The Kremlin is acting tough with their illegal annexation, but there's chaos at home in mother Russia.  

Monday, October 3, 2022
BY JULIA CLAIRE & CROOKED MEDIA

- Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano ([link removed]) , promising to solve a problem that doesn’t exist in public schools.

International furor erupted after Russia claimed to annex four partially-occupied Ukrainian territories last week, and tensions show no signs of easing, but Russian strategy is, uh, a mess.

* After all the annexation uproar, the Kremlin admitted that it does not know where the borders for these regions ([link removed]) lie. Iconic! Nonetheless, the lower house of the Russian parliament ratified President Vladimir Putin’s annexation today. It is expected to be formalized by the upper house tomorrow ([link removed]) . The ratifications—which are essentially formalities—belie reality on the ground in those territories: Russia faces serious setbacks on the battlefield in at least three of the regions it annexed. Russian forces withdrew from the key railroad hub of Lyman in the Donetsk region on Saturday.

* The Ukrainian counteroffensive continues to see gains on at least two fronts, advancing in the precise areas Russia claims to be annexing ([link removed]) , challenging the Kremlin’s efforts to engage fresh troops and calling Putin’s bluff over his promise to defend the territories by any means necessary. Putin faces domestic chaos and anger over his partial troop mobilization, and the guy doesn’t even know where the new borders are in the territories he appears militarily incapable of holding.

* Senior Pentagon officials called Ukraine’s rapid retaking of territory in the northeast and the progress its forces are making against Russia a “stunning success.” ([link removed]) Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander also noted the significance of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south and commented on Russia’s ongoing problem keeping its troops stocked with weapons and ammunition. I guess even the Russian military can’t escape supply-chain issues!

All eyes remain on Russia as knowledge of its war crimes continue to be uncovered.

* Americans captured by Russia who were recently released in a September 21 prisoner exchange are speaking out for the first time. Alex Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh, two U.S. military veterans, say that following a Russian attack on their unit, they were interrogated, subjected to physical and psychological abuse, and given little food or clean water for 104 days ([link removed]) . The two still had visible welts on their wrists from where they were bound. A British man, Paul Urey, suffered physical beatings at the same site as Drueke and Huynh, and died there. On September 7, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced that the Ukrainian government had recovered Urey’s body and that it had “signs of possible unspeakable torture.”

* In other Russian-implicated crime news, Sweden sent a diving vessel to the site of the ruptured Russian gas pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2 ([link removed]) , in an effort to uncover information about the explosion, which Russian and Western leaders alike have decried as an act of sabotage. Denmark and Germany have also joined Sweden in launching an investigation ([link removed]) into what caused the damage, which they said was so sophisticated that only a state actor could have been responsible. You don’t say!

Russia’s chaos at home and retreat in Lyman have buoyed the Ukrainian advance, even with the Russian government’s approval of the illegal land grab. The path to peace will be long and treacherous, and probably won’t look like Elon Musk’s very stupid one ([link removed]) , but Ukrainians are showing the world every day that they won’t be deterred.

You do not want to miss the newest Pod Save America ([link removed]) episode, “Mitch McConnell, Welcome to the Resistance!” Sam Sanders joins Jon, Jon, Tommy, and Dan live from SiriusXM, the January 6th committee delays their hearing among new revelations about Roger Stone, the Senate moves closer to passing the Electoral Count Act thanks to Mitch McConnell, and special guests Senator Elizabeth Warren and John Legend join to talk about the midterms. Plus, the hosts of Crooked’s Gen Z podcast Dare We Say join for a battle of the generations.

Check out Crooked Radio on SiriusXM progress starting 10/1, Get up to 4 months free at [link removed] ([link removed]) , and tune in to new episodes of Pod Save America ([link removed]) every Tuesday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.
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A New York Times investigative report has uncovered more behind-the-scenes maneuvering from Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) office ([link removed]) in transporting 48 Venezuelan migrants (lawfully seeking asylum) under false pretenses from San Antonio, TX, to the island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. The money that financed this endeavor came out of a $12 million pot, which DeSantis earmarked back in June for transporting migrants out of Florida, not Texas, if you can believe it. And the clandestine mission rounding up the asylum seekers on the streets of San Antonio was done without the knowledge of even Gov. (and fellow Republican asshole) Greg Abbott (R-TX). The flights were paid for with state money on a charter airline company with political ties to DeSantis: very possibly violating state law. In the middle of the scandal is Perla Huerta: a woman with a military counterintelligence background who was sent to Texas
from Tampa expressly to fill the planes. Huerta lied to both the migrants and the people she employed about the nature of their mission. Most of the migrants interviewed said that a woman named Perla approached them in San Antonio outside of a migrant information center, and told them about a free flight to Massachusetts where there would be “jobs'' and “people to help them.” She also handed them a phony brochure titled “Refugee Migrant Benefits'' which promised “up to eight months of cash assistance” for “income-eligible” refugees in Massachusetts. It was only when the migrants landed on Martha’s Vineyard that they realized they’d been scammed.

Football legend and ultra-right wing GOP candidate for Senate in Georgia Herschel Walker, who has said abortion is murder and there should be “no exceptions” for rape, incest, or life of the mother, reportedly conceived a child with a woman in 2009, urged her to have an abortion, then paid for it himself ([link removed]) . I’m sure the hundreds of his fellow male Republican politicians who have done exactly the same thing can give him some pointers on how to handle the fallout.


Disgraced former president Donald Trump has objected to a Justice Department request for an expedited ruling in the special-master case stemming from the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago ([link removed]) . DOJ said Friday that its inability to access the non-classified documents is still hampering its investigation.


The conservative United Kingdom government has reversed course and abandoned its disastrous plan to abolish the top income tax rate ([link removed]) after it pushed the British pound to an all-time low against the U.S. dollar. A hell of a first showing from new Prime Minister Liz Truss.


The Supreme Court agreed to take up nine new cases next term, including Gonzalez v. Google, which could be highly consequential for tech companies’ legal liability ([link removed]) .


Lawyers for Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a court today that the crown prince’s appointment as prime minister last week provided him immunity from prosecution ([link removed]) for the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A very convenient argument from an all-around great guy!


Election officials are bracing themselves for confrontational interactions with Trump-loyal poll watchers on Election Day ([link removed]) in battleground states across the country.


U.S. manufacturing grew at its slowest pace in nearly two and a half years ([link removed]) as a result of the Fed’s aggressive interest rate increases.


An independent investigation into the scandals plaguing the National Women’s Soccer League found systemic emotional abuse and sexual misconduct within the sport ([link removed]) .


Dangers have persisted, even worsened in some places, in the days since Hurricane Ian barreled through Florida and the Carolinas ([link removed]) , with some of the most significant flooding in decades.


WNBA star Brittney Griner’s appeal hearing date was set for October 25th ([link removed]) , after a Russian court sentenced her to a staggering nine years in prison for marijuana possession.


Prosecutors used opening statements to urge a Washington, DC, jury to convict Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, along with four of his fellow insurrectionists ([link removed]) , for their roles in the January 6 Capitol riot. A tough day for eye-patch wearing traitors everywhere.

The United States military said it killed a leader of the Islamist militant al-Shabaab group with an air strike in Somalia over the weekend ([link removed]) .

If Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro plans to pull a Trump (i.e. lie about losing re-election and foment an insurrection, as he’s repeatedly promised to do) he’ll have to wait a few weeks. Bolsonaro came up more than six million votes short of his main rival, Lula da Silva, on election day, Sunday, but da Silva fell slightly short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With more than 99 percent of the vote counted as of Sunday evening, da Silva held a lead over the incumbent Bolsonaro, but not by enough to claim victory, so the two will face off in a second round runoff. The bad news: Bolsonaro significantly outperformed expectations, finishing the night eight points higher than most polls projected, while Lula performed slightly worse than his own polling. The good news: the first-term authoritarian incumbent came up way short of his main opponent. (Sound like any other countries you know?) Lula told reporters he’s confident he will win the runoff on October 30, and if he’s right,
the world will be on tenterhooks to see if “Tropical Trump” Bolsonaro lives up to his disgraceful nickname.
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A Swedish scientist won the Nobel Prize in medicine today for discoveries in human evolution that unlocked secrets of Neanderthal DNA ([link removed]) .


In some rare good Supreme Court news, the justices declined to hear a challenge to a federal ban on “bump stock” devices ([link removed]) which enable semi-automatic weapons to fire like a machine gun.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made her first oral-argument appearance today in the first case of the new term, Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency ([link removed]) , in which individuals trying to build on federally-protected wetlands in Idaho, backed by powerful right-wing interests, seek to gut the Clean Water Act. Jackson rebutted a lengthy cross-examination by the notoriously verbose Justice Neil Gorsuch. Get his ass, KBJ!
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