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There are not just two people in the entire United States, even if, some days, it might seem that way.
DONALD TRUMP’S PROBLEMS
* Dr. Oz is not Mr. Vance; authenticity cannot be faked.
* As Donald Trump well knows from his friends at Mar-a-Lago, America is by many measures a pro-choice nation.
* Liz Cheney is one tough mujer.
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JOE BIDEN’S PROBLEMS
* Tom Friedman:
If you just followed news reports on Ukraine, you might think that the war has settled into a long, grinding and somewhat boring slog. You would be wrong.
Things are actually getting more dangerous by the day.
For starters, the longer this war goes on, the more opportunity for catastrophic miscalculations — and the raw material for that is piling up fast and furious. Take the two high-profile leaks from American officials this past week about U.S. involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war:
First, The Times disclosed that “the United States has provided intelligence about Russian units that has allowed Ukrainians to target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war, according to senior American officials.” Second, The Times, following a report by NBC News and citing U.S. officials, reported that America has “provided intelligence that helped Ukrainian forces locate and strike” the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. This targeting assistance “contributed to the eventual sinking” of the Moskva by two Ukrainian cruise missiles.
As a journalist, I love a good leak story, and the reporters who broke those stories did powerful digging. At the same time, from everything I have been able to glean from senior U.S. officials, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, the leaks were not part of any thought-out strategy, and President Biden was livid about them. I’m told that he called the director of national intelligence, the director of the C.I.A. and the secretary of defense to make clear in the strongest and most colorful language that this kind of loose talk is reckless and has got to stop immediately — before we end up in an unintended war with Russia.
The staggering takeaway from these leaks is that they suggest we are no longer in an indirect war with Russia but rather edging toward a direct war — and no one has prepared the American people or Congress for that.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky outlined his conditions Friday for entering peace talks with Russia, demanding a restoration of preinvasion borders, the return of more than 5 million refugees, membership in the European Union and accountability from Russian military leaders before Kyiv would consider laying down its arms.
Zelensky’s slate of requirements, which he listed during an online forum organized by Chatham House, are in direct conflict with the military objectives Russian leaders have articulated as they bear down on the Donbas region and southern Ukraine — inflicting additional casualties Friday in apparent violation of a cease-fire.
They also come as Ukraine and its Western allies await possible pronouncements or dramatic shifts on the battlefield by the Kremlin before Monday, when Russia observes Victory Day, commemorating the surrender of Nazi Germany and the end of the European front in World War II.
* Joe Biden is expending a lot of energy traveling around America, trying to unstick a legislative agenda that is in some pretty deep doodoo.
* Simultaneously satisfying both the far left and the middle on immigration, student loans, the environment, and a whole lot more would test the political skills of, say, even Bill Clinton.
* Based on the evidence on offer, it is not entirely clear that Jerome Powell has what it takes.
* A new CNN poll suggests that abortion will not be a midterm game changer.
* Even Anita Dunn might not be able to deflect all the anger from the left away from her boss and onto the Republicans.
The Biden administration is warning the United States could see 100 million coronavirus infections and a potentially significant wave of deaths this fall and winter, driven by new omicron subvariants that have shown a remarkable ability to escape immunity.
* “Anthony Fauci this week privately criticized the decision to hold the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, singling it out as a troubling sign that many Americans no longer view Covid as a serious threat, four people who heard his remarks told POLITICO.”
* You can take the Delawarean out of the Senate, but you can’t take the Senate out of the Delawarean.
* The New York Post’s obsession with Hunter Biden might not matter as much as what federal prosecutors think.
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