What's Happening
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RUSSIA-UKRAINE
What’s happening: Nobody knows nothing about nothing.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia said Wednesday it was returning more troops and weapons to bases, yet another gesture apparently aimed at easing fears it is planning to invade Ukraine, even as the U.S. said the threat of an attack remained.
What “they” are saying:
Tom Friedman, giving Biden credit and cleverly explaining Putin’s real concern:
[T]he Biden team has mobilized enough solidarity among the NATO allies, enough advanced defensive arms transfers to Ukraine and enough potentially biting economic sanctions on Russia to put into Putin’s mind the only thought that matters: “If I go ahead with a full-scale invasion and it goes bad — wrecking Russia’s economy and resulting in Russian soldiers returning home in body bags from a war with fellow Slavs — could it lead to my own downfall?”
That is the only calculation that matters, and Biden has done the best job a U.S. president could do, given the asymmetry in interests between America and Russia on Ukraine, to frame it. Ukraine is not only right next door to Russia, but it’s also a country whose fate and future are vitally important to Putin personally. By contrast, most Americans could not find Ukraine on a map and feel zero emotional attachment to its future. And, as Putin found when he seized Crimea in 2014, Americans will not send their sons and daughters to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity….
[T]he Ukraine crisis has never been exclusively about Putin’s fear of the expansion of NATO’s forces to Russia’s borders. Not even close. His greater fear is the expansion of the E.U.’s sphere of influence and the prospect that it would midwife a decent, democratic, free-market Ukraine that would every day say to the Russian people, “This is what you could be without Putin.”
What happens next: Nobody knows nothing about nothing.
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THE FED/INFLATION
What’s happening:
Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee boycotted a vote Tuesday on President Joe Biden’s five nominees to the Federal Reserve, delaying indefinitely the confirmation of Chair Jerome Powell to a second four-year term.
Democrats control the committee, but because no Republican attended the session, votes couldn’t take place under the panel’s rules.
What “they” are saying:
The Wall Street Journal with an essential read on the challenges Powell & Co. face in fighting inflation without destroying the economy.
What happens next: Democrats try to make Republicans pay a price for blocking the Fed nominees by painting the GOP as “weak” on fighting inflation, while Republicans try to force Democrats to separate Sarah Bloom Raskin from the other four members of the herd. Democrats are unlikely to win this fight the conventional way.
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DEMOCRATS PANIC OVER MIDTERM POLLING
What’s happening: Team Biden-Harris-Klain-Donilon-Pelosi-Schumer look at survey data, incumbent retirements, and a stalled legislative agenda and decide doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity – and a recipe for losing control of Congress. So they are playing with all sorts of options, such as reviving BBB, cutting the gas tax, and more, as chronicled in the New York Times.
What “they” are saying:
Bill Galston tees up the crime issue, while Politico has an essential read on the seminal “leak” of some DCCC polling that represents the toughest love imaginable:
Democrats’ own research shows that some battleground voters think the party is “preachy,” “judgmental” and “focused on culture wars,” according to documents obtained by POLITICO.
And the party’s House campaign arm had a stark warning for Democrats: Unless they more forcefully confront the GOP’s “alarmingly potent” culture war attacks, from critical race theory to defunding the police, they risk losing significant ground to Republicans in the midterms.
What happens next: With even many Democratic primary voters demanding more be done to fight crime, look for the party’s consultants to come up with tough-sounding law-and-order proposals, for the president to do more events with cops, and for Republicans to have a field day on Twitter. Also: more talking points from Team Pelosi!
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CAMPAIGN 2024: TRUMP
What’s happening:
Questions about Donald Trump’s business practices are piling up. Whether the former president is forced to answer any of them under oath could be decided in a matter of days.
New York’s attorney general will go to court Thursday seeking to enforce a subpoena for Trump’s testimony in a civil investigation she says uncovered evidence his company used “fraudulent or misleading” valuations of golf clubs, skyscrapers and other properties to get loans and tax benefits.
The hearing, before state Judge Arthur Engoron in Manhattan, is the next step in a legal battle that has unfolded in court papers over the last few weeks, including the revelation Monday that Trump’s longtime accounting firm recently dumped him after warning that financial statements it prepared could not be trusted.
What “they” are saying: Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
What happens next: Nobody knows nothing about nothing.
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CAMPAIGN 2024: CLINTON
What’s happening: As the Durham story continues to percolate, Hillary and Chelsea go to Queens for some Filipino fare, while all the world gets ready for HRC’s Thursday Manhattan speech to Empire State Democrats.
What “they” are saying:
Via the New York Post, on the state party’s choice of a keynote speaker:
[S]ome New York Democrats told The Post that they disagreed with party Chairman Jay Jacobs’ decision to give Clinton the platform amid speculation she could run for president again.
“I do not think a resurrection of Hillary Clinton’s political ambitions is appropriate, nor do I think she’s helpful to the long-term future of the New York Democratic Party,” Assemblyman Phil Steck (D-Colonie) said.
“I think we need to show people we care more about Main Street than Wall Street and Hillary Clinton does not do that for the Democratic Party.”
Committee member Patrick Nelson, who represents a district around upstate Saratoga Springs, also said, “I wish the Democratic Party leadership would have chosen someone for keynote speaker who was more forward-looking and unifying.
“We have the youngest woman elected to Congress from New York — AOC,” Nelson said, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of The Bronx and Queens.
“Hillary Clinton has been quite divisive.”
What happens next: Stuttering John (or the current day equivalent) tries to stick a mic in Mrs. Clinton’s face.
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ESSENTIAL READING
John Podhoretz on the life and times of Mr. P.J. O'Rourke.
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