Shelby Park, where Gov. Greg Abbott has sent the Texas National Guard to police the border. Mr. Trump said that the migrants 'look like warriors to me,' adding that 'something's going on. It's bad.' He also highlighted crimes committed by migrants in an attempt to portray Mr. Biden as plunging the nation into crime and disorder." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is one crappy piece of reporting, although perhaps it should get some award for both-siderism. It should have been titled something like, "Statesman-Diplotmat v. Lying Demagogue." Instead, when it wasn't horse-race commentary, it was he-said/he-said. ~~~

~~~ And in a Similar (if More Reality-Based) Vein... Yasmeen Abutaleb & Marianne LeVine of the Washington Post: "President Biden and ... Donald Trump visited separate Texas border towns 300 miles apart on Thursday, blaming each other for a surge in illegal immigration and seeking to take the offensive on an issue that is shaping up to be a critical and volatile factor in this year's presidential contest. Biden used his visit to Brownsville, a Democratic stronghold, to blame Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, for killing a bipartisan border bill that would have provided $20 billion to hire thousands of new Border Patrol agents and asylum officers and increase detention capacity.... About 300 miles away in Eagle Pass, Trump renewed his embrace of a tough-on-immigration message that was central to his political rise in 2016 and that he has made a centerpiece of his third presidential campaign. 'This is a Joe Biden invasion, this is a Biden invasion,' the former president said of the influx of illegal migrants. 'The United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime,' Trump added.... Experts say most of the evidence suggests that undocumented immigrants do not cause more crime." ~~~

~~~ Politico has a horse-race story that -- unlike the Times & WashPo -- does not bother to fact-check Trump's false claims about "migrant crime."

~~~ The New York Times liveblogged the Biden & Trump trips to the U.S.-Mexico border. (Also linked yesterday.) Related story linked below under "Texas." ~~~

~~~ Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "... the dueling border events were about something even more fundamental than immigration policy. They spoke to the competing visions of power and presidency that are at stake in 2024 -- of autocracy and the value of democracy itself.... Their disparate answers [to the border problem] represent a test of the American appetite for the systemic messiness of democracy: [President] Biden's intrinsic and institutional belief in legislating versus the 'Day 1' promises of dictatorial enactment under Mr. Trump.... In a surprise flourish toward the end of his remarks, the president offered an olive branch to Mr. Trump himself. 'Join me,' Mr. Biden urged, in calling on the two of them to work together to get the legislation passed. 'Or I'll join you.'... After passing razor wire and military Humvees, and after shaking hands with Texas National Guard members in fatigues, Mr. Trump cast himself as a battle-tested leader ready to fend off an 'invasion' by hordes of 'fighting-age men' who look like 'warriors.' 'This is like a war,' Mr. Trump said, expressing a willingness to use something akin to wartime powers."

Olympia Sonnier & Garrett Haake of NBC News: "When Donald Trump speaks at the southern border in Texas on Thursday, you can expect to hear him talk about 'migrant crime,' a category he has coined and defined as a terrifying binge of criminal activity committed by undocumented immigrants spreading across the country.... But despite the former president's campaign rhetoric, expert analysis and available data from major-city police departments show that despite several horrifying high-profile incidents, there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the United States." Read on. The reporters cite numerous stats that defy Trump's scare tactics/campaign lies. (Also linked yesterday.) MB Update: Yeah, Trump did talk about "migrant crime." Only he called it "Biden migrant crime."

Congress Makes Down Payment on Light Bill. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Congress passed its latest short-term stopgap spending patch on Thursday to head off a partial government shutdown at the end of the week, giving lawmakers more time to resolve funding disputes that have persisted for months. The measure, approved first by the House and hours later by the Senate, would extend funding for half of the government for one week, through March 8, and the rest for three weeks, until March 22. President Biden is expected to quickly sign it, averting a lapse in federal funding for several agencies that otherwise would begin at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday. It passed in the House by a vote of 320 to 99, with Democrats providing the bulk of the votes and Republicans roughly split. In the Senate, lawmakers approved the measure in a lopsided 77-to-13 vote.... Congressional leaders cleared the way for the legislation on Wednesday when they said they had come to an agreement on six of the 12 annual spending bills, and planned to finalize the details, debate the package and clear it to be signed into law by March 8. If they fail to do so, they will again face the threat of a partial shutdown next week." CNN's report is here.

Remembering Mitch. Robert Reich on Substack: Mitch McConnell has "been a truly awful public official. McConnell has always put party above America. Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president?... Despite his opposition to Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election -- admitting publicly that Trump 'provoked' the attack on the U.S. Capitol -- McConnell voted to acquit Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021.... This is the man who refused for almost a year to allow the Senate to consider President Obama's moderate Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland. Then, when Trump became president, this is the man who got rid of the age-old Senate rule requiring 60 senators to agree on a Supreme Court nomination so he could ram through not one but two Supreme Court justices, including one with a likely history of sexual assault. This is the man who rushed through the Senate, without a single hearing, a $2 trillion tax cut for big corporations and wealthy Americans -- a tax cut that raised the government debt by almost the same amount, generated no new investment, and failed to raise wages, but gave the stock market a temporary sugar high because most corporations used the tax savings to buy back their own shares of stock." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Carl Hulse of the New York Times writes an "end of an era" piece on Mitch McConnell. The gist of the story is not particularly flattering, but Nancy Pelosi, speaking to Chris Hayes last night, noted that when the first and only woman to hold the Speaker's job stepped down, there weren't any "end of an era" hagiographies splashed across the front pages of major media outlets. MB: What's odd about this is that Pelosi & Mitch managed their respective chambers in much the same way: they kept their heads down and quietly counted cats. You can see where a flame-throwing jerk like Newt Gingrich would get a lot more attention than an all-business leader, but Mitch & Nancy, for all their differences, had similar leadership styles. So I ask you, what could possibly explain the difference in their media coverage?

I never worked for a country. I am not Jared Kushner. -- Hunter Biden, during sworn testimony before House Committees ~~~

~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: During "Hunter Biden's appearance in front of investigators and members of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees..., Republican legislators and interviewers challenging the president's son ... would throw out an allegation, often one that's been worn smooth after tumbling around in the right-wing media universe for the past year or two. And Biden would invariably swat it away, stripping off the layers of innuendo that had been applied by Donald Trump and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) or Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) or any of myriad Fox News commentators.... Over and over, interlocutors presented Hunter Biden with the sorts of suspicious-sounding tidbits that have been the crux of the Republican argument for months. And, over and over, he offered credible responses.... At no point was a question left unanswered...." Politico has a story here. The AP has takeaways here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If you've got lots of time, you can read the transcript here, via the House.

The Trials of Trump

Alan Feuer & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "In a filing to the judge [Aileen Cannon] overseeing the [purloined classified documents] case, [Trump lawyers] repeated their complaints that Mr. Trump could not be tried fairly until the election was concluded, but then proposed a new date for the trial of Aug. 12, almost three months before Election Day and just weeks after the Republican convention to choose a party nominee.... Prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, also sent a letter on Thursday evening to Judge Cannon proposing a new date for the trial: July 8.... It was not immediately clear what led to the sudden change of heart -- or to the selection of Aug. 12 -- especially given that the lawyers spent much of their filing to the judge... claiming that the law, the Constitution and the Justice Department's own policy manual frowned on the idea of taking 'the presumptive Republican nominee' to trial at the height of his campaign for the White House. One possibility was that the lawyers, by proposing to spend much of late summer and early fall in court on the classified documents case, were seeking to prevent the former president's other federal trial -- on charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election -- from being held before voters make their choice." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, it's "immediately clear" to me. I'll elaborate on my latest conspiracy theory later in the day.

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied. Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court's decision to hear Donald Trump's audacious claim of presidential immunity from prosecution ... all but guarantees one of two terrible outcomes. Either the forme president's trial ... will now not take place until after the 2024 election, or it will be held in the final months before Election Day. The justices are not entirely responsible for this mess, but they have just made a bad situation far worse than it needed to be. My beef isn't with the court's decision to hear the case -- it's with the outrageously lethargic timing. It would have been far better for the court to have taken up the issue back in December, when special counsel Jack Smith urged the justices to leapfrog the federal appeals court. Now, two and a half months have gone by.... Worst of all, especially given this timetable, the justices could have allowed trial preparations to go forward while the case was briefed, argued and decided.... And there might be more delay -- we'll find out, eventually -- built into the way the court has framed the question it wants to decide[.]" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "... the court's order appeared to ignore the enormous elephant in the room: the looming election that makes Mr. Trump's trial on charges that he had plotted to overturn the 2020 election a race against time. The schedule the court set could make it hard, if not impossible, to complete Mr. Trump's trial before the 2024 election. Should Mr. Trump win at the polls, there is every reason to think the prosecution would be scuttled.... The court's insistence on deciding the largest questions in American life may have effectively answered one of them: whether Mr. Trump may be held accountable for his actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election before the one in 2024." ~~~

~~~ Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post puts a positive spin on the Supreme Court's framing of the question it will consider in regard to presidential immunity. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog: "Early on, I called this federal election subversion case potentially the most important case in this Nation's history. And now it may not happen because of timing, timing that is completely in the Supreme Court's control. After all, this is the second time the Court has not expedited things to hear this case. This could well be game over." (Also linked yesterday.)

Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Terrence Bradley, an Atlanta-area lawyer, had been billed as the star witness in the effort to disqualify Fani T. Willis, the district attorney leading the election interference case against ... Donald J. Trump in Georgia. But when Mr. Bradley took the stand this week --; and twice earlier this month -- he was a deeply reluctant witness.... But hundreds of text messages obtained by The New York Times show that Mr. Bradley, a former law partner and friend of Mr. Wade, helped a defense lawyer to expose the relationship between the two prosecutors. The texts reveal that Mr. Bradley, who served for a time as [prosecutor Nathan] Wade's divorce lawyer until the two men had a bitter falling-out, assisted the effort to reveal the romance and provide details about it for at least four months -- countering the impression he left on the witness stand that he had known next to nothing about the romance." This story covers the same subject as Nick Valencia & others addressed earlier (linked yesterday). (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Zachary Cohen of CNN: "The winery worker who first told CNN that he witnessed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis pay cash when she visited Napa Valley with special prosecutor Nathan Wade in 2023 is offering to testify, according to a court filing from prosecutors late Thursday, ahead of closing arguments in the fight over whether Willis should be disqualified from the Georgia election subversion case. Prosecutors are moving to admit into evidence an affidavit from Stan Brody, who told CNN earlier this month that Willis not only picked up the nearly $400 tab when she visited Acumen Wines in Napa Valley with Wade, but paid in cash -- backing up part of her earlier testimony. Prosecutors want Judge Scott McAfee to accept Brody's affidavit into evidence and if he doesn't, they ask that Brody be allowed to testify in person, according to the filing. They said Brody is willing to testify at Friday's hearing."

There is no grand conspiracy here against you. It's time for you to grow up! -- Judge Trevor McFadden, to January 6 insurrectionist Brandon Fellows ~~~

~~~ Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post: "A tree cutter who smoked marijuana in a senator's office during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 3½ years in prison Thursday after his strategy of interrupting and challenging the sentencing judge seemed to blow up in his face. A jury in U.S. District Court in D.C. last year convicted Brandon Fellows, 29, of obstructing an official proceeding, entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct stemming from his 36-minute incursion into the Capitol with a mob of supporters of ... Donald Trump.... Fellows, from Upstate New York, chose to represent himself through most of his legal proceedings and was found in contempt at his trial after calling U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden a 'modern-day Nazi' running a 'kangaroo court.' 'In all my years as a judge, and before that as a litigator, I have never seen such contemptuous conduct,' McFadden said at Thursday's sentencing, recalling that Fellows also made 'lewd comments' to his probation officer, 'outlandish accusations' against prosecutors and heckling remarks to the jury as the verdicts were being read." MB: The photo accompanying the story is worth that proverbial thousand words.

Daniel Wu of the Washington Post: "Manuel Rocha, a retired U.S. ambassador, said Thursday that he will plead guilty to charges of serving as a secret agent for Cuba's spy agency, affirming what the Justice Department described as one of the most serious infiltrations of U.S. government in history.... Prosecutors alleged in December that Rocha, a former State Department employee who served on the National Security Council and as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, spied on the United States for more than 40 years as an agent of Cuba.... Rocha, who was born in Colombia and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1978, embarked on a decades-long campaign to ascend the ranks of the State Department in service of Cuba's spy agencies beginning in 1981, the Justice Department alleged. Rocha held various roles in the State Department that conferred access to classified information, according to prosecutors." The AP report, which broke the news, is here.

Julie Weil of the Washington Post: "Thousands of high-income earners have not filed tax returns for several years, but the cash-strapped Internal Revenue Service did nothing to get them to pay what they owe. That changes now, the tax agency announced Thursday. The IRS will send notices to thousands of people who made more than $400,000 and did not file returns in at least one year from 2017 to 2022, the first step to collecting any tax owed. About 25,000 cases involve people whose income is known to the agency to be above $1 million, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said. About 100,000 instances stem from people with income from $400,000 to $1 million, as reported to the IRS by their employers and banks." The AP's story is here.

Alanna Richer & Eric Tucker of the AP: "A federal judge held veteran investigative reporter Catherine Herridge in civil contempt on Thursday for refusing to divulge her source for a series of Fox News stories about a Chinese American scientist who was investigated by the FBI but never charged. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington imposed a fine of $800 per day until Herridge reveals her source, but the fine will not go into effect immediately to give her time to appeal.... The source is being sought by Yanping Chen, who has sued the government over the leak of details about the federal probe into statements she made on immigration forms related to work on a Chinese astronaut program. Herridge, who was recently laid off by CBS News, published an investigative series for Fox News in 2017 that examined Chen's ties to the Chinese military and raised questions about whether the scientist was using a professional school she founded in Virginia to help the Chinese government get information about American servicemembers." The Washington Post's report is here.

Presidential Race

Illinois. Rachel Leingang of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has appealed a decision from an Illinois state judge who decided he should be removed from that state's ballot because of the 14th amendment, an ongoing issue for Trump in the courts. Tracie Porter, the Cook county circuit judge, made the decision on Wednesday, reversing the previous decision by the Illinois state board of elections, which said Trump could stay on the ballot. The order was put on hold pending an appeal from Trump, which came swiftly on Thursday." Related story linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.)

Glenn Thrush & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "A Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of posting dozens of secret intelligence reports and other sensitive documents on a gaming chat group is expected to plead guilty in federal court on Monday, prosecutors said in a court filing on Thursday. The airman, Jack Teixeira, intends to withdraw his not-guilty plea in a deal that is likely to entail prison time, but less than the 60-year maximum sentence he faced on charges of improperly handling and publicly disclosing national defense secrets, according to two people briefed on the agreement."

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Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "A federal court in Austin on Thursday blocked the implementation of a Texas law that would allow state and local police officers to arrest migrants who cross from Mexico without authorization, siding with the federal government in a legal showdown over immigration enforcement. The ruling, by Judge David A. Ezra of the Western District of Texas, was a victory for the Biden administration, which had argued that the new state law violated federal statutes and the U.S. Constitution. The Texas law had been set to go into effect on March 5 but will now be put on hold as the case moves forward. In granting a preliminary injunction, Judge Ezra, who was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, signaled that the federal government was likely to eventually win on the merits." The AP's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Texas. Maria Paúl of the Washington Post: "Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) earlier this month demanded records pertaining to the support an LGBTQ+ nonprofit provides to families seeking gender-affirming care for their transgender children -- a treatment the state banned last year. But rather than turning over the information, the group, PFLAG, is now suing Paxton. The lawsuit -- filed Wednesday evening by advocacy groups Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Transgender Law Center -- asks the court to block Paxton's request, arguing that it amounts to 'governmental intimidation' and an attempt to restrict PFLAG members' 'personal freedoms and chill the exercise of their rights.'"

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Canada. Alan Cowell of the New York Times: "Brian Mulroney, Canada's 18th prime minister, whose statesmanship on what he called 'great causes,' from free trade and acid rain in North America to the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa, gave way to accusations of financial misdoing and influence-peddling after he left office, died on Thursday in a hospital in Palm Beach, Fla., where he had a home. He was 84."

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Friday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Global leaders expressed shock and grief over an incident in which Gaza health officials said more than 100 people were killed after a crowd converged on an aid convoy in Gaza City, and connected the event to the dire humanitarian situation in the territory. Josep Borrell, the top E.U. diplomat, said he was 'horrified by news of yet another carnage among civilians in Gaza desperate for humanitarian aid.' Palestinian and Israeli officials exchanged blame for Thursday's incident, which President Biden said will complicate hostage negotiations." ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Friday are here. CNN's liveblog is here.

New York Times: "Israeli forces opened fire on Thursday as a crowd gathered near a convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed aid in Gaza City, part of a chaotic scene in which scores of people were killed and injured, according to Gazan health officials and an Israeli military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The details of what happened were unclear, with officials from both sides offering starkly different accounts of the event. The Gazan health ministry said in a statement that more than 100 people were killed and more than 700 injured in a 'massacre.' The Israeli official acknowledged that troops had opened fire, but said most of the people had been killed or injured in a stampede several hundred yards away. Gazans, especially in the north of the territory, have become increasingly desperate for food." This is part of the NYT liveblog. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's liveblog for Thursday is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Matt Berg of Politico: "President Joe Biden walked back his assessment that a hostage deal to pause fighting in the Gaza Strip could be reached by Monday. 'I was on the telephone with the people in the region,' Biden told reporters on the South Lawn Thursday morning, adding: 'Probably not by Monday, but I'm hopeful.'"

Russia. Valerie Hopkins of the New York Times: "Huge crowds of people, some holding flowers, turned out in Moscow on Friday for the funeral services for Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia's most prominent opposition figure, two weeks after his mysterious death in a remote Arctic penal colony. The service was taking place under tight monitoring from the Russian authorities, who have arrested hundreds of mourners at memorial sites since Mr. Navalny died. Police presence was heavy around the church where funeral services began shortly after 2 p.m. local time. People chanted Mr. Navalny's last name as his coffin was taken into the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Soothe My Sorrows, a Russian Orthodox church in southern Moscow. Images on social media showed attendees lining up, but also security cameras that the local news media reported had been recently installed, and signs forbidding mourners to take pictures or video in the church. Almost 250,000 people were watching a livestream of the event organized by Mr. Navalny's allies, while about 150,000 watched coverage on YouTube by the independent TV Rain, according to figures provided by the streaming platform." ~~~

     ~~~ CNN is liveblogging developments. ~~~

~~~ ** Ukraine, et al. Putin Threatens "Destruction of Civilization." Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said the West faced the prospect of nuclear conflict if it intervened more directly in the war in Ukraine, using an annual speech to the nation on Thursday to escalate his threats against Europe and the United States. Mr. Putin said NATO countries that were helping Ukraine strike Russian territory or might consider sending their own troops 'must, in the end, understand' that 'all this truly threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and therefore the destruction of civilization.'" The AP's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

News Lede

New York Times: "Wildfires continued to burn out of control in the Texas Panhandle on Friday morning, and officials warned that warm, windy and dry weather was expected to return over the weekend that could fan the flames. The National Weather Service forecast 'critical fire weather conditions' in the region on Saturday and Sunday, and urged residents to refrain from outdoor activities that might generate sparks or flames over the weekend, which includes Texas Independence Day on Saturday.... Two deaths have been connected to the fires in northern Texas so far.... [One of the fires,] The Smokehouse Creek fire, has charred at least 1,075,000 acres of land, making it the largest wildfire on record in Texas history."

Leap Year Day 2024

The New York Times is liveblogging the dueling Biden & Trump trips to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Texas. David Goodman of the New York Times: "A federal court in Austin on Thursday blocked the implementation of a Texas law that would allow state and local police officers to arrest migrants who cross from Mexico without authorization, siding with the federal government in a legal showdown over immigration enforcement. The ruling, by Judge David A. Ezra of the Western District of Texas, was a victory for the Biden administration, which had argued that the new state law violated federal statutes and the U.S. Constitution. The Texas law had been set to go into effect on March 5 but will now be put on hold as the case moves forward. In granting a preliminary injunction, Judge Ezra, who was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, signaled that the federal government was likely to eventually win on the merits." The AP's report is here.

Olympia Sonnier & Garrett Haake of NBC News: "When Donald Trump speaks at the southern border in Texas on Thursday, you can expect to hear him talk about 'migrant crime,' a category he has coined and defined as a terrifying binge of criminal activity committed by undocumented immigrants spreading across the country.... But despite the former president's campaign rhetoric, expert analysis and available data from major-city police departments show that despite several horrifying high-profile incidents, there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the United States." Read on. The reporters cite numerous stats that defy Trump's scare tactics.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post puts a positive spin on the Supreme Court's framing of the question it will consider in regard to presidential immunity.

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court's decision to hear Donald Trump's audacious claim of presidential immunity from prosecution ... all but guarantees one of two terrible outcomes. Either the former president's trial ... will now not take place until after the 2024 election, or it will be held in the final months before Election Day. The justices are not entirely responsible for this mess, but they have just made a bad situation far worse than it needed to be. My beef isn't with the court's decision to hear the case -- it's with the outrageously lethargic timing. It would have been far better for the court to have taken up the issue back in December, when special counsel Jack Smith urged the justices to leapfrog the federal appeals court. Now, two and a half months have gone by.... Worst of all, especially given this timetable, the justices could have allowed trial preparations to go forward while the case was briefed, argued and decided.... And there might be more delay -- we'll find out, eventually -- built into the way the court has framed the question it wants to decide[.]" ~~~

~~~ Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog: "Early on, I called this federal election subversion case potentially the most important case in this Nation's history. And now it may not happen because of timing, timing that is completely in the Supreme Court's control. After all, this is the second time the Court has not expedited things to hear this case. This could well be game over."

Illinois. Rachel Leingang of the Guardian: "Donald Trump has appealed a decision from an Illinois state judge who decided he should be removed from that state's ballot because of the 14th amendment, an ongoing issue for Trump in the courts. Tracie Porter, the Cook county circuit judge, made the decision on Wednesday, reversing the previous decision by the Illinois state board of elections, which said Trump could stay on the ballot. The order was put on hold pending an appeal from Trump, which came swiftly on Thursday." Related story linked below.

Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "Terrence Bradley, an Atlanta-area lawyer, had been billed as the star witness in the effort to disqualify Fani T. Willis, the district attorney leading the election interference case against ... Donald J. Trump in Georgia. But when Mr. Bradley took the stand this week -- and twice earlier this month -- he was a deeply reluctant witness.... But hundreds of text messages obtained by The New York Times show that Mr. Bradley, a former law partner and friend of Mr. Wade, helped a defense lawyer to expose the relationship between the two prosecutors. The texts reveal that Mr. Bradley, who served for a time as [prosecutor Nathan] Wade's divorce lawyer until the two men had a bitter falling-out, assisted the effort to reveal the romance and provide details about it for at least four months -- countering the impression he left on the witness stand that he had known next to nothing about the romance." This story covers the same subject as Nick Valencia & others addressed earlier (linked below).

Remembering Mitch. Robert Reich on Substack: Mitch McConnell has "been a truly awful public official. McConnell has always put party above America. Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president?... Despite his opposition to Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election -- admitting publicly that Trump 'provoked' the attack on the U.S. Capitol -- McConnell voted to acquit Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021.... This is the man who refused for almost a year to allow the Senate to consider President Obama's moderate Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland. Then, when Trump became president, this is the man who got rid of the age-old Senate rule requiring 60 senators to agree on a Supreme Court nomination so he could ram through not one but two Supreme Court justices, including one with a likely history of sexual assault. This is the man who rushed through the Senate, without a single hearing, a $2 trillion tax cut for big corporations and wealthy Americans -- a tax cut that raised the government debt by almost the same amount, generated no new investment, and failed to raise wages, but gave the stock market a temporary sugar high because most corporations used the tax savings to buy back their own shares of stock."

Israel/Palestine, et al. New York Times: "Israeli forces opened fire on Thursday as a crowd gathered near a convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed aid in Gaza City, part of a chaotic scene in which scores of people were killed and injured, according to Gazan health officials and an Israeli military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The details of what happened were unclear, with officials from both sides offering starkly different accounts of the event. The Gazan health ministry said in a statement that more than 100 people were killed and more than 700 injured in a 'massacre.' The Israeli official acknowledged that troops had opened fire, but said most of the people had been killed or injured in a stampede several hundred yards away. Gazans, especially in the north of the territory, have become increasingly desperate for food." This is part of the NYT liveblog. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's liveblog for Thursday is here.

Ukraine, et al. Putin Threatens "Destruction of Civilization." Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said the West faced the prospect of nuclear conflict if it intervened more directly in the war in Ukraine, using an annual speech to the nation on Thursday to escalate his threats against Europe and the United States. Mr. Putin said NATO countries that were helping Ukraine strike Russian territory or might consider sending their own troops 'must, in the end, understand' that 'all this truly threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and therefore the destruction of civilization.'" The AP's story is here.

And Seth relives his historic brush with ice cream. Thanks to RAS for the link:

We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For

Only voters can save American democracy from the malignant, fascist forces on the right.

** Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to decide whether ... Donald J. Trump is immune from prosecution on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, further delaying his criminal trial as it considers the matter. The justices scheduled arguments for the week of April 22 and said proceedings in the trial court would remain frozen, handing at least an interim victory to Mr. Trump.... The Supreme Court's response to Mr. Trump put the justices in the unusual position of deciding another aspect of the former president's fate: whether and how quickly Mr. Trump could go to trial. That, in turn, could affect his election prospects and, should he be re-elected, his ability to scuttle the prosecution.... By some rough calculations, the trial could be delayed until late September or October, plunging the proceedings into the heart of the election...."

"The Supreme Court's brief order said the court would decide this question: 'Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.'" ~~~

~~~ Marie: The framing of that question is worth exploring. The good news: the question demonstrates that the Court will not even consider Trump's double jeopardy claim that he cannot be tried again for the same crimes the Senate tried him for in his second impeachment trial. The bad news: (1) By exploring the question of the "extent" of immunity, the Court is suggesting that Trump may have immunity from some or part of the charges brought against him, so it may have to decide myriad questions on every insurrection-y thing Trump did. The Court is asking a wider question that Trump raised, the kind of question so complicated, Laurence Tribe said, that it may raise issues that will bounce back and forth among the district, appeals & Supreme Courts. "This is a formula for indefinite delay," Tribe said. (2) The reference to "alleged" official acts flat-out takes Trump's side: he of course is the party who is "alleging" everything he did surrounding the insurrection was an official act. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's story is here. The AP's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "By deciding to take up Mr. Trump's claim that presidents enjoy almost total immunity from prosecution for any official action while in office -- a legal theory rejected by two lower courts and one that few experts think has any basis in the Constitution -- the justices bought the former president at least several months before a trial on the election interference charges can start.... With each delay, the odds increase that voters will not get a chance to hear the evidence that Mr. Trump sought to subvert the last election before they decide whether to back him in the current one." MB: In fairness to the confederate Supremes, they are corrupt. They know we know it, and they really don't care. It is in their interests to help Donald Trump, and that's what they're doing.

Marie: As several anchors & reporters pointed out on CNN & MSNBC Wednesday, the Supremes' months-long delay has effectively scuttled the big case. However, I'd like to point out a few mitigating factors. (1) The idea that ordinary voters would actually listen to and understand the evidence presented in court is rather fanciful. You might pay close attention, but a mom who works just doesn't have the time or the interest. (2) There's nothing that says Trump will be found guilty. One Trumpy juror could hang the jury. Or the jury could find him not guilty (okay, not likely). And the upshot would be that Trump could trumpet his victimhood, and many Americans would be persuaded that the system was "rigged" against him. (3) If Trump were found guilty, he would appeal. So it would be easy for those voters who say, "Ooh, I wouldn't vote for him if he was guilty of a crime," to revise that position to, "Well, his conviction might be overturned, so I don't know if he's really guilty." These trials are not the be-all and end-all that will spare a once-great nation from a tragic fall. And the trials most likely will go on eventually -- unless we elect Trump.

A Miracle in Florida. Devlin Barrett & Perry Stein of the Washington Post: "The federal judge overseeing ... Donald Trump's criminal trial for allegedly mishandling classified documents ruled Wednesday against his lawyers' bid to see more of the classified filings prosecutors have submitted -- concluding that the access Trump's team sought was not typically granted in such cases and that withholding the information would not hamper his defense. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon issued a nine-page order rejecting Trump's arguments for his lawyers to see prosecutors' filings under Section 4 of the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), a law designed to shield national security secrets at issue in criminal trials. Cannon plans to hold a key hearing in the case Friday, where she will discuss the trial schedule, evidence disputes between prosecutors and defense lawyers, and a related disagreement over proposed redactions to court documents.... Cannon's ruling follows a similar judgment that she issued Tuesday, in which she denied requests by lawyers for Trump's co-defendants, Waltine 'Walt' Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, to have access to some of the classified information."

Way last week, Trump was too rich to post bond in the E. Jean Carroll case. (Story linked yesterday.) This week ~~~

~~~ Ben Protess & Kate Christobek of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump offered a New York appeals court on Wednesday a bond of only $100 million to pause the more than $450 million judgment he faces in his civil fraud case, saying that he might need to sell some of his properties unless he gets relief. An appellate court judge promptly denied Mr. Trump's emergency request to halt the financial judgment, but the former president is not out of options. Mr. Trump can try again with a panel of five appellate court judges, which will entertain his request next month. However that panel rules, the request represented a stunning acknowledgment that the former president, who is racing the clock to secure a bond from a company for the full amount if he does not produce the money himself, lacks the resources to do so. If he fails, the New York attorney general's office, which brought the fraud case, could seek to collect from Mr. Trump at any moment, though it is expected to provide him with a 30-day grace period until March 25.... The appellate court judge ... granted the former president's request to temporarily pause [a three-year ban on running his company and a ban on obtaining a New York bank loan]...." This is an update to a story linked earlier yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.) A CBS News story is here.

Nick Valencia, et al., of CNN: "A key witness in the push to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis from the Georgia election case against Donald Trump had a much deeper involvement in the effort than was previously known, according to hundreds of text messages obtained by CNN. The 413 texts between Terrence Bradley and Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for one of Trump's co-defendants, reveal months of communications between the two, underscoring the extent to which Bradley assisted Merchant's pursuit of evidence to back up claims Willis and her top prosecutor, Nathan Wade, engaged in an improper romantic relationship.... The ... text messages show Bradley calling Merchant his 'friend,' offering unsolicited advice, and also bashing Willis and Wade, Bradley's former law partner.... The text messages raise questions about Bradley's credibility, and the degree to which Merchant appeared to rely on his claims that she was then unable to substantiate elsewhere. They also shed new light on his testimony [Tuesday] and how it failed to meet the expectations of defense attorneys who had billed Bradley as the star witness in their bid to disqualify Willis."

Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "A state judge in Illinois ruled on Wednesday that ... Donald J. Trump had engaged in insurrection and was ineligible to appear on the state's primary ballot. The decision creates uncertainty for the state's March election, in which early voting is already underway. It also adds urgency for the U.S. Supreme Court to provide a national answer to the questions that have been raised about Mr. Trump's eligibility to appear on ballots in more than 30 states. The judge, Tracie R. Porter of the State Circuit Court in Cook County, said the State Board of Elections had erred in rejecting an attempt to remove Mr. Trump and said the board 'shall remove Donald J. Trump from the ballot for the general primary election on March 19, 2024, or cause any votes cast for him to be suppressed.' But the decision by Judge Porter, a Democrat, was stayed until Friday, which means Mr. Trump can remain on the Illinois ballot at least until then." The NBC News story is here. CNN's report is here.

Maggie Haberman & Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump will meet privately with Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, at Mr. Trump's club in Florida next week, according to a person briefed on the plans. Mr. Orban is a right-wing nationalist who has waged an aggressive campaign against immigration and has declared that the West 'is at war with itself.'... Like Mr. Trump, he has sometimes appeared sympathetic to or admiring of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.... He is a longtime ally of Mr. Trump and has close ties to the populist conservative movement in the United States. Mr. Trump has frequently praised Mr. Orban at rallies and in speeches since leaving the White House. Their meeting, which is scheduled to take place at Mr. Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach next Friday, underscores the degree to which Mr. Trump has tried to establish himself as a sort of president-in-exile." MB: More likely Trump is hoping Orban will give him some tips for dictators.

Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals panel on Wednesday denied former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows's request for a new hearing on whether to move the Georgia election interference case against him from state to federal court, a shift he had sought on the grounds that he was a federal officer at the time of the actions that led to his indictment. The two-sentence ruling by a three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit represents yet another setback for Meadows.... That same panel ruled in December that Meadows was not entitled to a trial in federal court, but Meadows had subsequently asked for a fresh hearing before the full 11th Circuit. Now, Meadows's only remaining recourse is to seek a review by the U.S. Supreme Court."

Katie Rogers & Lawrence Altman of the New York Times: "President Biden on Wednesday was declared 'fit for duty' by his longtime doctor, who said that the president had undergone an 'extremely detailed' neurological exam that did not turn up evidence of stroke, neurological disorders or Parkinson's disease. In a summary of Mr. Biden's third presidential physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Dr. Kevin O'Connor did not say whether the examination contained common tests for assessing cognitive decline or detecting signs of dementia that are often recommended for older adults. Dr. O'Connor said that a team of doctors, including a neurologist, two orthopedists and a physical therapist, examined the president, whom Dr. O'Connor described as an 'active 81-year-old white male.'" The report provides more details.

Arelis Hernández of the Washington Post: "As President Biden and Republican contender Donald Trump head to Texas on Thursday, the cities each has chosen to plant their flag on immigration are a study of contrasts. While both hug the Rio Grande, that's about where the similarities end.... Brownsville ... is nestled within the U.S. Customs and Border Protection sector that has long seen the highest levels of migration. But even when border crossings surge, the shocks are quietly absorbed. Residents donate supplies and help orient the new arrivals on how to navigate their way to their final destinations. Three hundred miles upriver..., Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has transformed [Eagle Pass] ... into a military front line on immigration. Razor wire and rusted shipping containers warn migrants to stay away. And military trucks and rifle-carrying troops occupy the city's biggest park.

** Buh-bye, Mitch. Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Senator Mitch McConnell, the longtime top Senate Republican, said on Wednesday that he would give up his spot as the party's leader at the end of this year, acknowledging that his Reaganite national security views had put him out of step with a party now headed by ... Donald J. Trump. 'Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular time,' Mr. McConnell, who turned 82 last week, said in a speech on the Senate floor announcing his intentions. 'I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them.' His decision, reported earlier by The Associated Press, was not a surprise. Mr. McConnell suffered a serious fall last year and experienced some episodes where he momentarily froze in front of the media. He has also faced rising resistance within his ranks for his push to provide continued military assistance to Ukraine as well as his close-to-the-vest leadership style." The AP's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Marie: Worth remembering: we have the courts we have because Mitch McConnell. As former Sen. Al Franken said on MSNBC, without McConnell, the Supreme Court would be 5-4 liberal/conservative. Obama appointee replacing Scalia; Biden replacing Ginsburg. Moreover, Mitch refused to bring forward many of President Obama's nominees to lower courts, thus giving Trump a chance to flood the lower courts with Federalist appointees. And Mitch's refusal to convict Trump in the second impeachment trial -- and bring along more GOP senators -- is precisely why we're in the mess we are today.

Congress to Keep the Lights on for a Few Weeks. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Congressional leaders said on Wednesday they had agreed to another short-term stopgap spending bill to head off a partial government shutdown at the end of the week, paving the way for a temporary path out of a stalemate that has repeatedly threatened federal funding over the past six months. The deal, initially floated by Speaker Mike Johnson, would extend funding for some government agencies for a week, through March 8, and the rest for another two weeks, until March 22.... The deal paved the way for a vote in the House as soon as Thursday to keep the government open, with the Senate expected to follow suit before a midnight deadline on Friday.... The White House signaled its support for the agreement shortly after it was announced." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday.) NPR's story is here.

Scott Wong of NBC News: "After a convincing special election victory, New York Democrat Tom Suozzi was sworn into the House on Wednesday night to fill the vacancy left by last year's historic expulsion of Republican George Santos. Suozzi's swearing-in further reduces House Republicans' razor-thin majority -- one of the smallest ever -- to 219-213 at a time when Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has been struggling to corral his rank-and-file members and carry out the basic functions of government. The return of Suozzi, who previously served in the House, means that Johnson's leadership team can afford only two GOP defections on any vote if all Democrats vote in opposition." See also New York state Congressional map change; story linked below.

Matt Viser & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "Hunter Biden, delivering his long-awaited deposition before a GOP-led congressional impeachment inquiry, testified Wednesday that he never involved his father in any of his business decisions, and he accused House Republicans of having 'built your entire partisan house of cards on lies.' At the start of what was seven hours of contentious questioning and adamant rebuttals, President Biden's son gave a statement that was defiant, emotional and combative.... Emerging from the hearing, Republicans could not point to any major new revelations and Democrats argued that the record argues strongly for shutting down the impeachment effort."

Kayla Guo of the New York Times: "A Republican senator on Wednesday blocked quick passage of a bill that would establish federal protections for in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments in the wake of a ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos should be considered children. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican of Mississippi, objected to approval of the measure, which would establish a federal right protecting access to I.V.F. and fertility treatments, scuttling its chances for now. Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, sought to pass the bill on Wednesday under a procedure that allows any one senator to object and stop it in its tracks, effectively daring Republicans to oppose it and highlighting divisions within the G.O.P. on how to handle the issue.... Ms. Duckworth previously tried to pass a similar bill with unanimous consent in 2022, but Ms. Hyde-Smith objected." For more details, see CNN's liveblog, linked yesterday.

Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court wrestled on Wednesday over whether the Trump administration acted lawfully in enacting a ban on bump stocks after one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. The justices appeared split largely along ideological lines over the ban, which prohibits the sale and possession of bump stocks, attachments that enable semiautomatic rifles to fire at speeds rivaling machine guns.... [The case turns on] the power of administrative agencies -- in this instance, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A decision is expected by late June.... At issue is whether a bump stock falls within the legal definition of a machine gun. If the court deems a bump stock can be used to make a gun into a 'machine gun,' then it can be prohibited as part of a category heavily regulated by the A.T.F. During less than two hours of arguments, the justices appeared to struggle to make sense of the mechanics of gun triggers and the value of a ban for gun owners and the wider public."

Carlos Lozada of the New York Times: "With contributions by dozens of conservative thinkers and activists under the leadership of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, the [887-page 'Mandate for Leadership -- the Conservative Promise'] announces itself as part of a 'unified effort to be ready for the next conservative administration to govern at 12:00 noon, Jan. 20, 2025.' There is much work ahead, it states, 'just to undo the significant damage that will have been done during the Biden years.'... What is most striking about the book is not the specific policy agenda it outlines but how far the authors are willing to go in pursuit of that agenda and how reckless their assumptions are about law, power and public service.... [The book is] about consolidating authority and eroding accountability for the long haul.... It portrays the president as the personal embodiment of popular will and treats the law as an impediment to conservative governance.... 'Mandate for Leadership' is about capturing the administrative state, not unmaking it.... [The book promotes] the philosophical and legal concept of 'ordered liberty,' in which individual rights are weighed against social stability."

~~~~~~~~~~

Idaho. Mike Baker of the New York Times: "Executioners in Idaho abandoned their attempt to use lethal injection on one of the nation's longest-serving death row inmates on Wednesday after repeated tries to tap into a vein were unsuccessful. Public defenders representing the inmate, Thomas Eugene Creech, and witnesses said that officials had tried to stick needles in each of Mr. Creech's limbs before halting the effort. Mr. Creech's death warrant was to expire at the end of the day, and he was returned to his cell. It was Idaho's first attempted execution in more than a decade. The failure was the latest in a series of botched executions around the country, often stemming from executioners having trouble finding veins."

New York. Azi Paybarah of the Washington Post: "Lawmakers in the Democratic-led New York legislature approved a new congressional map Wednesday with slight adjustments made to the boundaries of a few districts after earlier this week rejecting a map drawn by an independent commission. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced on social media later Wednesday that she had signed the new map into law. The new map comes ahead of the June primaries in a state that is expected to play a crucial role in determining which party will win control of the House. In 2022, the GOP flipped four House seats in New York, helping the party wrest control of the chamber back from Democrats. The New York Republican Party said Wednesday evening that it would not contest the new map in court."

Texas. Ben Brasch & Maria Paúl of the Washington Post: "The state of Texas executed Ivan Abner Cantu, a 50-year-old Dallas native who maintained his innocence and garnered support from celebrities asking for his life to be spared, on Wednesday evening. Cantu's execution -- the first one carried out in Texas this year -- comes more than two decades after he was convicted in a fatal shooting in 2000. Yet, his advocates long pleaded for Cantu to have another day in court -- claiming that prosecutorial and defense misconduct, the discovery of physical evidence and a witness's admission to lying during the trial should have warranted a pause to the execution."

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Thursday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "At least 30,035 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the enclave's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The figure, which comes as aid groups warn of widespread hunger, underlines the scale of devastation in less than five months of war, launched by Israel in response to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that left about 1,200 dead. Negotiators are discussing a weeks-long cease-fire to release Israeli hostages and allow in aid, but Israel and Hamas have downplayed any immediate progress.... Gaza is on the brink of famine, humanitarian groups say, as the volume of aid has plummeted in recent weeks and convoys struggled to travel amid intense bombardment and disruption at border crossings."

The Conversation -- February 28, 2024

** John Fritze of CNN: "The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether Donald Trump may claim immunity in special counsel Jack Smith's election subversion case, adding another explosive appeal from the former president to its docket and further delaying his federal trial. The court agreed to expedite the case and hear arguments the week of April 22." At 5:10 pm ET, this is a developing story. The AP's story is here. Marie: To be clear, the Supremes are aiding & abetting Trump's delay-delay-delay tactic, thus effectively giving Trump immunity without granting general presidential immunity.

** Buh-bye, Mitch. Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Senator Mitch McConnell, the longtime top Senate Republican, said on Wednesday that he would give up his spot as the party's leader at the end of this year, acknowledging that his Reaganite national security views had put him out of step with a party now headed by ... Donald J. Trump. 'Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular time,' Mr. McConnell, who turned 82 last week, said in a speech on the Senate floor announcing his intentions. 'I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them.' His decision, reported earlier by The Associated Press, was not a surprise. Mr. McConnell suffered a serious fall last year and experienced some episodes where he momentarily froze in front of the media. He has also faced rising resistance within his ranks for his push to provide continued military assistance to Ukraine as well as his close-to-the-vest leadership style." The AP's report is here.

Way last week, Trump was too rich to post bond in the E. Jean Carroll case. (Story linked below.) This week ~~~

~~~ Ben Protess & Kate Christobek of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump  offered a New York appeals court on Wednesday a bond of only $100 million to pause the more than $450 million judgment he faces in his civil fraud case, saying that he might need to sell some of his properties unless he gets relief. An appellate court judge promptly denied Mr. Trump's emergency request to halt the financial judgment, but the former president is not out of options. Mr. Trump can try again with a panel of five appellate court judges, which will entertain his request next month. However that panel rules, the request represented a stunning acknowledgment that the former president, who is racing the clock to secure a bond from a company for the full amount if he does not produce the money himself, lacks the resources to do so. If he fails, the New York attorney general's office, which brought the fraud case, could seek to collect from Mr. Trump at any moment, though it is expected to provide him with a 30-day grace period until March 25.... The appellate court judge ... granted the former president's request to temporarily pause [a three-year ban on running his company and a ban on obtaining a New York bank loan]...." This is an update of a story linked earlier.

Mikey Wants to Keep the Lights on for a Few Weeks. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Speaker Mike Johnson is floating another short-term stopgap spending bill to head off a partial government shutdown at the end of the week, offering a temporary path out of a stalemate that has repeatedly threatened federal funding over the past six months. His proposal would extend funding for some government agencies for a week, through March 8, and the rest for another two weeks, until March 22. It would be contingent on congressional leaders finalizing an emerging bipartisan agreement on six of the 12 annual spending bills. And it would leave time for top lawmakers to negotiate the other six measures, and then try to pass the spending bills individually before the next set of deadlines to fund the government. That would be a tall order in the House, which has struggled to pass spending legislation amid Republican divisions."

     ~~~ Marie: Colbert does raise an issue I not thought of: when can you destroy a frozen embryo in Alabama? Since the darling teensy, weensy cell blob is a person, frozen embryos can never, ever be destroyed because to do so would be murder. So once you get those embryos in the cold storage, folks, you will have to support them for long past your own natural life.

CNN is running a liveblog of Hunter Biden's deposition to members of the House as part of the fake Biden impeachment inquiry:

"For months, Hunter Biden said he would only testify before Congress if it was in public. But President Joe Biden's son will now go behind closed doors Wednesday to face off with his Republican detractors on Capitol Hill for a deposition.... Sources familiar with terms negotiated between Hunter Biden's team and congressional Republicans told CNN that the deposition will have several unique features that are different from the other interviews the committees have conducted to date: ... The deposition will not be videotaped.... After a review to redact any sensitive information like names of congressional staffers, it could be released quickly, potentially within 24 hours after the deposition wraps."

"House Republicans are using a bigger room than they typically do for closed-door interviews because there are a number of members expected to attend Hunter Biden's deposition."

"House Oversight Chair James Comer could not specify what direct actions Joe Biden took while in office that benefited his son;s business dealings, and instead pointed to two checks that his brother wrote to him as loan repayments when he was not in office as evidence of the bribery House Republicans are alleging."

"Hunter Biden said in a statement for his deposition that his testimony should 'put an end' to the Republican impeachment inquiry because his father, President Joe Biden, was not involved in his business dealings. '... I did not involve my father in my business,' Hunter Biden said, according to a copy of his opening statement."

So what we saw I think was a rather embarrassing spectacle where the Republicans continue to belabor completely trivial points they seem to be obsessively focused on. I believe based on this first hour that this whole thing has really been a tremendous waste of our legislative time and the people's resources. -- Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), during a break in the deposition

Remember, this is all predicated upon testimony originally provided them by four witnesses, one of whom is in jail, one of whom is accused of being a Chinese spy, and the third one also in jail for lying to the FBI and possibly being an agent of Russian intelligence. What committee in Congress wants to hang its hat on that kind of evidence and that kind of basis. Enough said. -- Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), during a depo break

"Democrats leaving Hunter Biden's deposition said the president's son raised the 'double standard' of Republicans investigating his business dealings but turning a blind eye to members of the Trump family like Jared Kushner, whose company received a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia after leaving the Trump White House."

"House Oversight Chair James Comer said the next phase of the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden will be a public hearing with Hunter Biden. 'But I think this was a great deposition for us. It proved several bits of our evidence that we've been conducting throughout investigation, but there are also some contradictory statements that I think need further review. So this impeachment inquiry will now go to the next phase which will be a public hearing,' the Republican from Kentucky told reporters Wednesday afternoon."

"Hunter Biden's attorney Abbe Lowell told reporters after his closed-door deposition that Republicans have produced 'no evidence' to support allegations that President Joe Biden benefited from his son's business dealings. Lowell also criticized Republicans for going after Hunter's drug addiction during the deposition."

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Michigan Primary Results. Nicholas Nehamas & Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "President Biden won Michigan's Democratic primary election on Tuesday but faced opposition over his support for Israel as it wages war in Gaza, with a substantial number of voters casting ballots for 'uncommitted' as part of a protest movement against him.... Donald J. Trump was also victorious in the Republican primary, coasting past former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina to continue his undefeated primary streak. The Associated Press called both races as final polls closed at 9 p.m. The results demonstrated how both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are confronting enduring weakness within their parties, with meaningful numbers of Democrats and Republicans voting against them even as they race toward a November rematch." This is the pinned item in a liveblog.

Putting the Uncommitted Vote in Perspective. Chris Cameron: "In 2008, over 238,000 votes were cast [in Michigan] for 'uncommitted' in the Democratic primary after Barack Obama and others removed their names from the ballot, because the state had jumped ahead of the national party's calendar."

Epstein: "President Biden did not mention the 'uncommitted' vote or the organized protest of his Gaza policy in a statement on Michigan's results released by his campaign. 'I want to thank every Michigander who made their voice heard today. Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great,' Biden said."

Christine Zhang: "With nearly all of the vote estimated to be counted in Dearborn [-- the center of Michigan's Arab-American community --] 'uncommitted' now has received around 56 percent of the vote, with President Biden at about 40 percent."

With 89% of the vote counted, President Biden had 80.5% of the vote; "uncommitted" had 13.8%. With 94% of the vote counted, Trump led Haley 68.2% to 26.5%.

But Wait! It ain't over till it's over: ~~~

Henry Gomez of NBC News: "A Michigan court has thwarted Kristina Karamo's efforts to remain in control of the state Republican Party, issuing a preliminary injunction Tuesday that bars her from conducting party business. Kent County Circuit Judge J. Joseph Rossi issued the decision hours before polls closed in the state's presidential primary and days ahead of a Michigan GOP convention that will determine how delegates for this summer's Republican National Convention are allocated. Rossi's order also could end a long dispute between Karamo, who was ousted as chair in a vote by party insiders last month, and former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who had been selected as her replacement. The sides have been on a collision course that could culminate in a crisis Saturday if Karamo goes forward with plans to host a rival convention.... [At least until now,] Karamo has refused to leave the post, even after Trump and the RNC weighed in against her. She has maintained access to the Michigan GOP bank, email and social media accounts, hamstringing Hoekstra's efforts to take full control of the party."

The Winter of Our Discontent. Elena Schneider & Adam Cancryn of Politico: "President Joe Biden scored a decisive win in the Michigan primary on Tuesday evening, clearing an organized protest vote against his handling of the Israel-Hamas war though not necessarily by enough to calm Democratic jitters.... Democrats were divided over how to treat the outcome, noting that Biden continued to dominate the primary in ways similar to, or even exceeding, past incumbents but also wary that significant pockets of discontent in the party could prove fatal in the general election. 'I don't see a pathway for them to win Michigan with that many people not voting for them,' said Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of the Muslim advocacy organization Emgage.... Donald Trump also won the Michigan primary convincingly on Tuesday. But the former president continues to face a faction of Republicans who refuse to back his candidacy despite his chokehold on the nomination."

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "The big question going forward will be how many of these voters Biden will be able to win back, particularly since it's almost unimaginable that he would cut off military aid to Israel, as the Listen to Michigan movement is demanding. Biden needs to win the state in November, and right now, it's hard to see how he can even campaign there without encountering furious demonstrations. We need a cease-fire first and foremost to save lives in Gaza. But without one, America is also stumbling toward disaster."

Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "President Biden and congressional leaders appeared to agree Tuesday to press forward to prevent a government shutdown, but in a gathering that one lawmaker [-- Chuck Schumer --] called the most intense Oval Office meeting of his career, officials remained divided on U.S. support for Ukraine as Russia begins to make battlefield gains in its two-year-old invasion." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Everybody Picked on Mikey. Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "At an intense meeting inside the Oval Office on Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson was the odd man out. President Biden made clear that the speaker's positions were out of step with other leaders in government, as did Vice President Kamala Harris. The top Democrats in the House and Senate did, too. Even Senator Mitch McConnell, his fellow G.O.P. leader on the other side of the Capitol, emphasized the need for the speaker to avoid a government shutdown and provide badly needed aid to Ukraine.... Mr. Johnson, only months into his job, has found himself the last holdout at an increasingly agitated table of negotiators. On the one side, he is feeling pressure from the president of the United States, both Senate leaders and the House minority leader -- all demanding he cut a deal to fund the government and keep aid to Kyiv flowing. But on his right flank, he is facing a band of hard-line Republicans demanding that he hold out for conservative priorities and spurn Ukraine's calls for help, or risk being booted from the speakership. To put it succinctly, Mr. Johnson is in a bind." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If Bible Mike were an American patriot, he would not be "in a bind." It's obvious to the majority of Americans what needs to be done here. That said, I listened to some interviews Vaughn Hillyard of MSNBC conducted with Trump supporters. They said President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was "evil" and Vladimir Putin of Russia was "someone who would work with America," or words to that effect. (This Raw Story report includes video of Hillyard's interviews.) At least one of them also said that if Donald Trump lost the presidential election, Americans would be justified in taking control of the country by force. I'm always knocking these idiots, but it's still disturbing to hear them openly voicing such anti-democratic opinions. There's a chicken-and-egg question here, but it's clear why elected GOP traitors don't want to support Ukraine. And of course opposition to Ukraine all flows from the Biggest Traitor, Donald Trump. When you see Trump winning every primary by wide margins, you can't attribute it just to voters without a clue; a lot of his voters are knowingly supporting a fascist-style dictatorship.

Phillip Bump of the Washington Post uses facts and figures to show that the size of the judgments against Donald Trump dictate that he will have to pay his own bills. ~~~

~~~ But Trump Is Too Rich to Post Bond! Liz Dye of Above the Law: "The court entered its judgment [in favor of E. Jean Carroll in her defamation case against Donald Trump] on February 8, starting the clock for the 30-day automatic stay of judgment under Rule 62. If Trump fails to post a bond of $91.6 million, or get the bond requirement stayed by March 9, Carroll will be able to immediately begin collecting. And yet it took the defendant until Saturday to get around to asking the court for an 'an unsecured stay of the execution of the Court's February 8, 2024, judgment...'. Alternatively, he'd like to 'post a bond in an appropriate fraction of the amount of the judgment' -- maybe $91.60! -- while he tries to convince the court to overturn the jury's verdict.... [Trump's lawyers make several arguments for the unsecured stay.] But the best part is Trump's claim that he's so rich that he should be spared the ignominy of having to post a bond. 'Having argued to the jury that President Trump has great financial resources, Plaintiff is in no position to contradict herself now and contend that she requires the protection of a bond during the brief period while post-trial motions are pending,' he huffs. He then immediately turns around and argues that, despite his vast wealth, having to post a bond would constitute irreparable injury."

Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case against ... Donald J. Trump brought a key witness back to the stand on Tuesday afternoon, as the judge weighs whether Fani T. Willis, the prosecutor who brought the case, has a disqualifying conflict of interest. The witness is Terrence Bradley, the former divorce lawyer and law partner of Nathan Wade, whom Ms. Willis hired to manage the case. The decision by Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court to seek more testimony from Mr. Bradley was a victory for Mr. Trump and his 14 co-defendants, who are trying to remove Ms. Willis, Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis's entire office from the high-stakes prosecution.... But 90 minutes into Tuesday's hearing, the defense had not achieved its goal of getting Mr. Bradley to contradict the two prosecutors about when the relationship began." (Also linked yesterday.)

Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "Indiana's ban on hormone treatments and puberty blockers for transgender minors can go into effect, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday, undoing a lower court decision last year that had largely blocked the law. The three-paragraph ruling by a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago, said it was staying a preliminary injunction that the district court had issued in June, just before the law was scheduled to take effect last summer. The appellate judges did not explain their reasoning but simply said that a full opinion on the case would be issued in the future. The decision further unsettles the national legal landscape around transgender care for minors, with bans blocked in some states but not others, and it could lead to abrupt changes in treatment for young people in Indiana." MB: IOW, another instance where legislators & judges, unqualified to make medical decisions, are making medical decisions and usurping the personal rights of individuals & families. Please don't be yelling fre-e-e-e-dom at me.

Feeling Good about the Economy? Thank an Immigrant. Rachel Siegel, et al., of the Washington Post: "Immigration has propelled the U.S. job market further than just about anyone expected, helping cement the country's economic rebound from the pandemic as the most robust in the world. That momentum picked up aggressively over the past year. About 50 percent of the labor market's extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data. And even before that, by the middle of 2022, the foreign-born labor force had grown so fast that it closed the labor force gap created by the pandemic, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.... Economists and labor experts say the surge in employment was ultimately key to solving unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country's ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns." (Also linked yesterday.)

Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "Business types and some economists may talk glowingly about the virtues of creative destruction, but the process can be devastating economically and socially for those who find themselves on the destruction side of the equation.... This process and its effects are laid out in devastating, terrifying and baffling detail in 'White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy,' a new book by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman. I say 'devastating' because the hardship of rural Americans is real, 'terrifying' because the political backlash to this hardship poses a clear and present danger to our democracy and 'baffling' because at some level I still don't get the politics.... Technology ... has made America as a whole richer, but it has reduced economic opportunities in rural areas.... Maybe ... loss of dignity explains both white rural rage and why that rage is so misdirected -- why it's pretty clear that this November a majority of rural white Americans will again vote against Joe Biden, who as president has been trying to bring jobs to their communities, and for Donald Trump, a huckster from Queens who offers little other than validation for their resentment." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: When I was growing up, I often heard a song called "How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree?)" The song was written in 1919 and gained new popularity after World War II. What interests me about it is that the song expresses exactly the opposite dynamic as the rural belief system Krugman describes: "In the crudest sense, rural and small-town America is supposed to be filled with hard-working people who adhere to traditional values, not like those degenerate urbanites on welfare...." I recall the old dynamic, the feeling that it was embarrassing to be a rube. There was a real desire to go to the big city and "prove yourself": "New York, New York; if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere." Although I had lived in two of the nation's biggest cities -- Chicago & Los Angeles -- when I moved to Manhattan well into my adulthood, I did experience that "New York, New York" feeling. Still, my sense was not that being able to navigate the big city made me better than the rubes, but that it made me more self-confident. I was grateful, too, that my life had been more adventuresome and varied than I had imagined as a teenager it would be. I had seen Paree (actually and figuratively). If today's rural Americans are suffering from a lack of dignity, as Krugman writes, it's because they chose to remain not just physically but also intellectually, emotionally and socially isolated.

For a Balanced Dinner, Choose Frosted Flakes. Emily Heil & Jaclyn Peiser of the Washington Post: "People angered by the rising cost of food have found another villain in the ongoing saga of inflation: the CEO of WK Kellogg, who recently suggested in a TV interview that cash-strapped consumers should eat cereal for dinner to save money.... [CEO Gary] Pilnick touted a marketing campaign that his company launched urging people to give 'chicken the night off' and instead consume bowls of Frosted Flakes and Frosted Mini-Wheats.... Some critics questioned whether the CEO, whose total compensation last year was $4.9 million -- and that was before his promotion to the top job -- was following his own company's suggestion. 'I wonder what cereal he and his family are eating for dinner?' one user posted on X." MB: Unfuckingbelievable. The two top ingredients in Frosted Flakes: milled corn & sugar. A 10.5-oz. box of Frosted Flakes costs $5.70 at Walmart (though you can buy it cheaper in bulk). But, hey, it's fat- & cholesterol-free.

Jordan Holman of the New York Times: "Macy's said on Tuesday that it would vastly reshape its strategy and retail footprint, closing about 150 Macy's stores over the next three years while expanding its upscale Bloomingdale's and Bluemercury chains. The moves put the stamp of the company's new chief executive, Tony Spring, on an effort to improve the profitability of the largest department store operator in the United States and stave off a potential takeover bid. It is the second major downsizing of the Macy's chain since 2020 and will leave the company with 350 stores, slightly more than half the number it had before the pandemic. Macy's said the 'underproductive locations' it planned to close accounted for 25 percent of the company's overall square footage but just 10 percent of sales." (Also linked yesterday.)

Starbucks Relents. Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "Starbucks and the union that represents employees in roughly 400 of its U.S. stores announced Tuesday that they were beginning discussions on a 'foundational framework' that would help the company reach labor agreements with unionized workers and resolve litigation between the two sides. The union greeted the development as a major shift in strategy for Starbucks, which has taken steps to resist union organizing at the company since the campaign began in 2021, moves that federal labor regulators have said violated labor law hundreds of times."

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Arizona. April Rubin of Axios: "Arizona Republicans are advancing a bill that would allow people to legally kill someone accused of attempting to trespass or actively trespassing on their property.... The legislation, which is expected to be vetoed if it reaches the state's Democratic governor, [Katie Hobbs,] would legalize the murder of undocumented immigrants, who often have to cross ranches that sit on the state's border with Mexico." MB: When my parents lived in the countryside near Las Cruces, New Mexico, my father would bring water, and occasionally sandwiches, to migrants crossing their land. I don't know what my father thought of unauthorized immigration, but he sure lacked the murderous cruelty of Arizona legislators.

Michigan. Praveena Somasundaram of the Washington Post: "An Indiana man pleaded guilty Tuesday to threatening to kill a Michigan elections clerk after the November 2020 election, federal prosecutors announced. A week after Joe Biden was elected president, Andrew Nickels of Carmel, Ind., left a voice mail for Rochester Hills, Mich., Clerk Tina Barton in which he said she deserved a 'throat to the knife' because she had 'frauded out America of a real election,' the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Michigan said in a news release.... When Nickels called Barton on Nov. 10, he said in his expletive-filled message that '10 million plus patriots will surround you when you least expect it,' according to prosecutors.... Nickels, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of making a threatening interstate communication, according to the news release, and he faces up to five years in prison.... [Nickels' attorney] told the Detroit News that the case shows 'how mental health affects so many people.'" MB: Yes, the affliction might be called "Trump syndrome,"; and it is primarily found among people who present with high levels of stupid.

Texas. Paxton Bests Pregnant Women. Matthew Choi of the Texas Tribune: "A federal court in Lubbock ruled Tuesday that proxy voting in Congress doesn't count toward a quorum, weakening a law to protect pregnant workers that was passed with proxy votes. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration last year over a massive government funding package that passed largely by proxy votes because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The funding package, passed in December 2022 [when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker], included the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which protects accommodations for pregnant employees in the workplace.... Paxton argued the Constitution requires a physical majority of members in the U.S. House to pass legislation. Since a majority of members of the House voted on the funding package by proxy, Paxton said it was unenforceable.... Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas agreed with Paxton's understanding of a quorum.... Hendrix ruled the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act unenforceable against the state government and its agencies."

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Israel/Palestine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Wednesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Israel and Hamas have downplayed progress on a potential deal to pause fighting in Gaza in exchange for the release of more hostages, after President Biden said he hoped a weeks-long cease-fire could start as soon as next week. Biden faces political pressure over his handling of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, including in key swing states he must secure to win reelection.... A Hamas official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive cease-fire talks, said Hamas 'received a paper, which is not a draft agreement, but rather ideas for discussion.' An Israeli official was also circumspect about Biden's timeline, saying, 'Right now, there is no deal.'"

Ukraine, et al. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Through much of [Volodymyr Zelensky's fraught relationship with Donald Trump], Zelensky has been mostly diplomatic toward the former and potentially future president who, regardless of the 2024 election results, holds considerable sway over the survival of Zelensky's country. But increasingly, Zelensky has apparently decided that diplomacy involves putting pressure on and, in some cases, directly criticizing Trump. In a CNN interview that aired Monday, Zelensky ... repeatedly entertained the idea that Trump might effectively be on Russia's side.... He also suggested that Trump doesn't know what he's talking about when he says he could quickly end the Russia-Ukraine war."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The second-largest wildfire on record in Texas raged across 850,000 acres on Wednesday, as firefighters from around the state tried to contain it. The blaze has consumed houses, burned vast ranch lands, killed livestock and forced evacuations across the sparsely populated Texas Panhandle. The blaze, known as the Smokehouse Creek fire, ignited on Monday and by Wednesday had spread across vast swaths of ranch lands, fueled by strong winds and dry conditions. It still had not been contained and was growing, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. Satellite data from the National Interagency Fire Center suggested that the fire had already become the largest ever seen in the state."

New York Times: "Richard Lewis, a stand-up comedian who first achieved fame in the 1980s with his trademark acerbic, dark sense of humor, and who later parlayed that quality into an acting career that included movies like 'Robin Hood: Men in Tights' and a recurring role as himself on HBO's 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 76."