These is no way around the fact that the situation in Russia and Ukraine is distressing, worrying, outrageous, and awful.
Sometimes, when awful things are going on like this, we bury ourselves in news about it. We are unable to turn away. Other times, we avoid all news because we can’t deal with it.
In both cases you end up missing all the good news that is out there. And that doesn’t help anyone’s wellbeing and ability to actively contribute to a better world.
So here is some good news from this week to provide some balance and relief so you can deal with the tough stuff and even act to make things better.
Speaking of making things better, here are some ways you can help in Ukraine from everyone’s favorite former President Obama
Help the people of Ukraine by supporting one of these organizations:
Ukrainian Obama Leader Yuliia Sachuk’s organization, Fight for Right, promotes and protects the human rights of people living with disabilities in her community. In response to the crisis, Fight for Right is coordinating accessible shelter, evacuations, and emergency services–ensuring those living with disabilities aren’t left out of the humanitarian efforts. Their Go Fund Me page is the place for direct donations.
Obama Leader András Léderer and his team at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee have been helping provide free-of-charge legal assistance and representation to refugees in Hungary for decades. Right now, they are focused on helping asylum seekers from Ukraine find professional and free legal assistance.
Following reports that a number of African and Indian students have faced discrimination and racism at the border of Poland while trying to escape to safety, Fundacja Ocalenie has stepped in to provide support.
The Kyiv Independent, an English-language media outlet, was launched three months ago and was created on the principles of independent journalism and free-press. The goal of their Go Fund Me campaign is to keep the accurate news coming.
This Polish organization is offering a free crisis hotline to assist people who are being affected by the Ukrainian crisis, including individuals who have fled the country, families worried about the well-being of their children, and those who have relatives in Ukraine and are feeling a sense of hopelessness.
A Hungarian nonprofit that has experience helping severely traumatized asylum seekers, refugees, and their family members. They provide counseling and advanced psychiatric support.
The Urgent Action Fund is helping support women, transgender, and nonbinary activists on the ground in and around Ukraine, by providing flexible funding, access to communication channels, and medical support.
IOM is scaling up its humanitarian operations in Ukraine and neighboring countries, providing emergency services in health, shelter, winter supplies, and protection.
This Polish NGO has been providing pro bono legal work for migrants and refugees since 2005. Due to the rapidly changing rules and individual cases of those fleeing Ukraine, the Association for Legal Intervention just launched a dedicated legal portal to provide prompt legal advice.
Now onto the good news:
Biden Boom!
*More* great economic news came in yesterday!
Other Great Things Biden and The Democrats Have Done
Biden unveils new buy American rules to strengthen U.S. manufacturing
President Biden on Friday unveiled new buy American rules to strengthen manufacturing in the United States as the country seeks to rebound from the woes of a supply chain undermined by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Today we’re … announcing a new framework for critical products where we know we need stronger, more resilient domestic supply chains,” Biden said at the White House. “We saw during the pandemic that supply chain disruptions can put American lives and livelihoods at risk.”
Goods can be purchased by the federal government with tax dollars if just 55 percent of their parts were manufactured here. The new regulation ups that standard to 75 percent.
The new rule updates the Buy America Act, a 1930s-era law that requires the federal government to use taxpayer dollars on goods that are manufactured domestically. White House officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview the rule late Thursday, said the update will be the biggest change to the rule in 70 years.
Biden Puts Texas ‘on Notice’ Over Trans Teen Health Care Ban—Which Puts ‘Lives at Risk’
More than once, most recently in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, President Joe Biden has told trans youth he has their backs.
On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will now use the weight of the law against attempts to restrict trans teens’ access to gender-affirming health care, as well as countering the threats to the health care professionals who provide it.
In doing so, the White House has signaled it is ready to fight in the courts not just Texas, mentioned specifically in the newly published legal guidance, but also the multiple Republican legislatures seeking to outlaw such health care, criminalizing both parents and health care providers.
Biden Rehires National Security Staff Member Pushed Out Under Trump
The National Security Council confirmed that Ellen Knight, who told of improper pressure from Trump administration officials, was returning to help manage classified information.
Biden administration won’t appeal judge’s ruling revoking Gulf of Mexico drilling leases
The Biden administration will not challenge a federal court ruling that it did not sufficiently consider climate change when it auctioned off 1.7 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico last year, accepting a decision that invalidated the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in the nation’s history.
With hard work, we can win in November!
Biden's approval rating jumps to 47 percent
President Biden is seeing a boost to his approval rating following his first State of the Union address this week, with a poll released Friday showing him at 47 percent.
The latest NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist National Poll found that 47 percent of Americans surveyed approve of the job he is doing as president, which is a jump from the 39 percent approval rating he had in the same poll last month.
Is Biden the comeback kid?
Biden nailed it
The real Joe Biden is back. Tonight, he reminded us why America picked a tried-and-true defender of democracy – at home and abroad – to lead us through these tough times.
In his handling of Ukraine, we have seen the competent, seasoned and experienced foreign policy hand we voted for. He has expertly weaved a response to the most consequential foreign policy moment in years – a far cry from the Afghanistan withdrawal. Tonight, he effectively made the case for Americans and the world uniting against autocratic aggression.
In fact, unity was the theme.
His domestic agenda – making more stuff in America, making work pay and making America a safer place to live – are all things that are widely popular among voters. Call it a positive populism, without anger or scapegoating.
Look at how he talked about renewable energy and public safety. Progressives want action on climate change. But conservatives who care about innovation, job creation, or energy independence and national security would also like what they heard. Republican voters liked hearing Biden say no to defunding the police, while Democrats loved hearing about investing in communities to stop crime before it starts.
Biden’s State of the Union address ushers in a new phase of his presidency
American history teaches that every occupant of the White House gets two presidencies: the one he planned for and the one that events thrust upon him. President Biden’s first State of the Union address was his opportunity to lay out how he proposes to lead through the presidency he has been forced to conduct by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s world-changing invasion of Ukraine.
As the time to give his first State of the Union address Tuesday night approached, the results were mixed. Mr. Biden could boast of declining coronavirus cases and deaths; of a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan; and of restocking the federal judiciary with his appointments, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, newly picked to be the Supreme Court’s next justice — and first Black woman.
In short, events have thrust historic challenges upon Mr. Biden, but also opportunities. Tuesday night, Mr. Biden rightfully claimed that he had helped maintain, and indeed increase, the unity of Western allies in the face of Russian aggression and that his administration made innovative and subtle public use of its intelligence. Strong and swift U.S.-led sanctions, widely supported around the world, have indeed isolated the Putin regime and ensured it pays a heavy price. This has aided unity between the two parties; members of both rose to applaud Ukraine and its ambassador, who was present. The Republicans among them were differentiating themselves from the shameful praise for the dictator voiced by their party’s presumed 2024 presidential front-runner, Mr. Trump.
Donald Trump cuts off his nose to spite his face in Arizona
On Thursday, Donald Trump got his wish: Arizona GOP Gov. Doug Ducey announced he wouldn’t run against Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in the fall.
It’s impossible to talk about Ducey’s no-go decision without mentioning that the former President had repeatedly targeted the governor for his refusal to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state.
“MAGA will never accept RINO Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona running for the U.S. Senate,” Trump said last month. “So save your time, money, and energy, Mitch!”
That appeared to be a reference to a New York Times report that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had been aggressively courting Ducey to take on Kelly in 2022. (Former President George W. Bush was also involved in the recruitment of Ducey, the Times reported.)
Given that full-court press and the fact that he is term-limited as governor, Ducey may have run if Trump either a) didn’t exist or b) wasn’t actively opposed to a Ducey Senate campaign.
But Trump does exist. And Ducey is out.
Which leaves Arizona Republicans without their strongest candidate – by a lot.
The Free World is United
Character is contagious. Look what Ukraine has inspired.
The Ukrainian flag is everywhere — held aloft by thousands marching in U.S. and European cities, draped from the stands at soccer matches and displayed in light designs on public buildings. Not since we saw spontaneous demonstrations of solidarity with the United States after 9/11 has there been such a unified outpouring of emotion and righteous anger around the globe. If we have been looking for something that might unify polarized, divided democracies, defending Ukraine (and by extension, freedom) from Russian shock troops might fit the bill.
It’s as if we woke up from a slumber not to a dystopian nightmare where selfishness, indifference and moral obtuseness dominate but to an energized atmosphere where collective decency, seriousness and sacrifice can flower. Long overdue self-reflection and readjustment in our politics have arrived.
Ukraine buries ‘America First’ for good, we hope
Thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the cringeworthy slogan “America First” might finally and convincingly be discredited. It’s long overdue.
Republicans, even those not entirely enamored of the defeated former president, took delight over the past five years in declaring “America First." They reveled in rejecting mainstream national security experts, scoffing at international organizations and displaying contempt for allies. To a surprising extent, this faction of the GOP has modeled itself on the isolationists of the 1930s, who didn’t bother to hide their admiration for that era’s fascist aggressor.
Never before has the value of NATO been so apparent. The same Republicans who used to whine that NATO allies did not shoulder their obligations now appear to be peeved that Europe is “leading.” (The accusation is disingenuous, of course, because President Biden was the one to revive and energize the alliance.)
Even the United Nations has sprung to life. Putin and his accessories face investigation for war crimes by the International Criminal Court and private nongovernmental organizations. The U.N. Security Council has become a forum for criticizing Russia and debunking its propaganda. On Wednesday, the General Assembly passed a resolution (albeit nonbinding) in which 141 countries condemned the invasion and demanded the Russians leave Ukraine.
Republicans’ applause at Tuesday’s State of the Union for the alliance Biden constructed is implicit recognition that “America First” is kaput. In its place we see wide bipartisan agreement that the United States, together with its allies and organizing international bodies, can advance our interests in a way America by itself cannot.
Putin’s war of aggression has mobilized the strongest international outrage since 9/11
Thanks in part to the Biden administration’s strategic release of U.S. intelligence, Putin was never able to concoct a “false flag” incident to justify his offensive. He tried to but failed in goading the Ukrainian military into attacking Russian-speaking civilians in the east. When that didn’t happen, he unleashed his army anyway on the unbelievable pretext that he was combating “drug addicts and neo-Nazis” — words that make him appear delusional. The whole world could see what was actually happening: naked aggression reminiscent of the German and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939.
With the war underway — and apparently not going as well as Putin hoped — the Russian government has all but ceded the information space to Ukrainians. Russia is not releasing videos of victorious troops being welcomed by grateful civilians, because that is not what is happening. Ukrainians are winning the propaganda battle with pictures, video and audio of their heroic resistance to Russian aggression, which recalls the Finns during the 1939-1940 Winter War.
Justice is coming
A TON of bad news for Trump and his crew this week re: January 6th
Oath Keeper is 1st to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy for Jan. 6, will cooperate with prosecutors
Joshua James, 34, of Arab, Alabama, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges on Wednesday as part of deal with prosecutors contingent on his cooperation with the U.S. government in their ongoing prosecution of defendants who were involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The plea deal is the first of its kind for a Jan. 6 defendant and comes nearly a year after James was charged with impeding and obstructing Congress' affirmation of the Electoral College vote in the 2020 presidential election.
Roger Stone is in Deep Doo Doo
As a mob ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Roger Stone, Donald Trump’s longest-serving political adviser, hurried to pack a suitcase inside his elegant suite on the fifth floor of the Willard hotel. He wrapped his tailored suits in trash bags, reversed his black face mask so its “Free Roger Stone” logo was hidden, then slipped out of town for a hastily arranged private flight from Dulles International Airport.
Stone privately coordinated post-election protests with prominent figures, and in January he communicated by text message with leaders of far-right groups that had been involved in the attack on the Capitol, the footage shows. The filmmakers did not capture conversations between Stone and Trump, but on several occasions, Stone told them or his associates that he remained in contact with the president.
New evidence shows Trump was told many times there was no voter fraud — but he kept saying it anyway
The House Jan. 6 panel aims to prove that Trump was acting corruptly by continuing to spread misinformation about the election long after he had reason to know he had legitimately lost
According to the panel and others, at least 11 aides and close confidants told Trump directly in the weeks after the election that there was no fraud and no legal way to overturn the result.
The committee’s goal was to convince a federal judge there is a “good-faith basis” for concluding Trump and others engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” to defraud the United States and obstruct Congress before the attack on the Capitol — and to prove that Trump was acting corruptly by continuing to spread lies about the election long after he had reason to know he had legitimately lost.
The committee’s assertion that Trump may have broken the law provided the strongest hint to date that the panel may conclude its work by formally asking the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation into the former president.
People interviewed by the committee have said the panel’s investigators have zeroed in on moments when Trump was informed his rhetoric was not rooted in fact or warned that he was urging others to break the law.
Jan. 6 committee says Trump violated multiple laws in effort to overturn election
The Jan. 6 select committee says its evidence has shown that then-President Donald Trump and his campaign tried to illegally obstruct Congress’ counting of electoral votes and “engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
In a major release of its findings, filed in federal court late Wednesday, the committee suggested that its evidence supported findings that Trump himself violated multiple laws by attempting to prevent Congress from certifying his defeat.
“The Select Committee also has a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States,” the committee wrote in a filing submitted in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California.
The Justice Dept. and the Jan. 6 inquiry make moves to snare Trump
Those criticizing Attorney General Merrick Garland for not moving expeditiously against former president Donald Trump for an attempted coup should take heart
A conspiracy to impede the transfer of power could include, for example, promulgating the big lie, strong-arming Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” just enough votes to flip the state, pressuring Michigan election officials not to certify the vote for Biden, organizing fake electors, cajoling Vice President Mike Pence to disregard the electoral count, badgering the Justice Department to declare the election “corrupt,” working with congressmen to raise baseless objections to the electoral votes — and, ultimately, exhorting a mob to march on the Capitol when Congress was tabulating the electoral votes. Critical to that conspiracy was obstructing the congressional proceedings that officially would have announced Biden’s victory.
The committee and the Justice Department are essentially working from both ends of possible conspiracy and obstruction charges.
From the committee’s statements, the latest plea deal and the other seditious conspiracy charges, we see signs that the House and the Justice Department are proceeding along common legal theories that they both agree fit the general fact pattern. If the facts necessary to implicate Trump and his top advisers emerge, the Justice Department will be hard pressed to decline to prosecute.
Biden to deny executive privilege for Flynn and Navarro
President Biden will deny the shield of executive privilege for two top advisers to former President Donald Trump — his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and former trade adviser Peter Navarro — in the House select committee's Jan. 6 investigation, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The move will likely force Flynn and Navarro to make a choice: cooperate with the select committee or face potential criminal referral from Congress to the Department of Justice.
Boo To Bad Guys
Republicans’ attempt to demonize Ketanji Brown Jackson isn’t going well
The Republican playbook for opposing the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been a familiar one for women of color — paint her as radical, extreme, alien and a threat to American values. Fortunately, the effort is already collapsing thanks to Jackson’s explanation of her own values and entirely unexpected praise from conservative legal gurus
Far Right Convey is a Bust
Hey, how are things going with that far-right "trucker convoy" that's going to bring Canadian-style, uh, truck-parking to our great unwashed masses in this country?
That depends. Did your vision of a "trucker convoy" depend on anybody actually showing up?
Yes, today's pro-convoy rally at the Washington Monument resulted in a whole lot of not much; another reporter counted "about 20 people" in attendance, significantly below organizer estimates of, Jeebus, at least a full busload's worth. That leaves us in the now-usual spot of being both in a position to point and laugh
asas
The tide has turned against the Russia apologists
For the better part of five-plus years, Donald Trump attempted to inject some nuance into the GOP’s posture toward Russia. It was partially a strategy of necessity — given how Russia’s 2016 election interference loomed over his presidency — and partially a symptom of both Trump’s penchant for provocation and admiration for authoritarians. But the result was the same: As Vladimir Putin inched toward an invasion of Ukraine, he had plenty of isolationists, conspiracy theorists, rationalizers and even apologists in prominent positions on the American right arguing for averting our eyes.
Their argument, though, has clearly run into reality and fallen badly out of favor. And many of those who downplayed or dismissed Russia’s threat have been forced to reckon with the rather black-and-white view that has now registered with the American people.
Yahoo News and YouGov are the latest out with a poll testing Americans’ views of the war in Ukraine. It shows that Americans — and particularly Republicans — are edging away from the kind of neutrality that seemed prepared to creep into the mainstream.
Feel Good Story
Kids were flailing in a frigid pond, screaming that they would die: ‘Not going to happen today,’ he told them.
Anthony Alexander Jr. was resting on a park bench after playing basketball with friends when a girl ran up to him crying.
“She screamed, ‘Hurry! You’ve got to come and help — my friends down there are drowning!’ ” he said, recalling that she wildly pointed down a hill. “She was really panicked.”
It was just before 3 p.m. on Feb. 21, and the 16-year-old said he was getting ready to leave the park after a fun Presidents’ Day away from classes and homework in the Philadelphia suburb of Collingdale.
Anthony jumped up from the bench and called 911, then raced down the hill with the girl to a find a frightening scene: three children who appeared to be between the ages of 9 and 11 were crying and flailing in frigid water, struggling to keep from going under, he said.
“They were all screaming they were going to die,” he said. “And I told them, ‘No, that’s not going to happen today. I’ll get you out.’ ”
He quickly scanned around for something he could use to reach the kids, who had fallen in about six to eight feet from the edge of the pond. When he spotted a broken tree branch on the ground, he grabbed it and extended it across the broken ice.
“The first kid, a boy, grabbed the stick and I pulled him out,” Anthony said. “But I couldn’t reach the other two.”
He had no way of knowing when help might arrive, so he said he decided to walk onto the ice with the branch.
“One foot fell in, and then the other, and I could feel myself sinking,” Anthony recalled. “It was really cold and the water was pretty deep.”
He swam a few feet out and grabbed the girl closest to him, then pulled her to the side of the pond and safely out of the water. Then he went back in to get the third child, he said.
On the Lighter Side
I am so lucky and so proud to be in this with all of you ✊🏼✊🏾✊🏽✊🏻🧡💜💛💚❤️✊🏼✊🏾✊🏽✊🏻