Is it just me or is it starting to get kind of World War-y in here?

Wednesday, October 19, 2022
BY JULIA CLAIRE & CROOKED MEDIA

- Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) ([link removed]) accurately describing lil Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in last night’s Senate debate

Russia’s war on Ukraine was always going to have international collateral damage, but as the shape of the conflict changes and the war rages on, so do the geopolitical implications.

* Russian President Vladimir Putin doubled down on his invasion of Ukraine today with a declaration of martial law in four territories of the country ([link removed]) he illegally annexed. The Kremlin is also preparing for new invasive restrictions and crackdowns. This attempt to tighten his grip on Ukrainian civilians follows a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield, and it also belies Putin’s attempt to portray a sense of normalcy in the annexed regions to the outside world. A military administration has replaced civilian leaders in the city of Kherson and a mass evacuation of the city is underway. The martial-law declaration authorized the creation of civil-defense forces, and the potential for imposing curfews, restrictions on travel and public gatherings, more stringent censorship, and broader law enforcement powers in the annexed
regions.

* Iranian-made drones that Russia sent to rain destruction on central Kyiv this week have complicated Israel’s neutrality between Russia and the West. Israel has mostly stayed on the sidelines since Russia first invaded Ukraine last February, to protect its tenuous strategic alliance with the Kremlin. The country sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but refused its request for air-defense systems and military munitions. Many Russian-Jewish oligarchs have vacation homes in Israel. But with Iran, Israel’s most ardent enemy, supplying Russia with missiles, Israel has come under greater pressure to formally support Ukraine ([link removed]) . An Israeli cabinet minister even called on the government to take Ukraine’s side on Monday, setting off alarm bells in Russia. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev responded by saying that Israel providing military aid to Ukraine would be “a very reckless move.”

* But Israel has also chosen neutrality over its concern for the large Jewish population in Russia, a country with a long history of anti-Jewish pogroms. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Yair Lapid has been more vocal than his predecessor. Before he took over this summer, Lapid was foreign minister, and described reports of the atrocities in Ukraine as possible war crimes. Tensions rose further in July when a Russian court ordered that the Jewish Agency, a major nonprofit that promotes Jewish immigration to Israel, close its Russian offices. Former Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky criticized Israel’s reluctance to help Ukraine yesterday, calling it “the last country in the free world which is still afraid to irritate Putin.”

Western powers that have aligned themselves with Ukraine are adjusting their response with each new violent development.

* Iran still officially denies having supplied the drones and missiles Russia used in Kyiv, but the European Union has gathered evidence to the contrary, and is drawing up a list of sanctions in response ([link removed]) . E.U. foreign ministers discussed the use of drones on Monday, as the bloc gathered evidence about Iran’s dealings with Russia. Two E.U. diplomats said that the sanctions could be finalized as soon as tomorrow, when leaders meet in Brussels. The sanctions would involve asset freezes, travel bans, and other measures, but thus far specifics are unknown. The foreign ministers also agreed on Monday to impose sanctions on Iran’s morality police and 11 other officials over violence inflicted on anti-government protesters across Iran.

* At home in the U.S., the Biden administration announced a round of criminal charges and sanctions related to a complex scheme to procure military technologies from American manufacturers and illegally supply them to Russia ([link removed]) to use against Ukraine. The Justice Department reported that some of the equipment was recovered on Ukrainian battlefields, and other nuclear-proliferation technology was intercepted in Latvia before it could be shipped to Russia. Nine people were charged in separate cases in New York and Connecticut. The five defendants charged in New York are all Russian nationals, two of whom have been arrested. DOJ, the FBI, and the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control worked in coordination to identify the Russian network.

From the start of this war, it was clear it would not be contained to Russia and Ukraine. Just how many neutral countries will ultimately be compelled to choose a side is unclear, but Russia’s recent draconian measures show that the Kremlin knows it’s not looking good for them.
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Election Day is right around the corner! We’re officially in the final stretch when most normal people are actually starting to pay attention and decide who they’re going to vote for or if they’re going to vote at all. If you're reading this, we hope you already know how you're going to vote on or before November 8, so now we need you to help get out the vote.

Face to face conversations are the most effective way to make a difference on the margins in the races that are going to be close, so sign up to volunteer.

Head to votesaveamerica.com/volunteer ([link removed]) to find an opportunity near you.

The GOP has coordinated an effort to install MAGA die-hards who unwaveringly believe in the Big Lie as election watchers and poll workers. But new reports show that some of these (deeply unhinged) individuals are taking things a step further. Some have initiated a new wave of efforts to gain control of local voting administrations by replacing county-government leaders with election conspiracy theorists ([link removed]) . In Nevada, one such man has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns targeting opponents of Trump’s Big Lie and backing Republicans who support it. The end game is to profoundly change how American elections are run. Right-wing activists want to eliminate voting machines entirely and return to hand-counting paper ballots, which pretty much all experts agree would make elections more prone to fraud, not less. This, combined with the fringe “Independent State Legislature Theory,” which has made
its way to the Supreme Court, and the GOP’s increasing comfort with seeking power by circumventing the popular vote, demonstrates the ways in which Republicans are trying to rig elections for themselves by land, air, and sea.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. and Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman is recovering well from his stroke in May according to his doctor ([link removed]) . Fetterman’s Republican opponent and TV doctor/snake-oil salesman Mehmet Oz has exploited Fetterman’s stroke on the campaign trail, questioning his fitness to serve.


Kashmiri photojournalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo said today that immigration authorities in India prevented her from flying to the United States to receive her Pulitzer Prize ([link removed]) even though she had a valid visa and ticket.


In yet another blow to British Prime Minister Liz Truss, her Home Secretary Suella Braverman resigned ([link removed]) , citing “concerns about direction of this government,” along with a thinly-veiled attack on Truss. And you think you’re having a hard time at work!


An Arizona GOP candidate who said children need to be protected from “the progressive Left” was arrested for masturbating near a preschool ([link removed]) .


Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi returned to Tehran today after participating in a competition in South Korea without wearing hijab ([link removed]) , widely seen as support for the anti-government demonstrations.


In a new analysis of more than 800,000 internet-service offers, top providers offered poorer, less-White areas and neighborhoods worse internet deals ([link removed]) and service.


Disgraced former president Trump was deposed in New York columnist E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him ([link removed]) , after he publicly called her a liar while in office when she accused him of sexual assault.

A Japanese professional cultural-heritage preservationist accidentally backed his car into the country’s oldest toilet ([link removed]) . There was just no way I wasn’t going to add this to the newsletter.

A Wall Street Journal investigation found that federal officials working on the government response to Covid-19 made suspiciously well-timed financial trades ([link removed]) when the pandemic began, almost like they had access to information the general public did not! Federal officials owned millions of dollars of stock in industries most affected by the pandemic and the government’s response to it. Two-hundred-and-forty officials across health agencies and the Pentagon (a key agency in the vaccine rollout) reported owning a total of between $9-28 million in stocks of drug, manufacturing, and biotechnology companies that won federal contracts related to Covid in 2020 and 2021. March 2020 was the most active month of trading by officials across the federal government, with more than 11,600 trades, more than any other month in the analysis. Federal employees are supposed to be barred from working on matters
in which they have a considerable financial stake, but agency ethics officials rarely have a complete picture of what employees are working on or privy to, especially amid the frantic mobilization of a national emergency. Remember how fun it was to nail Trump on all of the ways he was lining his own pockets through his position as president? Those were the days. Maybe it’s past time we apply the same standard to all government employees.
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Right now, you can get 20% off your first order when you go to Blueland.com/crooked ([link removed]) !

Hollywood’s first Chinese-American movie star Anna May Wong will be the first Asian-American on United States currency ([link removed]) on the tails side of some quarters as part of the American Women Quarters Program to be rolled out next year.
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