A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
A jury on Thursday ruled against Project Veritas, the conservative organization that carries out so-called “sting operations” to manufacture damning content about its political enemies, in a Democratic consultant firm’s lawsuit – but not before Project Veritas’ own lawyer asserted in his closing statement that his clients engaged in “deceit, deception and dishonesty,” as the New York Times put it.
The Russian referendums in the 4 occupied territories in The Ukraine is a big deal. Vlad intends to hold the sham referendums and after the guaranteed approval, immediately annex the territories into Russia. He will then claim that any attack against them is a direct attack on Russian soil, and thus a justification for using chemical or nuclear weapons. After Crimea, I can’t see the Ukrainian government accepting this, and it will be very interesting how the West responds. If the West allows itself to be intimidated by this bluff, a large portion of the Ukraine is gone forever.
I would hope that the Special Master is wise enough to make Trump put up the funds to pay for this fiasco now. Because you KNOW if Trump loses there is no way he will pay the bill. I hope that they can come up with a way to force the RNC to pay for it, since they pick up so many of Trump’s other legal bills.
Fun fact … when presenting bull shit results, always present the figures carried out to two decimal places - conveys a degree of accuracy that simply isn’t there … but will seem like it is.
Vlad is the only moron who thinks (pretends to think) this will work. Nobody in the West is fooled.
He can declare all he wants to, everybody knows what’s going on. It’s not focused on an outward audience, it’s a feeble and futile attempt to make his own people think there’s a “greater cause” to legitimize his conscripting more cannon fodder.
The problem is that it’s 7-8 months too late to be convincing, even for the Russian people.
That is undoubtedly the plan, but I still think Putin won’t use chem/bio or nuclear weapons if Ukraine ignores the annexation and attacks in those areas.
Chemical and biological weapons are difficult to control on the battlefield, and have a high risk of inadvertent civilian casualties. Putin doesn’t need to make Russia even more of an international pariah than it already is.
Nuclear weapons (tactical nukes) is a black box that nobody has opened since WW2, and nobody can predict what happens next. I think he’s afraid of the NATO response in both cases. At least I hope he is.
ETA: Nukes, even small ones, also bring the probability of radioactive fallout drifting into NATO countries, especially Turkey with the prevailing winds.
Dearie did stipulate that FatAss must pay within 7 calendar days after he gets his invoice. I suspect that not respecting this deadline will not bode well for him.
As a Hoosier, I can tell you Mike Braun is an awful Senator. As a “self-made” businessman and devout “Christian” who loves his guns, he is useless in the Senate. The good news is if he wins in his bid for governor (and he will if he is the Republican nominee), he will cause only damage to Indiana, a state that is already decimated by long-time Republican rule (e.g. Mitch Daniels, Mike Pence, and Eric Holcomb).
I’m getting the feeling that Dearie is finding this all rather satisfying … sort of like a excellent session in a batting cage … and while he is supposed to be paid, it almost seems like he would feed his own quarters into the meter to be able to whack the snot out of Trump’s twit lawyers for another round or two.
